women tend to be more Unhappily Married than men and 80% of the time women bring
0:06up problems in a relationship but 69% of all problems are not solvable so if you
0:12rely on problems getting solved as an indicator of the success of the relationship it's not going to look good
0:19Dr Jong and Dr Julie gotman world-renowned researchers and clinical psychologists who've been married 36
0:26years and have spent the last 50 years studying love you made something called love lab what is that we followed 3,000
0:32couples it taught us the difference between what masters of relationship do and what disasters do what advice would
0:40you give to me then cuddle 96% of non- cuddlers had an awful sex life anything
0:45else yes the hookup culture is thriving is that a problem yes why okay so let me
0:51point out something that everybody needs to hear so and also kissing is very
0:57powerful men who kiss their wives goodbye women they leave for work live four years longer than men who don't in
1:04your research you found that during conflict couples who show four key behaviors mean that an argument is doomed yes and they are criticism
1:12defensiveness the third one was the worst and that was that was the best predictor of relationship breakup and
1:19the fourth was John Julie can you role play the behavior that a couple who are destined
1:26to fail would exhibit oh yes
1:31so it's absolutely crazy to me that so many of you have decided to watch our show um and so many of you have decided
1:38to subscribe to our show we now have five million subscribers on YouTube which is a number that I just can't comprehend and it's a dream that I
1:45absolutely never could have had we started the dire of a CO just over three years ago now and in my wildest
1:51expectations we might have had 100,000 subscribers by now so you can imagine how shocked I am that so many of you
1:57have chosen to tune into these conversations every week um and spend some time with us so thank you and I
2:04made a deal with you I made a deal that if you subscribe to this show that we would continue to raise the bar and in
2:102024 we're going to raise the bar like never before I've been working for the last 9 months on a surprise for all of
2:17you that have subscribed to the show and I'm very excited to deliver that for you the production's going to change we're
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2:37[Music] episode John Julie you've both beenWhat mission are you on & Why study love?
2:45studying the subject of love for more than 50 years you've written books you've done a
2:52lot of primary research you run something called The Love lab I'm going to start with you Julie
2:58M what is the mission that you're on and why love that is the
3:05most wonderful question in the universe here's why we have a world as we all
3:12know that is full of conflict is full of
3:18uh antipathy is full of violence
3:23domestic violence all kinds of clashes between
3:28people and we wanted to focus on love because love is the great healer right
3:36it heals people's hearts it heals people's Souls it brings people together
3:42it unifies people but nobody has taken relationships
3:48101 nobody knows how to have productive relationships that are calm and gentle
3:56and compassionate and at the beginning of the research we had no idea of what
4:03successful couples did to really solidify their relationship and sustain
4:08it so John and his wonderful colleague Robert levenson did some of that
4:14earliest research that taught us the difference between what masters of
4:20relationship do and what disasters do so we could help as many people as possible
4:26and John the same question for you with all the work that you've done in your life life what is it that you're seeking
4:31to deliver to the person that consumes that work what is it you're seeking to
4:37do for them well Bob and I started studying relationships because we were so incompetent at it and we we're just
4:45too clueless guys going from one relationship disaster to another and we were really curious about whether there
4:52were people out there who could do it well and we found they were and you know
4:58and then we thought how are they different from people you know who like
5:03us really went from one disaster to another and we had no idea we really had
5:09very few hypotheses when we started so it was just curiosity uh and we weren't
5:15interested in helping anybody at all we were just curious about finding out what the differences were and then 26 years
5:23ago Julia and I decided to work together and she's a clinical psychologist she wants to help people and and I thought
5:30it was impossible to change relationships because if you can predict with such high accuracy that a
5:37relationship is doomed or it works how can you change it you know it seemed
5:42seemed impossible but Julie's really an optimist and really cares about people
5:48and so we got together and we thought well we need a theory if we're going to help people cuz every relationship is
5:54different and so first we built a theory and then we tested it so that's how I
6:01got into it really I didn't have a mission so how did you both come to study and work together on the subject
6:08of love in particular well John had already been
6:13studying it right right so uh we met what almost 38 years ago and what
6:21happened is that I'd be coming home talking about my clinical cases over dinner John would come home from the lab
6:29and be sharing the statistics and the findings he had that were really
6:35thrilling and after a while um he was he
6:40was garnering such incredible information such great knowledge that
6:45one day we were out in the middle of the sea canoeing and I said honey let's take
6:51this stuff out of the Ivory Tower let's let's form Theory and interventions
6:57based on what these successful couples are doing doing to really sustain their love it's such a beautiful thing we see
7:04and he said sure why not and we did and joh what was that research well you knowStudying traits of successful couples
7:10Bob and I found that there really were masters of relationships and we spent a
7:16Dozen Years studying gay and lesbian couples too same thing there there were people who knew how to have
7:21relationships and they were very different from the couples who are struggling and most of the clinical
7:28books have been written by therapist IST who never saw the good relationships and so we had information that was very new
7:35and it was pretty fascinating um but the question was could we actually turn a
7:42disaster into a master could we prevent relationship disaster we didn't know so
7:48it was kind of a question you know was it just correlation or were the findings
7:54causal and so it was really uh curiosity that continued and how many research
8:00papers have you published now uh couple hundred I think and how many books
8:06between you have you written Julie I think we're on 52 maybe how many couples
8:12have you studied John well a latest study involved over 40,000 couples
8:19looking at their questionnaires and couples about to start therapy but following couples in the lab that the
8:27kind of lab that Bob levenson and I created uh about 3,000 couples and Bob studied a
8:33group of couples for 20 years the same group of couples in their 40s or in
8:38their 60s when they started the study and he actually was able to get funding for 20 years so the group of couples in
8:46the 40s were now in their 60s and you can compare them to the couples 20 years
8:51ago who were in their 60s so wound up being you know a 40-year longitudinal
8:56study has anyone ever studied couples for that l length of time no not really
9:02it really was a first when people think about the subject of love I don't think they necessarily holdLink between relationships & our health
9:08it in such high importance in their life they think about other thing especially as it correlates to our health outcomes
9:15so like you know my physical health outcomes are they right in deprioritizing love as a path to having
9:22good physical health or does our love and relationships correlate to our our
9:27physical health our chance of disease these kinds of things there's a new field that started kind of when I
9:33started doing my research and it's called social epidemiology a guy named Leonard Sim started at Berkeley with his
9:40student Lisa burkeman and they did this uh study called the Alam County study
9:46where they studied 9,000 people and S was interested in diet he was interested
9:52in cholesterol and he found that Chinese American immigrants just lived a lot
9:59longer and were a lot healthier than Americans were even Chinese American immigrants so he was kind of curious
10:05about you know what really was the difference was it the diet was it and he found it was really Community it was
10:12really that these people moved with their friends and he found in general
10:17that the quality of people's closest relationships really predicted longevity
10:23very strong prediction too so it's become a whole field called social epidemology and people have studied the
10:30immune system and you know found that all over the planet people who are socially isolated who have bad
10:37relationships don't live as long they get sick and die a lot younger and that
10:43people have great relationships they live a lot longer and the quality of their life is better they're a lot
10:49happier and so it seems to make a real big difference modern social psychology
10:55has been finding the same thing with people's relationship to strangers that that affects health so if
11:02you reach out to strangers and in in the morning if you're commuting having a conversation with the commuter next to
11:09you then you're open to learning about their lives that also affects your Health and
11:15Longevity so we're really a very social species it's interesting because we spend a lot of time you know going to
11:21the gym or thinking about our diet or something but what you were saying and I think what a lot of your work has
11:27uncovered is that we should be investing in the same way in relationships in a really intentional way and especially
11:32when we consider the nature of the world now where we're getting lonier and more detached than ever before no one taught
11:38me at any point in my life to think of my relationships like the gym yeah right
11:45what's your take on that Julie well uh being a gym buff
11:51myself I love going to the gym but um one thing that I'm really remembering is
11:57that uh people people whose parents divorced typically they live four years
12:05less on average than people who grew up with an intact family people who grew up
12:14with divorce and then ended up divorcing them themselves their own relationships
12:19divorcing lived eight years less so you can see how important love is and we're
12:28beginning to understand all of this by looking at things like
12:34oxytocin serotonin versus things like adrenaline and cortisol which are stress
12:42hormones that will flood the body and stress the body when we're in a bad
12:50relationship you made something called The Love lab very curious name place I think I'dWhat is the love lab?
