100: Attraction - How to Sustain It and How to Revive It - with John Gottman and Sue Johnson

if you haven't had a chance to download it yet please check out my top three relationship communication secrets these are the kinds of things that help you connect with your partner even if you're talking about something really challenging and it's a little different than some of the conventional wisdom about how to communicate in relationship so if you're interested in getting this free guide all you have to do is visit Neal satin comm slash relate or you can text the word relate to the number three three four four four and follow the instructions all right on with the show [Music] hello and welcome to the 100th episode of relationship alive this is your host Neil satin and I am so excited to be here with you today not only because I'm about to get married and not only because this is the 100th episode of relationship alive which is pretty cool but also because we are going to be talking today about a topic that is so important both in terms of what brings us together and often in terms of what tears us apart we're going to be talking about the dance of attraction what is it that sustains attraction in a long-term relationship and furthermore if the spark is gone for you or for your partner what do you do to get it back and in order to cover such an important topic we have two very special guests who are here to celebrate the 100th episode of relationship alive with us both of them have written extensively on the topic of how to make relationships work and both of them have had extensive research done into the kinds of therapy that they have created in order to help couples who either are on the brink of something horrible or couples who are already doing well do even more amazingly so in the latter part of the show we are going to be talking with Sue Johnson the creator of emotionally focused couples therapy or EFT and she is perhaps the modern-day godmother of relationships and how to help them stay healthy and thrive and I'm really excited for you to hear what Sue has to say about attraction but before we get to sue the very first person that will be talking to you today is none other than John Gottman who if Sue Johnson is the godmother of relationship and couples therapy then perhaps John Gottman is the godfather so his work has been so influential in helping us come to understand what makes couples tick and particularly the ones that are doing it well how do they manage to do so well especially year after year after year so we're going to cover a lot of ground today and as usual we will have a detailed show guide for today's episode you can get that by visiting Neal satin comm slash attraction or you can simply text the word passion to the number three three four four four and follow the instructions and I will send you a link so you can download the show guide to this episode and all of the other relationship alive episodes so it's I'm really excited for you today and thank you so much for being here with me and if you don't mind taking a moment if you find this show to be really inspiring for you then maybe you could also just take a moment to share it with with your friends just let them know hey I listen to this podcast it's their 100th episode it's with John Gottman and Sue Johnson and it's amazing or something along those lines I would really appreciate your help in getting the word out to even more people so the conversation begins with John Gottman and we are actually hanging out and talking about on the phone we weren't hanging out in person although I'm sure that would be cool we were hanging out and talking about this article that you know I'm telling him what would I want the 100th episode to be about and what we're gonna talk about and he's like hang on a second and then he pulls out this article that's all about responsiveness and responsiveness being at the heart of attraction and so you know like the intrepid interviewer that I am I just asked the question that seems obvious to me which is so do you mean that if I'm if my partner isn't feeling attracted to me that I'm not being responsive enough in some way to them and his answer to this question might surprise you know if you're not feeling sexual desire the problem is that you're not responsive to your partner Oh interesting yeah that's the problem is that you're tuned out you're disengaged you don't respond and I'll tell you Neal I've just I came back from a group of safaris that my wife and I took in Africa in January and we I happen to be the 3 foot away 3 feet away from a pair of courting lions a lion in lioness and I have never seen a male more responsive to a female in my life I mean when that lion is moved this lion like what what what is it what do you need what do you need huh where you going what's happening she laid down and she was languishing he lay down and he was resting also but one year was perked up to what she wanted she got up he got up right away it was incredible how responsive he was at one point she became afraid of the tracker this particular Jeep we were in he had a track or sitting in the front and his heated patch to the front left fender and animals don't see it as part of the team so she noticed that and got really wary and he was ready to kill this guy and and our driver hold back six feet and I asked him about it he said oh yeah that lion was not happy with the lionesses being ten hence about the tracker being that close so I can tell you burn bounds dimension of responsiveness is really the central thing so if if you're looking at your own behavior how what would be a good way to gauge for someone to gauge their responsiveness so that they could see it happening for themselves well it's really based on noticing your partner's needs what does your partner need your attention does your partner need to talk to you does your partner need affection does your partner need support understanding is your partner sad they're down or angry or upset or anything you know do you respond to your partner's emotions it's a sequential thing that measures responsiveness and so there are some people who are tuned out and clueless and their desire is going to go down the toilet so your desire is leaving because you are not tuning in to the signals that would ignite your own desire that's what research suggests exactly it turns it on in here doesn't it it does really you think well what is the person who's not attractive doing wrong well it's not that it's the person who is not feeling desire and attraction who's messing up by being disengaged and clueless and tuned out and non-responsive socially socially unresponsive well I'm imagining that that situation if you find yourself in it that could be really painful for you because if you're there maybe you're there because because it's been a long road of breaks in the connection and bids that haven't been met and more the guy's an idiot so well what hope is there for people who are with guys who are idiots well you know that's you know that's what we do therapy trying to really teach people you know how to connect you know on how to build how to build trust how to build commitment in the relationship and how to you know how to be that person safe haven so that you know for you they represent time itself yeah what what does that Ark look like for a couple who are you know who are at a place where they've grown either both of them have grown tired of each other or maybe one of them is still feeling it and it's like yeah I really I actually want to be with my partner but the other one is just like no I'm in fact I'm repulsed by the idea of being with you and and I can imagine this couple being in what would feel like a really hopeless place do you see couples get from there to the other side and what does that journey look like we see it all the time every day in therapy we see it and but you know there's there's one dimension that you're kind of hinting at where it kind of gets hopeless so when a person is repulsed by the others president smell you know