Is Marriage Really Difficult?

we need to be able to put it on the table, talk about it and see if it's something that we can discuss and try to resolve, because otherwise it builds up, builds up, builds up and it gets to a point that no matter what the other person does, if you reset the top of the mountain, no matter what the other person does, you're never coming down the other side. You're stuck there and you're always going to resent them and you're both going to die prematurely and bitter. Hello and welcome to Awake at the Wheel. So in today's episode, we're going to explore the topic of marriage and relationships. Again, as we spoke about in previous episodes, there's a lot of not so great advice and information out there about relationships. So we want to help viewers to discern what's right, what's wrong, what's okay and what's not. So okay. So Oren, any thoughts on this before we jump into the first video? No, can't wait to see. We're going to see. All right. Let's jump in. Marriage literally is the one relationship that will bring out the darkest side of you, side that you really even know existed. Your spouse will bring that out more than anybody. Your parents, your friends, you guys will see parts of you that you didn't know existed. Marriage is from a spiritual construct. It is to help build your character in marriage will help be your character like no other relationship. If you can get through that, you're going to see a side of you that will blow your mind. So to begin with, I do agree with what she's saying, and I'm sure that there's more to it because it looks like that's a clip of a larger video. But I think the same can be said about the good things in marriage, too, Right? There's there's the ugly side of it, but there's also the amazing side. But both of those things I think, yes. Are huge in terms of building character and just development of oneself in general. Yeah. And look, how many times have you or someone else said that there are two good people who just aren't good for each other. Right. So. Right. So it's it helps you build character. It helps you learn to live through adversity. It helps bring, you know, bring out the best in you, the worst of you, etc., etc.. So, I mean, I I'm not sure what the spiritual part that's, you know, metaphors metaphysical maybe. But in general, I mean, it was just a small snippet from a larger podcast, I'm sure. But I mean, the fact is, yes, people have to keep in mind that being with somebody that close every day is going to trigger enough. She said, even more than your parents, whatever else, I'm not quite sure parents can bring out the dark in you or a sibling. So, you know, and that's what I was going to say was before she said that when when you're saying about bringing out the dark side, I was going to say, Yeah, because, you know, being with someone that close, that intimate, going through the the wars that you go through with them, whether it's against each other or together against some other force, it can really stir up a lot of the old baggage, a lot of the old triggers that you have from childhood. And even though you're two adults and maybe you met in adulthood, the fact is and we've talked both in other podcasts, we talk about family. If the child part of you is being triggered, then, you know, it's the irrational part, the emotional part, the hurtful part, and so on. So, yes, a relationships can bring out, she said marriage. But, you know, any, you know, long term relationship can bring out the worst and best of, you and be it oftentimes is really triggering childhood wounds. Yeah, and that's so interesting. I was thinking something along the same lines there, and it's an old psychology trope, but I think there's truth to it that oftentimes we do select partners who mirror our parents, whether it's in a same sex relationship or heterosexual relationship. It's, you know, with heterosexual relationships. They say the opposite sex parent is usually the type of person that you're attracted to in some way, shape or form. So that being said, it stands to reason that a lot of that old stuff may be triggered. Yeah. And now Freud came up with this term. It was called either the compulsion to repeat or repetition compulsion and I'm going to explain it and there are much simpler explanations for it. But when I tell people about it and I explain that sort of the layers, even with all the layers, oftentimes people go, Geez, I can really see that it resonates not just that it makes sense, but it resonates, which is the theory that one of the reasons, if not the primary reason, that we end up with someone like our you know, one of our parents is that we are unconsciously trying to heal the wounds of the past. And what better way to do that than to go through the same you know, battles that caused those wounds? And what better way to go through the same battles than to be with somebody who is like someone who with whom we originally went through those same battles. And so in theory and it was totally irrational, but it's completely rational when you hear about it. So in theory, if we can somehow as an adult, no longer as a child, but as an adult, go through the same hurts, the same, you know, unhealthy dynamics, if we can go through them again as an adult and resolve them, supposedly that will help us, you know, heal the wounds that we had with somebody else. So that seems irrational. But the fact is those wounds that we carry with us, they're psychic, meaning