12:56like to go um what is the love lab well it got named that by the BBC when
13:01they did a a show on our newlywed study but it was it was basically an apartment
13:08like setting and couple spent 24 hours there and the cameras were rolling the
13:14whole time they were awake and and like Bob and I did we synchronized physiological data to the video time
13:21code so we could you know see what was what they were doing what they were saying to one another and at the same
13:27time be able to look at their heart rates and their blood velocity and things like that and and we measured
13:33other physiological things and immune variables as well so that was basically
13:39the lab and we followed couples a couple of months after the wedding many of them
13:44uh as they got pregnant and had babies I learned how to study parent infant interaction from some of my friends who
13:51were experts in that field and we followed the children as they got older so that was kind of the lab it was just
13:58to see whether uh there was any predictability in relationships if we
14:04weren't telling people what to talk about just watching them as they might normally go about a typical day so let
14:11me get this straight you you have these people come to this sort of normal setting kind of like an apartment but
14:16it's really a laboratory where they're being studied for their physiological biomarkers of I don't know heart rate
14:22things like that you just watch them well they're being videotaped right and
14:28that video tape then afterwards is analyzed hundredth of a second by
14:34hundredth of a second corresponding also to their physiological
14:40measures and we're analyzing all of that tape in terms of the content of what
14:47they're saying what their body movements are what their facial expressions are
14:53what emotions are they expressing how are they expressing those emotions if any are they responding to each other's
15:01bids for connection we looked at so much
15:06data and it was a gold mine it taught us so much not only about the best way for
15:15couples to manage conflict but even more important how do couples create a deeper
15:21friendship with one another and by then we'd already known that friendship in a
15:28relation ship also helps create more passion and good sex in a longlasting
15:35relationship so there was so much for us to learn it was exciting going into thatThe misconceptions about relationships
15:41study at the love lab what were the sort of big things that you discovered
15:47afterwards that are misconceptions about relationships so you know I can think of
15:53a couple off the top of my head but you'll know them better what are the big misconceptions that you discovered from
15:58that start with you Julie a lot of people think that sustaining a good
16:03relationship takes huge effort you know takes really figuring out things like
16:11active listening where if you say to me Stephen you know I am really angry
16:17because you keep leaving the lid off the toothpaste what's the matter with you
16:22and how do I respond to that well we would learn that criticism for example
16:31you always you never those are criticisms didn't work to manage
16:36conflict on the other hand what we also saw is that when somebody made a little
16:43tiny bid for connection for example there was a big window in this apartment
16:49looking out the window and saying oh my God there's a beautiful bird in the tree what does your partner do this proved to
16:58be incred ibly important does your partner either turn against you by
17:04saying stop interrupting me I'm trying to read or ignore you completely which
17:12is silence not paying attention or look out the window too and say huh
17:19cool that's all it took to create a
17:24better friendship for a couple and we found that the couples who were successful in the Long Haul turn towards
17:32each other's little bits for connection 85% of the time the couples who ended up
17:39splitting up unhappy divorced 33% of the time so listen to that
17:47difference just between saying uhhuh and saying nothing let's start there then IHow to connect with your partner
17:54am I think I am guilty of being very
17:59very bad at responding positively to bids for connection from my partner this is actually one of the central issues
18:04that we've struggled with over the last couple of months is my partner will come home like usually I'm coming home she's
18:10already home just before me and I'm still I've still got my work brain on I'm thinking about work I rush into the
18:15living room sometimes I'll like say hello to her then I'll go on my laptop and I start working and she comes over
18:21and says something to me and because I'm focused on my work I either acknowledge
18:26her but without turning my head or sometimes I'll just give one sec babee I'm busy or say something words to that
18:33effect right it's clearly causing a problem I'm I'm guilty of the same thing I was working on a on a book uh
18:41and Julie said you know I go into the living room and sit down and you don't even look up and I sit there for a while
18:48and then I get up and leave and you haven't even noticed that I was there so I was guilty of it too turning away and
18:56we worked on it we did work on it the other thing too though with John and
19:01I've I've learned to accept this right over time is that John grew up in a
19:07little teeny weeny apartment as a refugee in New York City and it was loud
19:15and noisy and there were a lot of people all around so he had to develop this
19:20incredible sense of concentration and so when I first met you it was so funny
19:26John um I would be across the kitchen counter from John he would be reading a
19:34book he wouldn't even be on his computer be reading a book and I would say John uh
19:41John hey John and I would wave my hand and finally he would say oh yeah I
19:49really didn't hear it he didn't hear it I mean literally and I had to understand that with that kind of
19:57concentration he really didn't hear me how did it make you feel how did it make
20:02me feel at first it made me feel invisible
20:08unimportant um unloved rejected alone you know it made
20:14me feel all kinds of stuff until I understood wait a minute there's something in his
20:20brain that's very different than my brain because I'm always you know I have
20:26no skin I'm like super aware of everything around me okay so John give me some advice then from your studies in
20:33the love lab if my partner makes a bid for connection yeah what are the ways that people typically respond and how
20:39should I respond when you looked at the couples that were most successful over the long term um how do they respond how
20:46should I respond give me some advice yeah I think I I think the really great relationships have this motto that when
20:54their partner is upset you just stop everything you're doing and listen and I
21:00I keep a notebook in my back pocket just for that purpose so if Julie says we
21:05need to talk I whip out my notebook my pen and I say okay I'm taking notes so
21:12I'm ready to listen to her and you know it's true that sometimes I'm oblivious
21:17to what's going on around me but you know I I become much more aware so when
21:23she comes into the living room now I I stop what I'm doing close the computer and say how you doing what's on your
21:31mind my my issue is with that is I work in the living room sometimes so what's
21:37the balance between me being able to work in the living room or work in like a public home space without being
21:43interrupted while also not rejecting my partner accidentally or you know lowkey
21:48intentionally I I think the solution is to create a ritual around connection you know so if she if she really needs to
21:56talk to you she can you know give you a signal that it's important for her to
22:01connect with you and then it's not always happening you know it's just happening when it's important and
22:07Julie's like that too so she'll you know she'll come in and she won't sit there
22:12and and just wait for me to respond she'll actually go we need to talk and then I know I get my notebook out but
22:19let me point out something though honey you're you're talking only about you know if I'm upset about something so I
22:27have to work in the living room also of our house um or John may be working in
22:33the living room and if he's working on something and I want his
22:39attention I may ask him can I have your attention for a moment so I need to say
22:47what I need to him and if it's something that's trivial and he says just a minute
22:54you know I'm working on an email or whatever okay that's fine you know our
22:59timing is not going to be identical he's not going to be available necessarily
23:05all the time I want to talk to him I won't be either right and so we try to
23:13inquire of one another is this a good time for us to talk and there's
23:18sometimes when it's not a good time for you to talk John of course right of course that's where I think I've
23:23struggled because sometimes I feel like this is not a good time to talk and I express that and I think maybe the way that I'm expressing it isn't soft enough
23:31maybe I'm you know let me give you one of my favorite things to say okay which
23:37is honey I would really love to listen to you right now but I really am feeling
23:43pressured to finish this so can you just wait however amount of time you know 30
23:50minutes or an hour and then I'll be able to give you my full attention see that I want to listen to
23:59you that's the key phrase that tells your partner I value you I love you but
24:09there's pressure on me right now too so please be understanding and I'll be
24:15there for you as soon as I can be you know in the in the love lab when you saw these couples who were missing bids for
24:22connection so for the example you gave Julie of someone looking out the window and saying babe come and look at this and then the other person either ignores
24:29it or kind of dismisses it was that individual who dismissed it or ignored it John were they doing that
24:35intentionally did they was it a buildup of something that's caused them to sort of passively reject the person or was it
24:41they were just oblivious yeah it's really hard to know I mean the one thing I can tell you was the person who got
24:48turned away from kind of crumples a little bit so regardless of the reason
24:54for the turning away if it's really habitual that person making a bid really gets
25:01hurt by the turning away and and that I think leads people to
25:07stop bidding you know to think you know what's the point and then what happens
25:13well then they they just create this emotional distance yeah uh and put up walls and then what happens and then
25:21what happens is that they become lonely and then what happens quite often an
25:26fair oh they cheat or okay yeah eventually and it all starts with
25:32missing a bid for connection potentially and that becoming a habit many of them yeah yeah you know I I like to use the
25:38metaphor of a sea anemon you know what that's like right it's a little sea
25:44creature in a tile pool that that has all these little fingers all these little fingers so it may be relaxing
25:51those fingers and opening up and revealing its underbelly but when somebody refuses a
26:01bid for connection it's as if that little C anomy has been poked right in
26:07the stomach and so all the fingers close up and shut down and lock down and it
26:14takes a much longer time for that anemon to unfold its fingers again and be open
26:23yeah it's not safe mhm did you ever find and I think this is something that I've talked about before on my relationship
26:29that sometimes when I miss a bid for connection it increases the amounts of bids for connection because I think I'm
26:37guessing that I'm a bit of an avoidant type based on my history in my childhood she's a little bit more of an anxious
26:43type so it seems to be the case that if I say not now babe I'm working then the amount of bids increase and they they
26:50come they they start to become in my opinion and I could be well wrong here they they're not they're not actually
26:58there's not actually something out the window now it becomes more about trying to confirm whether I it's a test right
27:04it's a test yeah that's it feels like a test yeah right right but also what it
27:10is when especially when there isn't something outside the window
27:16is very pure and simple I need to connect with you I need to feel that
27:24connection sure I can imagine it I can remember it from you know 3 hours ago
27:30but right now I'm feeling that kind of little stirring inside of me that need
27:36and I want to connect with you I just need that connection so she's attempting to create
27:43that what is this attune framework JohnWhat is the 'attuned' framework?
27:49attune awareness turning toward tolerance understanding n defensive empathetic what is this framework yeah
27:54Attunement is really uh you know it's like two Musical instruments that really
27:59are tuned to one another and when one plays the other resonates so uh creating
28:06rituals of connection you know like we have a ritual every morning you know where you know I'll say I'll ask Julie
28:13you know what's on your play today what you know what's your day look like and she'll say what what does your day look
28:18like so we kind of check in with with each other and then at dinner we have another ritual connection and you know
28:25how was your day you know what what happened how did that how did that session go and we kind of keep in touch
28:31with each other with these structured ways of attuning and in that way you
28:38don't lose touch you don't make assumptions you know we ask each other questions like what can I do this week
28:44to make you feel loved and you know when you have that kind of ritual then you
28:50know you know you're connecting and um and you're like those two instruments
28:56that are tuned to each other may I add a little to that um empathy is super super
29:03important and I I honestly believe that empathy is probably the most powerful
29:10tool we have to really create connection with one another so if our partner is
29:17saying to us I'm really upset right now I'm really angry that I'm doing all the
29:26housework can you attune to that can you say first of all tell me more what what
29:34is making that a burden for you so you're pulling information out and then
29:40your partner might be saying well you know it's like the second shift for me I'm at work all day and then I have to
29:46come home and clean the house Etc so I want to share that with you okay can you
29:53empathize with her can you say ah no wonder you're probably pretty tired when
29:58you come home right so you really do need my support is that what you're trying to tell me mhm that's the
30:06Attunement you see I was going to say it's quite difficult isn't it because it often sounds like blame here's the
30:12difference there's a big difference and this is what we saw in the lab also it
30:18is blame when there's a lot of you in
30:23what your partner is saying for example you never clean up the kitchen you are
30:30too lazy to do any housework at the end of the day what about me you know Etc so
30:37with that kind of blaming and criticism nobody nobody is going to feel like oh
30:44you're absolutely right you're really mad at me because I've been a schmuck and I haven't been helping you with the
30:51housework and that's what you're telling me no what people have to do when
30:57they're unhappy about something is describe themselves I'm
31:03upset that what's the situation describe the situation I'm upset that the kitchen
31:10is a mess okay that the kitchen is a mess is a situation it's not saying
31:16you're a bad person you see and then step three they need to say what their
31:23positive need is which means how can your partner Shine for you don't tell
31:30them what they they're not doing right or what you resent flip that on its head
31:37and say I would love it if you would help me tonight with the dishes my
31:43partner did that yesterday actually she um and I I noticed that she did it so basically she's in Costa Rica right now
31:49doing a retreat and she sent me a text saying babe I love it when you tell me
31:54how the podcast went after you finished recording it now there's several ways that someone could have said that she
32:01could have said I hate it when you don't tell me for example that's right but she
32:06said I love it when you tell me what she's telling me is to do it more and it I felt it to be really motivating that
32:13I'll do it more so I started doing it more I started telling her sending her voice notes after the podcast but I've also seen it in relationships where it's
32:18fra framed the it's trying to get the same outcome but it's framed in the opposite way it's negative it's I
32:23suddenly feel like I'm on the back foot and I've done something wrong and I'm a child being told off by my mother or something right exactly and what is your
32:30first response to that defensiveness uh uh deny it throw it back on them exactly
32:38yep and that's one of the predictors you know a smaller predictor but still a
32:43predictor of relationship unhappiness why does typical couple's therapy failWhy does typical couples therapy often fail?
