#880: Relationship Tools That Work — Esther Perel, Brené Brown, Dr. Sue Johnson, Terry Real, and More on Conflict, Repair, and Lasting Love

Staying close in relationships

0:00Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is devoted to one simple question, but simple isn't always easy. Here's the question. How do you stay close to those closest to you over time? That could be your husband, your wife, your co-founder, could be just about anyone you are close to through the inevitable conflict, the misunderstandings, exhaustion, disappointment, change, and so on. In this compilation, we get a greatest hits from some of the minds I lean on for answering

0:34this type of question. Esther Perel begins with the basics. Then we move to Brene Brown, who explains why marriage or partnership of any type, frankly, is never 50-50 and how to navigate that. Brad Feld describes the monthly life dinners that have helped him and his wife. Jim Detmer offers a practical way to distinguish observable facts from the stories we all make up. Sheila Heen explains how humor and genuine curiosity can serve as tools. The late Dr. Sue Johnson, man, she was a legend, then walks us through the hold-me-tight conversation, which I've

1:08used myself. Terry Reel then offers a very, very simple, strikingly simple model for repair and introduces the term normal marital hatred. I have yet to meet anyone married who is like, what is that? I have no idea what that is. And then finally, Diana Chapman describes what it means to let an outdated version of a marriage or any relationship end so that two people can consciously choose what comes next for their relationship. And without further ado, please enjoy this very wide-ranging but very tactical conversation about relationships.

Esther Perel on appreciation and arguments

1:39First up, Esther Perel. Esther Perel is an internationally renowned psychotherapist, the New York Times best-selling author of Mating in Captivity and the State of Affairs, and the host of the award-winning podcast, Where Should We Begin?

1:58So this is a question from Grégoire Triffry via Facebook. We'd love to ask her how to foster marriage longevity. Any exercises, routines, or habit would be great, especially around fostering deeper emotional relationships. There is the first basics. Appreciation. Just simply saying a lot of nice things. Not taking things for granted. Not forgetting to say thank you and please just because it's the person that you live with. Making compliments. Holding hands. Kissing. Stroking.

2:30Sending sweet notes. Buying flowers. Preparing breakfast. Bringing the coffee to bed. All those sweet things that people do that basically let you know that they live inside of you, that you're thinking of them even when they're not there. These daily appreciations, they go a long way and it sometimes is a real diligent effort to keep doing them. And then I am a strong fan of letter writing. I think that when you fly away, when you're away, when you're sitting in a cafe, when you just have a

3:01moment to drop a note that is not just on the birthdays and on the anniversaries, just kind of your own musings about you, about your lives together, your dreams, where you're going, how you met, what you remember, what you fancy. That is actually very much the kind of the telling of the story, you know, the story of the couple. There is a lot of intimacy in there. Touch is a major experience of intimacy. I think when you do that, humor and things that kind of really encourage the other person

3:32in which you recognize them at their most authentic. Go do this thing. This is really something you really like. Take a few more days. You know, you wanted to always take this class. Go take this class. Kind of ways in which you encourage the other person to be the best version of themselves and vice versa. Be the best version of yourself with them. It's really basic. What makes a relationship sustain itself and be more nurturing? Next, Alicia Tenea Eichelberger via Facebook asks, how to lessen arguments in your marriage?

4:08Look, I think it's all about the art of speaking and listening. You know, there was a sculpture a few years back by Bruce Neumann and it was a world peace project and he had 23 inch monitors with faces of the most diverse group of people, diverse races, ethnicities, gender, ages, all of it. And every single person, every face was saying, I'll talk and you'll listen. You'll talk and I'll listen. They'll talk and we listen. You'll talk and we listen. And it just showed you the robustness of this

4:41most difficult art, which often I would say listening is harder than speaking. But then for some people, maybe speaking actually becomes the hardest thing. In a relationship, you can often get the daily hassles in which you are grinding at each other, in which there's a friction going on. Don't sweat the small things. It's probably really important in terms of how people deal with arguments in a relationship. I would say, don't complain. Then ask. Behind every criticism, there's often a wish. Because if you believe that your partner

5:15has done something wrong, that they didn't pay a bill on time or anything, and you wish that they had done it right. But instead of asking them to correct it, you basically tell them that they can never do it well, that they're doing this on purpose, that, you know, just ask them to do it better next time, rather than would it kill you? Something simply, do you think that next time, you know, you could set a monthly alert so that you don't forget? It's a very different tone. It's a very different way of relating to the person. There's no contempt in that one, which we know from the research of John Gottman is one of the four horses of Apocalypse.

