You know the way people deal with problems the way people protect themselves or their relationship from problems Backfires and becomes a prison Hello and welcome I'm Shane parish and this is the knowledge project a Podcast exploring the ideas methods and mental models that help you master the best of what other
people have already figured out To learn more find show notes or stay up to date on new episodes go to FS dot blog slash podcast Firearm Street puts together a weekly newsletter that I think you'll love it's called brain food and it comes out every Sunday much Like this podcast its high signal timeless
and mind expanding read what you're missing at FS dot blog slash newsletter Today, I'm speaking with sue Johnson a clinical psychologist and the developer of emotionally focused couples therapy She's widely regarded as one of the best if not the best couples therapist in North America Sue is the author of hold
me tight which is hands -down the best relationship book I've ever read she followed that up with love sense, which is also worth reading and I must say when my friends found out I was gonna interview Sue I was flooded with emails and questions for her.
Everyone was interested in talking about relationships, which was a bit unexpected for me Before the interview I was thinking about how is gonna structure the interview to fit all of these questions in and well I couldn't ask everything I wanted to the conversation is structured around the arc of a relationship
from first dating and new love All the way to retirement.
We talk everything in between so we talk kids affairs Warning signs that your relationship is in trouble and even when to call it quits I want to preface this conversation with the fact that this is not relationship advice for you specifically and will sue as a professional And I am clearly not you
should seek advice from someone more close to the situation with context and specifics to you as an individual and you as a couple this conversation will be hard for many of you and I'm sure there's Aspects of your relationship you're gonna pick up on and say see I told you and your partner is probably
gonna do the same You're both right.
So let's listen and learn how to make that conversation more productive.
I Was telling you before we started recording that this interview has prompted more unsolicited questions from friends and colleagues than any other interview and I was trying to think of how to incorporate a variety of different situations into our conversation and I think I landed on Let's walk through
the life cycle of Relationships from start to finish so I think we'll well Let's start with the stereotypical younger couple falling in love and let's go through the whole arc until death in terms of We'll go down some paths and in terms of talking about infidelity and Children and sort of like empty
nesting and retirement and these big sort of markers and relationship Yes, but I think like let's start with Based on what you know about love and how we're brought up.
How do we choose a mate?
How do we go into that decision?
with Just I'll leave it there.
How do we choose a mate?
I'll leave it as broad as I can well Of course there's lots of issues there and Sexuality comes in there, you know, I mean we we are drawn Especially when we're young adults we're drawn to what we see are sexually attractive I mean that primes are approaching people, you know, it primes our desire to
get close But I think we focus on that a lot, but there's a lot more to it than that Who you're attracted to it won't just be you know As my daughter says who's the hottest man in the room, right?
It's but it seems to me that she can walk into a room and almost every man in the room is hot That's kind of the stage she's in right now so, you know, well, how does that help you differentiate then but We bring our histories with us, you know, I asked couples when they come in I don't say have you
ever had any secure attachment because that's a bit abstract.
I say things like When you grew up in your family could you if you got upset could you turn to someone in your family and Do you would they reliably come and hold you and some people say?
Oh, yes. Yes my dad would come and hold and other people say Hold me When I cried just listen to the voice, you know the answer right?
This is foreign territory for this person.
So I think people who've experienced safe connection with a parent have a big advantage and Research says that they are more likely to have friends in high school They're more likely to have better be better friends themselves and they're more likely to be empathic With any person they're dating right?
They're more likely to find happy dating relationships Well, of course they are because they've got a model.
They know what a good relationship looks like They know what it feels like to be vulnerable with somebody Right to be vulnerable with someone and to have that person respond.
So they have certain it's more than expectations it's almost like a Visceral map for what this is supposed to feel like expectation sounds cognitive, you know, so it's It's a visceral map of what relationships look like and what's allowed in relationships and what you're supposed to do.
So Folks that have had secure attachment in childhood are an advantage You know, it's like love is a gift that keeps on giving when you know what it looks like Then you have you're better at putting your hand on it in the world, right?
So, you know if you come from a securely attached You know, for example, I'll give you example.
I talked about my dad.
My dad always treated me with the most amazing respect.
I Can't imagine one time when my dad ever implied that because I was a girl I couldn't do anything or that I my views weren't okay It's bigger than expectations.
You have a template you have a How you expect to be treated and what you're looking for in relationships So if you if you are loved in childhood, you know what that feels like Then you can go out and you can you can tell when that's a possibility and when it isn't many of us Have no idea.
We don't know what we're looking for we just don't want to be lonely anymore and we want somebody to have fun with and we want someone to have sex with and You know, we're caught up in the society thing of you know girls are supposed to look like this and guys are supposed to you know look like that,
you know and and we get all caught up in that but the bottom line is I think that People people are seeking out people to connect with and what I've always tried to tell my children is you can be attracted to lots of people in a very superficial way and You know you can you you're going to experiment
with relationships You are because because you have to get to know this dance right and you're going to make mistakes but you know What you really need to is listen to yourself and listen to when you feel Safe and when dancing with someone is easy and makes you feel good And when you can be vulnerable
for a moment and that person tunes in and cares about your vulnerability That's the person to go with There's the little sort of bids that you're putting out there that people are reciprocating.
That's a lovely word you're using.
It's a bid It's a bit and people don't realize what they're doing, you know I mean I'm tuned into relationships So I watch them all the time in airports and among my friends and I'm I'm tuning on a different level than most of them I can't help it.
You know, it's this is my job at this point, but people are making bids and you're even Watching people.
I'm fly a lot. So even watching people on a plane You know you sit down next to somebody and you might make a comment and they don't look who in the eye They turn their head away They and you immediately get that they're close They don't want to connect with you and then you might make a little bid
for a connection with somebody else and they turn Towards you they turn in their seat.
They give you eye contact.
They look at you. They smile they make a comment They respond to what you said.
Ah This person wants to dance right and then the point is Most of us haven't been taught to tune in on that level, you know I dance on to team tango and The fascinating thing about that is that for the first three years it's Argentine tank was very difficult.
It's a nerd dance basically, okay and for the first three years I I sort of thought I was learning it and then one night a Stranger came and I started dancing with him and he broke all the rules.
You're not supposed to do this He stopped in the middle of the floor and he said what are you doing?
I? Said this is incredibly rude.
I said, I'm dancing on to do tiger with you.
He said no, you're not I Said I'm sorry He said you're not you're in your head Predicting what you think I'm gonna ask you to do and doing the steps in your head.
I said, ah You're not with me I said, oh He said Forget all the steps in your head.
Just feel the movement in my body feel the momentum Listen to the music and the beat feel it let the dance do you.
Oh my god, so tango changed that night into something totally different and magical and I became aware of what was going on on a whole different level people who have close Relationships are more able to tune a tune in that way.
They tune into the relational drama that's going on in a relationship other people Do what I was doing there in the head predicting stuff Doing tasks, you know, you say to people why did you get married and some people say things like Oh, I don't know like, you know My other girlfriend did like canoeing
and I wanted to canoe every weekend and she'd canoe and I thought it was time to get married It's convenient.
Yeah, it's like it's a deal right and they're not tuned into the relational aspect and I think I always have been and I think it's something to do with growing up in an English pub and Spending my childhood.
I didn't spend my childhood watching TV.
I spent my childhood watching adults get slightly drunk and and emote all over the place and fight and cry and tell stories and Turn to my dad for support and tell their stories of the war Some people would have thought it was very inappropriate for me as a child But that's what I grew up with so I
tune into that level and so young adults Who can tune into this emotional level and who know what love feels like and who've seen love in operation who felt it They're better at seeking it out.
They're better at tuning in on that level they they want to dance with someone who will tune into them and respond to them and wear something they feel safe enough with that person where they can play and that's Constructive bonding right and so of course that's only the beginning you fall in love with somebody
and then Usually everything goes wrong because you know, they're bound to disappoint you, right?
it's been kind of interesting with my kids to You know Mike, of course my kids call me up when they have fights with their partner.
Of course they do Who better to call really?
But you know And of course they things go wrong and they fight they hurt each other and that's relationship If you dance with somebody they're gonna step on your feet.
They're gonna go left when you expect them to go, right that's just the way it is the point is in a good relationship you can recognize what's happened and you can tune in and you can repair it and I think My kids have found Partners who are responsive to them.
It's emotional responsiveness.
That's the basis of a secure bond What is emotional responsiveness?
emotional responsiveness is an abstract word that captures a lot it's The ability though all the willingness that someone has to tune into you emotionally and to allow themselves to tune into your non -verbals or your words and to allow themselves to feel what you're feeling and Who respond to that in a way
that you feel that you matter That all sounds very elaborate until I say something like You Are a social bonding mammal you pick up the cues from if you're paying attention That's a big issue in life if you're paying attention you pick up the cues from somebody's face in a hundred milliseconds And if you're
paying attention The muscles in your face automatically imitate what you see on those other the other person's face The mirror neurons in your brain fire and if you're paying attention You feel in your body what you see on the other person's face Now if you've had a reasonably good history of love relationships
You feel in your body and you have a sense of how to respond So in a in a positive relationship or when we help couples heal the relationship we see that The person isn't overwhelmed by that.
I said oh my goodness.
This person's angry at me.
What am I going to do?
You know They they they they listen to it and they see the hurt and the other person's eyes and they respond and they say They reach out and they touch and they say I'm so sorry.
Did I hurt your feelings?
I think I did I think you're feeling bad right now.
That's emotional responsiveness and whether you're a mother or child or An adolescent with your very best friend or your sibling or a romantic partner That's what makes for for a positive bond that responsiveness and when you see distressed couples That's blocked.
They're all caught up in dealing with their own hurt or their own fears Your people think that conflict is the issue in distressed relationships conflict is the virus The inflammation is emotional disconnection That you can't connect with this person you can't get this person to respond to you This person isn't
responding to you. So emotionally you're alone.
The person is in the room with you, but emotionally you're alone So are you escalating intentionally almost to provoke a response?
No, it's not that conscious or unconscious Yes, it's in in distressed relationships.
The most common pattern we see is one person is Demanding and getting angry and criticizing and the other person is defending and distancing and the way we understand the demanding is They can be talking about anything Okay, then be talking about finances or sex or what they can be talking about anything
or how bad this other person is right then be talking about anything, but if you listen to the emotion you look at their face and We're pretty good at that right now.
