The Gottman Doctors: Affairs Can Save Your Relationship! If You See This, Walk Away!

when the sex Falls away it can become a serious problem and the largest study done on the quality of sex with 70,000 people in 24 countries found the differences between people who say they have a great sex life have an awful sex life has to do with really that's right DRS John and Julie Gutman are world-renowned psychologists and researchers who have studied over 40,000 couples written over 50 books and helped millions of people find and stay in love for over 50 years people don't know how to have good relationships so I've got so many questions

I'll start from the top what are we getting wrong well first of all most people are living under the myth that you have to be compatible with a partner which is absolutely wrong and this is really interesting there t-shirt that where women smell t-shirts that have been worn by men for at least 2 days and selected the ones they thought smelled the best and they found they were selecting the men that were his most Divergent from them genetically rather than people who are like them cuz we're not really turned on by our Al and there

isn't a one looking for the one is a big mistake what about how do I become the most attractive version of me if I'm looking for a partner yeah that's a great question and this is what you do this is a difficult question to ask but have you ever seen cheating help a relationship oh very very often really when there's recovery but can it be treated 75% so far in our research how we developed a model and here's what it involves first this is a sentence I never thought I'd say in my life um we've

just hit 7 million subscribers on YouTube and I want to say a huge thank you to all of you that show up here every Monday and Thursday to watch our conversations um from the bottom of my heart but also on behalf of my team who you don't always get to meet there's almost 50 people now behind the dire of a CEO that work to put this together so from all of us thank you so much um we did a raffle last month and we gave away prizes for people that subscribed to the show up until

7 million subscribers and you guys love that raffle so much that we're going to continue it so every single month we're giving away money can't buy prizes including meetings with me invites to our events and ,000 gift vouchers to anyone that subscribes to the DI Co there's now more than 7 million of you so if you make the decision to subscribe today you can be one of those lucky people thank you from the bottom of my heart let's get to the conversation John Julie why do you both do what you do I love that question

one has to Define what we do and there are many things that we do first of all I love to write that's great I've been helping people since I was eight years old for some odd reason uh and I love love love connecting with people and loving them through their pain that's why I do what I do and would you CL yourself as a clinical psychologist is that your official title yes okay John could you answer the same question which is why do you do what you do and I guess what do you do well

to me it's really an interesting puzzle to try to understand what makes relationships work and what makes groups work what what makes people be cooperative versus competitive selfish and mean what makes them be altruistic and empathetic what makes what makes relationships become sources of longevity and health versus illness and loneliness and despair so for me it's a puzzle and it's fun to work on a puzzle and what do you do I measure things accurately and reliably and you know then really just kind of see where the data fall out so um it's really applying statistics

and measurement and good math to try to understand processes that are going on between people with this really ultimate question of what what makes relationships work and what makes groups work what makes humans cooperative and magnificent at their best versus selfish uh greedy and functioning at their worst so it's curiosity that drives me that's all and collectively how many people do you think you've studied researched treated worked with in your practice over the last however many decades well we've done research on 40,000 couples about the start couple therapy uh using questionnaires and then more intensely

using physiology and and objective rating of emotional Behavior about 3,000 couples follow it over time as long as 20 years and how many books have you collectively written Julie I think we're on 51 but I'm not sure I've lost I amum where I wanted to start with this conversation is is really with I guess the subje of relationships but how we find and form them in the modern society because when you look at the stats despite the incredible work you've done over the last couple of decades it doesn't seem that we're better at finding and

keeping relationship than ever before if you especially if you look at non-romantic relationships you know loneliness and isolation are absolute alltime highs and the technology that was invented over the last couple of decades came with a promise which was that it was going to connect us but it doesn't seem to have succeeded so I really want to start by answering this question about how people find love and form those relationships in the modern world and like what the data says and what what our psychology says about where we're going wrong I had some independent research

that I found uh that says according to the US Census Bureau nearly 50% of the US population are currently single according to the 2023 survey by pe research about 33% of men reported being single followed by 28% of women the average first marriage for men is 30 years old for women it's about 28 um we're having less sex however before um we're getting in relationships later than ever before marriages still seem to break down almost half of them and you probably know those numbers better than me and almost half of people are using dating apps

but I think if you speak to anybody that uses a dating app they feel like they're all having a bad time when we think about finding someone to love us or that we love how much of our effort should be about actively going out there and putting ourselves out there buying a new dress whatever it is putting ourselves out in the market versus the internal work of building ourselves into someone that is a magnet instead of a door to-door salesman you know what I mean beautiful beautiful yes um I love your uh thought about developing

ourselves internally because that's what goes wrong that makes dating app so terrible many many people suffer from terrible insecurity right they feel shame they may have been criticized a lot as a kid or in their work and as a result they hide out they hide and what they present to the world either through dating apps this is very common or just even meeting people at a party is something they're not it's something that they believe is the ideal but where are they getting their information they're getting it from TV from Hollywood from idealized Heroes and

heroins that are not real also they're living under the myth that you have to be compatible with a partner which is absolutely wrong as will talk about um in other words you have to have the same interests the same values uh maybe the same background the same uh class you were raised in and so on all of that is wrong interestingly enough so when you talk about building that internal World basically what you're saying is trust your own intuition trust who you are people will come to you if you are genuinely yourself and if you're

not um then people may mistake you for somebody else have an expectation of who you are and you're in inevitably going to fail that expectation which then gives you a negative experience uh because you feel like this other person person is rejecting you and doesn't like you but the reality is they're not rejecting you they're rejecting this idealized portrait that you tried to present to them which isn't real I guess a lot of people would think when they hear that but Julie if I show up as myself no one's going to love me yeah that's

right especially on a first date that's right that's right that's you know that's the sadness people don't believe because of all that criticism in the society that they're worthy of Love they don't believe it they have to you know be uh I don't know what Bruce Willis or something in order to uh have somebody attracted to them have somebody really want to get to know them which isn't true at all in fact it's the opposite what do you think to that John yeah I've been thinking a lot about this question of you know how do

we find true love um and you know part of the problem I think is that um as you mentioned loneliness is a very serious thing and um and so many people are lonely and part of what they haven't done is to is build a friendship Network that can support them friends are just so important as a precondition for finding the love of your life because you know the the research that's been done on Strangers now shows that people think that 97% of strangers if they talk to them will be rejecting and will feel like they're

invading their privacy but the data shows that just the opposite is true that when you approach a stranger almost 97% of the time they're quite delighted to become contacted and they and they meet an initial contact with interest enthusiasm and so talking to strangers turns out to be really a very important thing and turning a stranger into a friend turning your social networks into places that are not alienating that are you know places where you actually can enjoy human and Company uh is an important pre prerequisite to dating so I would say you need to

build that friendship Network first and once you're not lonely you're not desperate and then you can find somebody much more easily I think this is a really interesting point which is you you finish there by saying if you're not lonely you're not desperate and I was I was thinking as you're talking about what the most attractive version of me is to the world if I'm looking to find a partner whether I'm a man or a woman um it doesn't sound like a desperate version of me is a very attractive version of me right so on

this point of Attraction we'll start with you John and then we'll go because we started with Julie last time what do we know about what makes people attracted to each other like how do I become the most attractive version of me to the world if I'm looking for a partner I think everyone is really interesting and attractive as long as you know they're with somebody who's curious about them so uh if you're with somebody who's really snobby and uh you know condescending Superior nobody's at their best you know but when you're with somebody who's really

interested in you then you can really emerge and just about everybody is really interesting their thoughts are unique and their background is interesting and their their goals and their their struggles are really fascinating so um I think it's the social context that makes the difference rather than the individual so the problem with dating I think is that they create this very artificial situation in which everyone's being evaluated and assessed and they're swiping left you know all the time well my person's not quite right not quite right not quite right not quite right the research of

Eli fle shows that there's nothing you can measure in two individuals that will predict whether they like each other there's nothing you can measure nothing you can measure in fact you can actually ask people exactly what they're looking for in a partner and find that exact person in a large database and it's very unlikely that they'll like that person when they meet them yet if you randomly pair them with strangers 22% of people like each other when they first meet I wonder about the role that self-esteem plays in attraction it's kind of what we're talking

about with like being desperate maybe they feel like a similar thing and I wonder if there's any like data that supports this idea that self-esteem or your self-perception is this invisible force that makes you attractive or not attractive I've actually seen it in some of my friends who I won't know who started going to the gym and just because they started working on themselves it's almost like they grew six Ines like they just were like different people yeah so yeah a lot of Attraction we think like go get the blow dry I'll go get a

better outfit but this goes back to point about how much of it is actually like do the internal work what do you think I think there's a lot to be said for that yeah if you have a group of friends you know who really like you and you really like them then it's easier to emerge and you know this this dating situation is so artificial that people are so terrified you know when they meet somebody and instead of approaching them with curiosity about them they're worried that they won't make a good impression and they're so

self-conscious of themselves rather than being curious and interested in the other person and because if they're curious and interested in the other person you know it doesn't matter what happens right I mean uh you meet somebody new and you learn about them and it's an interesting experience and maybe they're interested in you too so the dating experience is just kind of fun you know it's about exploring two people exploring one another and then there's no objective there's no there's no real goal there and then it's much less artificial and then when you meet somebody you

really click with that's a wonderful experience and especially when you meet an outlier like I met Julie I dated 60 women before I met Julie she's number 61 I had a database so I knew I met an outlier for me she was an outlier because I just loved interacting with her it was just so much fun and uh she was Head and Shoulders above any person I'd met before do you know what's interesting though when people look at you too and when they look at other relationships they'll go okay John I get it so you

got to make a database you got to wait till the you find the one right and this is often the cause of much procrastination as it relates to love everyone's looking for the Julie you know there isn't a one you know that's one of the the other myths there isn't a one and it's funny because we've seen this in our research on the opposite end of it and here's what I mean every pairing of people uh no matter how wonderful they are no matter how much you love them the two of you will always have