5:48Actually, I'm going to give you the four horses because they're really important. One is criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness. Those four are pretty much the killers in the land of arguments and relationship decline. You know, try not to talk with categoricals of always and never, all or nothing. That probably is one of the most important changes in vocabulary. Banish them. I always have to ask you, you never do this? No. The moment you

6:19say you never, the other person is going to come up with the one time that they knew and that they've done it so that they can defeat your argument rather than really understand that you're asking them to do it more often, which is exactly why I say ask, don't complain. Add some humor. Add some humor. There's nothing that's going to diffuse your arguments more than just putting some perspective into it and not take yourself so seriously. Show empathy. At the end of the day, you know, assume that your partner has the same interests as you to solve the stresses in your relationship. And for that to

6:49happen, it's important that both of you understand and appreciate the other person's point of view. Do you really think that the other person wants you to purposefully be annoyed or hurt you or let you down? Probably not. It's all of that shift that takes you out of relationships that are mired in bickering, chronic, low-intensity warfare, or high conflict because there's a range there. Okay? Imagine I ask you, has your arguing turned toxic? As in, does your partner keep telling

7:23you that you can never do it right or that they can never do it right by you? That every little convo about who should set the table will end up in a blowout about how dysfunctional your relationship is? Or that two minutes into a fight, one of you is saying we should get a divorce or we should break up? That's what I'm calling a high conflict couple. The opposite of the arguments is you come in and you say, I want to listen to what you have to say. I want to apologize. What can I do to make this better? And not what can you do to make this better? Shift it around and

7:58you'll have magic happening.

Brene Brown on energy and family focus

8:01Next up, Brené Brown. Brené Brown is the author of six number one New York Times bestsellers exploring courage, vulnerability, shame, and resilience, a research professor at the University of Houston and a professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin.

8:21The other two hacks that I think have saved our marriage, besides just showing up and kind of using some of these things like what's working, what was hard, is the 80-20. So everyone says marriage should be 50-50. It's the biggest crock of bullshit I've ever heard. It's never 50-50. Ever. And so what we do is we quantify where we are. So if Steve comes home and he'll be like, I got 20. Just in terms of energy. Just energy, investment, kindness, patience. I'm at a guy at 20. And I'll be like, I'll cover you.

8:57I got you, brother. I'll pull the 80. Sometimes we come home, which we have done a lot. My mom has been sick. And I'll say, I've got 10. And Steve, like two days ago said, I'm riding a solid 25. So we know that we have to sit down at the table anytime we have less than 100 combined and figure out a plan of kindness toward each other. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Because the thing is, marriage is not something that's 50-50. A partnership works when you can carry their 20 or they can carry your 20. And that when you both just have 20, you have a plan where you

9:30don't hurt each other. Yeah. Because you're threadbare, right? Yeah. And so what we'll say is, I'm like, I've got 10. And he'll be like, I got maybe 25. We're like, put all the groceries that are supposed to be great and healthy in the freezer. We're ordering out. Get the housekeeper here an extra day. And we're canceling anything with people that we really actually don't like. So how can we create some buffer in the system? No, we do that. And then a day or two later, I'm like, he'll be like, I'm riding a 60. I'm like, oh my God, work is kicking my ass. I'm still at a 20. He's like,

10:04I got you, but we're a spare 20. So let's ask Charlie if he wants to skip water polo practice today and let's all turn in at eight o'clock. Huge. The other thing I would say too, that now I'm thinking about that is we made a determination very early. There's kid-focused families, parent-focused families, and family-focused families. We're a family-focused family. So that means that if you want to do water polo, Eagle Scouts, tennis, and skeet shooting, and then that comes to the family. And the family agrees what will keep the family healthy.

10:40Like we can, we, you know, I've got a book launch. I've got this. Steve's got patients. He's taking on others. You know, he's a pediatrician. He's doing this. So what works for our family right now is you can do two extracurriculars and I'm going to have a two-week tour, not a four-week tour, but we put the family as the system that we serve. It's not the kids that the parents cost or the parents that the kids cost. It's the family. And it is remarkable. How do you weigh, if you do at all, the voting system, so to speak?

11:12Like, Rance, if you all come to the table, does everyone have equal vote in the decision-making process with respect? No, no, this is a dictatorship. Yeah, like, yeah, fix my mind. Oh, no, yeah, no. Like, we don't even bullshit around that. It's like when my kids, like, if I say like, oh, shit, my kids are like, ooh, you can't say that. I'm like, I can say anything I want. You can't say that. And when you're old enough, you can do whatever you want. When you get your cursing license. Yeah, but right now I can totally do that. Watch me.

Brad Feld on monthly life dinners

11:42Next up, Brad Feld. Brad Feld is an early-stage investor and entrepreneur and a co-founder of Foundry Group, Mobius Venture Capital, and Techstars. He writes on entrepreneurship, leadership, mental health, and sustaining a life beyond work.