32:51John in your opinion well you know it's not failing very much anymore there are
32:57some very good approaches now some behavioral approaches that are working pretty well and emotionally focused
33:03therapy is working much better so things have improved um but I think typically
33:10the reason that it fails is that the therapist doesn't really have the proper
33:15tools for either assessing a relationship and most therapists don't do any assessment when a couple comes in
33:22they don't look for you know what are the strengths in this relationship and what do I not need to work on and what
33:29are the challenges that I really need to work on and not only don't they typically assess but once once they
33:36start working with a couple they don't really have the tools as I heard with therapy it's all about listening you
33:43know and the stat I'm I'm citing here is that um traditional couples therapy only had a 35 to 50% success rate right and
33:50you typically think of therapy like you go there and your job is just to listen to your partner as they tell you what's
33:56wrong yeah why doesn't that work because they're telling you typically what's
34:01wrong with you and the therapist isn't stopping them isn't saying that's
34:08criticism that's not going to work that is going to sabotage you getting listened to so try this instead try
34:17telling your partner what you feel and what you need instead of describing your partner and what's wrong with him I
34:24actually saw at a conference I'm not making this up somebody was training therapists and this this therapist who
34:31was doing the training played a videotape in which a husband said to his
34:36wife you know Sheila you're such a you only think about yourself and the
34:42therapist said Sheila can you summarize and reflect back what Harry just said
34:49and empathize with him I thought God you know what an idiot I
34:56mean nobody can empathize with insult and put Downs you
35:02know why isn't she constraining the way Harry's talking to Sheila not just
35:07Sheila listening so I think a lot of times therapists really don't know how to use a tool they don't know what
35:14really is appropriate what a good relationship looks like what a good relationship looks like I'm really KeenThe 7 Principles of a successful marriage
35:20to understand the principles of what successful couples do from your research you've highlighted a few of those things
35:25I mean you've got the seven principles of success marriage what are some of the most important of those principles first
35:32of all um we call the first principle building love Maps you need to keep
35:39asking your partner open-ended questions to know who they are open-ended
35:45questions are questions like so what characteristic would you like to
35:52pass down from your family to our child or what would be your ideal way of
36:00celebrating Ramadan or Christmas or whatever holiday so you're asking your
36:06partner questions with answers that have paragraphs not a one-word answer in
36:12order to keep in touch with who your partner is what their values are what
36:20their priorities are what their needs are what their feelings are because
36:25those change over time as you're together turning toward we talked about
36:31that was super important expressing fondness and admiration is very
36:37important so you can feel love and if
36:42you don't tell your partner you love them or express it with touch which is
36:47incredibly important then your partner may not be all that sure that you still do love
36:54them 5 years down the road of course managing conflict is incredibly
36:59important and that's where we've probably done our most significant work
37:05but in addition to that it's honoring each other's dreams dreams meaning what are your
37:12hopes and aspirations for the future they're not going to be compatible they're not necessarily going to be
37:18identical it doesn't matter can you support your partner in realizing their
37:26own dream and fulfilling that and finally creating shared meaning which
37:33means every one of us is a philosopher we have our own ideas about what our
37:40purpose in life is well do you tell your partner what that is for you and you
37:47hear that from your partner that's the sharing that's needed and the weightbearing walls and
37:55trust and commitment of course so trust builds over time and trust is
38:03essentially answering the question will you be there for me in all kinds of
38:08different situations will you be there for me when I'm sick when I'm depressed
38:14when I want to celebrate a success when I'm frustrated will you be there for me
38:20and nobody will be perfectly but the more the better so that's
38:25trust and commit of course is are you
38:31letting your partner know that this relationship is your journey for life
38:37you are here for life not for you know the next three weeks and then you'll
38:43think about it again why is having expressed dreams so importantDo partners' dreams need to be aligned?
38:52because I often think that about sort of my relationship I think our dreams are not the same they're very different and
38:58sometimes I wonder and I've wondered and I think we've both wondered in my relationship whether that is a big big
39:04issue if it matters but why is it so important to express your dreams to your partner and do do they have to be
39:10aligned okay number one they don't have to be aligned that's one of the big myths of all time you have to be
39:17compatible you have to have the same dreams the same passions the same interest wrong wrong wrong that's not
39:25true in fact often times were attracted to people who were different from us
39:30what happens when the dreams are in Conflict though so if one partner's dreams is to live in Australia and the other partner's dream is to live on on
39:36America you know there are certain situations where one person's dream is
39:42the other person's Nightmare and they're they really don't have a compromise
39:49that's possible so the one you described I had a couple like that where she lived
39:56in Switzerland he lived in Uganda she had an autistic son and that autistic
40:02son needed desperately a very good support system to help him cope with the
40:10differences that he lived with every day so she wanted to stay in Switzerland he
40:16worked for the government in Uganda he was making a contribution there he did
40:22not want to move to Switzerland and she knew she wouldn't get the support for herself son in Uganda so they had
40:31incompatible totally incompatible dreams but there was no compromise here so they
40:38ended up breaking up but they knew why they were breaking up and it was for
40:44good reason are some problems solvable then and some problems not solvable yeah69% of our problems are not solvable
40:50it turns out 69% of all problems are not solvable and just you know we're not
40:56attracted to people who are like us and then once we get together we find those
41:03differences although initially very Tractive pretty annoying you know so
41:08it's really great that he's so spontaneous but then why can't he ever stick to a
41:14plan you know and that becomes a source of irritation and unless people can
41:19really be enriched by those differences and learn to accept the differences they're going to be in a lot of trouble
41:25so when we looked at over time at what people fought about it was 69% of the
41:31time it was the same issues and what you you call these Perpetual problems Perpetual problems yeah and once you
41:38pick somebody to have a relationship with you've automatically inherited the problems you'll have for the next 50
41:43years these are problems you can't solve really right but you can adapt to them
41:49and laugh about them and compromise around the edges okay so what's an example of a Perpetual problem in your
41:55relationship oh my my God okay so um
42:01John first of all he's wearing you know a a Jewish yam he thinks this is a Halo
42:07right so you know he's I he's always innocent okay so he calls
42:14me obsessively compulsively neurotically tidy and he is charmingly sloppy okay so
42:23we have a huge difference and so um here's how we've coped with it
42:29because environment is not it's just not important for him and for me it's super
42:36important it will disorganize my mind if my environment is disorganized so when
42:43things start to get to me there's too much mess too many papers books I can't make the bed because I'm trying to lean
42:50over a 4ot tall pile of books and I may break my neck if I try to make the bed
42:56so it gets to that point and then I'll say to him honey I really need you to
43:02please clean up the books in the bedroom he'll say okay then he won't do it then
43:08I'll ask the next week I'll say honey it's you know I'm I'm really wanting you
43:14to clean this up please he said okay I will but then he has to I don't know do
43:20something else so it doesn't happen week three I say to him
43:27okay honey I've said this now twice I'm starting to get annoyed he'll say oh
43:35okay all right I'll think I I'll figure out when I can do
43:40it week four we're counting down I say okay
43:47we've crossed the threshold I'm now Angry I really need you to clean up the
43:52books now please and I become a pushy Jewish Broad that's what happens and he
44:00goes oh and he says okay okay because I'm
44:06bigger than he is and I had two older brothers and I'm really good at wrestling and stuff and so I clean it up
44:14he cleans it up really fast it's pristine it's beautiful I savor it then
44:20it starts over again so how do we is that the pathway to dealing with Perpetual problems is you just have to
44:27like accept them that it's going to so here's the deal with Perpetual
44:33problems we have a method for compromise we call it the bagel method or maybe the
44:40donut method depending on your culture okay so in an inner circle you think
44:47about or you write down what can you not compromise on in terms of your position
44:54your position on this issue what what can you not it would be like giving up
44:59the bones of your body or that core dream you have that is so Central to
45:06your identity that you got to hold on to that then in an Outer Circle you write
45:13down what you're more flexible about and those are typically when something will
45:20happen who will do it where it will happen how much will it cost how long will it last those nitty-gritty Det
45:27details you share what you've written down in both circles with your partner
45:33and you look at the flexible areas around each of your positions on the
45:38issue and you try to reach a compromise regarding those
45:44flexible points of view while still honoring each other's inner core dream
45:51or core need but you must want to change that about John right you must want to change of course I want to change it but
45:58you know what John wouldn't be John if he was a tidy neat guy and after a time
46:07it's just adorable it's funny and we have such a
46:13wonderful relationship that it's hilarious and it's predictable you need
46:18to talk about gridlocked Perpetual problems that's a whole different story that's a different story so gridlock is
46:24when you cannot die dialogue about something because you hold so fast to
46:32your own position on the issue that you really want to win this battle it's not
46:38a matter of compromise you know you're right you want to win and the other person feels the same way then what you
46:47try to talk without really listening to one another and understanding at a much
46:53deeper level which is part of our work what really constitutes our partner's
47:00position why they holding that position so strongly and with your understanding
47:08comes more compassion if you don't have that understanding if you're trying to win you get gridlocked to the point
47:15where every fight escalates to the ceiling you end up yelling or you shut
47:21down shove it under the rug but you can feel it as you walk around the living room this this is I mean this is one of
47:27the big problems in relationships John is that we often feel like our partner is trying to change Us in ways that we don't want to be changed that's right
47:33and I often I've been in a relationship before past relationship where my
47:39partner would say things that were an attempt to change me but in doing so she
47:46was actually telling me that she didn't think I was good enough right oh you see what I'm saying sure well that's that's
47:52the nature of gridlock conflict yeah and and part of what what we've done is
47:58invent six questions that 87% of the time work to get people out of gridlock where they
48:05they're asking these questions about what does this feel like what does this conversation feel like to you what is it
48:13that you think I'm trying to change about you and that I don't think is good enough tell me how that feels and what's
48:21your ideal dream of how we should talk about things you know and where does that come from and you know where is it
48:28that you feel unaccepted by me so if you can have that conversation a lot of times you develop the sense of
48:36understanding and then you can compromise about the gridlock this year one of the recurring things I've had in relationships is I'm very involved withWhat to do when your partner wants to change you
48:43technology in my work so sometimes it's felt in relationships that I've had that the person is trying to take my work
48:50away from me so because they're always complaining that I'm on my phone or I'm on my laptop or whatever thinking like
48:58they they're trying to change me in a way that I'm unwilling to change I'm not I I love my work I want to I want that
49:04to be a big part of my life right how how do I go about solving for that so
49:09and that person wants you to do away with the technology some of the time
49:14right that's how it feels yeah that's how it feels okay so you need to have a
49:19conversation where each of you interviews the other person and asks
49:26asks six questions let me go through those just really quickly what are your