What they're really saying is where are you?
Where are you? And if the other person doesn't respond they say louder They say I'll get you to respond to me.
Where are you? You're a bad partner.
Oh, that'll get your attention, right?
but unfortunately not what I have to do to get your attention is Threaten you and then you go with the threat and you say I don't want to talk right now And then or you you escalate you escalate you think I'm a bad partner.
What about this thing that you did?
That's right. You fight back you attack back.
So we look at all these negative patterns in relationships And we we feel we understand them at this point.
And so we help the demanding critical partner We say could you help me?
you're talking to your partner about how you're just you're disappointed in them and That you feel like this relationship is empty for you and you're expressing a lot of anger and frustration But then you turned and you looked away and your eyes filled with tears Could you help me?
This is very painful for you.
The person says well, of course it is He's so distant he goes back to attacking him, but we'll just stay with what we just said We go into the the emotional channel and we stay there and in the end the people come we say yes You're very there's something here That's very painful for you and you're getting
very angry and you push him to talk and she says yes I push him you push him and if you don't push him And if he won't talk no matter how angry you get now critical you get then her face Changes and she goes back to what I saw a few moments before she says then I'm all by myself So yes you're all by yourself
and he doesn't care about me and I'm not important to him and I don't matter to him and I'm by myself and then she weeps and That's the desperation under the anger, but you don't have in this bonding situation We desperately need the other person to respond to us Emotional isolation is traumatizing
for human beings You're not wired for it.
It's a danger cue for your nervous system We desperately need other people to respond and they're really These dramas happen when we're very young.
We don't have many strategies.
We really don't and The one that automatically comes to mind is that we yell and scream and we we push You know, I remember a woman saying to me.
I Poke him and poke him and poke him anything to get him to respond to me because if I don't risk if he doesn't respond to Me, there's no relationship and I've lost him and I'm all by myself and I'm in panic and loss and she used the word panic and That's a reality The you know researchers have looked
at you can use fMRI machines and yak pank set was a famous researcher He's just died who looked at the brain and he said we're bonding mammals We need connection with others like we need oxygen.
We're way too vulnerable without it, right?
And we become obsessed with danger.
And when we feel rejected and abandoned by the person we most depend on There's a special pathway in our emotional brain and it's reserved for attachment panic and he used that word and I believe that research because the number of people I have sat and taught with from all cultures and all genders
and all over the world and all classes The number of people that I have taught with who will actually come up with that word Who will say well, I don't know what it is I don't know what it is, but it feels really bad, you know And I can't breathe when I'm talking about it and it feels awful and I just
feel agitated. It's almost like You know, it's like it's like a kind of panic and I say yes you know, it's We panic we can't get the person to respond to us because the other person And we're craving that attachment that bond Craving that connection and we don't know how to talk about it in a way that pulls
our partner close and when we push and criticize and complain and demand we look more and more dangerous to our partner and they their favorite strategy that they probably learned when they grew up right that owned was the only one that kept them safe was to shut down and One thing people don't understand is they
don't understand the impact of shut down You hear people say in all relationships in families all they say well, I stopped talking because everything I say is wrong and it's only gonna make things worse and I stopped talking because I don't know what to say and I just get the message.
I'm disappointing. I failed already.
I'm never going to please this person So I go I freeze I just say the best way to stop the argument is to not talk I stopped talking I stopped talking to protect myself because I don't know what there's all Amazingly good reasons.
Okay, we have good reasons for what we do what they don't understand Is that in an intimate relationship if I cut off emotionally and I shut down I shut you out And if I shut you out and You're a bonding mammal and not a lizard and you care about me.
I Trigger danger cues and fear in your brain That's just because that's the way you're wired It doesn't you can do different things with it You can try and shut it down or you know, you can get violent you can deal with it in different ways There's a there's a range there.
But bottom line is what I just said isn't negotiable Our emotional life is structured.
Your nervous system is structured to avoid danger and to move to what will fulfill your needs to survive and Love is structured the way we dance with other people is structured.
Your nervous system is structured and you know we We need to understand that these things are not Social conventions, they're not made up.
You know, New York Times writes articles about how Romantic love is changing and you know, we're all going to be Polyamorous or we're going to have hookups until we have 60 and it's all going to be great And you know, it's going to be lots of freedom and emotional a sexual Whatever, but no that no there
isn't Sorry, because it's not something we make up and decide on it's structured by your mammalian brain We can do social experiments until we're purple and some of them will work and some of them will work better than others But bottom line is that's like there's a structure to your body and your body
has limits There's a structure to our emotional life.
There's a structure to your nervous system There's a structure to your intimate relationships.
You said in one of your books that were actually meant to be monogamous Yes, and that's an interesting point of view highly unpopular in many places in the world these days I've been accused of being oh What was the last lot did you know that I'm a naive conservative Canadian?
Sorry, I'm not conservative actually at all if you knew me I'm terribly liberal I am Canadian I'm very proud of it and I really take objection to the word naive Because I may be many things but I'm not naive I am very good at what I do and I know an awful lot about what I do.
So I'm not naive, you know But yeah, I was because This lady told me on a big listserv Which will be nameless, but basically she said, you know, your ideas about monogamy are disgusting.
I said I'm sorry, but that's a very emotional word.
So Let's take the emotion out of it.
I can give you Six scientific arguments as to why we're we're wide from monogamy Would you like to find me one science study that suggests that It's better for you Would you find me the one study that says that people thrive more and where you know Most people will thrive more if they have many many
sexual relationships and even in terms of sex The best survey research in North America is by a man called lauman at the University of Chicago He does fantastic.
I hate surveys, right?
They're so biased your it's the questions you ask you're going to get the answers you were looking for but he's right He's good.
And he's written these books like sex in America and he's fantastic And what he basically said is just in terms of sex The people who have report having the best sex have it most often are most satisfied with it and find it most thrilling our people in a Long -term stable stable connected exclusive relationship
Yeah, you know, I mean and I can tell you all the reasons why I think that's true But the zeitgeist out in the world is we're looking for freedom.
We don't want to be repressed I agree repression doesn't work, but we're looking for freedom and you know, we're looking for let's all you know somehow Marriage is a prison and or never my marriage long term is a prison and you know We we have to have lots of sexual partners to be satisfied and not sex
is about novelty This is excuse me.
This is cliche number 34.
I'm very sorry. Let's talk about that one, but you know What's the evidence for that?
You know, I mean it's we've got all these Revolutionary ideas that aren't revolutionary.
I gave a talk at a big conference recently and I said, you know We think these ideas are revolutionary.
But if you if you look at even things like the adulthood of Ernest Hemingway in in You know in Paris, you know when he was in Paris, you know He was round around around the area of the Second World War People in Paris were doing all the things that we're doing now.
We didn't call them hookup.
They didn't call them hookups They just went slept with lots of people they didn't you know, they didn't have the same language But they were trying to have lots of relationships.
They were trying to open relationship, but you know, people have been doing this forever but bottom line is For most people most of the time You know serial monogamy seems to be the most natural way that it works because it's all about it's not just about sex is about attachment and attachment Tends
to be hierarchical.
We can love more than one person but in terms of who you turn to When you really need in terms of where you take your vulnerability it's usually hierarchical we have our special one and Most people want to be the special one for somebody else and most people want a special one You know And that's the person that you
turn to so let's explore that a little bit in the context of our hypothetical couple who've now fallen in love gotten married and They want to deepen their relationship.
What does it mean to?
Be the person that somebody turns to what are the obligations and the skills of anything that you need to learn?
And what does it what does it mean to be the person?
Deepening the connection.
How do you deepen that relationship to the point where it's trusting and it's loving and it's caring but you you you want to Explore it more and through exploring it.
You're really exploring yourself and your partner well That's a huge question.
But although it's we'll have a go.
Okay There's a simple answer Yeah Love is simple, but it's not easy But that's what I always think anyway, if you would focus on the science love isn't that complicated, but it's not easy there's lots of you know different ways it can turn out but the bottom line is You're constantly building trust
in what I would call constructive dependency.
You're based you're constantly building trust and How do you build trust you?
Take risks with each other you show yourself you're you're open and accessible and You take risks with each other and when one of you takes a risk the other one responds and By respond, I don't always mean like does something magical like the movies.
Okay, like that's not what I mean You just stay emotionally present And securely attach people know the power of emotional presence, you know the parent who's helping a child in pain The parent doesn't have the solution to the pain per se Men husbands always think they're going to problem -solve and solve
all their wife's problems They don't understand that usually their wife's looking for just them They are the answer to her problem.
She just wants their emotional presence.
I shouldn't keep doing this gender thing Sometimes it goes the other way, right?
But you know, it's the emotional presence that's key so for example, you're you might take a risk and share something with your partner and Your partner doesn't know what to do with it isn't quite sure how to respond.
So I've seen people at the end of EFT Turn to it.
I've seen a man who before would just shut down because I don't know what to do with that Right and he turns to his partner.
He says I see that you're hurting And I don't really understand it But I don't want you to be alone in it.
I want to be with you and I don't know what to do She bursts into tears and she says you just did it He said what did I do?
Should you just came and met me?
You just came and met me.
That's what I need.
You don't have to solve my problem You don't have to create magic you have to be with me and a good relationship grows From moments like that a good relationship You know and a fights in a way can help a good relationship grow because you hurt each other's feelings and then what you're going to do well
What is secure attachment?
You know? And this is beyond romantic relationships.
If you watch a mother and an adolescent we have research on the fact that In secure attachment the mother and the adolescent will have and I always think of my son in this case the mother and the adolescent will have a big fight because we have big fights when we have fights we have big fights and When
he was 17 we had glorious fights.
So But the issue is we can turn back towards each other You know and we can we can tune in and we can repair and you know The fight's not going to be the end of that relationship you're secure in the fact that it's gonna that's right I know we know that in the end.
We are mother and son.
We are bonded forever The question in relationship distress relationships is always the same all over the world at every age Where are you?
Where are you? Do you care about me?
Do I matter to you?
Will you respond to me?
Will you be there when I'm vulnerable?
Am I safe with you?
Where are you? Where are you?
And when the answer is I'm here You can deal with almost anything You can deal with You can you can deal with anything you you can fight you can be different, you know people say Oh relationships are based on being this being not too many differences.
