Lori Gottlieb: 7 Answers to Dating Questions You’re Afraid to Ask & How to Break Free from Relationship Timelines
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If you are not in a place where you want to be with a relationship, you have to understand why.

Am I behind for being single at 28? The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only, Jay Shetty.

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I am so grateful that you're here with me today. Thank you for lending me your ears and eyes for the next few moments as we dive into how you can become happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest is one of your favorites. You absolutely love it. Whenever she's on the show, we've obviously reached out already to you,

for your questions for her as well. I'm talking about your favorite therapist, Laurie Gottlieb, psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold nearly 2 million copies and is currently being adapted as a television series.

In addition to her clinical practice, she's the co-host of the popular Dear Therapist podcast. If you're not subscribed already, make sure you go and do that. Welcome back to On Purpose, Laurie Gottlieb. Laurie, it's great to have you back. It's so great to be here, Jay. Honestly, every time you come in here and we have these conversations, they just go crazy viral online. People love your advice. They love your insight. They always want you back. And I'm so thankful to you that you always choose to come back. So it means a lot to me that you're back here with me.

Well, thank you so much for having me back. We've done what we did last time because people loved it so much. We've gone out to our audience, gone out to our community. I've even reached out to some friends and I've crowdsourced all of their challenges, all of their issues, all of their real life experiences that they're going through

And some of these people don't have access to therapists. Some of these people maybe can't afford it. Some of these people maybe even have therapists, but are still struggling and trying to figure it out. And so I love the fact that we can use you as our community therapist and learn from you. So I want to dive straight in. Sure. One of the biggest questions I'm hearing and getting from people in my community and audience is, am I behind for being single at 28?

Hmm. You know, it's so interesting because I think that we tend to compare ourselves so much to other people, especially with social media. You know, we look at, you know, what is everybody else doing at my age? What is the right thing? And you are exactly where you need to be if you are doing the work. If you're not doing the work, you're going to be behind. And what I mean by doing the work is if you are not in a place where you want to be with a relationship, you have to understand why.

So are you examining what has not worked yet? Why, if I am single and I don't want to be single, what can I be doing differently? And so I think that's the important work. So you're not behind at all. In fact, you're probably ahead of people who are in relationships who have not done the work and maybe aren't in the right relationship or are in a relationship that's not going to last or isn't going well. I feel like that's such a hard thing to face, right? Because we think the problem is external to us.

And what you're saying is, well, actually the work needs to be done internally. And so often we're trying to solve and shift and construct what's happening around of us rather than looking inward to

Why do you think that is? Why is it that we struggle to actually do the work? What does that look like? I think it's so much easier when we talk to our friends and, you know, I've talked about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion before. Idiot compassion is you say to your friend, look what happened on this date or look what happened with this person. And they say, yeah, you're right. They're wrong. And we never learn or grow from that.

Right? Because yes, there might be something that the other person did, but also what was your role in that interaction? A relationship is all about relating. So what was your role in the dance that you're doing with this person? And what you get in therapy is you get wise compassion where we hold up a mirror to you and we help you to see something about, you know, what your role is. Maybe something you haven't been willing or able to see, but that's so important so you don't repeat it.

These situations where you're in this pattern and then you wonder, why do I keep ending up with a person who doesn't listen to me or a person where I don't feel seen or where I can't be myself or where we have a lot of volatility or where this person's really avoidant? Why am I always with people who avoid or what makes me avoid? And I don't talk to the person about what I want or what I need.

So that's the work that's really important. So you're not behind if you're single at 28. It's part of the process. If you're doing the work, you're much closer than you've ever been to finding the person that you want to be with. I'm so glad you said that. I remember talking about it in my book that I wrote called Eight Rules of Love, and it was this idea of relationship karma.

And I was using the concept of karma from the Eastern traditions to understand that karma is every action has a reaction. And it was, can you pinpoint what action you've taken in order to end up in the same experience with a different person? So as you were saying that whether you keep attracting an avoidant person, you keep attracting someone who doesn't listen to you, you keep attracting someone who is

is interested for a month, but then disconnect or whatever it may be. And it's like, where, what action have you taken in your choice, in your curation of this individual, in your approach to this individual that has potentially led to that? Absolutely. That's, that's so spot on. We know we have this saying, we bury our unfinished business. We date our unfinished business too. So if you, let's say earlier in your life, you were around someone who, you know, was neglected

somebody who drank too much, somebody who lost their temper, somebody who wasn't honest, somebody who wasn't reliable. We think when we're dating as adults, like I want the opposite of that. I want someone where I feel safe, secure, there's trust.

But what happens is unconsciously, again, if we haven't done the work, our unfinished business, we actually are unconscious as, oh, you look familiar. Come closer. So on the surface, they don't look like that person. But then when you get to know them, you're a month in, you're three months in, you're six months in, you think, wow.

That person reminds me of someone. This person feels so familiar. And that's why I was drawn to this person. It turns out this person is very much like what I grew up with, is very much like the person who hurt me growing up.

So if you do the work, you're able to see, oh, that person, I see why I'm drawn to them, but I'm not drawn to them in a healthy way. And then if you do even more work, you're not even drawn to those people anymore. Now you're drawn to healthy people, stable people, flexible people, emotionally generous people, people whose values align with yours. That's who you're drawn to. So you have to do the work. Yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad that you've made that

because I think often we validate and make people feel like it's okay that they're single. And I think you are doing that, but I think this is a step further, which is like you are behind if you're not actually learning from the experiences that got you here and you're not actually refining it. Another pressure that I feel that mounts on people as time goes on, it's so fascinating to me that we're in 2024. We hope that we're living in a society that is letting go of timelines,

That's letting go of gender roles. That's letting go of these boundaries and limits that are placed on us because of what age we are and what gender we are and everything else. But I find that internally, we all actually still carry a lot of those pressures. And another big question for our community was, if I do get into a relationship in my early 30s, do I now have to rush things?

Like do I, often what I heard was people were saying, I feel like I have to feel like this person is the one because I'm running out of time.

And I have this fear that the pool is getting so much smaller as I get into my early 30s that I'm going to have the worst pick because no good people are going to be left. Now, we know that all of these things are not factually true. They're not data backed. Like these are ideas, but these are the kind of thoughts that I'm hearing from people who are entering that space. What would you say to someone who's saying, Laurie, I feel I have to rush things and

I have to kind of compromise and make sure this is the one because I have to get to that point because I want to be in a relationship. And actually, I fear that I'm going to get the worst pick of the bunch because I'm 35 years old and I haven't found someone. We literally just had someone like this on the podcast. And she felt like I have to decide right away if this is the person or

And if there's any issues here, I have to leave right away, as opposed to understanding that if she doesn't understand what these issues are about, she will just repeat that in the next relationship. I mean, these were not, you know, there are certain kinds of issues that are red flags. These were not red flag issues. These were normal relational types of things, communication types of things. And what we told her was, you need to slow down in order to save time.

And it sounds counterintuitive because people think, wait a minute, I need to hurry up in order to save time. I don't want to waste time. But you need to slow down so that you can say, what is right in front of me right now? If I put that kind of pressure on myself, I'm going to make decisions for all kinds of the wrong reasons. So I'm going to make them because, you know, we talk about the difference between sort of the head and the heart. You're going to make head decisions instead of heart decisions. You need both.

My son taught me this, actually. He was saying, I've been making too many head decisions and I need to make more heart decisions. And it's about how do you find the balance between those two things? So what we told her, this woman on the podcast, was we said, why don't the two of you go to therapy for, let's say you put a time limit on it. We're going to go for six months. And she said, six months? I don't have six months to waste. And I said, it's not going to be a waste.

