It's the thing that couples don't communicate about that breeds that resentment and that causes the problems and then eventually leads to the breakdown of the relationship. Welcome to this next episode of Awake at the Wheel. Today, we're going to be discussing marriage and relationships, and we're going to discuss marriage and relationships not only in the context of heterosexual relationships, but many of the concepts that we touch on today apply across the board. So first, I think that it would be great for Oren and I to share a little bit with our listeners about the relationships that we're in with our partners and not to say that we've figured it out, but I've been with my husband for 20 years or and I believe it's been 30 years for you and your wife. So I think we are we're doing a thing or two right. So my husband and I have been together for 20 years, actually, this month. For those of us who are, sorry, for those of you who are watching on YouTube and wondering what's happening behind me here, we're celebrating our 20 years in Jamaica. So that's what's going on here. So we met in high school. We were quite different people back then. But one of the keys for our success in our relationship is that we grew together because unfortunately, many relationships that start that early on tend to involve individuals who grow. But grow apart. So Oren, tell our listeners a little bit about your history, your relationship. Okay. Well, so my wife and I, our 30th anniversary is coming up in June. We've been together for, I think about 32 years altogether. Very, very different people. We are as far apart on every metric as you can imagine. But the one thing that we do have in common is that we have some shared values, and that's the most important hard work. We, you know, raising family, you know, basically dedicating ourselves to making sure that we raise our three daughters to be good citizens, to be good, strong, self loving, compassionate, ambitious people with self agency. So we share those values. And that's what really unifies us in many ways is, you know, we have a shared goal for the future of, you know, of us, of our family, of our children, society. So, yeah, so that brings up a really great point as well, because even though we both have had longevity in our marriages, I think the structure of our marriages is very different in our and I'll let you elaborate a bit more, but I know that the two of you tend to follow more traditional gender roles. I know that your wife is a domestic engineer and you work outside of the home, whereas with my husband and I, we we both work full time. We run two businesses together and we have a kid. So interestingly, the I say the foundation of the relationships are the same with the shared values, shared goals, but the structure is quite different. It really is. And interestingly, when we had our first child, we were planning on my wife to go back to work part time at a certain period of time, and they refused to let her go back. And I was a student at the time when when she met me, I started I went back to school to finish my undergrad. And I had we had a whole life plan set up and but things changed. And right before I got married. And so I decided to go back to school, worked full time, went to school full time. That's when I first learned that don't need to sleep, sleeps overrated. And again, when we had our first child, But four years into the marriage, again, the plan was for her to go back to work. And when they said no, we just said, you know, just literally, just in the moment said, fine, don't work like don't work outside the home. Stay in the home, raise our daughter and I will work my ass off to make sure that I can support the family on a single income. And that's what we've done ever since then. And another interesting thing is that the example that I had growing up is quite different than the marriage I have right now. And what I mean by that is my parents both immigrated from India and very traditional gender roles. My parents owned a business, but my dad did the majority of the work outside the home and my mom was a stay at home mom taking care of their domestic responsibilities and caring for my brother and I, and not to denounce that by any means, although that was the example that I received that wasn't what I necessarily wanted for my life, my family, and so on. But that being said, I do think that a huge part of the success of my relationship is the mix of, you know, maybe the Western ideals of romantic love, as well as that Eastern influence that I had as far as a marriage is certainly about love, but a different type of love. And it's about the pragmatic aspect of it, the practical aspects of it, and all of those wonderful things that I don't think a lot of people think about here in the Western world. Right. And I talked about this in another podcast, but I'm going to do I'm going to share what I see. And I, I never went into my marriage or my relationship thinking this, but it's something that I felt. And when I heard this line many years ago, it resonated so powerfully with me. So I've shared with everyone else, which is that if anyone's heard this part, if you pay on the order, you get this podcast. If you've already heard this question before, I apologize, but I'm going to ask So Malini, if you want to give your favorite simple definition of love and then I'll give you mine. My favorite simple definition of love is two individuals who support each other, take care of one another, respect one another, and I would say have shared values. Okay. And that's not that simple. But actually you've added several layers of nuance. And, you know, so here. Okay, so mine is much, much simpler. And by the way, I think your definition, because it kind of encompasses mine as