I say are you joking?
Everyone's basically incompatible You know, it's like we're all Like when I've been married for 35 years and you know, my husband likes hiking up bloody great Canadian Mountains and I hate if a walk slightly up a slope I get ticked off, you know like we're you know, we're we're all different, you know,
but This emotional responsiveness is what grows relationships and you can see it.
Here's the thing. It's not I'm not talking about something obtuse and abstract.
We just don't know how to tune in you can see it at airports When I'm at airports, I watch people.
Okay, it's easier to watch a mother and child because the Motions are also clear as adults we sort of fudge them and disguise them but you know, I'll watch one mother and child and The child is trying to get the mother's attention.
The child's going She holds at her toy and the mother's looking her cell phone and the mother says what?
You're fine. She's not looking at the kid Emotionally she's absent like people might say the mother's with the child.
She's fine. No emotionally.
She's absent She's not looking at the kid and the kids saying respond to me.
Are you there? Where are you respond to me right and the mother's going no, I'm not I'm sorry.
I'm tuning you out your secondary You know, you're not that important, right?
There's huge emotional significant messages in these interactions that we don't tune into and we get them on a visceral level So then the child gets really upset and the mother's still looking her phone.
The mother says oh, you're fine and She picks up a bottle from her bag and she hands it to the kid.
There's no connection there So the kid this I remember this kid particularly because the kids been you're getting quite upset And then the kid gets the bottle the mother's given her food, right?
She should calm down The kid goes into this vacant stare.
She lets the bottle drop on the floor.
The mother doesn't even notice and the kid starts staring into space across Across the room the big foyer, you know the airport for you and the mother says that's better now.
You're fine And I feel like dashing over to the mother saying no, no, no Your kid just shut down into freeze Do you understand your kid just gave up on connecting with you?
Your kids gone into freeze?
Your kids freaked out.
She's just spaced out She's shut down because she you aren't responding to her fear and there's no other way of dealing with it We don't have many ways.
We don't have many options in this basic emotional dance and then you watch another mother It's a whole different bag You watch the kid get upset and the mother's busy in the airport agent is saying ma 'am I need your passport.
I know you there. I knew and this mother said to the agent said just a minute, please She turned to her kid and she said it's okay, sweetie.
Oh, you've lost your bear.
You've lost your bear Look, he's there.
We'll go get him. Shall we go she made the agent wait All right.
I thought look at that.
She picks up the bear.
She gives us the kitchen.
There you go She picks and all she says really is there you go.
But listen to her voice Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad Lot of this is the emotional music.
We're playing people pick up on the emotional music it defines It defines the dance so that mother said to the kid.
Oh, you're there. I see you your pain matters to me I'm here.
I'll respond to you.
I'll put you first you matter.
I'm here You don't have to be afraid you're safe.
I'm here and the kid goes, huh The kids fine and then she turns back and says now what what do you need to need my passport?
See, that's two ends of the scale.
I'm giving you extremes, right?
Yeah I'm giving you extremes.
But most of us go in the middle Where we we don't always hear our kids But then we do and we turn and we respond what effect as kids have on the relationship the bond Attachment between the parents.
That's a really interesting one because Suddenly two becomes three Not only that but suddenly for most couples.
There's some real factors that impact things like much more work and fatigue You know often their sexual relationship goes straight downhill and we can make all kinds of funny meanings about that But the bottom line is your sexuality shuts down when your sleep deprived duh It would be dysfunctional
if it didn't wouldn't it?
So, you know like, you know you just don't have the energy for a glorious orgasm because your nervous system has already said I want a holiday.
Thanks very much. I'm done, you know so, you know all kinds of changes happen and people also feel Often when a woman's had a baby and she's gone through childbirth She suddenly feels responsible for this little person, but she'll tune in to her vulnerability And so she wants emotional support and sometimes
the husband is into oh my goodness me.
I'm a father. My goodness me I've been not losing my job.
My goodness me I gotta work harder I gotta protect I gotta so the husband gets into tasks right when the woman needs his emotional connection Right and the woman is fatigued and she doesn't have much bandwidth emotionally so she's more labile and she's more vigilant for disconnection and They're both
trying to take care of this little tiny demanding bonding mammal and so there's a lot of stress involved and a lot of change and a lot of transition and When people don't know how to create these Secure safe bonding scenarios and support each other emotionally Everything starts to go downhill And people
step into these negative cycles I call them demon dialogues because a demon comes in takes over your relationship in home in the my book Hold me tight.
I call them demon dialogues Because that's how people experience them.
They say I don't know what happened to us I don't know we started having these horrible fights and you know We were fine until the baby came along and then right and it's the demon comes in and takes over right?
and suddenly everybody's irritable and suddenly Everybody's somebody's shutting down and somebody's demanding and you're caught in the usual demand withdraw dance that destroys relationships and Nobody's taking any time for themselves.
Some of it is I really think in our society Why do we?
When a woman has a baby leave her alone in a little box called an apartment And take her away from all her social contacts and off after she doesn't live in the same city as her mother and her sisters And she doesn't have social contacts and her husband's at work all day.
So she's taking care for this baby Tuning into vulnerability Right and she we make sure she's alone in it.
That's ridiculous I mean really in most Tribal societies when a woman has a baby.
It's a signal for the community to come around and support her support the parents Help them become parents, you know, give them social support Take care of the baby.
Sometimes, you know, it's this is an instinctive thing, right?
There's a new life It needs protection.
It needs care. Let's all come around and do it.
This is a tribal thing We completely lost that we've totally lost that and you know Often what happens is a woman's alone with a baby all day and then her husband comes home Well, he's exhausted right he wants a bit of a break.
She's hungry for connection She's had a baby throwing up on her and yelling all day and you know It's like talk to me somebody talked to me and he says oh you're so demanding, you know Can't you even let me get in the door?
Basically, she's no I need you to talk to me and he says You know, so then it starts to go wrong But but if you know how to have these what we call hold me tight dialogues if you know how to if you know how to understand when you get in conflict if you can if you know how to contain that conflict by by Sort
of recognizing what's going on.
Hey, we're caught in a dance.
We're caught in a dance here It's not that you're a bad person or a terrible husband or a mean man or a mean woman It's that look at what's happening to us What's happening to us if you can take that kind of perspective and you have enough Trust then to turn into talking about your emotions and helping
each other with them you can deal with that transition You'll have bad times, but you can deal with it But often what is it like reveals the stress reveals the cracks in the in the relationship You know where people don't trust each other and the sexuality disappears Which people often rely on that those
moments to create connection and then everything starts to go wrong Everything starts to go wrong What role does sex play in a Happy healthy marriage Sex plays an important role I think the tricky part is I mean sex can be different at different times you know Sex can be many things at different times
sex can be purely about the release of tension sex can be erotic play Sex can it can change in a relationship this flexibility you can you can it can mean different things at different times, right?
but In general if you listen to people in happy healthy relationships They'll talk more about sex as a bonding activity, it's not just about release It's not just about orgasm.
It's not just about eroticism.
It's We make you know human beings make love face to face It doesn't have to be face to face, but you get the idea we make love face to face and There's certainly there's a huge bonding element.
It's not accident that an orgasm with flooded with oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone you know and if you look at securely attached folks, they'll say oh well sex is fine and it's It's about eroticism and it's about you know Being pleasured physically and sensation But it's also about being close
to my partner. I like being close to my partner the interesting thing about that one is the cliche Out in the world is men only want an orgasm Well, if that's true, you know I mean masturbation is a much more efficient path to that and it's simpler and you don't have to deal with anybody else Kind of what pornography
is teaching us there.
Yes Basically pornography teaches us that but if you listen to men and I've listened to a lot of men If you listen to men talk about in a more emotionally open level What men talk about is not that different from what women talk about men in the end will I can't tell you how many times This is happened
men will say Well, you know, I can give myself an orgasm if I really want an orgasm what I want is to be desired I want to be desired and the most concrete way of feeling desired is for you to desire me to come close and for us to make love I want to be desired and You know Our society is a bit insane
about sex. I mean my fields insane about sex We have one discipline called sex therapy in another discipline called Relationship couple therapy.
How ridiculous is that?
I mean, that's ridiculous.
Okay more I'm talking about is Actually attachment science helps us understand sex and relationships and for goodness sake, you know, we need to put those two things together It's ridiculous that sex therapist don't know anything about relationships.
That's ridiculous, you know, and it's ridiculous that relationship Therapist don't learn anything about sex.
It's like are you kidding me?
You know, it's like so But Sexuality is important and for a secure couple It's a bonding activity and it's about closeness and connection as well as about you know The release of tension or pleasurable sensation The the world out there Tells us some very funny things about sex one of the things I really
object to that really annoys me because it's like Misinformation as far as I'm concerned and it can hurt people is that people say things like Well long -term relationships you're bound to lose your sexual charge Sex has a best before date, you know Familiarity is deadening and secure connection Makes
you know is the enemy of eroticism and what you need to keep your sex life alive is is novelty you either need lots of strange positions or you need lots of sex toys or you need other people you bring other people in and This is very popular point of view out there all kinds of journalists are pushing
it all kinds of people are making money on books pushing it and It annoys me Not from any moral issue or any Not from any stance of coming from shoulds.
Okay? I don't have any issues around that Okay, it annoys me because it's not true.
It annoys me because It's misinformation it annoys me because it's not what I see and what I've experienced in all my years of working with couples and and Laumans research basically says the people who have the best sex are the people who feel safe and connected with each other and who have exclusive
relationships And that makes sense to me It makes sense to me on lots of levels mostly of which come out of bonding science What is passion?
And I think we should all be asking ourselves this because Hollywood gives us nonsense and porn gives us nonsense and Journalists who say they're experts in relationships give us nonsense.
What is passion? Well as far as I can see You know passion is the longing for connection.
There's a longing in there You might not say it's for connection, but there's a longing right to be with this person.
This person's desired It's a longing there's an emotional component and then it's put together With the ability to play to play erotically to be unpredictable To have a safe to turn going to bed together into a safe adventure It's put together You know and that fits for me when I talk to securely attached
couples They're not in love all the time But over a lifetime they can fall in love again and again and again because they know how to have hold me tight conversations but you know sexuality If you're going to really get into it and let yourself go into it and let yourself fall into it and let it take
you over and let it take you to different places and let it be thrilling and unusual and You play with somebody and each dance time you dance is different You have to feel safe.
