WORLD LEADING THERAPIST Answers Relationship Questions Most People Are Afraid to Ask | Lori Gottlieb

we have this saying we marry our unfinished business we date our unfinished business too if you're not doing the work you're going to be behind therapist bestselling author Lory goly what would you say to someone who's saying I have to kind of compromise and make sure this is the one because I have to get to that point because I want to be in a relationship I'm going to get the worst pick of the bunch because I'm 35 years old and I haven't found someone if you are not in a place where you want to be

with a relationship you have to understand why am I behind for being single at 28 [Music] the number one Health and Wellness podcast J shett J shett the won the only J Lori it's great to have you back it's so great to be here Jay honestly every time you come in here and we have these conversations they just go crazy viral online people love your advice they love your Insight they always want you back and I'm so thankful to you that you always choose to come back so it means a lot to me that you're

back here with me well thank you so much for having me back we've done what we did last time because people loved it so much we've gone out to our audience gone out to our community I've even reached out to some friends and I've crowdsourced all of their challenges all of their issues all of their real life experiences that they're going through and some of these people don't have access to therapists some of these people maybe can't afford it some of these people maybe even have therapists but are still struggling and trying to figure it

out and so I love the fact that we can use you as our community therapist uh and learn from you so I want to dive straight in sure one of the biggest questions I'm hearing and getting from people in my community and audience is am I behind for being single at 28 you know it's so interesting because I think that we tend to compare ourselves so much to other people especially with social media you know we look at you know what is everybody else doing at my age what is what is the right thing and

you are exactly where you need to be if you are doing the work if you're not doing the work you're going to be behind and what I mean by doing the work is if you are not in a place where you want to be with a relationship you have to understand why so are you examining what has not worked yet why if I if I am single and I don't want to be single what can I be doing differently and so I think that's the important work so you're not behind it all in fact you're

probably ahead of people who are in relationships who have not done the work and maybe aren't in the right relationship or are in a relationship that's not going to last or isn't going well I feel like that's such a hard thing to face right because we think the problem is external to us and what you're saying is Well actually the work needs to be done internally and so often we're trying to solve and shift and construct what's happening around of us rather than looking inward why do you think that is why is it that we

struggle to actually do the work what does that look like I think it's so much easier when we talk to our our friends and you know I've talked about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion before idiot compassion is you say to your friend look what happened on this date or look what happened with this person and they say yeah you're right they're wrong and we never learn or grow from that right because yes there might be something that the other person did but also what was your role in that interaction a relationship is

all about relating so what was your role in the dance that you're doing with this person and what you get in therapy is you get wise compassion where we hold up a mirror to you and we help you to see something about you know what your role is maybe something you haven't been willing or able to see but that's so important so you don't repeat these situations where you're in this pattern and then you wonder why do I keep ending up with a person who doesn't listen to me or a person where I don't feel

seen or where I can't be myself or where we have a lot of volatility or where this person's really avoidant why am I always with people who avoid or what makes me avoid and I don't talk to the person about what I want or what I need so that's the work that's really important so you're not behind if you're single at 28 it's part of the process if you're doing the work you're much closer than you've ever been to finding the person that you want to be with I'm so glad you said that I remember

talking about it in my book that I wrote called Eight rules of love and it was this idea of relationship Karma and I was using the concept of Karma from the Eastern Traditions to understand that karma is every action has a reaction and it was can you pinpoint what action you've taken in order to end up in the same experience with a different person so as you were saying that whether you keep attracting an avoidant person you keep attracting someone who doesn't listen to you you keep attracting someone who is interested for a month but

then disconnects or whatever it may be and it's like where what action have you taken in your choice in your curation of this individual in your approach to this individual that has potentially led to that absolutely that's that's so spoton we know we have this saying we marry our unfinished business we date our unfinished business too so if you let's say earlier in your life you were around someone who you know was neglectful somebody who drank too much somebody who lost their temper um somebody who wasn't honest somebody who wasn't reliable we think when we're

dating as adults like I want the opposite of that I want someone where I feel safe secure there trust but what happens is unconsciously again if we haven't done the work or unfinished business we actually are unconscious is oh you look familiar come closer so on the surface they don't look like that person but then when you get to know them you're a monthin you're 3 months in you're 6 months in you think wow that person reminds me of someone this person feels so familiar and that's why I was drawn to this person it turns

out this person is very much like what I grew up with is very much like the person who hurt me growing up so if you do the work you're able to see oh that person I see why I'm drawn to them but I'm not drawn to them in a healthy way and then if you do even more work you're not even drawn to those people anymore now you're drawn to healthy people stable people flexible people emotionally generous people people whose values align with yours that's who you're drawn to so you have to do the work

yeah absolutely I'm so glad that you've made that the reminder because I think often we validate and make people feel like it's okay that they're single and I think you are doing that but I think this is a step further which is like you are behind if you're not actually learning from the experiences that got you here and you're not actually refining it another pressure that I feel that mounts on people as time goes on it's so fascinating to me that we're in 2024 we hope that we're living in a society that is letting go

of timelines that's letting go of gender roles that's letting go of the boundaries and limits that are placed on us because of what age we are and what gender we are and and everything else but I find that internally we all actually still carry a lot of those pressures and another big question for our community was if I do get into a relationship in my early 30s do I now have to rush things like do I often what I heard was people were saying I feel like I have to feel like this person is the

one because I'm running out of time and I have this fear that the pool is getting so much smaller as I get into my early 30s that I'm going to have the worst pick because no good people are going to be left now we know that all of these things are not factually true they're not datab backed like these are ideas but these are the kind of thoughts that I'm hearing from people who are entering that space what would you say to someone who's saying Lori I feel I have to rush things I have to

kind of compromise and make sure this is the one because I have to get to that point because want to be in a relationship and actually I fear that I'm going to get the worst pick of the bunch because I'm 35 years old and I haven't found someone we literally just had someone like this on the podcast and she felt like I have to decide right away if this is the person and if there's any issues here I have to leave right away as opposed to understanding that if she doesn't understand what these issues are

about she will just repeat that in the next relationship I mean these were not you know there are certain kinds of issues that are red flags these were not red flag issues these were normal relational types of things communication types of things and what we told her was you need to slow down in order to save time and it sounds counterintuitive because people think wait a minute I need to hurry up in order to save time I don't want to waste time but you need to slow down so that you can say what is right

in front of me right now if I put that kind of pressure on myself I'm going to make decisions for all kinds of the wrong reasons so so I'm going to make them because you know we talk about the difference between sort of The Head and the Heart you're going to make head decisions instead of heart decisions you need both um my son taught me this actually he was saying I've been making too many head decisions and I need to make more heart decisions and it's about how do you find the balance between those two

things so what we told her this woman on the podcast was we said why don't the two of you go to therapy for let's say you put a time limit on it we're going to go for 6 months and she said six months I don't have six months to waste and I said it's not going to be a waste no matter whether you stay in this relationship or you go to a different relationship you're going to learn so much about yourself in relationship that you can't learn if you're not in a relationship because you need

to be able to have these interactions to understand what they trigger in you what they bring up in you and you can't do that in isolation so many people say I need to completely understand myself before I can go a date and I say you're going to learn so much about yourself you want the best tutorial on who you are and your operating instructions and What Makes You tick get in a relationship with somebody you will be pushed and challenged in ways that you aren't challenged when it's just you sitting there thinking so we said

to her go to coup's therapy for 6 months and then you will learn so much about yourself and you will know so much more about whether you two are the right combination or the right couple and so we do follow-ups we do year follow-ups and she came back a year later and she said I was going to leave this person and I I am so glad that I didn't because I learned that some of this was me and I didn't have the maturity I didn't understand a lot of things and I grew so much and