appearance taste you know put holding that person their arms when they when they're disgusted by that then there's not a lot you can do mmm and though some of the is you described like you know it used to be there and and you know the flame is just a glowing ember now that we can work with and we can fan that glowing Ember people really want to work on it to something that's a passionate roaring fire and you know if they and the same thing is true for you know friends with benefits but if they're disgusted by the other person there's not much we can do and maybe it's important to draw a distinction here if there is one between someone who has always been kind of repulsed by their partner's smell and just thought oh maybe I'll get used to it versus someone who was actually totally feeling it and but now for some reason they're feeling repulsed are those two situations different no I don't think so I think repulsion is something you know I you know it's you're sort of getting at a word that really has a very primal primitive representation in the brain mm-hmm you know and it's really the insula in the brain that is the origin of both physical repulsion and disgust and moral repulsion disgust both of those you know are related to this primary brain structure in the limbic system that you know is is the seat of that kind of emotional judgment and I I don't think you can go from disgusted to passion hmm I think you can go you can go from disinterest and disengagement compassion and there are a lot of reasons for the disengagement a lot of times it's there's a lot of conflict sometimes it's because there's been a betrayal there's been an affair or financial betrayal or pornography will do it very well a lot of pornography use usually leads to that kind of fracturing of trust and so you know that you can work with but when you know when it's when there's a fundamental physical disgust you know we we are at we are mammals and we are animals you know you've got to have you've got to have that sort of desire when it's low you can build it up but when it's been replaced by repulsion disgust I don't think there's any help for it mmm yeah and just so there are two directions that I want to explore there the first being so for that couple where it was never it was never quite there do you see couples in the in those circumstances finding ways to rediscover each other or I guess it's not really rediscovering but discover each other anew to uncover that dimension in their relationship I guess that's doable and there are a lot of sub cases in that category there yeah you know there are there are people who have never had an orgasm for example and orgasmic women you know there are different things you have to do to dismantle that kind of superficial symptom you know where you know there's just this interest and they have it you know they're not naturally attracted to one another that you can build up they're not if they're not repulsed and disgusted by what and you can really do something there and usually yeah you know there are many avenues to explore there but there's a trio of dimensions that you need to work on and responsiveness is kind of the key one dimension is really building trust and another dimension is building commitment and and the third dimension is building physiological calm with one another so there's kind of a trio of variables that we operate with and the way you build trust is through teaming in to your partner's negative emotions listen with understanding and compassion not defensive missile so that kind of attunement is what builds trust and transparency the other thing that builds trust you know you can't you're you're seen by your partner there's no mystery you know there's no nothing hidden there are no secrets so that's how you build trust through attunement and the Tumen is this very special kind of listening that you know we discovered is really the basis of building a trusting relationship and the building commitment we learned we really learned from the 30 year research of a woman named Carol Russ both of our USB ult and Carol rustbelt showed us that the key dimension in building commitment is making positive comparisons between your partner and real or imagined alternatives so when you cherish your partner when you cherish what you have a nurture gratitude for what you have with this person you start building commitment when you do the opposite when you make negative comparisons between your partner and real or imagined alternatives what Russ ball showed us was that then you begin on a pathway of nurturing resentment for what's missing in the relationship other than gratitude for what's there and then you're on a pathway to betrayal hmm so first can the trust through attunement commitment through cherishing and then physiological calm and that is a complex thing but it's really it's a mutual way of relating to one another that is soothing and not arousing so for example we know what rouses people with physiologically being in attack mode or defensive miss mode as opposed to being collaborative so when you're collaborative when you're really working together and more of a team then people really are generally quite calm and they also can laugh together laugh at themselves so that Triola variables trust commitment and physiological calm physiological healing is what really builds intimacy and connection in the relationship and responsiveness is kind of in the middle of all that yeah I mean all of it is about being responsive just like that lion was and what you're finding is that because we started talking about that in that question of could a couple open that dimension of their relationship if it had never really been there before and it sounded like I usually I mean you know basically what you've got to do is you've got a unpack the symptom of they're not being attracted because that's kind of a superficial complaint and you have to really look at the anatomy of that complaint and what we find is that the anatomy of that complaint has to do with there's three this Triola variables trust commitment and physiological calm and in all of those it's really about responsiveness to one another mm-hmm yeah and so in the going in the other direction and I'm glad you brought up both trusts and this pathway toward betrayal and the need for the need for safety and an attachment in terms of sustaining attraction all right and so you brought up the the case of someone who has gone through a betrayal whether that be financial or sexual emotional however now you you've probably heard people who have gone through that say I can't even imagine being with you right now like that thought disgusts me so this is where I wanted to go back to that nuance around disgust and repulsion and because I'm hearing you say like if you're experiencing that on a physical level that you could be in serious trouble there but then there's how does that map mix in with the safety response that comes up when you have suffered a rupture and attachment in your in your relationship yeah we have a we're actually engaged in a in a randomized clinical trial a national trial for helping couples deal with recovery from an affair so we're doing this study now and we have we have a therapy that we've developed over the last decade that we're now trying out experimentally and so I have an approach a therapeutic approach to dealing with what happens what's happened windows is fair so so part of what what you have to deal with is the fact that we now know that the person who's been betrayed we call the hurt partner is experiencing a post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the betrayal and that that PTSD reaction is usually a constellation of emotions and can include disgust can include horror and you know all you know really all the negative emotions kind of come in you know PTSD is usually thought of as just involving fear now and you know it's a very interesting constellation and because it doesn't just involve fear it involves anger and Raijin and depression and sadness and connected with is often