Perpetual problems between you and those are based on either lifestyle preference differences personality differences always and at some point those conflict and so you know what we saw in our research was you know something like 69% of the conflicts that couples suffer from or have are Perpetual problems they never go away so you know when I have somebody coming into my office that says I want to find my soulmate my soulmate it's like huh what's a soulmate you know I mean there you out of out of whatever in the US we have what 350 million

people there's probably 500,000 of them that you would find wonderful and attractive right so looking for the one is a big mistake because inevitably they snore at night or you know they eat with their mouth open or you know something that drives you crazy so okay so you're not looking for the perfect person you're not the perfect person and that's what I was referring to earlier as you know let's see each other as human beings there is no Perfection we are all flawed we all have cracks in us and those can be seen as beautiful

too we don't have to be perfect to be loved right y right it's interesting because that marries to something that I was reading about in your books where you talk about how often attracted to people who are very different from ourselves and just the very nature that they're different from us means that there's going to be that pretty much constant conflict why is it the case that we're attracted to people that are different from ourselves is that true um because it doesn't seem to make sense on the surface you'd think I would be attracted to

someone that likes Manchester United and you know like my favorite food and my favorite stuff because then we'll get on like a house on fire but you're telling me that we're attracted to people that like yeah the research of class wakin is so interesting uh this t-shirt study that he did uh where women smell t-shirts that have been worn by men for at least two days and selected the ones they thought smelled the best uh they actually were selecting what wakin found was they were selecting t-shirts of men those pheromones were attractive the men were

as most Divergent from them genetically just in the genes of the immune system wa very Divergent kinds of people smelled really attractive to these women rather than people who were like them and actually the experiment was done it showed they actually like those men better than other men they might have met so genetically different genetically different in terms of the immune system so here's this uh evolutionary explan of why people are searching for somebody who's really different cuz we're not really turned on by our clone we're not turned on be by people who are just

like us Julie and I are vastly different she's you know this uh Adventurer you know this Outdoors person she loves the trees and Hiking you know up Mountain Trails I'm an endorsement I like sitting in my chair and reading books on mathematics and quantum mechanics and general relativity Theory he's a consumate indoorsman so we're very different you know but what's the EV Sher reason then do you think for why we like people that are different oh the genetic immunity so um remember it's all about reprodu reproduction right so if you've got two very Divergent sets

of genetics in terms of the immune system that child is going to have a broader uh genetic base as their immune system as opposed to two identical or close to it where they'd have a very narrow genetic base for immune immunity is there anything else that if if you were advising me if I was a single man and I was saying okay how do I find a partner um what should I be doing or looking for should I make a list of things that I'm looking for um should I be I don't know you said

earlier about being my authentic self as much as I can be because that you don't want people to be attracted to your mask but should I be making a list like what what should I be going for is there qualities that are enduring as it relates to success in Romance that everyone should be looking for should I lower my expectations it's not about qualities it's about well I hate to say it but it's more about Behavior so for example um and I have so many particularly women who've been divorced and now they're dating and they

ask that question and here are several of the things that I always tell them one is uh does the person male or female ask you questions about yourself or do they broadcast did they just tell you who they are oh my God my boss just gave me a promotion oh my you know aren't I cool or I just won this athletic competition no are they asking you questions about yourself and not only that but listening to the answers right and taking in the answers and oh that's interesting that's one another is you know our society

is very striated right so how do they treat people who have let's say less social status than they do how do they treat the waitress who comes to their table do they treat them with disdain or scorn or you know the stake is terrible take it back or are they kind do they treat them like human beings that's another thing do they treat people equally or uh do they only treat a certain group with respect and the others not that's number two number three is are they reliable do they do what they say they're going

to do if they say they're going to call you do they call you if they say I'll pick you up at 8 are they there at 8 so reliability is a big deal and of course nobody can be perfectly reliable you know life happens but do they call you to let you know oh I ran into heavy traffic so I'll be 20 minutes late so you know there's a consideration there of your time of your energy curiosity as John pointed out uh as to who you are and also um there are so many people who

as you have been talking about are so terribly lonely watch out for this watch out for people saying in the first date oh my God you're it you're the answer oh my God you're fantastic I think I love you you know that kind of um rush into let's have an intimate relationship right now I want to marry you and I'm going to ask you tomorrow no you know they people need to take their time to get to know one another and peel away the layers slowly and carefully to build trust do you think that speed

to rush into a relationship is a sign of something else further up like further Upstream maybe incity you bet needy there and I don't like the word needy um because everybody has needs we're pack animals you know we need each other we depend on each other but um somebody who can contain themselves as you were pointing out with or without you energy that's right and have done that internal work so that they're not looking to you to answer every problem they have M you know I would give different advice to to a male who's who's

dating I I would say you know just have fun you know me people like when I was creating my database you know I I met a woman who was a survivalist he had a 38 Magnum pistol right by her by her bedside and she spent thousands of dollars on gowns to go to Opera cuz she loved Opera and I remember sitting there in her house and saying you know God this is really interesting you know I I don't know if I like this person or I could be with this person but she's fascinating you know

it's kind of fun getting to know her and then at a certain point there's somebody you meet like I met Julie and everything feels right the world just kind of opens up when you talk and your heart opens and it's very different it's not just interesting it's really there's potential there that you don't feel with anybody else were you desperate when you met Julie though I don't think I was oh I don't think I was desperate I I've been divorced for about seven years I was looking to meet somebody my you know close to my

age who you know was an interesting person and uh I met a lot of interesting people but she was different I also this question impart because I I wonder if someone's ever done a study where they take a group of people who are looking to find someone and then they take a group of people who who aren't really looking and they see who has the most success and when I say looking I mean some people are literally looking for a husband and they they feel like they need to find one within six months because you

know biological clocks and goals they might have for their lives and all these kinds of things versus a group of people that are just open to it and I wonder who's more attractive I think either one can work right you know I I don't think there has to be a magic formula so I think I think if you approach the whole situation with curiosity and wonder you know and just kind of see who we meet and see what happens but but that see sounds more like this group here you know that's right I agree with

you what you're describing is that being confident in yourself and just being curious as opposed to I really have to find somebody I need to find somebody good um very very very different I think about this in part in the context of business as well because as an investor you get an energy from the entrepreneur that's trying to get investment from you as to whether they need you or whether you're an option and it's so remarkable how much more likely you are to invest in a Founder who makes you feel like an option and I

think because and then you have these other Founders when I can literally think of one example that popped to my mind from the last couple of weeks where they were so desperate that it was almost rude wow how did that manifest as in the way that they sent their emails and the way that they were like demanding and how urgent they wanted to speak to you and all these kinds of things and how like loky um expectant they were from you made me feel like their business wasn't doing well whereas F and I think about

this in the context of relationships whereas the founders and entrepreneurs that message me where they're kind of more patient they you know they're kind of maybe a little bit busier the ones that have that like it's I'll keep going back to that phrase like with or without you energy where you're an option to them you're much more likely to invest you feel like it's a privilege to invest and I think about this from the context of the question I just asked if someone's like I need a husband now versus someone's like I'm open I'm curious

I'm willing to go on the date and see yeah right if we're right because I realize that me saying yes to you is a huge investment so I need to take my time to figure out if that investment is going to be worthwhile because I respect myself right yeah maybe you're right right maybe it's better if you're just kind of confident and not so desperate any fake confidence Julie this is the problem no you know as a matter of fact when people try to fake confidence they often um overstep it right and uh golly I

know I'll never forget that his fellow in high school he would brag about himself without knowing that he was bragging he would boast and boast and boast and boast and I realized oh my God I cannot stand this you know because it was so fake but important thing I realized that the extremity of my negative attitude towards him was because there was a part of me that was just like them that felt insecure that wanted to present you know this Perfect Image to people that I wasn't uh which is what he was trying to do

and so then it's like oh I've got a little work to do on myself well you know one thing one thing about this dating situation that's interesting is even though there's nothing you can measure in individuals that will predict that they like each other once they get together and start interacting our lab can measure if that interaction has promise or not wow really we measure openness uh the emotional connection the fact that people are either connecting with one another communicating with one another or not we measure tension versus relaxation or we measure uh curiosity and

interest and all those things yeah so can you give me really specifically exactly how a couple would show up really specifically if they were if they had promised to last and be successful together so if you watch their videotape and they had promise you'd find them laughing together uh you know mirroring each other smiling uh asking questions being open uh wondering about things and you'd have this real sense of exploration and open openness and um curiosity and interest in one another whereas in in a couple that wasn't doing very well you youd sense this tension

uh sarcasm a lot of you know negativity uh bragging about themselves talking about themselves rather than being interested in the other person body language body language the ratio of positive to negative emotion in in those couple would be much less than one whereas it would be 3 to one or 5 to one among couples who are really getting along very very well where is this potential this openness and potential what's the difference in body language Let me let me demonstrate it so somebody who's overconfident pretend he's not sitting here is just going to be doing