not not psychic, whatever, You know, they're internal. And so whatever those wounds are, whoever first caused them, you know, we carry them that the pain, the trauma, you know, the perception of self, how we feel about ourselves and so on, how we feel in relation to others, all of those things, whoever cause in the first place doesn't matter. They are there. So if we're able to sort supposedly, you know, revisit the past, if we're able to go through the same problems again, resolve them, then it is healing a part of us that was broken, so to speak. So it does make sense in that regard. And then when I say the other layer I mentioned is people can look this up, whether they look through gestalt, look at gestalt therapy or through emotion focus therapy, there's a thing called chair work and there's two chair and there's an empty chair and the empty chair, you know, you're talking to, which I tell people I have done this with so many patients, even when I do a simulation in class where it's just a simulation where just acting people even feel something. But doing it with in real life. And I've done it myself. I've sat in that chair, I've had the master of chair work do it to me, and it had such an impact and all it does is you're playing yourself and then you're playing the other person. And I won't go into detail and everything, but it looks ridiculous. It seems ridiculous and sounds ridiculous, but everyone who's done it and who've been able to do it properly, they say, I don't know what happened, but something changed this whole past week. Something shifted. I feel different and in my case it was I felt light every time I brought someone in that chair. If one of my family members and went through this process, I'm talking to a bloody chair and then I'm sitting in that chair as that person talking to me, it basically shifts your perspective, helps you see things differently. Anyway, the point is, I say in talking to a darn chair, somehow it heal something inside of us. So if we're talking to another adult about the same issues or similar issues to what we had in the past, then why wouldn't it help us heal those wounds of the past? So it sounds ridiculous, but it does make sense. Obviously, the simpler explanation is that we end up dating somebody or marrying somebody like our parent because of familiarity, you know, That's who we know. That's that's the dynamic that we're used to. So we kind of fall into it and so on. So that makes sense as well. I get it. But this repetition compulsion, if you look into it and you look at reflect on yourself and your past relationships and current relationships, you might see that there's something to it. So two points come to mind here. I remember in grad school reading the empty chair and thinking it was so like wacky sounding. But in therapy with clients, I've done a variation of it where it's not so overt, where they're switching chairs and things like that. But what I often find is that what they're able to work through is a conversation with somebody they wouldn't be able to converse with about that matter. So like we talked about in our holidays episode, sometimes there's these dynamics in families where it's never going to be resolved and you can't talk these things through. But having this opportunity in therapy to kind of talk through both sides of it because oftentimes we can predict what the other person is going to say or how they're going to respond. It really does help to kind of break through that. That stuck point. In talking about that. You mentioned such an important point, which is this shift in perspective, whether it's overt, like doing the chair work or I have techniques as well where it's just simply getting you out of your own head and seeing things from another perspective. It leads to such a change. So yeah, so talking about something, you know, again, even if it's not with the same person, but just being able to talk about it and putting out there, as soon as you put it out there, oftentimes it starts to maybe potentially you shift your perspective, but especially if it's guided through proper therapy. Yeah. And as we're talking about mate selection in Freudian theories and therapies, you know, people either I think love him or hate him in our profession or, you know, agree or disagree. But regardless, I think there's certainly validity to what you said there as far as, you know, probably unconscious to to a great degree that we're selecting people who are similar to parents. But I really think it's something that people should be cognizant of. If you are going into a relationship and not recognizing that you're trying to fix childhood stuff rather than enter into a meaningful adult relationship. So, you know, I think it's something that people should really aspire to reflect upon. Right? And there is a type of therapy I'm overly simplified by a million fold. Okay, It's not something that I do, but there's a model and I think it's transactional analysis. But basically the bottom line, the thing that I was going to say was that it looks at your dynamic with somebody else, in this case a partner. And there's three levels. There's the parent, the adult and the child, and they see which person is playing which role. And a lot of people go way isn't parent an adult the same as like, no, no, a parent? And it's funny you should ask because I've had so many students. If I say if you think about the parent role, what does that represent? It's interesting. Most