well, is superior. But if someone said just one really simple short definition, I like mine the best and we'll elaborate on a bit more, which is the feeling that your partner has your back no matter what. And that's so unromantic, but it is pragmatic and it can apply to any type of love. You know, it can be a best friend, just, you know, it's can be I hope it would be your child because they're not going to be your back. But when it comes to adult love, you know that feeling. And I always ask people and if anyone's watching, you can try this as well ask people. First of all, they're not going to get that definition. But if you give them that definition and say if someone if you feel, again, doesn't have to be real, if you feel that your partner has your back, no matter what, it gives you sense of something. What is that sense? And almost everyone will say it's a sense of, you know, Malini? Security. They say? I know they'll say it's a sense of safety. Right. And the correct answer is sense of security, which is a bit broader. It's not just semantics to me. Security is a broader sense and a sense of security. And if that doesn't resonate with people enough, I say, okay, so what is the opposite of security? So it's a funny word when people think of the answer as well as the opposite security poly. The opposite of security is feeling unsafe. Okay. It's funny because we think about it literally the opposite is insecurity. So most people it's funny because, you know, grammatically it's just insecurity with the prefix in. Sure. But most people will. Well, I think that they'll think of these other construct in concepts, right. But if you think about insecurity and then I say to people, imagine that you are in a relationship and you feel insecure in that relationship, there's no way you could ever pretend that that's healthy or beneficial in any way to feel insecure in a relationship. So that's why, you know, if the security part doesn't resonate, think about the opposite of that. If you don't have that sense of security, what do you have that? So as far as marriages, it seems to be the consistent statistic over the last few decades that 50% of marriages end in divorce. Is that still the accurate number Oren? And it depends. I've heard slightly lower. I've gone down to 40%. But, you know, between 40 and 50% also depends on the jurisdiction. But the numbers that we get a little bit lower. But, you know, 50, right? Yeah. And especially if you long sorry, I'm sorry. I was going to say, if you include like you know, common law marriages, other long term relationships like if you consider like the long term established relationships, then 50% is usually pretty close to the mark. And I want to do my best here as we discuss this tonight. And certainly own biases about marriage. Obviously, I'm in favor of marriage and obviously I'm in favor of working things out. But that being said, there's always exceptions to that rule. A large part, in my view, and what I'll say is in my clinical practice, even if I'm not working with couples per se, I would say the vast majority of the clients that I'm seeing, we're speaking about the relationship in one way, shape or form. And consistently, one of the things that I hear and I'm really over generalizing in some ways here, but generally speaking, one of the biggest issues is that there aren't shared values, there aren't shared goals, there isn't a mutual understanding of one another, and they don't have each other's back. And that being said, the people that I'm seeing are typically in crisis or going through something very difficult. But I think that that's one of the biggest challenges in marriage, is not how it goes in the good times, but how is it going in the bad times. Exactly. And I'm going to throw if I can go into instructor mode for a minute, please. And I do some therapy as well. And I agree with you 100%. And the stats support us that it doesn't matter what people come for in therapy, it can be for alcoholism, it can be for work, it can be for stress, it can be for schizophrenia. But in the end, the vast majority of Psychologists will say that the primary focus of the work we do is relationships somehow, whether it's the romantic relationship or whether it's other types of relationships, it's we're social animals. So it's not surprising that that's so much what our work is. So a few things about that. When you talk about the bad times or when things are getting rough, here's something that I tell people all my patients, all my students, and I think it's so important. I know I focus on this all like more than probably anybody else. And some people, they get really, let’s say, uncomfortable with it because they don't even understand what the word is. So I say to people, what is the most important word in a of most important emotion or sentiment in a relationship? No one ever gets it right because they talk about love, you know, respect, support, whatever. And I go, Those are all great. But the word I'm thinking of, I call it the cancer of relationships or relationship cancer. It's so toxic, it's insidious, and it's there for so long before you even know that it's there. And sometimes it's already eaten away at the relationships or at your well-being. Any idea what the sentiment is? I know we've talked about this many times, so. I to say I know what it is because we've talked about it before and we've talked about it in the context of clients that we work with. So it's resentment. Yeah, it's resentment. And here's the thing. So as soon as I if I say to somebody, it sounds like you resent your husband, the reflex that a lot of people will say is, no, no, I love my husband or whoever. Mm hmm. And I say I say resentment has nothing to do with love. Now, if you resent someone, you might not love