I am so in love with this person and I would have left because I was panicked now it could have ended up the other way too that she left which would have also been good if it wasn't the right person and then she would have found the right person because of the work that she did yes so I would say to these people who feel like I have to hurry I have to know right away relax slow down give yourself a timeline don't stay in that relationship for 5 years and and be ambivalent about what

you want to do but slow down give yourself a year of doing the work with this person and then you will know so much more about yourself you want someone who's real you want someone who's authentic who's genuine and maybe the person who's a great first dater is not a great partner we forget that love is not some kind of Airy feeling right but love love in the day-to-day is a verb how can I be loving to another person how is someone being loving as a verb to me it's a very performative action going on

a first date but when people feel more comfortable and they can be more themselves you feel like you can be more yourself they feel like they can and you see the real person and they can become very attractive to you some people are good for you now and some people may become good for you forever but this idea that if someone good for me now and they're not forever then I don't want them now isn't the healthiest idea because the growth you might make with this person who may not be your Forever person could be

so powerful and useful in your Forever relationship and you won't know that until you're actually getting to know them I had a friend recently who went through that scenario where they felt that this individual they were with was helping them grow helping them understand themselves they were doing the same back and they realized during the that relationship that this wasn't the one that was going to be the the marriage and the the long-term commitment but they feel like they both grew so much as individuals and you constantly in this conversation so far you've talked about

doing the Deep work on your own you've talked about working with that person what's really interesting is that after all this time and no matter how many books we read and no matter how many podcasts we listen to there's still this belief that when we meet the person it will be easy and everything will just sense I feel like a lot of people also who found love in a magic way will say things like when you know you know and you just feel it and then people feel like they have to find that feeling and

that love should be easy and simple and flow I'm assuming from what you're saying so far that it's not really the only way it can require work it it does require work I've been with my wife for 11 years now and I can honestly say that some parts have been really easy and some parts have required work and I believe we work on it consistently and that's why it becomes easier than it would become harder but I feel like there's this Disney Magic belief we still all carry so deep rooted in us that love should

be easy what would you say to someone who is carrying that experience or that Vision of Love in their heart and mind right well first of all you know when we look at attachment Styles if you have a secure attachment some times it is easier for you to know whether this person is going to be someone you want to pursue long term um but even then things will come up but also many of us are not securely attached meaning that we had inconsistent caregivers or we had you know parents do their best but parents are

also imperfect parents have their own parents and they have their own histories which makes them parent in a certain way so there are certain ways in which we didn't get parented the way we wanted to get parented and we still we come into relationships maybe we don't trust and then we think oh I can't trust that person but it's really not about the other person they're completely trustworthy but you just don't trust the world you don't trust the universe you don't even maybe trust yourself so those people maybe feel like well this is really hard

because I don't really trust this person but they're not looking it maybe it's hard because you are bringing something into this right so the magic might come might be there but you have to be able to learn how to trust and maybe at the beginning of that relationship it's going to be a little bit hard for you so it's not going to look like the Disney the romantic comedies that we all see but I think the other thing is there's a study that I love that I think more people should know about which is that

they did this longitudinal study so that means they followed people over 20 years and they checked in every five years and they started with the first date when you met this person you write down your impressions and some people said you know oh this person there's so much magic there's so much chemistry and some people people said it was fine yeah I'd probably see this person again but nothing great right and then they followed them every 5 years and what they found after 20 years was that the people who were happily married to each other

did change their story so at the time they had said like I'm not really sure nice person no butterflies no spark they said oh I knew right away they changed the story because now the story is is filtered through the way their marriage is now people who were unhappy who who like got divorced or were in still married but were unhappy you know said things like oh there was no chemistry there was never any chemistry I knew right away even though at the time they said magic right that's so good so I think it's so

important for people to realize that don't listen to what your friends say about how they met because it's going to be filtered through how they feel about each other right now that is I'm so glad you raised that that is such uh that's such a great insight and I I wish if if everyone's listening right now please please please like let that deeply connect with your heart and head because I think that's one of the reasons we all make mistakes we're either forcing ourselves to look for the perfection in the moment and like you said

some of the best relationships start by it's fine it's okay I'm not sure and also to not over amplify that first meeting I think we put so much pressure on the first date the first kiss the F you know the first time of being intimate with someone the first the first of everything is like such a so weighted so weighted right yes unfairly yes yes and what happens is people will go on a date and so I see this in therapy all the time people will come in and they'll say I went on the date

with this person nice person I don't know I just didn't feel that intensity I just didn't I don't know I didn't feel this romantic connection with this person and I'll say how did you feel about yourself on this date I felt good I felt really comfortable I felt like myself right did you have a good time yeah did you feel like this was a fun person to be around yeah well why not go on a second date why not spend another hour with this person just to see what it feels like to sit with this

person again and what happens is sometimes not always sometimes you you sit with this person enough and then all of a sudden you're like oh they're really cute I didn't see that before or they're really funny they were kind of nervous on the first date because it's a first date it's like a job interview right so people are performing it's a very performative action going on a first date but when people feel more comfortable and they can be more themselves you feel like you can be more yourself they feel like they can and you see

the real person and they can become very attractive to you so this doesn't always happen but it happens enough that I think that what happens is we we feel like there's this abundance that because of dating apps we feel like if I don't feel like this person is fabulous a 10 everything that I've imagined on that first 45 minutes or an hour that I'm meeting them in this weird coffee place in this weird environment cuz we're strangers we're both nervous we're both trying to impress each other we both have these fantasies that we're bringing and

the other person's letting down my fantasy you know what a weird way to meet someone and then they think okay well there's 10 other people on this app that I can swipe on and they'll meet my fantasy except they probably won't either or they might here's the danger they might on that first date but then they're locking into some fantasy that you have but then when you really get to know them you find out oh I don't really connect with this person or this person's kind of superficial or this person's great at first dates cuz

people who are great at first dates can be really Charming but that doesn't mean that that's what you want in a partner you want someone who's real you want someone who's authentic who's genuine and maybe the person who's a great first dater is not a great partner absolutely I mean Lori you just did this genius therapy question thing there that I want people to notice I think you're so right that that after a first date the number one thing we focus on is how did I feel about them and our friends will ask us what

did you think of them and you just shifted that question that you asked one of your patients the question being how did you feel about yourself yes and I think that's so powerful because you're so right that if you're only looking at the other person and making your assumptions and judgments on whether they're interesting whether they're exciting whether they're someone who can entertain you rather than going how did I feel about myself and it was so interesting I was just saying to one of my friends I was saying that when do you feel peaceful around

someone and I was saying peaceful around someone usually isn't exciting it's usually not exhilarating but you feel a sense of calm when you're around them they they kind of relax your nervous system a little bit and so when you ask the question how did I feel about myself and you're like I felt natural I felt comfortable I actually felt really good all of a sudden like oh I didn't feel butterflies and I wasn't constantly nervous and I wasn't trying to impress them so this is actually a much healthier space to live in so I love