so that for people that aren't watching laying back on laying back your arm you know stretch out over the top of the chair next to you you're leaning back you know which is to me come to me you know it's all me um it's all about me and I'm so cool and somebody who is really engaged is going to be more kind of leaning forward and making eye contact being fairly relaxed you know not not hunching their shoulders inward which shows they're probably depressed they're insecure they're hiding out but you know just relaxed their shoulders

are you know not up to their ears um they're allowing their eye gaze to look away as they think about something and then they look right at you and they answer the question all of those indicators that ratio of I to other I Me Mine you know predominates uh conversations where there's all this tension say that again sir is where you know the conversation is really about just myself I'm sort of putting myself in the center versus being interested in you being interested in us being interested in we and and that emerges that openness emerges

in language as well there's also a reciprocity uh in the sense that um let's say you and I are meeting um you asked me some questions about myself I'll answer those questions but then I'll ask you I'll come back and ask you questions about yourself as opposed to go ahead ask me more questions and more questions and more um so I'm only happy when I'm talking about myself right right so you know you're going back and forth exhibiting that Curiosity as opposed to uh just adoring somebody being curious about you but not reciprocating by being

curious about them I um it's funny because you're talking about body language a second ago and many people will click on episodes on YouTube or podcasts that try and teach us body language but I I think okay you can learn some of the things but really again I think body language is a symptom of what's going on inside how do you build confidence is really the question you know especially when you begin uh let's say in a family or with caretakers who are critical and contemptuous of you and when you have that from practically the

ground up as I did uh you internalize that and you believe you're worthless because you were treated as worthless so how do you build the confidence right so either through maybe therapy through looking at yourself in the mirror and saying all right this is who I am this is who I am this is who I am you know one I I used to like almost every single woman no matter how beautiful you are you will always measure yourself as inferior to somebody else always as a woman I mean you've seen already 6 million images of

idealized women by the time you're 18 think about that so how do you build confidence in what you look like go to a locker room where women are undressing and look at their real bodies and notice the variety notice you you know the the whatever woman that's larger than the standard thinner than the standard women come in all shapes and sizes so do men and just seeing the reality the reality as opposed to the photosho you know that's the thing that is so difficult about technology is that these days you know especially with dating apps

and so on people people are photoshopping their images or they're taking an image of themselves 30 years ago and they here is what I am and I actually still have hair it's the reality that it's not really about the appearance it's not even about you know the IQ or whatever or the education it's really about the well here we go it's it's about the heart it's about the heart is this a kind person is this a caring person is this a person who exhibits compassion who treats people equally and so on a dating that wouldn't

work on that basis would it no and most people are lying on taking too that's right is there a difference in what men and women look for in a partner as it relates to attraction when they first meet well you know that's an interesting question because uh I remember reading this paper by Eli fle he says in the introduction you know generally uh the dating research suggests that men are looking for physical Beauty and women are looking for occupational competence and wealth and but actually when he did this really elaborate speed dating study none of

that actually manifested in people's preferences uh the preferences were all in terms of what it felt like to be together and both men and women were really similar so when you interact with somebody for you're going to interact with them for 5 minutes and the speed dating uh situation what made the difference was how much fun it was to interact with them for five minutes how enjoyable it was and men and women were the same so the the the social context of dating is so important um because if it's this very tense you know evaluative

context nothing is going to work but if it's this relaxed sort of interested curious context almost everything's going to work now a lot of dating happens these days with alcohol in a nightclub or with alcohol at maybe dinner or at a bar is there a better place to conduct a first date and if so why well first of all alcohol distorts everything drugs distort everything you know there's a reason they say intoxicated toxic alcohol is toxic so it shuts down certain parts of the brain shuts down to some degree uh your ability to judge your

ability to sense your reflexes your intuition um all that stuff is shut down to some degree and so wow she's really hot I'm going to go for her you know you're not picking up that you know she's wearing a wedding ring she's sitting with a man who has a match in wedding you know you're not picking up all that stuff so probably a coffee shop is nice where we met yeah well I think it needs to be a context that is not evaluative um you know I think it has to be some kind of relaxed

context where you're just kind of getting to know one another uh yeah and seeing what it's like to meet this person so it's the Judgment that makes it tense and uncomfortable and so people need alcohol to get relaxed and of course then they're you know where they get high and they're laughing at everything and nothing and there's no there's no connection there's no real connection uh so the evaluative context is the is kind of like um the an the antidote to love you have an evaluative context you know you're trying to be your at your

best the other person is trying to be at their best but you know there's no real interest in one another when you say evaluative context it means that we're evaluating each other it's really really AAR Jud it's like an interview basically yeah it's like it's like a job interview interesting never going to work is there a certain age where if you get together with someone you're more likely to be successful I was talking to my friend about this actually this weekend because he is um approaching 40 and his partner is significantly younger um it's my

friend that lives in uh America in New York and he was telling me that because she's sort of 23 he's struggling a little bit because he wants to settle down and he wants to think about kids now and she's still trying to figure out life so it made me wonder if maybe he should be aiming at people that are at least that that sort of 30 age where you start right you know I don't know if there's any research to you know I I don't know about the research but what I've seen clinically is that

people who date uh others that are very very different in age from them have a problem typically because first of all their um the social history in which they were raised is different right so for example John and I uh though we're not the same age we're about nine years apart but we both went through Vietnam we both went through all the assassinations in the US Civil Right the Civil Rights movement you know I got arrested he didn't I was unlucky you know in the protesting stuff but but that context you know understanding uh a

period of history that you grew up in is really important and also internally in the sense that there are really phases of development that you go through as you get older and you're absolutely right Stephen in that a 40y old old who wants to now settle down create a home create a family and a 23y old are incredibly different developmentally so their goals will be different their values will be different if you will their maturity will be different um their interests Also may be strikingly different there may be a real difference in valuing commitment you

know and so on uh so I've seen relationships work with that kind of desperate age but typically um that can happen more easily when you're older when you've already created your identity you've already identified what what profession or line of work you want to do uh whether or not you want to have kids or if you've already had kids and so on so like a 40-year-old and a 50y old or 55y old would be very different than a 40y old and a 23y old um good enough relationships should I be looking for because this goes

back to what I was saying earlier about you know looking for the one looking for your Julie or should I be looking for a relationship that is good enough um and then try and build it to be a great relationship because there's a lot of people that are maybe over 30 years old over 40 years old you are single um struggling to find someone that's great and so they their friends or their Partners or you know the people around them are saying just you know that person's good enough that person's good enough just you know

give them a chance and go on the date and yeah I think I think there's a lot to that point of view uh because when you know when you're looking for the perfect relationship that's good in every Dimension uh you're going to be disappointed and uh I think I think it makes some sense to look for what's good enough and so you know what's good enough for one person is not the same as what's good enough for another person I know you know what's good enough for me is having somebody you can really trust and

really feel a sense of commitment toward and those two dimensions are absolutely critical is that what did you have non-negotiables both of you I were there was there anything on your list of things that were mandatory in finding your partner yeah for me it was wanting children so that's the non-negotiable for you yes was there anything else that was non-negotiable uh monogamy okay yeah for me yeah sense of humor was really important I think another thing too is do you get bored talking to them or not or are they continually in interesting to you um

but I think one of the most important things is how do they make you feel about yourself not just you know you're attracted to them or whatever but how do they make you feel about yourself if they make you feel uh dumb or unkind or too needy or whatever not cool on the other hand if they make you feel like the most gorgeous thing in the world and the most brilliant person in the world Etc and you know you're not that's not it either you know so do they recognize you it's almost like that do

they recognize you in your fullness of humanity and you know that takes time of course you have to get to know one another um but let's see you nebl I know very quickly um I think we both realized that whatever we spend time together it's always interesting and fun that's true talking over anything it's really that's true and everything that you said everything that came out of your mouth was so fraking fascinating I knew I would be learning from him the rest of my life yeah I felt the same way about you you know and

Road a road trip trip was an opportunity it was really you know a time to talk about our dreams and our hopes about the world and yeah what about sex and the role that plays in attraction I asked this question because I had a relationship when I used to live in New York and I really really liked this person we got on all the things you described the road trips everything was fun and then when it came to the point where we had sexual intimacy it just wasn't there yeah and it was it was crushing

for me because this person was perfect in every conceivable way smart kind fun everything I just and then the minute we moved to the the next stage it just wasn't there I just wasn't sexually attracted had that experience too and so it made me add to my list of non-negotiables a third thing at the time there was two things on that list the first was they kind of helped me become a better version of myself and however I want to Define that the second was this intellectual stimulation the ability to conversate and be interested in

them and them interested in me and the third became not about appearance at all it was purely a sexual connection because yeah and so I just wonder the role that sexual intimacy and sexual attraction plays in having a a good relationship with someone yeah you know I think that really varies Stephen because um there's a huge range of the importance sexuality plays in individuals you know some people are practically asexual MH other people you know it's been a really long time if they hadn't had sex in four hours so and everything in between so I

think to some degree that's an individual in a choice as to how important is sexuality to you and having a wonderful sexual connection as opposed to who cares you know I just want to have cup coffee and a pastry you know it so every individual needs to decide that for themselves how important it is and then you know if it if it is important even of average importance it's really important yeah but the other thing too that's interesting I mean we're talking about dating but I've also seen relationships that have been together for a long