No matter whether you stay in this relationship or you go to a different relationship, you're going to learn so much about yourself in relationship that you can't learn if you're not in a relationship because you need to be able to have these interactions to understand what they trigger in you, what they bring up in you.

And you can't do that in isolation. So many people say, I need to completely understand myself before I can go and date. And I say, you're going to learn so much about yourself. You want the best tutorial on who you are and your operating instructions and what makes you tick? Get in a relationship with somebody. You will be pushed and challenged in ways that you aren't challenged when it's just you sitting there thinking. So we said to her, go to couples therapy for six months and

And then you will learn so much about yourself and you will know so much more about whether you two are the right combination or the right couple. And so we do follow-ups. We do your follow-ups. And she came back a year later and she said, I was going to leave this person

And I am so glad that I didn't because I learned that some of this was me and I didn't have the maturity. I didn't understand a lot of things and I grew so much and I am so in love with this person and I would have left because I was panicked. Now it could have ended up the other way too, that she left, which would have also been good if it wasn't the right person. And then she would have found the right person because of the work that she did. So I would say to these people who feel like I have to hurry, I have to know right away,

Relax, slow down, give yourself a timeline. Don't stay in that relationship for five years and be ambivalent about what you want to do. But slow down, give yourself a year of doing the work with this person. And then you will know so much more about yourself.

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Some people are good for you now and some people may become good for you forever. But this idea that if someone's good for me now and they're not forever, then I don't want them now isn't the healthiest idea because the growth you might make with this person who may not be your forever person is

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

And you constantly in this conversation so far, you've talked about doing the deep work on your own. You've talked about working with that person. What's really interesting is that

after all this time and no matter how many books we read and no matter how many podcasts we listen to, there's still this belief that when we meet the person, it will be easy, it will be simple and everything will just make sense. I feel like a lot of people also who found love in a magical way will say things like, when you know, you know, and you just feel it. And then people feel like they have to find that feeling and that love should be easy and simple and flow.

I'm assuming from what you're saying so far that it's not really the only way it can require work. It does require work. I've been with my wife for 11 years now, and I can honestly say that some parts have been really easy and some parts have required work. And I believe we work on it consistently. And that's why it becomes easier than it would become harder. But I feel like there's this...

Disney magic belief we still all carry so deep rooted in us that love should be easy. What would you say to someone who

is carrying that experience or that vision of love in their heart and mind? Right. Well, first of all, you know, when we look at attachment styles, if you have a secure attachment, sometimes it is easier for you to know whether this person is going to be someone you want to pursue long-term. But even then, things will come up. But also, many of us are not securely attached, meaning that we had inconsistent caregivers or we had, you know, parents do their best, right?

But parents are also imperfect. Parents have their own parents and they have their own histories, which makes them parent in a certain way. So there are certain ways in which we didn't get parented the way we wanted to get parented. And we still, we come into relationships maybe we don't trust. And then we think, oh, I can't trust that person. But it's really not about the other person. They're completely trustworthy. But you just don't trust the world. You don't trust the universe. You don't even maybe trust yourself.

So those people maybe feel like, well, this is really hard because I don't really trust this person, but they're not looking at, maybe it's hard because you are bringing something into this. Right? So the magic might come, might be there, but you have to be able to learn how to trust. And maybe at the beginning of that relationship, it's going to be a little bit hard for you. So it's not going to look like the Disney, the romantic comedies that we all see.

But I think the other thing is there's a study that I love that I think more people should know about, which is that they did this longitudinal study. So that means they followed people over 20 years and they checked in every five years and they started with the first date. When you met this person, you write down your impressions.

And some people said, you know, oh, this person, there's so much magic, there's so much chemistry. And some people said it was fine. Yeah, I'd probably see this person again, but nothing great. Right? And then they followed them every five years. And what they found after 20 years was that the people who were happily married to each other

did change their story. So at the time they had said like, yeah, I'm not really sure. Nice person, no butterflies, no spark. They said, oh, I knew right away. They changed the story because now the story is, is filtered through the way their marriage is now. People who were unhappy, who, who like got divorced or were in, still married, but were unhappy, you know, said things like, oh, there was no chemistry. There was never any chemistry. I knew right away, even

even though at the time they said magic, right? That's so good. So I think it's so important for people to realize that don't listen to what your friends say about how they met because it's going to be filtered through how they feel about each other right now. I'm so glad you raised that. That is such...

That's such a great insight. And I wish if everyone's listening right now, please, please, please let that deeply connect with your heart and head because I think that's one of the reasons we all make mistakes. We're either forcing ourselves to look for the perfection in the moment. And like you said, some of the best relationships start by, it's fine. It's okay. I'm not sure.

and also to not over amplify that first meeting. I think we put so much pressure on the first date, the first kiss, the first time of being intimate with someone, the first of everything is like such a- So weighted. So weighted, right? Yes. Unfairly. Yes, yes. And what happens is people will go on a date. And so I see this in therapy all the time. People will come in and they'll say, I went on the date with this person, nice person, but

I don't know. I just didn't feel that intensity. I just didn't, I don't know. I didn't feel this romantic connection with this person. And I'll say, how did you feel about yourself on this date? Good. I felt really comfortable. I felt like myself. Right. Did you have a good time? Yeah. Did you feel like this was a fun person to be around? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, why not go on a second date? Why not spend another hour with this person just to see what it feels like to sit with this person again? And what happens is sometimes, not always, sometimes you sit with this person enough and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, they're really cute. I didn't see that before. Or they're really friendly.

funny. They were kind of nervous on the first date because it's a first date. It's like a job interview, right? So people are performing. It's a very performative action going on a first date. But when people feel more comfortable and they can be more themselves, you feel like you can be more yourself. They feel like they can. And you see the real person and they can become very attractive to you.

So this doesn't always happen, but it happens enough that I think that what happens is we feel like there's this abundance that because of dating apps, we feel like if I don't feel like this person is...

fabulous, a 10, everything that I've imagined on that first 45 minutes or an hour that I'm meeting them in this weird coffee place, in this weird environment because we're strangers. We're both nervous. We're both trying to impress each other. We both have these fantasies that we're bringing and the other person's letting down my fantasy. You know, what a weird way to meet someone. And then they think, okay, well, there's 10 other people on this app that I can swipe on and they'll meet my fantasy.

Except they probably won't either, or they might. Here's the danger. They might on that first date, but then they're locking into some fantasy that you have. But then when you really get to know them, you find out, oh, I don't really connect with this person or this person's kind of superficial or this person's great at first dates because people who are great at first dates can be really charming.

But that doesn't mean that that's what you want in a partner. You want someone who's real. You want someone who's authentic, who's genuine. And maybe the person who's a great first dater is not a great partner. Absolutely. I mean, Laurie, you just...

Did this genius therapy question thing there that I want people to notice. I think you're so right that after a first date, the number one thing we focus on is how did I feel about them? And our friends will ask us, what did you think of them?

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

when do you feel peaceful around someone? And I was saying peaceful around someone usually isn't exciting. It's usually not exhilarating, but you feel a sense of calm when you're around them. They kind of relax your nervous system a little bit. And so when you ask the question, how did I feel about myself? And you're like, I felt natural. I felt comfortable.

I actually felt really good. All of a sudden, like, oh, I didn't feel butterflies and I wasn't constantly nervous and I wasn't trying to impress them. So this is actually a much healthier space to live in. So I love that reframe of after a first date, not asking yourself, what did I think of them? Are they interesting? Are they the one? How did I feel about myself? I think that's a brilliant, brilliant note. Yeah. And how we feel about ourselves often comes from the person on that date is really listening to you and is really interested in

So the person who can entertain you on a first date might be really fun, but I don't think that you want an entertainer.