It's the opposite of novelty actually You need novelty when you're numbed out and shut down and you need more and more novel sensation to have you get turned on That's the way I see it Novelty is about how we've numbed out a sexuality not how no, it's not about freedom So, you know the way I always
say it to my students is Imagine that you're going on a zipline and You test the zipline before you let go And the zipline strong and you're belted in and you feel good.
Then you let go on the zipline you go And it's exciting and thrilling and interesting and you're not quite sure you're gonna end up but who cares because you're okay That's secure attachment.
I Can let go and be with you we can play we can be we can be open and erotic with each other We can tell each other our fantasies we can play as lovers and then in the next minute We can hold each other and be safe haven secure base for each other, which is what a secure bond is That's that's secure
attachment the other kind of sexuality is like Imagine how much you're likely to really let go and totally get engaged and absorbed and completely enjoy it if you notice just before You kick off that there's a crack in there in the line Well, you might get a little thrown.
Oh my god, there's a crack in the line Oh, wow, but in fact, you know, you're you're not really gonna let go and enjoy the ride.
That's how I see it I mean, it's um Securely attached people report better sex.
So sex is a way of connecting.
It's a bonding behavior It's um, it's think of what people do during sex.
They stare into each other's eyes They touch each other for most adults in North America That's the only place that get touched which is something we should look at I can't remember who did the research, but it's in one of my books for the public but Basically this lady did this research.
She said we are the least touching culture anywhere on this planet in North America We don't touch each other.
Is there a correlation between couples that um, I think it's called like PDA public displays of affection like hand -holding and Sort of kissing does that correlate to happier?
Yes I think it does because you're you're reaching for each other and your physical touch is The basic way we have with human beings of soothing each other.
You know, I look around me and people touch their children But that even that can be different.
I went to a little I went to a CC in Italy For a while and I was watching fathers with their children.
My god It was so different from North America.
I mean everywhere you looked there was these Italian men Picking up their children caressing their children holding their children reaching for their children stroking their children's arms Touching their children's leg.
I mean, oh, it's really really interesting So, you know culture has a certain amount to do with it But touch is so powerful and if you watch a couple who have just bonded or her feeling close they touch each other, you know, it's so interesting because I Talk at all these big conferences and and Sometimes
I have this flash. I mean my husband comes with me to a lot of these conferences and I really appreciate him coming.
I appreciate the support and Before a big talk or after a big talk.
He usually takes my hand.
He's got very big hands So my hand feels kind of small inside his and I I've had this flash several times I'm walking down this hall at this huge conference and everyone knows who I am and I suddenly feel sort of shy About the fact that my husband is holding my hand.
I'm this big expert, right?
My husband's and I feel sort of shy about it.
But the truth is yes.
My husband's holding my hand.
That's right, you know and and Because because that's what our relationship is You know, it's and I think people are starving for touch in our society and they turn it towards sexuality whereas I've heard men say a number of times.
I just want to be held.
I Just want to be held, you know, I just want to be close but you know Our culture doesn't encourage men to say that men our culture but in tells people a lie that Somehow you're not vulnerable and you don't have a need for that connection when you're male That's nonsense.
I so it's such nonsense.
But yeah, I think touch has plays a big part and Sometimes when a couple When they don't know how to connect emotionally explicitly emotionally when they don't touch very much outside of sex When the sex goes wrong They had deep trouble, you know, I can remember one particular couple where he was He
had a pretty horrendous childhood and he he had a adulthood full of being of all about power he's a very powerful man very Had a lot of control in the world and he was used to that right and He basically didn't like to be touched his wife had accommodated to this for years and You know, he liked to
be in control and not touched and their relationship worked While they were making love but then he got a little bit older and he got erectile dysfunction and he found that amazingly Humiliating and his way of dealing with the humiliation rather than talking to his partner and letting her help him with it
Which I have seen work really well his way of dealing with it was to totally shut down.
So then There's no physical contact between him and his wife and there's not much emotional contact either because he's shutting down Suddenly this marriage which has been viable for years is in deep deep trouble and he's enraged Because he's used to calling the shots.
So he's enraged like, you know, this is what's comfortable for me now And you must accommodate and she's basically saying I'm starving to death.
You won't talk to me about your emotions You don't touch me.
I can't touch you. There's no I'm starving to death.
Help me I'm starving to death and he basically says well suck it up Well, you know and my response to that as a therapist is She can't and it's not that how much she loves you or how mature she is It's about the fact she's a bonding mammal.
She can't suck it up What are some of the other reasons that sex stops in relationships?
Sex stops for lots of reasons sex stops It's like every other dance you do with your partner things get in the way and block it and if you can't talk about it Together and help each other with it.
You get stuck You know sex stops because a sexual problem comes up and if the couple can't deal with it together The classic one that I talk about in hold me tight is erectile dysfunction as a man gets older You know the man and it's not the erectile dysfunction itself That's often manageable.
What isn't manageable is the way people deal with it The way people deal with problems the way people protect themselves or their relationship from problems Backfires and becomes a prison, right?
So, you know men are Humiliated.
I'm not a man anymore.
I remember we did do a lot of work with heart attack couples We have a program called healing hearts together, which is an educational program which we did with the Heart Institute in Ottawa right that we we Did and I remember working with one couple when the man said Well, he was very you're big.
He was a manly man, you know, like her right?
Well, you know since I had the heart attack, you know, my penis doesn't always work and so I'm not doing it Because I'm not a man anymore and this is and he's just saying this is just this is too difficult for me I'm not do I'm not doing it And so then you know, his wife feels shut out and he's not talking
to her about whether she misses this He's she's irrelevant.
He's basically saying I'm not doing it and he's all by himself with all this, right?
And so that cuts off sex What you see is that when people can get together and help each other with their vulnerable feelings that shifts and My favorite one is a man that I've got in the holy type book, which was a delightful conversation with a guy, you know, we talk about his shame and how he you
know, he doesn't feel like he's a man and We help him have conversations with his wife where his wife comforts him and he's able to take that comfort in because she starts to Try and comfort him and he knocks it away.
He says no I'm I'm I don't want to talk about this because I'm not a man anymore So, you know, that's how people also block comforts sometimes they block it.
They say no, you know I I can't take it in.
I don't know what to do with it.
I don't need it there's something wrong with me if I need it right so but we help him take it in and We start talking about the fact and we normalize things When you can talk about something with somebody and make it specific and get support everything calms down and You can sort of look at things in specific
terms rather than big general catastrophic terms, right?
so we talk about the fact that Never mind his personal thing which is he's had a heart attack and he's on certain drugs for most men of a certain age If they are going to try and make love to their partner for I don't know 40 minutes Basically, he calls his penis George.
Okay George is going to take a nap occasionally and a Lot of it is about process not about how the problem starts It's what you do once the problem started and whether you do it alone, right and we talk about how George takes a nap and that's normal and He says Oh I said it doesn't matter what you've
had a heart attack or it's normal.
It's normal. Yes normal You just have this big idea that you're supposed to be hot with a penis with you know As long as the you know Some monument and as hard as a rock like you did when you were 19 You know you think you should stay that way till the day you die, you know, and that's not normal So
it doesn't usually happen.
It's normal And so we take the sting out of it that way and they start talking about the fact that sometimes George is going to take a nap That's very different from the shame huge shame thinking and they start talking about how when George takes a nap She knows how to wake him up And it becomes a playful
conversation Right, and then they tell me a wonderful story about how they start to make love and everything goes wrong Their kid comes home early and bangs on the door their dog gets into the bedroom I can't remember what else is happening.
Oh that was some point the candle stuff to set the curtains on fire So they they're like everything went wrong and George kept taking a nap, right?
And then they went they gave up and they went down had coffee See they went down had coffee they were together right, and then they start joking and playing over coffee and Then the place starts to turn into eroticism and then they go out make love so again, it's about Whether you shut down with this kind
of when you get caught in shame and fear and turn away from your partner Or whether you stay with your partner and your partner's able to help you Bonding is all about giving people their emotional balance when you're not alone when somebody's with you and supporting you You can deal with so much with your
you have your emotional balance Problems are solvable Scary realities are manageable That's what secure connection with another person gives you and the same happens in sex So lots of things can get in the way of sex But the main thing that gets in the way of sex is emotional distance People say if you're
a New York journalist, you always ask me, you know, what's the best recipe for a great sex life boring question For me the best and they don't want it.
I don't want my answer They want to hear something like oh, it's the new sex position from the joy of sex You know wailing monkey climbing tree, you know, if you if you can do that you're fine This is such nonsense.
So I say what they don't want to hear the best recipe for a great sex life Throughout your life is safe emotional connection Practice makes perfect if you're good at dancing with somebody and you're good at tuning into the emotional and physical music that they play The dance is endless every time you
dance is different It can change and you can deal with stuck places in the dance and it can always be a safe adventure So the best recipe for great sex is emotional connection when emotional connection gets lost when people get angry Resentful they feel hurt they feel rejected Their ability to really
physically engage and be erotic just goes away You are not wired to deal with threat and to be turned on at the same time by the way You know that ended years ago those of us in the mists of time Who saw a sabre -toothed tiger coming through the bush as a big shadow and stopped?
To masturbate or to get turned on we got eaten.
Okay, we didn't pass on our genes.
Okay, we just didn't Those of us that saw a shadow in the bush and forgot all about how desire how we were Lusting after this woman in front of us and ran we survived So, you know when people are getting anxious and scared and feeling rejected and abandoned They're not good lovers And they can't focus
on their partner and they can't tune in they can't dance together They're just self obsessed with sex So you after what happens is women will say in a distressed relationship.
You don't want me. You just want an orgasm I'm instrumental Right right And the man doesn't know how to connect he doesn't know how to create emotional connection So he says you want to make out?
And she says no, not really stuck And what they've both done Is they both freaked each other out at that point, you know, it's um That's what they've done.
I mean lovers scare the hell out of each other Of course they do you're more vulnerable to the person you love than anyone in the world, right?
That's part of being in love on the other hand If it's a good relationship, you're safer with this person than anywhere else in the world So that's this kind of paradox of love but you know things interfere with things interfere with sex and um As a society, it's fascinating to me.