people are going to say something like maybe over encroaching, overbearing, over controlling, something like that. Okay, maybe sadistic few people say loving, nurturing and so on. And it's a really great projective test because if you had a really healthy, loving, stable relationship, those are the words you're going to see. But because of had so many people in the majority, the vast majority give these negative connotations. It helps show that. I mean, the fact is we've talked about this before in parents. And of course, it's our job to screw up our children. You know, some of us do it really well. And so it's unpaid labor, but we do a damn good job. So, you know, but the point is, so when I talk about that with the adult, the parent, adult and child, I say, yeah, the parent is trying to either dominate, control, manipulate, or they are being overly it's almost codependent being overly, let's say, nurture, and they're treating the other person like a baby and so on. And if someone is, let's say, overbearing or powerful and they're screaming and everything like that, it sounds like a parent. But I go, Now, that sounds like a child having a temper tantrum by so, you know, and the child so is a child. This kid who can't control an adult, who can control their emotions. Is it someone who's overly dependent? Is it someone who's avoiding it, needs someone else to do things for them? It's fascinating to see the various iterations of the either parent parents or to be maybe butting heads, parent child to children. Right. And ideally, what you're trying to do is you're trying to have the adult adult connection where, you know, there is there's an equality, there is a maturity using the the logical part of the brain more than the emotional and so on. So anyway, there's just something to throw out there for people to kind of think about in their own relationships. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's check out the next video. I'm going to Yahoo! To marry. Okay. You marry the person who responds in a total opposite way. You do. So, for example, last night, bad weather here in Baton Rouge had been warning us for days. Days, okay, that there were going to be tornadoes. I mean, we were at a talk on fire for an EF two or greater tornado. It was just the whole thing. Okay. And I have become a meteorologist since living now here because I am terrified to be wiped out by a tornado. Okay. I know statistically the odds of that happening. Leave me alone. So I cleaned out our safe space all weekend. Got everything nice and ready. I mean, I've loaded it up with everything. In. Diapers, snacks, drinks, flashlight, batteries, battery operated fan, you name it, I had it in there. Okay. Pillows, blanket, a small mattress to put over ahead if we need to. I am ready for whatever. You know, the weather brings us. My husband, on the other hand, he was like, there's a storm Sunday night when we got a notification from the school that they were like closing early. He's like, There's this Sorry, my phone passed. But yes, he's like, There's a storm. He didn't even know. He didn't even know that there was a storm of it. So I say that to say you need balance, okay? Because if we were both running around here like crazy people, it would have been chaos. If we were both like him, then, you know, we wouldn't have been prepared. Thankfully, nothing happened. And now I have to put everything I took out of our safe space, back into our safe space and, you know, just save all my my storm prep for next time. But you need balance. You need balance for sure. All right. So I think the example she gave was a good illustration of her initial statement, but I don't agree with her initial statement in and of itself, saying that I think she basically was saying that you need to have like completely opposite people in a relationship. So what's the old saying? Opposites attract. So, you know, to an extent I think that that saying comes from somewhere. But I think it has to be to a certain extent, because if you are so opposite, let's say in your values or in your goals, that of course, is not going to work. But I can appreciate the story that she shared there because my husband and I are quite different in personality in that respect, where I'm very uppity and, you know, controlling about stuff. And he is very laid back. So I think that that balance is really good because like she said, if both of us were super laid back, then, you know, nobody would react too much or both of us kooks like I am. That wouldn't go so well either. So I certainly think that there is there's value in what she's saying. But to an extent it's, you know, I'm very much a fan of and a promoter of have shared values and have shared goals. Those should not be opposite. Right. And yes, opposites attract initially and they also repel. So this is something I've asked so many couples and you can ask your ask your friends, everyone, or think about your own relationship. And I've never had someone not able to provide an answer, usually like right away. Sometimes it takes a few minutes. But I ask them, I say, Tell me one thing about your partner that really attracted to you them to attract them to you at the beginning, which now drives you crazy. And everybody has at least one thing. And the most common, right? It's like when you have an extrovert, an introvert. So for the extrovert, is that wild and crazy? Spontaneous is maybe not so responsible. The introvert represents stability. They're