I think what you want is you want someone you can actually have some kind of connection with and someone who knows how to listen and someone who's genuinely curious about you and not just trying to impress you is going to make a much better long-term partner. I think, Laurie, we're uncovering something really interesting here. It's like, I feel like we don't know what human connection is. Right. I feel like we don't know what human love is. Like what we're getting to here, it's like...

Because it is so hard to define, I guess, but there's a sense of we don't know what healthy connection, communication looks like because chances are we haven't seen it at home. We haven't seen it around us. We haven't seen it in the media. So there's a sense of not being able to mirror or not being able to reflect something that embodies that deep, profound experience of love. So when you're saying...

you're not looking at someone who's giving you the ability to feel listened, heard, seen. What is, from all of your experience and everything you've read, you've done this for decades now, what have you seen are the core values of human connection that we should be aspiring for in a healthy relationship? Can we even define those? We forget that love is not some kind of

airy feeling, right? Love is, you know, people say that people in love are actually like people on drugs. It's the same dopamine reaction. And so you're not really thinking straight. So that might feel like infatuation that feels really good. And yes, that's a component of feeling really connected and feeling love, but love in the day to day is a verb.

How can I be loving to another person? How is someone being loving as a verb to me? And so I remember this struck me so much when I had a couple and the woman in the couple said to her husband, you know what three words I really want to hear? And he immediately said, I love you. You want to hear I love you more. And she said, no, I know you love me. I want to hear I understand you.

And that to her was love, right? I know that you say you love me. I want you to show me you love me because I want to feel understood by you and I want to understand you. And I think so much what we don't do in a loving relationship is we don't take the time to either understand ourselves and communicate that or understand the other person. It really takes an act of love. It's such a great point. And even hearing you say that, I'm like...

It resonates so strongly with how I see love and how much I see the conflicts that exist in relationships being because people love each other, but they don't understand each other. They don't. And they're not curious, right? So they feel like if you don't understand me, then, you know, you don't love me. If you, they do this, if you loved me, you would X.

as opposed to, let me tell you how I'm feeling right now. Let me explain this to you. Because the truth is, if they understood you, they would do X, probably. But it's not if they love you. It has nothing to do with if they love you, they would do X. Yeah, that's so powerful. That's so true. It's resonating so strongly with me too. And that idea of we think that

If I say I love you, that means I understand you. Yes. But the person on the other side is saying, no, I get that you love me, but you're not understanding me. You're not hearing me. You're not seeing me. And I often think that we think love makes up for a lack of understanding.

But love can't. Love can't complete a lack of understanding. Love can't complete the fact that you haven't really listened to what the other person is saying because love can often be this overarching emotion as opposed to what you're saying, this active verb that's being expressed. And so I think that's a great takeaway for people is, is someone actually trying to understand you? And I think we have this intuitive feeling that

If someone completes our sentences on the first date or they like the same things we like, then they must understand us. Right? If we're talking about our favorite foods and we both agree that Italian cuisine is our favorite food or we both agree that we love comedy movies and we love, we almost, we feel understood. Mm-hmm.

And I feel like both people in that moment of feeling understood, stop trying to understand and be understood. Does that make sense? What you're talking about is having things in common, which is very different from what you're coming into the relationship with. So you can have a lot of interests in common. You might both like sushi and rollerblading and these kinds of movies and these kinds of TV shows and this kind of cuisine, right? And you say, we have so

so much in common. We love the same music. We, you know, we read the same things. That's what you have in common. That doesn't mean that you understand the person's operating instructions. And what I mean by that is when you get anything, a new car, you know, it comes with a manual and it says like, this is how this car operates. And it's different from your last car.

So just because it's a car doesn't mean it operates in the same way. Like this button is going to be over here. And if you want to control this, it's going to be over here. And it doesn't like when you do this and it likes when you do this, right? That's what the manual says. We need that for our people. We need to know what is their, what are their operating instructions? And we assume that because we have all this in common, that that person is going to know my operating instructions and I'm going to know that person's operating instructions.

But we have to share our operating instructions with the other person. Just because you like to be, when you want to come to me with something and you just want to vent, right? I actually want feedback. That doesn't mean that we have the same way of wanting to be listened to. When you are feeling sad, you do this. When I'm feeling sad, I need this. Those are different things. When I'm angry, I need to talk about it right away. When you're angry, you need to walk around the block. Oh, okay.

That's really good information. I didn't read your manual. Tell me more. So we have to be really curious about...

Tell me your operating instructions. And we learn that just by experiencing the other person and seeing that while we have a lot in common and we connect, they're actually separate and apart from us. They're a different person. Yeah. And that's so important. So how can we be loving? What is love? Love is saying, I'm taking the time to understand your operating instructions. That's so well put.

And I think we struggle with that so much because we don't have enough self-awareness of our own operating instructions. And then we have this

warped view that love means you should be able to understand and read that in between the lines. And none of us read the operating instructions for our devices today. So we're also not reading between the lines and the other person sitting there going, well, if you love me, you'd know all of this. How can you not know after 10 years that I love celebrating my birthday or anniversaries are really important to me. And it's fascinating to me that we don't want to help

people help us. Right. So what we do using the birthday example is somebody will say, you know, to their partner, what would you like to do for your birthday? And they say, oh, it's no big deal, but they really actually want something. And they think my partner should know that when I say it's no big deal, don't worry about it. And then the partner says, oh, we're just going to like do a quiet dinner when they wanted a big party.

that their partner doesn't get them at all? How did their partner know that no big deal actually meant I love big parties? How do you not notice after being together for three years that I love being at big parties? So you should have known that my no big deal meant I love big parties. But why can't we just communicate our desires? Why does that take away from the magic? We think if I have to explain it, there's no chemistry between us. You should just know. But we should be able to say, hey,

I would love a big party. I love celebrating in the company of all of my people and all of my friends. What a relief for your partner to know I can please my partner and give my partner exactly what my partner wants because now I know. That doesn't take away from the chemistry or the magic or the connection between you. That enhances the connection.

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or give a gift they'll never forget. Find the most exciting gift for every fan at livenation.com slash gifts. That's livenation.com slash gifts. I agree. I agree. A few years ago, me and my wife, after never knowing what to do for each other's birthdays and always getting it wrong, we set that pact with each other where we're like, we're just going to tell each other.

three to four months in advance what we'd like to do for our birthdays. Her birthday's in July. It just actually went two days ago. And then my birthday's in September. And we're just like, we're just going to tell each other what we want, what kind of party we want, what we want. So this year she was thinking about doing something. She was like, I want this. And then she was like, no, actually, I just want to do nothing. And she's generally...

I, over the years, I always did extravagant things because I like extravagant things and realized I was giving her the birthday party I wanted. Yes. And, and she was giving me the birthday party she wanted. And so that's what we just started telling each other. And so she said to me, she was like, I just want to do something really small. That's what we did. It was beautiful. And then she was telling me, what do you want? I was like, I just want to do something with just me and you. I was like, I,

whatever it is, as long as it's just me and you, I'm open to it. And I think it's become so much more fun being able to not have to live in this anxiety and anticipation of, do they understand me? Have I dropped enough hints? Do they get the magic? And then feeling disappointed or even feeling like they got it all, but

Oh, it's because I gave them all the notes anyway. And so you're so right that we've removed the magic because we've shared what we want. Right. And it's so funny what you said, this whole thing about if I give them the notes, that somehow it's not special anymore. As opposed to this person took the time to understand exactly what I want and to make my day the magical day that I want it to be.

that's the magic. This person cares enough to give you exactly what you want, but we don't give them credit for that. We actually give them demerits for that. Yeah. And we give ourselves credit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No. And you're so right. Like, I think it comes with so many things that we think asking for help or telling people what we actually need is

or having a request is a weakness. We see it as a sign of a weak relationship when actually it's the sign of strong self-awareness and a strong relationship that you have the ability to share your desires, your needs, your interests, and the other person has the ability to comprehend and take action on them. That is actually a healthy long-term relationship. And yeah, I hope that this conversation can encourage people to

if you're in a relationship, even if you're starting out in one, these are great habits to set early on rather than wasting three to five years making mistakes, trying to figure it out, carrying that baggage and then figuring it out. Right. And the setting the early on is the really important part because relationships are like cement. If you, you know, in the beginning, everyone's trying to be the ambassador of themselves. So they think, oh, I don't want to ask for too much or I didn't really like that the person's always late, but I'll deal with that later. Right.

but it really frustrates you. And so then, you know, six months, a year into the relationship, you just blow up and you say, how come you're always late? I don't like that you're always late. And the person's like, this never bothered you before. I don't understand. Okay, thank you for telling me, but you're so upset about it at that point. Or the person doesn't call when they say they will or whatever it is. It's really important because now the cement has dried and now you have to, you know, get a jackhammer out there and bring up the cement. It's really important.