them as much, but these are two separate constructs. When one goes up or or down, the other one might go up and down as well. But they're separate constructs. They're related, but separate. So what I tell people is, so I go to these couple of stages and so I see number one, I say resentment is if we think about it, if you look at the definition, the most basic understanding is I feel that you have wronged me in some way and I'm upset. That's really what it boils down to. Then it's a degree like, you know, how how bad is everyone? But that's all it is when people can understand that, that's all that it means. Somehow I'm harboring some hurt or upset, something that I feel you did to me that you wrongly somehow, when I break it down that way, people are much more willing to accept. That's number one. But then there's several other points. The second thing I say is resentment is often unconscious, and if it's unconscious, you're not even aware of it. That's that means it's operating there. It's somewhere in the background. All right. And then there's the third part that especially when it's in the background, you're not even aware of it. But here's the most important part. I say to people. I say, if you were a cave person and you felt somebody wronged you, what does your cave person DNA tell you to do, Malini? Attack. Right. Okay, now, here's something I tell people that ask your friends this. If you say to them the same thing. I just thought that if you're a cave person and someone wronged you, what would your cave person DNA tell you to do? It's funny because see, if you can predict what the other people are going to say. Some people say, I just say, get back at them. Get back at them, get revenge, retaliate. Some say attack, some say kill, some smashed. Smash. Some say cry, some say run away. So you can predict what the other person's going to say. But the part about retaliate, get back at them, attack. If you're not even aware that that's your operating system in the background, that's something you're I'm resentful and hurt. Whatever. I need to get back at them. You're going to be getting back at them unconsciously. You're going to be doing it in passive aggressive way. You're going to do it indirectly. You're going to be making, quote unquote, mistakes or forgetting to do things. You're saying things not as well. You're saying not so tactfully. And here's something that blows people's minds. And I've had other sex therapists who've disagreed. So I'm not saying it's perfect and I'm not going to say everyone will agree with me, but in my own clinical practice, I say and I say this to my students all the time. I say when I have a heterosexual couple. Now, when you when you hear the question, you'll understand why it has to be heterosexual. I say in a heterosexual long term relationship, people who are in their usually in their mid to late thirties or older forties, 50s, 60s, I say in the couple who's more likely to withhold sex, the male or the female. What do you think everyone says? I think the generally held belief is females. Right okay And I say in my own practice it's usually the male but they never say, Oh yes, I'm withholding sex to punish. What is the number one reason that men in their thirties, forties, sixties are saying? Why are they saying that they're not having sex? Number one reason. I would say they're blaming their wives. No, that's not the number one reason. Not in my case. Again, in my clinical practice, I have a different answer. The answer is they say they're tired, they're tired, They work really hard. A lot of these cases, you know, the wife may be working at home, a domestic engineer, they they're working 40, 60, 80 hours a week. If they can support a family on a single, they're working many, many hours. They're exhausted. So and their wife knows that they you know, she knows that he's tired, exhausted, whatever. But of course, she's thinking. But why can't he step up? He knows how much this means to me. He knows I'm feeling unattractive on low, right. And on prioritize or deprioritized. Why can't each step up? And I always say, why would somebody push themselves to the brink if they feel I am still upset with you because you wronged me? You owe me! Why would I, you know, why would I rise above that and try to do good for you when you haven't done right by me? So I say that if you can if you can deal with the resentment, by the way, when I talk about resentment being unconscious, the most important part about that is and this gives people license to be able to acknowledge their resentment, I say many times resentment is irrational, especially when it's unconscious. And if people can accept that it's irrational and then they can say to the partner, Look, I'm telling you right now, I you do not deserve this. This is on me somehow, something in my mind where I'm resenting you. Okay. And explain what resentment means. And they say, I want to do everything in my power not to feel this way. And when they have that honest talk, when they start to focus on the resentment, they're not so tired anymore. Because guess what? It's fatiguing. It's exhausting to deny reality, to pretend that you're not resentful toward your partner when the men or women, whoever it is, when they can acknowledge, Oh, yes, I do feel this way. I do remember this from last year or six years ago or whatever. And they're able to really just put it on the table, now we can deal with it. And I want to broaden that topic of resentment to, I think the cliche with working with relationships and with couples. And really I would say what a number of couples therapists tend to focus on, but it's too surface level communication, right? Everyone says, right, communication isn't isn't there. Communication is poor, therefore it's causing the breakdown