that reframe of after a first date not asking yourself what did I think of them are they interesting are they the one how did I feel about myself I think that's a brilliant brilliant note yeah and how we feel about ourselves often comes from the person on that date is really listening to you and is really interested so the person who can entertain you on a first date might be really fun but I don't think that you want an Entertainer I think what you want is you want someone you can actually have some kind of

connection with and someone who knows how to listen and someone who's genuinely curious about you and not just trying to impress you is going to make a much better long-term partner I think Lori we we're uncovering something really interesting here it's like I feel like we don't know what human connection is right I feel like we don't know what human love is like I like what we're getting to here it's like because it is so hard to Define I guess but there's a sense of we don't know what healthy connection communication looks like because chances

are we haven't seen it at home we haven't seen it around us we haven't seen it in the media so there's a sense of not being able to mirror or not being able to reflect something that embodies that deep profound experience of love so when you're saying you're not looking at someone who's giving you the ability to feel listen heard seen like what what is from all of your EXP experence and everything you've read you've done this for decades now like what have you seen are the core values of human connection that we should be

aspiring for in a healthy relationship can we even Define those we forget that love is not some kind of Airy feeling right love is you know people say that people in love are actually like people on drugs it's the same dopamine reaction and so you're not really thinking straight so that might feel like infatuation that feels really good and yes that's a component of feeling really connected and feeling love but love in the day-to-day is a verb how can I be loving to another person how is someone being loving as a verb to me and

so I remember this struck me so much when I had a couple and the woman in the couple said to her husband you know what three words I really want to hear and he immediately said I love you you want to hear I love you more and she said no I know you love me I want to hear I understand you and that to her was love right I know that you say you love me I want you to show me you love me because I want to feel understood by you and I want to

understand you and I think so much what we don't do in a loving relationship is we don't take the time to either understand ourselves and communicate that or understand the other person it really takes an act of love it's such a great point and and even hearing you say that I'm like it resonates so strongly with how I see love and how much I see the conflicts that exist in relationships being because people love each other but they don't understand each other they don't and they're not curious right so they feel like if you don't

understand me then you know you don't love me if you they do this if you loved me you would ex as opposed to to let me tell you how I'm feeling right now let me explain this to you because the truth is if they understood you they would do X probably but it's not if they love you it has nothing to do with if they love you they would do X yeah that's so powerful that that's so true it's resonating so strongly with me too and that idea of we think that if I say I

love you that means I understand you yes but the person on the other side is saying no I get that you love me but you're not understanding me you're not hearing me you're not seeing me and I often think that we think love makes up for a lack of understanding but love can't love can't complete a lack of understanding love can't complete the fact that you haven't really listened to what the other person is saying because love can often be this overarching emotion as opposed to what you're saying this active verb that's being expressed and

so I think that's a great takeaway for people is is someone actually trying to understand you and I think we have this intuitive feeling that if someone completes our sentences on the first day or they like the same things we like then they must understand us right if we're talking about our favorite foods and we both agree that Italian and Cuisine is our favorite food or we both agree that we love comedy movies and we love we always we feel understood and I feel like both people in that moment of feeling understood stop trying to

understand and be understood does that make sense what you're talking about is having things in common which is very different from what you're coming into the relationship with so you can have a lot of interests in common you might both like sushi and rollerblading and these kinds of movies and these kinds of TV shows and this kind of Cuisine right and you say we have so much in common we love this same music we you know we read the same things that's what you have in common that doesn't mean that you understand the person's operating

instruction and what I mean by that is when you get anything a new car um you know it comes with a manual and it say like this is how this car operates and it's different from your last car so just because it's a car doesn't mean it operates in the same way like this button is going to be over here and if you want to control this it's going to be over here and it doesn't like when you do this and it likes when you do this right that's what the manual says we need that

for our people we need to know what is their what are their operating instructions and we assume that because we have all this in common that that person is going to know my operating instructions and I'm going to know that person's operating instructions but we have to share our operating instructions with the other person just because you like to be when you want to come to me with something and you just want a vent right I actually want feedback that doesn't mean that we have the same way of wanting to be listened to when you

are feeling sad you do this when I'm feeling sad I need this those are different things when I'm angry I need to talk about it right away when you're angry you need to walk around the block oh that's really good information I didn't read your manual tell me more so we have to be really curious about tell me your operating instructions and we learn that just by experiencing the other person and seeing that while we have a lot in common and we connect they're actually separate and apart from us they're a different person yeah and

that's so important so how is how can we be loving What is love love is saying I'm taking the time to understand your operating instructions that's so well put and I think we struggle with that so much because we don't have enough self-awareness of our own operating instructions and then we have this warped view that love means you should be able to understand and read theit in between the lines and none of us read the operating instructions for our devices today so we're also not reading between the lines and the other person sitting there going

if you loved me you'd know all of this how can you not know after 10 years that I love celebrating my birthday or anniversaries are really important to me and and it's fascinating to me that we don't want to help people help us right so what we do using the birthday example is somebody will say you know to their partner what would you like to do for your birthday and they say oh it's no big deal but they really actually want something and they think my partner should know that when I say it's no big

deal don't worry about it and then the partner says oh we're just going to like do a quiet dinner when they wanted a big party that their partner doesn't get them at all how did their partner know that no big deal actually meant I love big parties how do you not notice after being together for three years that I love being at Big parties so you should have known that my no big deal meant I love big parties yeah but why can't we just communicate our desires why does that take away from the magic we

think if I have to explain it there's no Chemistry Between Us you should just know but we should be able to say hey I would love a big party I love celebrating in the company of all of my people and all of my friends what a relief for your partner to know I can please my partner and give my partner exactly what my partner wants because now I know yeah that doesn't take away from the chemistry or the magic or the connection between you that enhances the connection I agree I agree a few years ago

me and my wife after never knowing what to do for each other's birthdays and always getting it wrong we set that packed with each other where we're like we're just going to tell each other 3 to four months in advance what we'd like to do for our birthdays her birthday's in July it just actually went two days ago and then my birthday is in September and we're just like we're just going to tell each other what we want what kind of party we want what we want so this year she she was thinking about doing

something she was like I want it and then she was like no actually I just want to do nothing and she's generally I over the years I always did extravagant things because I like extravagant things and realized I was giving her the birthday party I wanted yes and and she was giving me the birthday party she wanted and so that's why we just started telling each other and so she said to me she was like I just want to do something really small that's what we did it was beautiful and then she was telling me

what do you want I was like I just want to do something with just me and you I was like I whatever it is as long as it's just me and you I'm I'm open to it and I think it's become so much more fun being able to not have to live in this anxiety and anticipation of do they understand me have I dropped enough hints do they get the magic and then feeling disappoint Ed or even feeling like they got it all but oh it's because I gave them all the notes anyway and so

you're so right that we've we've removed the magic because we've shared what we want right and and it's so funny what you said this whole thing about if I give them the notes that somehow it's not special anymore as opposed to this person took the time to understand exactly what I want and to make my day the magical day that I want it to be that's the magic this person cares enough to give you exactly what you want but we don't give them credit for that we actually give them demerits for that yeah and we

give ourselves credit yeah yeah exactly yeah no and and you're so right like I think it comes with so many things that we think asking for help or telling people what we actually need or having a request is a weakness we see it as a sign of a weak relationship when actually it's the sign of strong self-awareness and a strong relationship that you have the ability to share your desires your needs your interests and the other person has the ability to comprehend and take action on them that is actually a healthy long-term relationship and yeah