you know on feeling feelings that that are close to homicidal you know rage at being betrayed and also self harm as well as part of it so it's a very complex reaction to betrayal but it's closest to PTSD and one of the things that's interesting about PTSD is that the American Psychiatric Association and you know it's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual it addition five just came out the definition of PTSD is varied over the years and mostly has been associated initially with combat stress combat trauma but now you know it's it's recognized it's being all kinds of trauma that create this constellation of symptoms flashbacks ruminations about you know the thing that caused it avoidance of anything connected with the cues that were associated with the trauma and and one of the things that's that's wrong with the American Psychiatric Association definition is that it doesn't include anything about relationships but we know and it's a solid research evidence confirmed in meta analyses which are analyses of it of studies many studies that the people's interpersonal relationships are messed up when they experiencing when they experience any kind of trauma and have a post-traumatic stress reaction to trauma so the betrayal has the hurt partner is experiencing PTSD and unless that's treated and you can't get back to rekindling trust so we have a three-part therapy and the first part is atonement where you know the person who's done the betrayal really needs to be remorseful and listen for the consequences of the betrayal and there has to be an emotional bridge connected between the heard partner and and the in the betrayer and the second phase is attainment you know that's one of those variables that I talked about in the triad of variables remember that you know which is commitment trust and physiological calm yes well the Tumen comes out to be very important because in almost all not all but mo of affairs there's been a gradual deterioration of intimacy in the relationship so people have been avoiding one another they avoiding conflict they're avoiding self disclosure telling their partner what they're unhappy about and they've usually been leading parallel lives for some time that leave both people very lonely quite often they haven't had sex in years before the affair so in a tomb that the second phase you have to build that bridge and create you know this trusting relationship where they really are listening to one another hearing one another they have a blueprint scheduling with conflict and dealing with the accumulated regrettable incidents that they have in process because that in all relationships as it as relationships continue they accumulate these incidents where they've heard each other and they haven't talked about it they haven't processed it so you know you have to do that in the attunement phase and the third phase is called attachment and that's really in you know Carol Russ bolts investment in the relationship and and committing to the relationship really making it extremely personal so here here we can you know really rebuild a couple of sexual relationship or sometimes builders for the first time and the key there is responsiveness and emotional investment and I'm hearing too first in terms of what you're talking about that you know part of building the ability to be attuned also comes back to the physiological calm and being able to hear what's going on with your partner without you know descending into a massive being triggered and hijacked yourself or to be able to bring yourself back online if you notice that happening for yourself yeah exactly so you know part of what we're part of what we do when we train therapists to do this kind of therapy is we review other other approaches - you know other approaches to building rebuilding the relationship after the fair and I know these other approaches basically you know are saying well you know the relationship wasn't that great you know and that's why the affair happened in marriage number one now in marriage number two you know you've got to lower your expectations and you know don't expect so much from one another and try to be more independent of one another and you know and be nice and you know and and deal with conflict but you know don't expect too much and we have the opposite point of view we want to help couples build a great relationship with great sex not just an ordinary relationship or a relationship where they're slightly less miserable so we really want to create you know marriage number two that it's going to be wonderful yeah so we you know we're trying to do kind of the impossible take people from a totally shattered relationship to a great relationship it doesn't make sense to you know to do anything else right I mean you know why would you settle for just making these people are slightly less miserable right and that's kind of the science that we have right now before we entered it was a science that had very small effect sizes and you know it could take a cup of who is just a little below the mean in happiness and move them to just a little bit above the me okay so if that's your client population then you're going to feel pretty good about your work as a therapist but most of our couples you know are like two and three standard deviations below the mean especially you know when you're dealing with with a couple whose relationship is kind of shattered by an affair whether you know Trust is gone everything's gone basically yeah I'm I'm curious coming back to what you were saying about Russ bolts work and commitment how how you let's say someone sees that pattern happening for themselves so the and when I say that pattern I mean they start going into grasses greener kind of comparisons brighten so if you see that happening and now you're gonna see that happening and be like oh this is exactly what John Gottman was talking about like I'm I'm reinforcing the negative instead of the positive but what other than saying like well don't do that what's a practical way that someone when they see oh I'm doing that like I'm imagining being with so-and-so or if nothing else just not being with this person being better how can they steer that back in a more positive direction unbound research gives us the key because when you're starting to make negative comparisons you're quite a ways down the Cascade because you haven't been turning toward your partner's bids you haven't been being responsive to your partner you've been withdrawing and investing less emotionally in the relationship as you start investing less in the relationship and you're you know you're you're protecting yourself you're not staying vulnerable they're not staying open you're not you're not being responsive to your partner then you start seeing the grass is greener but you can do something about it you can tune back in you can start to really listen you can start to turn toward your partner's bids for connection because the result of turning away is you make these negative comparisons the negative comparisons in other words even though they're a great predictor they're not the place to put your fault gun they're not the fulcrum to put your lever I mean to make change happen you can't tell yourself Oh the grass is greener at home you know you can't you can't start working on your mind you have to start working on the that you are investing less and less in the relationship and you are being unresponsive to your partner now it could be that your partner is being less responsive to you so you know this is a dyadic thing rather than an individual personality variable so you've got it you know as a therapist you've got to look at the contribution of both people to this equation because Trust isn't built just by one person nor is commitment build by one person nor is physiological calm built by just one person it's that thing they do together or fail to do together so they make yeah makes perfect sense and and it leads to the next question which is like imagining so they're there two places I want to go right now and I'm gonna maybe