going to make sure the bills are paid. They're going to make sure that, you know, the kids are woken up or whatever else like that. But eventually the introvert also represents being boring. Being Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And the extra, you know, into the introvert. As an introvert, I resent that. But All right. Harsh truth. Sorry. And as for the interior, the extrovert, they're spontaneous, they're fun, they're going in everything. And eventually that person becomes. Crazy and wild and too much. And reckless and irresponsible and spontaneous. It's just, you know, impulsive and so on. So yeah, so, so you've got to be very careful. Yeah. If you have shared values, then that can help you kind of deal with the differences. And you also have to be mature enough to be able to communicate with each other about those differences. Because otherwise, again, what was you describe, for example, someone like her who's getting all ready and everything like that. There's a lot of people who, when they find out that their partner has no idea, then they would resent that. What? I did all this work. You're clueless. You don't care about us or the family. And so, you know, again, it's we've got to be very mindful when you do wants we can't just assume that these, you know, pithy sayings have or hold weight. Sometimes they have some value, but they only go so far. Yeah. And if I seem a bit distracted, it's because I'm trying to think of like, what do I like about my husband? Like weird, like giant or looking like I'm 20, 21 years and we still, like, love pretty much everything about each other. So I'm going to have to think about this one, but something will come to mind. All right. You want to clarify for everyone listening who said what can I what do I love about my husband? Then you left it there. You left the part out about that I can't stand anymore. That's what I'm. Thinking. Like, yeah. That's clear. Okay, so if you. Want to give that some thought, I'm sure there's something. If I really wracked my brain. And just really, for the record, he's told me so many things on the flip side, so you can. I'm kidding. You don't. I'm just kidding. I know. But yeah. As far as you know what she's saying about this, this whole opposites thing and the I like the example of laid back versus high strung person. I was just speaking with a friend about this yesterday where she and her husband are quite different in that respect. And I really empathize with her husband because he sounds a lot like me, where he's very particular about things and, you know, a lot like me in terms of wanting things to be just so whereas she's a lot like my husband and very laid back and she actually brought up a really interesting point that made me think that, you know, while she can accept what I'm saying, that, you know, that's just how you guys are. And if it works, it works. But she was feeling a little bit of discomfort surrounding the fact that, you know, perhaps over the years and she was using my husband as an example, I've become more uppity because he's been more permissive of that. I'm like, well, that's interesting. And I don't know if it's necessarily a bad thing or more so that we've kind of accommodated one another's personalities over the years. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And that accommodating is so important as her compromise comes in, because the flip side of that will be resentment. And that's why opposites repel, because people resent the other person for not operating the way they do. And by the way, a couple of things. One, so when when you have two people like, let's say the one who's kind of like more particular, the other one's laid back and each one kind of helps the other or accommodates the other the ability just to support the other, that's complementarianism, right. And that's and that's what everyone is saying. Do what does my partner's differences or do my partner's differences complement mine and vice versa, number one. And number two, the research is pretty clear for the most part when you look at the most important traits, what attracts people and keeps them together or this keeps them together is the compatibility, you know, similar and again goes back to values or interests and so on. And I've spoken with a lot of couples about this and this not this should not be a make or break like a deal breaker, but for some people it is, which is let's say somebody loves to go outdoors and the other person's an indoor type of person. Well, the people who are too rigid, it's going to break them apart because they can never do anything together. And the people who can accommodate it. Okay. So when my partner goes skiing or goes hunting or whatever else like that outdoors, I'm going to have my time indoors. It doesn't take away from the relationship. It just they say, well, frame it as that's his or her own time or a time with friends or whatever. And these are my time. So certain things they can seem insurmountable and sometimes they are. But at the time, there is there is a way that we can reframe it and again, make it that it doesn't break up the relationship. But if it's a really big thing, like, for example, the biggest one and by the way, again, so surprising and sad when people have, you know, either they've got married or they're really close to getting married and they never even thought about, do we want children or not something like that or someone who definitely wants a child. The