Yeah.

Right. And that's really important to know, because why do you want to spend a long time with this person if they're never going to be able to respond to it? Or why do you want to be frustrated for all this time when you could have just told them early on? And now this person is used to being late. They don't know it's a problem. It's going to take a while for them to reverse their pattern. Whereas if they know in the beginning, this is really important, they're going to reverse their pattern or they're not. And that's good information for you. And totally, I feel like

A lot of the reason why we don't say something in the beginning or in the early stages is either we want to give the other person grace. We don't want to be disliked for giving feedback and we want to be liked. It can be well-intentioned of maybe they'll change, maybe they'll notice. But actually, as you said, all we're doing is the problem's getting bigger and bigger and bigger for us.

it's becoming less and less big for that individual. And so now the distance between you and that person when you share that problem is so far and wide because they've started to devalue being on time because you don't seem to care. And you've started overvaluing on time. And so now you're at two opposite ends of the spectrum. And now you can't hear each other because you're so far away from each other. And I find that so interesting that when you try to avoid problems,

And the other person becomes more and more unaware. You just become further apart so that then when you raise the problem, they can't hear you because you're so far away from each other. Right. Because then it becomes blame. So if at the beginning you say, you know, when you come late, I feel like you're not prioritizing me. That person might, because you said it calmly, that person might say, okay,

Oh, well, the reason is I really was prioritizing you. I know you like to eat early. So I was trying to leave work early for you, but I see that that's not working. So what can we do? Because you like to eat early. It's hard for me to leave work at that time. So I agree to it, but then I'm never on time. And then you've got a problem you can work through together. Oh, maybe we can just meet half an hour later from now on. And now you're both happy. Yeah.

Right? But if you do it later, it's kind of like, well, you never leave work for me. Well, I didn't know I was leaving early for, you know, it just becomes a fight. Yeah. I wish, what I'm hearing is, and I think about this all the time when I'm working with coaching clients or talking to friends or our community is just,

I wish and hope for everyone listening that we could be more curious about the context of people's decisions and choices rather than just the choice or decision in isolation. So we see someone being late as...

as they're just late, rather than the context, which you just so beautifully described, which could be anything from I can't leave work early through to whatever else it may be. And it's almost like we see those as excuses rather than as context. Yes. If we start recognizing that every person you're looking at has a whole history of

of relationships and experiences and background and your job in order to be with someone is to research that and to discover that and understand how those points connect and dots connect. And then all of a sudden you're looking at a real human being who has complexities and has layers as opposed to this idea of they chose to be late because they disrespected me. Right. When it's not really about you potentially. Right.

Right. You see it as they're lazy, they're disrespectful. And we don't realize, we don't think, like we, our context becomes the whole story. You know, I always say we're unreliable narrators because we're telling the story through our particular lens, but we're not saying, I will say to people in therapy, if the other person were here and they were telling their version of this story, what would it be? And all of a sudden the story becomes so much more expansive. There's the context. Right.

And that makes the person not a villain, but, oh, I feel, I understand that. I can see, I have compassion, in fact, for why they made that decision, or at least I understand why they made that decision. A lot of what, Laurie, you're saying, and I agree with, and I also am sharing, is this sense of taking accountability, taking responsibility. But a lot of the time, a lot of therapies speak on social media, especially, and

has made it feel like we're always the victim and everyone else is the problem. And so when we use words like gaslighting and, you know, boundary setting and whatever else it may be, a lot of that language starts to make you feel like, well, I'm perfect and the other person was the issue. But you're actually, you know, and I'm totally with you on that. We're flipping that and going, well, no, let's really look at

how we can look at things differently and how we can change how we behave. Walk me through that balance and how you encourage people to make sense of both because it's the saying is as old as it goes, like, you know, it takes two to tango. It takes two, like, you know, it's always going to take two. And so,

But we try and make it that it has to be one or the other. So how do we balance that, reconcile that in a healthy way? Yeah. You know, I think it's great that people are talking more about mental health on social media. What drives me absolutely bananas is how people use words like we were saying, boundaries, gaslighting, narcissism. If you looked at social media, you'd think like 80% of the population are narcissists. Yes. 80% of the population is being gaslit.

80% of the population has no one who will respect their boundaries. And so these terms are being misused. And what happens is you lose the fact of what you're talking about, which is that we're all doing a dance in a relationship. There's a dance going on. And if you change your dance steps,

The other person either has to change their dance steps too, because they can't dance with you otherwise, or they'll just get off the dance floor. That's really good to know. So we don't think about what dance steps can I change? We think, oh, they did this, that's it. And they're mislabeling people. Someone is not a narcissist if they didn't see what your need was, or they talk a lot about themselves. There's a reason that that's happening. You need to be curious about that. Narcissistic personality disorder is very rare. So

So not everybody is a narcissist. Gaslighting. Gaslighting is not, I have a different opinion from you. Gaslighting is making someone feel like they're crazy for feeling how they're feeling. Those are very different things. So someone can feel differently about themselves

the same experience. This happens with couples all the time. They're not gaslighting each other. They have different feelings about the same experience. They're not, this is not gaslighting. But people on social media will say, well, I said that I felt this about this experience. I'm being gaslit because my partner doesn't agree with my feelings. You don't have to agree. You don't have to have the same feelings. You can just notice that the person has those feelings and that you might have different feelings. That's okay.

So what I think is important about this is that, you know, boundaries is a really great example of this. People say, well, this person doesn't, you know, we have to set these very rigid boundaries. Well, a boundary is something you set with yourself. So a boundary is a request that you make to somebody else. And this is why we see so many people say on social media, I'm going to cut this person off. And everyone says, great, cut them off. They're terrible because they didn't respect your boundary. They can't respect your boundaries. Did you give them an opportunity to

to respect your boundaries? And did you respect your own boundary? So an example might be, let's say that your mother is always asking about when you're going to be in a relationship, right? And are you dating anyone? What's happening? And that just ruins your time together.

You can say, you know what, mom, I will let you know if there's someone important in my life. But in the meantime, it really makes it hard to be around you when you're asking about something that you know is very stressful for me. So if you ask about that, I'm going to end the visit or I'm going to end the phone call. Very calm.

Okay. So then next time you get together with your mom, she's really good for the first half hour. And then she's like, oh, and is there anyone that you're dating? Mom, remember, I don't have a good time with you when that comes up. I'm going to leave, but I really look forward to getting together with you another time when we can talk about something else. Oh no, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. No mom, I'm going to leave. But next time, right? Next time your mom, maybe she remembers and it's like an hour later and she's like,

Oh, but are you? Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, mom, great. I'm going to go now, right? And so you realize like, is this person able to respect your boundary? But the main thing is you respected yours. You said, I'm going to leave if you ask that question. And then over time, and you have to be consistent. If sometimes you say, oh, it's okay, mom. I understand. No.