gonna save the best for last so the first is imagining okay I'm on one side of that equation so then the equation is like let's say I'm the partner that wishes my partner were showing up more in terms of attraction and desire and I still I'm still there but they're not there and I hear you saying like you got to be more responsive and then on the flip side let's say I'm the partner below desire has to be more responsive so the okay so great I'm glad you made that distinction so and because this is I think an important clarification if I'm that partner who's feeling a little bit despondent like I don't know how to reach my partner who is feeling like I'm still there but they're feeling shut down and like I want them to be more responsive but they're shut down what can I do in those circumstances well you have to understand where the shutdown comes from you have to look at the anatomy of the symptom you're identifying so you know that there's a shutdown but you know it can be due to many things right could be really that that the couple has experienced the real injury emotional injury that the regrettable incident that hasn't been processed has created a chasm between them and they haven't been able to talk about it so a good example is maybe you know she's experiencing low desire and I'm not okay and part of part of what's happened is that we've been trying to have the baby and she had a miscarriage and I said you know just get over it you know we've got pregnant again and actually she's pregnant again but she was very alone mourning that miscarriage that lost baby she was very invested in it and by telling her to just get over it I really pushed her very far away and now you know she's pregnant but she's feeling tremendous distance for me so that could be one cause of it right this real attachment injury sue Johnson calls it right right it's an emotional injury that has been created in the relationship and there the recipe is to process that emotional injury and we have a blueprint for doing that and we do that you know and in our in our therapy and it's quite powerful if that's the problem now there could be other problems you know another example could be that she actually has been traumatized in some way she hasn't really talked about it she hasn't really fully processed that board to come back she's been sexually molested or raped or you know there's something there that is coming back some kind of earlier trauma well then you need a different kind of intervention right there you've got to really deal with the trauma because sometimes classic sort of cases sex is great and then they get married and then suddenly one partner is no desire well now they've become family and if the if there was a traumatic sexual attack that than within the family it was some kind of incestuous event which we now know is very common then that's a different cause that's really you know a post-traumatic stress disorder that has surfaced that has to be treated a different way it's not a specific regrettable incident in the relationship but it's it's a it's a trauma that has an impact on the relationship now you know in in each of these cases you have to I'm just giving you two examples of how you could how you unpack the load desire and you have to understand the load desire sometimes low desire is really because this is a person who you know really is an orgasmic and hasn't really even ever had an orgasm that's a different kind of situation right so you know there we have to really go to Lonnie barbacks approach and Lonnie bar beca's is a sex therapist who who works within orgasmic women and she wrote a book called for yourself where she helps women to really discover their own sexuality their own desire sometimes you know the sexuality low desire is really a result of things not going well sexually within this relationship and in that case we've got to really look at the anatomy of that so when you identify a symptom like low desire or low attraction you don't know what the anatomy is just by having that symptom you've got a really dismantle that symptom and look at the mechanism that created it yeah order to do adequate therapy yeah and I want to shine the spotlight there on what you've said repeatedly during this conversation which is for the most part lack of attraction is a symptom and there are other other underlying root causes so if you're focused on the symptom how do i well how do i generate attraction without looking at the root causes then you're probably not gonna get anywhere or at least your progress is going to be a lot smaller than if you're focused on those fruit cups you know it's a lot like being bored you know if you say well one person is bored they're bored with the relationship then what you go when you hear that symptoms you think well they're probably with somebody who's boring they're with somebody who's just not very interesting but actually boredom is an inability to become interested so the problem is with the bored person most of the time not with the person they're bored with yeah and what's your expert way of communicating that to the bored person because they probably don't really want to hear that the problem is actually there's yeah I know and that's why part of therapy is being confrontational hmm there's trying to understand the symptom of something like on board with this relationship or on board with you and understand unpack the symptom and most of the time that boredom is an inability of that person to connect with the world to really be alive and function in the world as opposed to would be the relationship sucks sometimes it is the relationship sucks because we know that when people form a committed relationship you know we know this from the UCLA study done by the Sloan Center they studied dual-career couples in Los Angeles who had young children and two careers and basically you know once they once they got a house together and kids and jobs they ignored the relationship you know they talked to each other an average of 35 minutes a week and mostly it was about errands that they were talking to each other so they stopped having fun they stopped having adventure they stopped being sexual they stopped courting one another so when you have a lot of desired relationships it's basically they've nord one another right they've ignored the relationships over and over and over again that is the anatomy and and so how do you get them to really tune into the relationship begin it's that trio of variables trust commitment and physiological calm building that awesome and now let's just turn it on its head for a minute because some people who listen to this show they have amazing relationships and they have great sex and they still are really attracted to each other what do you suggest for people in those circumstances to like it's not just a number they've actually got a fire going how do they keep stoking that in ways that aren't cliche or maybe things are cliche because they work well you know that's a great question the other pen the answer is that there's been quite a wonderful study done and we've also done a study in this in this same domain comparing people in in long-term committed relationships who have great sex a great romance and passion and are in love with one another not there's just love one another they're in love which we know does not have a shelf life from you know from the research of Helen Fisher you know we know that being in love you know doesn't have a year-and-a-half shelf life that can last forever and we need to compare those people to people like them whose sex life they say you know is not very satisfying they don't enjoy it basically the people who have a great sex life are doing about 13 things that the other people aren't doing there's a baker's dozen of things that people are doing when they have a great romantic and sexual relationship with one another when the passion is there when they're in love with one another and if you look at the list of 13 it's not rocket science it's really not complicated and I can I can read those to you