time and uh the sex Falls away mhm but it's much more important to one person than the other and they diverged and it becomes you know a pretty serious problem uh it didn't start off that way but it can become that way and what happens in those scenarios well you know typically it's really interesting um of course in second well second marriages or relationships at let's say over 40 or so um women uh especially women going through per menopause you know finishing with menopause um sex hormones go way down they go way down and so

are they still interested in having sex well they may not be so interested in it that they want to initiate sex but we all hardwired in particular ways um so you touch there you lick there you know you stimulate here and that wiring is going to kick in and the sexuality will kick in again and the sexual responsiveness will kick in so um you can work on that angle number one but number two often times there have been big emotional injuries IES that have broken trust that have broken emotional connection and okay so two theories

one most men in Western culture are not uh they don't accept themselves if they just want to cuddle that's not masculine right so everybody needs touch but for many many men who bought into that the only way they can get touch is through sex they can't just say will you please just hold me women can because women are considered you know more vulnerable and uh softer and it's okay for them you know to ask to just be held but not for men so you know sex becomes a difficult thing there too especially with an ultra

m Uline man where he's just come back from war he wants to just be held but he can't ask for that he's got to be tough and strong and sexy therefore he'll go for sex any thoughts on that John I I I think I agree with you I it it's it's not negotiable you know it's it's one of these intangible things that you know if it's not there it's not going to work very well in the beginning if it's not there right I mean it's yeah I think it needs to be there because it goes

on a journey all relationships it's funny because from doing this podcast and speaking to a lot of sort of sex therapists or Coupes therapists this one of them said something to me one day or maybe two of them said the same point I think two or three of them so the same point which is much of what makes sex so you know arousing is the spontaneity and the novess the newness of it the excitement of it all these kinds of things and they said to me that love is in many respects the opposite of that

it's the opposite of spontaneity and love is like security and trust and dependability and it's you know knowing someone so I I've spoken to a few of my friends in fact about this Balancing Act between like I really love this person I know them and I'm there for them and we we know everything about each other and then like having to fight to also create this excitement like how do I how do I love you like we've known each other for 10 years and you can trust me and depend on me but then how do

I have sex with you like like we've just met it's this so we call it the coolage effect have you heard of this uh Kelvin coolage uh was President of the United States and he and his wife were visiting visiting a farm and uh and as the president uh was led past these uh chickens and roosters the farmer said oh uh this rooster has sex 17 times a day and Mrs kulage wanted me to point that out to you Mr President when she came by here because we pointed out that rooster as sex 17 times

a day and Calvin Coan said with the same head and the farmer said no always a different H he said and president said tell that to Mrs kulage so the coolage effect is that it has to be novel it has to be exciting to be eronic right and familiarity you know which creates security and relaxation and openness is antithetical to the novelty that creates sexual excitement but the truth is actually not so simple uh because eroticism often really results from really creating an erotic situation together and making it an erotic situation and for women especially

feeling safe and feeling emotionally connected is a prerequisite for feeling really attracted and feeling that this is an erotic situation that emotional connection is necessary for many women because women have such a strange relationship to safety and fear compared to men the world is so much more dangerous place for women than it is for men women really need that emotional safety and connection in order to feel that the situation is erotic at all it's important for your your audience to realize that the largest study done on the quality of sex with 70,000 people in 24

countries found that the differences between people who say they have a great sex life and people say they have an awful sex life has to do with affection and emotional connection that people have a great sex life say I love you every day and mean it kiss each other passionately for no reason at all cuddle they're affectionate even in public they have romantic dates so affection and emotional connection for most people all over the planet Are connected rather than there being this dichotomy between if you're close and if your friendship is good sex is going

to be terrible and if you're distant and you know and it's novel sex is going to be great just not true that's right and is there a certain amount of because a lot of couples fall into this trap of sort of fake comparison whether it's social media or movies where we think okay if we're not having sex three times a week something's wrong I need to raise it we need to argue about it we need to fix it is there any Merit to the quantity resulting in you know happiness no no relationship between quantity and

happiness quality yes well with the caveat with the caveat that if you have two people paired together one who is extremely sexual MH and you know really does need sex frequently and the other one uh the opposite sexual who is more asexual and you know could take it or leave it want sex maybe once a month that's not going to work that's not going to work one of the things me and my friends have been deliberating about is the importance of what we call Desire management which is if someone is like around too much and

they're there every second of every day in the house when I get home you know everywhere does that not to some degree start to kill the desire a little bit one of the best things that I I think I found in my relationship is that my partner is always working away then I'm working away and so when we see each other it feels special and interesting but I personally don't know that if we were both in the house seven days a week and I worked from home with her whether the desire would be the same

I don't know you know I I I think that for example John and I are around each other 7 days a week and we have been for you know most of our marriage but it doesn't matter um is that because of my attachment style maybe because you know I wondered if yeah yeah could be could be I need a lot of solitude yeah but you all around each other yeah but you're around each other most of the time you well we are but but you know in a house where there's enough space in the house

to not be in visual contact with the other person all the time right you see so he's downstairs I may be upstairs something like that or I can maybe hear him maybe not he can hear me maybe not you know so um I think there is something wonderful about being a part and then coming together that reunion after you've been a part for a while is really quite delicious you know what though this is so interesting I I am working with an individual right now uh and they're both artists they both travel a whole bunch

all the time and whenever they reunite after one of them is gone nothing there's nothing for about two or three days and then they have to get into the same rhythm again someone said to me on this podcast they said you have to spend 90 minutes a week talking to your partner and if you don't and the person actually said to me if you don't get that into your dumb skull you'll be spending much more time with them in divorce court oh and wow I know it was a it was a Brash thing to say

but I reflected on it and it really helped me because I think I don't know I'm I'm speaking as a man so I can't speak for all men I can't speak for women but speaking for as a man myself and also on behalf of my friends with my own attachment Stu I think that's important to add I struggle with naturally with conflict resolution because conflict resolution to me sounds like blame so if my when my partner says we need to talk I'm like oh my [ __ ] god what have I done now that's right

what have I done now and I sit there like a you know I feel like it's a a kid in school being told off by their like the Headmaster or the a child being told of by their mother I'm like go on tell me all the ways that I'm inadequate but the phase of this idea of you're going to have to spend 90 minutes a week sitting with each other and talking regardless help me because he he then went on to say because if you do that then you can get to play well I think

here's here's my invention I have a notebook in my back pocket oh yeah interesting and it's just designed for when Julie says we need to talk and I take out the notebook and a pen and I say okay talk to me I'm taking notes I want to know what's going on and she'll tell me I'm disappointed you or angry you know I mean whatever says you know I write it down and reflect it back and see if I understand what you're saying yeah and so I think I think it's not just 90 minutes it's 90

minutes when you're willing to listen non-defensively which is not easy that's not easy that's really the work in relationships is being non-defensive but that's why we wrote fight right yeah you know and when we gave you know talk uh it's it's really so important to not do that you you you you blaming thing that blaming it's you know I feel about what what's the situation not you know the way you fail me it's the situation Julie is it is it more often men or women that are saying that I feel are you kidding men are

catching up but it's hard it's hard for men to do that women I mean you go to mental health expertise and all the characteristics of uh a man that are considered mentally healthy autonomy Independence uh strength resilience resilience you know all the stuff that's autonomous for women vulnerability sensitivity empath empathy expressing emotion so you know there's only one emotion that men are allowed to really openly Express anger right can they express fear oh my God I'm so scared of going in there tomorrow or sadness or you know the more vulnerable emotions it's God think about

it it's seen as effeminate and that's supposed to be bad why is that bad because women are second class citizens right so to be allegedly like a woman and express vulnerable emotions is a bad thing because you shouldn't be like a woman why not you know I mean so expressing vulnerable emotions I think men are starting to catch up you know don't women like strength yes and no they like strength but the problem is is that they also want to be empathetic too they want to be you know nourishing to their partner and if their

partner is always presenting this facade of strength they can't get close to them it's like the of connection yeah but you know we we observed 8-year-olds in playgrounds uh and if you if you look at eight-year-old boys they'll do run and chase games over a very large distance and if an emotional event happens if somebody gets upset you know say what's the matter Brian says the leader of the group say I never get the ball okay toss the ball to Brian Brian gets the ball and they're of and running they keep the game in Play

manage conflict quickly look at two look at girls they're playing in groups of two or three close to the school building and they're talking about their feelings over and over again you know you said that I was a baby you know cuz I had those barrettes that really hurt my feelings yeah well I you know I I only wear barrettes when when I was little and now I don't wear them you know but that hurt my feelings when you said that so I didn't mean to hurt your feels they're talking about emotions constantly and it's

like the Hopscotch or whatever game they're playing is just an excuse for talking about emotions for the boys the most important thing is keeping the ball in play and conflict gets in the way of that they resolve it quickly they socialized so differently is this part the reason why it feels for many men that they are being held off all the time because it actually what's happening is the their wife is just expressing their emotions and the man never really expresses it you know that old sort of slightly problematic phrase which is happy wife happy

life that's right the reason why that phrase exists I would assume is because the man thinks as long as I can keep her from expressing more problems to me then I'm happy he like thinks of his responsibility is just like yeah ask a man how he's feeling he says well I'm not hungry I'm not horny uh I'm okay ask a woman how she's feeling she says well I don't know know there's there's you know the children and there's this and the house and you know and there's this tangle of questions that really she has to

address when you ask her how she's feeling there's so many things and for a guy it's so much easier but John as man I think we can both agree that although well I'm speaking for myself here but although in the moment going through that conflict resolution the 90 minutes a week getting out your notepad listening is annoying in the moment when we zoom out we realize that if they didn't raise these issues if they didn't Express these issues this relationship wouldn't be so good that's right and would' be in serious that's right they're the managers