12:01So if we're talking about links and breaking these artificial causal links, let's talk about another, what seems like a pattern interrupt, and that is your life dinners. Can you describe what these are? Yeah, this was another thing that came out of me and Amy's weekend in Rhode Island. So she said to me, as we're walking, I want to have dinner with you once a month. Not a date night, but let's do dinner once a month. Let's do it on the first night of every month. I just want a commitment for that. Him and how, oh gee, I don't know whether I'll be in Boulder or Boston or New

12:37York or the Bay Area or whatever. And she looked at me and she said, do you have a calendar, an online calendar? Knowing full well, I did, of course. And I said, yeah, I have an online calendar. She says, does it have the ability for you to make a recurring calendar appointment? I said, yeah, the online calendar lets me do that. She says, how about if you make an online recurring calendar appointment from 6 p.m. Colorado time to 10 p.m. Colorado time on the first day of a month and have it repeat forever? I said, okay, I guess I can do that. So we did that. And so every

13:14month on the first day of the month, we have what we call life dinner. Now, 20 years of life dinners later. So what is that? A thousand something life dinners, which is awesome, by the way. We have a little flexibility. There are definitely nights where we will have it on the second or the third because something's going on. But we really commit to it. We used to go out to dinner. Now, a lot of times we just do it at home. Time of COVID, we for sure do it at home. We often, not always, but often start with a gift exchange. And the gifts could be trivial little things. Once she gave me a

13:46remote control fart machine, she's picked up a lot of jewelry and art from it over the years and books. One dinner, she gave me a Range Rover. So it's a full spectrum. I really hope it was the same dinner that you gave her the... Oh, no, no. You didn't give her the fart machine. That would have been less popular. I think the Range Rover was to make up for the fart machine, but the fart machine was years earlier. And we sit down. And if you're a fan of software development and you know what Agile is, we essentially do... The first half is a retrospective of the previous month.

14:16And the second half is sprint planning for the next month. So again, very deliberately, not a date night. We have plenty of those. This is, let's talk each of us, you go first or I go first, doesn't matter, about the last month and what happened and what was good and what was bad and what we were unhappy about and what we wish we'd done differently and what we regret and what we're really satisfied with and anything. Just retrospective. This is powerfully interesting because we started to learn that if Amy did something that really annoyed me on the 21st of

14:51the month, in the moment, I didn't have to react and cause us to have a three-hour personal meltdown on the 21st of the month. I could wait nine more days or 10 more days and it could be part of 11 more days. It could be part of our life dinner. And it gave us a marker for being able to resolve the conflicts that we would have with each other or express things positive and negative that we hadn't said in the moment. The forward sprint planning part of it is not go through the calendar

15:26for the next month, but talk about goals, aspirations, what we might want to do differently, what we're feeling in the moment that's making us uncomfortable about the future, what we're not afraid of, what we're worried about happening in the future, what's causing us in the moment real anxiety about the future. And anybody out there has had any therapy or done meditation, literally just naming the thing oftentimes gets rid of a lot of the anxiety, just labeling it, just calling it out

16:00and saying it out loud. And so these dinners, sometimes the conversation, the life dinner part of the conversation might go five or 10 minutes and sometimes it might go three hours. And sometimes there was a laughter and sometimes there were tears and sometimes there were both. And it's just such now, 20 some odd years later, a comfortable way to reground ourself as a couple roughly every 30 days in what is a very, very challenging and complicated world.

Jim Dethmer on facts versus stories

16:31Next up, Jim Dethmer. Jim Dethmer is a co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, an influential framework for building candid, responsible, high-trust relationships. As you look at your close relationships, whether it be with your parents or with your siblings or children, this idea of, are we willing to be candid? I want to say something here, Tim,

17:04because people misunderstand this. They think that if I'm below the line, if we keep using that language, then people will say, I don't have a problem being candid. God, you ask anybody in my world, I'll tell you I'm candid. I tell it like it is. But what they're really saying is they're kind of living a scorched earth policy where they tell the truth all the time, but they're rigid and righteous about being attached to their truth. So we don't call that candor. What we call candor begins with

17:39the ability to differentiate facts from stories. Facts are data. Facts are what is totally unarguable. Facts are that which all reasonable people would agree to. Facts, the facts of life. Stories are judgments, opinions, beliefs, interpretations that we make up about the facts. So, for example, a typical thing would be, I walk in the house, Debbie standing there. Fact, a video camera would

18:12record that the corners of her mouth are turned down slightly in what one could call a frown. That's a fact. Video camera would record it. Now, my mind starts making up stories. Debbie's upset with me. I did something wrong. She's going to criticize me. And now I start reacting to the stories, defending, justifying, explaining, reacting to the stories, even though the stories are all made up in my mind.