I I hope that this conversation can encourage people if you're in a relationship even if you're starting out in one these are great habits to set early on rather than wasting three to five years making mistakes trying to figure it out carrying that baggage and then figuring it out right and the setting the early on is the really important part because relationships are like cement if you you know in the beginning everyone's trying to be the ambassador of themselves so they think oh I don't want to ask for too much or I didn't really like

that the person's always late but I'll deal with that later but it really frustrates you and so then you know six months a year into the relationship you just blow up and you say how come you're always late I don't like that you're always late and the person's like this never bothered you before I don't understand okay thank you for telling me but you're so upset about it at that point or the person doesn't call when they say they will or whatever it is it's really important because now the cement is dried and now you

have to you know get a get a jackhammer out there and bring up the cement if you do it when the cement is wet and you say you know after the first couple times you know what when you're late I feel like you don't prioritize us getting together at this time or you don't prioritize me I would really appreciate it if you could come on time and now you get to see as the cement is drying can this person respond to that right and that's really important to know because why do you want to spend

a long time with this person if they're never going to be able to respond to it or why do you want to be frustrated for all this time when you could have just told them early on and now this person is used to being late they don't know it's a problem it's going to take a while for them to reverse their pattern whereas if they know in the beginning this is really important they're going to reverse their pattern or they're not and that's good information for you the fact that people don't talk about whether they

want to get married before a proposal happens is insane to me a boundary is something you set with yourself cut them off they're terrible because they didn't respect your boundary they can't respect your boundaries did you give them an opportunity to respect your boundaries and did you respect your own boundary all of our Behavior by the way is motivated by we want to be loved we really do and sometimes we do it in a way that makes people not want to love us and we don't realize that we're pushing people away with our Behavior but

at the core we are doing it because we want to be liked we want to be loved A lot of the reason why we don't say something in the beginning or in the early stages is either we want to give the other person Grace we don't want to be disliked for giving feedback and we want to be liked it can be well intentioned of maybe they'll change maybe they'll notice but actually as you said all we're doing is the problems getting bigger and bigger and bigger for us it's becoming less and less big for that

individual and so now the distance between you and that person when you share that problem is so far and wide because they've started to devalue being on time because you don't seem to care and you've started overvaluing your on time and so now you're at two opposite ends of the spectrum and now you can't hear each other because you're so far away from each other and I find that so interesting that when you try to avoid problems and the other person becomes more and more unaware you just become further apart so that then when you

raise the problem they can't hear you because you're so far away from each other right because then it becomes blame so if at the beginning you say you know when you come late I feel like you're not prioritizing me that person might because you said it calmly that person might say oh well the reason is I really was prioritizing you I know you like to eat early so I was trying to leave work early for you but I see that that's not working so what can we do because you like to eat early it's hard

for me to leave work at that time so I agree to it but then I'm on time and then you've got a problem you can work through together oh maybe we can just meet half an hour later from now on and now you're both happy yeah right but if you do it later it's kind of like well you never leave work for me well I didn't know I was leaving early for you know it just becomes a fight yeah I wish what I'm hearing is and and I think about this all the time when I'm

working with coaching clients or talking to friends or our community is just I wish and hope for everyone listening that we could be more curious about the context of people's decisions and choices rather than just the choice or decision in isolation so we see someone being late as they're just late rather than the context which you just so beautifully described which could be anything from I can't leave work early through to whatever else it may be and it's almost like we see those as excuses rather than as context yes if we start recognizing that every

person you're looking at has a whole history of Rel relationships and experiences and background and your job in order to be with someone is to research that and to discover that and understand how those points connect and dots connect and then all of a sudden you're looking at a real human being who has complexities and has layers as opposed to this idea of they chose to be late because they disrespected me right when it's not really about you potentially right you see it as they're lazy they're disrespectful and we don't realize we don't think we

like we our context becomes the whole story you know I always say we're unreliable narrators because because we're telling the story through our particular lens but we're not saying I will say to people in therapy if the other person were here and they were telling their version of this story what would it be and all of a sudden the story becomes so much more expansive there's the context and that makes the person not a villain but oh I feel I understand that I can see I have compassion in fact for why they made that decision

or at least I understand why they made that decision a lot of what Lori you're saying and and I agree with and I also am sharing is this sense of taking accountability taking responsibility but a lot of the time a lot of therapy speak on social media especially has made it feel like we're always the victim and everyone else is the problem and so when we use words like gaslighting and uh you know boundary setting and and whatever else it may be a lot of that language starts to make it feel like well I'm perfect

and the other person was the issue but you're actually you know and I'm I'm totally with you on that we're flipping that and going well no let's really look at how we can look at things differently and how we can change how we behave walk me through that balance and and how you encourage people to make sense of both because it's the saying is as old as it goes like you know it takes two to tango it takes two like you know it's always going to take two and so but but we we try and

make it that it has to be one or the other so how do we how do we balance that reconcile that in a healthy way yeah you know I think it's great that people are talking more about Mental Health on social media what drives me absolutely bananas is how people use words like you were saying boundaries gaslighting narcissism if you looked at social media you'd think like 80% of the population are narcissists 80% of the population is being gaslit um 80% of the population has no one who will respect their boundaries and so these terms

are being misused and what happens is you lose the fact of what you're talking about which is that we're all doing a dance in a relationship there's a dance going on and if you change your dance steps the other person either has to change their dance steps too because they can't dance with you otherwise or they'll just get off the dance floor that's really good to know so we don't think about what dance steps can I change we think oh they did this that's it and they're mislabeling people someone is not a narcissist if they

didn't see what your need was or they talk a lot about themselves there's a reason that that happening you need to be curious about that narcissistic personality disorder is very rare so not everybody is a narcissist gaslighting gaslighting is not I have a different opinion from you gaslighting is making someone feel like they're crazy for feeling how they're feeling those are very different things so someone can feel differently about the same experience this happens with couples all the time they're not gaslighting each other they have different feelings about the same experience they're not this is

not gaslighting but people on social media will say well I said that I felt this about this experience I'm being gaset cuz my partner doesn't agree with my feelings you don't have to agree you don't have to have the same feelings you can just notice that the person has those feelings and that you might have different feelings that's okay so what I think is important about this is that you know the boundaries is a really great example of this people say well this person doesn't you know we have to set these very rigid boundaries well

a boundary is something you set with yourself so a boundary is a request that you make to somebody else and this is why we see so many people say on social media I'm going to cut this person off and everyone says great cut them off they're terrible because they didn't respect your boundary they can't respect your boundaries did you give them an opportunity to respect your boundaries and did you respect your own boundary so an example might be let's say that your mother is always asking about when you're going to be in a relationship right

and are you dating anyone what's happening and that just ruins your time together you can say you know what Mom I will let you know if there's someone important in my life but in the meantime it really makes it hard to be around you when you're asking about something that you know is very stressful for me so if you ask about that I'm going to end the visit or I'm going to end the phone call very calm okay so then next time you get together with your mom she's really good for the first half hour

and then she's like oh and is there anyone that you're dating mom remember I don't have a good time with you when that comes up I'm going to leave but I really look forward to getting together with you another time when we can talk about something else oh no I'm so sorry I'm so sorry no Mom I'm going to leave but next time right next time your mom maybe she remembers and it's like an hour later and she's like oh but are you oh sorry sorry sorry oh Mom great I'm going to go now right

