Relationship Expert on Identifying Red Flags, Narcissistic Behavior, Surviving a Break-Up & Answering YOUR Questions about Love
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If your story is, I'm unlovable, you're going to pick partners who treat you poorly. You will do things to actually make yourself unlovable. You will create friction, conflict. And so until you realize, I am operating with this plot line. Everything I do is dictated by this story.

Lori Gottlieb, she's been featured on Oprah, Good Morning America, CNN, NPR's Fresh Air. Her TED Talk from 2019 was one of the top 10 most watched of the year. It shouldn't take a betrayal for people to wake up in their relationships. Go out there and learn something about yourself. If your partner won't do that, then that's a marital issue. That's not an issue with his family. That's an issue in your marriage. We're telling the truth through our own perspective.

And we think that our perspective is the objective perspective, that the other person's perspective is somehow subjective or off, but ours is objective. How well are you listening to the other person? It's official. My and Bialik's breakdown has been nominated for a Webby Award, and we could not be more thrilled. Before we dive into today's episode, we want to take a quick second to ask that you do us a huge favor. Go to vote.webby.

webbyawards.com and cast your vote for our show. It's under the health, wellness, and lifestyle podcast category. And while you're at it, ask your friends and loved ones to please do the same. It means the world to us to be up for this award. We appreciate your support more than we can say, please vote. Now on to the episode. Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik. I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown, the place where you break things down so you don't have to.

Today we're going to break down some very important things with questions sourced from you all. We are going to find out what are the most common complaints that people have about their partners? How are we messing up the first date? Why do we stay in relationships if we know that they're not good for us? How do we know if we've found the one?

Why do certain people struggle to be vulnerable in relationships? And why do their partners not like when they learn to not be vulnerable? We're also going to learn, when is it time to get married? Are you ready to take that next step?

What are some of the biggest red flags in relationships? And what are the top tips to finding and keeping love? We're going to talk about how to figure out if guess what the problem is you in the relationship. I really appreciated learning about this one. We're also going to cover a very tricky and nuanced topic. Should you cut off relationships?

How do you rebuild trust with someone after an affair?

Who's going to be helping us answer all these questions? Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. She is also the co-host of the popular Dear Therapist podcast, and she writes the new Ask the Therapist advice column for The New York Times. She's a therapist and New York Times bestselling author. She's been featured on everything as a go-to expert on Oprah, Good Morning America, CNN, NPR's Fresh Air. Her TED Talk from 2019 was one of the top

10 most watched of the year. She's going to answer all of your questions and more. And she does so with a lot of humor, a lot of compassion, and she's very straightforward. And we are so excited to have Lori Gottlieb answering your questions and a few of our own as well. Lori Gottlieb, welcome to The Breakdown. We've got you here in person, which is so lovely.

Break it down. Thank you so much for having me. We've been wanting to talk to you for a long time, and your book is so aptly titled, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, we would like to talk to you. So we're very excited you're here. I'm here for that. Can you speak a little bit about what the impact of us being stuck in our unreliable stories is by us believing something is the truth?

How does that impact us physically and emotionally? Yeah. So we don't even realize that we're walking around with these stories. So you might be walking around with a story that's like, I'm unlovable or I can't trust anyone. I feel so seen right now. Or, you know, nothing ever works out for me or whatever that story is. And what we need to understand is that those stories were told to us by people

people who were also unreliable narrators and they had their own reasons for telling that story. So in a family, there might be like, oh, you're the smart sibling or you're this sibling. You're the sensitive one. And sometimes it can be

couched as positive, right? Like you have so few needs. I never have to worry about you. You're so self-sufficient. Yes. Yes. And then sometimes it's, it's, it's not so positive. Like, you know, don't be so difficult or why are you so sensitive? So the person thinks that because I have feelings, I'm overly sensitive. So I better stuff that down and not present that to people because they will think that I am demanding needy too much.

Right. So they walk around with that story. That's a real story. My story is, you know, not me, but my story is I am too much. So they navigate through the world with that story. I will not try to get a promotion at work because I don't want to be too much. I don't want to burden people. I will not.

tell my friend that when she's late every time we get together that that bothers me because I don't want to be too much, right? So it affects every aspect of your life that you're carrying around the story about yourself. But you got that story from someone who was extremely uncomfortable with feelings.

So that person became very uncomfortable when you had a feeling and they didn't know how to deal with your feelings, which you had completely normal feelings. You were sad when something sad happened. You were anxious when something worrying happened. You see parents do this all the time where a child might say, I'm sad. And the parent will say, oh, let's go get yogurt. Right. Because they're so uncomfortable with the child's feelings. Right.

Or they might say, the kid might say, oh, I'm so scared about this. And the parent will say, oh, don't worry about that. There's nothing to worry about. There's nothing to be scared about. Right. Or I'm so angry about this. And it's like, well, you know, don't be angry. And so when we try to talk people out of their feelings or we give them the message by literally saying to them, you're too sensitive, get over it, don't be difficult, it's

What happens is that parent is basically telling you, but you don't know this because you're a kid, is basically saying, I can't handle feelings because I grew up in whatever kind of environment I grew up in. And when you have feelings, I get anxious and I can't tolerate that. I'm going to play the devil's advocate for a second because I often think about, you know,

People that I know who don't grow up in Los Angeles or New York, right? Or San Francisco or, you know, a lot of these sort of like coastal cities where this vernacular is very familiar. What about someone who would say, like, can't people just get over it? Like, sometimes parents don't want you to cry and be so needy and like, you're fine. It's OK. Like, what is...

What is damaging about that sort of perspective that feelings really don't need to be that cared for and you'll just be fine, get over it, be quiet? What's wrong with that? Well, there's nothing wrong with that when it's balanced. So what we see right now is an overcorrection. So now we see everybody saying like, oh, your kid, you know, they can't have the ice cream before dinner. And you're like, oh, honey, I know.

Do you feel traumatized? Right, exactly. And it's like, no, they can't have the ice cream. And that's the rule. Right. So it's not about having like a 20 minute conversation or even a three minute conversation. It's just acknowledging like, I know you're sad you want the ice cream, but we're going to have it after dinner.

Right. Okay? So it's not this whole going into every feeling because now what happens with that is what I see is these people who are now in their 20s, every feeling is huge. They have no perspective. It's like a thermostat that isn't set correctly. So in other words, like they think everything is 100 degrees. Mm-hmm.

And really, it's like 70 degrees, but you're making it 100 degrees. Or I guess one of the things that can happen is if a parent gives every single emotion so much attention, that child grows into an adult who believes that every single emotion needs that level of attention. Right. And everything is a crisis.

And they also don't know how to handle their emotions. So they're not learning. So if your child comes to you and says, you know, I'm really worried about this test tomorrow.

OK, instead of saying, oh, there's nothing to worry about, you'll do great. Or instead of saying like, oh, you know, like like let's talk about it. And oh, my goodness. And, you know, you could say like, oh, well, OK, you know, tell me more. Tell me more are the three most powerful words. If somebody is coming to you with something, whether it's your partner, your child, anybody, tell me more.

And so then your child might say, yeah, I don't know. I'm really worried. I'm not sure I know how to do these kinds of math problems.

Oh, well, what do you want to do about that? Right? I don't know. Maybe I'll call my friend and see if she can help me. Or maybe I'll talk to my teacher. Right? So that's how kids learn to deal with feelings. Or I'm really sad that so-and-so didn't sit with me at lunch today. Oh, tell me more. Well, I think that maybe we got into a little argument about this. You know, like they'll figure it out. Just let them talk it through. Can you get a little esoteric? My perspective is that

a lot of the stories you're describing that we grew up with end up operating in the background and we don't even realize, I don't feel good enough to get this task for this promotion. I don't feel good enough or confident enough to tell someone that they're pissing me off. So I just harbor it inside. Can you explain how these stories that we carry around that we may not even realize how they're influencing how we perceive reality?

Yeah, I mean, they influence all of it. So, you know, it's kind of like wearing clothes that don't fit anymore and you don't realize it. You're still walking around with those old clothes. So if your story is I'm unlovable, then you're going to pick partners. Your picker is going to look for people who will validate your story. So you will find people who treat you poorly. You will find people who treat you in a way that makes you feel like, see, I'm unlovable.

You will do things to actually make yourself unlovable. So with friends, you will create friction, conflict, because it's going to validate your story. This is all completely outside of our awareness. And so until you realize I am operating with this plot line.

And I am going through the world and everything I do, every step I take is dictated by this story. And I am acting it out. And until you realize that, and by the way, it's not just realizing it and then, oh, you're free. Okay? So we like to say that insight is the booby prize of therapy, that you can have all

all the insight in the world. But if you're not making changes out in the world, the insight is useless. In fact, most of therapy takes place outside of the therapy room. So it's what did we talk about? And then how are you doing something different? Because if you aren't doing something different, it's not just rumination from the neck up.