We seem to be obsessed with sex And we separate it from relatedness, which is bizarre to me I would imagine a lot of people come to you Uh having had affairs So I have a lot of questions around affairs.
Why do they happen?
Um, and maybe after that we can start talking about what you can do about them or how you can talk to your partner about them Yeah um the myth out there in in society in the magazines and is that we have affairs because We're a massively sexual beings and that one person can't possibly be enough for us
and Dada da da da da da da da right so one way that attachment science is Revolutionary and one reason it was so popular unpopular for so long is because it is revolutionary it challenges us our thoughts Was that john bolby the father of attachment theory said sex is not the most important motivation in human beings
and neither is aggression froid was wrong the most important motivation in human beings and the one that Carries the huge clout is the need for a connection with another human being Yeah And so right there he he basically says there's something more important than sex actually You know, we can get obsessed
with it at certain points in our life But it's there's other motivations and that really plays out because when I talk to people about why they have affairs I would say in all my 35 years and I supervise lots of therapists as well In all my 35 years I've maybe heard one two people Who are a certain personality
type? high risk taking Needs to you know, climb Everest three times drive fast cars is obsessed with high stimulation Right and we're not let's not talk about what that's about.
But it's a whole personality type I've heard those guys say oh, well, you know I just had the affair because i'm just into different women and I just gotta have this in I just gotta have this this adventure and I gotta like right Very very avoidant people who don't trust people at all say things like
it wasn't an affair.
I just had a one -night stand It's no big deal That's just what I do.
It was just sex Okay, there's nothing and there are some people who totally cut themselves off during sex and it really is just a form of Mutual masturbation and they don't understand why their partners upset with it.
So there's different things here, but in general the overwhelming thing is people do not have affairs Because of sexuality or sexual frustration.
They have affairs because they're emotionally disconnected and alone They feel rejected or abandoned by their partner.
They're getting in terrible fights.
They feel alone and scared They feel unloved unwanted and helpless and they and the secretary brings them a coffee And she smiles at them And they suddenly notice how pretty she is they've worked with her for three years But they suddenly notice she's terribly pretty And they notice that she seems to
like them and when they take her for coffee She listens to them And she she acts like they're the most important person in the world and their whole nervous system starts to respond It's like the sunshine they've been in the dark and this is a sunshine and they start to respond They're having a need
fulfilled. That's right And it's it's about deprivation Not about you know The whole lust takes us over all the time and right that's just a big story Okay, and it's true of a few of us, but mostly it's not that's a big story And so people turn to other people because they can't get their attachment
needs met with their partner And that's the truth and they're hungry for that connection Can relationships heal from affairs?
Yes Always or is that no not nothing is always in relationships What's the difference between relationships that heal from affairs and relationships?
Well, it's a lot of it I think a lot of it has to do with the level of trust that you had You know in the relationship and how important the relationship is to you And how much you're willing to work at it We've done we have a whole thing about we call it relationship injuries They're not necessarily
affairs. There can be other injuries in a relationship.
What are other examples?
Oh, um, i'm going for my chemotherapy the first day And I say you will be there won't you and you say of course i'll be there don't be ridiculous I'll be there and then five minutes before i'm going you say listen, you'll be fine I know your sister's going with you.
You don't really need me there.
I'm going i've got to be at this big meeting And then when I come home The extra bit is when I come home and I try and talk to you about that you say I don't know what you're talking about.
You were fine. Weren't you fine?
In other words. I dismiss it We can't heal it.
I can't when I come to you to try and repair it.
You don't tune into me You dismiss my need that's an attachment injury It won't go people think people say things like time will heal that it will not Your brain holds on to it It's significant survival information when you needed your partner wasn't there They're no longer safe.
You can't count on them Your brain will hold on to that and the next time you have the opportunity to risk with that partner you won't You'll hold back you'll keep them out.
So these injuries Redefine the relationship and affairs can be like that Is that the beginning of the end when you start reaching out or is that still salvageable at that point?
It's salvageable if you Work on it and often you need help because you're lost at that point and we don't educate people about relationships We teach some trigonometry in school, but we have them forbid we teach them about the most important thing of all which is relationships So people get lost and they
start to protect themselves and it gets worse and worse But if they come into therapy with us, people say, you know, can we heal this?
I say yes, you can heal this but if you have to work at it, it's not going to be easy You can heal it and and we know how to do it and we've done research study on it We we we know how to do it and we know that the effects last three years down the road, right?
It's but you have to be able to work on it healing an injury Here's a special kind of holding tight conversation focused around the injury You know, you have to go look at the your your negative dances that you get caught in the demon dialogues You have to understand how you got so distant from each
other in the first place How there wasn't safety and connection in the relationship You have to be able to at least create some safety and balance in the relationship You have to create some sort of security we call that's the end of stage one of eft You de -escalate the negative patterns of disconnection and conflict
in your relationship.
You create a certain safety and then you have to be able to go into Risking and creating positive cycles of connection Which is bonding situations and most couples need to do that around the injury.
So they go back to the injury and what we see Is that the really difficult thing is People try to apologize And in hold me tight, I think I've got a list of ten apologies that don't work You know people say things like i'm sorry, okay No, that doesn't work.
People give long reasons why it happened.
No, it doesn't work We've only seen one thing work And it's a form of hold me tight conversation what works Is that I have to be able to really speak my pain In a way that you that it impacts you that you that I have to I can't fudge it and be vague I have to be able to speak my pain in a way that moves
you okay that you connect with and then you Have to be able to help me understand How come my pain didn't matter at the time how what was happening for you?
It's not about giving me reasons It's about being predictable again you have to be able to give me a coherent narrative of What happened to you so I can start to tune into you and you can be predictable Just not the enemy where this can happen again anytime right and um then I turn and I I tell you
my pain And you and my hurt in a very clear way And what I need from you to help with that hurt.
I tell you how you can help with that hurt and you Respond it's an antidote to the original injury You respond you and you respond to me I have to speak my pain.
I have to look into your face and see that my pain hurts you This is not a cognitive conversation.
This is an emotional drama.
It has to be in the emotional channel or it doesn't work and I see that my pain hurts you and you express care and remorse for hurting me in a way that moves me and this shifts everything It's an antidote and it's it's not just about forgiveness forgiveness is the booby prize It's about forgiveness
that leads to reconciliation It's about forgiveness that turns into the willingness to risk and trust again And it's a bonding conversation It's a bonding and it's highly emotional And when people have it they can forgive injuries They can forgive all kinds of injuries But the only way i've ever seen
it happen and work and last is the way i've just described people try To stay in control and stay out of the emotion and heal them.
You can't You can't have a cognitive conversation and heal them.
They they don't heal right people try to put them on the shelf for years and have a a less close Relationship and then somebody needs to take a risk and they come roaring out of the they come It's like you start to take a risk to create your closeness and your bot your brain says wait a minute Don't
you remember this was damn dangerous last time you were vulnerable and people say never again Often this conversation starts with well, we've talked about it a thousand times But basically, you know now when I start thinking about risking with you and trusting and putting myself in your hands Really
really i'm gonna do that.
I promise myself never again.
You're gonna get the chance to hurt me like that again that's how the conversation starts never again and There's good reasons for that if you understand the drama in a relationship And certainly if you understand as a therapist what you understand you can shape If you understand love you can shape
it if you understand the attachment drama, you can shape it Most of us see love as something random that comes along and hits you in the head and then disappears and we don't understand We don't have a concept in our society That you can shape the most important relationships in your life I mean just
think about that as a shift.
We call we say you fall in love and then you fall out And it comes you know, it's like you don't have any control Whereas we see in therapy and even in our hold me tight group.
We run hold me tight weekends all over the world It's our educational program And you know, they blow us away The reason why therapists adore eft is because it blows their mind.
It still blows my mind after 35 years, right?
It blows their mind right and you see these older couples, for example, who's i've had couples come and say oh We have a pretty good relationship But you know We just thought we'd come to a hold me tight weekend Just a little tune up and just for interest because you're an interesting speaker and I
say oh jolly good And then they come to me at the end of the weekend and say Thank you so much Um, we just reached a whole new level of closeness.
We've been married for 35 years and we've never touched that Thank you so much I didn't even know that I could feel this for my husband and so You can grow and shift and shape a relationship And you can repair it when it goes wrong If you understand the drama if you don't understand what we've just
been we just dance blind We're just dancing blind.
We don't even know the music we're listening to we don't even understand our emotions You know, it's time to for this to end I mean it's time for us to learn how to connect Surely if we can go to the moon We can we have the key to love relationships now I do hope that we're going to put it in the damn
door and open the door You mentioned earlier that we create our own prisons Um, a lot of people seem hesitant to tell their partner that they've had an affair in part because they don't want to hurt their partner Does that create a prison in the relationship that affects the closeness that is achievable?
It's very hard Because I think in images and I always think of it like you're holding this secret to your chest You're careful.
You're keeping you're making sure you don't tell this secret You're keeping this part of you out of the relationship and that means that you're not fully engaged And your partner's going to feel that you know, it's deception and secrets are very toxic in love relationship accessibility responsiveness
and engagement a re Are the the variables in research that predict the safety of a bond any bond between any two people of any age?
Right and accessibility is messed up by secrets You know, i'm hiding basically i'm hiding from you and i'm being careful around you And there's a part of me that I don't want you to know And i'm always worried that you're going to know it and i'm that takes energy glucose go into your brain to hide.
Yeah, right and Um, i'm always trying to manage how you see me and what you see I'm, sorry Then I can dance with you and listen to emotional music and tune in and let myself Be carried away in the interaction with you.
Of course. I can't I'm holding this secret to my chest.
It's between you and me and people are afraid to speak secrets, but they don't see The toxicity that comes from keeping them and how they're between them and their partner They really are and in a relationship Um, I think I shared with you an image where a man once said to me Well, I don't want to tell
my I I don't I finish the affair I don't want to tell my partner and she doesn't ever need to know she's never going to know and I want to rebuild this relationship now, so i'm not telling her and I said You know that let me share with you.
That's not that's what I call the bomb in the basement redecorating scheme And he said what do you mean?
I said, well you you want me to help you rebuild your relationship house?
But you have a ticking bomb in the basement.