and so you realize like is this person able to respect your boundary but the main thing is you respected yours you said I'm going to leave if you ask that question and then over time and you have to be consistent if sometimes you say oh it's okay mom I understand no because she's just going to keep doing it so if you're consistent with yourself you have to keep your own boundary this isn't her fault this is about you and if you are not going to value your boundary enough to keep it every time that's on

you and so if you keep doing that and your mom eventually probably will stop because she knows that she wants to have a conversation with you or have an outing with you she'll probably stop asking you about it but if she doesn't you've learned that she cannot do that so I'm going to keep with my boundary and maybe I'm going to get together with her less or I'm still going to leave every time she brings that up right so it's about what you're going to do so it's not that you know nobody can keep your

boundaries it's about I've set something that I think is reasonable and I'm going to see what the other person is capable of and so when people say I'm going to be I'm going to cut this person off well are you really like you know or can you set a boundary that works for you so that you can have the good parts of the relationship and not the parts that are problematic the way we have to think about it is that people are probably going to keep breaking your boundaries are you going to keep them in

that situation right that's what's happening there it's like a boundary set for you to protect you from yourself yes from giving in to a scenario in a situation which you can't control but we think a boundary is almost an order or a law that other people have to follow and the truth is you can't control them like they're going to act how they're going to act and you've got to set a boundary where you know how to behave and you know how to act one of I'm so glad that you talked about your feelings around

how therapy speakers is healthy it's important for people to have these conversations but how certain words are being misused and bent online because I I do think that it creates exactly what you said a culture where we think that everyone we meet is a narcissist because everyone has 1% of a of a narcissist in them or everyone we meet is a gaslighter and it starts to create a really unhealthy belief system around who we around I I watched this movie recently I didn't get great great ratings on Rotten Tomato but I saw on a plane

and I watched it out of intrigue it's called cat person uh and it's based on this element of catfishing it's a kind of like a satire parody Thriller of the challenges of modern dating but how so much of those challenges are in our head but how they can transform into reality and if anyone hasn't watched it it's a fun one time watch on a plane or you know one night with a friend or whatever it may be but what I appreciated about it is it talked about this idea of how we kind of start viewing

people as more crazy or psychotic than they might be because of these little clues that we've been trained to look out for if that makes sense yes and and we do we look at other people as they're doing things that are very human and we label that crazy when we do it we we say oh but there's a reason and here's why I'm not crazy I had context like you said yeah we don't give them them the context now I'm not talking about abusive behavior of course but I'm talking about the things that we will

literally say oh that's unacceptable without saying wait a minute why why is this happening right now all of our Behavior by the way is motivated by we want to be loved we really do and sometimes we do it in a way that makes people not want to love us and we don't realize that we're pushing people away with our Behavior but at the core we are doing it because we want to be liked we want to be loved so is this person doing this very strange thing because they're a horrible person or because they're human

like me and at their core they're very vulnerable and they don't their behavior doesn't reflect the wish the wish is I want you to like me or I want to protect myself from being hurt the behavior is not okay it's kind of like when you say to little kids it's okay to be angry it's not okay to hit someone right so what is that equivalent as an adult it's okay to feel the feeling but what do we do with it and can we understand why that person is acting that way can we understand the context

absolutely absolutely one of the ways that that kind of transpires into a a bigger moment that our community had a lot of questions around was what's the right amount of pressure for someone to get married or proposed to you because I think people get to this point where they feel like we've invested so much time we're together we're here but this this person is just not proposing they're not getting they don't you know they don't want to get married whatever it may be and there gets to this point of this ultimatum of like and now

there's even a TV show called the ultimatum which is all about people dealing with that period in their life so what does someone do in that scenario where they feel there's good commitment we're getting somewhere but the other person isn't showing this excitement enthusiasm or even taking action on taking this relationship to the next level this is like that birthday party thing where you feel like you know the other person should just know um but we're not communicating about it the fact that people don't talk about whether they want to get married before a proposal

happens is insane to me it just I'm glad you said it it makes it makes no sense that it shouldn't be a total surprise you should know that you are both on the same page and you should know that the other person is definitely going to say yes that you've talked about this so many people come to me for premarital therapy where they can talk about because they know they want to get married and maybe they want to they're not even having any problems they just want to talk about their families and how they're going

to blend their families and the in-laws and the siblings and you know this person and this personality or they want to talk about money or they want to talk about whether they want to have kids and how many and how that might work or they want to talk about balancing their careers or they want to talk about sex and all the different things that might be hard to talk about before you get married that are so important and they might not have the answers right now but they're learning how to to talk about these challenging

topics and people say oh you're in therapy and you're not even married yet something must be terribly wrong it's like no something's terribly right and so the fact that that people are saying like I really want this person to propose but I don't understand why they're not and they don't feel like they can ask the person means you are not ready to marry that person if you don't feel like you can bring this up and say where are we we've been together for this amount of time I'm feeling this I'm wondering where you are with

this and the person you'll get so much information from I do want to marry you I don't feel ready yet because of this but I think I will feel ready in six months right and then you have a choice do you want to wait for that or do you not want to wait for that or never or they might say actually I don't know how I feel about getting married I don't know if I'm going to come around to that you have a choice about what you want to do with that I you know oh

I didn't realize that I I thought I did want to get married but now I'm not so sure well that's really important to know why what's happening between us so that conversation is so important or do you just want to sit there scheming with your friends about how you can drop hints or how you can like analyze the behavior because the person did this and what does that mean that doesn't sound like the kind of marriage you want to be in don't you want to be in the kind of marriage where you can say to

the person hey this is what I'm Desiring this is what I'm wanting where are you with this if that's such a basic conversation but that's so much healthier than an ultimatum too because I think we also get again it goes back to what we were talking about earlier you haven't given that regular check-in you haven't touched base you don't really know what that person's belief system is around marriage or whatever else it may be and all of a sudden it's built up for you as this big thing and now you're like okay well either you

marry me or we're over and then that's not comfortable for that person either because now they feel they're forced into a choice as opposed to a sense of how do you feel about this and what are your thoughts about this again comes back to we're so scared of appearing to be Naggy we're so scared of appearing to be high maintenance we're so scared of appearing to be the one who's needy or desperate or whatever may be but we are feeling all of those things because we're not checking how do we get over this herd and

by the way I I you experien it in both like a lot of people don't break up with people for years because they don't want to be seen as the bad person the amount of people I've spoken to who are like oh if I break up with her if I break up with them if I break up with him oh my God he's just going to hate me and I'm going to be the worst and I just don't want to do that to them and they're a nice person but really what we're saying is I

just don't want to I want to be liked yeah in both scenarios whether it's I don't want to nag them to marry me and propose I don't want to break up with them because I don't want them to see me negatively how do we get over that hurdle of recognizing that we're putting off the best decision for us or conversation because we want to be liked in a space that does that make sense you know what I'm trying to say right right well it's like a parent like if you if you set a boundary with

your child they might not like you in that moment but you're doing something loving and so if you break up with someone that you know you don't want to be with you're doing something loving so I I think that we need to reframe what we're actually doing what you're doing by staying in a relationship and and stringing someone along is actually cruel and it's wasting their time so you're not being nice you're not going to be liked but I think the other thing we were talking about about bringing things up it's not just about a