other one doesn't want a child and they go, You know what? I can learn to live with that. And I've seen what it does to people who that's all they ever wanted and they sacrifice that for their partner. You know, that that leads to so much resentment. And I'm sure we've talked about another podcast, but the fact is resentment is relationship cancer, and resentment is the most common thing I deal with in couples, because again, it just it eats away at at the relationship at each person. And we need to be able to put it on the table, talk about it and see if it's something that we can discuss and try to resolve, because otherwise it builds up, builds up, builds up and it gets to a point that no matter what the other person does, if you reset the top of the mountain, no matter what the other person does, you're never coming down the other side. You're stuck there and you're always going to resent them and you're both going to die prematurely and bitter. And I guess to that point and to tie that to the point that my friend made, I think that there's a fine line and it needs to be established earlier on between being supportive and then enabling behavior that's not compatible. Right. They can look the same, but you know, one a.k.a the enabling is going to lead to that resentment. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, let's check out the next video. Marriage is very hard. Here's why It's very hard. You're changing as you're growing. She's changing sometimes in marriage, you outgrow the other person and the other person is left behind. If you don't have those conversations to say, Listen, man, here's where I'm can I need your help as well to come up? This doesn't mean work as hard as me. That's not the conversation. Elevating your thinking, improving yourself, constantly working on each other. If I let myself going on £350 and she takes care of herself, she's grown. I'm not. There is a form of, Hey, how come you don't take care of your body when you turn off the lights? I look good when I turn on the lights you don't look good. The only way you're going to get a glimpse of living forever is by what you build. You have kids, you raise them properly. They continue. Your last name. You write a book, you make music, you make movies. You make something that outlives you. I can't see one single positive argument for staying single today, even if you get married and seven years later you get a divorce versus a man who's never been married before and he stayed single the entire life. I respect the guy that got married and got a divorce more than a guy that states because you're afraid of time, you're afraid of it. Wow. So what comes to mind is the the 100 emoji and clapping hands. And those two agree completely with what he's saying, like hundred percent So and I think this touches on what I mentioned earlier as far as having shared goals and shared values. So I'll share a personal anecdote here. And, you know, I'm not afraid to say this out likes my husband. I've talked about this many times. We would never advise anyone to get married as young as we did. We got married at 22 and we are not even remotely the same people we were at 22. Perhaps our core values have remained the same, which of course is very important. But we have grown and changed so much. But the biggest point of importance here is that we grew together. We recognize that both of us had changing and evolving goals, and we did that together. And it certainly wasn't easy because there was some clash in those goals and some, you know, really heavy discussion that we had to have in terms of what do we want going forward? But all too often with couples that I work with and individuals that I work with, that growth together does not happen. And that's where the relationships fall apart. Sometimes people stay together and resent one another because one has grown, the other hasn't, or they're growing in separate directions. But I think that, yeah, what they said in that video is completely true. Yeah, and I agree. I mean, if you think about it, it's ridiculous to think that two people who meet at any point who've been together for a long time aren't going to grow at different paces or different rates or in different ways. That's ridiculous. But yeah, as long as there's something that holds you together and the most important thing once again being values, what you know, what do we see as why are we doing this? What do we want to get out of this? You know, how do we want to live our lives? You know, do I want to sacrifice my well-being, my time, etc., for you or for the family or whatever, you know? And is it going to be reciprocated if you have those intact, then yes, you can grow differently without growing apart. Yeah, right. And and, you know, it's funny because I have said, which I think the ages the first time was people in their seventies, but I've done it in the sixties fifties. I've gone down and down and down where we look at activity, physical health and yes, I understand as you get older, right, it's harder to do certain things. But what I, you know, I'm doing with patients in their seventies or sixties or fifties and one person wants to just lead the sedentary lifestyle, whether that's how they've always been, they both are like that or whether they were high functioning or whatever, ambitious and so on. And now they're feeling older and tired or whatever they want to kind of lay back. If one person saying, No, I want to get the most out of this next