18:46So, candor, practicing conscious candor, first you differentiate fact from story. And then you reveal your stories, holding them lightly. So from below the line, I want to be right about my stories and prove that I'm right because my ego identification believes it can only survive if it's right. So what that would look like is, you know, from below the line, I'd say, what are you upset about? I'm only 10 minutes late and I know I forgot the milk, but God, I was very busy. So now I'm revealing

19:22my story that she's upset in a reactive modality while holding tightly to my story that A, she is upset at me and B, she shouldn't be. That's truth telling. That's not what we're talking about at all. Candor, I differentiate fact from story. And here's what this might look like. I walk in the house and let's say I'm above the line and present, which I might not be. I might say something like this. Hey, when I look over, it looks like you're upset. I'm making up the story that you're upset. And rather than get all scared and react after that, first thing I do is just want to tell you

19:55I'm making up that story and I want to check it out with you. Are you upset? And by the way, when I make up the story that you're upset, I notice I get defensive. Furthermore, probably what I really get is scared because I don't want you to be pissed off at me. But I'm going to reveal myself to you, Debbie, not from being right. This act of candor is an act of incredible vulnerability. I'm going to let you know me. I say it all the time. I'm going to let you know what's going on on planet Jim. My thoughts, beliefs, interpretations, wants, desires, so you can know me, not so that I

20:31can prove I'm right. And by the way, this kind of candor goes hand in hand with conscious listening. People always want to say, I want a more candid relationship with my partner. I say, great. Before you start revealing, start listening. Start becoming a person to whom others will reveal themselves candidly because you see them and you hear them and you get them. Then as they feel safe

21:05to reveal themselves, you'll find that the relationship becomes more safe for you to reveal yourself. So candor and conscious listening go hand and glove. But again, it's a co-commitment, right? Debbie and I said, we want to remove all barriers to closeness. One of the barriers to closeness is not revealing ourselves to each other. It's so easy to hide out for fear of being rejected, for fear of being criticized. The risk, and Deb and I have been practicing candor for decades,

21:38Tim, and there's almost always some edge of candor where I could reveal a thought or I could reveal a judgment. In our case, specifically about our children because it's our second relationship. Debbie has four boys, I have two girls. Well, sometimes I have judgments about her boys. It's always risky to say to her, hey, I just want to tell you, I had a judgment coming up in me about so-and-so. She cares about her boys and she's irrationally involved in them just like I am with my girls. Every time I

22:11practice vulnerability in candor in my intimate relationship, there's a modicum of fear that comes up. Because who knows how she's going to react. We do have decades now of practicing, so pretty good chance that we'll work it through. So that's what candor is. Differentiate fact from story, hold your story lightly, reveal to the other for the sake of being known, not for proving you're right, and practice deeply listening so the other person trusts you enough to reveal themselves. That's a short primer on

Sheila Heen on humor and curiosity

22:44candor. Next up, Sheila Heen. Sheila Heen is the deputy director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, founder of Triad Consulting Group, and co-author of the New York Times bestsellers, Difficult Conversations, and Thanks for the Feedback. My guess is that you're familiar with the research by John Gottman up in Seattle. I have some familiarity, but please provide an overview. Well, an overview, just a

23:15connection to the question that you just asked. So he invites married couples into his lab, and he invites them to talk about an issue that's stressful between them, to have a difficult conversation, essentially. Hooks them up to heart monitors and videotapes and all of that. And then, you know, he says that he can watch for five minutes and predict with their different numbers based on his different studies, but 90-ish, 90, 92% accuracy, whether they'll divorce within three or five years. Part of the reason I name this is that, for me, it really says it's not just that we have

23:49difficult conversations in our most important relationships. Those conversations are the relationship. That if we find a way to have them productively or constructively, then the relationship will thrive, whether it's a personal or professional relationship and or is where we start to disengage because you just don't get it and you won't listen. And the relationship starts to fray. So what Gottman is listening for are what are the indicators, right, that he's listening for that tell him which direction

24:20it's going to go. And one of them is that as a conversation gets heated and starts to escalate, one of the spouses will often make a joke. But the purpose of the joke is that it's an invitation to step outside this argument and to see it for what it is, to see what's happening, which is that this is the conversation we usually have and how it usually goes. And so often it's a little bit of an inside joke. But humor, by the way, I listened to your conversation with Anne Lamott, who I absolutely

24:53adore. She's a treasure. She is a treasure. And what does she call it? Laughter is carbonated... Holiness. Holiness, yeah. So laughter also in the brain just gives us a little bit of instant perspective that we suddenly see the absurdity of our own behavior in many cases. And so it's an invitation to just name what's happening. It's like a meta move. So, for instance, with my husband, who also teaches negotiation, by the way, so... I'd love to be a fly on the wall for some of those.

25:25Yeah, you can imagine. So we fight about how we fight. Yeah, yeah. That's the fight we usually have. It's like my friend's kids. My friends are therapists and their kids are like, stop therapizing me. Stop therapizing me. Exactly. Exactly. So we're like, yeah, you're not listening. Oh, a little most difficult conversations. Yeah. So that's the fight we have. Stop putting your baton in my face. That's right. That's the best alternative to negotiated agreement, folks. Inside joke. Yes. Yes, yeah, exactly. That was very nice inside baseball joke.