proposal it's even about lots of people will say oh you know I know I think my the person that I'm dating is also dating other people I would like to not date other people but I'm afraid that I'll appear too needy too early right as opposed to just being honest about what you want they can say yes or no but to be clear about look we're we're dating I don't feel comfortable with I I can't really feel like I can get close to you if I know that you're dating other people at this point because

we're spending a lot of time together so how do you feel about this are you ready to be in an exclusive relationship is that of interest to you if they say no wow great you've learned a lot um you can make a choice like I'm comfortable doing this for another month or I'm not or you know whatever it is um or they can say oh I didn't know that that was important to you and I would like that too let's do that or I'm not ready to do that so people do this in all kinds

of situations it's not just about marriage they're so afraid to just bring their true selves into the kind of relationship where the the whole game here is bringing your true self to it so if you can't practice that at any point in the relationship you're not ready to be together for the long term you can't just say oh now that we're engaged now I can bring my true self well that's a recipe for a disaster because now it's like you've misrepresented what you actually want to need in a relationship and maybe the other person has

misinterpreted what you want to need because you haven't expressed it but we're so it's I'm fully with you I just find that we're so it's so hardwired in us like we're so scared of rejection we're so scared of being able to say this is how I feel because we're like oh that person's just going to walk away from me like this is the thing that I'm going to lose this person over if I really tell them and I think often laori you've probably seen that people don't know how to effectively weigh their emotions so everything's

a 10 so right it's like oh they were late that's a 10 uh they're seeing other people that's a 10 like everything's a 10 and so I think we're all so bad at being like okay well this doesn't need to be raised because it's a two and yet this does need to be raised because it is a nine and this is a minus five like I'm just being ridiculous here and so I think because we weigh everything as a 10 then we don't know how to does that make sense like it does and I think

that's because again we we bring so much of the relationship outside where people don't have the context so and and that's what I was talking about earlier is like you say listen to what this person did or listen to what this person is doing and your friend sees that you're upset about it so they say yeah you should really bring that up you don't have to bring up every thought that crosses your mind that is not what I'm talking about I'm talking about what do you value what makes you uncomfortable to the point that this

is something that you want to address so I think people either undervalue it which is what we were talking about and they don't bring it up because they're afraid well maybe it's not such a big deal even though it is a big deal to you that this person is seeing other people you don't feel safe you don't feel comfortable but then there are things that they overvalue you know like well this person does this or that right I hear this in therapy all the time and I'm thinking really you know like this is but I'm

glad we're talking about it I'm glad they brought it up in therapy because now they can understand it better and now and by the way I think the other blind spot that people have in dating is they think these are things that make the other person not perfect and they don't realize oh there are things that the other person has to compromise on to be with me that I am not perfect either I'm sure there are so many things that I do that the other person is annoyed by or frustrated by or maybe if they

could create you know allak cart the perfect person they might not order that particular feature but I have it and they are with me anyway right and so we think we're going to change all these things about them without thinking about the other person is being so chill about some some of my maybe less than perfect features absolutely so how can we see the other person as human in these ways so we don't have to kind of craft them we don't have to shape them or mold them in a certain way we just have to

say okay these are the big things and the other little things remember they're putting up with things about me too and I'm very grateful for that yeah definitely yeah there's that there's that famous statement that says we judge other people by their actions not their intentions and we judge ourselves by our intentions not our actions and when we're looking at someone else we're blind to their intention it's just what they said or what they did whereas when we look at ourselves we can justify why we said it and why we did that and we have

to start offering both sides that Grace and compassion and empathy because otherwise we're going to constantly feel that everything's against us and everyone's not for us right when I cancel on someone I have a good valid reason and I still care about them when they cancel on me they're disrespectful and they don't care about me yeah yeah exactly one of the biggest this is I'm I'm enjoying this conversation so much Lori because I feel like we're really getting to like the heart and the core of so much of what I feel is making dating so

challenging right now and you know Finding Love is just such a important pillar of human happiness and connection that it breaks my heart when when I see that we're tripping ourselves up yeah and and when I asked my community what was one of the things that they think trips them up it was this idea that they have now coined future tripping this idea of planning the future in their head visioning a future with this person when things are looking okay or good in their head they're you know in the most extreme cases imagining their wedding

day or what their kids might look like but even in the immediate sense like this could be it this is amazing this is going to last and then all of a sudden they get a reality check where that person is not really mirroring that back how do we stop ourselves from future tripping or is there a healthy way of future tripping with the person is there a collective collaborative future tripping like what what does that look like I think the future tripping is being in the present and what I mean is what's happening now is

what it's going to look like in the future so instead of imagining oh this person will change in this way or this this we're going to have this kind of life but you don't know if the other person wants that kind of life if you're not talking about it now in the present you don't know how do how does this person treat me now what is it like when we're together the biggest indicator would be we had a disagreement how did we get through it that's what your future is going to look like we didn't

agree on this we were frustrated with each other we had a difference of opinion how did we repair that rupture we talk a lot about rupture and repair everybody's going to have ruptures you have it with your family members with your friends with your co-workers with your parents with your children especially with your romantic partners because we have this misguided notion that we shouldn't have a rupture with them because we're so in love and we see each other and we see eye to eye but of course you're going to have ruptures it's not so much

whether you're going to have a rupture it's what do you do with it and what does it look like so if you have been dating for let's say six months and you haven't had a rupture you guys are not going deep enough you guys don't know each other well enough you're still on your best behavior you have to be able to be yourselves that's going to tell you what the future looks like so stop the pretending be yourself be what you want your future to look like act like you want your future to look like

see how the other person acts and see what happens between the two of you and a repair would look like something like oh I didn't you know we're having a disagreement right now why don't we take 15 minutes and let's come back when we're not so heated and let's talk about that or you know you made a mistake um you know what I've been thinking about this you know say you have an argument you say we're not going to talk for a few minutes let's go cool off whatever um you call them back and you

say you know what I thought about it I was wrong and I'm so sorry here's what I did and I wish I had done it this way and that's great if your partner can do that or if you can do that right and then if your partner then can accept that without shaming you if your partner can say I really appreciate that and I wish that I had reacted differently in this way and how can I be more supportive in those moments that's beautiful that's your future but you have to see it in the present

you can't imagine what the future is going to be you have to actually live it in the present and say oh now I know it's going to be just like it is right now yeah and and like you're saying like if you are making plans in your head but you're uncomfortable to talk about those plans then they only exist in your head yeah like they aren't real they aren't they aren't going there I was going to I wanted to get your thoughts I don't know if you watch any of these shows or or whether you're

exposed to them and I know that your book's being turned into a a scripted show I believe but but when you look at like unscripted shows like you look at shows like love island or Love is Blind I mean love Island right now is culturally like one of the most talked about shows in for for young people for sure how do you feel about those shows and yes they're entertaining and yes we love to get into all the gossip and what's going on and everything how is that affecting our views and our own relationships yeah

