How To FIND & KEEP Real Love! | Jay Shetty

I I met so many people who have been hurt by relationships they've had bad breakups they've dated the wrong person they've struggled with connection maybe they've been abused whatever it may be and one question I'd always ask people is what did you attract them with what did you use to get that person what did you show of yourself what did you display what was your best behavior and what I've discovered is that when your relationship starts like an interview chances are it might end like a firing because we start with our best behavior we start with our best performance we start with oh look how attractive I am look how wealthy I am so if we're using things like money to impress someone what do you think you're attracting you're attracting someone who's with you because of that particular asset now if that asset ever diminishes if that asset is never accessible to them if that asset is not something that they get to take part in now all of a sudden they're not interested if someone's only with you because of how you look because that's what you displayed so you have to ask yourself am I displaying what I want someone to be attracted to or am I trying so hard just to attract them that I'll show them whatever they want to see and so to me when I think about it I want someone to be attracted to my values I want someone to be attracted to my purpose I want someone to be attracted to who I actually am not who they want me to be or who I could be so when I met radhi and when I'm working with clients I always say to them be so transparent and honest about where you currently are because then if you don't attract that person you're safe because if you attract them through something you're not you're going to lose them through Who You Are oh God that was so funny so how on Earth and in those moments right because when you're going on a date when you're first meeting someone you do want to put your best foot forward it's like to be honest if you went on a day and the woman showed up in her PJs right even though we all love ratty maybe she did it on like the third day so like even on that first date you're never going to see the true person because you do want to see their best what they have but I totally understand on your point of that you can be setting yourself up and your relationship up for disaster if you do that so talk to me now about your amazing skill of doing the three date world because I love this because as we start to talk about who you decide to spend the rest of your life with these early days these early moments really do make a difference about whether you choose the right person that shares the same values as you and yes yeah and and I love that you made that distinction because I think in the beginning the challenge is we don't even want to be with that person we just want to impress them so I think that's what I'm trying to get at is that Nuance of like are you dressing up because you're presenting your best version or are you actually doing all these things just to impress that person so they think you're awesome because if that's the reason then you're showing them a very limited view of who you are so my three-day rule is something I'm gonna clarify as a disclaimer you do not have to make these your first three days right and you don't have to make these three dates have to go in order while you're dating someone these are three dates that can be dotted across any dating time period so you could do one of these dates a month if you're seeing someone every week you could do one of these dates every three months if you're seeing someone for a year you don't have to do them immediately the other thing I'm going to add before I dive into this is I read this incredible study that shows that it takes around 40 hours to get to know someone casually 40 hours Lisa it takes around a hundred hours to get to know someone as a friend to really call someone a friend and if someone's a good friend studies show it takes 200 hours now the reason why I created the three-day rule is because too many people are Falling in Love Too Quickly people say I love you so quickly some men are saying it within one to three months and some women are saying you're within like three to six months it's a fast process most of us have not spent 200 hours with each other and just to pause them men say quicker and more often than women based on your stats absolutely yeah men say it quicker and more often to more people ah right and so there's a speed there and I've thought about that like someone's asked me like you know why is that I mean it could be many things it could be that you know we've been told that it's the secret key you know like a lot of men have been told that oh when you say I love you to a woman that opens up everything like you get access to everything so maybe that's part of it maybe a part of it is that men don't know how to differentiate between lust and love like and love I know men who will come to me and they'll find someone new attractive every month it's normal as a man to to have that but you don't know how to differentiate between lust and love or like and love and so you say love more often so sometimes it's a vocabulary understanding um but anyway going back to the three-day rule the first date has to be about do I like this person's personality do I get along with them do I like their company most of our time in a day is spent thinking do they like me right that's what we're thinking do they like me are they impressed by me do they think I look good do they think that I'm a good person but we're not really thinking like do I like spending time with a person do I really engage with them do I really connect with them do I feel this person is like great morals and great great sense of company are they funny are they interesting and I think for a long time we've overestimated the spark and I want to talk about this because I'm not saying there should be no spark I think the problem is when relationships are built on Sparks not skills and I think what you're really looking for is is there a spark and skills or am I only seeing spark and no skills and the problem is when we see a spark we assume that the person has the skills and when you say the skills you mean I mean like when we get to skills I'm talking like does this person either communicate with you does this person know how to listen to you does this person know how to make you feel seen and heard does this person want to develop skills with you of fighting better disagreeing better debating better are they wanting to grow them even if they don't have them and what I find is that when we find the spark with someone when we feel chemistry with someone we assume that they're organized good people who will treat us well right we've all done that you find someone attractive and you find someone articulate and you think they must be yeah amazing at everything and you just assume that you never ask you never check so that's date one do you like their company and the way the test is do I want to spend 200 hours getting to know this person it's a great test 200 because that's what a long-term relationship is going to need second day do I respect their values this one's really big because I find that we don't often really understand our partners values till much later we don't really know what they care about or we're hoping we care about the same things I think you and Tom can relate to this and me and Ravi can too I don't think we prioritize the same things in the same way right I think we have different values and I think a lot of people live in this social media world of like find someone who has the same values like find some and I'm like well that may take your whole life you may never find the person who has the same values so in second date you're trying to understand their values what do they care about most what's their biggest priority you can tell some of this by what people talk about if someone's always talking about their business it's obvious what they care about the most that doesn't make them a bad person or a good person they're showing you if someone's always talking about their mum and their dad and their family it's obvious that their families their heart and soul you're one of those people you're always talking about your family and it's beautiful and then you meet someone who's always talking about money they're always talking about real estate they're always talking about they're showing you what they care about and we don't often take that note we take it a different way so the way I look at this is I often ask clients to make a list of their top three priorities in their life including themselves and most often what I'll find is someone will say you are you my partner the kids and then me and that's common the one that's a bit more rare is where the person says me as in myself at the top you and then the kids and the common reaction is how can you put the kids third like how did you put the kids third and the person's going well no I had to put me first because if I'm strong and I'm steady then I'll give more to you the reason I bring that prioritization up is what are your partner's top values so from Ravi my wife her Top Value is family we know that right you know Riley well she loves her family she adores her family any conversation is about her family any gift is about her family everything's about her family and then me mine's my purpose and my service if you talk to me I'm thinking about how to serve the world and think about how to make an impact I'm thinking about how do I get these tools accessible to anyone and everyone like how do we really Cascade these uh teachings across the world very different values but we discovered that very early on and we have really open honest conversations about how we're rather if it came down to it I would choose my purpose over a family event and Riley said to me if he came down to it I choose my family event over going to something with you now I'm not saying that's right or wrong I'm all I'm saying is that that awareness and that conversation saves you from years of guilt-tripping the other person oh you never come with me to my events radi you're always with your family oh you never ever like show up for me when I'm traveling because you're traveling with your family we don't have that conversation because I'm really aware of her values so that's day two and day three is am I committed to helping them achieve their goals do I want to see this person am I ready to go to any extreme any level to see this person become the best version of themselves that they want to be am I willing to be there with them holding their hand helping them get there if we're going to climb a mountain and they're climbing a different Mountain I'm going to help them climb theirs and I find that most of us don't even know what our partner's greatest goals are most of us don't even know what their dreams are most most people don't even know what their own dreams are let alone their totally exactly exactly so those are the three dates they don't have to be your first three dates they don't have to be your all your dates in a row they just have to be dates that have to happen during the dating journey I love all of that the way you lay out and I'm such a like I have like these two parts of me the emotional and the Very Logistics so when you tell me like okay 200 hours I need those kind of um buffers if you will because I can get in my own handgun after four hours oh my God my eye like I actually remember on my first day with Tom going oh my God is this the one right like because I never met a guy like him before but if I'd had the rule of okay these are the dates these are the amount of hours these are the things you need to do on these dates to kind of really assess whether they're right for you is so beautiful because it allows me now to also listen to my head as well as my heart like because these those two can often be in conflict with each other yeah well that's where the spark takes over the chemistry is so strong and I looked at the science of this that when you are attracted to someone or when you meet someone and it's exciting you're feeling excitement but you're also feeling stress because the excitement is their heart the stresses do they think I am right the excitement is oh my God they're coming over here the stresses are they going to talk to me the excitement is they gave me their phone number to stresses what do I text them so you're feeling this excitement and stress and that's what makes it so fresh and new and in that excitement and stress you can make some bad decisions we've all been there where you've made poor decisions because you're so intoxicated by someone or you feel so attracted to someone that you can make an unhealthy choice now what happens is as you spend more time with that same person your stress decreases because you're comfortable with them so when we say the spark went away it didn't the stress went away because now being with them actually calms you down like it actually gives you a sense of comfort yeah and so when we think the Sparks everything it's not because the spark was just stress but I think that that is where some people get confused right where they're like oh my God the love is gone like oh no you know and then you have like the honeymoon phase where then people leave so during this first dating phase once you started to do these things establish like okay are they right for me I want to touch on something you dropped in earlier of the definition of love because as you start today as you start to get with someone start to know them more and more I loved how you said it's like you have to understand what the word like not even what the emotion of love means but what the word love itself means and then also understand what your partner's interpretation of it explain that to me and then how we start to navigate that because as we start to peel apart some of these things are awkward or uncomfortable to have a discussion with are like so how do you feel about love right it's like how do we start to like actually then have those discussions and I was gonna say like even with these dates you're not sitting down with someone going what are your values like you know like that's not number one yeah number one you know here's a list of values can you Circle which ones are yours like it's not like saying oh what are your goals like it's not that kind of a conversation like what I'm saying is you learn about someone's values by what they spend their time on what they spend their energy on and what they spend their money on that's what they value if you really want to know what someone values look at their schedule that will tell you what they value if you look at Radley's schedule she calls her mum eight times a day you look at my schedule it is decked out in meetings commitments interviews podcasts whatever else it may be that shows you what I value if you look at what someone spends who do they spend money on where do they spend money shows you what they value so don't ask people these questions you can observe it just by being around someone very quickly you don't have to be as on the nose and so going into what you're asking about defining love this was something when I was