Because she's just going to keep doing it. So if you're consistent with yourself, you have to keep your own boundary. This isn't her fault. This is about you. And if you are not going to value your boundary enough to keep it every time, that's on you. And so if you keep doing that and your mom eventually probably will stop because she knows that she wants to have a conversation with you or have an outing with you, she'll probably stop asking you about it.

But if she doesn't, you've learned that she cannot do that. So I'm going to keep with my boundary and maybe I'm going to get together with her less, or I'm still going to leave every time she brings that up. Right? So it's about what you're going to do. So it's not that, you know, nobody can keep your boundaries. It's about, I've said something that I think is reasonable and I'm going to see what the other person is capable of. And so when people say, I'm going to be, I'm going to cut this person off, well, I'm

Are you really like, you know, or can you set a boundary that works for you so that you can have the good parts of the relationship and not the parts that are problematic? The way we have to think about it is that people are probably going to keep breaking your boundaries. Are you going to keep them?

in that situation, right? That's what's happening there. It's like a boundary set for you to protect you from yourself. Yes. From giving in to a scenario and a situation which you can't control. But we think a boundary is almost an order or a law that other people have to follow. And the truth is you can't control them. Like they're going to act how they're going to act. And you've got to set a boundary where you know how to behave and you know how to act. I'm so glad that you talked about your feelings around how therapy speakers...

It's important for people to have these conversations about how certain words are being misused and bent online because I do think that it creates exactly what you said, a culture where we think that everyone we meet is a narcissist because everyone has 1% of a narcissist in them or everyone we meet is a gaslighter. And it starts to create a really unhealthy belief system around who we're around. I watched this movie recently called

I didn't get great ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, but I saw it on a plane and I watched it out of intrigue. It's called Cat Person. And it's based on this element of catfishing. It's kind of like a satire parody thriller of the...

of modern dating, but how so much of those challenges are in our head, but how they can transform into reality. And if anyone hasn't watched it, it's a fun one-time watch on a plane or, you know, one night with a friend or whatever it may be. But what I appreciated about it is it talked about this idea of how we kind of start viewing people

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

behavior. Of course. But I'm talking about the things that we will literally say, oh, that's unacceptable without saying, wait a minute, why is this happening right now? All of our behavior, by the way, is motivated by we want to be loved.

We really do. And sometimes we do it in a way that makes people not want to love us. And we don't realize that we're pushing people away with our behavior. But at the core, we are doing it because we want to be liked. We want to be loved. So is this person doing this very strange thing?

because they're a horrible person or because they're human like me. And at their core, they're very vulnerable and they don't, their behavior doesn't reflect the wish. The wish is I want you to like me or I want to protect myself from being hurt.

the behavior is not okay. It's kind of like when you say to little kids, it's okay to be angry. It's not okay to hit someone, right? So what is that equivalent as an adult? It's okay to feel the feeling, but what do we do with it? And can we understand why that person is acting that way? Can we understand the context? Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the ways that that kind of transpires into a bigger moment that our community had a

what's the right amount of pressure for someone to get married or propose to you? Because I think people get to this point

where they feel like we've invested so much time, we're together, we're here, but this person is just not proposing. They're not getting, they don't, you know, they don't want to get married, whatever it may be. And that gets to this point of this ultimatum of like, and now there's even a TV show called The Ultimatum, which is all about people dealing with that period in their life. So what does someone do in that scenario where they feel there's good commitment, we're getting somewhere, but the other person isn't showing this commitment

excitement, enthusiasm, or even taking action on taking this relationship to the next level. This is like that birthday party thing where you feel like, you know, the other person should just know, but we're not communicating about it. The fact that people don't talk about whether they want to get married before a proposal happens is insane to me.

It just, it makes, it makes no sense that it shouldn't be a total surprise. You should know that you are both on the same page and you should know that the other person is definitely going to say yes, that you've talked about this. So many people come to me for premarital therapy where they can talk about, cause they know they want to get married and maybe they want to, they're not even having any problems.

They just want to talk about their families and how they're going to blend their families and the in-laws and the siblings and, you know, this person and this personality. Or they want to talk about money or they want to talk about whether they want to have kids and how many and how that might work. Or they want to talk about balancing their careers or they want to talk about sex and all the different things that might be hard to talk about.

before you get married that are so important. And they might not have the answers right now, but they're learning how to talk about these challenging topics. And people say, oh, you're in therapy and you're not even married yet. Something must be terribly wrong. It's like, no, something's terribly right. Yeah.

And so the fact that people are saying like, I really want this person to propose, but I don't understand why they're not. And they don't feel like they can ask the person means you are not ready to marry that person. If you don't feel like you can bring this up and say, where are we? We've been together for this amount of time. I'm feeling this. I'm wondering where you are with this. And the person you'll get so much information from. I do want to marry you. I

I don't feel ready yet because of this, but I think I will feel ready in six months. Right. And then you have a choice. Do you want to wait for that or do you not want to wait for that? Or never. Right. Or they might say, actually, I don't know how I feel about getting married. I don't know if I'm going to come around to that. You have a choice about what you want to do with that.

I, you know, oh, I didn't realize that I thought I did want to get married, but now I'm not so sure. Well, that's really important to know why what's happening between us.

So that conversation is so important. Or do you just want to sit there scheming with your friends about how you can drop hints or how you can like analyze the behavior because the person did this and what does that mean? That doesn't sound like the kind of marriage you want to be in. Don't you want to be in the kind of marriage where you can say to the person, hey, this is what I'm desiring. This is what I'm wanting. Where are you with this? If that's such a basic conversation.

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But that's so much healthier than an ultimatum too, because I think we also get, again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. You haven't given that regular check-in. Right. You haven't touched base. You don't really know what that person's belief system is around marriage or whatever else it may be. And all of a sudden it's built up for you as this big thing. And now you're like, okay, well, either you marry me or we're over.

And then that's not comfortable for that person either because now they feel they're forced into a choice as opposed to a sense of how do you feel about this? And what are your thoughts about this? Again, it comes back to we're so scared of appearing to be naggy. We're so scared of appearing to be high maintenance. We're so scared of appearing to be the one who's needy or desperate or whatever it may be. But we are feeling all of those things.

because we're not checking how do we get over this hurdle and by the way I you experience in both like a lot of people don't break up with people for years because they don't want to be seen as the bad person the amount of people I've spoken to who are like oh if I break up with her if I break up with them if I break up with him it's

oh my God, he's just going to hate me and I'm going to be the worst. And I just don't want to do that to them. And they're a nice person. But really all we're saying is I just don't want to, I want to be liked in both scenarios, whether it's, I don't want to nag them to marry me and propose. I don't want to break up with them because I don't want them to see me negatively. How do we get over that hurdle of recognizing that we're putting off the best decision for us or conversation because we want to be liked?

in a space that you can't, does that make sense? You know what I'm trying to say, yeah. - Right, right, right. Well, it's like a parent, like if you set a boundary with your child, they might not like you in that moment, but you're doing something loving. And so if you break up with someone that you know you don't want to be with, you're doing something loving.

So I think that we need to reframe what we're actually doing. What you're doing by staying in a relationship and stringing someone along is actually cruel and it's wasting their time. So you're not being nice. You're not going to be liked.

But I think the other thing we were talking about, about bringing things up, it's not just about a proposal. It's even about lots of people will say, oh, you know, I know, I think the person that I'm dating is also dating other people. I would like to not date other people, but I'm afraid that I'll appear too needy too early, right? As opposed to just being honest about what you want, they can say yes or no.