Right. It's what are you doing differently out in the world? So someone might say, oh, now I understand why I get into that argument with my partner. We got into that same argument this weekend. And I'll say, OK, did you do something different? Well, no. Right. So the next step is, OK, so what do you want to do differently? So if you are realizing, oh, I have this story that I am unlovable and I'm seeing the ways that I'm acting that out in the world, then I'm

We're going to talk in therapy about what are some concrete things you can do this week that's different from what you might normally do. What is your instinct because you're sort of operating on autopilot with that story? And then what is something you might do differently? And there are these very small steps. And I think that when people take small steps, it doesn't feel overwhelming because people, a lot of times, they think that in order to change, they have to –

do these big rehauls and that doesn't work. In fact, often when people get stuck, I often say like maybe the steps are too big. So we want to just go into the smallest possible chunk that you can do in the smallest possible time.

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We asked our listeners to submit kind of their most pressing questions. Most of them revolve around relationships, which I think makes sense. So we're just going to fire some questions out you and see what happens. These are the most asked, most anticipated questions that our audience has. And a lot of people...

They don't know how to figure out the next step in their relationship, how to find love, how to navigate the relationship that they're in, if it's the right relationship. And so I think we're going to break down a lot of information that it's going to help a lot of people.

I want to know how we're messing up the first date. What baggage are we bringing even to a first date that is really making us destined to not have success in a relationship? Besides the story that they don't want to be here in the first place. Right, of course. Well, there's probably some reality to that. But the biggest thing that people bring to a first date is projection. So they are projecting onto the other person all of their hopes and dreams of what this...

is going to be. And if you start there, you're probably going to be disappointed. Not because there's anything wrong with the other person, but simply because you're projecting a fantasy onto another human being. So I think the thing you want to bring to a first date is curiosity. Just...

What who is this person? I'm curious about them. What's interesting about them? There's something that when I was training to be a therapist, a supervisor said, which was there's something likable about everyone. It's your job to find it. And I was like, yeah, I don't think so.

Right. I mean, there are lots of people that I thought in that moment, no, I don't know if there's something likable about them. But actually, when you do therapy, you start to realize, oh, there is actually if you get curious enough and if they're willing to be authentic with you. So how do I stop projecting hopes and dreams onto someone? Isn't that the point of dating that you have hopes and dreams?

I think that you can be excited about someone, but that's different from a whole narrative. You know, again, going back to story of and then, you know, you meet someone on a first date and there are all these projections of, oh, this person's like this and their family's like this. And this is what we're going to be like if we ever argue. And they're going to have the same values as me and they're going to have the same interests as me based on, you know, a 90 minute conversation. Got it.

Is there a way to know if someone is the one? Is that a thing? I think we place too much importance on the one. I think it's, is this person the one for me?

And there's a difference in that. There's a slight difference, which is like the one is this kind of idealized person, right, that you've been thinking about in your mind for a very long time. The one for you is how do I feel when I'm with this person? What is it like to be with this person? I feel like I'm projecting all my hopes and dreams and it's going to be amazing and I think we should get married. Yeah.

You know, but I think that people don't pay enough attention to what it feels like to be with that person. So many times people say, you know, oh, I like this person so much. I don't know why he's not calling me. It's like, are you enjoying that experience of not being called by this person? Right. Oh, I like this person so much, but I don't really know. Like, I don't he doesn't really open up to me or I don't you know, like all these things that are really difficult about the relationship or I don't really feel comfortable around this person.

Are you enjoying that experience? Because it's not just about what you like about the person on paper or what, you know, what kind of ego boost you get by being with this person who seems to, you know, check off the boxes that you like. It's what is the experience like of just being together? That kind of leads to our next question. Why do some of us stay in relationships?

That we know are not good for us instead of waiting for the right person. Because, well, a few reasons. The first is that change is really hard. So it's sort of like human beings do not do well with uncertainty. And we would rather cling to the familiar, the thing that we know, than go off into the unknown. It's kind of like the misery of certainty is better than the uncertainty.

Uncertainty. There's basically a quote that like we would rather be miserable, but we have certainty than have uncertainty and have the possibility of misery. Why is loneliness so scary for people? Yeah.

It's not just loneliness. I think it's the idea of, you know, when you're with someone, it's not just being with that person. It's the whole future that you had planned out with that person. And it's also you probably have mutual friends. You have rituals, traditions, daily routines. So part of it is just that your whole life is going to change at first in a way that's going to feel jarring.

And that's really scary for a lot of people. But another reason that we stay with people who are not right for us is because we tend to, there's this thing called repetition compulsion, which is that if you were raised by somebody, let's say, who was a yeller or someone who drank too much or someone who was avoidant and uncommunicative, we tend, if we don't kind of figure out what that was about, we tend to repeat that.

Because we think this time I will master this situation. This is, again, completely outside of our awareness. This time I will win. And so when you meet someone, like you're at a party and you're like, that person, right?

If you haven't done that work, that person will probably have some of those traits. You don't see it yet. You think, I've picked someone the opposite. This person's not a yeller. This person's not avoidant. This person doesn't drink too much. Give it a few months. See what happens. Again, if you haven't done that work.

you will probably keep picking people who feel familiar to you. It's like a moth to flame. Like you have some draw to that kind of person until you start realizing it's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. You know, people who will always say like,

you know, oh, you know, all men are terrible, all women are crazy, whatever they're saying. It's like, well, what's the common denominator here, right? Because not all men are terrible, not all women are crazy. But yes, you keep going out with people who are, you know, kind of fit this type. So you're the common denominator. Why do you keep being drawn to people like that? A lot of times people describe feeling, you know, kind of

supernaturally attracted to someone or it feels magic or it feels like chemistry, is what you're seeing just a reflection of probably something that will be revealed as a repetition compulsion? Why did God make us that way? There is healthy chemistry and there is healthy magic. But what I'm talking about is when you are unaware and you keep picking people who disappoint you, who make you unhappy, who...

can't kind of be in the kind of relationship that you want to be in, where there's a lot of conflict, where it's volatile, where someone can't commit repeatedly. You know, what is going on there? So, yes, there is healthy chemistry when you are aware of sort of what are some of these things that were keeping you stuck and you're much more intentional about who you pick than when you're in a room with people who

you will notice, oh, look at that person. And that person will probably be good for you. I want to go even further on this point. And I think the answer may be that it's more of a sense of calm than a sense of sparks and chaos. Because there's the line that says, either you're going to marry one of your parents or turn your partner into one of your parents. So what does it actually mean to get out of that cycle when it's so ingrained?

Yeah. How do we become aware? Yeah. So I think that, first of all, it's not like all of a sudden you start picking different people. It's that you still are picking the same people, but you're realizing like week two, oh, wait, I'm noticing something. Oh, wait, do I want to stay in this? By week three or week four, you're probably like, you know what? I'm going to get out of this. As opposed to month four or year four that it used to be. So you're starting to notice more and more quickly. Yeah.

what's going on. You're just being, you know, you're kind of observing yourself differently. It's growth. You've grown. You've matured. Yes, and at a certain point you say, oh, I don't actually, the chemistry that I felt around people like that, I don't feel it anymore. So what happens is you start to shift. So when you're in that

You know, I had in the book, I talk about this woman, Charlotte, who keeps dating, you know, men who disappoint her. And there's a there's a reason for that, which you can read about. And what happens is once she becomes aware of this, she's still doing the same stuff.

You know, like nothing is really changing, but she's becoming more aware more quickly. And it's interesting because at that time when she first came to me, she was like, when I go out with people who seem like really good people, like really and they're and they're attractive and they're, you know, employed. And but they're also like emotionally mature and they're funny and they're smart and, you know, all the things she wants.

I don't know, just no chemistry, not attracted, right? She just didn't have chemistry for those healthy people because it was that repetition compulsion that was pulling her along kind of like outside of her control, right?

And then when she started noticing, oh, wait, I don't like being around men like this. I don't like being around people who are unreliable or don't tell me the truth or betray me or whatever would be happening. One of them ended up coming into the – was in our waiting room, coming to therapy with his girlfriend. That's how she found out he had a girlfriend. Right.

So small world, Los Angeles. But but it was you know, it's like those kinds of things where when is enough enough? And you can tell someone that, but they're still not going to change their behavior until they start realizing what is this thing that is controlling them.

And so when she started really doing the work on this, then she started feeling chemistry toward those healthy people and was not attracted to in the same way. There was still like a little bit of a pull, but she wasn't as attracted to those people that would inevitably disappoint her.