coaching couples and working with them I found this to be a huge thing some people say I love you and it means I want to spend the rest of my life with you and some people say I love you and it means I want to spend a night with you like it can be that different it can really be in between those extremes I want to spend a night with you I want to spend a life with you and the thing is when someone says I love you you assume that their definition is the same as yours so when you say I love you back you think in your head we just made a contract based on my definition of Love are we gonna die together we're gonna die together yeah oh no you've committed to me for the rest of Eternity right like that could be your definition and the thing is when someone's being romantic and says I love you you know wait wait what do you mean by that like explain we don't say that and I'm not telling you to say that but before you say it before you feel it before you exchange it with someone or even after you do have a conversation about what does love mean to you like like what do you mean by that like what is the importance of love in your life and if someone's not open to those conversations early on in a relationship that's a sign that those conversations only get more uncomfortable so if you've been in a relationship and you're struggling to start this conversation with your partner how do you do it I just want to address that because I can appreciate that a lot of people didn't have this training up front they're now in a relationship they feel like they wanted a relationship to be fun and exciting and their partner is settled for we live together we have a home we have kids that's love what else do we need right I think it's really healthy to say hey you know what when we met when we first connected We Were Young we did we didn't know about all these things we didn't talk about all these things but I've I've really been thinking about this like we've built such a beautiful life together and I want to continue to feel that do you feel the same way now you've not put pressure on them if you go up to them and go you don't do what you used to do before how's that inspiring if you go up to your partner and say oh you're always lazy or you have more time for the guys than you do for me or you go up to your partner and say oh you know you're always busy I thought you're going to be at home like those things don't start healthy conversations but saying you know we've actually built something pretty cool how do we get it to the next level if that can engage a partner I I love that um it not being just one word it actually being like this in-depth discussion that is continuous because I think that that's where we get tripped up sometimes we have an interpretation also we do hear what sometimes we want to hear right like the amount of people I'm just going to say the amount of women I have been met where it's like oh I can change him oh I can change this about him I can change this and it becomes the like you're not actually hearing who they are and maybe you're just hearing the things you really do like and the things that you aren't attracted to or something that maybe you're you're dismissing those right now because you so want this relationship yeah and I think that's we're living in a world of trying to project our version of a perfect partner onto our partner and we're trying to mold them and curate them and build them up to be this person that we think will make us happy and what we don't realize is that fake version we have won't make us happy and us trying to mold them is not going to make them happy and you actually push someone away so I actually feel like if anyone ever feels like someone's trying to change them you potentially push them away because they feel threatened they feel scared they feel not good enough and so you're actually creating a unworthy feeling in your partner by saying you could be this or should be this and I think we have this I'd break it down in the book as being the difference between relationship roles we play so talk about how there's three relationship roles that everyone plays and everyone's listening or watching you know which one you are so the first is the fixer some of us get our self-worth from fixing other people's problems we don't fix our own we're not working on our own but we feel better when we find a partner that feels like a project we feel oh I'll teach them and I'll build them up and I'll make them wear nice clothes and I'll make sure he or she gets a nice job or they break through in their career because we get our self-worth through thinking we can fix other people it's really warped to that degree but we play that role and often when we play that role we Tire our partner out because they feel unworthy or we feel upset at ourselves and them because they didn't take our advice so then we end up saying things like well I put so much effort into you and you don't want to be better and we think it's their fault that they haven't grown but they never showed you they wanted to grow so if you're on the fixer I just want you to be really conscious about that role and say okay I've tried to fix people it doesn't work let me use that energy to serve myself to find my own self-worth in a different direction and now let me approach this relationship differently the second role we play is the dependent so the fix is like a parent the dependent's like a kid you walk in and you hope that your partner's just going to take care of you they're going to cradle you they're going to embrace you they're gonna take all your problems away right we want to Problem Solver we want a fixer and we walk in we go fix all my issues you're in charge you're the best a few years later sometimes it's decades later that person goes I lost myself in the relationship not realizing that they didn't know who they were in the first place they let the other person take the lead and now that person's loss so even when you're the dependent and then you start feeling why are you always telling me what to do oh God yeah right because then he goes why are you always telling me what to do but we set them up to play that role so let's take the responsibility and become supporters a supporter says I'm going to help you become who you want to be and you're going to help me become who I want to be because support is not about me projecting my goals onto you support is about me helping you get to where you want to go and that is the healthiest role to play in a relationship there are going to be times in a relationship where you'll have to be the fixer you have to be the dependent there's a bit of oscillating but you're both trying to come back to being supporters and being collaborators and being a team rather than staying too long in either of those I think the other thing is that as fixes one of the biggest fallacies is that relationships shouldn't be work save what we put time effort and hard work into growing our careers or our business but love should just happen after 20 years of being married all stars were being willing to ask and answer hard questions I have a free downloadable PDF for you for a happy successful lasting love click the link below for free access to the most important questions you must ask your partner PDF we also think that we have to be the person to fix our partners problems we don't realize that sometimes you can introduce them to a book sometimes you can introduce them to a podcast sometimes you could introduce them to something else that helps them and this is the biggest mistake Lisa that I hear all the time people want their Partners to have the same healing Journey as them and I say this to people all the time sometimes someone will say to me Jay I'm just trying to convince my partner to read your book and I'm trying to convince them to listen to your podcast and I'm like please don't do that because you're going to push them away not just from you but from their healing find out what they connect to find out what's important to them you know one of the reasons why I love doing my podcast on purpose is I sit down with so many people and I'm like there are so many people that I know people will connect to that may not connect to my voice sometimes you need to hear an athlete say I need to meditate I could have been telling people for years to meditate but they needed to hear it from their favorite athlete or someone needed to hear it from their favorite business person or someone needed to hear it from their favorite musician when she or they open up their heart and says this is what I'm going through and so please realize that your partner doesn't have to learn from the same voices or the same guides or the same coaches it's okay for them to have their own path and if you help them on their path I promise you you'll be holding hands a lot quicker God that's so true and it's like I understand the notion right like we if we are in a relationship and we now find someone that we really do care about we really do love this there's one thing that just keeps tripping them up maybe you've been there yourself so you're like oh my God like I'm going to give gift that I wish someone gave me and so you think you're given the gift but there's a difference between like the gift that you would want to receive versus the gift that that person wants to receive and sometimes we give the gift that we want to receive we don't get the response and now we think it's about us yes yes that's exactly it like we think now that oh now it reflects now we have two issues we have the issue that they don't listen and now I'm I need to I'm getting tired of being so magnanimous and we're not being magnanimous because real compassion is real compassion is meeting someone where they are and getting them to the next step on their Journey not yours yeah real compassion is understanding what inspires that person what moves them what motivates them and if it's not the same as me that's okay we were just talking about this menu we both love Christmas and my wife likes Christmas but I'm obsessed I love Christmas right and so I was like this weekend I was like it's Thanksgiving we're gonna go buy a tree we're gonna go put it up we're going to play Christmas music while we put it up and she's like sure sure and I can't expect her to be as excited as me I think that's unhealthy because can I be as excited about food as she is I can't I I genuinely I love her food I'm excited about it I can't be as excited as she is we see our partners not being as excited as us as discredit to our likes and dislikes right so true right we see if they're not as excited about Christmas as I am then they don't love me enough why or there's something wrong with me or how much I love this correct yeah or I'm wrong maybe I should like something else maybe I'm not cool enough yeah uh yeah maybe they like cooler stuff and so we we make everything so much more different than what it truly is which is just everyone has different likes and dislikes everyone has different values and let's learn to love how much our partners love what they love rather than Force our partners to love what we love I love that so much and you you bring up values a lot which I love right it's so important as we start to talk about this though like for instance when you identified that you didn't have the same values as she did how do you make it work because I I think of values personally slightly differently I think of values as being like the core of my being like the core of my being is I would do anything for my family but I don't show up every day like I would do anything for my family now if Tom is like I would never [ __ ] do that like why would you ever show up for your family like I would burn my family to the ground for my business now imagine I'm the opposite of value right that's so true I love how you sound like him too all the language but see that's how well you know each other's values that you can literally say it in his words but in this situation where if I was to say look I'll burn the company down before I ever impact my relationship with my family if Tom was the opposite now our values are directly conflicting with each other right and so but the truth is is that both Tom and I while we spend most of our time on the business we have different interests in the business but we do spend most of our time at the end of the day we would both burn the company down to the ground for the sake of our family yeah um so how do you start to differentiate between the value system of how you show up every day and make these decisions to the core values of your being because I believe you and radian I'll put it in my own words not to throw words in your mouth your base core Foundation values is exactly the same meaning that she'd never ask you to not be yourself because she so appreciates and respects you that she understands your core values of your purpose is fundamentally who you are and so she'd never ask you to go past that I think you have the same respect with her so even though yours is purposes and has this family the core of it is very aligned yeah no that's a great breakdown and I I think that what you're saying with core values because you and Tom are married and you have a bit and you have multiple businesses together at this point it's like that's impacts a lot of life right like you both are building the same thing and a part of a bigger thing that's different when you're in business together because yes you do need the same core value because you're building something and that whereas when you're building a marriage and and looking at values yes I would agree that me and Riley do have the same core being values about each other but I guess what I'm saying is I would never ask her to trade her family for purp for my purpose and she'd never asked me to trade my purpose for her family we accept that we're both individuals who have certain things that are deeply important to us and the more you get to do what's important to you that fulfills you and fuels you but you're not going to pull me away from what's important to me to make yourself feel better you realize that I need that too because what ends up happening is let's say every time I had I'm using my example I mean I'll take a client like I had a client who was an athlete and he wanted his partner to be there at every game in the stands cheering him on right he wanted her to be every game cheering him on in the stands going yeah honey like come on whatever like off the game like bring the kids hug him like that's what he wanted now she was really successful in her own right and had her own business she had to be on work trips she had to be traveling on weekends she couldn't be there every weekend and he couldn't understand how anything was more important than her being at the game he was just like how how can you not the game is the most important thing and she was like honey I know the game is important whenever I'm in town I'll be there but I'm also building something that's important to me so that's where I go that's what I've seen break relationships apart where it's like you don't value my values as much as me and no one can like as much as she loves him and she loves the game she can't say that game is more important than my business that's not fair to her