49:32beliefs values and ethics that are part of your position on this issue you know
49:37wanting to stay with the technology do you have some background or childhood history that relates to your
49:44position why is this so important to you what do you feel about your position
49:51here what is your ideal dream here what do you really wish for if the world could be just like you wanted it
49:58regarding this issue what would it look like and is there some life purpose or
50:03goal in this for you that is really important as you answer those questions
50:10Stephen she's gaining an inside look into what's deepest and most important
50:17to you regarding this issue then then you ask her the same questions exactly
50:25the same ones to understand where she's coming from right and what that creates
50:34is much more understanding and compassion for one another about why
50:40each position is so important to that particular partner then you try to work on
50:48compromise like I described interesting but those questions are
50:54fundamental if you just just argue on the surface you're not going to get
51:00anywhere you're going to stay gridlocked I love my work I want to do my work period Well does she know why your work
51:07is so important to you what life purpose that is serving for you does she know
51:14that way down at the core of who you are in your research you discoveredThe four horsemen
51:19something which has become pretty iconic when we talk about relationships and conflict which is this idea of the Four
51:25Horsemen um you found that during conflict couples who show four key behaviors mean that an argument is
51:31doomed and it's the worst way of arguing I like really nothing can be gained beyond that point John what are the four
51:38horsemen and how was this discovered yeah it you know Bob levenson and I uh
51:46first looked at just the ratio of positivity to negativity and a conflict discussion and the first thing we
51:53discovered was that among the Masters that ra IO was 5 to1 or higher and among
51:59the disaster couples it was 8 average 8 to1 what does that mean sorry 5 to1 so
52:05if you take the number of seconds that they're show displaying interest curiosity affection humor uh shared
52:13humor validation listening to One Another uh you know saying things like
52:19no tell me more oh wow oh good point you know things like that and you divide
52:25that by the number of seconds that they're angry upset you know disappointed hurt critical defensive
52:32belligerent you know all these negative ways these hostile ways of interacting that ratio of positivity to negativity
52:39was 5 to one or higher among relationships that work well during conflict during the conflict yeah so but
52:47the second thing we wanted to know is well are all negatives equally corrosive
52:52you know and the ones that were the most corrosive really involved that person
52:57starting off and saying you know as far as I can tell I'm pretty much fine but you're defective here's what's wrong
53:04with you and they started with this criticism that they thought was constructive criticism you know and they
53:10hoped their partner would respond by saying you know God you're so insightful you know tell me more about how I'm
53:17failing but instead what they got was defensiveness Counterattack or the
53:22innocent victim posture and that was that was the second Horsemen of the Apocalypse the third one was contempt
53:30and that was the worst that was the best predictor of relationship breakup of all
53:35that criticism from a place of superiority I'm better than you you know
53:41I you know I I correct your grammar even when you're angry or you know I think I'm more punctual and that's really
53:47important or I'm tidier than you are or I'm better informed than you are that
53:53sort of snobbery that you know looking down on their partner may I add
53:59something go ahead with contempt also you've got things like name calling you
54:04know calling people bad names sarcasm mockery sarcasm can have a real Cutting
54:12Edge it can be funny but then it crosses over into hurt and the fourth Horseman
54:18is stonewalling which was particularly a guy thing to do 85% of the time guys
54:23with Stonewall they just shut down and they don't give these cues to the
54:29speaker that they're listening they're not nodding their heads or moving their facial muscles or uttering these
54:35vocalizations like oh you know not doing that they're just kind of shut down and
54:41look away and you know when we found those people's physiology is really
54:47elevated so it wasn't about whether couples were arguing or not because we typically think a relationship is doomed
54:52if the couple are like screaming at each other again it depends on your definition okay so screaming at each other is one
55:01form of argument and there are certain couples that are volatile where both partners
55:08are volatile they're very passionate they're very intense they may raise their
55:13voices but depending on what's coming out of their mouths is it criticism is
55:19it contempt is it defensiveness if it's any of those it's not going to work but
55:25you can also scream I'm so Furious about this still describing yourself that's
55:33not going to be a bad thing why is it men you said talked about stonewalling there where you kind of shut down and
55:39you you kind of go within yourself and ignore why is it that men do that more than women well what I think is that we
55:46men are much more easily physiologically aroused and the differences are that we
55:53secrete phasal oppression and women secrete oxytocin much more than
55:59vasopressin and so for us we get once we get physiologically aroused it takes us
56:05a long time to calm down and most of what we feel when we get physiologically
56:11aroused is anger and aggression and we want to shut our partner down we're much
56:16more aggressive than women are and so we shut ourselves down you know and when
56:23you look at the dialogue that people have in their minds when they're stonewalling it's usually stuff like
56:29just shut up and don't say anything you know I you know you always make it worse
56:35when you say something so just be quiet endure this and that's kind of a male
56:41response do men have more of a physiological response to arguments are you like the sweating palms and the
56:46blood pressure you know through Evolution women have been responsible
56:52for nurturing an infant in order to do that you have to have a milk letdown
56:59response right through Evolution so here's what I mean let's say you know
57:06we're back 3,000 years right there's no formula in a can so women are
57:12breastfeeding their infants in order for that breast milk to come down and in in
57:18order to be released to the infant oxytocin is really important oxytocin
57:26calms you down it relaxes you if you're very tense and uptight milk isn't going
57:33to come down at all so women have the
57:40physiology in which to relax more easily men on the other hand through Evolution
57:47have been the protectors right so if there's a sabertooth tiger attacking a
57:53group of people who's going to jump up and defend against that tiger well the
57:59men are typically so men's bodies are really
58:05built to stay vigilant and hypervigilant especially for attack well that attack
58:13doesn't have to be physical it can also be mental emotional verbal and men will
58:20have the same response we're talking about flooding here aren't we the concept talking about flooding yeah whatWhat is flooding?
58:26flooding John so flooding is really going into fight or flight it's it's
58:32when we start secreting cortisol and adrenaline are two major stress hormones
58:37and when we feel attacked when we feel unsafe you know we start secreting these
58:42stress hormones and there are implications psychological implications
58:49of being physiologically flooded you can't take in new information you rely
58:54on overlearned habits it's like aggression or flight you know you you
59:00can't listen very well you actually your hearing is compromised your peripheral vision is compromised you focus only on
59:08the cues you need to survive the moment and so it's you you don't wind up being
59:14a very creative Problem Solver or a good listener when you're flooded if men flood more than women does this go to
59:21explain why men tend to avoid arguments more than women cuz I think that's a
59:26stereotype at least that men are much more avoidant in arguments I think I mean it's a stereotype that holds true
59:32to me I've never been sure whether it's because we're not good at expressing our emotions or if there's a physiological
59:38reaction in me that's making me go 80% of the time women are the ones bringing up issues in a relationship now when
59:46guys bring up the issues sometimes the women get flooded too so it's not that women don't get flooded you know yeah
59:53they're a little better at self soothing than we are are but you know during during an argument if a woman gets
59:59flooded she really can't listen also and she repeats herself as well gets more
1:00:06strident you know if I'm flooded then typical advice tells me John it says
1:00:13never fall asleep if you and your partner have been arguing about something yeah what is the best I get flooded sometimes what is the best way
1:00:19for me to deal with that if it's late at night you should go to sleep go to sleep angry I mean St Paul
1:00:26was the one who started that and he wasn't married you know so it's you know
1:00:31it sounds like great advice but if it's going to keep you up and you know you're going to get a terrible night's sleep
1:00:38you know shake hands and go to bed give each other a quick kiss and go to bed
1:00:44angry what did he start St Paul what did St Paul start never go to bed wrathful I
1:00:51think is what his advice was for couples and that's wrong
1:00:56yeah okay so if I if I'm in the middle of an argument and I feel like I'm a little bit flooded my maybe my Palms are
1:01:02a little bit sweaty I should take a time out is what you're saying Julie yeah let's talk about that um so if you're
1:01:09feeling flooded um you really need to take a break but there's specific steps
1:01:17to do that one uh if you're flooded you say I need to take a break you don't say you do I
1:01:25need to take a break and say when you'll come back to continue the conversation if you do that then your
1:01:33partner is not going to feel abandoned and rejected you go apart for maybe 30
1:01:39minutes an hour however long maximum 24 hours and you don't think about the
1:01:46fight don't plan your rebuttal because that'll keep you
1:01:51flooded as long as you keep thinking about the fight so do something s soothing like reading a book reading a
1:01:59magazine working out maybe going for a run get on your computer get on your computer do your email don't watch
1:02:07murder mysteries that's not a good thing to do so come back at the designated
1:02:13time when hopefully your body is a lot calmer and continue the
1:02:19conversation but you know a generally consistent result is that
1:02:25women tend to be more Unhappily Married than men
1:02:30guys often think everything's fine oh my God so
1:02:36true I actually had this conversation with a former partner where I said and I shouldn't have said it but I just going
1:02:41to be honest I said to her in our relationship I think if you never raised
1:02:46an issue I think there'd never be an issue because I just felt like everything was always fine and every week she was coming to me with a problem
1:02:55and had she not come to me with that problem I think and I might be bsing myself here I think the relationship
1:03:01would have just been great right that's how it felt and and you know women have have a lot more depression than men do
1:03:07as well you know so I I think in a lot of ways the world is harder for women
1:03:14the world's a more dangerous place for women for example the probability that a woman will be physically or sexually
1:03:21assaulted in her lifetime is 40% it's 9% from men in the United States I think
1:03:27it's harder to be a woman than it is to be a man I've sometimes rebutted myself Julie when I talk when I say what I justWhat's a 'caretaker' in a relationship
1:03:33said about our relationship would be fine if she never brought issues up
1:03:39because when I zoom out and I go the issues she's brought up have they made our relationship better and had she not
1:03:45brought them up would we have drifted and I say probably M see what I'm saying like I feel like my partner has always
1:03:53played a role in keeping our relationship close the caretaker yeah yes is that a real thing yeah that
1:04:00totally is a real thing what we saw in the research is that 80% of the time
1:04:05women bring up the problems in a relationship 80% you know vast majority
1:04:12and I think it's because again women you know we talked about how men are raised
1:04:18in society well women are raised in society to nurture to create connection
1:04:25contion to maintain the family unit right to create relationship and make
1:04:31sure the relationship is good and solid and secure so we were raised with
1:04:38feeling that responsibility for the relationship being good and when we detect something isn't so good we're
1:04:45going to bring it up and that's what causes a lot of the frustration is that we we don't realize we don't have
1:04:51empathy for how the other person is playing a role in creating whole almost
1:04:57that make sense because I I understand as I said my relationship wouldn't be as good if my partner didn't bring up
1:05:03issues but when she brings up issues I'm like why are you bringing up issues you know what I mean and it's that having
1:05:09that empathy sure but again um is she bringing up issues in a way that doesn't
1:05:16feel blaming or critical to be honest to her she is
1:05:24she's bringing them up pretty well great it's the way that I'm kind of interpreting it yeah yeah I think much
1:05:30of the problem well easy you know that happens easily to all of us because you