of the relationship. But that's far too broad oftentimes. And I would say most of the time it's the things that couples don't communicate about that breeds that resentment and that causes the problems and then eventually leads to the breakdown of the relationship. Exactly. And I tell people there are two types. So again, if I can go to lecture, one, I apologize, but I think it is two types of resentment. One, is that something a catastrophic event, a major event happened. For example, you were cheated on that type of betrayal, right? That creation of insecurity, a sense of insecurity. Right. How can you feel secure when you know your partner betrayed you that way. That resentment is like one massive event as a catastrophic event. But for most people, it's a pile up of daily like little tiny things that add up. And this resentment, little bit, little bit becomes a mountain of resentment. And I say sometimes I say many times my patience, sometimes that that mountain of resentment is so high that even if the partner has started to remedy it, even if they've done a 180 and become the person we want them to become too late, that they can't overcome that mountain. It got too high. So now every time something small happens, it's not something small. It's it's a it triggers a memory. It's a cascade of all these other daily resentments that have added up. And so you get hit with it all the time. Right? All day just triggered this little thing. So that’s one part. Here's a bit in focus on what you mentioned there about cheating. Cheating is one of those ones and it leads to a conversation about Dealbreakers. That's something that I find a lot with couples as well, is that somebody did a wrong that they predetermined was a dealbreaker, and that will then cause or lead to at least the separation of that relationship. And I know that you have very interesting and differing opinions on cheating and the whole concept of cheating. So I want to talk a little bit about that as well. Sure. And we're going to be revisiting these topics over and over because, you know, we're only scratching the surface and in a relatively brief podcast. So anyone who's listening, we're just trying to present some topics, make you think about it, step outside of your own belief system maybe, and then, you know, maybe look into it further and we will definitely return to some of these topics. So. So it's cheating? Yeah. First of all, people have to recognize that broadly speaking, there's two types of cheating. There's emotional and sexual infidelity and and they're both just as devastating. Research is pretty clear, depending on which study you look at. The fact is, I've looked at a lot of that and you can find lots of people male, female, gay, straight, you know, monogamous, polyamorous, whatever the case, if you well with polyamory you’re not supposed to be cheated on. But there are ways you can be cheat on. But the point is that that the emotional infidelity for many people is worse than sexual. Sexual, you say “You know what I can understand.” If you were drunk or she did this or that and, you know, I'm pissed off. I hate it. It's burned in my mind. But I understand that it was a bad behavior. It was misconduct. Whereas with emotional infidelity, it feels more personal. They feel that, you know, that you're betraying me as a human being. You've broken my trust beyond just the sexual. But, you know, as a unit that we have and, you know, I think they take it more personally with emotional infidelity, there's a greater risk that the person is actually going to leave. If it was just sex one time, they would still be secure and want to stay in the relationship. If, however it's an emotional affair, then the person who's been cheated on feels that, okay, my partner, by the way, can be emotional and sexual together, of course. But when it's deeper, when more emotional, there's a greater risk that my partner is going to actually leave me. Right. As opposed to just, you know, doing something really ugly and terrible. And that's that triggers insecurity more than anything else. The fear that my partner's going to leave me. Yeah, And that's something I want to emphasize and dig into some more is that cheating is rarely about the act itself. It's not about the sex, It's not about the stepping out of the marriage. It is what it represents. So I'm no longer safe in this relationship. I'm no longer validating this relationship. So I think that that's something we need to elaborate a bit on as well. All right. And I'm going to if you don't mind, I'm going to broaden that to what you just mentioned beyond just the cheating, because some people might say, well, you know, infidelity has not been a problem in the relationship. Well, let's I want to bring that my three plus one factor model of, let's say, relationship disharmony, if I may bring that up, because it applies to cheating or especially in any situation, which is this, I say to people, I call it three plus one and the plus one. I'll explain the second. But it seems qualitatively different than it's three. But I've seen it enough times in therapy that I have to include it in my model. So what I say is, if you take these four constructs, three plus one, and you look at what you bring to the table or to the relationship and your partner does, and if not just any one of them, again, I'll explain what they are in a second. Not just anyone, but the totality of them. If there's a huge discrepancy between yourself and your partner, where you feel I'm putting in far more than my partner is on these four metrics, nothing fuel insecurity, resentment, feeling off than these. When I found these fundamental these four. Now, before I go further, I'm just going to bring up my Plinko analogy. Plinko from the Price is Right for if