and I've seen too many people put their values or purpose on the back burner for decades only three decades later to say I was so focused on helping you get to where you wanted I didn't get to where I wanted and when you're 50 60 years old and feeling that way I don't think there's anything more hurtful that you think the people that you love and the person that you love they got everything they wanted out of life but you didn't and I think that's really hard that's what I'm trying to speak to if that makes sense that was so powerful um and obviously I've I've been in that situation right for eight years I was supporting Tom I let go of my own values my own purpose like um and it wasn't until I realized oh I need to actually speak up I need to say that I'm the one like hey I'm not happy here um and I didn't do that and so that was really I think a powerful part of what you just said and then that's The Bravery oh sorry please I'm just saying but that's your bravery right like and I and I said this to you on message yesterday we were messaging about today and I really mean this I said the same thing to Tom like you guys are such an amazing couple the way you share advice I learn from you guys every day I love your rules I love your principles I love everything you share about relationships but you've also been through multiple relationship Transitions and what you just spoke about it took bravery and self-awareness on your part to actually share it and twist the plot it's a plot twist I Tom thinks he's getting a housewife the housewife goes I want to be an entrepreneur right yeah and it's like it's a plot twist and it's like oh wow and then it's beautiful that Tom was open to that transition going well if Lisa wants to be happy and this is going to make her happy if I love her I should support her but I see that either happening too late where someone sat in silence like people sit in silence of what they want in a relationship for decades and then when they finally raise their voice their partner thinks why didn't you tell me earlier but then they think well why didn't you care about what I wanted either why was it always about you and then it becomes so complicated so the fact that you had the courage to do that after eight years is incredible and the fact that Tom had the companionship to want to work with you on that that's what a beautiful relationship is made of but I find that that transition often doesn't go as healthily and smoothly because the person in Tom's position goes but you committed to this you signed up for this you subscribe to this like how are you copying out now oh you're not the person I thought you were right right that was thank you that's very kind coming from you and the one thing that I loved that you talk about but I didn't have words to it but you call it like your Dharma yeah and that when you have um they're basically there's three relationships in your relationship and it all comes back to dharma's explain that to me because like having a word to use was so powerful because I think that's what made me pivot right that's what exactly allowed me to go oh I don't want to live this life this is a life that I now want and allow Tom to support me yeah so Dharma is the odharma is The Vedic word for purpose and Dharma is made up of three key things the first is your passions the second is your strengths or expertise and the third is service it has to be used to serve other people so when you know what you love and you know what you're good at and then you use that to serve people or impact people that's Dharma and what we find is that every relationship is made up of three relationships the one you have with each other but then there's two more the one with you have with your purpose and the one they have with their purpose and often what ends up happening is we make it all about this relationship with each other and we ignore our independent and Collective purposes and so I find that what you found in that scenario taking your example was you had this spark inside of you saying I have a purpose too I have a Dharma too I have something to offer the world and I see that today when I was walking down here and I made a little video that I'm going to post but I was looking at all your artwork and it's unbelievable right you come to this set and you see this show and you're like look at what you've achieved like look what you've built and you've constantly make struck made strides to move closer to your Dharma it didn't happen in one go it wasn't just like oh one day oh honey I'm not a housewife anymore I'm just gonna go out there it was no I'm I'm doing this oh now I get this inkling that I should be in front of camera too like I want to interview people too I have a I have a message yes oh you know what I used to love art at school and my teachers used to always tell me that I couldn't draw in pain but I really feel inspired I'm going to give myself permission and then you clearly it's like so that's the journey that I'm encouraging people to go on and voice that to your partner explain it to them don't just do it in a silo what we often feel about our partners is if they don't ask they don't care if they're not asking me about my purpose or my Dharma or my passions they don't care chances are your partner doesn't have the vocabulary either chances are they don't know that and so involve them in that conversation say to them hey you know what I've really been struggling with like finding meaning in life at the moment and I'm just trying to find what I want to do in the world and what I want to give to the world and open up that dialogue I think the problem is most of our conversations about our partners happen with other people right we talk about our persistence our friends our brothers everyone but we don't talk about it with them and and it's really strange to me that literally for years you can go years and years and years talking about your partner to everyone else in your life but them talk to them I I sit down with so many people who tell me their challenge I'll be like can you say that to your partner just like you said it to me because when you said it to me it was really calm it was perfect but when you say it to them it's an accusation when you say it to them it's pointing fingers so please go and say to them in this way because I I promise you if if you can sit down and help your partner out with what you're thinking and what you're feeling they have a better opportunity of being there for you and the reason why I'm giving the responsibility to you to this person is because the more you sit there expecting someone to understand you you're taking away time from you expressing what you're going through you expressing what you're going through is going to lead to a healthy relationship you expecting the other person to understand you without your expression you'll be waiting for your entire lifetime that that is so strong because a lot of us don't want to feel needy right it's like what I need but now I'm going to be that woman that's really really needy this was me and Tom right so I was like I can't tell him what I want like I'm just into him and then in the hint when he wouldn't get there in it was like oh he does he doesn't even listen he doesn't even pay attention and I told this story I think I've told you a bit stop me if I have already but this came to fruition in this one instance when Tom and I very first met it was Christmas time and I was hinting to him Jay that I wanted to watch because I can tell him right it was like I can't ask for a watch like that's extravagant so I was hinting I was hinting months go by I told him that I'm hinting he's like I've nailed him I know exactly what you want so Christmas day comes and we were split we were apart he was an American I was in England and I opened up expecting to see a watch and it was teeth whitening strips wow that is so bad it's so bad how the woman went not just that that's what I'm saying five gifts like healthy did I complain about them why I'm waiting do you think my teeth are not white enough like yeah that's terrible Tom and in that moment I realized he was so excited because he thought he nailed it yeah so leading up to me opening the gift he was I can't wait I've got it I've never so when it was so wrong I just had to laugh and then when I told him the story it broke his heart at first and I was like oh my God I find this so funny and he's like I thought I nailed it and seeing that I disappointed him because I wasn't just saying what I actually wanted was a very early lesson for us that people aren't mind readers you've got to take upon up for Success if you really believe they want to deliver for you yeah then you're not telling them is actually doing them a disservice I love that I love that and I love that story too it's so good it's so good me and Riley have a gift story similar to that but she wasn't well yeah I I probably reacted like not as well as you did did you yeah do you know this story so it was Christmas as well or maybe I think it was Christmas on my birthday I'm trying to remember it was early on and um I'd dropped a lot of hints too as to me wanting a white iPad Mini like I wanted one of those small iPad mini's it's very clear about wanting to be white very clear about the iPad very clear about the mini this is like you know 10 years ago now uh and I'm asking for this gift and and hinting again I'm not being over I'm hinting Christmas day comes when my birthday comes can't remember which one it's all wrapped up beautifully and all the rest of it and and it's it's the exact side I'm so excited I'll open it up it's an Asus a what exactly no offense the ace is the Run well it's an Asus so Asus makes tablets and I'm sure they're wonderful tablets I'm sure they're wonderful and I'm no no offense tenacious I I've never used one but no offense I wanted a what and so I looked at her and she was like is everything okay and I was like you were kind of there like she was closer than Tom but but I was like like what made you get this and she was like oh you know what I was doing to my family and they told me you could get a really good deal and this was like the best value for money and like this is like a really smart one to get because it's like the most amount of this for this and I was like oh interesting and it really hit me that like rather you tried it better she was about to buy an iPad she spoke to someone who had a different set of values she spoke to someone at a different Insight on what was important for them important was saving money buying something that had the right thing and obviously everyone who's watching this in the comments is going to be like yeah Apple's not great for Tech right all the people who don't think happens great and I agree with all of that I love the user experience I'm basic I'm basic I want the user experience and you have your preference and what I realized was she tried her best but it's like that's when what happens when you listen to other people instead of listening to your partner and that's what we do a lot of we listen to other people in our relationships and I used to do the opposite so by the way I made mistakes too with Robbie whenever she'd say she'd like something I wanted to be Superman so I'd buy it immediately and she'd have it the next day and she'd look at it and be like oh no I was just thinking about it like I don't even want it I was just thinking it might be useful and then she wouldn't use it and I'd be like that's terrible like I just get a gift I got it for you fast and again it's like we're not listening I'm not really listening I just want to be Superman I just want to be seen as like the oil provider and can do anything and now I feel sad because I didn't listen to you and so I would encourage people to speak more to your partner about your partnership listen more to your partner about your Partnership of course take advice and guidance but but don't stop talking to each other because in those moments you almost both feel badly right you feel like I'm glad I'm not Superman like this is something that I value in myself exactly to be there for my wife and now rally though doesn't feel hurt like it's almost like just because I said it like that isn't right like or the fix it thing where it's like oh my God I really want to get at you she's like well don't you know me I'm just thinking through it and now she feels like you don't even know me you think that I just want to run you to run out and get it and now you're both missing that beat exactly and as we start to talk through right you've met someone you've found someone in your life as we start to talk through these struggle moments these are the moments that the small things can start to stack so if you don't mind talking about the big key items that actually get us into danger in our relationship but also these small little things where you don't feel heard you don't feel like you're giving a chance and now over time you put these big things with these day-to-day things and now you blink and you wonder what happened to your relationship yeah absolutely I think you have to think about this especially when you're building a home with someone you have to think about a crack in your floors or a crack in the wall at start it's just a little crack or maybe it's not even a crack it's just a scratch right it's just a scratch and you're like it's just a scratch it's okay you can't see it just cover it with the couch right that's like a scratch in your relationship there's something about your partner you're not fully comfortable with but it's okay it's fine you can look over it it's it's a it's tolerable all of a sudden that scratch turns into a little crack now it annoys you every time you see in your living room you're like oh God I wish I wasn't there all right but I could still cover it up we do that in our relationship oh yeah it doesn't matter it's not important we don't need to talk about it we don't need to worry about it it's all good the thing is as time goes on all of these cracks get bigger now that cracks like going up the wall or going down the floor and now you're looking at it going that needs to get changed and by then you're thinking about changing it now when you apply that to a partner it's like am I with the right person right you're asking different questions and the problem is you're waiting to ask an extreme question before solving a small problem and if you just dealt with it when it was there where it was it would be so much healthier and I think we're scared like you said because we don't want to be needy we don't want to come across as demanding and we don't want to come across as someone who always needs something fixed all healthy things but I think there's a way of talking about these things that we often underestimate so if I'm going to bring up something like this to radhi first thing I'd say is hey I noticed this is going on is there something you're struggling with to to make this right or what what are you going through that it's this way so I'm trying to understand saying I've noticed something but I'm not placing my assumption on it I'm not saying I noticed this and I feel like you don't care about me let me take a beat and say I noticed this what's going on and she may say to me Jeff just had so much on