I like this notion that one of the goals, you know, in therapy is not just to talk about your problems, but to be able to recognize patterns and then be able to say, how do I change my behavior so that...

I'm not as heartbroken about, let's say, ending a relationship that's unhealthy because it no longer has that pull for me anymore. Right. Exactly. And I think that what you realize is I'm not so heartbroken about losing this person. I'm heartbroken because I would like to find a healthy partner. And so those are two different things. We all have that friend who won't break up with the guy. Yeah. Yeah.

And a lot of times, a lot of times, like it seems so clear to us. Like, why would you want to be with this person? Right. What what is going on when like we can see that a relationship needs to end, but that person doesn't see it? How do you get that person to understand it's time to give up on this? Or is that something that you need to let people just figure out on their own?

It's interesting because in the book I talk about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion.

And what we tend to do as friends for a very long time until we can't take it anymore is we tend to offer idiot compassion. So, you know, your friend and also going back to unreliable narrators, your friend will say, can you believe what my partner did? And we're like, yeah, you're right. They're wrong. You go, girl. Right. Because we think we're being supportive. And we also take their version of the story as the objective truth.

But if you listen to your friends enough, right, you might hear the pattern and you might see the pattern. And so at a certain point, you're not offering the idiot compassion anymore. You're not saying like, yeah, you're right. But you are sort of validating their experience, which isn't.

that helpful either. And so, you know, it's like, oh, I'm so sorry or oh, that's so hard, right? But that's not really helping them because then they're just venting to you and it's just a pattern and they're not doing anything about it and they're not even aware of it. What you get in therapy is you get wise compassion where we're holding up a mirror to you and we're helping you to see something that maybe you haven't been willing or able to see. And the word compassion is in there because we do it compassionately, but we're also challenging you.

And I think that a lot of people think that therapy is you go into therapy, you download the problem of the week, your therapist says, yes, that's so hard, right? And they validate you and you leave. That's not therapy. That's the idiot compassion you can get from your friends.

But much more expensive when you go to a therapist. And it's a waste of time and money if you're paying someone for that and you're driving to someone's office to do that. So, you know, if you're looking for a therapist, by the way, small tangent here, but if you're looking for a therapist, I think it's really important to say not only how do I feel talking to this person, but did they say something or ask a question that made me wonder about something differently, think about something differently? Right.

And so I think with your friend, when you have a friend who, you know, you say, why are they putting themselves through this? This is so hard to watch. You can ask them questions. So it's not leave him. Why are you putting up with this? It's none of that. They're not going to respond to that. It's more like it sounds like it sounds like it's really hard to be in this relationship. Or what's it like for you when he does that or she does that?

Right? Just a question. And I wouldn't ask more than one at one time in one conversation. Just what's it like? Oh, well, it's terrible. Oh, huh.

Tell me more, or don't tell me more. Right, got to go. But I think that when people are hearing themselves say, oh, I really don't like this, or this is really hard, right? You know, they start to come to some sort of awareness. It's going to take time. They're going to have to do it on their own. I mean, you know, you can say something like,

You know, it really breaks my heart to watch you be treated like this or to allow yourself to be treated like this. And you can also say to your friend,

It depends. Are they in an abusive relationship or are they just in a bad relationship? I was just talking about general bad relationships. Because abusive is different. But if they're just in a bad relationship, you can say to them, you know what? It breaks my heart to hear you go through this relationship that just doesn't seem to be making you happy. I don't think I can really be helpful with this.

Because then they don't have you as an outlet for that. And the fact that they can keep talking to their friends about it keeps them in the relationship. When people stop talking to them about it, they actually have to face it. And then they might go to therapy or they might make a different decision. And this is not about abusive relationships. Again, this is just about bad relationships.

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You see a lot of people come in and out of your office. It's a somewhat gendered question. What are the most common complaints that women have about men?

And what are some of the most common complaints that men have about women? And I'm asking you this because I hope you will validate what a lot of people experience. So you had said earlier, like, women are crazy and like men are mean. But what is actually going on? What what do the sexes get wrong about the other or what are they perceiving is not going well in trying to interact?

I want to give some context to this, which is that I think that it's really hard in our culture for men to really talk about what they're going through. So when men come into therapy, they will usually say something to me like, I've never told anyone this before. And they literally mean that. Even if they have a healthy marriage, a great marriage, friends, family, they have not told anyone.

when women come in, they will often say something at some point like, you know, I've never told anyone this before, except for my sister, my mother, my best friend. Right? So they've told one, two, three people. But they feel like, because they haven't told more people, that it's private. They really haven't told anyone. So when a couple comes in,

Often, and if it's a heterosexual couple, if you're going to talk about genders in that way, often the woman will say something like, you know, I really want you to open up to me. I really want to know what you're feeling. I just feel like we're so disconnected and I need you to tell me what's going on. And then right there in front of me on my couch, he will open up to her and maybe he even tears up a little bit.

Or some tears start falling. Or he's crying. And she will freeze. She will freeze like a deer in headlights. And what comes out is, I don't feel safe when you don't open up to me because I feel disconnected from you. But I also don't feel safe when you're crying in front of me because...

All this cultural stuff around, you know, men and vulnerability and strength and what it means in women and what we want from men. And it's so confused and conflicted because we want...

To have authenticity, vulnerability, communication with our partners, and we still have these gendered stereotypes that get in the way. So what do you do with that? What do you do for the female partner who has asked for vulnerability and then doesn't know what to do with it or feels threatened by it or doesn't feel safe? And what do you do for the male partner who's trying to express himself and is not being received and heard?

For the female partner, you know, we talk about what I just said about this question of safety and what that means. And we talk about what safety means for him. He says, you know, he'll say something like, yeah, this is why I don't feel safe talking to you. Right. So then we say, OK, how do we create safety for both of you so that he can feel safe talking to you and you can feel safe even when he's vulnerable, knowing that he's still strong? Right.

That vulnerability, actually, it's a sign of strength that he is opening up to you, that he is so strong that he is able to show this part of him to you. And that reframe is so helpful for women to know, wow, the truly strong man is the one who can be vulnerable, who can open up to me, who can feel comfortable talking.

saying what he really feels. I think a lot of women maybe have this complaint about their partners, and this may happen also in any variety of permutations of relationship, but

There are often times when the partner who's asking for the other partner to be more vulnerable, there are often times when that person does not want to be vulnerable or doesn't have that vocabulary. Can you talk a little bit about what that is like? Because many men don't want to go there. Like they don't just all sort of crumble in a therapist's office. And I guess my fear is that a lot of people want to get their partners to therapy, but

That doesn't always happen. It doesn't always happen that they sit in a therapist chair and all of a sudden they're like crying and like, oh, I have, you know, issues and like, don't be afraid of my vulnerability. A lot of men don't want to go there and feel threatened by going there. So can you talk a little bit about that dynamic as well? Yeah.

It's not as if you say to your partner, you know, I really want to know what's going on with you when they suddenly open up to you and that scenario happens. It doesn't happen that way on the couch necessarily, right, in therapy. It takes a lot of kind of creating trust and creating that space. But at the same time, I think that what we all want more than anything is to be understood. So I remember I had a couple and the woman said to her husband, you know what three words I really want to hear?

And he said, you might guess. I don't know. I love you. I love you. Right. I want to hear that more. I love you. And she said, no, it's I understand you. And there is something so loving about that.

someone taking the time to be present and understand you. It's really what listening is, which is not coming up with what your response is, not telling them why they're wrong, not reflecting back to them what they said. It doesn't really matter. That's really strange. I don't know why people do that in therapy rooms. Well, because sometimes the other person's literally not listening. Yeah.

Yeah, but I think there are other ways than sort of verbatim repeating what they're saying because you can verbatim repeat what someone said and still have no idea what they're trying to tell you. Right, that's a step. Right, right. So there's sort of like content up here and there's process down here. And we're talking about process, to be understood, to be truly understood. And so I think that when you realize that everybody just wants to be understood and

That that's where people are more likely to talk to you. So if you say to your partner, I want you to open up to me and then they open up to you and you're like, oh, but it didn't really happen that way. Or, you know, no, that's not really what happens. Or, oh, you want me to do the dishes? No, I don't really like this whole opening up thing. So so so, you know.

How can you create an experience for them where you don't have to agree with them, but can they feel understood when they're talking with you? And what do men report about women? Because what I usually hear from every relationship I've ever been in is that I have too many feelings and I want to process them too much. Jonathan? True? I've never heard that.

No, I think men feel a little trapped by the moving goalposts. Yes. We want to hear everything that's going on. Actually, when it's shared, we either don't want to hear it or women sometimes act like men and try to fix it and say why it's not true. And then we're told, actually, don't fix their feelings at all. Just listen and hear and understand and let them process. So I think...