But to be clear about, look, we're dating. I don't feel comfortable with, I can't really feel like I can get close to you if I know that you're dating other people at this point because we're spending a lot of time together. So how do you feel about this? Are you ready to be in an exclusive relationship? Is that of interest to you? If they say no, wow, great. You've learned a lot. You can make a choice like I'm comfortable doing this for another month or I'm not or whatever it is.

Or they can say, oh, I didn't know that that was important to you. And I would like that too. Let's do that. Or I'm not ready to do that. So people do this in all kinds of situations. It's not just about marriage. They're so afraid to just bring their true selves into the kind of relationship where the whole game here is bringing your true self to it. So if you can't practice that at any point in the relationship, you're not ready to be together for the long term.

You can't just say, oh, now that we're engaged, now I can bring my true self. Well, that's a recipe for disaster because now it's like you've misrepresented what you actually want to need in a relationship. And maybe the other person has misinterpreted what you want to need because you haven't expressed it. But we're so, it's, I'm fully with you. I just find that we're so, it's so hardwired in us. Like we're so scared of rejection. Yeah. We're so scared of being able to say, this is how I feel because we're like,

oh, that person's just going to walk away from me. Like, this is the thing that...

I'm going to lose this person over if I really tell them. And I think often, Laura, you've probably seen that people don't know how to effectively weigh their emotions. So everything's a 10. So right, it's like, oh, they were late. That's a 10. They're seeing other people. That's a 10. Like everything's a 10. And so I think we're also bad at being like, okay, well, this doesn't need to be raised because it's a two. And yet this does need to be raised because it is a nine. And

this is a minus five, like I'm just being ridiculous here. And so I think because we weigh everything as a 10, then we don't know how to, does that make sense? It does. And I think that's because again, we bring so much of the relationship outside where people don't have the context. So, and that's what I was talking about earlier is like, you say, listen to what this person did or listen to what this person is doing. And your friend sees that you're upset about it. So they say, yeah, you should really bring that up.

You don't have to bring up every thought that crosses your mind. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what do you value? What makes you uncomfortable to the point that this is something that you want to address? So I think people either undervalue it, which is what we were talking about, and they don't bring it up because they're afraid, well, maybe it's not such a big deal, even though it is a big deal to you that this person is seeing other people. You don't feel safe. You don't feel comfortable. Right.

But then there are things that they overvalue, you know, like, well, this person does this or that, right? I hear this in therapy all the time. And I'm thinking, really? You know, like, this is, but I'm glad we're talking about it. I'm glad they brought it up in therapy because now they can understand it better.

And by the way, I think the other blind spot that people have in dating is they think these are things that make the other person not perfect. And they don't realize, oh, there are things that the other person has to compromise on to be with me, that I am not perfect either. I'm sure there are so many things that I do that the other person is annoyed by or frustrated by, or maybe if they could compromise.

create, you know, a la carte, the perfect person, they might not order that particular feature, but I have it and they are with me anyway. Right. And so we think we're going to change all these things about them without thinking about the other person is being so chill about some of my maybe less than perfect features. Absolutely. So how can we see the other person is human in these ways? So we don't have to kind of craft them.

We don't have to shape them or mold them in a certain way. We just have to say, okay, these are the big things. And the other little things, remember, they're putting up with things about me too. And I'm very grateful for that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there's that.

There's that famous statement that says, we judge other people by their actions, not their intentions. Yes. And we judge ourselves by our intentions, not our actions. And when we're looking at someone else, we're blind to their intention. It's just what they said or what they did. Whereas when we look at ourselves, we can justify why we said it and why we did that. And we have to start offering both sides that grace now.

and compassion and empathy, because otherwise we're going to constantly feel that everything's against us and everyone's not for us. Right. When I cancel on someone, I have a good valid reason and I still care about them. When they cancel on me, they're disrespectful and they don't care about me. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. One of the biggest, this is, I'm enjoying this conversation so much, Laurie, because I feel like we're really getting to like

the heart and the core of so much of what I feel is making dating so challenging right now. And, you know, finding love is just such a important pillar of human happiness and connection that it breaks my heart when I see that we're tripping ourselves up. And when I asked my community what was one of the things that they think trips them up, it was this idea that they have now coined future tripping, this idea of planning the future in their head and

visioning a future with this person when things are looking okay or good in their head, they're, you know, in the most extreme cases, imagining their wedding day or what their kids might look like. But even in the immediate sense, like this could be it. This is amazing. This is going to last. And then all of a sudden they get a reality check where that person is not really mirroring that bad.

How do we stop ourselves from future tripping? Or is there a healthy way of future tripping with the person? Is there a collective collaborative future tripping? Like what does that look like? I think the future tripping is being in the present. And what I mean is what's happening now is what it's going to look like in the future.

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

We didn't agree on this. We were frustrated with each other. We had a difference of opinion. How did we repair that rupture? We talk a lot about rupture and repair. Everybody's going to have ruptures. You have it with your family members, with your friends, with your coworkers, with your parents, with your children, especially with your romantic partners, because we have this misguided notion that we shouldn't have a rupture with them.

because we're so in love and we see each other and we see eye to eye. But of course you're going to have ruptures. It's not so much whether you're going to have a rupture, it's what do you do with it and what does it look like? So if you have been dating for, let's say, six months and you haven't had a rupture, you guys are not going deep enough. You guys don't know each other well enough. You're still on your best behavior. You have to be able to be yourselves. That's going to tell you what the future looks like.

So stop the pretending, be yourself, be what you want your future to look like, act like you want your future to look like, see how the other person acts and see what happens between the two of you. And a repair would look like something like, oh, I didn't, you know, we're having a disagreement right now. Why don't we take 15 minutes and let's come back when we're not so heated and let's talk about that. Or, you know, you made a mistake.

You know what? I've been thinking about this. You know, say you have an argument. You say, we're not going to talk for a few minutes. Let's go cool off, whatever. You call them back and you say, you know what? I thought about it. I was wrong. And I'm so sorry. Here's what I did. And I wish I had done it this way. Mm-hmm.

And that's great if your partner can do that or if you can do that, right? And then if your partner then can accept that without shaming you, if your partner can say, I really appreciate that. And I wish that I had reacted differently in this way. And how can I be more supportive in those moments? That's beautiful. That's your future.

But you have to see it in the present. You can't imagine what the future is going to be. You have to actually live it in the present and say, oh, now I know it's going to be just like it is right now. Yeah. And like you're saying, like if you are making plans in your head, but you're uncomfortable to talk about those plans, then they only exist in your head. Yeah. Like they aren't real. They aren't going there. Yeah.

I wanted to get your thoughts. I don't know if you watch any of these shows or whether you're exposed to them. And I know that your book's being turned into a scripted show, I believe. Yes, yes. But when you look at unscripted shows, you look at shows like Love Island or Love is Blind. I mean, Love Island right now is culturally one of the most talked about shows for young people, for sure. How do you feel about those shows? And yes, they're entertaining. And yes, we love to get into all the...

gossip and what's going on and everything. How is that affecting our views and our own relationships? Yeah, I haven't actually seen those shows, but many of my therapy clients talk about them. I did just watch Bridgerton, which is a scripted show, but very much like what I imagine those other shows to be. And I just think that, you know, people think that that's what it's supposed to be like. So many times people will come into therapy and they'll say, is this what it's supposed to feel like? Is it, was it supposed to be like?

And it's like, how does it feel to you? Oh, it feels really good. Well, then that's how it's supposed to be. How does it feel to you? I don't know. It just doesn't feel right. Well, then that's not how it's supposed to be. And that's really, again, coming back to, can you tap into how do I feel around this person?