25:57Yeah, waving your baton around in a romantic relationship is not usually a successful strategy. You know, there are a lot of people who would find me very appealing. But one of the jokes that he and I make when we have the wherewithal to do it is like, why will you not just admit, I am good and you are bad? That is what this is about, right? It's about who needs to apologize, whose fault this is, et cetera. So as things escalate, your ability to just name that underlying dynamic sometimes makes the other

26:28person laugh and you can step out of it for a moment. And then that gives you the opportunity to say, look, obviously we've had this conversation several times. I'm not understanding why fill in the blank. I'm not understanding why what I'm suggesting doesn't make sense. Help me under, like genuinely help me understand that. Or I'm not understanding what you're most worried about here. That often helps. And it needs to be a genuine ask. You can't say like, what are you worried

26:58about? Because that's really a hot question. It's like, you shouldn't be worried about anything. So why are you being so stupid as to be worrying about something? As long as you can step outside, see, oh, I'm not being curious right now. And I don't have to pretend that I agree to do it. I think that's really the key. And I don't have to say there's no truth. But from where I sit, I can only see some of the pieces of the puzzle. You have the other

27:28pieces of the puzzle. Putting those pieces on the table for discussion is how we figure out what we have to work with. And then at the end of the day, we still might not agree about this, but it might open up new options for how we handle it. You guys know I love wearables. I'm sure you do as well. And they're great, but they give you data. Typically, they do not give you solutions. That's why I absolutely love The Pod by this episode's sponsor, 8Sleep. I've been using their stuff for many, many years now. It fits over your

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Sue Johnson on hold-me-tight conversations

29:05Next up, Dr. Sue Johnson. Dr. Sue Johnson was the pioneering clinical psychologist who created emotionally focused therapy. She was named Psychologist of the Year by the American Psychological Association and appointed to the Order of Canada for her global impact on psychotherapy. Could you walk us through what a hold-me-tight conversation is? A hold-me-tight conversation, very briefly, is a bonding conversation. The tricky part is that as

29:37adults, some of us have never seen this conversation. So it's a dance that is foreign to us. We've never had it with our own parents. We've never had it with siblings. We've never had it with previous lovers. We get married or we get committed to a partner. And it's reasonable that we don't know how to go there because many of us, it's just not a drama that we've ever seen enacted. A hold-me-tight conversation is where one person is able to open up and reach for the other person and share

30:12vulnerabilities, talk about their needs and fears in a way that pulls the other person close. It helps the other person reach back and respond. Could you give any examples of phrasing or questions or guidelines you provide? That would be, I know I would love to know and I suspect others would too. Well, when you don't trust, you don't feel safe, and you've never seen a hold-me-tight conversation, the way it usually goes just naturally as human beings, I catch myself doing this with my husband.

30:43If I'm upset about something, like he's been going to bed very early, and that means that we don't have our snuggle time, we don't have our little chat time, okay? And it doesn't seem to bother him at all. It doesn't seem to bother him that this isn't happening. So this will go on for a couple of weeks. And even though I'm doing this work, there's a certain point where I start to get self-protective and I start to blame him in my head. And I say, he's always too busy. He's got his lists. He's got lists. That's what he, and he's a man and he's got lists. And all he cares

31:14about is his list of tasks. And he's just into problem solving. And he doesn't think about me at all. And this dialogue will go in my head. So I turn to him and I say, you're going to bed very early these days. Listen to my voice. It's the emotional music. He says, no, I'm not.

31:34Because he hears the threat in my tone. I say, yes, you are. And you've been going to bed for weeks. And I guess it doesn't matter to you that we're not having those close moments. And listen to me. I mean, I'm on the attack. And we are acutely sensitive as human beings to signs of rejection or abandonment by the people we love. Acutely sensitive. That's how we're wired. So he hears that he's blown it. He hears it that I'm rejecting him. I'm telling him he's done something wrong.

32:06So he says, I don't want to talk about this right now. I say, oh, let me guess. You have to go to bed because you're so tired. So we're off, right? Okay. That is the typical demand, withdraw, demand, defend dialogue that you'll see in a distressed couple. And it's totally predictable. You can also have it with your kids. I can remember a glorious argument I had in Starbucks with my adolescent son that was just a perfect example of the way distressed couples talk to

32:37each other. So I'm blaming and pointing fingers and he's rolling his eyeballs and basically telling me what a dreadful mother I am. So you can have it with anyone, but with partners, it's very predictable. And it has everyone feeling completely threatened and unsafe and unable to dance together. If you shift that into a hold me tight conversation, the way it would go is that I would be more able to tune into my own needs, more aware of my own needs, accepting of my own needs. And I would realize,

33:11oh, I'm really missing those conversations with John. We've been married for 32 years. We're both very strong people. So it's been quite an adventure. So I think, oh, I'm missing those relationships with John and maybe he doesn't miss them. And oh, that makes me feel really somehow anxious and uncomfortable if he doesn't miss them. Because the big question in love relationships is, are you there for me? Do I matter to you? Can I count on you? Maybe those conversations don't matter to him,

33:45but they really matter to me. So I am aware on a different level of me and I'm specifying. That scares me a bit that maybe these conversations don't matter to him. I can tune into my own emotions. Then I take the risk and reach for him and say to him, I'm open. I say to him, you know what? We haven't been having our usual talks late at night and somehow it doesn't look like you miss them.