1:05:36know we've got these this baggage in our background that has created filters in
1:05:42how we hear things how we perceive things I have a hero on one of these
1:05:48videotapes there was a lawyer and this videotape he's helping his wife identify
1:05:54what in his person personality really makes her the most angry and he's helping her do that he's saying well is
1:06:01it is it the way I talk is that it and she says yeah it's the way you talk but what what is it about the way you talk I
1:06:07mean is it what you know do I sound what authoritarian or yes like the King has
1:06:13spoken and he says yeah well you know I can I guess I am like that sometimes works in the courtroom and she says well
1:06:20it doesn't work with me you know and he says well that makes sense he's my hero he just never gets defensive he's saying
1:06:27tell me more tell me more wow what a guy Julie what do we misunderstand aboutConflict misunderstandings
1:06:33conflict because you know I've come to believe that the key to understanding if a relationship will be successful over the long term is how well the the pair
1:06:41resolve conflict is that right wrong well clearly uh as we said because 69%
1:06:50of all problems are Perpetual they are not going to be solved so if you rely on
1:06:56seeing problems getting solved as an indicator of the success of the relationship it's not going to look good
1:07:03right so you know what I think what we need to understand about
1:07:10conflict that we've written about in our last book is that if we apply the dictum
1:07:19of really understanding our partner and their point of view before before we
1:07:26work on trying to resolve the problem we're going to do much better conflict also gets a really bad
1:07:34WP you know conflict you're not supposed to have conflicts it means if you have a
1:07:40relationship with a lot of conflict that means it's a bad relationship total myth
1:07:45that is not true what we've seen is that couples who do fight but they fight
1:07:53right as we wrote about with the tools that are
1:07:59describing their own feelings and needs rather than blaming the partner then
1:08:05they're going to really understand each other so much better as the underlying
1:08:12dreams within the conflict come out the underlying family history comes out the
1:08:19life purpose comes out think about those big questions in the heart of a
1:08:26conflict that if they are understood oh my God you know so much more about your
1:08:32partner than you did before conflict how do I become great at conflict and isHow to become a master at conflict resolution
1:08:38that really what I should be aiming at should I be aiming at getting becoming a master of conflict resolution I think so
1:08:44you know it's not conflict resolution as much as it is conflict management and my
1:08:49secret is that notebook in my back pocket you know so I get it out you know
1:08:54when we have to talk about something important and I listen to what you're saying write it down is it in your
1:09:01pocket now it's in my pocket now I'm thinking of getting one here it is I'm
1:09:07thinking of getting one yeah it's really great you know and so like if I say to
1:09:12her she's upset you know or she wants to talk about something important you know I'm listening I'm taking notes so you
1:09:18know and as I'm writing stuff down it calms me down and I I'm writing it down
1:09:24first first I'm saying why does she keep bringing up issues you know I didn't want to spend my evening this way but
1:09:31then I go oh that's a good point that's that's interesting you know and I start
1:09:37realizing that she makes a lot of sense is part of that moving the issue from your amydala to your prefrontal cortex
1:09:43I.E it's moving it from your emotional Center to your logical Center yeah yeah I really am CU that's that when you were
1:09:49saying it I was like that would be you use the word it calms me down calms me down that would help calm me down as
1:09:55well yeah sure when you're taking notes you know it's more an intellectual
1:10:00process as opposed to an emotional process right so it takes you out of
1:10:05that emotionally getting stirred up by what your partner is saying and into
1:10:10just processing the words the language writing it down which keeps you calm I
1:10:17one time I filled up an entire yellow pad wow she said I want to talk to you
1:10:23and this I haven't talked to about this ever and but I need you to really be
1:10:29quiet and listen and I just kept writing stuff down did he listen Julie when on
1:10:34that occasion he really did it was phenomenal and the wonderful thing that
1:10:40you will discover if you take notes to is that it it makes your partner feel
1:10:46valued feel important feel like whatever they're saying is worth noting down
1:10:53right it blew my mind I had no idea she felt that those things it's important to you it's important to you it's so
1:11:01important that you're going to take notes on it my partner often says to me halfway through an argument she says do
1:11:08you understand what I'm saying you know and she and I and that's quite a curious question because I guess
1:11:14they're checking to see if yeah you've heard and understood them which clearly is so important and that's a good way of
1:11:20indicating that you do understand or at least you're you know you're hearing and understanding mhm then you can say well
1:11:26here's what I understand and then you know sometimes I'll do that Julie said
1:11:32no that's not it what what is it I thought I was hearing you oh you know and oh I missed
1:11:39that repair attempts you write about repair attempts in your books what is a repair attempt John you know here's theHow to repair/fix relationship issues
1:11:46interesting thing is that most people don't repair very effectively the way an
1:11:52argument starts is the way it'll go 96% % of the time so uh I had this woman
1:11:58named Nancy draus who came to my lab and she had written a book of things you can
1:12:04say when you're starting to get flooded in an argument it was brilliant book it's called talk to me like I'm someone
1:12:10you love and it was really interesting but she had written these things down
1:12:15when she was very calm and she wrote the book that way but we actually went to the lab and looked at how do couples
1:12:22actually repair when they try to repair and what we found was that any thing
1:12:29that you would do in a business meeting will fail in a love relationship let's
1:12:34take a look at our options and evaluate them what are our priorities here what's
1:12:40our fundamental goal let's be rational about this let's be rational about this
1:12:45let's evaluate the costs of one option versus another doomed and the only thing that worked
1:12:52with somebody would say you know God you know I'm sorry I I said that you know
1:12:58let let me try again or they would say you know um I'm really starting to feel
1:13:04defensive could you could you say that a gentler way and those kinds of repairs that focused on emotion they worked and
1:13:11the earlier they made them in the conversation the more effective they were so these are attempts to repair the
1:13:18relationship or the argument from one side of the argument jul right yes in the middle of the conversation so if one
1:13:25one person senses it's getting off track to get it back on track they may say one
1:13:32of these repair phrases but if the repair is going to be successful the
1:13:38other person has to accept the repair so if John is saying to me hey I'm starting
1:13:44to feel defensive can you say that you know in a gentler way I could either say no way forget it
1:13:53you deserve all the criticism which is rejecting the repair or I could
1:13:59say ah you're right let me let me try again and say it a different way that's
1:14:05accepting it but there's also repair after an argument that has felt horrible
1:14:13and then how do you process and repair that terrible communication you had
1:14:19that's a whole another that's what I was to say of course it was here
1:14:26right we're telepathic yeah so that coming back to it we have a method for
1:14:31doing that a five-step method for revisiting a really regrettable incident
1:14:38that may have happened in the relationship when you're calmer and and that's very effective what is that fight
1:14:46please give it to me yeah let me that okay so it we actually have a little
1:14:51booklet that has all this structured out that a lot of people keep in their glove
1:14:57compartment because some for some reason arguments happen when you're going 70 M
1:15:02an hour down the freeway right never fails so pull out the book okay in the booklet the first step is each person
1:15:11addresses a list of emotions that we've printed out and says out loud which
1:15:17emotion they had during this regrettable incident first of all and they can name
1:15:24as many as they want and there are things like hurt angry abandoned rejected and so on secondly each person
1:15:32has a chance to describe their point of view about what happened from beginning
1:15:38to end of this incident while the other person here we go again takes
1:15:45notes so at the end of the person's narration they then summarize what they
1:15:52heard that person say to make sure they got all the good points and then says something validating like okay from your
1:16:01point of view I can see why you felt that way the way it's narrated is
1:16:08crucial it it sounds like I felt that you were angry at me I saw this angry
1:16:15look at your face I heard you say leave me alone and get out of here I heard I
1:16:22saw I felt mhm I imagined so it's all about I it's not
1:16:29saying you said this mean thing to me which is critical all right so each
1:16:35person has a chance to share their perception that way and their partner
1:16:41summarizes and validates what they heard third people look at did I have any
1:16:47feelings during this that were actual triggers that were feelings that got
1:16:52started long before this relationship in another relationship
1:16:58maybe or even at home with my caretakers or my family if those feelings got
1:17:04triggered again here and now then you share what feeling got triggered which
1:17:11we call an enduring vulnerability and say where it may have gotten started before this
1:17:17relationship that's step three step four you're finally taking responsibility for
1:17:25what you contributed to this regrettable incident by saying what was your state
1:17:30of mind when it happened I was really stressed I needed time alone you know
1:17:36Etc and then specifically saying what you regret saying or doing during the
1:17:43incident and apologizing for it now note how late the apology is coming you're
1:17:49not aping right away because that doesn't work you don't know what you're
1:17:54apologizing for if you haven't first heard the impact of that incident on
1:18:01your partner so step four is apologizing and then hopefully your partner accepts
1:18:07your apology and finally step five is saying one thing your partner can do
1:18:13differently one thing you can do differently to avoid something like this
1:18:18from happening again then you're done the repair attempts somewhat sounded like I was going to say backing down but
1:18:25it was more like taking an object one of you taking an objective view on the situation and kind of stepping outside
1:18:31and saying I'm feeling like this it's almost like you're like stepping out of the video game grabbing the controller
1:18:37versus being in the video game is that kind of like an accurate description I think so yeah yeah cuz sometimes that
1:18:43does happen in my relationships where my partner will almost take a meta analysis on the situation and
1:18:48go I'm not feeling this or I sorry uh I like take a meta approach they
1:18:55almost like step outside and give a commentary and that diffuses it I don't think you're listening to me something like that yeah well they got to be
1:19:03careful about that they have to be careful they shouldn't be number one analyzing you and where you're coming
1:19:09from and they shouldn't be blaming you're not listening to me shouldn't do that but if they say I'm not feeling
1:19:17listened to right now yeah let me try again yeah that's great interesting whatWhat have you learnt about the role of kissing
1:19:23about sex and Intimacy in these subjects what have you learned about the role of
1:19:30kissing in the love lab interesting yeah I mean you know we haven't done a lot of
1:19:36research on sex we we did some in that newlywed study cuz sex had gone down
1:19:43dramatically for most couples uh even three years after the first baby was
1:19:48born and so we're asking people how did they cope how did they keep sex alive but the biggest study done on this
1:19:55question was done uh in a book that came out called the normal bar uh Christiano
1:20:02North is the first author of that and they analyze 70,000 people in 24
1:20:10countries and try to discern what's different about people who say they have a great sex life and people who say they
1:20:17have an awful sex life how are those two groups of people different and they discovered that it was the same across
1:20:22the whole planet and and there are really about a dozen things that people do have a great sex life and saying I
1:20:31love you every day and meaning it is one of them giving compliments uh romantic gifts having a
1:20:41lot of touch cuddling so of the people who don't cuddle only 4% of them said
1:20:47they had a great sex life 96% of the non- cuddlers had an awful sex life so
1:20:53touch is very important important even physical touch even in public affection in public was a big thing and really you
1:21:01know that kind of connection the romantic date you know the Romantic vacation that's what they did so nothing
1:21:09involved kissing or what happened in the bedroom so none of that is there but
1:21:15there has been research on just kissing and it turns out that not every culture
1:21:21do humans kiss but in the ones they do kiss is very powerful very erotic for