this week been really stressed out I'm sorry I forgot about that I I just had a lot on right or she may say oh I didn't realize that was important to you I didn't even know like it wasn't even like I was trying to make it but I just didn't realize that was important to you I I didn't know whereas when you walk in there and you're already assuming and you're you're accusing someone and you go yeah you you know you just always never do the dishes you never do this you never do that you never finish this that person doesn't get a chance to have a conversation with you now they're going to defense mode and so what I find is that accusing your partner feels like an attack and that doesn't create an opportunity to connect it creates an opportunity for them to defend now you're an attack in defense mode instead of in connection mode and that's all created because of how you phrased what you noticed like literally the time so the tiny things are tiny but the tiniest thing is how you say something to your partner I promise you you could give feedback to your partner and it could transform your lives or you could say something to your partner and it would force them to feel like you don't like them or care about them just in how you said it oh my God I love that and you talk about how we don't talk about conflict enough so we don't talk about how to handle conflict and it really hit me like it struck me like a you know ton of bricks I love being like stopped in my tracks when you're like we all talk about love languages but none of us talk about conflict languages yes like talk to me about how we our conflict language and how we approach this dude it's [ __ ] genius oh I think well I I smell a lot of time I love Gary Chapman's five love languages I recommend every couple's does it it's fantastic when I looked at the gottman Institute research John and Julie gottman who have interviewed a bunch of times they talk about how we need skills in relationships and the number one skill we need is learning how to fight learning how to argue now I'm not saying that you should be having full-blown arguments where you're swearing at each other and cussing each other out and then afterwards being like we love each other but you are going to disagree you are going to debate and you are going to argue in any relationship it is unlikely for there to not be that so why not be prepared so I thought about this a lot and I really thought about it with me and radi and I realized that just as we have Love Languages we have fight Styles and so just imagine this for a second you fight MMA but your partner's a kickboxer right it's not working you can't mix those Styles as much because that person's not being able to fight on the same playing field there are three fight styles that I discovered the first fight style is venting aventor is I want to talk about it I want to talk about it now we have to solve it now I'm a classic Venter right I'm a classic inventor and then the second fight style is hiding hiding is I want to go into a little room I want to be on my own and I want to figure out by myself and I don't know when I'm coming out there's a lot of people who like to hide and the third one is exploding where it's like everything becomes bigger where it's like God you always do this it never goes right I'm feeling so much pain like you just every you all your emotions just explode so you're not trying to you're not feeling like you need to talk about it now you're not running away it's just exploding none of these are good or bad or wrong or right no one should feel less than because we deal with it a certain way we deal with it the way our parents dealt with it we deal with it the way our parents didn't fulfill in us or people in our lifetime fulfilling us it comes from our trauma so for me I'm a fixer I want to solve it now rather is a Haider when I first shared with radi that I got a new job offer to move to New York this was six years ago seven years ago radi didn't talk to me for two days because she was so scared that she'd have to leave her family and this was one of the biggest transitions we went through in our lives but because I knew family was her priority I was already aware this was going to be tough for her I knew she would need space her way of telling me we could move to New York two days later where she bought New York bed sheets and she put them on the bed and I was like does that mean New York's here or does that mean sorry we're not going to do it again anyway we moved to New York and now we live in L.A but the point I'm making is that for years me and Rodney argued because she wanted to hide and think about things and I wanted to talk about it and for me anytime she wanted to hide the voice in my head said she doesn't care about you she doesn't care about this relationship you value this relationship more she needed space because she was like I value this relationship I love you I need to think about this she was like I don't need I don't want to say some things I don't mean I don't want to say something hurtful so I need to decompress without knowing our fight Styles we both walk away feeling like the other person doesn't care when actually their style shows they care in their language so then we realized Riley needed two days I wanted to talk about it now we found a happy medium when we meet to talk about an argument for us after four hours to 12 hours that's our our Gap that we give each other for us now that for you that may be one day for you it may be one hour we found that our sweet spot was that I didn't want to wait longer than four to 12 hours to talk about a fight and she didn't want to wait any less than because she needed it and is that how you came to that conclusion where you both sat down she said look this is what I need you said okay this is what I need U.S um maybe vocalized at two hours two days was too long right correct okay that's cool yeah exactly like a compromise yeah and it is and and what I see is like healthy game planning right it's like saying like we know we're gonna argue next time and when we have a disagreement or we're coming home from a family event we both have a fight about something ridiculous I don't want to wait two days to talk about it and she's like but I need four to 12 hours to talk about it and I have to think about it I'm like that's cool so you're creating a healthy standard for you that you're both aware of now I'm not anxious going oh my God what are we going to talk about it right and she's not anxious going oh my God I'm gonna get rushed into a conversation and I find like these simple things break relationships because we don't create strategies and skills around our feelings and I think the other issue is you just said a word and it really hit me we often tell our partners what we need but we don't tell them enough why we need it and I cannot emphasize the why more importantly I can say to radi hey rather you know what I need this weekend to myself or I want to spend this weekend with the guys guess what if you leave that sentence incomplete without the why your partner could well off think they don't want to spend time with me they don't enjoy spending time with me they choose those friends over me that could be the voice in their head even if they're secure even if they love you even if you have a great relationship if you explain what you need you're letting your partner autofill why you need it whereas when you say you know what I haven't seen one of my best friends for like a month just want to hang out with him so I'm going to take or even I know it's our only free evening this week would you mind if I just spend time with him I often say to write the rather you know what I'm going into a interview mode for the next few weeks I'm I'm going on so many podcasts I'm going so many events I want to be prepared I want to be organized I'm going to be less present unless you really want me to be and tell me you want me to be present but just so you know I'm going to be on my phone I'm gonna be doing this now that she knows that she knows if she needs my attention she can say hey I want you to be present but she also is not mad at me for being on my phone but when you don't say that and you just do it and you go well you should know how hard I'm working you should know how much I've got going on it's like can you expect that person to know so I feel these little things create big issues in relationships and I just wish you know the book gives tools and questions and ways to start conversations to help you have healthier conversations dude that was so good I love that you warned her even about the phases that you're going into like that's so amazing so that she doesn't start especially if it's a phase that becomes you know I'm sure for you it's like months and months of this book launch right so kind of going into it going okay it's not just going to be one week and if I say to hey look for this week I'm just not going to be available and then the next week you say again the next week you say again now she's like hang on a minute am I just chump change exactly but being able to say for the next two months babe this is what I'm focused on but if you need me I'll show up but I'm not necessarily going to appear out of my own fruition correct and this is what I'm gonna need like I I you may find that I'm a bit more stressed I'm a bit more Snappy I'm a bit like and that's all self-awareness right but we're scared of saying that because we want to be perfect all the time and we want our partner to be perfect and I'm not scared to say to right they're like hey I'm going to be a bit more like you know on edge I'm going to be a bit more like not like in in a crazy way but like you know I may be a bit more stressed this week I may be a bit more overworked this week I may be coming home and not want to talk about my day because I'm really tired right these are all healthy conversations or saying to your partner like I've got a really big thing on Tuesday and I'm preparing for it to Monday night you know and so I please communicate your why to your partner not just the what because chances are you're losing everything in Translation because your partner can connect with your why even if they can't connect with your what right if I say I need time to myself someone may not understand that but if I say any time to myself because I'm tired someone can accept and understand that and so give your again what you just said set your partner up for success with you don't wait for them to fail yeah um all right so I love this and I definitely got to talk about that last piece a quote of yours that I freaking love is love doesn't disintegrate overnight dude a game that really hit me because the amount of people are just like I blinked and like our relationship fell apart that freaking winds me up because you never just blink ever and so when I go what is it that people are on addressing where they feel like they've blinked and now sitting in front of them the person they used to love is no longer the person they even feel like they know yeah I think the challenge is we think we fall in love overnight and that's why we think we fall out of love overnight right we want to find that moment that we fell in love that was it a wedding day our engagement day or whatever it was the day we had this day and we're like we fell in love and that's why we assume oh you can fall out of love in a day and the truth is we know that both of those are untrue because there were many days many weeks many months and many years that led to the day you said you're not right for me anymore right there were so many it wasn't one moment it wasn't one argument there were hundreds of moments there were tens of arguments that led to that one day that you told someone I don't think we're right for each other anymore I love your question because I think it's so important to address that love doesn't disintegrate overnight and what I find is that we're holding on to a particular picture of love we have an image of what love is and we don't have an image of what it could be or how it grows we don't want things we if you think about how we think about things we're like let's go back to the place we first went on a date there's something nostalgic about that but there's something limiting about that too we always want to go backwards our wedding day was the happiest day we had we're not open to the fact that doing new things together changing growing what I love about something that you and Tom do you have your tradition of where Tom flips you down like holds you right yeah yeah but you do it in lots of different places you're not limiting it to we can only do it in the place we met because that's what it symbolizes so I think a lot of couples are trying to have the same love instead of a new love so there's two types of relationships one is what I call an old love that becomes old you've been in love with this person for a long time but you got bored of each other it got old it doesn't it didn't feel new then you have an old relationship like yours in Toms 20 plus years but you keep finding new things about each other keeps it fresh so those are the two options we have you either live in a world where you've been with someone for a long time and it got old old or you live in a relationship where even though I've been with someone for a long time I'm always discovering new things about them I'm always wanting to grow and I think that's where love disintegrates is when we say our wedding day was love now what that moment was love I didn't get that I didn't get that I didn't get that I didn't get that and then all of a sudden now I'm dealing with the leftovers um and I share four e's in the book for growing Intimacy in a relationship and this is how your intimacy has to change so the base level of spending time with someone is doing entertainment together far too many couples the only time they spend together is watching a show that is a very low vibration of intimacy why it's a very low shared experience when you watch a show together it's not deeply meaningful and your response to it is not deeply meaningful you watch it so that was a good episode yeah great all right let's go sleep right and that's what we connected on that day we connected on something shallow in a shallow way how does that create depth and intimacy I'm not saying don't go to the movies I go to the movies with Rodney I I do a lot of entertaining things but that can't be your only form of connection like what we spend two hours together every night well no you don't you watch two hours of TV together every night intimacy dips as the vibration dips the vibration of connecting over entertainment is so futile that it does not create a deep relationship better than entertainment is experiments and experiences together let's go experiment let's go try Pottery you've never done that before the definition uh let's go try archery we've never done that before uh let's go um I don't know to a VR room or an escape room let's go do something we've never done before what this does is it puts you on an equal playing field most of the time what happens in our relationship is we do something our partners knows more about so they're teaching us or we do something we know more about so we're teaching them I.E if me and Riley