34:17And somehow that makes me feel kind of really sort of uncomfortable. It almost feels like I'm not sure that that closeness matters to you. And so I could get angry about it, but actually what's happening is it sort of scares me a bit because I need those conversations. Now I've talked about my fears and my needs. I can only do that if I have some sort of model that it's okay to do that, that that doesn't mean I'm a wimp or mentally ill or weak or pathetic. From my point of view, it's strength to do that.

34:52And that's what we teach and it's strength to do that. And that's what securely attached people can do. They can reach from a position of vulnerability. So I say that to him and that pulls him. He says, oh, you're right. Yeah, I do want those conversations. I've just been so exhausted and I've been doing this and I haven't wanted to tell you how stressed out I am. So then it becomes reciprocal. I say, oh, I didn't know that you were so stressed out

35:25about this decision we've made and that it's taking up all your energy and you're worried about it. And so then we start to have an open, responsive, engaged conversation where we can share vulnerabilities, comfort each other, and you're literally better at tuning in to each other. And I think that's because when I feel safe, I can tune into you. When I think about the people I can dance with in tango really well, it's the people I feel

35:55emotionally safe with. And I know that there's no mistakes because mistakes don't matter. We're just playing. Then I relax. I'm in my body. I tune into their cues and we move together naturally. So that's kind of what happens. And it's a hold me tight conversation and it sort of cascades. Each time you have this conversation, it's your nervous system goes, ah, this is comfort. This is home. This is safety. This is what I need. And you see your partner as a resource.

36:31You see your partner as somebody who can provide this safety, comfort, caring, reassurance, social support, if you want to use a psychological formal term for it. You see your partner as this person and your partner connects and you know how to do this dance. This dance is innately rewarding. It creates joy in people. You don't have to persuade people to keep doing it like going to the gym or meditation or their communication skills. People will do this. Once they know how

37:08to do it, they'll keep doing it. And that's why I think we get good follow-up results because once you start having these conversations and it's very moving sometimes to see people's response, like people will start to cry and say things like when they discover these hold me tight conversations, people will say, I'm thinking of one man who said, I never knew that you could talk to somebody like this. I never knew that you could ask for these things and that she wants me to be vulnerable to

37:45her. I never knew that. I never saw that growing up. I didn't know people did that. And then he wept and he turned to the therapist and said, I've been alone all my life, haven't I?

37:59And that, what attachment science tells us is that emotional isolation is toxic for human beings. I mean, we found out that in the pandemic, but we still don't get it. I wish we would get it on a different level. It's toxic for human beings. It's not who we are. And when people start to have these hold me tight conversations, all kinds of amazing things happen. They don't just understand how relationships can be and how you can shape relationships. You don't have to just have them

38:31happen to you. You can shape love. They understand something very deep about themselves. Couples grow each other. In safe relationships, couples grow each other. I watch severely traumatized people learn to trust another human being by having these hold me tight conversations with their partner and it changes everything because they have a secure place in life for the first time. They feel seen, they feel accepted, they feel held. And once you feel seen, accepted, and held, there's a natural

39:07human growth process that happens. Attachment, the science is all about development of the personality. There's a natural growth process. So we tune into that natural process in the hold me tight conversation. And those conversations predict over study after study, after study, after study, those conversations predict success in EFT. They predict more secure bonding. They predict better sex, more sexual satisfaction in couples. They predict any sort of measure of good positive functioning you

39:45can imagine. Those bonding conversations predict all the good results we get in EFT and they predict results that follow up.

Terry Reel on normal marital hatred

39:56Next up, Terry Reel. Terry Reel is an internationally recognized family therapist, a best-selling author, and the creator of Relational Life Therapy. He has spent more than four decades helping couples restore intimacy and connection.

40:13What is another term that I'd never heard before being exposed to your work? Normal marital hatred. I got this from L. Tronick, infant observational researcher. I read along with Barry Brasleton, was the first generation. Since Freud, what we said about child development all came from listening to adults. We didn't watch any kids. And he was one of the first people to actually plonk a video camera in front of mothers and infants and then fathers and infants, and actually look at what happens.

40:45And what he came up with, I borrowed, and it's central to RLT, which is, the essential rhythm of all relationships is harmony, disharmony, and repair. Closeness, disruption, and a return to closeness. That's where the skills come in, how to move from disruption to repair. Our culture doesn't teach it. Our culture doesn't even acknowledge a good relationship is all harmony, just like a good body is yours. A good body is like a 20-year-old body. A good sex life is like, you know, what you had when you were two weeks into

41:19the relations. No. All harmony is bullshit. Bullshit. One of the things I like about you, Tim, is you tell the truth. You know what? You go to a cocktail party, and you're, oh, there's Harry and Shirley. They're in their 80s. They still have sex. They love each other. One of these days, I let you go to a cocktail party in here. There's Harry and Shirley. They actually split up for a year. He fell in love with another woman. He couldn't take it because she was such a drunk, but then she got into AA and got

41:51sober, and the two of them are really doing reasonably well. Aren't they cute? Gets warmth like they do that. So we don't deal with reality. The father of couples therapy back in the 50s said, the day you turned to the person who's next to you, it was assumed it was your marriage, you'd say, this is a mistake. I've been had. This is not the person I fell in love with. That, Sid Framo, is the first day of your real marriage. So here's what I want to say about disharmony.