Would you really try to rebuild your house with a ticking bomb?
Right and he says i'm scared to tell my partner.
I said, ah Let's talk about that Let's talk about that And we help people reveal secrets and my experience has been that's perfectly manageable What isn't perfectly manageable is what happens when the bomb goes off and somebody finds out that you've been deceiving them.
See If I can have an intimate relation what I think is an intimate relationship with you And then I find out That you have been able to hold back from me and deceive me and that you are not who I think you are Just think about how that messes the safety in the relationship It messes it Okay, it's Secrets
are toxic I think it's for any secret not necessarily just an affair like anything big like that was for any secrets, you know We've we've worked with people who are you know into porn and they say, you know I'm not telling my wife that i'm in porn When you know what your wife doesn't know that you're
in porn specifically But your wife knows that your sexuality has changed your wife knows that you're not emotionally with her Your wife knows that you're hiding something your wife knows that you're not really engaged Your wife knows that something's going on So, you know, are you really being good
at keeping what do you think keeping this secret is doing for your marriage?
You know and then they say Well, if I tell my wife that she'll despise me I say let's talk about that fear Because we're all afraid of that, but you know Just think how she's going to despise him if she when she finds out one year later, you know, where did that money go?
Excuse me. You took our savings and you spent it all on porn And you've been hiding this from me for 18 months and telling me lies about where the money's gone You know, like who are you and people say who are you?
Well, if i'm asking you who are you?
I'm not going to turn around and fall into your arms and trust that you're going to catch me.
You've got to be kidding So You know people don't know that these things are workable and so they hedge their bets and they try to hold out and hide You can't hide And dance with your partner.
Love is a dance a relationships of dance You and the emotion is the music, you know, you're playing a certain kind of music when you're hiding It just messes the dance.
You just you just can't hide And and be open and accessible and responsive is impossible So our hypothetical couple now, uh has kids they've gone through an affair they've healed There seems to be a cohort of people I would say between 35 and 45 that are Vastly dissatisfied with their marriage or their
situation at home. Oh I don't what what's your question?
Oh, I'm still continuing Oh into like see I don't find that surprising at all We why not because we don't understand anything about relationships.
We don't people say monogamy doesn't work I say you're kidding.
We haven't given it a chance.
We don't know how to do it Not only that but by the way even though we don't know how to do it and we don't know how to do it well and we never get anyone to help us with That task and it's amazingly absorbing task The interesting thing is that most of us hang in And fight for it.
Why? Because it's damned important and we know how important this bond is That's why so even when it isn't really working we'll hang on to it until we absolutely have to let go We haven't known how to do it people are vastly dissatisfied Because they don't understand anything about the things i'm talking
about. So what should they do?
I mean that's sort of the question here is like if you're in this this um This sort of grouping we'll say 35 to 45 you have kids maybe no kids, but you're In a relationship and you've been in that relationship for maybe, you know, five years maybe 15 years How do you approach?
Deciding that you want to leave that relationship Like what are the variables you think about or what are the variables that you think about for like, how do I help this relationship?
Like how do you how do you go about moving?
Let's start with how do you understand where you're at?
Yeah, and now we you have to The point here is i'm going to be very focused on my own work because Because because I feel like that's what I know, right?
So if you're seriously asking me that I mean first of all You go and try to find out what's going on and i'm biased So the best way for you to do that is read hold me tight hold me tight is Selling as well now as it did when it first came out It's generating all kinds of relationship programs for different
kinds of couples Um, it's the result of years and years and years of research You know, I don't think i'm being completely egotistical by saying there's nothing out there like it.
I know there isn't Right and and that's because we've worked so hard to create it, right?
Um, so you have to understand you have to be motivated enough to understand what's going on If you find it so aversive you don't even want to look at what's going on Then your relationship's just going to continue to unravel, right?
And you wake up one day and say I don't know who this person is They're a stranger in my bed or I don't want to be this person's partner and you don't even know how you got there but People are going and reading hold me tight.
They're going to Relationship programs they're going we have I was talking to at coffee that we have a hold me tight online course now Which we've just created and you know, um, I mean we have research on our hold me tight groups By the way, we have research on everything we do We have two studies on our
hold me tight groups and the study the outcomes are really good.
Okay, so we're not The usual program that you see where it teaches you a few relationship skills and you pay a lot of money And you don't get anything out of it.
We're not in that game We make a difference to people Right, so you learn about relationships you go to you you do a hold me tight online course with your partner You go to your partner first of all and saying what's happening to us?
It feels like We're disconnected.
I don't quite know where we are in this relationship.
I don't know where you are I don't know, you know, we used to have such great times together.
What's happening to us You have to be willing to take the risk to talk about it, but if you're just avoiding it And some people that's what they do with problems Avoidance is a lousy strategy with emotional problems.
I'm not just talking about marriage.
I'm talking about anything depression anxiety It's lousy strategy.
Okay, it's it's it sets you up You you never face the problem so you never have any new corrective experiences to change the problem and you get more and more sensitive to what it is you're avoiding More and more vigilant.
It's just a it's it's a terrible strategy for any emotional problem Okay, a relationship problem, but people Believe the stuff out there that says oh, well, you know after a few years of marriage This is the way it is.
You can't expect very much or oh relationships are impossible.
Oh monogamy is impossible.
Oh Oh, well, you know people believe all this rubbish that's out there in the papers Written by journalists, right?
And so they feel pessimistic and they don't know what to do and they feel like failures And so they avoid they try to Just stay superficial.
Well, that's that's just going to end up with You know your relationship's going to just die because it's not being fed at all.
So the star is to admit What and talk to partner what's happening and then go and get some relationship education if you don't want to do hold me tight Or our programs there's relationships out there skill programs Personally, I don't think skill programs is the way to go Because you can't use all these
Skill programs just for clarification is when you go see a couple communication skills The tools that you need to well, they give you communication skills The trouble is with communication skills that you can't all the evidence all the research says you can't use them when you need them Right.
I mean i'm pretty good at all this stuff But when i'm having a fight with my partner, I don't use all my skills.
It's my amygdala that's in control Not my prefrontal cortex So it's you know, those skill sequences are kind of in a different channel Right.
They're not we don't teach people skills now therapy We give them new experiences experiences that are so powerful that they learn it whether they like it or not It's embedded in their nervous system in their muscle memory They don't have to practice it for homework if you understand it's a different
level So, you know to be willing to say Oh, well i'm going to learn about relationships.
I'm going to look at what's out there.
I'm going to find a program I'm going to talk to i'm going to work at it You know i'm going to work at it.
Um, i'm willing to look at it and explore it and work at it Right, and then that's the start and then to find something that really helps you and if Something like you know an educational program like hold me tight online or in your city There's one in nearly every city in north america that if you're
in san francisco you can go one to one nearly every week Right, so, you know, they're all over the place And you know if that doesn't work to go find an eft therapist If go find a therapist and ask you this is the other thing the public are not educated about therapy Go find a therapist and say to the therapist.
What model do you use?
What is the research behind it?
What are the outcomes?
You give me something I can read about it, right?
Don't just go to any couple therapist Because the fact of the matter is 70 of mental health professionals in north america say they see couples now because the demand is huge and Most of those people have not been trained in couples therapy.
I hate to tell you How do you how do you pick a couple therapist aside from sort of like what techniques do you use and is it evidence -based?
Like what are the other variables?
Well, you have to feel safe with that person And I think that's a very key variable that people don't understand about therapy A good therapist knows how to help you feel safe and heard Um, and if you don't feel safe and heard then find another therapist a good eft therapist knows how to The minute
you talk to me on the phone The minute I talk I talk to you on the phone as a client.
My whole job is to make you feel safe Why would you explore different difficult places with me if you don't make if I don't help you feel safe It's counterintuitive, but we're used to that, you know with mental with professionals, you know We don't even demand our doctors make us feel safe.
They don't even teach doctors how to talk to people You know who they teach to make people feel safe air canada pilots?
I don't know who teaches the air canada pilots But if you notice the air canada pilots and they speak low and slow And it's about make they say hi folks We're just going through A little bumpy piece here It will only last a few more minutes.
I'm gonna take us down to You know something feet 30 000 feet to try and give you a smooth ride and we'll be in houston right on time This is your caption speaking.
What's he saying? He's saying it's okay.
I'm your big daddy in the sky I'll take care of you.
You are safe. It's a bit bumpy, but don't worry about it and listen to the way he does it Listen to the music he's playing And the people go Okay, and they book with air canada next time yeah because they feel safe on air canada and You should feel safe with your therapist.
You should feel safe with your doctor You should feel safe with your dentist as far as i'm concerned.
I have learned from my own work I If I go to a medical practitioner, they're not listening to me And they they wipe me out and they i'm not going Because you're not going to listen to the information i'm giving you so you're not going to be a good practitioner Even if you have read every book on the subject
I'm not going like I have to trust you and people have to trust their therapist it seems fairly common that you um People reach a point in a relationship where they they tune out.
So maybe they have that conversation with their partner or spouse And they say you know I need these things to change to be in this relationship or and then the partner or The partner sort of like starts to give them that Um, they they feel sort of void about it Um, they've given up well What bonding
science says is there's different stages?
Of emotional connection in a relationship and when disconnection hits and you don't feel safely connected to somebody you Often you start to protest or you start to say where are you where are you if that doesn't work You up the ante usually and you either up the ante or you start to space out because it's
too painful Right, and if the spacing out or the upping the ante doesn't work for long enough It becomes really painful and aversive and the relationship becomes a source of danger rather than a source of safety and support and then People have different thresholds, right?
Some people can numb that out for a long time right until some big crisis hits when it makes it obvious Yeah, then they can't ignore it anymore but um retirement's one of those by the way, but um, you know, they can numb it out for a long time but It often it gets to the place where they can't numb
it out anymore They and what I get they can't numb out is they're alone.
They're alone in a relationship which drives people crazy They're in a relationship where they're alone.
We can't deal with that paradox, right?
Our longings for connection are turned on you're around all the time, but you're not emotionally available drives me crazy It's a crazy making situation so then People tune into their emotions and they realize they've numbed out years ago and they've given up years ago and actually They're not willing
to take any more risks.
They're not willing to invest they're not they've left they've detached What should they do be honest about it?