chapter, I don't want to just, you know, resign myself to the to the grave. And I tell them, I say, it's really sad. You can look at that person, the one who's on this upward trajectory. And I say, and you can resent them and risk being left behind or you can be inspired by them and say, I want to do the same thing. And again, it might look different, it might take different shape, different forms. Maybe one person is naturally more physically healthy, maybe someone has injuries and so on. But it's whether it's a physical activity or mental activity, it's keeping yourself active. Youthful product feeling that I want to get up the next day and and I say to them, I say, look, I hate to say it. I know you have, you know, shared investments or children or whatever, but nobody should be another person's anchor. Absolutely. And you read my mind or and I was going to say exactly what you did about physical activity and sharing that goal. And any client that works with me knows that I never shut up about exercise and how important it is. And especially with couples, I feel like it's such a low hanging fruit as far as a goal that you can share together, right? And of course there's different physical abilities and limitations and so on, and I can certainly appreciate that. But having the shared goal of we are going to live a healthy lifestyle together, once you commit to that, it's pretty easy to do together and to grow together in. And unfortunately, though, so few people do it because that motivation to get up off the couch or stop living that sedentary lifestyle, it's hard to push past that, but it's huge. I think it's such a great goal that couples can set together. And again, it's it's relatively easy. Right? And once again, even if you do want to do it together because you have different approaches to physical, even if each of you does it in your own way and you're talking about it. And that's a shared goal for, you know, independently group. Great. And the thing is, we've talked about this in many other podcasts and it cuts across everything. The most important goal of human functioning as is for every other species on the planet is to learn to control or master our environment. We cannot prevent death. We can't change what's happening in the world around us. But we can take steps to make our current life and our presumed future life a little bit better. And again, it starts with exercise or healthier living. And one thing has a little side note here. Just for other people on podcast talk shows, most notably Joe Rogan, which is at the beginning of COVID, when Joe Rogan and others were saying, hey, hey, hey, you know, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I got my my two vaccines now, I'd question it, but okay, knowing what we know. But at the time they were saying, sure, vaccines make sense for vulnerable people, for older people, whatever. But if you're young for what we're learning, this was like even months, even a couple of years later, even today, still, people are saying you want to fight COVID, lots of vitamin D, exercise, eat healthy, and all the media shut anybody down who tried to say that. And that is a crime. It's not a travesty. It's an actual crime. It's a crime against humanity that there were no major media outlets that I know. And maybe it's changed everything to have a little story here or there. All the research shows that, but they weren't actively promoting it. And again, I can go for a whole other tangent. I won't just want people to think about that. Just think about that. The one thing that you could have done to control or to, you know, to help prevent yourself maybe from getting worse from COVID, they weren't even advocating. So it's something you can do on your own. You don't need media, you don't need a celebrity or influencer to tell you to do that. You don't us to tell you to do that. We just hope that you will take the right steps, because in this way, I tell my younger patients, I say, you know, especially if they want to cut down on drinking or smoking or something like that, I go, Yeah, it's harder to, you know, to see the future because right now, you know, you're able to handle having a few drinks at night, whatever else like that, you know, that you can work it off, I say. But just think if you retire or if you have grandchildren or whatever, it's going to be really hard to go. You know, if you're the person who likes to travel or if you want to play sports or if you want to sit in an arena for 3 hours or something like that, it's hard to do when your body's breaking down. So start taking care of it now. And I just you know, I'm not a health advocate. I'm really not. I've had periods where I've been extremely unhealthy. Thank goodness my wife cooks really well and she gets on my case with everything like that. And, you know, before I had my kidney taken out. So eight years ago, almost eight years ago, and before my heart surgery six years ago, I knew that I had to get in the best shape of my life for these surgeries. I wanted a good recovery and that so in my later years, I'm healthier now than I've been in most of the or many years, I should say, in the past. So it's never too late. And anyway, there's no excuse for it really. Yeah. And I'm going to get on a tangential soapbox here because, yeah, certainly I'm not the picture of health. I love my my bread and cookies. But that being said, you know, when it comes to health, I am really serious about it because I want