42:24You ready? It hurts. It's dark. You can really, really feel like, what the hell did I get myself into? This is such a disappointment. And guess what? Your partner's probably feeling that about you too. So I talk about normal marital hatred when you're in that dark phase. You hate your partner. That's okay. Don't kill yourself or her. That's okay. I'll teach you how to get through it,

42:54but it's part of the deal for many of us. And here's what I like to say. I've been going around the world talking about normal marital hatred for, oh my God, what? 30 years. This is true. Not one person has ever come backstage and said, Terry, what do you mean by that?

43:13Don't sweat it. You can get through it. It's normal. Relax. What are some of the first steps or tools that you would recommend to someone listening who agrees with what you're saying, but has had no models for repair, has never learned how to use any type of approach for repair. And this is something that your direct help and then also your books have really helped me with because I did not grow up in a household with repair, right? It was basically one person screams, then the other person goes to fix, which they don't really want to do,

43:45but it's their attempt to basically quell the disaster and fury and that's it. Then everybody's kind of upset and it never gets dressed. That was the model growing up. What do you suggest to people who want to start with repair? You know, of course, I'm tempted to say, so are you a screamer or a fixer? But I won't. I'll leave that alone. I'm a fixer. I'm not a screamer. Oh, okay. Lucky for your partner. But the problem is the resentment that builds up. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yeah. Okay. So repair. First of all, here's, I like to say I have a number of bitter pills to swallow,

44:22but if you swallow them, things will be a lot better in your life. And here's one of them. Repair is a one-way street. Everybody gets that wrong. It's not a dialogue. It's not, well, these are your issues with me. Well, these are my issues with you. No. You have your turn, but not then. Take turns. So if you have a disgruntled partner, you are at their service. That's the first thing to master. You know, I like to say, Tim, you're at the customer service

44:54window. Somebody comes to the customer service window and says, my microwave doesn't work. They don't want to hear you say, well, my toaster doesn't work. They don't want your excuses. Fix the goddamn microwave. Tend to your partner and bring them back into repair with you. Tend to them. Put yourself aside and tend to them. What does that look like? Two things. First, do I get it? Listen. Don't argue. Don't rebut. Empty the well. I'm sorry you feel bad. That's

45:24beautiful. Compassion. I'm sorry you feel bad. I love you. I don't want you to feel bad. Help me understand. What feels bad? What's it like for you? Okay. Then you reflect. This is what I hear you say. Did I get it? Yeah. Good enough. Good. Two, is there something I could say or do right now that would be helpful? What would you like? Who says that? And then if it's anything short of jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, give it to them. Be generous. Those are the basics.

Diana Chapman on evolving partnerships

45:56Last but not least, Diana Chapman. Diana Chapman is co-author of the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, a co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group, and founder of the Signal Institute, working with leaders on radical honesty, somatic intelligence, and transformation. I would like to, if you're open to it, shift a little bit to relationships. And I want to ask

46:28you specifically about your partnership with Matt. So here's one of your superpowers as listed from Mr. Jim. Creating and sustaining a wonderful intimate partnership with Matt, her husband and lovers since they were teenagers. Have her talk about the risks she and they were willing to take to keep the relationship alive and vital, growing and intimate. If you are game to talk about that, I would be very interested to hear more. Well, it's a challenge. It's both a great gift to be

47:02with a partner since you were young, get to grow up together. There's a lot of shared memories and shared friends. There's a sweetness that it started out with, you get to keep. And there's also a great challenge of the fact that we are different people who evolve and change. And so several times, at least three key times in our relationship, we've been willing to let it all go. And we've basically killed it off. Just said, the relationship as it was is done. Now let's just check and see what is the relationship that wants to happen moving forward. Maybe it's just friends,

47:37co-parents, maybe it's lovers, staying married. What is it? And so we have a lot of courage, both of us, to be willing to let go of what's not working and trust that the right form of the relationship will reveal itself. And it just so happens that it continues to be us married. And I think we play around often. Sometimes we'll get up in the morning, I'll say something like, hey, you want to be married today? And he'll say, oh, well, what would that mean? What kind of a

48:09husband do I need to be? And we'll go and play around with value. How about this and this? And then we choose. And that is, for me, we're always choosing over and over again. And we always are willing to, kind of to the point of using the work with Byron Katie, of I'm willing to open to the possibility that not being married is just as okay as being married. And what that has created is an incredibly vital, creative, ever-evolving, passionate marriage in which we're freed up to