I think the moving goalposts and the swinging expectations is a big factor for men. Right. And so what I often tell men is when your partner is talking with you and they come to you with something, you say at the very beginning, how can I be helpful right now? Do you just want to vent? Do you want to hug? Do you want to brainstorm ideas or solutions? What do you need right now? And that just means right now, by the way, because right now you might just want to vent.

Right now, you might just want to hug. But then tomorrow, you might come with the same thing because now you've sort of thought about it. You've vented, but it's still in process. And now you've come back. And then he's like, well, wait, we talked about this yesterday. I don't understand. I gave her what she wanted. No, ask her what she needs today. Today, she might say, actually, I'm thinking about this and I want your thoughts on what I might do with it. I think a lot of people want their partner to serve them.

the function that many of us would probably be better looking for from a friend.

Right. Well, you know, obviously you want your partner to be your friend, but the relationship with your best friend is that you're not living with your best friend. You're not also showing your best friend. Like all of that stuff that we're carrying around from our childhoods doesn't tend to come out as much with our best friends as it does with our partners. Our partners trigger us in ways that only an intimate relationship does. It's very different. So you could say, oh, no, my best friend, we've been through everything. We've known each other since childhood. Totally.

totally different relationship. Have you ever freaked out on your best friend the same way you freaked out on your partner? Probably not. Have you ever just totally lost it with your partner in a way that you haven't totally lost in the same way with your best friend? There are certain rules about friends that we know we can't cross, even with someone we're completely comfortable with. With our partners, we tend to just get really dysregulated.

And so we forget, oh, wait, there are rules. We do have to treat the other person with humanity and respect. But we forget that because we're so dysregulated and we've regressed. We don't regress as much with our best friend. So we say, oh, I wish that my partner, my relationship with my partner were like my relationship with my best friend. Well, then have your partner move out, have them be your best friend, and it'll improve. Can we talk a little bit more about why it is that we regress with our partners? Why is it sometimes...

Whatever they've done, all of a sudden we feel like we're a child and we're like furious. You know, you hear people be like, oh, I'm like really together everywhere else. But this one person drives me nuts and I'm so angry here. What's happening? What's going on that we're playing that out with our romantic partners? It's the primary experience of love. So you learned, you know, I always say to people, you know, tell me how you love and I'll tell you how you were loved.

And you can see that. You can talk to anybody. See how they love now, and you can find out how they were loved. I love people to death. Right.

Explain that, though. So you were smothered. Were you smothered? No, I actually wasn't. I mean, my mom's going to listen to this. Hi, Mom. No, I wasn't smothered, but there was a real urgency to love. There was a real life or death-ness to love. And I think a lot of this is epigenetic. I come from a post-Holocaust family. So, you know, everything was very, very urgent, critical, and chaotic. Yeah, yeah. So that's how you were loved. I'm just a hoot.

But when you think about it, right? So you... I also like, you know, slam doors and stuff because I was raised where like people slam doors. It's apparently not good. I mean, the habit was broken, but yeah, like that was my way of interacting. Like get louder, more angry, throw things, scare people, you know, just standard things. And so our primary relationship is...

like goes through the same sort of neurological pathway that the relationship of love, like what it meant to feel loved, even if it wasn't loving, like someone can grow up in an abusive household. And that was their experience of, um,

It all gets mixed up together. It gets mixed up because you're dependent on that person. You don't know. So you kind of you love that person, but you hate that person. Right. You need that person. So part of you loves that person because they're feeding you and keeping you alive. And part of that, if you can talk a little bit about this, what happens is when we get into relationships that even unconsciously, right, end up repeating some of these patterns. It's not so much that we like it. It's that.

It's comfortable enough. It's familiar. It's comfortable. So it doesn't feel, because I remember when I first slammed a door, my then husband was like, oh no, we don't do that. And it was like so matter of fact to him, like, no, no, that's not going to happen. And I was like, ooh, what is that like? You know, and now 15, 20 years later, I'm like, oh, his nervous system was just like, that's a no, we don't do that. What does that feel like?

Yeah, exactly. I think it's important that we understand that in this primary relationship that we are going to get triggered in a particular way.

So, you know, in my book, I talk about the Viktor Frankl quote that everybody loves, you know, like between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space, basically, we have a choice and there's our growth and freedom. So what do we do in that space? So with our friends, we might react to something, but there's that space. We are we aren't so we aren't like immediately regressed to, you know, seven years old, but

But with our partners, we don't often have that space. We have to be really intentional about it. It's like, well, because they're right in it. I need to take a breath. How can I have it? Well, your friend could be in your space, but you still won't do that. Right. Right. So what is it about the loving experience that you're neurologically wired to

to go right down that pathway. So can we, it's like a big freeway, right? So can we open up other side streets so that when something like that happens, it's not going down the 405, it's not going down this big highway that it normally goes down, but it's gonna get rerouted a little bit. So now we have a little space to kind of figure out, okay, what am I reacting to? Am I reacting to this person in front of me or I'm reacting to something from the past? - What's the best tool to use if you feel like you're gonna lose it with your partner?

The best tool is, first of all, to take a breath and just keep breathing. Say nothing. Do not say words. Any words that come out of your mouth are not going to be words that you're going to be proud of. So don't say words. Just take a breath. Take another breath.

And you might say, you know what? I need to take a 15-minute break right now, and then we'll come back and talk about this. What happens in those 15 minutes physiologically? In those 15 minutes, you should move your body. So take a walk, do some jumping jacks, whatever you need to do, move your body. And you might want to just think about, like, instead of ruminating, like, I can't believe the person did that, I can't believe they said that, and then you're just working yourself up.

to think if the other person were telling their version of this story right now,

What would they be saying? But you have to do this after you move your body. Because when you're in it, and you're seeing red, if anybody's ever seen red, those thought processes are not online. Right, that's why you're moving your body. A whole bunch of other stuff is online. So you want to move it through your body. And I sometimes will say to Jonathan, I'm not just protecting me from this conversation. Consider this a present that I'm giving you for me not to open my mouth and keep speaking.

because no one is going to like what comes out of it. And I may feel differently once I move my body and talk to my therapist. Yes. And you don't have to talk to your therapist. This is something anyone can do. That's great. And, you know, one of the things that I really love about

therapy is that I think there are people who go for all kinds of reasons, but I think most people go because they want to learn how to navigate through the world more smoothly and they don't want to always have to ask their therapist how to do that. So what we're, it's like raising children. You don't want them to be dependent on you. So they're going to go, they're going to launch. You want your therapy clients to learn how to navigate through the world on their own. And maybe they come back for a tune up, maybe they don't, but

It's just these simple practices. You know, people don't know this growing up. They've seen parents who fly off the handle and they think, OK, well, that's what happens when you get angry. They don't know that there's another way. Some people are so afraid of anger because they saw what it did when somebody else got angry that they won't even acknowledge their own anger, which it's dangerous in its own way. One of the things that I hear a lot of people talk about is that their partner won't talk, can't talk.

Often we're dealing with a partner maybe who's got addiction issues or came from a very, very traumatic childhood. And it's someone who's learned to function and they've done their thing. But there comes a point when the partner really cannot do it anymore. And for many people, what they say is, will you go to therapy?

What do you do if someone will not go to therapy or is forcing someone to go to therapy in that kind of situation ultimately going to be helpful? Yeah, you can force someone to go to therapy, but you can't force them to do the work.

So, you know, I don't think forcing someone to go to therapy is necessarily a great idea. What I do think is that you need to decide what your limits are. So I think there's this big misconception on social media. You know, if you look at social media, it's like everyone's a narcissist. Misconception on social media? Social media is just a misuse of, you know, everyone's toxic, everyone's a narcissist. If someone upsets you, estrange yourself from them, which I'm very against in many cases. Yeah.

you know, you're being gaslit if someone has a different opinion of a situation than you do. Those kinds of things. It's really frustrating as a therapist because then so many people cut themselves off from learning how to relate. So what people also misconstrue on social media is boundaries. People think that a boundary is I'm going to make a request to you and if you don't do it, then you're not following my boundary. Okay, you broke my boundary. Your boundary is with yourself.

So your boundary is not with the other person. So you make your request, like, you know, um,

If you yell when we have an argument, I'm going to end the conversation, right? That's something you did with yourself. So the person yells, you say, oh, I'm going to end the conversation. We'll come back later, right? You have to do it not 99% of the time, 100% of the time. Because if you only do it 95% of the time,

The 5% of the time that you don't do it, the person thinks like, oh, it's cool. It's okay. Like I can yell sometimes. We teach people how to treat us. Right, right. Well, we decide. We make that decision. Like I'm going to let this person yell this time. Why did you decide to let the person yell? What happened there? That was your decision. So the question is, you know, if your partner, you know, you want to work something out with your partner and your partner won't go to therapy but you feel like you're at an impasse, right?