of intimacy yeah we need them yes we need them to say stepen we need to talk yeah did you see Steven's face that was so cutie oh it's true I realize it I realize that this is serving a purpose which is helping me you know us right so I sit there and I'll listen to you know the things that um the things that aren't right but you're right my brain is just like me and my friends can sit in silence for8 hours sat right next to each other and we'll meet each other sit in silence

for eight hours leave great evening great evening great we both we both like doing our own thing but it's just I think men are such simple creatures most of the time oh you are not that is so not true you know one of of the things that I've certainly seen in my my work you know I've been doing clinical work for 50 years and what I see is that men have exactly the same emotions they do they just try to bury them because it's not okay for them to express them so they just try to

shove it down but open a little door crack and up it comes lion old Tiger who studied men's friendships and women's friendships said with alcohol men get together they're very physical and they talk about their feelings an enormous amount takes a little alcohol to make it happen two women said to me last night that I was speaking to um on uh WhatsApp um people that I work with in a different company they were saying to me that their Partners often express how they're feeling by just sending songs out of the blue sending songs sending songs

out of the blue i' never heard of it because one of them said it and and the other woman said oh my God my partner does that too which is instead of like telling me how he feels he'll send me a song which just which is basically how he feels yeah um and some of those songs are very romantic and it's like I love you you're the best person I've ever found but instead they he they can't he can't vocalize it to her so he has to send her a Spotify link and say listen listen

to this but it's the same thing right it's the that's right inability to to vocalize which is yep difficult for men keep working on it I am yeah I'm like progressively getting better but sometimes I have little relapses if you if I am very busy in my mind and then I have to have one of those we need to talk chat so I think you're right there needs to be a bit of a ritual around like is this a good time that's right yeah will I have your attention or you know even being in a

different environment like well you can make you know make a date to have a talk like that when we are giving couples workshops at the very end of it we always uh give recommendations for ways of preserving the changes you're making in the relationship the improvements and one of them is called the state of the union meeting right where you start with five appreciations of each other you know things you haven't said before that you've noticed that your partner is doing right and express your gratitude or thanks or your admiration then you go into okay

so what do we need to change what do we need to improve right and then you finish up with this beautiful question I just love this question how can I make you feel loved this week and that's closure you mentioned the word there gratitude yes why is gratitude so important being grateful for them and expressing that it's something that you two both du to each other I think I I think it's indicative of a habit of mind that's that's really much more important a habit of Mind where you're noticing what's going right and feeling appreciative

for it and I I know I wake up every morning lying next to Julian and think I'm one lucky guy you know I've got this wonderful woman and you know life is good I go through my checklist everybody's okay all all the people I love her all right and I'm with her and I get to see my grandson you know and my daughter life is good yeah yeah you know I think gratitude brings you into the moment brings you into the moment you know so and as John pointed out uh you're not just looking for

what's wrong you know or what your partner is doing wrong you're looking for what your partner is doing right um you know there's been studies who was it chrysson Robinson I guess um who looked at unhappy couples versus happy couples and unhappy it wasn't that they weren't doing things for one another but unhappy couples only saw 50% of what their Partners were doing the positivity of the positivity right whereas happy couples were seeing it all the time it's like they're wearing different sunglasses or something a different fil different filters well and the negative habit of

mind you know really puts you in a state of being kind of irritable and grumpy all the time you know you're noticing other people are driving badly and you know and being careless and making mistakes all the time and that's all that's all you see because gratitude puts you on a different frame of mind so you notice actually all the good stuff that's going on right let me draw ACC let me draw a parallel one of the things that uh I've done in my private practice I still do is treat cancer patients in their families

and cancer patients of course often are facing the possibility of death so one of the questions uh and oftentimes I mean the ones who deal with their diagnosis best are people who say okay I don't have that long to live I'm going to repr prioritize my life I'm going to really think about what's most important to me for the six months I have left so one of the things that I do in my practice with couples um who are just racing through life together on Parallel tracks not connecting at all uh is to ask them

okay you know if you had 6 months left to live how would you want to spend it who would be the most important people that you would want to draw close to who would you not value as much how would you want to spend that six months and I I first kind of take people into a very relax state so their minds are really free to imagine uh and and what's what's that doing is it helping to crystallize whether they should be with this person uh clarify sometimes but it's more that oh my God you

know I'm wasting my life trying to make more money why am I doing that when I've got this love right here what's more important to me making more money or creating more love between us that's what it comes down to often times when do you know how do you know when to quit a relationship how do I know if the relationship I'm in is bad is not good because relationships are incredibly tempting they tempt us back they offer Comfort which sometimes necessarily isn't healthy Comfort but they're very hard to leave and I actually had a

conversation with one of my friends recently I always talk about my friends because it's the only way I know to draw on case studies so instead of me just hypothetical coming with something hypothetical I think about the the challenges my friends face and got friend who's been in a relationship for many many years seven eight years um relationship is broken broken down and he naturally because the relationship is broken down is like jumping to repair but I wonder if he should even repair because they've broken up six times they've gone through this cycle six times

so I'm like are they just rushing back together for the comfort of the relationship or um should do they you know take a moment to say is this even right but this also the answer here applies to people that are in relationships that have those thoughts in their mind is this the right one how do you know how do you know if this is a problem we can solve and should solve or this is just the wrong person therapy helps M has your friend gone to therapy good therapy not with their partner no then they

don't know you know in other words a lot of people um don't know how to deal with Conflict for example nobody's taking relationships oneone in high school right to learn how to deal with conflict or to learn how to be more vulnerable to somebody else and be more open and so on so people don't know how to have good relationships that's part of what drives the work that John and I do people just don't know how to do it and if they did know they could change those patter patterns and so you know with your

friend for example often times you know when people have been together for over you know a couple of years they create patterns that are like dark holes you know they're like black holes that have this tremendous gravitational pole and so they keep sinking down in the same patterns over and over and over and over again right that's well exactly what Happ your but you can change those patterns once you know and practice what the alternatives are oh okay well I think it's I think it's not the partner the pattern an alternative pattern yes I think

when that fund us and admiration system you know the system of affection and respect love and respect is gone and gets replaced by denigration belittling contempt that's a ton to bail and you've seen this in your work oh yeah this is like much of what you guys you know are known for is this and whenever I hear people talking about the goans they're always talking to me about the idea of contempt and The Four Horsemen right see those things can change too those things can change too that often is what constitutes the bad pattern or

there's been so much of that that now they avoid each other all together and there's huge emotional distance what are the four Horsemen and before we talk about how we would go about changing if possible these things for anyone that doesn't know and how you found these four horsemen uh well Bob Lon and I when we doing our research we first the first thing we looked at was what's the ratio of positive to negative emotion in a conversation so how did you conduct this experiment really just observing couples talking about how their day went wait

wait wait bring them into the lab first of all what's the lab uh the lab was a room where they sat facing one another there were video cameras here and there that were focused on each individual and their faces and their body language um there was what was called a jigal ometer how much they moved in their chairs you know how much the chairs move physiological measures what was happening to their heart rate you know as well velocity respiration respiration conductance and all of that all of that data that was pulled from those measures was

all synchronized you know hundredth of a second by hundredth of a second and they would talk for let's say 15 minutes about the events of the day and then they were asked to talk about a problem they hadn't solved and to try and solve it or talk about it so that you know ends up being conflict and then a positive topic and then a positive topic or in in the apartment lab they just hung out for you know 12 hours before they went to sleep and the cameras just rolled while we collected physiological data so

that raal SPI on them you really SPI spied on them right except they knew they were be for 12 hours you watch them just sort of chill and hang out together couple that's right how many couples have you 130 and how many couples have been in the lab in total 3,000 3,00 000 and they were followed you know so then they'd be brought back every couple of years right uh to see how the relationship changed right so the procedures would be repeated every couple of years for as long as 20 years and what did you

find happen so that the initially that ratio of positive to negative interaction even talking about how their day went or especially during Conflict for people who were in happy stable relationship it average five positives for every negative positives about the other person or about no just positive emotion like let's describe positives so a positive can be nodding your head it can be smiling it can be asking a question humor validation showing interest interest in the other person uh negative would be anger irritability disappointment hurt disgust contempt uh shared humor was another big positive that turned

out to be very important that so that ratio of positive to negative averaged five to one in relationships that were stable and happy during conflict during conflict and point8 to one in relationships that were headed for disaster either splitting up or being together unhappily uh but certain negatives were much more predictive of relationship demise and they were criticism defensiveness contempt and stonewalling so let's define what those are so criticism means blaming a problem on a personality flaw of your partner like you're so lazy you'd never think to clean up the kitchen wouldn't you or God

you're thoughtless you didn't even call me when you were going to be late you know thoughtless lazy inconsiderate selfish okay making about personality and their character that's right that's a criticism contempt is the worst that's sulfuric acid for a relationship um where you're looking down your nose with disgust as well as criticism of the partner superiority so give me an example of that you're such an idiot you know you just never get things right you know it's just you're just not like me you know I I'm thoughtful and cons consider it and you're just you're

just you're stupid you're a narcissist right you know right so there there's the criticism but it's making yourself Superior to that other person MH and there's a little disgust in it you know s kind of stuff sarcasm is a good example mockery you know especially in front of people yeah right awful so the person says well I really care how you feel you really care how I feel you know so that's contempt Stow malling is really emotional with don't forget defensiv and defensiveness yeah so every defensiveness is the one we all have it's so hard