I have them on my computer great here are the is the baker's dozen habits of people who have a great sex life everyone on the planet it's been studied in 24 countries number one they say I love you every day and mean it so they don't do it per frontally they're really saying I love you and it's coming from the heart number two they kiss one another passionately for no reason at all not just when they want to have sex they just grab one another and have a passionate kiss you know which is at least a six second kiss it's a real kiss number three they give one another surprise romantic gifts and compliments on a regular basis number four they know what turns their partners on and off Urata cailli so they have a love map number four if they have a love map of their partner's erotic world they know what steps on the accelerator and what steps on the sexual brake number five they're physically affectionate even in public number six they keep playing and having fun together so fun is really important it's one of the first things to go the UCLA study shows you know the one the Sloan Center did number seven they cuddle often so cuddling is really the gateway to great sex just like kissing is and if you want to read more about that there's a book called the science of kissing that shows reviews a study that shows that German men who kissed their wives goodbye when they leave for work live five years longer than German men who don't kiss their lives goodbye when they go to work number eight they make sex a priority not the last item of a long to-do list so they're not having sex trying to have sex when they're exhausted there they're actually you know making it an important thing number nine they stay good friends number ten they can talk comfortably about their sex life number eleven they have weekly romantic dates so not dates to talk about who does what when or to argue but to really build romance and that means they get to talk to each other it's dinner in a movie but it's a long dinner number 12 they take romantic vacations and number 13 they turn toward their partners bids for connection so that's not very hard to do happy that's not rocket science those 13 things but it does take being mindful that courtship doesn't end after you say I do it keeps going it's there every day building trust is something you're doing every day building commitment choosing your partner you do that every day and saying to your partner there is nobody on the planet that holds a candle to you you're the love of my life and really listening so that that physiological calm is there that's the trio of variables trust commitment and calm plus putting these 13 things on your fridge that's right thank you thank you and we'll make sure that we include that in our detailed show guide for this episode which you can get by going to Neil satin comm slash Gottman 3 or texting the word passion to the number three three four four four and following the instructions John if I may I have one last question for you today yeah so John a lot of what I encourage listeners to do is because so often we're stuck and we're stuck in a way of even how we think about the situation that we're in and so what's required is to step back and come up with something new and sometimes that can come from listening to an episode and hearing something new I'm wondering for you personally you're so prolific there so you know so much research that you've done what is something that you do when you're stuck do you have like a personal thing that you do where you recognize I'm stuck right now and and how do you unstick yourself I mean personally or in a row I think just on a personal level yeah well what I do is I play the banjo and I play the flute so when I do that it's like I've had a vacation and I I'm not a very good meditator you know I share that with the fictional character Sherlock Holmes who said you know I can't relax I have to work very hard on something else that's entirely different yeah so that's kind of what I do I learned a tune on the banjo and the flute and I do that for an hour and and then I kind of let my mind wander somewhere else and I usually get unstuck when that happens great thank you I was hoping that you'd have something kind of cool like that to offer those of us who are wondering how do the Masters do it so hello RH crumb the great cartoonist once said you know to cure depression what we need to do is issue everybody a banjo right that will cure everyone in principle to be the best when you're playing a tune on the banjo true true unless you're you know Steve Martin or I mean Martin my hero yeah yeah well John thank you so much again for for joining me here on relationship alive for joining us offering your wisdom it's always such a treat to talk and I really appreciate your your generosity with your time and wisdom today welcome Neal you're a great interviewer thanks so much my pleasure and you know it truly is a pleasure being here I'm always blown away by the unbelievable generosity of the guests here on the relationship a live podcast who have been just so forthcoming with their wisdom and their time and every day I feel blessed to be putting this podcast together for you and if you are finding this podcast to be helpful you can actually make a contribution to help ensure that it continues and the way to do that is simply by visiting Neil satin comm slash support or you can text the word support to the number three three four four four and follow the instructions and just choose something that feels right for you so thank you in advance if you are able to do that I so appreciate it okay so now if you recall at the very beginning we're not done yet there's more to cover and I was so blessed to be able to talk to sue Johnson after my conversation with John so I could ask her some follow-up questions and see how things unfold for her in terms of how she envisions the unfolding of attraction between two people and in particular what to do when the spark isn't quite there anymore so sue Johnson thank you so much for being here with us on the 100th episode of the relationship alive podcast and let's dive in let's start talking about the dance of attraction and what is it that we need to know in order to figure out how to sustain it and how to pick it back up when the spark is lost I think the tricky part about it is that when you say that people say they've lost traction I mean that can happen for lots of different reasons one of the big ones is you know if people have been together for a long time and they've been caught in a really negative dance the most common one in North America is one person pursues and tries to get connections the other person feels attacked or withdraws that dance just takes over the relationship and people become exhausted they feel abandoned and rejected and there's a certain point in time where if that goes on long enough and it's painful enough and people start to feel helpless they begin to grieve and give up and they might not quite know how to express what's going on one of the problems in relationships is we haven't had a language for expressing this drama for really understanding it so they say things like I fall out of love or I don't feel the attraction anymore whereas when you go in and talk to them couples like that really when you talk to them a bit more what they're telling you is I have exhausted myself in this relationship and I have felt rejected and abandoned and I've gone through the grief process and I've I've given up I've started to detach and so I don't feel the attraction anymore and if that's really true and you can go in especially if you work the way we do where we go into emotions and help people really get clear about their emotions you you know can talk about that with them and you can get clear that that's what's happened and indeed that can be your people basically when people really detach and have grieved the relationship I don't think people come back you know it's the these emotional processes are real they have real consequences and when people really grieve