1:21:26most most couples and it's a nice Gateway into eroticism I found this
1:21:33really interesting study um in your work where it said a 10-year German study that found that right said again you can
1:21:39repeat the study better than I can men who kiss their wives goodbye when they leave for work live something like four
1:21:46years longer than men who don't so and that's a Priory kiss you know don't
1:21:51forget Sten they're getting mured being muted but the sixc kiss which we
1:21:59recommend has much more potential than that pick on the she cheek what is the sixc kiss a kiss that lasts at least six
1:22:06seconds why not five or four because uh oxytocin gets secreted with a 20 second
1:22:13hug or a 6C kiss you're both secreting oxytocin and that creates a sense of
1:22:20psychological safety and connection and bonding and bonding what what do you think about the subject of um sex JulieThe role of sex in a relationship
1:22:28and you know how important it is for a relationship how much should we be having sex does it really matter is it a
1:22:34predictor of long-term success in marriage great questions um that my clients ask me a lot and there's huge
1:22:42variability in sexual preference some couples actually don't want to have sex
1:22:49at all both people don't want to have sex they'd rather have kind of a sibling relationship ship almost if they're both
1:22:56content with that then they can have a very successful relationship some
1:23:02couples really want to have sex a lot you know all the time and it's a really
1:23:08important component of the relationship uh and everything in
1:23:13between when you run into trouble is the following and I've seen this so many
1:23:19times the men who I guess I would say are hyper master Uline they think that
1:23:27cuddling is too infantile so they don't want to cuddle and the only way they can
1:23:35accept physical contact which they desperately need is through sex period
1:23:41penetrative sex penetrative sex that's right and the woman has 17 children
1:23:48she's trying to make dinner you know she's exhausted um she may not want to have
1:23:53sex near nearly as much as he does so he begins to feel deprived of touch but
1:24:00instead of complaining about that he says we're not having enough sex and she says I'm not getting enough
1:24:08affection and there you have you know some conflict that has to get sorted out
1:24:15it's like they're speaking two different languages of intimacy you what I mean basically in a sense they are they are
1:24:22though typically the in these relationships really basically need
1:24:29touch and can they accept cuddling as something that's just as masculine as
1:24:36penetrative sex well if they really think about it and
1:24:41if they experience it then yeah you C they can then things really will tend to
1:24:47improve the research there John is suggesting though as you said that life is foreplay because if like the the
1:24:55kissing on the way out the door and the touching my partner's back and the cuddle leads to a better sex life then
1:25:01we should see life public displays of affection all that kind of thing as an investment in what happens tonight in
1:25:07the bedroom right I think that's really true every positive thing you do in a relationship is foreplay and the couples
1:25:15who a lot of times the couples who stop having sex have also shut down high
1:25:20conflict couples of stuff having sex have shut down other things other sensual parts of
1:25:27their lives as well you know they're not having much fun and you know 80% of the
1:25:3340,000 couples we studied said that fun had come to die in the relationship
1:25:39there was much play there wasn't much Adventure it wasn't just sex everything
1:25:44shut down all the things that were really delightful you know exploring new kinds of Cuisine you know traveling
1:25:53uh playing games together you know playing sports together how do we stop
1:25:58that happening though you know because I've often wondered people often said to me that eroticism and attraction is
1:26:06about novelty and spontaneousness and doing all that kind of thing and then they've said that love is about
1:26:12familiarity and you know Comfort which are these are two opposite things let me
1:26:18answer that the person who said that it's all about spontaneity and mystery
1:26:24at so on has never done any research the research shows that the
1:26:33familiarity the emotional connection really knowing your partner creates in
1:26:40the long run much more passion what much better sex actually than maintaining
1:26:50mystery but not really connecting to one another the way people need to there's a
1:26:57wonderful book by Emily ngosi called come as you are that reviews This research and it shows that first of all
1:27:05women have more prerequisites for eroticism than men do Jeffy Chase once
1:27:10said women need a reason for sex men need a place that's all so you know but
1:27:16it's true men men don't need to feel safe to feel
1:27:23sexual women do women need to feel psychologically safe and that means
1:27:29emotional connection it also means there can't be a long to-do list of things
1:27:34that they have to get done that's been neglected the dog's been taken out you know and has done his business and all
1:27:42of that and then the situation feels erotic to a woman and she's receptive
1:27:48let me point out something in addition to that that most men don't know at least in the United States one out of
1:27:57four women have been sexually molested or sexually assaulted by the age of
1:28:0518 and that's only the women who report it it's probably one out of three maybe
1:28:1340% including the ones who haven't reported it so when women have that
1:28:22history not not to mention thousands of years in their bones of being seen only
1:28:29as sex objects and being raped you know every other day you get to understand why women need
1:28:38safety much more so than men yeah we wrote a book called The Man's Guide to
1:28:44women to convey all of these bits of information that have been researched so
1:28:51familiarity is the basis for AIC not for the absence of a rism that's a
1:28:58myth so I've heard a lot about epigenetics recently which is this idea that trauma can be passed on from one
1:29:04one generation to the next and with that in mind if women have been sort of sex objects throughout history and have been
1:29:10raped and those kinds of things it's understandable that as you say Julie that they have like an inbuilt need for
1:29:16safety that men might not understand in the same way exactly which what what does that say for to a man what advice
1:29:22do you then give to a man is is the advice you have to make your partner feel safe for them to be aroused or to
1:29:28okay yes what else was in that book by the way it's quite an interesting book I feel like I need to read it yeah it's well you know it's really that awareness
1:29:34of emotional connection and psychological safety being so important to women and also realizing that men who
1:29:42do housework get a lot more sex is that something Julie told you or
1:29:48is that no that is it's actually an empirical result yeah but specifically
1:29:54honey they have to do the vacuum in yeah and get the books off the bed interesting okay are you seeing aOur society is becoming more sexless
1:30:02difference in our relationship with sex um as the world is changing because
1:30:08there's some stats that suggest we're getting more and more sexless as a as a society have you seen any changes in
1:30:15your 50 years studying love towards attitudes about sex or you know gender roles have changed in that time as well
1:30:21in society so you know I wouldn't say it's sexless but I would say it's
1:30:27Loveless more Loveless in the sense uh you know again I don't know what it's
1:30:32like in England or in other countries so much but in the United States the hookup
1:30:38culture is a is you know alive and thriving there's so many websites in
1:30:44which um men and men women and women men and women are just hooking up meaning
1:30:52meeting up for the first time having sex and departing the end is that a
1:30:59problem yes you know why because in that kind of sex there's no emotional
1:31:07connection zero and I've heard this from both men and women actually that when
1:31:15they leave they feel more empty than before they started having that sex what
1:31:22do you think that is no emotional connection it's impersonal sex they
1:31:27don't know who they're having sex with so you know it's almost like
1:31:32masturbating practically so you know there's a lot of couples who are doing
1:31:38that but they're they're not committing
1:31:43in long-term relationships as much as they used to and I think there's several
1:31:51factors involved in that one is they've seen their parents divorce so they don't
1:31:56believe in marriage or commitment as an institution that they should live
1:32:02to um secondly women have come into the workforce again in the last 50 years and
1:32:11career is equally important to many women as it is to
1:32:17Men on that point do you see issues with women becoming more successful in thatMen struggling to figure out where they fit into society
1:32:22emasculating men to some degree because I read about a study that um said
1:32:29there's an expectation in society for men to provide more at home financially
1:32:35and then a separate study showed that um women and it women's sort of equality
1:32:41with men in terms of their pay and education has is getting closer and then
1:32:47the third study says that men can feel
1:32:52emasculated in the presence of a smarter more successful women and they find it less attractive so if you put all this
1:32:58together and you go okay women are getting richer and more intelligent um men are emasculated by that but men still have this ex social expectation
1:33:05that they'll pay the bill in that framework you go Jesus Christ this is going to be difficult
1:33:10for you know and you can look at it another way and say there's less of a pool for women who typically want to
1:33:17date men that have a certain level of education and a certain level of money the pool is smaller than ever before so
1:33:22is this you know this some of the issues of the the mo some of the challenges of the modern world you're right yeah
1:33:28you're absolutely right about that the roles are really changing and um you
1:33:36know I remember this feeling myself actually as I built my career and John
1:33:41and I were together and I kept thinking no no no I should be a housewife I
1:33:46should just be a mom I should just be taking care of the home I shouldn't be devoting all this time to my career but
1:33:53I love my career I want to work and so there would be this turmoil inside about
1:34:00who should I be and I think men are feeling that too for example as I said
1:34:06earlier men are really wanting to be fathers more but how can you be an
1:34:11involved father when you're working like crazy extra overtime to make more money
1:34:17right it's impossible also those old myths have a hard time falling away that
1:34:26men who make more money have more status have more value as human beings are
1:34:33better Partners that's so more male are more male are more masculine it's so not
1:34:39true another thing to keep in mind is that women used to make 79 cents for
1:34:47every dollar that men made now they make 81
1:34:53cents for every dollar you think that's a big change it is not so women are
1:35:00still fighting for equality in terms of
1:35:06career opportunities work opportunities and so on and valuing their
1:35:13career men sometimes you know are struggling
1:35:19who should I be now I used to be the provider who should I be well that's
1:35:25what we've learned right cuz we come from a generation where like my father might have been the provider and my granddad was the provider so I've
1:35:31modeled that and said well for me to be a man like my father and I need to be able to do this but that's right that's
1:35:37right it's a good thing that we're getting closer to equality of course and I know the pay Gap is still there's still a distance there between men and
1:35:43women but it it kind of you can see there being some kind of challenge for
1:35:49men who now don't know their role but Society still has an expectation that they'll pick up the bill you bet it's a
1:35:57difficult conundrum isn't it but it's well it's really hard on men you know I think men in many ways are having as
1:36:04hard if not harder time now in figuring out what their role is and who they want
1:36:12to be compared with women I mean our fight started earlier Right started in
1:36:18the 70s with women's Liberation and Men kind of sat back and went what what's
1:36:24happening I think I think men are discovering the importance of relationships you know uh we typically
1:36:31have had worse emotional support systems you know uh many men don't don't have a
1:36:37best friend don't have close friends and their only con really close connection
1:36:43is with the woman that they live with and or married to and so I think men are
1:36:48discovering how important social connection is in their lives compareed
1:36:54to achievement you know I mean there's this lie that got sold to women that if they really
1:37:01are the caretakers of relationships they'll be happy the lie to men is if
1:37:07you are successful in your career you'll be happy neither neither lie is really
1:37:13useful because both men and women need close connections they need we need
1:37:18friends we need you know there's an epidemic of loneliness you know in the world right now and that's a killer we
1:37:26really need to reach out more not only to make good friends but also reach out
1:37:32to strangers create community and that needs to change you know what's really
1:37:38interesting I mean just think about it if you go on the internet and you look
1:37:44at what women are looking for in a partner what's the first word they sayWhat do women really want in a man?