to get over which is you know you either kind of whine like an innocent victim you know I did too pay the bills on time what do you mean I'm thoughtful I'm thoughtful I am thoughtful don't you remember blah blah blah or it's Counterattack oh yeah you're so perfect huh you never clean up the kitchen you know it's that Counterattack do you find that insecure people are more defensive sure I have this like theory that if your self-esteem and your self- perception of yourself is fragile then anyone poking at it at all causes such extreme

pain right that you like you live in a this state of like I have never done anything wrong I can't I've do anything wrong and if someone points out something you've done wrong it's so painful if you're insecure right walking on anything yeah exact it's like a playing with like an open wound yeah it's like you're a walking burn victim yeah you know the way I describe it um because I've been there I know what that's like is you know the the Earth if you take uh a picture of the Earth and the Earth has

this very thin crust on it and then you go down some layers and in the center is this boiling hot lava you know uh that burns you to death well somebody says to you why didn't you pay the bills on time and the Earth opens up you fall through that crack and straight down into that hot lava of self loathing that is Agony absolutely and you feel like you're getting burned to death so you can't allow yourself to step into that crack and say oh God you're right right I didn't so you defend you defend

oh yeah well I'm the one who does all the bill paying what are you doing you know it's defensiveness well in that case it sounds like that's fundamentally linked to some kind of trauma because paying the you didn't pay the bills to the average person would be yeah I know sorry my bad but if that's linked to maybe I don't know your childhood where your your father or your mother or the bullies on the playground told you that you always you're so forgetful Steve or Julie you're the most forgetful person ever in the and they

punched you you could get to you know 40 can't be yeah can be can be and then stonewalling this was one that was so fascinating because you could have you know a pair of people sitting just like this looking perfectly normal but you notice that one is completely shutting down not showing anything on their face in their body maybe looking away or just glaz Ed you know looking and not saying a word and that's not for seconds it's for minutes and what's actually going on because these guys you know John and his colleagues measured physiology

is that they feel so attacked that their heart rates are zooming up above 100 beats a minute which just sitting here secting cortisol and adrenaline massively and so they're shutting down yeah it's a terribly it's going into fight ORF flight only you're not facing a [Music] whatever issue they keep smashing into right um but much of why I think from what I've heard or at least a symptom of their relationship is stonewalling but it it's not minutes one of the one of them it's month I think I think basically I only know this because I

was showing some text messages and I looked at the text messages and I was like oh my God there's like whenever you talk about something that might be a little bit challenging or whatever or um you even ask how do you think the relationship's going the other partner is like vacant like like vacant nothing it's like they're not expressing their needs they're not saying what they feel they're spiraling in their own mind and then they're just breaking up with you wow you know it's kind of I don't know whether that's Stone Walling but it's also

what you were saying about lacking the tools that was at the heart of the relationship is one partner spirals independently and then without you even knowing it you thought everything was okay breaks up with you to to give more context this is a homosexual relationship yeah between two men yeah so you know we talked earlier on about the the woman's sometimes the instigator of expression of needs yeah it's just right you know oh that's so sad you know so it sounds like both of them have terrible difficulty making themselves vulnerable to the other and saying

what they feel and it may be that uh when the if they tried that early on in the relationship the other one said something very negative to them back that felt punishing in terms of expressing their emotion and so they made a choice oh God I can't make myself vulnerable I'm going to get hurt if I do that so they shut down but this point about um men not being very good at expressing their feelings do we you know with that in mind and with the ackn knowledge that expression feelings are good for building connection

how come homosexual relationships with men work and I don't know is there any data to show that they they last less longer than a relationship where a woman is um stereotypically more likely to you know talk about the the challenges and the issues and Bridge the connection someone's got to done the research on this subject well we you know we've studied gay and lesbian couples and compared them to heterosexual couples as well and years generally they're less defensive uh they have a better sense of humor and they're uh they're much much more gentle in the

way they bring up an issue with one another men or women in those homosexual relationship and women together gay men and lesbians are better than heterosexuals and they're much less possessive and domineering as well um much more of a sense of equality in their relationships well especially you know pre well so do we wait pause pread you know men gave each other much more autonomy to have sex outside the relationship right but then AIDS kicked in and a lot of that shut down now it's opening up again so they're giving themselves sexual Freedom as long

as there isn't a lot of emotional connection and falling in love with the third party women don't do that nearly as much they're uh they tend to feel very insecure around polygamy let's say or polyamory uh and so they really are more wanting monogamy with their Partners so am I right in thinking John that you're saying that h sexual relationships are better than heterosexual relationships are they are better in general they're better do you know if they last longer I don't know that there's data on that I don't think there are differences and how long

that last is that right I don't think there's any differences you know there's there's another thing too I mean again it depends on what period of History you're talking about but because um being homosexual has been so stigmatized in the past you know and there's so much prejudice against homosexuality um there's first of all there's more of a sense of community amongst gay men and gay women you know they've they've uh connected with one another not just as couples but as community in order to survive the kind of prejudice they endure out in the heterosexual

Society right so uh and it's been shown actually the research has shown this that when the community really supports the relationship the relationship does better so if you've got a community around you uh that's a consistent Community that's really supporting the relationship that's really going to help you sustain that relationship and on these um these four horsemen a word you didn't mention but I wondered if it fit in there somewhere is the word gaslighting which has become quite popular in society what is gaslighting how does that show up so in in in physically violent relationships

um that are characterologically violent whether it's a perpetrator and a victim those kinds of domestic violence quite often the the perpetrator is communicating to the victim that everything about the reality is is wrong they never they never raised their hand against this person you know it's just all imagined they're basically doing you know what happened to in GRE Bergman in that movie guas light where she's married to this where she's married to this guy who who can tries to convince her that she's mentally ill that her whole sense of reality is wrong so he does

things like um change the order of the pictures and you know in the home uh steel um jewelry that he's given her that you know that he says comes from his mother and grandmother he steals it and then he says you know where is it you know you lost it you're so forgetful and he's constantly sort of uh making her feel like she's going crazy there never was a painting there what are you talking about there's never a painting there and she know and he's actually removed it or he's changed the order of the pictures

he's trying to make her think she's crazy and even her sense of reality needs him to determine what's real and what's not real and that's what gas light comes from let me mention something because that word you're right it's really being bandied about commonly and people have got it wrong speaking of gasoline um so people for example who have a conflict and they have totally different points point of view about what happened during the conflict who remembers it better you know and one will say well you said this no I didn't I never said that

that they're calling gaslighting and it's not that is not gaslighting so it's being misused in the culture all the time because people always have two points of view about different perceptions and any who situation that's right they have you know everybody has their own individual filters and so they're going to hear some things not hear other things and distort things and so on memory isn't perfect and so they're always going to have two points of view and uh people can get locked into struggles over no this is the absolute reality of what happened no it

isn't this is and there is no absolute reality it's all about perception so people are calling that gaslighting and that's not and it isn't that's not what gaslighting is at what point does it become gaslighting is that when you're intentionally trying to make the other person crazy okay believe that they're crazy so they don't trust themselves and these violent relationships that you know the man will slap the woman across the face and says God damn it you just hit me I never hit you I never touched you yeah I I spoke to a domestic violence

victim once who told me that her partner when after like love bombing her so immediately like you know throwing all all this affection onto her and you know very very quickly he would then start like hiding her stuff so he'd put her car keys in the fridge oh and he'd be like I didn't why did you put your car keys in the fridge gaslighting yeah that's gaslighting perfect description then she thinks she's going crazy so he goes well I'm going to have to take your car keys often and then she can't she's lost that car

that's right often done in the service of extreme jealousy yeah and and socially isolating the victim yeah we've treated domestic violence um a lot and uh God I'll never forget this one guy who had put a mark on the tire and a mark on the driveway that matched up that lined up and at the end of the day if those marks didn't line up he'd beat her up even if she just went to the grocery store it didn't matter who did you [ __ ] today right where'd you go nowhere oh yeah right you liar

you roar you yeah this is the typical and naive question people ask when they hear a story like that their head goes I would never stay with someone that did that to me blah blah blah but it not true yeah not true you know first of all it doesn't happen all secondly uh often times the victim usually you know in a het a row it's a it's a woman um has her confidence beaten down so it's not just physical it's also mental abuse god you're an idiot man are you stupid and she starts doubting her

own judgment her own intuition plus you know I don't think you could survive out there nobody else is going to want you and she starts to believe it start to believe it um and she also has a dream that he's going to change yeah because he's so rewardful of what he did to her he promises he'll never happen again and he loves her and he's going to get this under control is he a narcissist or is it possible that someone who isn't a narcissist can perform that behavior or is the word narcissist in other word

that's just thrown around too much very good A+ yeah yeah I thought so another word you know everybody is narcissistic Stephen everybody is you know narcissism basically comes from the Instinct for self-preservation you know you're you're thinking about okay me what do I need what do I need how am I going to get it and so on I've got to really you know think about taking care of myself sometimes I mean they call that a narcissist but the way it really is me uh is shorthand for a narcissistic personality disorder which is Extreme narcissism where

there is no empathy whatsoever the person has no conscience whatsoever they can hurt you they can do everything uh that damages you and um they take absolutely no responsibility for it and blame you for it blame the victim so uh somebody who you know says I didn't fail you made me fail this is what you did that set me up you know blah blah blah so every everybody around them is a reflection of who they are themselves and so they only see people other people in two dimensions how' you go about you said you spoke