You can set a limit. Now, you might be dating this person and say, you know, I think we really have things that we don't know how to talk about. And it's really important to see what's going to happen with us if we can learn how to have these conversations. I can't stay in this relationship any longer if we don't go talk to someone. You can choose the person. It's fine. You know, like, let's go find someone we both like. But we need to talk to someone to see what's possible here.

Right. But that's your boundary. And then the person doesn't want to go or says no. And then you just stay in the relationship for another, you know, six months or a year or more. Well, that's on you. So it's really about, you know, when you want to set a boundary. First of all, ask yourself, is it reasonable? Because a lot of times based on social media, I see all these boundaries out there. I'm like, people need to live. You can't just ask people to, you know, like live in these little fishbowls, like give them an aquarium. Right. Right.

So, you know, I think that sometimes people give an ocean where there's no boundaries and sometimes people give a fishbowl where the boundaries are so restrictive that nobody can possibly, you know, like honor your request. You need an aquarium. Everyone needs an aquarium. There's some room.

OK, to be human and to live your life like you can't just micromanage and control every aspect of another person's behavior. That's not healthy for either of you. Can you talk a little bit about attachment style? We hear a lot about attachment styles. Yeah. And, you know, what one of our listeners asked is, how do you know if you're the problem? And I wonder if in kind of the scope of attachment styles, you can talk about this, like if you're trying to predict what's

Which couples are going to break up? Am I going to be the one that messes this relationship up? Does it come down to if you have a disorganized attachment style, if you have an avoidant attachment style, are there certain ways that you should be navigating so that you're not the problem in the relationship? So there are certain attachment styles that tend to attract to each other. Um,

securely attached people tend to pair with securely attached people. That's nice. They want to give all their healthy genes to the next generation and just keep making happy, securely attached babies. Well, I think when you think about, right, like what I was talking about earlier is like, you know, who do you have chemistry with? Who are you attracted to? What is your picker like? Your picker is going to be for securely attached people because you don't want to be in this volatile relationship or an avoidant relationship. You're not going to last very long in that. It's not going to satisfy you.

People who have an avoidant attachment style often pick a very volatile person. It's interesting because it's the opposite sort of what you would want. Right. A volatile person will probably pick a very avoidant person because neither of you really has to deal with anything. And that's keeping you safe, you think, but it's actually not.

So it's not really about what your attachment style is. It's what's going on in the relationship and are you both aware of it and working on it? So it's not like you're doomed if these two attachment styles get together. It's are you both aware of it and are you both doing something individually? Before couples come to couple therapy, I always say I want you each to tell me what you want to do individually.

each of you separately to make to be the best possible person you can be in this relationship even if the other person makes zero changes and they're like what no no no no I'm here to change the other person they need to do this this and this it's like no no I can't do that but what I can do is I can help you meet your goal and I can help them meet their goal can you talk a little bit about anxious attachment some of us might be curious about that

Anxious attachment is you never know what to expect. So sometimes, so when you were growing up, sometimes you got what you wanted. You got attuned parenting or whoever was around you and you felt really safe and comfortable. Other times you were, you never knew like if the person was going to be available or not. And it was always a surprise. Like, what am I going to get today? Which, which version of mom or dad am I going to get today? Yeah.

And so you're very hypervigilant. You don't trust the other person. You often think like if something if you're feeling good, that makes you so anxious. Like you're feeling good and you think, oh, my gosh, like the sky is going to fall because something bad is going to follow this because that's what used to happen. You'd have like you couldn't feel comfortable in the calm because the calm would be followed by the storm. How do you fix that?

First of all, you do some updating of your story. Like when does this actually happen? What evidence do you have for this? Let's talk about the last week. Okay. What evidence do you have that when you were feeling good that something bad happened because you were feeling good? That that was the reason. Like, oh, and then I got into a car accident. Right? Yeah.

Well, maybe there's some unconscious process there where you're creating the storm, right? But maybe there was a drunk driver and you had no control over that. And it wasn't because you got the promotion at work and your partner was loving to you that this drunk driver happened to be in your path. I wonder if you can talk about long distance relationships or relationships that people get into that specifically have an ability to kind of escape the

Can you talk about what's going on there? Can long distance relationships work? And is there some underlying mechanism that's at play when people are seeking out these kind of relationships or situationships? Yeah. I think it's really important in a long distance relationship to be very clear about what you both have.

want out of the relationship? Like, is this something that where we want to be together long term? And if so, do we have plans to be in the same city? And what is that going to look like? And that needs to be discussed very early on.

And so often what happens is people meet and then they happen to live in different cities or they've known each other for like a month and then somebody gets a job somewhere or, you know, they have to move and they think, okay, well, we'll make this work and we'll figure it out. No. It's like you need to, yes, you might need to figure out the logistics later, but you need to know now, like, what are we doing here? What is the point of this?

And I think also with long distance, you don't have shared experiences. It's almost like parallel play where, you know, one person is saying, here's what happened in my life today. And the other person is saying, here's what happened in my life today. But you didn't actually go to that event together. You didn't actually have that dinner together. Your shared friends are in different places. So your lives are very siloed. And so you have to be very creative about how do you bridge that gap?

And if you're doing it for the short term, like I have a three month assignment where I have to be here. OK, but if you're doing it longer than that, it can be really, really challenging. I'm curious about a word I keep hearing, which is planning and intention. A lot of people meet and they're like, they're interesting. Like, as you said, we'll figure it out.

Do people plan? And is there a difference between those who are clear on what they want and are building that versus people who are figuring it out as they go? So I like this metaphor that relationships are like cement, that whatever happens in the beginning happens.

is going to dry, the cement's going to dry. So let's say that, for example, you haven't talked about like, you know, say a person is always coming late or they're always canceling. And you're like, oh, I don't want to make a big deal about it. We're just meeting. I don't know. You know, whatever. Right. And then like three months in, you say like, I can't stand it when you're late. Why are you always late? And they're like, I didn't know it was a problem. Right. But the relation, you know, the cement has dried. Right.

And so when the cement is wet, you have time to kind of like mold it a little bit and see what's possible and who's flexible and what can be done. Once the cement is dry, it's so much harder. So when we talk about planning and intention, it's because people are afraid to bring things up early. But what are you doing with your time if you're just coasting along and thinking, I'll bring that up later? Right.

What's the point of that? Don't you want to know earlier whether you can maybe work this through with that person? I'm going to answer no, because I think what the fear is, is if you put these things in place, the person's going to go away. I mean, I'm just being super honest. Right.

that we may have conflict about because then they're going to go away. So if I'm just okay with everything, if I act like I'm okay with everything, if I try and like bend myself into the pretzel that I'm okay with everything, they won't go. Isn't that how it works? Right. But they will go away either way. Let's say that they go away because you say, you know what, let's figure out. By the way, this late thing happened with a client where she was so upset that

that he was always late and she and she her story around it was he doesn't like prioritize me he doesn't respect my time he doesn't prioritize me I'm not he doesn't think about me he was leaving work early because she likes to eat early to prioritize her but he couldn't quite make it on time because it was so hard for him to get away and his boss was always like don't leave and you know so he was actually trying to prioritize her but without communicating about it

So often if you talk about it while the cement is wet, you find out, oh, wow, we actually both really care about this. Let's find a solution.

If the person is going to go away because you brought up something that is important to you, good, bye, right? I mean, why do you want to be in a relationship like that? Because that thing is going to stay. And so if you wait six months to bring it up, they're still going to go away. So now you've got six months of a relationship where it's going to be even harder to see the person go. How do you know when a relationship is working and you should actually get married? Right.

How did you know? I don't know that I did. I don't know that I was young and it was, I was with someone who was older than me and actually they were kind of on a different clock than I was. And it was, it was an ongoing conflict. And if I look back at it, I wasn't strong enough to say, I'm not ready for this. Right. So to answer your question, that's part of the answer is if you don't feel ready to

Right. You're not ready. It doesn't really matter why. You need to figure out why. But if you're not ready, you can't say, oh, I'm not ready. But, you know, it's not really a legitimate reason. If you aren't ready to marry somebody, do not marry them. Be honest with them. Try to figure out what's going on. Maybe this is the right person for you and you have something to work through and maybe it's not.

Can you talk about in the book, you're very, very honest in the first section of the book in particular, you know, you you go into some detail about a person that you almost married. Yeah. And they chose to share something with you that led to the relationship ending. Can you talk a little bit about that and what it would have been like if boyfriend, ex-boyfriend had not shared what he shared? So for context, yeah.