people watch Stranger Things in the most recent season of your season 4, Eleven has this board where there's these pegs and she takes a disk, on The Price is Right it was a disk and there were ledges. And what I mean by Plinko is that if you give me an answer, if I ask you a question and you give me an answer, I go, That's a good answer. But that's just a ledge or a leg up here. I'm looking for a bottom spot answer. Here's the more here's the deeper, more profound answer underneath everything you're describing so that you're good, these are important, but these are not the real problem. Here's the problem. You think with infidelity, The cheating is not necessarily the problem. It represents, as you said, something beneath that. So I'm going to give you the four answers. And I consider these four slots. So what anyone else says, they go, what about this? What about that? Probably they are ledges or pegs. They're not you know, they can regress onto one of these four slots. So the four plus three plus one, the fourth one is respect. Okay. If and again, it's never going be perfect. Two people don't respect each other exactly the same. But if there's a huge discrepancy in remember, not just one is all four of them. So respect is one. The second one is investment. And this covers most things how much it is not financial investment only how much you do for your partner or how much you invest in the relationship. Commitment is a big one. How committed are you to the partner, to the relationship? Someone is cheating. You feel that they're not that committed. All right. Whereas other people, they say, No, no, I'm totally committed to the relationship. My prefrontal cortex, the logical part of me says, I want to be with you forever. But my limbic system, my reward system, my novelty seeking system, that is, you know, I'm still committed to you, but I'm still seeking something else. Like that's so committed to be there. But the person is doing things on the side and trying to explain that to somebody. Most people can't compute that. If you step outside the relationship, how can you say you're committed to me? So anyway, so there's commitment, there's investment, there's respect. And the fourth one, it's actually the flip side of investment. It's sacrifice. If two people are working and then they get married, let's say, or they have children and one person has to give up their career, you could argue that you're investing in the in the family, but if the person is focused on No, no, I've sacrificed my career, I've sacrificed my identity, I've sacrificed my independence, my financial autonomy, whatever, right. I might my mental health, because I'm dealing with kids all the time rather than adults at work. These four things, if you feel that, you know that again. So someone might be higher on commitment, but all other three of them, you're much higher on that in totality. If you feel that I'm doing much more for the relationship than the other person, that's going to just it's going to throw you off It's like you're walking with a pebble in your shoe. You're always one step off. Okay, so that's my four factor model. And when I give it, if I say, Now you want to give this to my patients and I tell them, you guys use this as a model, you know, you have your specific points, your ledges, your pace. You can talk about where you feel there's this, you know, this discrepancy. But if you have a four factor model, at least you're speaking the same language. And that's really important. We often talk about communication. You must make sure that you have a foundation that you both agree on. You go all all of this is, you know, falls into these four points. Now, we can work on that and try to change the balance so that it feels more equitable. Yeah. And to that point of it being equitable, I think that it a lot of it is it's to do with how a couple and how partners frame these things. And what I specifically want to hit on here is sacrifice. Sacrifice isn't necessarily a bad thing if it is done so in a respectful and equitable way in the relationship. I think that's a beautiful thing if people can sacrifice and I mentioned that has been I have been together for 20 years, varied for 16 years, and in those years we've gone through all of adult life. I'm giving away my age pretty clearly here, but all of the ups and downs and changes that come along with it and you better believe that came with a hell of a lot of sacrifice. The biggest example I think of is when I returned to graduate school, I was working full time. We had a three year old kid. He was working full time and I was in school full time. But there is the acknowledgment of the sacrifice as a family is going to lead to our greater good. There wasn't any sort of resentment on either of our behalf, and I think that's the key. There actually isn't saying that out loud is that there was an agreed upon arrangement of this is how it's going to look. This is the goal that we're working towards and we're choosing to not harbor resentment about it. But sacrifice was certainly a factor. Exactly. And you sacrificed with the understanding or the hope that there's going to be reciprocity, right. That you will sacrifice and sacrifice or he will invest or he'll compensate somehow. And. Yeah, so that's that's that's how sacrifice feels like an investment because there's a return. Both you can see the result. You have a healthy son, you know, that you're both invested in. And once again, that reciprocity. Without that, it's an unhealthy relationship, it's one sided and that fuels resentment. So yeah, and that's the thing. It's amazing when I work with couples where either they are not yet married or, you know, or they're married for a number of years, and I realize they've never really had a discussion about