are in the kitchen and she's teaching me about herbs I know nothing she's the expert if I don't know what I know more than rather if I'm doing something else I'm teaching her right and what ends up happening in that is we're not having a shared experience there's one person is the expert one person's a student there's no shared experience there one person's teaching the other person's learning so when you go and do something that neither of you are good at you're on a Level Playing Field now you're truly having a shared experience I remember this the first time me and radi went snorkeling the first time we went um paddle boarding the first time we went surfing together we'd never done any of these things independently and when we did these things and we tried these new things out you learn new things about your partner so is it the fact that you're also struggling together correct yes yeah exactly you're both going into beginner mode together where now all your flaws come out your good things come out your quirks come out like more of you is exposed in a healthy way so that creates intimacy and newness even not even it's not about more but another deeper way of deepening intimacy is getting educated together when you go and learn together maybe go to therapy maybe you go to coaching maybe go and do a course together maybe you're both learning from experts and Masters and teachers together when you're learning together and then you reflect it's so powerful I know you and Tom know all about that like when you feel you've been in a room and you've both learned something or you've come out of a podcast and then I know you when you when you're reviewing the podcast you're both listening to the same podcast I can only imagine the conversations you have and then higher than that or a deeper way than that is engagement and what engagement is when you go and serve together when you go create an impact together maybe go help out a soup kitchen maybe go feed the Homeless maybe you go and take care of animals whatever it may be like when you go and serve together when you go into the trenches together when you go and struggle together that builds intimacy the problem is as relationships get longer we do less and less of all of these things we hang on to entertainment and then we wonder how the love disintegrate yeah God that is so freaking beautiful and being able to understand ahead of time um can like I think save a lot of relationships but even if you find yourself in the moment where maybe your relationship you're not feeling like you were really connected I think so many of the things that you've just broken down it's never too late like so where do you think at the point of is there like okay now I should be splitting and finding somebody new because I'm not right in this relationship or they're not right for me where is that fine line it's a big question we spend a bunch of chapters in the book like really going through this because I don't think it should be a flippant decision it shouldn't be an opinion it shouldn't be a quick thing there's a lot to Value one of the things I encourage all couples to do is expand their scorecard so I think we score keep a lot with our partners we score keep like oh I always say sorry in an argument first one nil to me um oh I always uh think about the weekend and plan events too nil to me like we're constantly thinking like one up on the partner and I often ask people to zoom out and do an activity which is a five level scorecard so write down the words physical mental emotional financial and spiritual and then right next to it the name of the partner you think leads on that area so when I think of physical I'm talking about physical groceries I'm talking about physical things around the home cleanliness keeping the home a nice space creating a nice environment right that's physical mentors like who's leading the organizing the trips the planning of the house emotional who's leading emotionally and intimately who's leading financially and then who's leading spiritually energetically when people zoom out and judge their scorecard this way more often than not people find they're a lot more equal but when you zoom into your little area of what you think you do more it's really easy for you to be like well I'm the breadwinner I'm doing more for this relationship but when you zoom out and you look at a relationship you go oh oh they're actually doing a lot more than I thought and I think you have to do the activity and if you find that there's still a massive discrepancy that's when you're having the leaving conversation yeah but if you do the activity and you go they do more than I even thank them for and I realize I feel like that I do that rather with Riley often and I find every time I do that I'm actually not smart enough to notice the good she brings to a relationship because sometimes it's more intangible but the intangible stuff is really powerful and it's so underestimated we we estimate the tangible stuff as being the real success but someone who emotionally regulates a relationship someone who mentally regulates a relationship is so powerful I actually love that you said that because it's someone being identified as the lead of taking that is important because I think so many people come to us like well what are you doing totally what are you doing emotion well you know like I've done this and so actually saying actually one of us is better at it and then Tom and I have had that discussion I'm way better at it than he is wait he could go months and then he'd be like oh [ __ ] I feel really weird because I haven't connected with my wife yeah right whereas I will see it in week two and I'll be like oh babe we're getting dangerous here in another two weeks that's when you're gonna feel it and because we've identified it I now don't feel bad or neglected yeah it's like the poor guy it's just not his expertise like instead of judging him for it we just accept it Jay this has been so confusing where can people find your amazing book uh eight rulesoflove.com is the place to find the book so eight rules of love the name of the book.com you'll see this big red l-o-v-e sign I wanted to spread love across the world so I'm hoping everyone see this book everywhere uh and of course uh on my social media channels Instagram uh at Jay Shetty and Tick Tock at Jay Shetty are the best places right now guys if you want to go deeper and actually know if you are compatible or not then check out this interview right here with my girl Spirit where I want to start is I heard you say something super freaking powerful which was there's a massive difference between chemistry and compatibility oh yeah like I'd mentioned in my intro chemistry sometimes it just happens you don't have to work at it sometimes it's just sparks flying and you can't help and there's like such fire between you and that is Nature's Way of making sure that we procreate right so that's it that is exactly it and so it's all chemical you're not in control of that that's why sometimes if you've ever walked into a room and you've been like oh my gosh our eyes locked and I was just on fire and everything about them is amazing and sometimes you don't even want to let them go when you realize they're not the right person for you out of the bedroom and you go everything else is wrong with this relationship but my gosh when we're together the fire is just incredible that is chemistry history my dear right but that doesn't last right nature makes sure that you procreate and you basically move on so I've been married now for 18 years I just had my 18-year wedding anniversary and it has been very difficult hard work but the most beautiful work I could ever possibly do in my life but the reason why we have been able to sustain 18 years is because every step of the way we have been in communication about what works for him what works for me and our compatibility as we change and grow like one thing I was very aware of and I would love to dive so deep with you girl is to talk about addressing issues as they come up how to make sure that you are compatible and not just staying with someone because you're holding on to an old fiction of what you thought you were or were going to be yeah and then making sure that you're addressing that so you don't hold on to resentment and grudges because those are the things that I think will eventually be the downfall to people's relationships and it becomes a point where it's been splintered for too long so talk to me about the process from chemistry to then finding out if you're compatible and then we can go down to how we can make sure that we don't then become resentful and grudgeful down the road I love this we are talking about everything that I want to talk about so this is so exciting okay and it's important too and the reason for that is because oftentimes people are afraid as chemistry changes they're afraid and they mistake the chemistry changing for them falling out of love okay so what happens is when we first have initial chemistry we call it NRE which stands for new relationship energy when we have new relationship energy with somebody that we first start dating it's everything is incredible everything is amazing and intense and our bodies literally respond to that that chemistry we have more dopamine flowing in our bodies more adrenaline flowing it's literally a chemical process that allows us to feel what feels like love but it actually is lust right so it just like you said it's the thing that really makes our heart beat faster it makes our palms sweaty it makes our pupils dilate the thing that gives us butterflies in our stomach when we're talking about or see the person and so that actually lasts roughly for about 18 to 24 months and just as you said for the exact reason it's all about procreating that's why early in our relationships we find that we are having sex like rabbits and all we want to do is really just be with them and experience them in any and every way possible well it's your body's way of tricking you into actually getting pregnant right but because after we get pregnant we can't keep focusing on one another like we actually have to focus on The Offspring that we've actually created the brain goes through another chemical process around 18 to 24 months and so now instead of us having all that new relationship energy now we've got bonding hormones present so all the oxytocin all the the the good feelings that make us feel more like we're great friends something almost like how you would feel feel for a sibling or your best girlfriend or your best guy friend and all of a sudden if we're not careful and we don't know what that is we go this relationship has lost its fire it doesn't really have the same Flair and some people will mistakenly go off to start other relationships in search of that new relationship energy and other people will say oh okay well I guess that's what is what relationships are so now I'm going to accept kind of this humdrum mellow kind of thing instead of looking to revive my relationship over and over again so we have to talk about that new relationship energy because when we're in that space Also our brains are so Love Drunk literally that we're not sure whether or not we're compatible with somebody we actually made mistake that chemistry for compatibility but compatibility is actually very different and compatibility is about how do we line up in the areas of our lives in such a way that if you never changed and I never changed we would still fit like a glove and we would both be happy and have our needs met in this relationship for the rest of our lives so how do you then start to work on that compatibility for a long-term relationship um because there's going to be many elements I call it like dust settling so let's say you're not compatible when you you butt heads on something it's like okay well you still have a bit of the flutter so you don't really address it and so the dust kind of settles and then a year goes by and you still don't really say anything and that thing that you kind of thought was annoying but you still love them for it now is just freaking annoying right and it starts to build up and just like thus settling it becomes so big it's you can't clean it anymore yeah they're deal breakers and it's so funny you know I just found this meme the other day that I shared with my husband and I said this is how relationships work and it said you know early in the relationship when you're first lying together in bed at night all you want to do is put your head on their chest and listen to their heartbeat and that is the Rhythm that rocks you to sleep and then somewhere years later you go you know I'm gonna record you at night so you can hear how loud you're snoring because I want to kill you and I want you to know it too right right and that's the thing that's the thing that didn't happen overnight right it's not like you like one day and went oh yes I loved it and now he just freaking annoys me so where's the Gap because that's I think something that we people don't talk about enough about how to avoid those little things that end up becoming like the biggest freaking splinter in your relationship yeah and I say you have to learn these things so that you can avoid what I call a starter marriage which is you marry for the wrong reasons all of a sudden somewhere down the road years later you find that this is not the relationship for you and unfortunately in order for both of you to be happy you wind up having to leave and be with other people and take what you learned with you so these are the tools and the lessons that we really need to learn in order to avoid the starter marriage okay and so what I like to tell people is when you are dating that is the perfect time to really go slow and take stock and you have to see dating much like you see interviewing for a job so if you've ever been a supervisor or a manager I want you to think about dating in the very same way because you are hiring for the most important position on Earth and that position is for your life mate and that's how we have to see dating we have to look at the individuals that we are dating as potential candidates to fill this position instead of dating thinking that this person is supposed to be our life mate so unfortunately we give boyfriends or girlfriends the husband or wife experience when we don't even know if we should be hiring them for that position okay so it's got to be like a test drive so when we're first interviewing people they're like candidates and you go well tell me about yourself well tell me where you're from and you're thinking about them within context of your employment right in terms of the organization that you're thinking about having them come on board you might like them and interview them a second time or a third time you may have them meet other employees of the company in Social settings over dinner or in the boardroom during meetings dating should be very similar to that because what you're wanting to learn is who this person is you're wanting to get past the representative right because their representative is not who they are their representative is who they think you want them to be so that's very important because they're filtering you and trying to adjust why you're filtering them so