Does it feel, as you said, peaceful, calm? Do I feel safe? Do I feel comfortable? And it's not just that. It's not just that because you're going to have friends that you feel that way around. But if you don't have that and you have the other things, that's not enough. That kind of brings me on to this next theme that I want to dive into deeply around is what is it about the five to seven year mark that ends in a divorce or a breakup? Like, why is that the number that

that you see in the research? Why has that become such a prominent pivot point or end point? What have you seen over the years? What I see happen around that time is several things are happening. There's a developmental...

change that happens throughout a marriage and you both become different people and the relationship becomes different and you adapt together. And those are the strong marriages and the strong relationships. So that's, that's what you're being called into. Either you grow together or you grow apart. Well, so, so different things happen. So first of all, I think that sometimes people don't know each other well before they get married, then they're married and they're like a year in and they think, oh, this isn't

exactly what I wanted, but I'm in it. I'm married. And then they say, okay, let's have a baby, right? Because then that's the next step. And then now that's really hard. Parenting is really challenging. And if you and your partner are not already on solid ground, it's going to be extra challenging.

So then you think, oh, my partner's the problem, when actually the relationship is the problem. Mm-hmm. So many times people come into couples therapy, and the first thing that they say is, the problem is, and let me tell you everything that's wrong with my partner. Mm-hmm.

And so what I do with couples therapy is I say, before you come in, I want you each to come in and say, if you were to be your best selves in this relationship, what would you need to change of yourself, each of you? And they say it out loud. And that's all they're working on is changing that. They're not working on changing the other person. And when they do that, they say, oh, wow, like that actually changes the relationship. The relationship is an entity. It's

It's not just, you know, there's two people. It's like there's three people happening. It's like there's you, there's you, and then there's the two of you. And so I think around five years, either they realize I didn't know enough about this person or I still have work to do or other things have come into our lives. A parent got sick. It was really challenging. We didn't know how to deal with it. We had children. We didn't know how to deal with that. You know, we've had difficulties. We've had loss. All kinds of things happen at times.

at that point. Yeah. I just want to say to your point, I've had so many friends who were given the advice that if your relationship's not working out, have a baby and it will save it. Terrible advice. It's never made sense to me because if your relationship's not working, now you have another relationship to take care of who is a new child, a new human being in the, in the world. And so how are you going to give less attention to each other? You've already been given no attention and

Now you have less attention to share with each other and more attention on this. Now the being, I'm shocked that that advice still gets passed around and people still see it as a viable solution to a bad relationship. Yeah. Yeah. They think of it as like sunk cost. Like we've been married this long, so we can't, we can't start over. We can't, you know, what do we do to save this? Let's have a baby because it's a distraction.

They think like, this will be great. It's exciting. It'll bring some vitality and energy and aliveness into the relationship when if you don't already have that aliveness and that vitality between the two of you, the baby is not going to provide that for you. You're going to get a lot of outside attention like, oh, that's so great. Look at

a baby. But in reality, you guys are going to have to be more of a team than you've ever been and problem solve more than you've ever had to and figure out how to create connection under much more challenging circumstances. So it's the most counterintuitive advice. And I always tell people, if you are not solid, do not bring another person into this family.

Yeah, it's almost like you already don't have problem solving skills. You don't have collaboration skills. And now you're having to make choices on behalf of an entirely new human being where the stakes are so high and everything feels like it's personal of whether things are going well for the child or not. Well, what happens is the pain Olympics start.

And what I mean is that, you know, I had the baby all day. I have it harder. You didn't do this. No, I had it harder because I've been at work all day and now I have to take over this and you didn't have to work all day. Whatever it is, they vie for who has the most pain and then they compete for it. And that becomes their relationship. You know, you owe me because I won the pain Olympics today. No, you owe me because yesterday I won the pain Olympics and I never got my reward because

And that becomes their whole relationship. Yeah. One of the questions I ask people when they say to me, like, should we have kids now? Or is it the right time to have children?

I often say that I think we're asking the wrong question. Like the question should be, do I know how my life is going to change? And am I ready for that? And am I aware of that? And are we aware of how our life is going to change to the point you're making of, well, who is going to take the responsibility? And am I going to feel like you're not helping out? And what does that look like? Again, having a conversation about it seems like the practical thing to do. Another relationship that seems to

add more complexity since the beginning of time is in-laws. You mentioned it earlier that you have clients that come and see you for that. The amount of friends I've spoken to recently who have this challenge where they feel that their in-laws are too involved. Their in-laws are not involved. When their in-laws are too involved, they're too controlling of either or one of the partners or they have expectations. They have certain demands on time and holidays and where they're spent and all of these kinds of things.

What I found to be the core pain, again, going back to our earlier conversation, is people feel their partner's parents are too involved, too demanding, too hands-on, but they feel their partner can't stand up to their parents and their partner doesn't understand how it affects them. That's kind of where I've seen the main pressure that people are carrying.

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I have gotten thousands of letters to my column and to my podcast about in-laws. And what I always say is in-law issues are couples issues. So people think it's about the mother-in-law, the father-in-law. It's about the two of you. And if your partner, whose parent that is, cannot talk to their parent on your behalf, that's a couple's issue. So the person will say, oh, it's really not that bad. But if your partner is saying, I am really struggling with this,

and it's not their parent, you need to talk to your own parent about this. You need to have your partner's back. And if you don't, your partner is going to feel that you are treating them the same way that their parent is. You might not be doing the same thing, but the fact that they don't have your support is going to pull you apart in this marriage because your partner, it's not about taking sides.

It's about prioritizing this couple's relationship and saying, "Listen, when you do this, it makes my wife feel like she's not a good parent or she's not a good wife. And you might have these values, mom, and I understand that, but I don't want you saying those kinds of things. You can have whatever thoughts you have. Please don't say them to me or to my wife because I'm very happy with our relationship."

And what you're really standing up for is the relationship. It's not just standing up for your partner. It's standing up for we understand each other. We can talk about these things with each other. And we do not want that kind of interference. What do you do when your partner doesn't have the guts to do that? When they don't have the...

the authority or the relationship with their own parents, which has constantly been, they've been babied, they've been, you know, the mommy's boy or whatever it may be. And they don't really have the courage to stand up to their parents and say,

what you just said, which isn't rude. It's not mean, but in their head, they're like, how could I ever define my parents? Like, what does that look like? Or, or they're guilt tripped, like by their parents where it's like, they're like, I can never do that to my mom. Like she's loved me since day one. Like you just turned up in my life two years ago. Like,

What do you do when your partner's feeling that way? Yeah. Well, I think you help your partner to understand that this is a very loving thing for the relationship with the parent too. So you're not telling the parent, I don't want you in our lives. You're saying, I want you in our lives. We both want you in our lives, but we want you in our lives in a way that makes us feel like we're enjoying our time with you.

And if it becomes this thing where we're not enjoying our time with you and it becomes problematic, we're going to be spending less time with you. And mom, I don't want that. And my wife doesn't want that. We both want to spend time with you. We just want it to be enjoyable. So we're asking that you not talk about this, whatever the issue is, or you not do this, or you not tell my wife to do this, or you not criticize because that makes it not enjoyable. And then we're going to see you less. And we love you so much.

that we feel comfortable saying this to you. If we didn't love you and we didn't care how much we saw you, we wouldn't be bringing this up. I'm bringing this up because I love you and I want to be able to see you. Mm-hmm.

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

the man who feels like he's in between his mom and his wife in that kind of a setup, or at least those are the ones that I'm aware of. And I'm sure it takes all sorts of forms. But it's often quite a heavy pressure that I know a lot of men feel.

And they're like, I don't want to let my mom down. And I don't want to let my wife down. And now I'm stuck in between these two things. And it's almost like, who do I choose? And I feel like I have to choose a side. Right. But you're not choosing. You're actually choosing to bring everyone together. You're saying, I want us all to be able to be together.