1:37:51they don't say rich they don't say highly successful great
1:37:58achievements typically they say sensitive right sensitive emotionally
1:38:05aware caring so hopefully men can absorb that
1:38:14is that it's interesting because they do say that yeah and then they also say
1:38:20strong and they say um can protect me and and again it feels like a pole
1:38:26because on one end it appears that that sort of sensitive emotional openness at somewhat sensing contrast to like
1:38:35the it's like how do I very well you have a very lucky part those people
1:38:41probably listening don't even know what I did but I was just flexing my guns it was the gun show so like you see what I'm saying it feels like a contradiction
1:38:46it's like how you be the this and this the testosterone filled beasts that's going to save the day and then the true
1:38:53but keep in mind that being strong doesn't mean being
1:39:00unemotional sometimes it takes more strength and courage to voice emotion
1:39:06than it does to shut them down and what they're talking about you know let's not
1:39:12forget that women are still getting raped still getting assaulted still getting attacked everywhere still
1:39:20getting murdered right so they want a man allegedly who can physically protect
1:39:28them for sure that would feel great because women still feel
1:39:35unsafe however that doesn't necessarily correlate with being
1:39:40unemotional I guess the contradiction goes both ways because men also want a woman that is you know compassionate and
1:39:47soft but they also wanted to just be like to not not be emotional and not keep that so it's like a contradiction
1:39:52both ways yeah yeah yeah we want everything right all at once and that's part of the problem just closing off onTalking about sex makes your sex life better
1:39:59this point about sex cuz I had one last question which is does the research show that couples that have the best sex life
1:40:04talk about it the most yes I had this debate with my friend and I was wondering yes no question coupl who talk
1:40:10about it have a better sex life and how should they be talking about it give me some advice on how to talk about sex with my partner you need to talk about
1:40:17it in a way that is uh accepting and loving you know so you talk about what's
1:40:22really great in the relationship what you've enjoyed what you love about your partner what you find sexy about your
1:40:29partner what you wish for more of you know and right we have we created what
1:40:36we call got sex it's isn't that a I we didn't think
1:40:41of the title I promise so it's it's a kit that includes seven different uh
1:40:49structured conversations to have with your partner about sex that have to do with what do you prefer
1:40:58specifically uh how would you like sex to be initiated when would you like it
1:41:03initiated how can we refuse sex without massacring each other's
1:41:08egos how should sex be completed Etc so
1:41:14the couples who talk much more openly and more comfortably about that do much
1:41:19better sexually and for love Maps we have 100 questions you can ask a man
1:41:25about his erotic world and 100 questions you can ask a woman about her erotic world and they're not the same questions
1:41:32men and women h of well just people generally even in sort of homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships have very different
1:41:38fantasies yeah often linked to their trauma where wherever they come from whatever what happens in a relationship
1:41:43when one partner isn't willing to do the fantasy that the other partner is really
1:41:49craving how how does one navigate that well couple of ways one is the person
1:41:55who's not willing to do it can maybe describe it verbally because couples who
1:42:03talk more during sex actually have better sexual relationships too so if
1:42:11the partner who doesn't want to do what the other wants at least describes it
1:42:17verbally Whispering it in some kind of really cool tone well the guy can get
1:42:23off on that or the woman can get off on that right I'm imagining you're a
1:42:28cheerleader right now and I'm the football player and I'm 6'4 not 5 foot s for all
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1:44:25ceo1 for 10% off don't tell anybody about that okay just for you guys theBetrayal in a relationship
1:44:30love lab Research indicates that betrayal lies at the heart of every failed relationship this was in your
1:44:36book the seven principles of of making marriage work betrayal there are a lot
1:44:41of ways to really betray a partner in a relationship I mean you know cheating is
1:44:47one way but any kind of betrayal is something that needs to be healed in a
1:44:53relationship for example if you've uh teamed up with somebody in your family
1:44:58against your partner uh at some point that may feel like a betrayal um you
1:45:03know and it doesn't have to be sexual but it's something that needs to be healed because trust and commitment are
1:45:09so important as the Bedrock of every relationship if I was to say tell me theThe traits that show a failing relationship
1:45:16exact you know in your love lab two c a couple walk in and they they're there for 24 hours in your love lab and you're
1:45:22studying them can you roleplay the behavior that a couple who
1:45:27are destined to fail would exhibit oh
1:45:32yes how many ways can we do that okay God these crossover puals are really
1:45:39hard H you know I'm really sick and tired of
1:45:46you always paying attention to your stupid crossw word puzzles they're just
1:45:51they're such a waste of time I don't know why you do that it's it's just
1:45:57stupid yeah well I I I think they're too challenging for you intellectually that's why you avoid them
1:46:04what are you talking about I could do that with almost my eyes CL I never see you do crossover puzzle because it's
1:46:09stupid activity why would I want to do it I think I think you're avoiding it because you're avoiding challenges in
1:46:15your life you do that in every phase of your life avoid challenges you always
1:46:21take the easy Road you think that marrying you was the easy Road are you
1:46:27kidding okay so that's kind of what it looks like I've seen that before have
1:46:35you so have we what's the opposite then using the cross word example again if you role playay the opposite scenario
1:46:42okay boy some of these Challenger cross puzzles are really
1:46:48hard really yeah oh did you find something really hard in one you're
1:46:53doing now yeah it's like you have to know the names of these dinosaurs I've never heard of in order to complete the
1:47:00puzzle oh my God that sounds impossible I know yeah it really does yikes yeah
1:47:05what are you working on right now that's so hard well I you know I'm trying to do these seduko things oh no I'm having a
1:47:12lot of trouble with those oh those are impossible for me oh my God yeah I like
1:47:17that you really love challenges good luck with that I don't think I'll be able to help you okay all right okay so
1:47:25it kind of looks like that and what what are the like fundamental differences like CU is something being deposited in
1:47:31that first example that's going to be Insidious and and to result in the relationship falling down think of the
1:47:36word stupid I used it three times put down criticism
1:47:43contemptuous how does he respond counterattacks you're not smart enough
1:47:48to do these defensiveness these are like personality attacks straight from the J
1:47:54exactly exactly and how does that lead to divorce how does it feel when
1:48:01somebody looks down on us is disgusted by us does think we're stupid do we want
1:48:09to be close to that person M do we want to have sex with that person mm do we
1:48:14trust that person no we do not we pull away from them it can be much more
1:48:20subtle as well than you demonstrated there what like the subtlest ways that that contentment can show up in a in a
1:48:26conversation so you wouldn't you know I I've asked you to do the dishes you
1:48:31wouldn't really think of getting your hands wet to do the dishes would you so that's I really hate getting my hands
1:48:38wet okay so that was a little bit of sarcastic it was sarcastic but getting your hands wet I mean it's it's
1:48:46like it's contempt again what would what advice would you give to me then I'm 31
1:48:52years old I'm four years into my relationship you're what 36 years into your marriage 37 37 years into your
1:48:58marriage what advice would you give to me to make sure that I get 37 years deep
1:49:03you know you've given me lots of advice today about how to argue and how to resolve conflict get this get this notebook I'm going to get a notebook I'm
1:49:10to get I'm going to carry around a notebook and the minute we have an argument I'm going to start taking notes yeah that's my solution you know and do
1:49:18you do you know her dreams this is a really good question CU I think I know her dreams but I've never really askedAsking your partner their dreams
1:49:25directly oh which I probably should have according to Julie's eyes yeah you might be surprised by the answer yes sir and
1:49:33does she know yours and why they're so important to you beyond just yeah it's
1:49:40fascinating I'm not even sure I know mine which is a bit of an issue wonder
1:49:45how does it relate to you being from bwana yeah it's it's an interesting
1:49:51thing because I think some sometimes we're scared of voicing our dreams because we think it might result in
1:49:57figuring out that they're unaligned like I think if I asked her what her dreams were she's she's very ambitious she
1:50:03wants to start a family think she wants to live in the the sun somewhere my dreams are probably more focused on I
1:50:10want to start a family 2 but I want to I love doing this podcast there's only a couple of cities in the world where I
1:50:15can do it um and there's only one city in the world where I think I can do this podcast and it's sunny and that's here
1:50:23oh and she might not like being here but for a variety of reasons so it's like
1:50:28and then you when you have kids you realize that you can't just fly around like I do now I have we have to be together and present and raise the kids
1:50:34so I don't know in my head I've just thought cross that bridge when we come to it is that a good way to deal with
1:50:39life no well it's not a bad way it's not a bad way you know it it depends on uh
1:50:48your timing uh but the book we wrote eight dates uh which gives you
1:50:54conversations to have that are really really important as you are establishing
1:51:00a long-term relationship or if you're already in one but you haven't had
1:51:06conversations like these in a while then those are great to have and you don't
1:51:12have to be afraid you know that your dreams are very different from one another
1:51:20because if there's a lot of love of you know with maybe a couple of exceptions out there you can figure out a way to
1:51:27make it work what advice would you give to me then I want all of the advice that you haven't yet given me today okay soAdvice to give a relationship its best shot
1:51:34one of them would be just remember that 85% turning towards figure okay turn
1:51:42towards her as much as you can you don't mean physically you mean no yeah I mean
1:51:47if she makes a little bit for connection like Hey Stephen um come into