In the book, I follow the lives of four of my patients, and then I'm the fifth patient in the book, and I go to therapy after a breakup. And the breakup happens because the person that I thought we were going to spend our lives together with, he tells me one night – and by the way, when I say tells me, it's sort of like he's unusually quiet sometimes.

And there's just this sort of sixth sense that something is off in my mind. There's just, you know, that kind of something vibe-wise felt weird. I was not expecting this to be the weird thing. But when I asked him after a few questions sort of like what's going on, his kids were teenagers and they were going to go off to college. Yeah.

And he said that he's decided that he can't live with a kid under his roof for the next 10 years, which I am astounded by. Now, before you all hate him, there's much more to this story. He's a lovely person. And I make that clear in the book. But in the beginning, people hate him the way I did. And I think this, again, goes to stories and perspective and all of that, because I was complicit in this, too, not realizing it. I think, wait a minute.

And my kid was six when we met. So it's not like I hid him in a closet. You've been living here. Like, what are you, you know, I don't understand. Where did this come from? Right. And so, you know, all my friends, of course, do the idiot compassion. Oh, you know, he's an asshole. He's this, he's that, he's a narcissist, you know, whatever they want to say. Right. And it feels deliciously, you know, validating in the moment that

And at one point, one of my therapist friends says to me, you know, maybe you should talk to someone. And that is how I go to Wendell in the book. And I expect that Wendell and I pick Wendell very, very intentionally. Like he is married with kids. And, you know, if he's like a guy who's going to say that boyfriend was an asshole, then I know he really was. Right. And I fully expect that to happen.

And so I get there and that is not what happens. And one of the things my friends and their idiot compassion would say is, oh, boyfriend was so avoidant. What kind of person doesn't share this kind of information? Right. But so was I. So, you know, I noticed so many things that I would ignore about how he felt about kids. And I noticed it all the time. And I would just kind of put it away, put it in a box. Give an example.

we'd be at a restaurant and he'd be really annoyed by kids, which I get. But at the same time, it's kind of like he would be overly annoyed. Right. He said that he and his wife, they had to use fertility treatments to have their twins. And he said, I would have been fine without kids, but she really wanted them. File that away. Forget about it. Right. Yeah.

When I would go off and leave him with my son if I was running an errand or whatever, wherever I was, he was just not that interested. You know, in a way that if you're dating someone and this person is going to be a part of your family, you're going to make an effort. Right.

And so there were a lot of little things like that. They weren't big red flags, but taken together. It was something that I never said, hey, I've noticed this. Let's talk about this. Because I thought, like you said before, he'll go away.

Right. So if I bring this up, he'll go away. That would have been great because I wouldn't have deluded myself that whole time. We wouldn't have wasted all that time in this relationship if either of us had been able to really talk about it. One of the things that comes up in the book, and this came up in some of the questions that we got also, a lot of grief came up and a lot of grief that actually didn't have to do with the relationship per se that you were in. How is a breakup like grief?

When you lose a relationship, you lose not just the person in the present, but you lose the past. You lose the shared history together because now it's yours to remember without the other person. Um,

You lose the future that you had imagined together. And then you lose just not so much, again, this specific person, but the dailiness of how is your day? You know, someone to have dinner with, someone who's your plus one, someone that you text with during the day, all of those kind of just parts of being in a relationship with

with anyone. It doesn't have to be this particular person you're losing. So there's so many layers of grief. There's the particularities of what you loved about this person. And then there's what you loved about being in a relationship. And then there's all of that stuff that happened that you're holding and it feels very lonely because you're not sharing it with anyone anymore.

And it's not building on anything. And then there's that future that you that was just given to you. And now you have it's blank. Now the page is blank. You have no idea what it's going to look like. You're not making a very good argument for breaking up with people. Oh, but but then but that's that's the grief and the loss. I think it's much more devastating to stay with someone when the relationship is not working. Hmm.

You know, because then you're grieving every day. Every day in that relationship, you're dissatisfied, you're sad, you don't have what you want, you're hurt, you're lonely. I know so many people who stay in relationships and I see them in therapy and they're like, yeah, I've been in this relationship for five years. Well, when did you realize that you were lonely? About a year in, right? So four years and they're so afraid of leaving.

And then when they do, they think, oh, I wish I had done this so many years ago.

I never hear people say, oh, I wish I had – I'm so glad I waited this long to break up. I never hear that. You always hear, I wish I had done it a long time ago because it sounds really scary because for all the reasons I said. But you're already going through grief and loss. So you're going to go through a different kind of grief and loss if you break up. But now you can start something new in your life, whatever that looks like. It doesn't even have to be a new relationship. But you're going to write things on that new page in this new chapter.

What should men know about women that they don't understand? It's so interesting. Like, I think that there are definitely differences between men and women. But I also think that people are so individual. So I don't... I think what you need to know is... You need to know about the specific person that you're with. You know, because they're going to be different from the last person you dated. And I think maybe that's what it is, is that whatever you think, whatever you come into, a lot of people...

They take their former experiences in relationship and they think that they've learned something that will work with this new person. But it doesn't necessarily work with this new person because this new person needs something else. Also, we punish people for crimes they didn't commit but that someone else in our lives committed. So like if your last partner lied to you, then you come into a new relationship thinking

really hypervigilant. You're going to push that person away because they didn't commit that crime. They didn't lie to you. They didn't betray you. They're being honest with you. But if you treat them like they're guilty of a crime, they're going to start hiding things from you, not because they want to lie to you, but because you're just so in their face that they need a private space.

How does it look to rebuild trust with someone who has lied to you? And in particular, I think I'm asking the question about infidelity. And, you know, there's a lot of conversation about is all infidelity sex addiction? Is there overlap here? How do you rebuild trust with someone when you've been lied to, in particular in a betrayal?

You're talking about a physical betrayal, an emotional betrayal. I mean, you could talk about either. I think emotional betrayals happen a lot. I blame the internet. I blame, you know, sort of the way that we can communicate for that. But really, either, you know, rebuilding trust. Yeah, I'd be curious for either. It's interesting because sometimes people say, I never suspected anything. This was a total shock. I don't know where this came from. Other times people say, okay,

You know, I kind of, something seemed off, but they were afraid to bring it up. So sometimes, and this is not at all to be very clear, to blame someone for being complicit in somebody else's betrayal. So I want to be really clear about that. But sometimes we invite a betrayal.

By inviting lies. Like we know that something didn't sound right, but we don't say, hey, I'm confused in the moment. I'm confused about that. I thought this, but you said this. What's happening? Right? We just let it go because, again, we're afraid of what we might – we're afraid of the truth. So we don't want to know the truth. There are so many couples where for so long people have known things or suspected things, but they don't want to know the truth.

And so by sort of being complicit in this system where one person is lying, they know the other person isn't going to call them on it. The other person is like, well, I kind of know this is going on, but I don't want to believe it. So I'm going to just pretend, la, la, la, la, la, that this isn't going on. And then both of you are kind of doing this thing together without talking about it. So I think it's important that we realize that it's not always just like one person is doing something in isolation, right?

Or to take a common example, one person is terribly lonely in the relationship and they have tried to talk to the partner about, I am really lonely and tried to, can we go to couples therapy or can we do more things together or can we figure this out? And every bid for connection is either given lip service but nothing really changes or rejected.

And so the person, instead of saying what they should do, is say, I can't be in this relationship anymore. So, you know, cheating is never the great solution here. But they don't know what to do. They feel like maybe it's me. I don't know. I don't know why this person doesn't love me. They feel unlovable now. And then something happens where out in the world someone pays attention to them.

And they think this feels really good. This is showing me that I'm lovable, but I'm not going to cross any lines. That's what they tell themselves. I'm not going to do anything about it.

And then they're just so lonely that they do. And then they feel terrible about themselves. And then they don't know what to do. And then the other person discovers it and says, you're horrible. You had an affair. You cheated. How dare you? I could excuse anything but this. Even though the other person has really left them starving.

just absolutely starving for affection, for any sign that they care, anything like that. So again, having an affair is not the other person's fault, okay? You have control over whether you have an affair. But there's a systemic thing going on sometimes. Not always, but sometimes. And I think when you talk about rebuilding trust after, it's about, okay, this thing happened. It was terribly hurtful and traumatic. What happened?

That led to this. And are we both willing to see whether we can rebuild trust and whether we want this relationship to become a new version of the relationship? And if both people are not on board with that, that's not going to happen. But if both people are on board, maybe on board meaning like I'm not sure but I'm willing to try because you don't know yet. Okay, great.