to couples and women who had been through domestic abuse and you know how do you go about helping them okay there's two types of domestic violence John mentioned characterological domestic violence that's when there's a clear perpetrator clear victim nothing the victim can do uh will change violence there's major injury so so what has to happen there is the victim has got to get out of the relationship because she could be killed easier said than done right it is that is correct it is very very hard it has to be secretive it you know she's got

to plan it especially if there are kids and so on but there's also that's only 20% of the domestic violence out there only 20% 80% % of the domestic violence is what we call situational domestic violence and in that kind both people tend to be violent both the violence is not uh seriously injuring of the other person it's a slap it's a push uh it's a holding you know holding them from moving you know that kind of thing pushing them down breaking breaking things throwing things them and so on and that results from moving into

that flooded State we described earlier where you're in Conflict your heart rate is jumping up over 100 beats a minute you're going to fight or flight and when you do that you lose access to your ability to problem solve your ability to listen actually to um really take in what the other person is saying you hear attack attack attack no matter what the person is saying because it's like your frontal cortex your prefrontal cortex is offline so both people typically are getting flooded during conflict so those people we can really really help so we've done

a randomized clinical trial treating those people right and even a year and a half after has ended when they when they discuss a conflict on videotape in their home and we measure physiology physiology stays low so the therapy is really effective compared to a control group as an entrepreneur I'm always looking for ways to connect and to create and that's why I decided to launch the conversation cards I turned to Shopify who also sponsored this podcast and Shopify made it so easy to set up an online store and reach all of you no matter where

are in the world I remember the challenges we faced when we first launched the D Co conversation cards managing inventory ensuring a seamless checkout process and reaching our audience Shopify stepped in and made everything so straightforward and efficient it was like having an entire team of experts by our side allowing us to focus on creating content and connecting with you what I love about Shopify is no matter how big you intend to grow your business they give you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level and to say thank

you for listening to this podcast we giving you a trial which is just $11 a month and you can sign up by going to shopify.com Bartlet the link is in the description below is is this part of the reason why you're in the UK at the moment you you talked about your trauma oh it's trauma it's trauma at Oxford yeah we're talking about drama and also Affairs Affairs talking about Affairs you're talking about treating Affairs right right that's right so I've never really heard the the phrase treating Affairs as if it's a you know a

condition per se but your if if there has been an affair or some form of infidelity can it be treated 75% so far in our research cure rate and when you say Affair what are you throwing in that bucket in terms of the definition of an affair is that a text or is that it can be an emotional affair as well as a affair a physical Affair a physical Affair usually so it can be emotionally you know falling in love with somebody else without physical consummation or physical consummation uh with somebody that you've fallen in

love with or just having sex outside the relationship not an emotional connection but just having sex when the agreement is monogamy so almost almost always involves deception right always it always does yeah that's that's a big part of it is the deception and broken trust you know it what Affairs do is they turn you know the hurt partner's world upside down everything they believed about the partner is wrong everything that they thought they shared in terms of values is wrong um so you know you can trust the what the person says no you can't because

they weren't staying at work late they were going to so and so's apartment it's like I didn't know this person I didn't know this yeah who are you right who are you and you know relationships are really often times you know especially committed ones are the foundation for our whole life you know we build everything around that often times our sense of family even our sense of work sometimes what work we choose how we live our lives purpose purpose and meaning that we give our lives together and when there's betrayal like that and the person

that you thought your partner was isn't then that whole thing cracks and falls to the ground it shatters and how many people how many couples cheat in any of those definitions that you've described well we don't really know yeah you know but you know probably around 30% of all couples is you think it's a conservative estimate conservative really I've heard 15% of men and women and the thing that's interesting is that the the stat for women having Affairs has pretty much caught up to men now but here's why when before the' 70s and women's the

women's Liberation movement women were stuck at home they weren't out in the world working they didn't have access to other the Milkman and the uh the plumber was and the mailman maybe you know they so you know they were stuck at home having coffee around their you know kitchen table with their neighbor woman you know whoever but once they entered the workforce then they had access to a whole field our potential people out there and so you know it's interesting as you say that Julia I was I was thinking through all the implications of what

would happen in a woman's life when she she went out to work and one of the other things is she would become more independent in every sense yeah exactly that's right she doesn't have to stay in the marriage she can support herself financially so how did you treat an affair so we developed a model uh based on our research called uh the a tone a tune attach a a a model and here's what in a nutshell here's what it involves again it has to be done in therapy you really can't do this stuff at home

it's it's too intense first the person who did the betraying uh needs to resp respond totally transparently to every question the hurt partner asks them however the hurt partner uh shouldn't probably ask about the kind of sex they had and here's why I mean it's it's an important thing almost every person who suffered through an affair has PTSD from it post-traumatic stress disorder and part of post-traumatic stress disorder is having these images or flashbacks if you will come into your mind unbidden you don't want them there but they come in anyway and traumatic memory is

different than uh regular memory regular memory you have a few little fragments something said and so on traumatic memory everything comes up at one time the images the smells the the sounds the uh adrenaline cortisol and so on so when uh a woman asks questions about sex and then gets the answers guess what you know so her images now are like flooding her mind with the kind of sex they had you know the partner and the affair partner uh that plague her to an even greater degree and it's horrible so aone answering the questions and

then saying I'm sorry a thousand times and really meaning it really really meaning it I've had many uh both men and women who've cheated on their Partners or had affairs who end up crying during that phase even the strongest of men will cry when they realize how hurt the woman is or the man the other thing that they uh that the betraying partner needs to do is to listen to the other partner's feelings without defensiveness just listen but in the therapy you know a lot of times what happens um is that the therapist has to

help shape the hurt partner's expression of emotion to take it out of criticism and out of contempt into I feel destroyed I feel like my you know my world has fallen apart I feel so empty so abandoned so rejected so she has to describe or he has to describe their own feelings not how bad the partner was which is typically what happens at home so that's the atonement phase a tune and this has to come after atonement not as the first thing they start looking at the actual marriage or relationship itself and what was wrong

with it and a lot of times what you see uh are couples who at first might have had terrible conflict it was so bad they started avoiding conflict once they avoided conflict they got more emotionally distant and the person who did the betraying got lonely got lonely so often times the Affairs are not about just getting more sex they're about loneliness and beginning to talk to somebody else about how unhappy they are and then the third phase is attachment so it's like reattaching to your partner that second phase is really rebuilding trust and the third

phase is recommitting to the relationship and in many this is not always true I've seen the opposite but in many cases the sexual relationship doesn't resume until phase three especially if the woman is the one who's been betrayed but there there are some where the woman will kind of throw herself at the man sexually to compete with the affair partner and be better than the the affair partner so you know it can be both it's um I mean I've got so many questions that so the first phase was the atonement atunement and then attachment um

so many questions at different phases in that I mean so many of them um I'll start from the top which was how many times do you apologize a thousand because is it true that at some point you've you've got to kind of move on you have to know you have to know what you're apologizing for well that that's important but here's why and you know probably some of your audience especially therapists May disagree with this but I've treated it for 50 years PTSD doesn't disappear it doesn't disappear right it can get episodes of getting triggered

can be much less frequent over time or maybe not as intense but it never disappears so for example you may apologize a lot during the therapy things get better better better better better and then you know a couple months later after you leave therapy the man is late home from work and doesn't call well guess what happens boom she goes into fullblown PTSD uh reenactment basically where it's gotten triggered again and oh my God he's doing it again you see that's why you can't stop apologizing and just put it behind you you don't put PTSD

behind you you see interesting I guess that's the cost of cheating is the person it really is never be the same again it's a high cost a very high cost that's right yeah I wrote insecurity as you were talking as a as a note and I think what I meant when I wrote that is being cheated on must create a huge amount of like lasting insecurity and it kind of links to the second thing I was writing down which is this whole question of like why did you Che on me and it must be for

a lot of people difficult to answer that question because if it's and also I was thinking some people don't even know yeah they don't actually so they might try and Hazard a guess and do even more harm right well I think it's because you gained some weight or I think well uh you uh I think you um you smell or you know what I mean when actually it's something much deeper so like that's right you know so is that a useful question to even ask in that setting it is but again in the setting of

therapy in the setting of therapy you need the safety hopefully with a good therapist you need the safety that the therapist provides um where you know why did she cheat well because you're an [ __ ] you know no that's not going to work you know so I once treated a couple where he had had 57 Affairs and they'd only been they had three children under the age of 10 and he'd had 57 Affairs and three of them he actually fell in love with okay so you know you can you can easily say oh because

the guy has a sexual addiction or blah blah blah no not true the real reason was that he had been raped as a kid and he feared oh my God maybe I'm a latent homosexual which in his culture was the worst in the world you know in the worst way so he had to keep proving to himself that he was heterosexual heterosexual heterosexual over and over and over again and as soon as he you know we put that together cuz he just completely blocked it out for for the most part Boom the affair stopped wow

it just goes to show how complex it can be that's right yeah that's right yeah and it's atonement not not forgiveness big difference there because when when carapus emphasized forgiveness in this aair uh situation they would blame the Betrayed partner for not forgiving is it acceptance importance acceptance of what the situation you find yourself in no no that's bad just because you're accepting something that's hurtful that's terribly hurtful the reason I asked that particular question is because I was thinking about my friend who's going through this breakup and um much of the agony that I