to practice what I preach with my clients. As far as what we know about the psychological, psychological literature and the medical literature in general, the best prevention is from diet and exercise and good sleep. And yet there's so little media out there. There's so little promotion from the medical community about these three pretty basic things that if they are optimized, can prevent or reduce the severity of so many different diseases. From the psychological perspective, I'll try to stay in my lane here. You know, we know the benefits of it when it comes to to diet. You know, not only is it nourishing our brain, but as far as the gut microbiome and it's supporting the neurotransmitters in the healthy production of neurotransmitters, it is directly related. So it's not just about weight loss. It's about actually supporting what's happening chemically in our bodies to help support our psychological health. Right. And by saying all that, you are now a hateful, fat phobic monster, right? right. Yes. And that's a twist. You know, these these discussions have become which is why I've said this more than once. But that's one of the reasons we started this podcast, because the people who should be in charge of people who should be promoting this type of commonsensical thinking and actions are have been asleep at the wheel and we are trying to be awake at the wheel. So yes, we can go on and on about that. But, you know. Maybe another episode is another shot it down because I have so much more to say. But you're right, we're talking about marriage, so let's stick to that. All right. So as far as these three videos, I think these are better than some of the ones that we've watched in the past. As far as the information, I like it, too, that it was, you know, one popular person in the media, one person that just seemed like a regular person talking about her marriage. And the first one, I'm assuming maybe was was somebody recognizable. But I didn't recognize. But nonetheless, I think that these were three good examples of, you know, what you should do or what you should consider doing in a marriage. But as far as like the main takeaway, I would say shared values and shared goals is what seems to have kind of cut across these three. So if there's a main takeaway for our listeners, I would say, you know, focus on having shared goals, shared values, and it's okay if you're a little bit different, but just keep in mind what matters in that respect. All right? And I will add a couple more things. One is, as I said earlier, and people have to always keep this in mind. You have to always look at your your and your partner's resentment, resentment is not a bad word. It just means I feel wronged by you and I'm upset about it. And if you don't deal with it, you are going to end up somehow exacting your revenge, whether directly or passive. Aggressively. Unconsciously. Right. So you've got to be able to, you know, to deal with that, number one. And number two, actually speaking number to this one, because whenever I ask people what's the most important aspect of relationship, everybody says the cliche, which is communication. But that was something that was inherent in those videos as well. If your values are not perfectly aligned or if you're starting to grow apart or whatever, communicate with each other. If it's worth saving, make sure that you have that discussion and try to work on it. So it doesn't get either you don't drift too far apart or the resentment doesn't build too high that you can never overcome it. You have to have that communication, You have to have health, by the way, has to be healthy communication. People say not enough communication. It's not about how much it's the quality, it's the nature of it. So you have to do that. And then the third one is when we talk about health, just go back to that for a second. The number one killer, the number one thing that either, you know, that triggers and exacerbates all psychological and or medical or physical physiological conditions is stress. And the research is clear. Marriage can be a huge stressor or it can also be one of the greatest buffers against stress. If you have the pieces in place in the right configuration and you're working together and you're complementing each other-- complement, E M not compliment I M, right. And you're helping each other and you're accommodating each other and so on. If you see each other as a team rather than what happens with many of our clients, which is now your opponents, right? It's it's a buffer against stress rather than being a source of stress. Yeah. And so interestingly and I'll just add this in as a afterthought or an additional thought here, notice how he didn't really even touch on the topic of love. And this is something that a lot of my clients get annoyed with when I say, you know, and they say, But we love each other. And I said this in a previous episode to is great, but it's one of maybe 100 things that you need to master in your relationship. So just want to throw that out there that I know we're talking about marriage, I know we're talking about relationships and I know we didn't talk about love because these things are what are going to help to promote feelings of love for one another. Exactly. So, listeners, we want to know what you think about these videos that we watched. Leave your comments below and don't forget to like and subscribe. Okay. And on that note, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.