we've got all this early filtering going on and we need to see them in different environments and then compare do they actually appear to be who they say that they are over time right because people will tell you one thing but their behavior can tell you something completely different it takes time in order to see that and the hard part is unfortunately not only do we often jump in bed too quickly and the reason why the jumping in bed is important is because the moment that we bring sex in all of those hormones flood our systems and it clouds our judgment again we go back to being Love Drunk I literally am intoxicated the moment that I have sex with you and I am not going to see you the same so it's like going to bed at two with a 10 and then waking up at 10 with a two what do you mean by that right I mean so if I'm partying I'm having a great time by the time I go to the club and it's 2 A.M the person that I'm leaving with in my drunken state in my high state in my party State they are a 10. it's two in the morning I'm feeling great everything is wonderful I am going home with a 10. okay then at 10 in the morning after all of those intoxicants have come out of my bloodstream and I'm sober and I roll over and I wake up with you and all of your makeup is on the pillowcase or all of my face here as the man is on the pillowcase and we've taken off all of the lashes and the nails and I get to see you all of a sudden I'm like whoa who are you you're a two you are not a 10 you are a two you are not somebody that I would have actually dated so we need to be able to see that person with a clear eye and sex complicates that because it literally clouds our brain it gives us a brain fog so the longer that we can hold out on the sex the more objective we can be about who the person is that's important the other part of this is we have to know that over time time is what allows us to see a person in different situations we can talk about theoretically whether or not we think we line up in a particular way but having actual experiences where we're challenged to see who we are is totally different which is why to go back to the starter marriage I often tell folks if you really want to know who somebody is divorce them right or break up with them many people learn way more about a person at the end of a relationship than they did in the entire relationship so it is not about time that heals all wounds or creates something different but what you do with that time so therefore it is also important in terms of compatibility how we date a person if every time we date we just go out to dinner in a movie we're not having any conversation how do I know about you how do I know about how you handle challenges how do I know how you handle being caught off guard how do I know how you handle social settings how do I know how you treat other people if we only date in places and spaces that never really show me who you are but now when we're together I'm not dating you to just have fun nights I'm dating you in places and spaces that require the full range of you to show up if we don't ever exercise that point of who we are until we're already married or until we've already moved in together or we've already created children or other kind of Lifetime commitments that find us stuck together we've created a whole set of problems for ourselves that now we may be resentful of now we may be frustrated with now we may become annoyed because I'm stuck with you in a different way and I'm going to make different choices based upon those consequences that we've already created oh that was so amazing God that was fire um so I understand in asking the questions I love that take your time um the one thing I always say is you earn your credibility so it's over time right it's like when you need them are they going to be there they may say they are but time and time again if you've asked have they showed up so it's kind of like overtime test not even test them but like put them in different situations I freaking love that so much um so but what happens though especially let's say someone like me who's married young you change over time and so certain things that you know may come up as your partner is changing becomes more and more irritable but again it's like well we've been together for five years or whatever and so you you often make excuses for the little things that start to frustrate you only for it to then build build build build so let's say someone hasn't you know is in the middle of their relationship and so what you have just said has already passed they have they're stuck with me especially while we're in quarantine and things like that so how would you then advise somebody in fact here's a question if you have some animosity or resentment or Grudge whatever word you want to use towards someone whose responsibility is it to get over it ah okay so the real answer to that is that it's both of your problem because there are three parts to this scenario there's you there's your partner and there's the relationship and the relationship is its own living breathing entity and it's up to the two of you to constantly work together in Partnership to resolve the problems in your relationship so I often tell people you are not the problem and your partner is not the problem the problems are the problem and it's up to the two of you to work together as a team to solve the problems what typically happens though is when one of us is frustrated about a thing we personalize it and blame the person right you are the thing that's making me feel this way instead of owning I feel a particular kind of way or I'm having a particular kind of experience in this relationship with you and that's not the experience that I want so we spend unfortunately too much time talking about the problems and not the solution oftentimes when I have couples that come in for couples counseling they can tell me Ad nauseam what the problems are in their relationship right because they've talked about it a thousand times they can say it was 1976 and you had on the purple shirt and I was wearing that and we were standing over there and we go guys so let me make sure we're arguing about something that happened 40 4 45 years ago okay so now the problem is because couples get hung up on talking about the problem instead of we understand we have communicated we're in agreement that we know what the problem is even if we don't see it the same way we've identified succinctly what the problem is now what we're going to do is not talk about the problem anymore but we're going to talk about all the possible solutions for the problem whether we're going to implement them or not let's just weigh out our options and see what they are now once we brainstorm all of the solutions we are then going to pick one or two of those solutions to try okay who's going to be responsible for what well I'm going to have to do this part and that means that I'll have to do this part okay I'm in agreement once we come up with the solutions we have to decide then how long to try those solutions for all too often we say okay that's fine so I'm just going to do that going forward that is what it is but because old habits die hard and sometimes they don't die at all it's important that we decide we're going to try this a new way for a specific amount of time for the next 24 hours for the next three days for the next month and then we're going to come back to the table to evaluate how well that solution worked if it worked great then you continue and you do more of that but if it didn't work oh I forgot I was supposed to be doing that oh I didn't realize you were doing it and that didn't work we still have the problem now we need to get rid of those because those weren't viable solutions for us we need to go back to the solutions that we proposed and try something else but unfortunately what happens is I'm having a particular experience in this relationship I don't feel like you're getting it you don't understand it we're not talking about the actual problem we're talking about example of the problem I call them the leaves on the trees and we never get to the root of the thing so we're talking about all these things that never actually resolve the problem and over time I just become resentful I become frustrated I withdraw I check out whatever happens we stop being on the same team in pursuit of solving the problem oh my God so true and the fact that you put emotion and you connect emotion to all this like forget it right it's just it becomes this Perpetual like no you did this and you did this and it becomes the blaming game and what I so freaking love about what you just laid out is it's so binary it's let's do this let's test it for 24 hours let's come back together and let's see how we feel did we do it or not yes we did it did it work no cool move on right yes it's like it's such a business mind as well and I love it because it removes the emotion of whatever you're feeling right then which compiled how you are approaching the uh the solution yes because you know what I really want to do as a therapist is to demystify relationships I really don't want people to walk around thinking this Disney fairy tale that maybe there's a prince charming out there and if I'm lucky I might meet them or there is this princess out there it's like no there is a science to relationships and if you learn the science not only can you have the kind of relationship that you want you can control the intensity of it you can control the duration of it you can control the quality of it there is a science to every single thing we just haven't learned how to do it so I like to break it down into very pragmatic ways for people to go oh my gosh this makes sense to me oh wait a minute I thought they were the problem wait I'm the problem I haven't learned how to do it right I'm not talking about the right thing I'm not communicating the right thing in order to get what it is that I want everything starts with us as the individual and then radiates outward and if you don't understand that that's because either you haven't learned to be connected to all the parts of yourself or somewhere along the line somebody told you that what you needed and wanted wasn't important enough for you to express and advocate for you getting what you want in order to be happy that is so true how much of our past carries over into that so whether it be past relationships or even just parents and teachers to Childhood to grandparent stuff to great grandparents stuff like we learn how to come into relationship through the presence or the absence of the people in our lives whether it's our parents being in relationship and how they did it step parents and and Extras parents staying single quality of relationship we learn how to do it and then as adults we're just simply reenacting the same patterns over and over from our past that is so true the advice my grandmother gave me just before I got married she's I'm Greek so she came from a tiny village this really really old weak women can't speak a word of English and she pulls me aside and she's like look if Tom has to hit you don't worry it probably means you deserve it my grandmother and so it's like I understand where she comes from so I actually just thought it was quite funny um but there is something actually heartbreaking to it in that that's the belief that she had growing up and what if I was born not in London but what if I was born in that same Village right I wouldn't have thought of it as oh yeah yeah you're so cute I would have gone oh okay mm-hmm so I love what you're saying about it just not being your parents but basically where you come from where your parents have come from your great-grandparents and and how tightly you're still connected to that because like you said had you still been there had you still been a part of that culture it may have been supported in a different way so if you were in a situation and your partner struck you you may be supported in a different way people might say girlfriend you don't have to take that let us help you let us rescue you and all of a sudden you go okay I matter and that's not acceptable but have you been back there then it might have been well what did you do yes go back and apologize right that teaches you a different experience and that's what I so freaking love about you your message and everything you do because you um eliminate the emotion when you're giving people advice and it's so tactical that yeah no matter where you're from what your beliefs are you do the try this and this right and so it's like you you're kind of able to cross all these boundaries and all these other people's beliefs and visions of what they think a relationship should be can be and you're kind of just breaking that down with very tactical um guidelines and yes which I think is so impactful girl like that's so freaking amazing oh that's so awesome listen I tell people at the end of the day we all are human beings and to break us down into our smallest Parts there are three parts of ourselves okay there are our feelings our thoughts and our behaviors okay your feelings are your body's alarm systems to what you need okay so for example if I'm cold that's a feeling if I'm hungry that's a feeling if I'm horny that's a feeling everything that we are boils down to our feelings of what we need our thought process are the strategies that we think about in order to get our needs or our feelings met okay and our behaviors are what we execute the strategies that we execute all in pursuit of getting our need met so for example if I'm hungry I may then think okay so I'm hungry how am I going to no longer be hungry well I could go in the kitchen and cook I could go to the local Deli and go buy something okay yeah I'm tired so I'm gonna just go buy something so then we get up and we go down the street and we buy what it is that we need in order to satisfy the hunger okay so now the behavior is I get up and I go do a thing the important thing that we need to remember though is that as it relates to our feelings or our needs by the time that we feel them or recognize that we have a need we're already operating at a deficit so we're already slightly in trouble by the time I realize that I'm thirsty I'm already dehydrated right by the time I recognize that I'm hungry I'm already in need of nutrients and we also need to know that our needs are different over time they're more intense or less intense over time sometime I'm ravenous I could absolutely eat an entire cow and other times oh I could go for a nosh just like something to take the edge off but if we're not in tune with our own needs one we can't communicate that to somebody else and two we can't properly figure out what options or strategies we need to execute in order to get our needs met and so unfortunately when and we're disconnected from our needs when we're disconnected from our feelings then how do we enter into partnership with someone else expecting them to be able to meet what we don't even know how to identify for ourselves and that's important in relationship because I cannot respond to what my partner doesn't communicate and I can't help to meet a need and know how to behave or show up in order to help get the need met if I don't even know it or can't communicate it for myself that's