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Hey friends, welcome back to the Deep Dive Snippet. What you're about to hear is a clip from a conversation that I had with sex and relationships educator and creator Hannah Witton. And we're talking about this idea of true love being a bit of a myth. I won't say any more. Let's roll the clip. You talk a lot about sex and relationships. We've talked about the whole like creator-y stuff. We talked a bit about the sex stuff. Switching to the relationships angle. Broadly,
- What are the things that make for a good romantic relationship? And what do you see in your audience and in people that you speak to about the stuff that people commonly get wrong about the whole relationship stuff? - Oh my goodness. I feel like there are just so many things 'cause there's like so many assumptions and tropes and ideas we have about relationships from like,
romantic movies and stuff. When we then find ourselves in a, like a serious romantic relationship, we're just like, wait, it's not like, it's not like in the movie. It's like, what's going on? - Yeah. So what are the key differences of movie versus IRL? - One myth that I've always enjoyed busting is that love does not conquer all. You know, we have this like romantic notion that love conquers all. If two people like truly love each other, they totally are in love, like respect each other, like,
their interpersonal relationship is just magnificent, right? That whatever hardships are thrown at them throughout their life, their love will be able to see them through and they will be able to stay a couple and stay in love and stay together throughout it. I disagree.
I disagree. I think there are a lot of just like practical life factors that, however unromantic it sounds, can contribute to a relationship working out or a relationship ending. And that could be things like distance, could be things like work, could be things like...
your belief systems and values. Could be things like sickness and health. Could be financial. People often forget to talk about money in relationships. And that can cause huge rifts.
Love does not conquer your bank account, unfortunately. Yeah, that's one of the big things for me is that like, whilst it's really nice to think about love in that way and like it can help, sure. If you two are really into each other, it can help because that gives you like the motivation to be like, is this something that we can work through? But ultimately like love is not the same thing as compatibility, right?
and I think compatibility is something that we have to get like really honest with ourselves about in terms of like, are we actually a good match? And I guess that comes from actually just talking about it? From talking about it, but also just like from knowing yourself, from lived experience, from just like, yeah, really getting to know yourself and the other person and having experiences together instead of sometimes just talking.
talking about hypothetically, having experiences together. - Like going on holiday together and things like that? - That could be a huge one. Like you might really love someone and it turns out that you can't live together. But there are relationships living apart together.
where two people are completely in love and they manage to find a structure and a system that works for them where they don't actually live together, but they're in a very loving long-term relationship. That's maybe one of the other things is that we have this idea of relationship stages, right? I think there's a book or maybe it's a blog post, I don't know, but maybe it's a book
that I haven't read, but I just like hear a lot of people talking about, which is like called riding the relationship escalator or something where it's just like, you start dating someone, you get on the relationship escalator together and then you're just riding it. Like you're not actually in control. Is it escalator or elevator? Who knows? But, um, but the, but the idea is the same. It's just like, there are these like clear relationship stages that our culture and media and tradition and, um,
And even like our politics as well in terms of like rights and benefits and stuff that you get from hitting certain life stages. You might be on that path because maybe you think that that's what you want, but actually like have you...
you thought about what it is that actually you want and what kind of lifestyle would suit you? Or are you just kind of like doing these things because you're just like, well, that's what you do when you're in a relationship. That's what you're supposed to do in life. Like you date for this many months and then you move in together at this time and then you get married and then you have a baby. And like, you know, I'm saying all this as somebody who has very much like kind of followed that trajectory, but
me and my partner along the way, like every single stage, we're like having these really deep conversations about like, where is this desire for us to do this together coming from? Like, is this something that we just feel like we should be doing because that's the next logical step of our relationship and that's just what people do? Or is this something that we as individuals, but also as a unit,
is this something that's important to us? And like along the way, just like every single thing, just being like, is this something we want to do? And actually drilling down to like, why? And that's something that you say a lot. And I think a lot of your videos is just being like, ask yourself why? Ask yourself why again? Ask yourself why again? And that like doesn't just apply to like...
work goal setting but like personal relationship goal setting as well for sure. Yeah like why do I actually want this thing? Yeah and there will be an element of like oh well it'll make my parents happy
Right? And you can choose to listen to that. But you could also choose to ignore it if it's gonna make you miserable, right? Yeah, one of my big why's for the whole relationship thing is I often... I've heard a bunch of studies referenced rather than kind of read them in their original state. They basically say that your happiness in life correlates quite highly with the strength of your kind of primary relationship.
Have you come across this stuff? Like, is that like a thing? Yeah, I think this is something that, again, like similar to you, I think I've just like come across it being referenced. But yes, like your primary relationship and your satisfaction within that primary relationship has a massive impact on your overall life experience.
That makes perfect sense to me. I don't know whether those things are talking about like romantic relationships because I hear primary relationship and I'm like, well, what if your primary relationship in your life is with a friend or with a family member or something? But I think that it would still kind of like hold true that premise of like, do you have like a person or do you have like...
your people because that can absolutely impact your life satisfaction and again there's there's some other studies that again i've seen like referenced and stuff which is like people with kids their general life their overall life satisfaction goes down um which is so interesting to me because it's like the same people though like when interviewed it will be like
oh, my kids are the best thing that's ever happened to me and they bring me so much joy. But then when they're surveyed... Yeah, if you're surveyed on a day-to-day happiness. Yeah, then actually their overall life satisfaction is actually lower than people without kids. So there is like, I don't know, this cognitive dissonance for people with kids where it's like, you're going to be less happy, but also they're the thing that brings you the most joy in life. Yeah. So it's like...
It's an interesting one. I remember like reading something about that when Dan and I were like trying and I was like, you ready for our life satisfaction to go down? Other things to be aware of, especially if you're like a straight woman, there's also stuff. And again, like I cannot reference the actual like studies and stuff, but I...
It's just things that I hear referenced. And I think maybe there's some of it in the book of Invisible Women. When a man and a woman marry each other, the man's life expectancy goes up. And I think his happiness goes up and a woman's life expectancy goes down. And yeah, and you're just like, ha, literally marrying men is killing us.
I'm like, great. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. But with things like that though, so that's all like very hypothetical and like you're not necessarily gonna like notice that in your actual interpersonal relationships. For me, as somebody who like finds learning about these things interesting, it's always something that I bring up with my partner. I'm just like, did you know? Yeah.
just so you know, like kind of thing. But obviously if that's not something that you would directly talk about in your relationship, it's still, I think especially if you are in like a cis heterosexual relationship as well, just for me, it's really important being very aware of gender roles. And like, I'm someone who considers myself like quite aware of these things. And yet in my life, notice myself being
and like me and my partner, like slipping into more like traditional gender roles and having to be like, hang on, hang on. Did we choose this? Or is this something that we're just like falling into because it's the examples that we've seen. It's because of like how we've been raised. It's, um, it's because of just like,
how we assume that we're supposed to act. Because like, when you think about little kids, right, and the way that they behave, they're just mimicking adult behavior, right? And I feel like that we're doing that throughout entire lives. Like, I'm someone who's almost turning 30, who's pregnant and about to have a kid. How do I act? I don't, I'm just going to mimic adults
what I've seen in movies. I'm going to mimic other pregnant people that I've seen. I'm going to mimic other people in their 30s. Like, that's what I'm doing. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just pretending and copying other people, right? For me, it's about like, especially with the gender stuff in our relationship, it's like,
okay, are we just copying other couples? Are we just copying what we've seen? Are we just playing house? Do you know what I mean? Or is this actually what we want? Is this actually playing into our strengths and weaknesses as individuals and how we can best come together to support one another?