Um, they've detached Can you reattach at that point or are you is it too far gone?
Well, this is an interesting question and it comes up with therapists and therapists never want to hear my answer No You can't reattach.
Relationships are an alive organism.
They're a living relational system And you know, there's a certain point where no, you can't breathe life into it So let's back up for one second Then what are the warning signs that you're approaching that so that if anybody's listening Before they reach this detachment where you you can't reconnect
What are the trigger like what are the flares that they should be watching?
You can't find your longing for your partner When you've stopped being upset or agitated By the fact that your partner isn't available to you When you've turned away to other things in your life for support and caring when you know um You know when you don't feel you're starting to lose that need to
emotionally connect with them When you realize that when you think about them, you don't get any response from your nervous system You don't get any emotional comfort.
You've stopped looking to them for support and comfort And you've stopped putting them into that important place in your life Where they matter more than anybody else and you realize that you're starting to withdraw and shut down And you know when people have been protesting a long time they start to
burn out. That's that's the way I see it They they where are you?
Where are you? Where are you?
Where are you? And after a few weeks, it's like I can't bear this anymore I get depressed I go into despair and then I give up and actually giving up feels like a relief Because I'm exhausted and I'm burned out with saying are you going to talk to me?
Are you gonna I and then they get burnt out and there's a if they come in right when they're burned out we work with them and They can start to re -engage but it's it takes time and the other partner has to work at it, right?
But there's a certain point where they won't re -engage.
It's like you Your emotions have a reality.
They have a structure and There's a certain point where you You just won't invest you can still be friends.
You can still care about the person But you're not going to do give this investment.
You're not going to risk in the way you have, right?
There's just no motivation for it.
It's like you've gone into detachment and you can't turn around and walk back You know if you look at long -term if you look at the relationship between liz taylor and richard burton You could say here that they they divorced and they remarried they divorced And people say oh, there you are.
You see can't you re -attached?
They were never unattached They the problem with that relationship was they were had a third person in the relationship all the time.
It was called alcohol and richard burton was completely he was a coal welsh coal miner's son and he was completely addicted to alcohol and and It was a competing attachment He kept choosing alcohol over liz and their relationship would hit a wall and they'd fight to get it back and their relationship
would hit a wall And they'd separate but the evidence is if you read the book on their relationship, they never really separated in fact Apparently it says in the book that richard burton was married to somebody else and in the few days before he died He wrote liz a letter and he said could I please
come home now? And that when she died after numerous husbands She asked to be buried next to him Her family didn't respect that wish But that couple could not be together because They wounded each other so much a lot of it was that there was a third being in and they could not separate either That's
a very particular kind of relationship.
They never detached they couldn't detach and they couldn't stay together, right?
But for most people who aren't liz taylor and richard burton um You know, they do detach after a while and you don't go back You just don't you you find someone else to invest in where you can have that longing and that hope One of the byproducts I think of being divorced is I have a lot of friends
come and openly talk to me about their relationships, yes, uh and their struggles and It's really interesting that one common theme that sort of emerges amongst people is It's too good to leave but not good enough to stay then my response to that would be if it's too good to leave Then turn around and walk
into it and talk to your partner and go do something about it You can shape it.
You can heal it Go do something about it.
Find out what's blocking it.
Find out what's getting wrong.
Look at the way you dance together Look at the dance between the two of you don't get into the blame game.
That's a waste of time.
It's your fault No, it's your fault.
You know what? Here's where we are.
It's the way you yes.
Here's where we are This is how our dance ends up.
We are both dancing.
Here's where we are.
Let's look at the dance Right.
Let's understand. It's the dance we're caught in that's destroying our feelings for each other It's not because you're bad or I'm bad or nobody has to be the bad guy here Most of us are dancing a dance that we don't understand that nobody's helped us understand And we don't know how to move in the dance,
particularly at key moments of vulnerability We don't know how to do it.
So we do it all wrong.
That's right So, you know, but but if we love each other Um interesting piece of research in eft.
There was one study that looked to predictors of success in eft And everyone I know if you asked every couple therapist including some researchers What's the best predictor of where couples are at the end of couple therapy?
They tell you how distressed they are when they come in That's not true of eft The research said It doesn't matter how distressed you are when you come in if you're still invested if you're still willing to work It matters how engaged you get in working on your relationship If you're willing to work
on it And you seek out somebody who can really help you a relationship consultant because that's what an eft therapist is And you read hold me tight You can work on your relationship.
You can't heal every relationship, but we have a damn good record And if you're not willing to work on it I would imagine that there's an obligation and decency to acknowledge that to your partner and say I think so You're not doing your we don't want to hurt our partner, but you're not doing your partner
any favors By not showing up in the relationship And then trying to hide the fact that you've actually left you're really not doing your partner any favors You know, it's gonna hurt them either way.
They're hurting anyway because they know you're not engaged.
So Whether you're going to hurt them is irrelevant.
They're a negative relationship.
They're hurting anyway And you're not helping them by by by fudging it Right.
If you can't show up in the relationship and you respect your partner You tell them And the the other two major transitions that sort of seem to happen are kids move out.
Yeah empty nest and we retire Can you walk me through how those affect?
Empty nest is a really interesting one and the divorce rates have gone up With for that group and it's interesting because the divorce is usually initiated by the woman it seems um I think that's a very interesting one because as one of my people in the hold me tight tapes that I show in hold me tight
groups said lovely lady I said what is the dance that you and your husband are caught in?
She said I call it the nothing I said you call it the nothing She said just I call it the nothing because um Basically, we always had problems in our relationship.
We could never really talk to each other very well But we had good sex and we loved our children And we were wonderful parents and we had this joint project called our children And our children we spent all time and energy in our children and this was a connection for us and then Our last daughter went
away to college and we found that we had nothing My husband had developed a rectile dysfunction suddenly we had nothing and so then I tried to I would I would try to talk to him about it and i'm She and i'm not as fast as him and i'm not as clever as him and I don't have the words And he talks very
fast and it overwhelms me So I tried to talk about it and we it wouldn't work And so i'd bang things around in the kitchen and he'd come upstairs from his office and he'd say to me What's wrong?
And i'd say nothing Nothing and he'd say why would you never talk to me?
And she'd say no No, really.
It's nothing and she and then he'd turn around and walk away from me.
Listen It's about separation walk away from me and i'd say to myself We have nothing I'm alone.
We have nothing So I call our cycle and the place we're caught in the nothing.
I said wow You know, that's pretty amazing that and that lady shifts in just the hold me tight educational program She shifts you wouldn't recognize her a few conversations later She's she said all this in a very shy hesitant voice.
I'm not doing it the way she did it She turns up a few sessions later like She's she's totally different.
She feels like her she understands her emotions.
She can express them She can tell him to slow down.
She can ask for what she needs She shifts she shifts a sense of self and how she can dance with her partner But you know, that's where people go and sometimes it hijacks them It's like they're focusing on.
Oh, well, we still make love and oh, well, you know I like being his wife and oh, well, we have our children and then suddenly the children are gone We don't know how to have conversations.
We're not used to spending any time together Oh, we have conversations and suddenly we don't know how to talk to each other.
Oh, we don't really feel close to I don't really desire you Oh Well, wait a minute.
I feel closer to my sister Oh Uh what happened?
And then it really matters what you do next Do you turn and deal with it with your partner or do you try and fudge it?
And you the best you do when you fudge it is you live together as strangers for the rest of your lives.
That's very bad for you Mentally unphysically it's bad for your physical health apart for anything else.
I have this theory It's it's not based on any science whatsoever.
Just anecdotal evidence on the school ground Which is rings seem to come off at milestones of independence for kids As the kids become more independent so the kids first go to school That's like the first wave of sort of wedding rings that come off Then the kids hit grade seven and that's another sort
of like wave Rings coming up.
Look at my theory and you please like feel free to like critique this up the hilt is basically You're attached to somebody you have children everything in the relationship becomes about the children Yeah, so it becomes almost transactional you lose touch of the bond Connection with the person.
Yeah, and then the kids get more independent and then all of a sudden you have more time together And you start talking and you realize like there's nothing there That's right and you haven't maintained that connection or perhaps you've even lost it and you can't rekindle it.
That's right I think that does happen and um You know, I think what you said is interesting which is That in a way you've been avoiding each other for years because you focused on the task of parenting And you haven't paid attention to your relationship relationships are live things They're live moving
organisms And they're like every other live thing if you starve them of attention and ignore them and leave them on the shelf for years Then you turn around and try to pick them off the shelf.
Well, i'm sorry, but they've shriveled and died Yeah And you know so my uncle I just here's an interesting story when uh, my ex and I got divorced And we told people Most people were really surprised And because from the outside looking in we had this great sort of relationship with the inside out I
mean we had been couples therapy for a while and uh, things weren't great and then I told everybody and my uncle Uh out of like the hundred people I told he was the only person who said oh, I saw that coming And I said really that's fascinating because you because everybody else i've told is yes, you
know I have this theory about relationships that I can predict a couple's Happiness together in their bond.
He didn't use the word bond.
I'm going to use it in the context of this conversation and he said well Here's what happened.
He's like, um, you come over to my house.
We we used to go over to my uncle's house quite often He's like the first time you know, uh, you don't talk Uh together you don't ask each other any opinions.
I mean you're talking but it's all transactional It's all like who's going to change the diaper who's going to take the kid here.
He's going to do that He's going to it's all business and content and he's like the first time that happens.
I kind of think nothing of it Um, but he's like the second third fourth fifth You come to my house four or five times and you've done nothing but that he's like, I think that there's no connection there There's nothing left between you.
It's sort of that's right.
Uh, and he was like, that's why it didn't surprise me And ever since then it's really interesting because i've used this heuristic with my friends And so I will approach my friends and i'll be like what's going on in your relationship?
And some of my guy friends are like, oh nothing and i'll be like no what's going on in your relationship and then they'll be like What do you know and i'll be like, I don't know anything but I know something's up and they'll be like How do you know something's up and i'll be like well i've seen you
guys together a few times And it's this sort of thing that leads me to believe that everything's not.
Okay. Am I right? And then they'll often open up about uh Some of the struggles in their relationship and I think part of the issue is people Or maybe therapists certainly this is true.
They get fixated on conflict and how conflict is aversive And distance Slips by them.