I haven't seen those shows but many of my therapy clients talk about them um I did just watch Bridgerton which is a scripted show but very much like what I imagine those other shows to be and I just think that you know people think that that's what it's supposed to be like so many times people will come into therapy and they'll say is this what it's supposed to feel like is this what it's supposed to be like and it's like how does it feel to you oh it feels really good well then that's how it's

supposed to be how does it feel to you I don't know just doesn't doesn't feel right well then that's not how it's supposed to be and that's really again coming back to can you tap into how do I feel around this person does it feel as you said peaceful calm do I feel safe do I feel comfortable and it's not just that it's not just that because you can have friends that you feel that way around yeah but if you don't have that and you have the other things that's not enough that kind of brings

me on to this this next that I want to dive into you deeply around is what is it about the 5 to sevene mark that ends in a divorce or a breakup like why is that the number that you see in the research why has that become such a prominent pivot point or end point what what have you seen over the years what I see happen around that time is several things are happening there's a developmental change that happens throughout a marriage and you both become different people and the Rel reltionship becomes different and you

adapt together and those are the strong marriages and the strong relationships so that's that's what you're being called in to either you grow together or you grow apart well so so different things happen so first of all I think that sometimes people don't know each other well before they get married then they're married and they're like a year in and they think oh this isn't exactly what I wanted but I'm in it I'm married and then they say okay let's let's have a baby right um because then that's the next step and then now that's

really hard parents is really challenging and if you and your partner are not already on Solid Ground it's going to be extra challenging so then you think oh my partner's the problem when actually the relationship is the problem so many times people come into coup's therapy and the first thing that they say is the problem is and let me tell you everything that's wrong with my partner and so what I do with couples therapy is I say before you come in I want you each to come in and say if you were to be your

best selves in this relationship what would you need to change of yourself each of you and they say it out loud and that's all they're working on is changing that they're not working on changing the other person and when they do that they say oh wow like that actually changes the relationship the relationship is an entity it's not just you know there's two people it's like there's three people happening it's like there's you there's you and then there's the two of you and so I think around 5 years either they realize I didn't know enough

about this person or I still have work to do or things have come into our lives a parent got sick it was really challenging we didn't know how to deal with it we had children we didn't know how to deal with that um you know we've had we've had difficulties we've had loss all kinds of things happen at at that point yeah I just want to say to your point I've had so many friends who are given the advice that if your relationship's not working out have a baby and it will save it and Terri

it never made sense to me because if your relationship's not working working now you have another relationship to take care of who is a new child a new human being in the in the world and so how are you you're going to give less attention to each other you've already been given no attention now you have less attention to share with each other and more attention on this another being I'm I'm shocked that that advice still gets passed around and people still see it as a viable solution to a bad relationship yeah yeah they think

of it as like sun cost like we've been married this long so we can't we can't start over we can't you know what do we do to save this let's have a baby because it's a distraction they think like this will be great it's exciting it'll bring some vitality and energy and aliveness into the relationship when if you don't already have that aliveness and that Vitality between the two of you the baby is not going to provide that for you you're going to get a lot of outside attention like oh that's so great look at

the baby but in reality you guys are going to have to be more of a team than you've ever been and problem solve more than you've ever had to and figure out how to create connection under much more challenging circumstances so it's the most counterintuitive advice and and I I always tell people if you are not solid do not bring another person into this family yeah it's almost like you already don't have problem solving skills you don't have collaboration skills and now you're having to make choices on behalf of an entirely new human being where

the stakes are so high and everything feels like it's personal of whether things are going well for the child or not well what happened is the Pain Olympics start and what I mean is that you know I had the baby all day I have it harder you didn't do this no I had it harder cuz I've been at work all day and now I have to take over this and you didn't have to work all day whatever it is they VI for who has the most pain and then they compete for it and that becomes

their relationship you know you owe me because I won the Pain Olympics today no you owe me because yesterday I won the Pain Olympics and I never got my reward and that becomes their whole relationship yeah one of the questions I ask people when they say to me like should we have kids now or is it the right time to have children I often say that I think we're asking the wrong question like the question should be do I know how my life is going to change and am I ready for that and am I

aware of that and are we aware of how our life is going to change to the point you're making of well who is going to take the responsibility and am I going to feel like you're not helping out and what does that look like again having a conversation about it seems like the Practical thing to do another relationship that seems to add more complexity since the beginning of time is in-laws you mentioned it earlier that you have clients that come and see you for that the amount of friends I've spoken to recently who have this

challenge where they feel that their in-laws are too involved their in-laws are not involved when their in-laws are too involved they're too controlling of either or one of the partners or they have expectations they have certain demands on time and holidays and where they're spent and all of these kind kinds of things what I found to be the core pain in again going back to our earlier conversation is people feel their Partners parents are too involved too demanding too handson but they feel their partner can't stand up to their parents and their partner doesn't understand

how it affects them that's kind of where I've seen the main pressure that people are carrying how does someone deal with the fact they feel their partner doesn't defend them or stand up for them in front of their partner's parents and therefore they feel their partner doesn't understand what they're going through I have gotten thousands of letters to my column and to my podcast about in-laws and what I always say is in-law issues are coup's issues so people think it's about the Mother-in-law the father-in-law it's about the two of you and if your partner whose

parent that is cannot talk to their parent on your behalf that's a issue M so the person will say oh it's really not that bad but if your partner is saying I am really struggling with this and it's not your you know it's it's not their parent you need to talk to your own parent about this you need to have your partners back and if you don't your partner is going to feel that you are treating them the same way that their parent is you might not be doing the same thing but the fact that

they don't have your support is going to pull you apart in this marriage because your partner it's not about taking sides it's about prioritizing this couple's relationship and saying listen when you do this it makes my wife feel like she's not a good parent or she's not a good wife and you might have these values mom and I understand that but I don't want you saying those kinds of things you can have whatever thoughts you have please don't say them to me or to my wife because I'm very happy with our relationship and what you're

really standing up for is the relationship it's not just standing up for partner is standing up for we understand each other we can talk about these things with each other and we do not want that kind of interference what do you do when your partner doesn't have the guts to do that when they don't have the authority or the the relationship with their own parents which has constantly been they've been baby they've been you know the Mommy's boy or whatever it may be and they don't really have the courage to stand up to their parents

and say what you just said which isn't rude it's not mean but in their head they're like how could I ever defy my parents like what does that look like or or they're guilt tripped like by their parents where it's like they're like I can never do that to my mom like she's loved me since day one like you just turned up in my life two years ago like what do you do when your partner's feeling that way yeah well I think you help your partner to understand that this is a very loving thing for

the relationship with the parent too so you're not telling the parent I don't want you in our lives you're saying saying I want you in our lives we both want you in our lives but we want you in our lives in a way that makes us feel like we're enjoying our time with you and if it becomes this thing where we're not enjoying our time with you and it becomes problematic we're going to be spending less time with you and Mom I don't want that and my wife doesn't want that we both want to spend

time with you we just want it to be enjoyable so we're asking that you not talk about this whatever the issue is or you not do this or you not tell my wife to do this or you not criticize because that makes it not enjoyable and then we're going to see you less and we love you so much that we feel comfortable saying this to you if we didn't love you and we didn't care how much we saw you we wouldn't be bringing this up I'm bringing this up because I love you and I want

to be able to see you yeah and I think when people when you set boundaries in a loving way when you say I want to see more of you I want to be able to continue to see you I'm not pushing you away I'm pulling you close but the way to pull you close close is to make sure that we have a good time together yeah yeah and I find that sometimes and it can be different in every relationship but often this at least in the people I know the pressure often falls on the man

who feels like he's in between his mom and his wife in that in that kind of a setup or at least those are the ones that I'm aware of and I'm sure it has it takes all sorts of forms but it's often quite a heavy pressure that I know a lot of men feel and they're like I don't want to let my mom down and I don't want to let my wife down and now I'm stuck in between these two things and it's almost like who do I choose and I feel like I have to