48:41keep exploring new ways of being together. And I am really proud of my relationship. I think it's one of the greatest things I've ever done is the marriage that I have. We get a lot of feedback that it's an inspiring marriage to a lot of people who look to it. And I do think it comes with the courage to say no. You mentioned at least, I think you said three times, that you've had this type of conversation. I would like to zoom in on the first conversation. Were you both already

49:15prepared and trained to initiate that type of conversation? Did one side initiate the, hey, let's decide if we want to remain as is or if we want to take one of these other forms? I'm just wondering for people who are listening who have never had one of these conversations, maybe they've been at the breaking point, but they've never had this conversation. I initiated it. It wasn't Matt's idea. I said, hey, it just isn't working for me the way we're

49:47in relationship. And there's a different kind of a man I want to be with than how you are. And I wanted another possibility. And so I didn't know how to do all this. I was just toddling around trying to figure this out. And yeah, I said, I don't want to do it this way anymore. And so I thought that might mean that we needed to be separated and that we needed to end the marriage. And I was willing to, we actually got some support from counselors about telling

50:19our kids that we were going to divorce. Because that's the only direction it seemed like we were going to go. And then I had this great advice from a friend who said, okay, Diana, I love you both. If you think divorce is what needs to happen, that's great. But I hear you complaining that there's a certain man you want him to be that he's not. And she said, who is the woman you would need to be to call forward that man? And my stomach dropped. And I thought, I don't want to, I don't know about that. What? And I realized, oh, I would need to be a

50:55different woman. So we said, let's kill off this old marriage and let's see if we can create a new one. And I'm going to keep asking myself, who do I need to be to call forward the man I want to be with? And about six months later, I was with the man I wanted to be with. And I remember saying to him, you really changed? And he said, no, you really changed. And the truth is we both really changed. But I was really grateful for that first conversation of being willing to let it go and

51:26then getting the feedback of, hey, if you're the creator of who's showing up over there, who do you need to be? And for many months, I felt like I was going to throw up 24 seven, learning to be a much more vulnerable, needy woman who called forward the man who could protect and lead in a way that I hadn't been willing to be in the past. How did you, thank you for sharing all this, by the way, and very courageous and vulnerable. And how did you figure out who you needed to be, who that woman

52:04was to call forth the version of your husband or the man who you wanted to be with? Did you have help? Was it obvious once you sat with it in terms of the changes that needed to be made on your side? Are the things you needed to cultivate or drop? How did you arrive at the answers? At first, I didn't know. I just knew I was really scared when I asked the question. I believe that fear is when we're present is an intelligence that says something needs to get

52:36learned. Something needs to get learned. So when I had that fear, I thought, oh, wow, something needs to get learned. I don't know something here. And so that was my first clue that her question was powerful, is the fear that arose in me. And I just kept asking the fear, what needs to be learned? I just kept being really broad in that curiosity. I got into a state of wonder. I wonder who I would need to be to call forward the man I most want to be with.

53:06I just kept asking that. I wonder. And I let it be okay that I didn't have to know because I didn't know. I've been with him for a long time and I didn't know. So I had to be willing to listen and learn from something greater than my own experience so far. And so it was in that level of curiosity that I just found my way. And it was baby steps, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there.

53:38And we've had several versions of that often, or not often, but the three versions were all some version of me. Something needs to get learned for the next evolution here of this relationship. Do you have recommended resources or practices that couples can seek out or embrace so that they are better prepared if they get to these decision points? Or just overall with respect to nurturing

54:12sort of a healthy co-created relationship? Are there any books, any particular practices that you would highlight for folks? Matt and I studied with Gay and Katie Hendricks for years at the Hendricks Institute. They did a lot of relationship work. They still do a bit of it, but I learned so many tools there on how to get off the drama triangle. I learned about personas and about how I get caught in these personas that then unconsciously require the persona of my partner to

54:44show up in a certain way that I complain about. And I learned about how to unwind those or shift them when I wanted to. I learned about the importance of feeling my feelings. I learned about really questioning my stories. I learned about polarity and how important it is to honor polarity that shows up in couples and making sure that I honored both sides of the polarity equally. For example, a lot of couples argue about money. And almost always there's one that we call the gas and one who's the break and somebody who's more

55:16free-flowing with money and somebody who's more controlling about money. And can we honor these polarities and can we see the value in both of them? Because usually I was the one who wanted to spend the money and my husband wanted to hold on to the money. And we would get into a battle about, you know, you're keeping me from having joy in my life because you're so stingy about money. And he'd say, you're going to make us all broke because you're just so unconscious about spending it. And so honoring that those two sides of the polarity are actually allies that

55:46are here to create just the right balance to take care of ourselves and have fun. And so those are all different skill sets. There's so many different tools. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered

56:24or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. Something to think about.

56:55If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.