As long as we have willingness, let's see what we can do here. And it shouldn't take a betrayal for people to wake up in their relationships. But unfortunately, so many times people will later say, I wouldn't want to go through that pain again of this affair. But it saved our marriage. It saved our relationship. It was the wake-up call we needed. It's unfortunate it had to happen that way. But this is what we credit our happiness to now.

So that's definitely helpful for that kind of scenario. I wonder if you can speak a little bit to what rebuilding trust looks like in a different kind of scenario where, you know, someone is caught off guard by someone going outside of the bounds of the marriage. And maybe that wasn't the dynamic. Maybe it was something, you know, that that happened that the person regrets. But how do you rebuild trust? Like, what does that look like? Are there issues?

exercises, what are the steps? Does it just take time? The person who went outside the bounds needs to take full responsibility. So it's not, yes, I did this, but you this. Okay. It's what I did was wrong. I betrayed your trust. I am so sorry.

Full stop. Okay? So it's not... You know, the other stuff can be talked about in couples therapy. But if you cannot just accept responsibility for what you did, then there's not going to be trust there because the other person is going to think, well, you think that under certain circumstances, it's okay. Like, you're saying...

I'm sorry I did this, but I did it because. So if because happens again, you might cheat again.

So we need to know that whether there's a because or there's not a because, that this is – you realize this is not okay. You were responsible for your behavior. You're not going to do it again. And here are the steps we're going to take to rebuild trust. And they might look like, besides talking about what the dynamic was in the relationship and what wasn't working, and sometimes it's just that person's life wasn't working. It wasn't even about the partner. Like they were feeling bad about themselves and they needed to do some work together.

And they dealt with it in a, you know, very unhealthy way. But it might be like, you know, I need you to let me know where you are or I need you to let me see your phone or, you know, it depends what the betrayal was and how it happened. But I need access to that.

And the person can't balk. They can't be like, no, because, you know, sometimes I just talk to my friend. It doesn't matter. And you, by the way, as the person who is given permission to look at their phone, that doesn't mean that you are on their phone 24-7.

That means like, you know what, you're going to work on building up some trust and sometimes you might need to look and you're going to look and you're going to tell the person, hey, I need to look at your phone right now. Okay, but if you're doing that 24-7, then nothing's going to get better there. How does someone know if they are ready to date again, either after a breakup or a traumatic experience? How do they know if they're healthy enough to be out there dating? So many people think that you have to work on yourself first.

Before you go out and date. And that to me makes no sense because it's kind of like you're just in your head thinking about things. But until you're in the situation, it's like saying like I'm going to if you're a basketball player, right? If you're like in the NBA, I'm going to think about basketball. Right.

And I'm going to think about it and think about it and think about it. And then, you know, maybe I'll like do some drills, but I'm not going to play in a real game until I'm really ready. It's like, no, you need you need minutes. Like you can be the person who is the benchwarmer, but you still need minutes. Right. You've got to be in a game. You've got to go out there and do your minutes. So you're going to learn so much more by being on the court than you are just sitting on the bench. So go out there and learn something about yourself.

because you're going to find all kinds of things that happen when you're interacting with someone that you didn't anticipate. And so it's kind of like when people come in and they say, like, I'm having this trouble with my partner.

And I'm like, let's bring the partner in. Right. Like at a certain point, if I realize like we need we need the other person here because I'm only hearing one side of this. And it sounds like there's something like we need that person's version of things and we need to see the two of you interact. I will learn so much more in that first session than maybe I could have had five sessions with this person.

and they told me whatever they told me, and I learned whatever I learned, then I see these two people in action in front of me. It's like, oh, right? So when people say I need to work on myself, part of working on yourself is go get some experience and let's see what happens. Positives and negatives of being with someone who has been freed from a relationship. If you're a woman dating men, men who have been married,

Um, if you go on a first date with them or you're, you know, starting to get to know them and it comes up, you know, sort of what happened in your marriage. Um, and they say some version of it was all her fault. Okay. So they, they won't say it that way. Sure. But you know, she, this, she, that, she, that, she, this, and there's nothing about I that

had this role in it, or I could have done this or right. Run as fast as you can.

because that person didn't learn anything. And the things that he's saying might be true. But he's only telling his side of the story. But he's not, but he's not, he hasn't really learned anything. Like someone who's learned something from a relationship will say, you know what? We really had trouble communicating about this issue. And this kept coming up and I wasn't able to this and she wasn't able to this. And we tried this, this and this. And we,

we realized that we, this was irreconcilable. We couldn't make it work, right?

And also if they have a good, positive, healthy relationship with their ex, that is a great sign too because this is a person that you loved. And so to treat this person like they're the devil or the enemy or to speak poorly of them and if you have children with them, to speak poorly of the parent of your children, right? So any of that, those are red flags, right?

So if you are dating someone who has gotten out of a long relationship or a marriage and they're able to talk about it in a balanced, nuanced, thoughtful, self-reflective way, that's going to be a great partner. How do you convince your partner that their family's behavior is not okay without them taking it personally? That's so funny that you ask that. So I write an advice column. I have a new one in The New York Times called Ask the Therapist.

That is probably the question I get most frequently is how do I talk to my partner about a problem with their family? Right. And it's really tricky.

Because sometimes your partner does not see the problem because they're in that environment. It's like asking a fish, you know, how's the water, right? That's their environment. They don't know anything different. It's like you with the slamming doors. Like you just thought, well, that's what you do. You slam the doors. And then someone else is like, oh, not over here we don't, right? So it's someone else's family and that's kind of the norm for them. So...

you want to talk about how whatever is happening and by the way if they're just weird that's fine but if they're doing something that is hurtful to you that's something else so if you don't if they're annoying or they're weird or whatever like that's the price of marriage you just you know you when you you can't order somebody a la carte they come with what they come with so you can't leave like the brother on the side or the father or mother on the side you know like that's how they come

But if they're doing something like, let's say that you have kids and the parents of your partner are giving lots of unsolicited parenting advice that you don't really want. And your partner is like, whatever, they're just trying to be helpful. Right. But you feel overwhelmed and judged and criticized. And you just don't need that stress with as a new parent. Right.

You can talk to your partner about, hey, this is really stressing me out. I already feel like I don't quite know what I'm doing, but I want to trust myself as a new parent. I don't want their input. I feel like I'm being criticized. It might not be their intention, but that's what I feel like. So I would like...

not to get parenting advice from your parents. Can you talk about that with them? Right? Now, your partner should be able to say, hey, mom and dad, you know what, we're really trying to figure this out. We really value your experience as parents, but we're really enjoying figuring this out. If we have any questions, we'll come to you. Okay. If your partner won't do that,

then that's a marital issue. That's not an issue with his family. That's an issue in your marriage that you need to talk about in terms of, I really need your support as my co-parent here.

And so what do we do about this? You kind of mentioned on social media a lot of people talking about cutting off your family. Yes. I wonder if you can speak about some of the things that you see that do justify cutting off a family, if there's some way that you can kind of paint that. And what are some of the reasons that that's not a solution all the time? I don't think people realize that.

what the repercussions are when they cut off a family member because it doesn't just affect you and that family member. It affects the whole family system because now there are people who are in touch with both sides of this and

and there are family occasions where people will be in the same room or some people then won't show. It affects so many different people. People feel like they have torn loyalty because they want to be in connection with both of you. They can see both sides of things, or maybe they see that the parent is really difficult, but they also don't feel like the parent deserves to be persona non grata. So that puts them in a weird situation. If a parent is truly...

And I think we need to define that because on social media, that could be, you know, anything. Right. If a parent is is cruel, if a parent is dangerous, if a parent is abusive.

I mean, those are two things, I guess, like cruel and dangerous. Right. And they are not able to hear what your limit is. And you can't be around them because every time, you know, they again holding your limit with yourself, you basically every time you get together with them, you have to leave at a certain point. You're just like, it's not worth it. Right. Does that mean that you have to cut them off entirely? Meaning it might not. It might mean that you don't get together with them.

But maybe you have a call that is superficial and empty, but fine for 10 minutes once every few months. Yeah.

Those kinds of things. Why would you want to do that, someone might ask. Like if I don't – if this person is not somebody that I enjoy, why do I want to be around them? Because you will find that if you cut off your parent – again, if they're abusive, you might find absolute freedom in your life and you will find grief and loss even with the freedom that you have. But you're still connected to the whole family system and you cut off the parent –

Even though you can have a relatively normal conversation with them that might feel empty and superficial, but it's fine. You're going to not have a parent. And someone might say, well, I don't feel like I have a parent anyway because they're not really parenting. They're not the kind of parent I would want. It's the parent that you have. And so...