amazing but what happens if the wiring is crossed so you you say okay I feel really lonely so um or like I'm I'm feeling lonely so I go to a bar right and so my behavior is I don't want to be I feel lonely so my behavior is let's find someone to not be lonely with so let's say you pick someone up and then you realize the next day that didn't fill the hole that you thought it would and so now your behaviors your feelings and your thoughts all are actually working against each other instead of working for each other so they're out of sync right yeah so that means that I'm executing the wrong strategies which oftentimes is the problem that's why in therapy when we talk about cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT we're talking about if you can change the way that a person thinks and the way they behave everything else Falls in line right so if I'm feeling lonely only one of the strategies that I thought about was was go to a bar now perhaps I only thought about that strategy because I don't know anything else I don't have any other options or coping skills I haven't expanded myself enough to know that there are other options or other means to get my need met how you know if you have the right strategy much like when we were talking about Solutions how you know if you have the right solution is I actually went to the bar I did everything that I did did it satisfy my need if it didn't then I need to go back to the drawing board and how I'm thinking about getting the need met and sometimes I have other options that I've thought about but I haven't tried them or I need some help maybe some professional help maybe my social support friends family maybe some online learning but I need to figure out some new strategies and how to meet people to satisfy this cure for loneliness and sometimes it becomes so convoluted because we may have trauma or other experiences where there are other needs that have to be met before that need can even be touched so perhaps if I have abandonment issues or if I have a trauma history perhaps the reason why I feel lonely is because I can't execute the right behaviors in order to connect with people I go to bars when I should be going to bookstores I talk to guys when I should be talking to girls I'm thinking sex when I need to be thinking emotional intimacy but I'm thinking about and executing the wrong behaviors that are not meeting my needs so let's talk about forgiveness so I have always been the person and my husband and I both came to an agreement that if one of us says sorry the other person must receive it immediately because it's because it's hard to say sorry and so in if someone's stepping out of their comfort zone and saying it it's almost like you want to reward them for stepping out of their comfort zone so saying sorry is it needs to be received well but I read a quote of yours that I'm going to read out loud that I think is so freaking awesome said you are not required to forgive contrary to popular opinion you are not required to accept anybody's apology just because they offer it to you their expression of regret or remorse is Theirs to express you're choosing if how and even when to respond to that expression is entirely up to you so talk to me about it because it has been literally the antithesis of what I've been doing oh I love this okay so I say that before we can forgive we have to first do our own self-care and we have to heal before we can forgive and I also believe that unfortunately a lot of us have the wrong idea about forgiveness because we somehow think that forgiveness means that I have to still continue in relationship with you forgiveness means that I have to continue to give you access to me and I absolutely do not agree with that I think I can forgive you and accept that that has happened to me and move on from my own healing and still put up appropriate boundaries or barriers that says I choose to no longer engage you right and that is a very important thing because I can say you know what I will forgive you I will forgive you for violating my boundary for causing a wound in me but it does not change the fact that I am wounded you know and how I love to give this to people right I can say I have the best of intentions I can say I didn't mean to hit you with my car but it doesn't change the fact that if I hit you that you're hurt just because I didn't mean to do it or even worse because I made a bad choice and this is the other thing I love for people to say I made a mistake when they really made a bad choice the bad choices I did what I wanted to do at that time and they go I'm sorry I made a mistake no a mistake is like I didn't mean to run over your foot because I miscalculated and I didn't see it there that's different than I slept with somebody because the entire time I wanted that more in the moment that I wanted to honor my commitment to you and because I chose me that should not then put you under obligation to have to let me off the hook for that wounding to have to move on from that wounding and that's the other part is that people want immediate forgiveness they don't want forgiveness as part of a process to Healing they say okay I'm sorry okay I said I'm sorry that's it you have to accept that I'm sorry and let's just move on but meanwhile you're bleeding and wounded in the background and that leaves you to have to do the work of your own healing by yourself I think that that's so disingenuous and so if somebody says I recognize that I did something that wounded you and I apply apologize for doing that now how can I be there for us to tend to your wound how do I make you whole again and it's not simply by giving you lip service to say I'm sorry that's for you that's not for me I'm glad that you feel remorse or regret now let's tend to the wound that you created in me for as long as that takes and for however that looks like in order for me to heal you don't get to decide that and two words are not going to heal that girl that's so true because actually now as you're talking because we've been together for so long we do things naturally now we do that it's um thank you for saying you're sorry I really hear you I appreciate it I'm still actually upset so just give me a while and so it becomes a it's not like well I'm sorry so you've got to forgive me and you've got to pretend that nothing ever happened like that doesn't solve anything right um but it is the give me the grace to work through the emotion of this um and the race is the big part right because I tell every couple you know if you're if you're together forever you are going to need Grace yes so treat the person how you want to be treated in the experience sometimes it's very easy for us to be the victim oh no you hurt me oh okay so no remember and I'm gonna hold on to that and I'm not gonna allow myself to heal I'm not gonna allow myself to get over it it's usually a very manipulating kind of thing and it may be subconscious we don't always do it because we want to but sometimes when I'm wounded you treat me differently you treat me the way I really want to be treated you give me extra attention you talk more nicely to me you're softer you come home on time you do things and I want that to last so maybe I want this pain to linger I'm going to Relish in it because there's a payoff right or maybe I've learned somewhere or I'm afraid that I let you off the hook too early you're gonna do it to me again so I'm gonna hold it over your head I'm gonna hold you Hostage to it I'm gonna remind you over and over remember you did that thing remember I'm still hurt remember and so we do that over and over so the person goes wow okay I really get it wow that really affected you because we're trying to get a reaction from them which is their understanding of the depth of the wound that they've caused and we're afraid that if we let them off the hook too soon then they will do it again and then the other part is the person hasn't given us what we need in order for us to feel confident that they actually understand the wound that they've caused so we'll linger in it and every time they do it again we'll go see that that's what I'm talking about you never listen to me you don't understand you and we'll keep bringing it up over and over that's why sometimes couples will talk about the same problem they'll go yeah 20 years ago when he cheated on me and they go man if I would have known that it was going to be all this and you said you would forgive me and and they go yeah but you know the minute that I forgive you you're just going to do it again because oftentimes the partner doesn't take the accountability that's required they only give you the lip service of the I'm sorry but no plan no teamwork no uh no sense of responsibility no this is how we'll go forward and how I will own it and how I will hold us together to make sure that that never happens again so there are all these self-serving ways where if we wound each other and we don't really do the work to heal each other and just give each other quick lip service you love me you're supposed to forgive me or I realize that I'm required to forgive even if I really don't feel it but I have to pretend that is why we find ourselves stuck and often if we make agreements to forgive but we really don't we don't feel like we can come back to the person to say look I'm still wounded I'm still hurt I'm still holding on to it so instead of being able to express that and that be a problem we work together as a team on now I have to pretend I have to pretend that we're okay because I have made the agreement so now I'm really resentful but I can't talk about the real thing so I'm going to yell at you about the trash and the dishes and you working too late and you're doing everything else so we have to give our relationship the space and and and breadth for transparency for honesty and for humanness to be able to say listen I know I made an agreement with you but that's when I thought I could do a certain thing now that I'm checking into who I am and what I'm actually feeling and what I actually need I can't honor that agreement and so now we need to consider that we need to do things a new way for our relationship because again there's you your partner in the relationship I can't give this relationship what I agreed to so you and I have to come up with a new agreement that works for our relationship my husband and I have one agreement and it's to use a word important to me if you say that important we probably say it two or three times a year because it means if I say you have to drop everything and not even ask why we've just got that equipment we don't abuse the word so we use it very sparingly and only once in 18 years have we clashed and we both said it was important and he didn't come over to my side and so in that moment I was like I literally it was a very emotional moment I broke down I said I need you I don't think I've ever needed you more than I need you now it is important and he was going through similar emotions and so he's like I can't be there for you I have to go on this this trip and the trip was so important to him that we collap we collided and I was like this is that moment this is that moment that if I do not let go of it if I do not process what we are going through right now and I do not accept what has happened discuss it of course talk through it what are we going to do next time all of that but now it become comes a well why should he come to my side why am I not willing to go to his so it's it doesn't just go one way Lisa it goes both ways and now I have to actively forgive him wholeheartedly because like you said I could tell within just humans and myself that if in five years I ask him to be there for me and for whatever reason he's not I'd be like see you did it again and he'd be like when I did it again so um so how do you work through the forgiveness and it's not really forgetting it's let's say learning from it instead of holding onto it so there's a difference right I tell people all the time you'll never forget anything in a relationship right most listen especially as women right we're like elephant brains we can remember everything right but the key is not to forget but to pay attention to how it makes us feel and if we're still holding on to negative energy about a thing then that means that we need to heal it okay every relationship has scars scars are okay because scars are the testimony to what you survived scars are perfectly fine open wounds though over time will Fester will become toxic and that will kill a relationship they're the things that when I'm working with couples they'll go you know I really should have left you 10 years ago because I knew that that moment that changed everything that changed for me the way that I saw you I was never the same with you again yes I was here but I never trusted you the same I never could open up to you the same our lovemaking was different our respect level how we talked we started to go our separate ways everything changed like they can find those defining moments where they unfortunately didn't do what they needed to do in order to heal the relationship and this is why I I strive to just drive home the point over and over that your relationship is different from you and your partner there are things that you both need as individuals and sometimes those things will be different than what's in the best interest of your relationship and so how you have a successful relationship and not just be two individuals living under the same roof getting your needs met individually from each other sometimes together and other times separately is by committing to working in Partnership to always do what's in the best interest of your relationship and if you don't have those agreements I tell couples all the time when you're in conflict 99.9999999999 of the time it's because you don't have an agreement for how your relationship is supposed to function in that area so you're operating according to what you want or what you think is best they're operating according to what they want or what they think is best but you never come to an agreement so this is where I am this is where you are now what's in the best interest of our relationship okay so this is how we are going to function so a great example is like let's say that you are a home in bed set the uh security alarm on your home every night by 10 pm and you like to feel safe and know that everybody is accounted for but your partner is a party animal they love to go out they love to come up with the sun they'll go to the to the nightclubs all night long then they want to go and have a night cap then they want to go have early morning breakfast and so they want to come in the house at six or seven o'clock in the morning and you think that is absolutely unacceptable that is absolutely unacceptable and your partner thinks well I'm not coming in at 10 o'clock at night that's absolutely unacceptable that you want to control and contain me so now we have to compromise and a compromise is where everybody comes to the table and everybody gets up with winning or getting something that they wanted but no one person is a hundred percent happy because if I win and you lose then our relationship loses so we both have to give we both have to get and we both have to feel like we've gotten