and detach and say things like I see with a friend and I don't feel this need to be close to you and that can be real and know that that couple won't necessarily come back from that and we can help couples get clear about that talk about it and sometimes we help couples accept that and talk about their relationship together in a way that they can heal each other a little bit from what happened in the relationship and learn from it so they can go on and and have a better relationship next time but that's really different from a couple who come in and they're stuck in a negative place and they say things like well you know I just don't feel the attraction that happens all the time and in emotionally focused couple therapy you know first thing I do is I say have you read but for the public hold me tight because my experience is that often people read that book and then they get what's going on and they stop feeling so hopeless and when they stop feeling so helpless hopeless they allow themselves to admit to the feelings that they still want to be with their partner they just don't know how so sometimes that happen because it's kind of the no attraction is like really saying I don't want to feel this way it hurts too much I feel hopeless the other thing that happens is people I talk to people I say what it sounds like you guys have been caught in this dance of disconnection you you don't know how to connect anymore you know attraction I can't remember the word now but it comes from the Latin it's it's all about being pulled towards somebody and that's about how somebody engages with you it's about their present it's about how open and responsive they are and that's a very fascinating thing you know and we think it's all about sexuality but it's a whole lot bigger than that I give an example idot's Argentine tango and you can you can dance with somebody who's an expert dancer very technically good and you can say to yourself oh this person is dancing very technically good perfect tango and it doesn't turn you on it's not engaging because he somehow he still feels a long way away or he or she because you know you doctors women too they feel somehow a long way away they're not really with you they're not really engaged and then you can dance with somebody who isn't anywhere near as expert doesn't know all the moves isn't you know technically a great dancer but the way they dance with you they are connected they risk being engaged they stay with you they stay with the music they play there they're present they're engaged they're open and you start to play together and that is intoxicating so you can have a wonderful dance there's to be a stranger okay that you and you only dance for about 10 minutes or somebody you can have this amazing dance and it's all about how emotionally present you can be so we teach couples that this connection happens in all relationships and you know when you're disconnected that attraction is kind of like it's sort of turned off you know it's like you know you're just not feeling it you're not tuned into it and that happens in all relationships the secret is to know how to turn it on and that's what happy couples know it's not the happy couple don't fight and get disconnected of course they do but they know how to turn towards each other doesn't they feel safe enough with each other to turn towards each other and risk reaching for each other and engaging in so it's interaction is about how you engage with somebody you know and I see it all the time in couple therapy where people will say oh well you know we don't have any sex like for example or we haven't made love for two years or you know I just don't feel the need to be with somebody well of course you're trying to shut down that need if every time you try to get it met you get hurt right but you know then they start to come in and talk in a safe place in our sessions or they start to read hold me tight and do some of the exercises and the conversations or they go to one of our homey type groups or educational groups and they come in and they start taking risk with each other an older couple where she's very quiet and sort of depressed and he's saying well you know am I really going to be with you for the rest of my life and you know I don't really feel that attracted you anymore and I feel very guilty and the last time that I really felt tracted to you was way back in this time right and that was a time when we were happy right and I would need that again and this quiet little lady after some support from me and after some safety and for this man and says well actually I I keep a lot back and you probably can't find me and you probably can't see me and so why would you be wanting to lean in and feel that pull towards me the bottom line is I wasn't happy in that time that you're talking about I was just hiding out and trying to please you I wasn't happy and the truth is you're amazingly dominating and you take me over and so I hide out and but I'm getting tired of it now I don't want to do it anymore and her partner looks shocked and he sits up in his chair and he sits back and he doesn't know what to do with it and then he leans in and he says you never told her listen to his voice it's like he's caught he's fascinated he's interested I mean this is what happens when people risk being really open and present with each other the same person can be completely new and intoxicating you could fall in love with somebody a thousand times if you know how to engage and stay present and be open and responsive and of course openness and responsiveness is the basis of a secure bond we know that we know from the science of love we know that so I feel a lot there maybe I want to be quiet and you want so many possible questions as you said these are these are big topics and where we're working on a short timeframe here but what you just said actually gave me a lot of hope even for the couples that you initially described where one has maybe even gone through the grieving process if what they've grieved is the old relationship and the things that were good and maybe the things that were not so good then I could see that if they were at least willing to re-engage then in that presence that you were just describing there maybe the sparks of something new a rebirth for their yes but it's a question of degree we really do detach I mean that's functional it's functional for human beings to sometimes give up and let go of a need so we really do detach and there is a point where I think people do detach but the thing you said about hope is true because you know we haven't understood love we haven't understood what goes wrong and we haven't understood how to put it right so lots of times the word discouragement comes up for me couples who come in who if you don't understand the science of love and you don't use what know how to work with emotion like we do in EFT you know couples can come into a therapist or do all kinds of read all kinds of books and they it's like they just feel discouraged and so they just turn that they turn that engagement down okay and what we do in couples therapy is we turn that engagement we help people be open to each other we turn the engagement up and there's a lot of hope in that mean our research says that we get 70 to 75 percent of couples you know through to be feeling completely satisfied and recovered with their relationship and we get eighty six percent of couples saying that they've in our therapy that they've significantly improved their relationship and our follow up results are great the follow up stays stable so you know yes we're incredibly hopeful lots of times people are so discouraged they're shutting down you know and if like dance with you and you're distant and shut down yeah I'm not going to feel any pull towards you park I'm turning down the music all the time what we do in EFT is we turn the music up and we say dance and people surprise each other like that lady did she saw she prides herself let alone her her partner right yeah yeah there's so much power in the truth you know