Yeah, and they start to normalize it And actually from an attachment point of view it's distance.
That's the virus. It's disconnection But we all get caught in conflict people say say, would you have a happy relationship or we don't fight Oh, I hear that all the time.
We don't fight. Yeah.
Yeah, I know. But do you have a happy relationship?
It's not the same, you know um Well, it's like well, we can peacefully live and the tricky part is that for some of us depending on how we've grown up You know my parents fought to the death Constantly.
Yeah mine did too. And I all I knew was I did I remember saying to my granny whatever that is I'm not doing it Right.
I'm not I'm not doing that right and and so um You know you I saw the conflict right and we focus on conflict and therapists focus on conflict teach you how to fight Fair and fighting fair is rubbish.
Okay. It's like It's irrelevant.
It's you know, it's So, you know, um, and we don't look at what's going on underneath which is lack of emotional connection You know, there's incredible distance in a relationship that's designed for closeness and connection and sharing And we're not very good and we don't know what to do with that.
We don't know what to do with Which some of us don't even know how to begin Um an accessible Open responsive conversation.
We don't know how to begin it.
So we don't if you're in a relationship with somebody and you have kids How much of a priority should that relationship with your spouse be?
Should it be over the kids or should I don't about over equal to what I say to?
People is the very best thing you can do for your kids Is create a safe parental alliance is share with each other parenting's hard work, especially if you can do it.
Well Difficult to do it alone Almost impossible to do if you're fighting with your partner.
You're in a danger zone so, you know Um the best thing you can do for your kids is have a good relationship and have a relationship where you support each other as parents That's the very best thing you can do.
So from my point of view It's a real mistake and often people are avoiding their relationship by turning to the kids Though and and it's the safe place for them to interact.
They can interact as parents, right?
But but you know in the end Your kids are again.
They're gonna get grow up and leave one day and you know Parenting is a good parenting is a moving target I mean my experience of being a parent is I just figure out how to do it and then my kid would change You know, I knew how to parent my son when he was a delicious little boy I knew it was so easy.
It was easy and then suddenly who is this Pop us entitled adolescent.
I don't even like him I'm like, oh my god He's talking to me like I'm his servant and i'm what happened to my wonderful cuddly little son?
Well, he's changed.
So, you know and now he totally ticks me off You're so like oh All right Like this is a different thing so it helped me tremendously to go to be able to go to my husband and say I don't want to empathize with him.
I want to kill him Like, you know Like he's the most outrageous i've met you know, who does he think he is and like my husband would say yep Uh, yep, sweetie.
That's a hard one. And yeah, I know and I see you and I know how hard you're trying and Yeah, I get mad too with him and Yeah, and well, I said well you're a guy What's happening with him?
And he said oh, well You know, he's just changed friends at school He's in a new group and you know the friends in his new group are all cool And he's he's if you watch him, he's doing the cool thing.
He's mr. Cool You know and what's cool is to tell your parents how Boring and old -fashioned and weird they are and would could you please and could they also please buy you a car?
I thought that he would join those two things or it'd be like he didn't see anything wrong with Proving to us that we were the most boring parents ever.
Oh, by the way Because if you bought me a car you wouldn't be the most Exactly.
And by the way, all my friends didn't you see that my best friend her mother bought her a car.
I said, well, that's really interesting I'm not buying you a car.
Well Then you're the worst parent, you know, it's it's hard to be a parent and um If you have the support it really matters, but I must say I think it's a a tricky trap to get into by Always putting your children first and always your children the best thing you can give your children is parents who know
how to support each other and stand together And help each other not only that but you give your you give your children even something more valuable by doing that You give your children a vision of what a good relationship looks like.
Yeah, and that can Guide them for the rest of their lives Yeah, I like that a lot, um, the last phase that I want to sort of talk about is retirement But i'm gonna kick this off with a story, uh about my parents.
Hopefully they're not listening Um, but when they retired that's a huge transition Um, they suddenly went from spending maybe four or five hours a day together to spending a ton of time together Yes And at least with my parents their experience lasted about three weeks before they went and got jobs,
uh part -time jobs Because they were driving each other insane and this is sort of like learn to deal with this Um, but that's a huge transition from a couple's point of view.
So the kids it is a huge transition and I think it's Personally, I I I think it's an issue and maybe this is because I have personal things here You know I'm at the point in my life where people are asking me if i'm going to retire and I feel like poking them in the eye You know, it really annoys me.
Okay, because I am what I do.
I love what I do And I hope that i'm going to be doing what I do on the day before I die And retirement from my point of view is like Is asking me, you know, when am I going to give up doing this thing that really matters to me?
It's like buzz off.
It really it really annoys me, but I think that's a whole issue with retirement We our lifespan is changing.
We're no longer old at 65 And our expectations are changing and I think we need to look at the whole idea of retirement We might stop what we've been doing for years to make money.
I don't do what I do to make money I'm very privileged.
I do what I do out of passion, right and i'm privileged there But we might stop what we do to make money, but I think we need a different model of growing old I think we need a different model of aging and we need to be able to say if you're an intelligent vibrant human being What are you doing?
Deciding to play golf every day at the age of 65.
Are you kidding like you've got something to contribute You've you've learned all kinds of skills You've you know, like No Society needs you if you don't like what you've been doing to make money Find something you're good at and contribute and be out there in the world, you know, and so i'm with your
parents I think you know you You can't get every single thing you need from a relationship.
You don't have anything to bring into the relationship, right?
It's like um I think that's important But I think that's more of a model about retirement than it is about than it is about marriage But yeah, it's about transitions and if people have a secure bond They can manage those transitions because they're open and they can look at them together When they don't
have a secure bond those transitions exacerbate all the distance between the flaws in the distance and the tracks Yeah.
Yeah Is there any any advice you have for couples to talk to their kids about Relationships and like other than modeling i'm not I don't think it's what you talk to them about that matters I think what you show them It's what you show them how you treat them And what you show them with your partner,
that's what impacts kids We could talk to them for hours.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't it doesn't matter.
It's how you treat them Whether you help them understand bonding from the way you treat them Whether you help them understand their emotions or teach them that their emotions are to be hidden and not acceptable and something They're just supposed to get over and it's how you show them how to relate
You know, I mean my kids Have seen me fight with my husband And and makeup, I think that's very important.
I think my kids some people say oh he was never fighting Well, you're right It's not a good idea to have huge conflicts all the time in front of your kids.
Indeed the research is that's not good for them It freaks them out But you know I feel like there's something very healthy about my kids have seen me and my husband really disagree and challenge each other And then they see us come back together and come for the resolve it.
Yes And I think that Matt well, I know I watch my son with his partner and I I know That it's impacted him from watching us have because you know He doesn't catastrophize, you know when when something goes wrong in his relationship it impacts him But he he it's work.
He's it's workable.
He's seen that it's workable, right?
That that's really important Is there any other relationship sort of advice that you want to give before we wrap this up?
We've been talking for a long time I don't know I just want people to know That there is a science of love That science has changed our World in so many ways, you know, there's a science of how to take care of your teeth There's a science of you know, almost everything these days, you know, there's
a science of love and relationships, too and um, I want people to know it exists and I want people to know the promise of it And it's out there but it's It's not something that anybody's making a huge amount of money from so it's not marketed on front of the new york times or in the magazines and Things
that are marketed big distractions like porn the porn industry isn't interested in my message You know because I say that you know paul's just a trap.
It's going down the rabbit hole It's not going to meet your needs in the end You know, it's it's right.
It's making somebody so this isn't making this isn't highly marketable from the point of view of capitalism So it's a hard message to get out in some ways one lady from the new york times told me I said would you please tell me why isn't why you put this rubbish all over the new york times about relationships
sensational rubbish?
Could you please tell me why you don't think of putting all over your paper?
We've cracked the code of love.
We know how to do this now.
We need to educate everybody about it This is amazing and she said there's a long silence And basically she said well, it's not sensational enough.
I say are you joking and then she said well, I people think it's just common sense And I said yeah It's like common sense like everyone understands gravity.
We understand it on the level of stuff falls down Nobody, you know and but without understanding gravity, where would we be?
We wouldn't understand anything like are you kidding me?
You you what I felt like saying was it's because you have a lousy paper, but I didn't I said I said I felt like saying it's because you're not community orientated, but I didn't I just said well, there you go You know, like I don't want to write this stupid article.
You want me to write because it's a waste of time, but you know, it's people need to know Um, you can shape your love relationships relationships makes sense.
There's a deep logic behind our emotions If this is about biology Okay, there's a deep logic behind our emotions.
There's a deep logic behind our needs What you understand you can shape you can shape relationships And I want people to know that and I ideally before I die I would like Relationship education to be the norm in in canadian schools I'd like the prime minister of canada Hope he's listening to ask me
if I would freely donate my online Hold me tight program to the government so they could make it available to everyone in can if that happened I would fall on the floor and I don't know what I'd do but like we have to tell people about this.
This is ridiculous.
We'll see if we can make that up I think he's a bit busy.
I think he's rather concerned with you know, but but you know, it's like The promise of this is so huge It takes my own breath away in my work and that's why i'm still passionate about it and people are over the world are passionate about it You know, we We train, um 3000 mental health professionals
a year in north america in our four day trainings We we're in all the universities We are still doing research.
We're in we're in We have 70 centers all around the world We're peddling as hard as we can To tell people about this it has promise for mental health.
It has promise for physical health.
It has Promise for our families for our relationships Um what we're about to tell millions of people so hopefully well i'm glad because that's why i'm talking to you because This is something that people Everybody needs to know about that Just on the level of hey, you know what?
We could create more secure families for our kids.
Wow Even if you just stop there.
Are you kidding? Yeah, I think that's a great place to wind this up.
Thank you so much. See this has been phenomenal You are most welcome.
Thank you for traveling right across canada to sit and talk with me So Hey guys, this is shane again just a few more things before we wrap up You can find show notes at fernomstreetblog .com podcast that's f -a -r -n -a -m S -t -r -e -e -t B -l -o -g dot com slash podcast You can also find information there on how
to get a transcript And if you'd like to receive a weekly email from me filled with all sorts of brain food Go to fernomstreetblog .com slash newsletter.
This is all the good stuff I found on the web that week that i've read and shared with close friends books i'm reading and so much more Thank you for listening You