I think there's some value in that. I think there's some value in accepting that you can get something out. Maybe you sort of enjoy the fact that this parent remembered that funny story from when you were seven.

Or, this parent actually was kind of nice in this one. You had this one conversation. It was kind of nice catching up with them. Or we talked about this, you know, the parent who died, and we both had the same memory of that. And that was really nice. So you have all this shared history. And maybe most of it is not great, but some of it might be really meaningful. What are your top suggestions to find love and keep it?

Be very self-aware about how you get in your own way when it comes to wanting to bring people closer to you. So sometimes we do the thing that we want and the thing that we do are in opposition. So I want someone to come close to me. I want to love and be loved. But I am either not loving to other people because I'm so worried about protecting myself that I end up pushing them away unwittingly.

Or I don't put myself in situations where I will find healthy people, which we talked about earlier. And I think one more thing that's really important is how we love ourselves, which sounds kind of hokey. And I get my sort of like, you know, I get a little weird about this, the cheesiness of self-love. But I think how we talk to ourselves is really important.

And what I mean about cheesiness of self-love is I don't mean that we should not be loving to ourselves. What I mean is that I think people take it to an extreme and then they become very self-centered and they don't think relationally.

So they think, like, this is about self-love, so I'm not going to let anybody do anything that annoys me in any way, shape, or form. You're gone, right? And it's like, well, you're cutting yourself off from the possibility of connection here. You've just introduced when self-love can be an impediment to being in a relationship. Yes, yes, because it becomes very self-centered. Mm-hmm.

And it becomes, again, when you're in a relationship, you want to be relational, which means you have to compromise. You have to be flexible. In fact, study after study shows that the number one factor that predicts whether somebody can be in a healthy relationship is flexibility.

Wow. What does that look like practically? What do you want for dinner? You know, I want this. Oh, no, no, no. It has to be this. No, it has to be this, this, this, and this. I can't have this. Right. It's like, OK, then you deal with your own specific needs there. So no one in Los Angeles can date.

I'm like the only person in Los Angeles who has no dietary restrictions. But flexibility is like, hey, you know what? What time do you want to leave? Oh, how about this? Oh, wait, I have to do this thing. Can I do that? Yeah. You know, just like, can you be a little bit flexible? Can you allow someone some grace when they're imperfect? Yeah.

Oh, I love that. So what I want to say about self-talk is that I think it's so important that we listen to how we talk to ourselves because how we talk to ourselves will bleed into how we talk to others. So I always say to people, who is the person that you talk to most in the course of your life? And everyone is like, it's my partner. It's my mother. It's my best friend. It's my sister. No, it's yourself.

You are the person that you talk to most in the course of your life. You are talking to yourself all day long. And what we say to ourselves often isn't kind or true or useful.

So those three things are so important. Is it kind? Is it true? Is it useful? So I had this client who was so self-critical. I mean, just, she had no idea. She couldn't hear herself. And I said, listen, I want you to go home and I want you to just listen to how you talk to yourself and write down what you say to yourself over the course of this week and then come back next week and let's talk about it. And she was very skeptical, like, oh, you know, nothing and we're not going to find anything weird there.

She comes back. She's got it all in her phone. And she starts scrolling through and she can barely talk. And she says, I am such a bully to myself. And I said, what were some of the things? And she said, I was writing an email and I made a typo. And I immediately said to myself, you're so stupid. And I said, well, if a friend had sent you that email with that typo, would you think she's so stupid? She said, of course not. Right.

Um, she passed her reflection as she was walking down the street in a glass and she said, you look terrible today. I said, if your friend looked like that, would you think she looked terrible? No, I looked fine. It was fine. Right? So how do we talk to ourselves? You asked, how can we be in loving relationships? If you are someone who beats the crap out of yourself like that all the time, you're not going to be to show up in a loving way if you can't be

Be kind to yourself. You're not going to be able to show that version of yourself to others, and you're not going to be able to be kind to others as well. So when you learn to be a little more generous with yourself, you will be more generous with other people. I once heard someone say that if they were in a relationship with the voice in their head, it would be an abusive relationship. Absolutely. A toxic, abusive relationship. If I was with someone who said the things that I said to myself. Right. So it's not just...

noticing that you're saying those things, it's then saying the correct thing. Like, okay, you're writing the email, you make the typo, I'm so stupid? No. Oops. How about, oh, I'm really tired.

Or, oh, everybody makes these typos. Right? Like that's the normal kind of interpretation of what happened. Or you're walking by that mirror. It's like, oh, yeah, I just like, you know, I just walked out the door the way I walked out the door today. And I'm a cute person. I look like a normal cute person. What are the biggest red flags to look for in a relationship? Somebody who isn't emotionally mature.

So emotional maturity is the most important thing in a relationship that that's a non-starter. If the person is emotionally mature and what that means is they can take responsibility when they mess up, they have grace, but also set limits when you do. So it's both that they can be emotionally generous about it, but also say that's not okay and here's what I need.

they can self-regulate. So with emotional maturity comes self-regulation. So it's noticing I'm really angry right now. I'm going to need to calm down for a minute.

or I'm really worried about this, but I'm not going to take out my problem with my job when I come home and then be really unkind to you because I'm really worried about my job. Right. So that kind of self-awareness and then regulating how can I deal with my anxiety? How can I get help with it in a productive way? If you have someone like that, then you have something to start with.

And that doesn't mean you're perfect all the time. It doesn't mean that sometimes, you know, we get overly stressed, but it's then being able to, we talk about rupture and repair in relationships, so important. We talk about the bank of goodwill, which is you need five positive deposits in the bank of goodwill for every withdrawal that you take.

So part of that is rupture and repair. So there's a rupture. You guys, you know, somebody did something that maybe they wish and if they were being their best self that they didn't. They come and they say, I'm really sorry that that happened. How can I make it better? Right. A repair is, you know what, I thought about it and actually I see that now. Right. Or, you know, or a repair is we feel differently about this and I didn't know how to talk to you about that. I like that.

Lori Gottlieb, I highly recommend everybody read. Maybe you should talk to someone. It's, first of all, very enjoyable, but a really wonderful exploration of the complexity of the human experience, which even therapists get to experience. So thank you so much for answering our listeners' questions. We really appreciate it. And some of ours were sprinkled in there as well. Where can people find out more about you?

Well, first of all, my pleasure. I love talking about emotional well-being and bringing it to more people. They can read my book. They can watch my TED Talk if they're interested in stories and how we can change them. They can read my advice column in The New York Times. And they can find me on social media. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me.

Jonathan, I'm going to ask you a fun question. Let's go. What's the biggest red flag you've ignored in dating someone? I don't know that I have something. I tend to... You just go straight from the red flag to the altar? Just go right from meeting someone to let's move in.

No, I don't know. My biggest red flag is if someone can't laugh at themselves or be funny. If that's the case, I'm out of there really quick. I went on a date with someone who wore cargo pants. That wasn't why I didn't go on a second date. But when I told my kids I was divorced, I told them later in life, they were like, yeah, that's a good thing you didn't go on a second date. He also mentioned that when he had to go to the restroom, that he was going to go drop the kids off at the pool.

I was going to add that part because you've told me this story before and I thought you were going to make me cut that. I mean, he was, he was,

It was funny, but it wasn't the kind of funny I wanted on a first date. On a first date, if you're telling someone you're going to drop the kids off at the pool when you go to the restroom, I don't know that that's the right tone. I don't know if it was a red flag, nor were the cargo pants. But yeah, that just felt like that wasn't the only thing, but that just felt like it's not the kind of humor I'm ready for when we're on a first date.

It also depends what type of cargo pants, because cargo pants have come back, but like the stylish designer ones. This was a minute ago. But, you know, I think back then I possibly didn't understand myself to the level that that Lori Gottlieb says I need to. So I'm kind of glad I didn't keep moving forward and marry cargo pants guy. You could have been Mrs. Cargo Pants, but for that one decision that you had. Actually, Lori, as she was leaving.

I wish I had gotten this on camera, said that people bring up our podcast in her office. People bring things that they heard about on our podcast and they talk to her about them in her sessions. She also said she recommends that people listen to our podcast.

That's good. That doesn't that means that when they're bringing it up in their therapist's office, it isn't because the episode has traumatized them and they need help to metabolize. That's true. But also we don't get paid $200 an hour. I don't know how much therapists get these days, but we definitely are being helpful to people without I don't know, without even realizing that kind of impact might be happening, that people are bringing us with them to therapist's offices.

If you would like more therapy from us, specifically answering your most pressing questions, message us on Instagram. They may make it on to the next Ask Mayim Anything. And follow us on Instagram if you're not already. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's Mayim Bialik's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.