choose a side right but you're not choosing you're actually choosing to bring everyone together you're saying I want us all to be able to be together and so what I'm doing is I'm making sure that it that we can spend more time together yeah that's great advice and I really hope that reframe is kind of you know permeates one of the things I imagine you see a lot in therapy is one partner has forced the other partner to come there maybe in coup's therapy it's hard for two people to feel equally as excited maybe if

they're premarital that may be more equal but when it's reactive it's definitely one saying we need to go to therapy and someone may feel forced one thing I found that a lot of people say to me is Jay I just can't get my partner to open up like whether it's in therapy whether it's with me I'm asking them I'm talking to them I'm just like I just want to know what you feel like even with the question you said earlier of like hey I I have a dream to get married what's your take on it

and they'll be like I don't know or they'll they'll go quiet when it's like hey we need to go talk to your parents about this because they're getting really involved and they just go quiet they don't know what to say and they constantly feel that these their partner doesn't have the capacity to open up and I find this especially with young couples where they're just like my partner doesn't have an emotional vocabulary like they don't have the ability how have you encouraged people in those scenarios to be able to open up or help their Partners

open up or create a safe space when a lot of people don't have that skill and that ability to actually even know what they're feeling and thinking yeah you have to create the space for that person to feel comfortable opening up so often people who can't open up or have a hard time with it they were not given the space before so when they opened up someone would say oh no you don't feel that way right so when they were growing up they'd say you know I'm upset about this or I'm sad about this and

the parent would say no don't be sad let's go get ice cream right so there was no space for the sadness or I'm really angry about this oh you're overreacting you're so sensitive so they don't tell someone that they're angry about something or I'm really worried about this oh don't worry it'll all work out or what do you mean you're worried about that why are you always so worried about everything so they never felt like they had a space for their feelings to be received and held we talk about in therapy the the concept of

feeling felt what does it mean to feel felt and I love that expression because I think that when you want someone to open up they want to feel felt they want to know that you're going to receive whatever they have to offer in a compassionate way and in a way that feels connected so when you tell someone tell me what you're feeling open up that feels like so much pressure as opposed to just you know being with them so maybe you you start with something like hey I'm feeling really this about this you know what

was that like for you and they might say it was fine because they don't know did you have a good time you know did it make you sad when this happened it made me sad but maybe you didn't feel that way you know just just helping them to have the vocabulary there's this thing called a feelings wheel and a lot of people only learned like with the colors the primary colors right so red yellow blue right and then if you mix red and yellow you get orange and there's more nuance and if you put more

yellow it becomes more yellowy orange right and so people only know like happy sad mad but they don't know like I felt frustrated I felt scared I felt vulnerable I felt anxious but where did you feel the anxiety well I felt it in my belly I felt it in my chest right so there's so much nuance and for people who don't open up they often only have those three primary emotions and then they don't really know how to describe what they're feeling so you can mirror that for them and model that when you talk about

your feelings like I was really afraid of that and I was really angry but actually underneath the an anger with my friend I was feeling hurt and I realized I was feeling really hurt by her behavior and it seemed like I was angry but I'm feeling really neglected and so you know did you ever feel that way have you ever felt you know whatever it is but it just like it just becomes part of the air it's not like sit down face me and tell me how you're feeling open up to me that feels like

so much pressure but it just like it's in the air and they've never lived in that environment before you have to remember so it's just this is a new planet that they've landed on and here's it's like a new let's say it's a new city and in this city we speak a different language and we speak in the language of emotion and they're going to start to pick up the language bit by bit but they're not going to be fluent right out the so don't say speak French to me it's like oh here's this new

language you'll pick up a few words here and there that's so good that's such a great Visual and analogy like if I turn up in a different city or a different country and someone just expected me to know how to speak that language I would feel so much pressure and and actually we've all experienced that where you're like I don't even want to try and say a sentence because I feel I'm going to sound so stupid it's that comfortability and that could take a while this is my last question I want to ask you today

Lori what how long not abuse not um something as Extreme as that how long can you tolerate disrespect confusion and distance from your partner before you feel this is enough I I can't do it anymore I feel like every relationship goes through phases and periods of distance of Disconnect of disagreements it's normal it's it's going to happen across a long period of time but when does an individual say you know what I can't do this anymore I can't keep tolerating this what have you found that makes people feel strongly about leaning in that direction versus

I can I'm I'm in it some more yeah well first of all there's a study that shows that if you think of your relationship like a bank account and you want to have lots of Goodwill in there let's say it's an account of Goodwill and you don't want to take a lot of withdrawals so when we talk about disrespect so you need five positive interactions for every one negative interaction or you're going to be operating in deficit spending and it won't work but we're talking about maybe the confusion or somebody had a bad moment but

they repaired it those kinds of things disrespect is so corrosive in a relationship so if someone does it the first time like the cement drying you say hey that you don't tell them you were so disrespectful that was so mean you say I felt really disrespected by that can you tell me what you actually meant right and they may say oh I'm sorry I said it that way I should not have said it that way here's what I meant and it came off completely different and I will make sure that doesn't happen anymore that's the

response you want right and here's what I was thinking and I need to work on that if someone says that wasn't I I you know if you said I felt disrespect and they say well it wasn't disrespectful or I didn't intend for it to be you say okay you didn't intend for it to be but it felt disrespectful to me and let me explain more about why and the person still is like well I didn't mean it okay but here's how it landed on me that person doesn't seem like they have a lot of flexibility

the number one trait after emotional stability that predicts the success of two people having a good relationship is flexibility you cannot have a good relationship with neuroticism rigidity um lack of self-awareness so if this person can't respond to you and they're still being disrespectful I would not wait um the question is are you being clear about what disrespect is because again then we get to you know someone said something that maybe was not disrespectful but because of your history you hear something as being disrespectful you know they might have said like oh I don't know

if that that job is worthy of you and you hear that is are you saying that like I have a bad job and you're saying no I think your worth is higher than your job right so that person was actually being very respectful of you and saying the opposite of what you thought so you have to really be clear about can I hear this person clearly but if this person is critical of you and sometimes the the way they frame it is I was just kidding you can't take a joke that is so abusive um

so it's it's not funny criticism is not a funny way of making a joke and if you have to put something someone down to be funny then that's probably not someone you want to be in a relationship with Lori thank you so much for coming and sharing your wealth of wisdom and depth of insight today with our community I want to thank everyone who's been listening and watching for your amazing questions please keep sending them through so that we can keep getting Lorry back I think you've helped identify so many root issues today I feel

like we really got to a place of talking about some of the deepest aspects of where we go wrong at the same time as talking about a lot of the day-to-day challenges that we seem to hear about and I really hope that everyone who's listening and watching I hope this helps you in your love life to find deeper connections to find more meaningful relationships and ultimately maintain a natural healthy truly nourishing relationship uh with a partner and uh wishing you all the best in your love life so thank you so much again Lori for being

here yeah and thank you so much for having me and thank you to your audience for submitting so many great questions yeah thanks Lori hey everyone if you love that conversation go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist lorri gotle where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love relationships heartbreak and dating if you're trying to figure out that space right now you won't want to miss this conversation if it's a romantic relationship hold hands it's really hard to argue it actually calms your nervous systems

just hold hands as you're having the conversation it's so lovely