Transcription
Our research tells us that fighting is good for relationships, not bad.
"Why is it men," you said, "talked about stonewalling there, where you kind of shut down and you kind of go within yourself and ignore. Why is it that men do that more than women?"
John, "What I think is that we men are much more easily physiologically aroused. We're much more aggressive than women are. And so we shut ourselves down. You know, you always make it worse when you say something. So just be quiet. Endure this. And that's kind of a male response."
"He was wrong about where they shot Karate Kid, too. Objectively wrong."
Conan, "They shot it in Los Angeles."
"No, they didn't shoot it in Los Angeles. They shot it in Hawaii."
"Oh, Hawaii. Okay, but you didn't say Hawaii, did you?"
"I just said Hawaii now. I see. I've improved myself. I'm open to improve."
"Apologizing."
"Stop. Stop. Stop. He's apologizing to you. He is trying to repair some injury he caused you. As you see, my intentions were never evil, just as I know your intentions were never evil when you've committed injury against me in the past."
I think the really great relationships have this motto that when their partner's upset, you just stop everything you're doing and listen. I keep a notebook in my back pocket just for that purpose. So, if Julie says, "We need to talk," I whip out my notebook, my pen, and I say, "Okay, I'm taking notes." So, I'm ready to listen to her. And you know, it's true that sometimes I'm oblivious to what's going on around me, but I become much more aware. So when she comes into the living room now, I stop what I'm doing, close the computer, and say, "How you doing? What's on your mind?"
Conflict also gets a really bad rap. You're not supposed to have conflicts. It means if you have a relationship with a lot of conflict, that means it's a bad relationship. Total myth.
I think one of the other things is that what makes this show so important to people around all around the world is that they feel the love and they see the hostility and put downs because here you are having all this love for one another and yet pushing each other away and then coming back together and pushing each other away. So, it's a very powerful dynamic and the humor is really fun. I'd like to think that we represent the human condition with all of its ups and downs. People may find this uh realistic approach to life endearing and they may enjoy watching for that reason.
"You need to keep asking your partner open-ended questions to know who they are. So, you're asking your partner questions with answers that have paragraphs, not a one-word answer, in order to keep in touch with who your partner is, what their values are, what their priorities are, what their needs are, what their feelings are, because those change over time as you're together."
Turning toward, we talked about that was super important. Expressing fondness and admiration is very important. So you can feel love and if you don't tell your partner you love them or express it with touch, which is incredibly important, then your partner may not be all that sure that you still do love them five years down the road. Of course, managing conflict is incredibly important, and that's where we've probably done our most significant work. But in addition to that, it's honoring each other's dreams. Dreams meaning, what are your hopes and aspirations for the future? They're not going to be compatible. They're not necessarily going to be identical. It doesn't matter. Can you support your partner in realizing their own dream and fulfilling that? And finally, creating shared meaning, which means every one of us is a philosopher. We have our own ideas about what our purpose in life is. Well, do you tell your partner what that is for you? And do you hear that from your partner? That's the sharing that's needed."
"But if the culture is so much more overstimulated than it was say 20 years ago, how does that play into the couples across from you?"
"Loring Ra shows that you know when heart rate gets above 100 beats a minute and for athletes it's 80 beats a minute. Okay. Uh we start secreting cortisol and adrenaline and we start you know and we can't process information and you know we can't listen very well or you know..."
"...we're shut down."
"But in terms of a relationship, you know, we have couples where typically the person who gets uh flooded very easily has experienced trauma. So I always see that almost immediate flooding as an indicator that trauma exists in the room and people aren't paying attention to it and we need to pay attention to it and unearth it so there's more understanding of it."
"...of our clients so that they are more resilient and can recover more quickly from from flooding."
"Why does typical couples therapy fail, John? The reason that it fails is that the therapist doesn't really have the proper tools for either assessing a relationship and most therapists don't do any assessment when a couple comes in. They don't look for, you know, what are the strengths in this relationship and what do I not need to work on and what are the challenges that I really need to work on. And not only don't they typically assess, but once once they start working with a couple, they don't really have the tools. I actually saw at a conference, I'm not making this up, somebody was training therapists and this this therapist that was doing the training played a videotape in which a husband said to his wife, 'You know, Sheila, you're such a You only think about yourself.' And the therapist said, 'Sheila, can you summarize and reflect back what Harry just said and empathize with him?' I thought, 'God, you know, what an idiot.' I mean, nobody can empathize with insult and put downs. You know, why isn't she constraining the way Harry's talking to Sheila, not just Sheila listening? So, I think a lot of times therapists really don't know how to use a tool. They don't know what really is appropriate, what a good relationship looks like."
People who are socially isolated, who have bad relationships, don't live as long. They get sick and die a lot younger. And that people have great relationships, they live a lot longer, and the quality of their life is better. They're a lot happier. So, it seems to make a real big difference. Modern social psychology has been finding the same thing with people's relationship to strangers that that affects health. So if you reach out to strangers and in the morning if you're commuting having a conversation with the commuter next to you and you're open to learning about their lives that also affects your health and longevity. So we're really a very social species.
There's a great research finding that shows that men who vacuum get more sex.
"I'm so intrigued by I'm so intrigued by humans. I love us, I hate us, and I love us again. Um, and I just, you know, lately in terms of social media, there was this on all the Tik Tok, my personal algorithm, there was there were all these videos of heterosexual couples where the women were being groped. The men were saying, 'Well, this is my way of being touchy and foreplayish with her.' And and you know, the overarching messaging was, 'Well, no, groping is not romantic, you know.' So, I don't know."
"Emily Nagoski, uh, who's who's a woman I really respect. You know, she wrote Come as You Are."
"Oh, yes."
"The best book on sex education ever."
"Wow. She went to the library and and she said that most women have some prerequisites before uh they feel the situation is erotic. One is they have to feel emotionally connected with their partner."
"Stop there John safe and you know number two they have to feel like the situation is clearly erotic and romantic. Number three, they have to feel like there's not a whole bunch of things in a to-do list that is undone."
"So, sharing the sharing the invisible load is a is a lovely way of of foreplaying."
Here's the deal with perpetual problems. We have um a method for compromise. We call it the bagel method. So in an inner circle you think about or you write down what can you not compromise on in terms of your position your position on this issue. What can you not it would be like giving up the bones of your body or that core dream you have that is so central to your identity that you got to hold on to that. Then in an outer circle, you write down what you're more flexible about. And those are typically when something will happen, who will do it, where it will happen, how much will it cost, how long will it last, those nitty-gritty details. You share what you've written down in both circles with your partner. And you look at the flexible areas around each of your positions on the issue and you try to reach a compromise regarding those flexible points of view while still honoring each other's inner core dream or core Need.