something equally so perhaps if I'm a 10 person and you're a six well I'm not willing to let you stay out till six but maybe two o'clock I could see my way too okay well I'm a six and I'm not doing ten but maybe I could do three okay so you say two and I say three how about 2 30 right okay that's great and at 2 30 when I hear the security alarm go off I'm not going to be upset about that because that's the compromise and I know that you're happy and when you come home at 2 30 you're not going to be pissed off about that because you know that I feel safe and I honored your needs and so now our relationship knows how we function we know what to expect we know how to govern ourselves and because we love each other we found our way to the middle and our relationship has a way to function that we both understand that's so amazing and I think it eliminates any judgment right because it's like over time everyone always thinks they're right everyone so it's like what do you mean you're staying out till six right it comes across with judgment you're not making them feel good and now you know you're kind of getting those emotions um all rattled up where when you come together you're just going to be butting heads instead of actually coming together like you said oh yeah as like a team I say it like um a tennis match it's like we're not on opposite sides we're playing doubles you're on my side and we're trying to win the game together that's it and so you know judgment I always say if you were judging whether you're judging yourself or you're judging somebody else you are really in your ego that is a very egocentric place because it says that I'm right I know how this should go and the reason why I say it that it works both ways is because oftentimes in my office is called the no judgment Zone it's like the sanctuary area is what my clients have nicknamed it and the reason for that is because you know who we are even changes over time what we know the resources that we have how we see the world and everybody is doing the best that they can with what they have in any given moment so if I am now in my 40s judging the choices that I made at 20 and I go oh that was so dumb oh what was I thinking I was just a ridiculous person well my 20 year old self first of all was responsible for getting me to the place that I am and they had to figure out how to do that with way less resources way less know-how way less knowledge than this 40 year old so how dare I judge me back then that did the best that they could and somehow it worked out right because here I am and they're the ones that got me there and the same with our partners like when we're judging why would you do it that way who taught you how to do it that way that doesn't make any sense at all well if they've been doing it that way all the way up until they met you and somehow it's been enough to get them not only to where they are but has made them who they are to the point that you were attracted to them it was enough for you to choose them how dare you decide now from your place of ego that your way is better right so sometimes the best thing that we can do is if we think we have the better way we model that for somebody by showing them how we do it and if they think that it's better through their own filter in how they show up in their lives they'll come over and go wait wait show me that again or how about we do it your way this time because that seems to work or wow nobody's ever showed me that and there it's easier for them to accept it and easier for them to adapt to it if they're doing it of their own volition if it's voluntary and it doesn't feel like they're it's being shoved down their throat sometimes even if we have the best way if it feels like it's being shoved down somebody's throat they'll reject it just because they're a grown-up now and they don't need somebody else telling them what to do in their lives that may trigger some old trauma history right and so we have to be careful with how we give people who we are instead of asking or requiring them to to take on our way we're coming into a relationship part of that is for us to give them the space to meet our needs and to give us a different experience that's why we're choosing partnership we're not choosing us to be in relationship with um God it was really powerful when you did the analogy of your younger self and I think it's because it's you right it's not like someone else where you're saying oh well he is or she's like that it's like the the point of putting yourself in that position of reflecting back to yourself really helps you then mirror that um with open eyes yeah oh most of us are so horrible to ourselves listen we will have conversations and say things to ourselves about ourselves that we would never dream of saying to a stranger we talk horribly about ourselves in ways that we wouldn't even talk about people that we don't like and so like right so like if we would do that to ourselves then we actually become Our Own Worst Enemy and what's so bad about that is because we're in our own head 24 7 we record these stories and this music that comes to play in the background of who we are our entire lives and nobody else can free us from that nobody else can break us from that it's why our partners can say oh my gosh you look absolutely lovely today and you go no I don't my hair is too frizzy and I didn't put on my makeup right we become these self-deprecating people because of the own the conversations that we're having with ourselves all the time from a place of judgment instead of from a place of love and from a place of embracing and moving forward constantly knowing every day I'm one step closer to being a better version of myself if I give myself the grace the space and the love to do so we give it to our partners before we give it to ourselves right but if I'm holding myself to such high regard if I'm super critical of myself what happens is we get into this process where we go well I'm not treating you any different than I'm treating myself you know I'm only as I wouldn't ask anything of you that I don't ask of myself and so if we're super critical if we're super judgmental then we automatically get up on this pedestal and expect our partners to meet us there because we're constantly working so hard instead of given ourselves Grace not to know everything to be able to change what we thought we knew to expand past and grow past what we've already come to know and to be open to new possibilities that we don't have to have it all figured out we don't have to know everything and the more open that we are to not knowing the more we actually learn oh Spirits girl you're freaking amazing like everything because and I mean look relationships are something I absolutely love talking about but it never occurred to me until I got into my own relationship how much of a successful relationship depends on you oh absolutely you cannot have a successful relationship if you're not a successful you because you'll go into the relationship making somebody else one the Center of Your World when they should be an enhancement to it you know I tell my clients all the time you have to be having an amazing life and be in progress and you have to be so far into your enjoyment and your peace that when somebody wants to come in and be a part of that you go okay wait hold on hold on because I have to tread lightly I am so good with what my world is and how it's set up that I don't want to bring anything that would disrupt this piece right so that's important they can't become the center of your joy or your world and then the other part is they can't become responsible for meeting your need because again you have to know your own need they have to be you have to strategize and you have to behave in such a way so they cannot be the person that does that so unfortunately so many of us come come into relationships looking to be healed looking to be fulfilled looking to be taken care of looking for the other person to give us the experience that we really should be coming into relationships to give ourselves you could try to give me the worlds but if I'm not happy within if I'm not complete within I don't care if you came in the house and gave me a thousand roses and a thousand kisses each and every day if I can't receive it if I can't embrace it or if I don't even need it it's not going to move the needle at all so I have to know what I need I have to be able to communicate what I'm going to do in order to execute getting the need met and then I have to be able to have this kind of go back and forth with you knowing that it's constantly changing in intensity it's constantly changing in quality I'm constantly growing and changing and we have to be in communication with each other to make sure that as we ebb and flow and change and grow that we're constantly moving in in the same direction in our relationship hell yeah girl okay so if someone is in that situation right now where they haven't been ebbing and flowing they haven't been communicating and they're starting to feel the dust settle what are three things that you that they can do immediately in order to start to unwind that okay so first and foremost we have to acknowledge we have to be willing to acknowledge the ugly the hard the scary to be able to verbalize between each other that we have a problem okay because we cannot change what we will not acknowledge so if we're walking around acting a certain way recognizing that something is wrong but we've never verbalized Houston we have a problem we have to be willing to do that Having the courage and realizing that neither of you are the problem right so we have to talk about that we have a problem so that we can work together to solve the problem okay the other part of this is that we have to be honest with each other about whether or not we are still motivated to solve the problem it takes oh yes because listen sometimes we're already out the door sometimes we've already done our healing work and we are over this relationship or we've been so wounded that we know ourselves well enough to know I don't care what you do I don't care what you say we are long past the point of return I won't ever be able to feel for you the way I need to in order to be happy in this relationship and I want you to know that that has nothing to do with the person that has to do with you that's a choice whether you're going to choose to forgive somebody whether or not you're going to allow yourself to receive the love and the efforts that they make in order to create a quality relationship with you so you have to decide and both people have to be motivated because if one is not no matter how hard the other person is working they can't carry the entire relationship themselves okay and then the third part about this is we both have to commit to also do things things to re-infuse the love yes we have problems yes we're motivated to working them out but it took us this long to get here it's going to take us some time to get out of this and falling in love again is a process it's not a light switch that we can just flip on because we talked about a problem it's going to take time and so how I tell couples how you can kind of cheat to reinvigorate the relationship while you're working on the problems is to do new things with each other in new environments and the reason for that this is going back to now the chemistry okay because the brain requires dopamine dopamine is the thing that excites us it gives us passion all of those things anytime we're placed in a new environment it automatically sets off different parts of our brain because it's a new environment so we're trying to take all of these things in what you want to do is you want to have new experiences fun don't dopamine-inducing experiences with your partner because when your brain releases that chemical which is going to cause you to feel good it creates a state of euphoria doing that activity with your partner automatically pairs pleasure with your partner in your brain and so all of the sudden when you think about happiness when you think about fun when you think about Joy your partner is at the top of your brain and all of a sudden the things that you begin to to Remember Loving about them the way they smiled the way it felt good when you were in unison with each other the way she flicks her hair that drives you nuts but you can't help but still laugh and get a little giddy all of a sudden your brain now gets that reactivation of those feel-good chemicals and the love that you want you realize is actually still there it just needs to be reinfused reignited and that tank needs to be filled back up in your relationship oh God so it's like don't stop doing things together yeah um where can people find you follow you what should the show um okay so so there's going to be some incredible things coming up uh in the meantime they can find me a talk to Spirit on all of my social media I'm talk the number two spirit everywhere and every Friday I actually do with what I call free advice Friday we've been doing it for like almost five years now where I do a live chat for an hour a Live Mental Health chat where folks can come over to my Facebook page it's talk to Spirit as well at noon Eastern Standard Time I don't know where that is in every other part of the world so you'll have to do the math okay and as well my therapy practice I have a great group I have a whole team of therapists so if anybody ever needs anything they can find me at t2s Enterprises T the number two s it's talk to Spirit talk to Spirit Enterprises in Atlanta but I got a toll-free number so if it works for you it's 888-718-2t2s or you can find us even on WhatsApp amazing we'll put all of those links in the show notes below so guys guys if you missed it just click the show notes below um and seriously guys this woman gave so many tactics so many tips that literally if you follow them do it like a spreadsheet try a tip that she just suggested and ticket did it work or cross it off it didn't work move on to the next one but seriously if you actually want to have a long-lasting relationship follow this woman follow her advice she's freaking fire if you're not following me guys follow me at Lisa billu and if you're not subscribed in this episode did bring you value guys click that subscribe button down there and until next time be the hero of your own life peace out guys do you want to learn the biggest red flags that indicate he's absolutely wasting your time and not for you then click here you don't trust that someone's never going to betray you you just trust that you'll be able to handle it if they do that you'll be able to walk away that's a massive key

Channel: Lisa Bilyeu

Views: 448,164

Keywords: lisa bilyeu, tom bilyeu, impact theory, quest nutrition, motivation, inspiration, Jay Shetty, 8 Rules of Love, Think Like a Monk, Spirit, Lisa Bilyeu, Women of Impact, Radical Confidence, RadCon, bestselling author, women, women empowerment, interview, advice for women, tips for women, podcasts, rules for dating, dating tip, dating advice, relationship advice, how to have better relationship, relationship skills, how to communicate, love language, long term relationship

Id: E4DXkhUQF30

Length: 122min 43sec (7363 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 01 2023