some of these big ticket items, whether it's like, you know, where are you going to live or do you want to have children or anything like that. And that's what you said earlier about the communication. While is an example where it's not about, it's just how can you not have these discussions? And when people say, well, it's uncomfortable or well, you know, it's even more uncomfortable. Sure. Is harboring that unconscious or conscious of resentment? That's really uncomfortable, too. Yes. And the ultimate demise of the relationship, That's a hell of a lot more uncomfortable than having discussions. And as a side note, I would say that's one of the the most wonderful things about my relationship is that we talk about everything probably to the point where it's annoying. To the outside observer, I've actually had a family member lovingly say that she just thinks that we're gross and all we do is talk, and we're very clear about how we feel about each other. And I think that's a great thing because there's very little that is left unsaid, especially the uncomfortable stuff. And again, it's as you're saying, it's far more uncomfortable when your relationship falls apart or somebody steps outside of the marriage or relationship, you know, or something else like that, or you're harboring that resentment. And that's why, again, with you know, that think about those four slots. Right? The fact is all of those regress, like I said, onto resentment. And that's why I always say focus on the resentment, because if you fix everything else in your relationship and someone's still harboring some resentment, you can't move forward. It's there again, it's the way it's taught. It's going to eat away that. Yeah, And now I want to look at sacrifice from a more negative lens because I believe that the direction that relationships and marriage as an institution is going is is not great. I don't see that people, young women specifically are respecting marriage. The way that I believe that it should be respected. And, you know, for centuries it has been respected. A huge part of that comes from the idea of, well, I shouldn't have to give up my career. I shouldn't have to take care of a house. I don't need a man to take care of me. These are all messages that young women are receiving through toxic feminism, toxic femininity. We spoke it in a previous episode about the patriarchy, perceived patriarchy, and what role that's playing predominantly in the corporate world and in careers, But it really warrants some discussion as far as what that type of attitude is doing to marriages, to families and the lack thereof, frankly. Right. And so, I mean, one thing about toxic femininity or feminism is a narcissism. It's it's I shouldn't have to do this or I deserve that. And like and by the way, if a man said that or if that man had that mindset, then it would be equally toxic. But, you know, the toxic feminists are saying this is in response to the patriarchy, in response to having our needs deprioritized and so on. And I say, great, yes, if you're fighting for equality, if you're fighting to be seen as an equal partner, if you're fighting so that those four metrics are in concert with each other, great. But when you're saying that no, no, no, no, it's my turn. It's our turn now. We deserve this high status and the man should be down here or you know that it's his turn to suffer. That's not a healthy perspective, because, again, that just fuels resentment and it's unrealistic. And by the way, I mean, I'm going to say right now, this is something I've seen with young women and it's not to crap all over women because believe me, I can crap all over men as well. But with young women, let me just be quick with young men. For young men, the biggest discrepancy I see is and again, I'm not I'm not trying to besmirch everybody, but I have seen so many people where young men today in their twenties, late twenties, even early thirties, aren't growing up right far more than any other generation. I think that young men are afraid to grow up and they have a whole list of reasons why they shouldn't and they rationalize and they frame it this way and they use Andrew Tate as a as an as a terrible model, etc. cetera. Point is that young men have a hard time showing up for young women. What I have seen more than ever before, and I've had so many men come to me, some of these men are what we call young people, call “simps” these days. Basically, they are throwing away their pride and self esteem to do just bow at the knees of some woman who probably doesn’t want them. Okay. So whether they are “simps”, whether they are “players”, whether they are solid men, whatever the case may be, they've all said the same thing, which is they cannot believe that. And again, I'm not pretending that men are not aholes themselves. Okay, so let's be clear that men can be all right. But where a woman, whether they're in a relationship or it's a friendship and and the man is thinking that we're heading toward a relationship. And the woman's may seem like that, but she's only playing him, whatever the case may be, when he tries to call her out for her behavior. Not in an aggressive way, not in a whole way, but just tries to make her accountable or shows her. By the way, when you did this, it hurt me or I felt it was unfair or I think that there's an imbalance. As soon as he does that, suddenly she starts gaslighting him. Suddenly she starts saying, you know, somehow she's playing the victim and he ends up walking out of the conversation like, what just happened? How did I was emotionally hurt or I was deprived or I was neglected. And I'm trying to communicate these feelings to my partner. The proper communication that should be in a relationship. Exactly. I'm doing what I been told to do. I'm expressing