see himself in it's because he's like refusing to accept the situation it seems and all the resistance situation situation is basically someone's broken up with him oh and so it's this constant rumination of maybe if I do this I can change it or maybe if I go like almost like thinking back in time to see see if he could time travel and fix all his mistakes and I was and I was saying to him and this might be bad advice but I saying to him like I think the first thing is we have to accept

that this is a situation you find yourself in and then we'll work from here oh oh oh that's yeah that's a whole different meaning of acceptance okay yeah um I don't mean except the fact that they cheated on you and like deal that's that's how I yeah interpreted it at first but yes acceptance you know I would call that grounding in the reality of what you have right now and then you know really grounding in it okay I really have made all these mistakes uh and you know if if the partner maybe maybe you know

tiny little teeny weeny spark left um I call it an ember that in therapy it can be blown on you know to bring back the fire and the passion and the relationship array but as John was pointing out sometimes the person is only feeling the ashes of the past relationship there are no Embers left this is a difficult question to ask but have you ever seen cheating help a relationship oh every time really when there's recovery every time not every time but very very often very often when they get help when they get help if

they don't get help it's not going to you know it's worse but when they get Help The Help can help them change all the patterns in the relationship and help them learn who the other person really is what their needs really are how they want you to turn up in the relationship that they had no idea of before so it can create more intimacy different kind of trust of course but more intimacy and more connection betrayal is always yeah implied prior conflict avoidance instead of talking to your partner about what's wrong you talk to somebody

else about what's wrong with you with the partner what are some of the um so you're telling me that 74% of the time Affairs can be treated 75% of the time Affairs can be treated roughly um what are some of the revelations or realizations that you've had over the all the years of your work about the nature of humans and relationships and love and dating and all these things that always stick front of mind for you I'm going to ask you first John um from a research perspective is there any particular research which you would

consider to be your favorite research that was most pivotal for the way you think that you haven't mentioned yet I think that relationships can be great sources of longevity Health uh great context for raising children and so they can they can have this wonderful magic that uh is health-giving longevity giving and it just requires certain condition to be met and those are the principles that make relationships work is there a particular piece of research that um you're most fond of and that's he's done or somebody else has done e both yeah I mean I you

know I think this whole field of social epidemiology is which has emerged in the last 50 years really shows that relationships are lifegiving and longevity giving uh given today's level of of medical treatment of chronic illness it's really relationships that make the difference and really make the difference in raising kids and the last thing I want to talk to to you about is this idea of bids for connection because it's a very popular topic and there's lots of people online and on Tik Tok discussing the importance of bids for connection right um what what are

bids for connection well in this in this apartment lab that Julie and I built um there were three cameras um and at the time um it was only possible to technologically merge two of them in a split screen so the people in the in the control room uh had to use the cameras in a particular way so that they had a split screen and they very quickly saw that uh quite often one person was trying to get the other person's attention or interest and so they would focus on that person who was saying oh look

at that beautiful boat going by and then they focus the other camera on the partner and see the response and so this you had this uh you know sort of um two-step interaction one attempting to get the partner's attention making a bid for connection and the other person either responding or not responding or responding irritably turning toward or turning away or turning against and it turned out that six years later the couples who eventually divorced when they looked back six years earlier they had turned toward these bids an average of 33% of the time whereas

the couples who were still married they look back six years later they had turned to their Partners bids 86% of the time so this huge difference 33% versus 86% you mentioned three responses to a bid for connection so my partner comes up to me she goes babe look at this you mentioned they turn toward them which is me turning towards my partner saying what is it babe it's not physical okay mind you so could be it no what I'm trying to say is that a lot of people interpret turning toward us oh you turn your

body toward your partner no it's not it's just say it's responding to your partner's uh desire for interest or attention Okay yeah and then turning away is me not responding resp then turning against would be an irritable kind of response stop interrupting me I'm working okay yeah so 86% of the couples that stayed together were those that turned toward I they acknowledge the bid for the couples who stayed married had turned toward bids and 86% of the time so when their partner Tred to get their attention probability of them turning toward was 86 okay 86%

of the time they it turns out the other thing that was interesting was that um people who turned toward a lot tended to have a sense of humor together during conflict which reduced physiological arousal so how do you get people to laugh together when they're disagreeing and it turns out that if you increase turning toward people spontaneously develop more of a sense of humor about themselves during that was a really amazing finding of one of my graduate students dri you can teach people to turn toward acknowledge yeah you can you know just increase awareness I've

I've struggled with that in my relationships I've not been very good at turning towards I when my partner makes SPID for connection I've not been great at I often saw it as like an interruption or you knew I was busy or like but from doing this podcast in fact and speaking to lots of great people like you guys I've in those moments I go Steve [ __ ] the laptop just turning mid email hi what's up what's you know and um helps let me give you a a suggestion you know because all of us have

times when we can't turn towards right because we've got a deadline or we've got something but what you can do is say honey I would really love to listen to you right now but I've got to finish this project after I do another hour of work can we then talk yeah you see so so you're putting a bookmark in there that says I want to talk to you but I've got this competing that's a nice way of saying goal that I have to finish and but then we'll talk my pet says to me it's how

you say it oh you know so I've just got to be like actually turn my body language so I'm acknowledging the person not like saying it while without missing a keystroke yeah turn my body and say it in a way that's loving not just one second I'm just working on something is not it just you know doesn't do it not GNA work even worse is just at one good TR you know C miners if um if people want to learn more about all the work that you do how do they go about finding you uh

well couple of things they can go to uh gottman.com G TT mn.com Internet site uh uh there's a whole bunch of stuff there or they can go to our books um and the last one especially if you're dealing with conflict the last one is called fight right um but we also have one that is uh eight dates um essential conversations for a lifetime of love and that's a great one too and there's also a website we created called Gutman connect right where people can actually go and take questionnaires evaluate the strengths and challenges in their

own relationship and the privacy of their homes and then access 37 vi video modules that Julie and I created for improving how you deal with conflict how you improve intimacy sexual connection and so on we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest lives leaves a question for the next I'm going to start with Julie tell us about a paranormal experience you've had okay uh these always I I have uh Visions now and then and they always happen when I'm driving for some odd reason so uh I was driving across the Mojave

Desert and I felt a very strong urge to pull over okay I always listen to those pulled over walked into the desert to whatever felt like the right place sat down started to meditate and felt myself self inside a huge Golden Mountain that was just glowing [Music] and it took the form of a huge Golden Buddha and I was sitting tiny little being in its hands and it lifted me up off the ground uh and I heard many truthful things uh about reality that form my very Foundation can you give me one everybody suffers everybody

and so and nobody suffers more than anybody else everybody has their own suffering and everybody has their own path to move through that suffering um and to heal and people do heal but life is full of suffering that's normal it's it's not a sense of Duality suffering is part of the Perfection of our existence it really does change your perspective on yourself and others when you when you hear that that point about suffering um being unavoidable because then at least you can you don't treat yourself as such a victim to that's right suffering you realize

that it's part of it's It's fundamentally attached to all the things that I love as well you know that's right what about you John have you ever had a paranormal experience oh when the numbers just came together perfectly and I I don't know if this is a parent normal experience but I um I was once driving through the University of Washington ARB burum and I was really really sick and um and I was I was driving uh toward my office because I had a client who was suicidal and I I hadn't been able to reach

her to cancel the appointment and I cancel all the other appointments but you know I as sick as I was I just didn't think I could you know just not show up you know so I had to show up and at least say I'm really too sick you know physically to see you but I care about you um and as I was driving through the arinum you know I was I've had a fever and I was sneezing and coughing uh I felt the presence of my parents in the car and both both no longer living

I felt my mother on this cheek and my father on this cheek and it was really very sweet I just because of Julie's experiences I kind of said oh well maybe this is real you know and by the time I got through the Arboretum all my cold symptoms were gone and it was important for me to be there for that client and I was healthy enough to actually have a session with her so that I don't know if that constitutes a paranormal experience but is she it's pretty weird she was okay yeah thank you so

much I've um I've continued to learn so much from your wonderful lovely work and our last conversation was such a Smash Hit with my audience everywhere I went people would stop me and say oh my God I love that episode with the Gans and I think it's both your your wisdom um your your knowledge but also the power of you together forms such a diverse set of perspectives which is useful in sort of taking on some of these problems that we've discussed today which is really nice because you do have very different perspectives and you

come at things differently and I think that helps complete the whole picture and thank you more broadly for the work that you've done on relationships and love over the last couple of decades because people cite it everywhere I go not just in the context of love but they cite it in the context of business I used your work on stage when I did a tour of Australia recently I've heard I've gone to conferences in Colombia and I've heard people talk about your work on the four horsemen and contempt and all these kinds of things and

your your love lab as they call it so you're doing incredibly important work targets the most important thing which is keeping humans together so thank you for all that you do and thank you for being here again thank you st and thank you very much for being the again the best interviewer we've had in 30 years isn't this cool every single conversation I have here on the DI of CEO at the very end of it you'll know I asked the guest to leave a question in the Diary of a CEO and what we've done is

we've turned every single question written in the Diary of a CEO into these conversation cards that you can play at home so you've got every guest we've ever had their question and on the back of it if you scan that QR code you get to watch the person who answered that question we're finally revealing all of the questions and the people that answered the question the brand new version two updated conversation cards are out right now at Theon conversation cards.com theyve sold out twice instantaneously so if you are interested in getting hold of some limited

edition conversation cards I really really recommend acting quickly [Music] m