1:51:55the kitchen I want to show you something get up and go to the kitchen 85% of the time at least try do your best it's not
1:52:03going to be perfect it's 86% by the way oh honey see here's my numbers man I can
1:52:10always count on him to come up with the okay so you got to work even harder
1:52:15Stephen okay 86% of the time yeah so that's a good one another one is when
1:52:22and you are talking about an issue work really hard to not blame and
1:52:29not criticize yep describe yourself your own feelings what situation you're upset
1:52:37about and what your positive need is not the negative one anything else John we
1:52:43have this great card deck called expressing your needs I don't know if if you got a copy of that one no no you can
1:52:51download it on the on the App Store gotman cardex have it on your phone and
1:52:56once a week just sit down with her and go through and say okay here's here's
1:53:02two things I need this week why why should I do that because then it's real clear you know and she can tell you what
1:53:09two things you you can do to make her happy this week and you know rather than
1:53:15leaving it a chance you know you're a man that loves maths right yes give meThe most interesting conclusions from the love lab
1:53:21some of the most interesting mathematical conclusions you've been able to arrive at through your work
1:53:26through the love lab I think the most amazing one is that the only way to be powerful in a
1:53:34relationship is to accept influence and it's so
1:53:41counterintuitive but that turns out to be really powerful that I I found that very surprising the only way to be
1:53:48powerful is basically to be influenceable be flexible be movable
1:53:54listen to your partner and try to accept some influence from what they're
1:54:00saying not perfectly of course anything else say what you need don't expect your
1:54:08partner to read your mind because they never can anything else yep one more this is
1:54:15one of our favorite questions ask your partner once a
1:54:20week what is something can do next week to make you feel more loved we have this
1:54:28annual honeymoon that we do uh that we've done for 23 years and we go away
1:54:34and bring our kayak and we ask each other three questions over two weeks
1:54:41what sucked about this year what did you like about this year and what do you want next year to be like so we have
1:54:48that once a year time when we can really take a hard look at our lives and see
1:54:54what needs to change here's the deal we're talking to each other all the time
1:55:00yeah because we work together and we're expressing love and affection and
1:55:06gratitude to one another all the time and a lot of our work is
1:55:13fun it would be great if we went out on more dates the pandemic kind of interfered
1:55:21with that quite a bit um but we loved it but we loved it
1:55:27and we love going on dates it's just we're so darn busy like everybody else right and we're really old Stephen so
1:55:35we're getting tired John what does Julie mean to youWhat does Julie mean to you, John
1:55:41what does she mean to me what a question W she's
1:55:47really the most important thing in my life absolutely the most important thing
1:55:53waking up in the morning and having her be next to me is such a joy and cuddling
1:56:00with her and our dog is just wonderful thing every morning and and now we get
1:56:07to be grandparents together we have this two-year-old little boy that we're both
1:56:12in love with and we get to see our daughter be a mom you know
1:56:20it's it's the greatest gift that anybody's ever given me is to become a
1:56:26father she means everything to me she wasn't in your life what would you be missing
1:56:33Everything Everything Julie what does John mean toWhat does John mean to you, Julie
1:56:39you he's the most adorable wonderful lovable
1:56:46person I've ever had in my life what he means to me is that he has healed me
1:56:54from a lot of my own past [Music] trauma he makes me laugh all the time
1:57:02and I didn't know how to laugh at all I never laughed before I met
1:57:09him he supports my dreams nobody ever cared about my dreams
1:57:16knew about my dreams before I met him including crazy dreams like going to
1:57:24Antarctica by myself he supported that isn't that amazing he is the most supportive
1:57:31wonderful man and the other thing is that he's so damn smart I knew I would
1:57:38never be bored and he reads a million
1:57:43times as much as I do I mean I read a lot but he reads so much that I'm
1:57:49constantly learning from him so he's a source of knowledge source of
1:57:55laughter source of sunshine source of a fabulous fabulous fabulous daughter and
1:58:03son-in-law and grandson and he's got the most beautiful eyes in the whole wide
1:58:08world that's what he means to me besides that I love his hat he always wears the
1:58:15same hat and he has for like 40 years because it makes him look like a Jewish
1:58:21intellectual B bik what could be better she's talking about my leather hat oh
1:58:26okay going to say Fishman at fight right the book is
1:58:33come out I think February 1st M January 30th yeah ah okay why did you write thisWhy did you write this book
1:58:39book why was it so important there's so many things that you could have written about from one of your research but for some reason you wrote a book called
1:58:45fight right why did why take a look at the world fighting
1:58:52especially in the United States has become more polarized than
1:58:58ever secondly hatred has become
1:59:04sanctioned as uh a fine way to express your own political points of view has
1:59:11there been any listening to each other zip none and so you know we can't we're
1:59:20not politicians we're not going to w the whole social system but if we can change
1:59:26how people listen to one another and love one another at home which is what
1:59:32we know the most about then we can hope and pray for a ripple effect to move out
1:59:39into society and create more love out in the world too where we need it so much
1:59:47Making Peace one family at a time oh I love it nice
1:59:53one we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for I'm going toThe Last Guest's question
1:59:59ask you both to answer the question I don't get to see it until I open the book here we
2:00:06go oh interesting so I'm going to start this with Julie um if you could go back
2:00:14and tell your parents any one thing at the time you were born what would it be
2:00:29I would tell my father would you please stay
2:00:35home at least one day a week instead of
2:00:42abandoning my mother every single day seven days a week I would tell my
2:00:48mother stop being critical stop being
2:00:53contemp contemptuous try to look for what all of
2:00:59us are doing right and say that rather than only
2:01:04pointing out what we're doing wrong why wasn't he he was a
2:01:10cardiologist so he was constantly gone saving lives
2:01:15basically uh as a cardiologist and when he wasn't he was playing golf classic
2:01:22cardiologist and I think my mother may have drove him a little
2:01:27crazy cuz she was a very very disturbed individual so he
2:01:34escaped and he was a 50s 1950s father right which meant all he had to do was
2:01:42provide that was it no role with the children and your mother I'm guessing
2:01:48didn't know how to fight in the way that you describe it in this book oh my God no no no no no no no my my mother had
2:02:01witnessed horrible violence and rape within her home she was incested herself
2:02:09in her own home growing up as a child she didn't feel like she had any
2:02:16value other than her beauty and she was very very beautiful
2:02:22so she didn't feel entitled to ask for what she needed and you need to feel at
2:02:29least some of that in order to fight for what you want and what you need and J
2:02:37same question yeah what would I tell my parents yeah I I think
2:02:46that I would tell my parents first of all how much I love and
2:02:53appreciate them for who they were and I
2:02:59don't think I did that enough um especially with my dad and I
2:03:07would also tell my parents to be better parents toward my
2:03:12sister cuz we really lived in two different families and my sister didn't have an
2:03:21easy going temperament and um and she was extremely
2:03:27talented musically and I wish they had supported her music and loved her better
2:03:34because she really needed it and I think they could have done a much
2:03:40better job being parents of her they did a great job with me what was the cost to
2:03:46your sister I think she felt really unloved still
2:03:53especially by my mom and I felt very loved by my
2:03:58mom I think that's kind of served to make sense of why you both do what you you do in many respects you both have an
2:04:06origin story which is sort of pertinent and present in the work that you do and the perspectives you both take on the
2:04:13subject matter of love and relationships comes from two very different places and um we all have an origin story of love
2:04:19and relationships and I think think we often discount how important and formative that is for us I mean I know
2:04:25from myself personally my my life is dominated by by love and relationships and My Success my business everything
2:04:31that I've done in my life is comes back to the early relationships I had my perspective on love and the lack of Love
2:04:38or you know the love that I once needed so thank you so much to both of you for really being seen as the you know you
2:04:43are seen as the Pioneers on this subject and I said to you before we started recording that so many of my guests have come on this show and mentioned your
2:04:50work they've quoted your work and these are some of the most successful people in the world they're scientists they're neuroscientists Etc but even long before
2:04:57I got to meet you many years ago I did a live show across the UK and I was quoting stuff that came out of your love
2:05:02love lab and on stage in front of thousands and thousands and thousands of people so thank you for turning the
2:05:08lights on to a subject that matters so much to human happiness and health as we've discovered because it's some of
2:05:14the most important work that I think anyone could do in for Humanity and you guys have been leading the way in doing it so thank you both so much thank you
2:05:20stepen for having us on your podcast thank you so much given that you have
2:05:26interviewed some of the most successful brilliant people on the
2:05:31planet uh to be honoring love in the way that you're doing because by doing that
2:05:39you are really endorsing how important love is and everybody needs to hear that
2:05:45so thank you well said honey indeedy everyone needs to go get your
2:05:51books I mean there's quite a lot of them but this particular one here I think everyone should start with because conflict resolution knowing how to um
2:05:58take on conflict knowing how to address it knowing how to be a better sparring partner in relationships so that it can
2:06:04be you and your partner versus the problem versus instead of you versus your partner I think is foundational to
2:06:10us finding the love that most of us are searching for but that feels so elusive so I'd recommend everybody to go get the book I'm going to link in the
2:06:16description below thank you so much we're done
2:06:21[Music]
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