like I could joining another yeah I'm thinking of another couple where the man kept saying I can't live in this relationship because you don't give me enough sex and she would accommodate and give reasons and then kind of withdraw literally she'd move into the basement bedroom it's much more powerful when she turns in therapy with a little bit of help from me and says you know what you're right I shut down I don't give you sex I don't feel turned on because I want to scream at you and tell you start pushing me around start pushing me around if you want to dance with me invite me and then let me don't stop pushing me around because I don't wanna feel sexy with you when you're pushing me around and he he has a hard time he struggles and then he says I I never you never said that to me I never understood you're so beautiful when you talk like this [Laughter] she's real yeah she's real it's like that moment of engagement if we think back to our relationships you know I can remember meeting my husband and 28 years ago and my friends who I was very close to these two women were you know soul mates they basically said to me oh he's no absolutely he you know you should stay away from him he's like he's too loud he's - he's - he comes in too close he comes in too fast he's he's intrusive he's you know and I just what I remember is I start to smile and they said what he's mining for and I said that's why I like him I like him because he's out on the dance floor and he says where are you are you gonna play are you gonna come be with me are you gonna you know I'm you know I'm open you can tell me anything you can confront me you can you know you can turn me down I'm still going to be here you can that was intoxicating I mean that was the straw subtraction I've ever felt in my life because this person was so totally present that is what pulls us to people it even pulls us to people in movies you know so people are I think becoming more and more adept around presence it's become more part of our modern consciousness like oh I'm actually not in this moment right now I'm dissociated or I'm I'm trapped in my story or I expectation oh that's one of the missions of the podcast and I know of your work as well yeah I'm curious for so so many people they still though they meet and they're like prescribed rituals of courtship that plus all of the dopamine that's coursing through our system and I fact what we're talking about is this different nuance that emerges like emergent attraction when couples like abandon the the patterns that brought them together if they're not lucky enough to be like totally present from the get-go and and discovering that presence with each other and what I'm wondering is for people listening to the show if maybe you have like one bit of wisdom let's say for someone on either end of that spectrum so if you're listening to this show and you're thinking oh my god I just I want to connect so badly with my partner and I'm just and they're there running away and running away and I'm not sure how to make that happen so that's one person and then the other person would be the oh my god I'm not really sure if I'm in it and I feel my partner wanting me but I just I just want to push them away can you offer a like one bit of wisdom a place to start like a next question or a next action step for either of those people I'm not sure I can offer one bit of wisdom we you know we want a like pill for you know something that's bigger than a pill wide-eyed happily talked to me longer but I'm trying to honor our our time commitment I know but what we what we know if we look at all the people that have repaired their relationships and improve their relationships in emotionally focused couple therapy and then I hold me tight educational groups and there's thousands of those all over the world now if we look at all those folks there's common patterns and I mean what do people do we help people understand relationships feel safe enough to take risks but in the end what do people do to pull each other towards what do I do to pull my partner towards me to help my partner feel safe and connected with me in my relationships and what do we see people do in therapy they take risks you know they take risk they say you know instead of me saying to you why don't you talk to me more which pushes you away and turns off you're all your attraction neurons because I become dangerous if I can risk being vulnerable and open I say to you you know I was realizing today I just have this longing for us to talk the way we used to a few months ago I have this longing just to feel you close to me and to to know that I have your attention and I just long for that and it's scary for me when I feel this distance between us that pulls the person towards you you might have to if you're not used to doing it and he's not used to hearing it or she's not used to hearing you might have to do it a couple of times which is hard because you know it's a new it might be a new cue but that's what people do or somebody says you're right I do shut you out I shut you out and then there's no music between us and everything's flat and we don't feel any attraction because emotion is the music of the dance there's no music so I do shut you out I shut you out because I'm scared that I could never please you I can never it can never be good enough for you and that's that's terrifying for me and the other person goes oh I I didn't know that like you know I thought you just didn't care and suddenly there's this spark this is it's like love is a safe adventure you know you have to be open and present and out on the dance floor to start the dance you have to be willing to to risk and to start up the dance right and once you can feel each other and be vulnerable and feel that little bit of safety then you can play you can go anywhere you can make up the dogs you can then possibilities are endless and that sort of relationship is endlessly exciting it takes off and you get that attraction happening again and again and again it's the thrill of being reached for the thrill of somebody risking being open to you the thrill of feeling needed the thrill of this synchrony that you go into where you tune into somebody and you talked about rituals maybe we can see in birds you see it in in all mammals who really young together and need the other partner to do this right who depend on the other partner to rear their young you're you see swans doing rituals they move together they dip their their heads at the same time they intertwine their necks I watched swans through this one first one through this for two hours in in Belgium one time and you they do it again and again and they're saying are you there for me can I read your cues can I depend on you will you come and play and engage with me and the answer has got to be yes yes yes so human beings mean that's what creates the bond in the relationship the attraction that's what pulls people close to you is you show up and you knew you say who you are you take a risk the other person comes close you move towards them the other person moves closer they take a risk it's this incredible you start to know that each person wants to come close it's very intoxicating we focus on how intoxicating sexes and it is so you know sex is all tied up with this of course because that's what we do when we when we have good lovemaking but I'm talking about this emotional done the itchin touch I tell you where it comes out where people use the thing is with babies hmm baby pull us towards them they they have to do that they're going to you know because we they need us to survive but if you look at a baby you know and the baby feel safe with you the baby opens their eyes wide reaches their hands means that's almost irresistible you don't say I'm so attracted to this baby but you know people and they respond your people's eyes open wide they date talking a singsong voice they lean in and then the baby comes closer to and the baby stops laughs and this is this game of attraction connection synchrony and people and they start to eat the