And so what I'm doing is I'm making sure that we can spend more time together. Yeah, that's great advice. And I really hope that reframe is kind of, you know, permeates. One of the things I imagine you see a lot in therapy is one partner has forced the other partner to come there. Maybe in couples therapy, it's hard for two people to feel equally as excited. Maybe if they're premarital, that may be more equal. But when it's reactive, it's definitely one saying we need to go to therapy and someone may feel forced.

One thing I've found that a lot of people say to me is, Jay, I just can't get my partner to open up. Like whether it's in therapy, whether it's with me, I'm asking them, I'm talking to them. I'm just like, I just want to know what you feel. Like even with the question you said earlier of like, hey, I have a dream to get married. What's your take on it? And they'll be like, I don't know. Or they'll go quiet when it's like, hey, we need to go talk to your parents about this because they're getting really involved and they just go quiet. They don't know what to say. And they constantly feel that these things

their partner doesn't have the capacity to open up. And I find this, especially with young couples, where they're just like, my partner doesn't have an emotional vocabulary. Like they don't have the ability. How have you encouraged them

people in those scenarios to be able to open up or help their partners open up or create a safe space when a lot of people don't have that skill and that ability to actually even know what they're feeling and thinking. Yeah, you have to create the space for that person to feel comfortable opening up. So often people who can't open up or have a hard time with it,

they were not given the space before. So when they opened up, someone would say, oh no, you don't feel that way. Right? So when they were growing up, they'd say, you know, I'm upset about this or I'm sad about this. And the parent would say, no, don't be sad. Let's go get ice cream. Right? So there was no space for the sadness or I'm really angry about this. Oh, you're overreacting. You're so sensitive.

So they don't tell someone that they're angry about something or I'm really worried about this. Oh, don't worry. It'll all work out. Or what do you mean you're worried about that? Why are you always so worried about everything? So they never felt like they had a space for their feelings to be received and held because

We talk about in therapy, the concept of feeling felt. What does it mean to feel felt? And I love that expression because I think that when you want someone to open up, they want to feel felt. They want to know that you're going to receive whatever they have to offer in a compassionate way and in a way that feels connected. So when you tell someone, tell me what you're feeling, open up, that feels like so much pressure, right?

as opposed to just, you know, being with them. So maybe you start with something like, hey, I'm feeling really this about this, you know, what was that like for you? And they might say it was fine because they don't know. Did you have a good time? You know, did it make you sad when this happened? It made me sad, but maybe you didn't feel that way.

You know, just helping them to have the vocabulary. There's this thing called a feelings wheel. And a lot of people only learned like with the colors, the primary colors, right? So red, yellow, blue, right? And then if you mix red and yellow, you get orange and there's more nuance. And if you put more yellow, it becomes more yellowy orange, right? And so people only know like happy, sad, mad, right?

But they don't know, like, I felt frustrated. I felt scared. I felt vulnerable. I felt anxious. But where did you feel the anxiety? Well, I felt it in my belly. I felt it in my chest, right? So there's so much nuance. And for people who don't open up, they often only have those three primary emotions. And then they don't really know how to describe what they're feeling. So you can mirror that for them and model that when you talk about your feelings, right?

Like, I was really afraid of that. And I was really angry, but actually underneath the anger with my friend, I was feeling hurt. And I realized I was feeling really hurt by her behavior. And it seemed like I was angry, but I'm feeling really neglected. And so, you know, did you ever feel that way? Have you ever felt, you know, we, whatever it is, but it just like, it just becomes part of the air. It's not like sit down, face me and tell me how you're feeling. Open up to me.

That feels like so much pressure, but it just like it's in the air and they've never lived in that environment before. You have to remember. So it's just, this is a new planet that they've landed on. And here's, it's like a new, let's say it's a new city. And in this city, we speak a different language and we speak in the language of emotion. And they're going to start to pick up the language bit by bit, but they're not going to be fluent right out the gate. So don't say speak French to me. It's like, oh, here's this new language. You'll pick up a few words here and there. That's so good. That's such a great,

visual an analogy like if I turn up in a different city or a different country and someone just expected me to know how to speak that language I would feel so much pressure and actually we've all experienced that where you're like I don't even want to try and say a sentence because I feel I'm going to sound so stupid it's that comfortability and that could take a while this is my last question I want to ask you today Laurie what how long not abuse not something as extreme as that how long can you tolerate disrespect confusion

and distance from your partner before you feel this is enough i can't do it anymore i feel like every relationship goes through phases and periods of distance of disconnect of disagreements it's normal it's it's going to happen across a long period of time but when does an individual say you know what i can't do this anymore i can't keep tolerating this what have you found that

makes people feel strongly about leaning in that direction versus I can, I'm in it for some more. Yeah. Well, first of all, there's a study that shows that if you think of your relationship, like a bank account and you want to have lots of goodwill in there, let's say it's an account of goodwill and you don't want to take a lot of withdrawals. So when we talk about disrespect,

So you need five positive interactions for every one negative interaction, or you're going to be operating in deficit spending and it won't work. But we're talking about maybe the confusion or somebody had a bad moment, but they repaired it, those kinds of things. Disrespect is so corrosive in a relationship. So

So if someone does it the first time, like the cement drying, you say, hey, that you don't tell them you were so disrespectful. That was so mean. You say, I felt really disrespected by that. Can you tell me what you actually meant?

Right. And they may say, oh, I'm sorry. I said it that way. I should not have said it that way. Here's what I meant. And it came off completely different. And I will make sure that doesn't happen anymore. That's the response you want. Right. And here's what I was thinking. And I need to work on that. If someone says that wasn't I, you know, if you said I felt disrespect and they said, well, it wasn't disrespectful. I didn't intend for it to be. You say, OK, you didn't intend for it to be, but it felt disrespectful to me. And let me explain more about why.

And the person still is like, well, I didn't mean it. Okay. But here's how it landed on me. That person doesn't seem like they have a lot of flexibility. The number one trait after emotional stability that predicts the success of two people having a good relationship is flexibility. You cannot have a good relationship with neuroticism, rigidity, lack of self-awareness. So if this person can't respond to you and they're still being disrespectful, I would not wait. Right.

The question is, are you being clear about what disrespect is? Because again, then we get to, you know, someone said something that maybe was not disrespectful, but because of your history, you hear something as being disrespectful. You know, they might have said like, oh, I don't know if that job is worthy of you.

And you hear that as, are you saying that, like, I have a bad job? And you're saying, no, I think your worth is higher than your job, right? So that person was actually being very respectful of you and saying the opposite of what you thought. So you have to really be clear about, can I hear this person clearly? But if this person is critical of you, and sometimes the way they frame it is, oh, I was just kidding. You can't take a joke?

That is so abusive. So it's not funny. Criticism is not a funny way of making a joke. And if you have to put someone down to be funny, then that's probably not someone you want to be in a relationship with.

Laurie, thank you so much for coming and sharing your wealth of wisdom and depth of insight today with our community. I want to thank everyone who's been listening and watching for your amazing questions. Please keep sending them through so that we can keep getting Laurie back. I think you've helped identify so many root issues today. I feel like we really got to a place of talking about

some of the deepest aspects of where we go wrong at the same time as talking about a lot of the day-to-day challenges that we seem to hear about and i really hope that everyone who's listening and watching i hope this helps you in your love life to find deeper connections to find more meaningful relationships and ultimately maintain a natural healthy truly

nourishing relationship with a partner and wishing you all the best in your love life. So thank you so much again, Laurie, for being here. Yeah, and thank you so much for having me and thank you to your audience for submitting so many great questions. Yeah, thanks, Laurie. Hey, everyone. If you loved that conversation, go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist, Laurie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and dating.

If you're trying to figure out that space right now, you won't want to miss this conversation. If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.

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