baby soft imitate your face you start to imitate the baby's face and there's this moment of togetherness and that is so rewarding for human beings that is like the biggest unconditional reinforcing moments I think in human life you know it's like the we remember these these moments of synchrony connection and if you can when people can't do that anymore they've lost the way to that then they start to shut down and then indeed they don't attract each other I'm reminded of what yours when you were describing the person on the dancefloor who knows all the moves but if you still don't feel connected to them and and how knowing all the moves can can be something that maybe keep someone safe but also keeps them from experiencing that dynamism that you're describing and right so before I let you go and we've already gone a little bit over that that we said apologize no it's my call I talked about well I wasn't gonna say anything now I'm just kidding so but I'm wondering so let's say now I'm talking to you the person who's listening and is thinking like yeah I'm like I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm feeling it with my partner and and you and maybe you're even looking at yourself and you're seeing like your own lack of willingness to engage because probably there's some sort of risk for you there I have a suspicion see that your your advice for this person is probably a lot similar to your advice for the person who's doing all that longing and desiring but I'm wondering if we're speaking directly to the person yeah and how and so they've identified that's what's going on for them what's what's a good risk for them oh good way to tune in so like something that come out onto the dance floor and say hey I can't find you where are you I'm I'm missing our closest I I somehow I want to connect I don't know how and this is a bit scary this is a bit difficult for me it's hard I don't know how to do it right you know I don't know how to do it see people think they're supposed to know how to do it they're supposed to do it right or the partners going to despise them or you know but my experience is it's just being present you don't have to be perfect involved you have to be present so it's just being present I've seen people say I don't know how to do this I don't want to make you feel I don't want to blame you I don't want you to put you down I don't want to criticize you I just feel so what the ladies say in my office I'm starved I just want to feel that connection with you again it's so precious to me and I don't know how to do it how can I help you feel safe and I want I because she's talking about him but she's saying I need that closer she's really risking and his eyes filled with tears and he she tries to Ernie reaches out his hand and you know that it that triggers all his longing to be clothed that pulls him towards her you know it's it's it's a fascinating the topic this whole attraction thing you know it's about what told you towards somebody what pushes you away that you know how to come close and dance together yeah great well and and John Gottman just the other day and he's you guys are going to be together in this episode virtually he was talking about how if you're not feeling it a lot of that could be how you've shut down your responsiveness to your partner so even finding ways right to simply to reengage on the simplest level as well as the most risky level like that that begins the dance again yes the tricky part is I mean we're talking about I mostly see very distressed couples so that's true you can try to re-engage again and help each other feel safe like going to a movie you know one of the reasons the attraction dies is people just don't put any energy into it they put they have their they have their relationship running on empty and then they wonder why the car isn't moving well duh know if you don't if you don't give each other any I mean it sounds obviously so true if you don't give each other any attention or time yeah you're right that attraction is going to start to just fade it's just going to trickle away right so yes doing things together but the tricky part about la is you know it's also an issue of going through the motions it down only works if you're going to actually when you go to the movie you're actually going to like share a little bit and take a little bit of risks with each other and reach for each other on an emotional level you know you can do all kinds of rituals and tasks and you know try to be skillful but this is about the tango again you can be skillful and do all the right things but if you're not kind of taking any emotional risks or really you're being open with each other then it's just a movie and you know it doesn't so I think it's all about engaging with people yeah I wonder if even for the person who say isn't feeling the attraction if they could even just speak that but find a way to speak it in a safe way and if their partner can hear it in a safe way if that in and of itself could be the starting I'm a bit yes and I think it helps a lot to just talk about you and not the other person hmm you know we say well you just really aren't that attractive to me anymore that's devastating right that's talking about the other person or you're not this enough or you're not that enough it's different if you say I can't find you know I I I somehow have lost this pull towards you I'd somehow lost my feeling of longing for connection I don't know what's happened I feel like we've lost that that magic that we had in our dance I don't know how to find it again I don't know what to do here I'm confused right that's different I mean the partner has got much more chance of listening to that my it's much more if I mean the partner is still gonna have a hard time listening to it I don't want to hear someone I love say that but there's some room to move there right and resisting the urge to jump in and try to fix it oh well you're not feeling that or you're confused let me answer all that for you versus just yeah in the but you know the point is that lots of times we can we can sort of start up that attraction again by just spending more time and energy on our relationship showing our partner they matter to us moving into a safer dance dancing more often and other times things have got really negative people have pulled down and pulled away emotionally and they need some help from a book or from an education program or some therapy to sort of open that channel again so that they can be present with each other and sometimes people have shut down the attraction for very good reasons and you know they've moved away from the relationship so but there's lots of promise this new science of love that we have now and you know I mean it's the first time in human history that we can say that we understand romantic relationships and we know how to help people bring them alive again there's all kinds of hope in that hmm well sue I look forward to having you back on the show some future episode to talk more about emotionally focused couples therapy and the science of love and it's always so fascinating to have you here I'm and I'm I'm already seeing the title of this episode that where you and John can be partners in the dance together the dance of attraction that's great and I'd love to okay nice to talk to you now and thank you again for being here with me today for to celebrate the 100th episode of relationship alive if you found this show to be inspiring please help get the word out share it with your friends and you can always find me as well on Facebook in the relationship alive community so please join us there and you can continue the conversation I look forward to seeing you next week for the 100 and first episode of relationship alive and until then take care and enjoy the dance of attraction [Music]

Channel: Neil Sattin

Views: 60,928

Keywords: attraction, gottman, john, johnson, love, partnership, revive, sex, sue, sustain, together

Id: R7L7SEtvfPk

Length: 81min 21sec (4881 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 04 2017