my feelings. And either I'm being insulted, I'm being told they're not being a real man, or I'm being gaslit. And by the end of the discussion, I'm consoling her. No longer are my feelings being considered. Now it's what did I do wrong to her? And again, I want to be very clear here. I've seen many dynamics male, male, female, male, female, male, female, female. It doesn't matter. It's not about the sex. It's about any dynamic where one person is constantly turning things around so that they are always the victim. And whenever they do something wrong and they're held to account, suddenly you need to console me for daring to tell me what I did wrong to you, how your needs, your feelings, your well-being is not even on the table anymore. Now it's all about me. That's all I'm saying is very narcissistic. But yes, a lot of thoughts come to mind here as far as I mean, obviously, there's lots of problems with that. And that is, you know, that type of behavior as that begins to perpetuate and continues to be perpetuated is not going to lead to healthy, successful relationships. And I suppose the next thing I'm going to say likely is more so in the context of heterosexual relationships, but I think it can be extrapolated across other different types, but nonetheless, a huge part of the demise of relationships and people entering relationships from the female perspective is I'll go back to that. These strong women, successful women have been fed this notion that they don't need somebody to take care of them. But I think what we need to define or at least redefine is what does it mean to have someone take care of them thinking about, you know, in the clinical work that I do, a lot of the women I'm fortunate to work with are high status women, successful in their careers, have their own homes, so on, so on and so forth. So saying that they don't need a man usually refers to not meeting the financial support of women, which that is completely fine. But let's look at the other needs that we have as human beings. That's really what a relationship is about, is fulfilling the needs of one another and supporting one another through life. Whether that is financial, financial, emotional, sexual, whatever spiritual the case may be. There's there's so many different needs that we need to fill, which can be accomplished in a relationship. Right. And I’ve said it so many times. I say this all the time to my wife. I say to anyone who will listen, whatever I've accomplished professionally or in any other area of my life, if I did not have the support of my wife, if I didn't feel she had my back all the time, I would have been able to do it. I told my kids all the time as well that she's the backbone of the family and I have no resentment toward her. I have no shame in telling people. Yeah, I she she supports me in so many ways. Just like I support her. We support each other. We we try to meet each other's needs. Are we perfect? No. Okay. I always tell people I'm a parenting expert. I'm a relationship expert. And you tell that to my kids or my wife. They'll laugh in your face. Right? Because I talk the talk. I don't walk the walk all the time. I'm human. And I say this to all my patients and all my students. I recognize that I'm trying to be better, but that the the intention is and many times I do what I'm trying to do. If someone said, Well, I intend to be better and they never are, well, that's not a very good bet. But I try my best and I really you know, I devoted myself trying to be a better person, a better father, better husband. And so, yeah, there's no shame in being supported by something. No one person can do everything. And again, we're social animals. We want to be with other people in some capacity. 90 some odd percent of the people have that need There's only a small percentage who don't, but everyone else does, as long as done in a healthy way. And by the way, when you talk about these financially successful women, the fact is, sadly and this is an indictment of men of women, of society, sadly, we know the research is clear that when the woman makes more money than the man, that's a huge predictor of the satisfaction in relationships. So in terms of if the female makes more, that detracts from satisfaction. Believe it or not. Yes. Okay. Why should think that's just it's a fact. And it's not it's not a simple answer for different people. There can be the resentment. There can be that the man feels the woman could be this something very important. I tell people all the time if, let's say a couple is having some argument, fight whatever. I say. It's one of three things. It's let's say, for example, either let's I'll just use the either the husband was an a-hole to the wife and everyone would see that and they would objectively go, yeah, wow, you're an A-hole or the husband. What he did was it seemed perfectly reasonable to an outsider, or because they have a certain history that what he's saying or doing means something very different to her because that because of their history And then these words had implications before. And as an outsider, I don't know that. Or third, he's doing something totally reasonable, perfectly fine, but something about her or her neuroses, her issues, her baggage. They're being triggered. So I always tell people that that when you're in a dynamic with anybody, whether it's a romantic relationship, colleagues or whatever, you have to wonder, is it objectively their doing something wrong? Is it that they're doing something wrong that other people can't see? But you can see because because of this history? Or are you processing things in a maladaptive way that make you see and feel and experience things differently from everybody else? And then that's all you need to work on that. So I just kind of shoehorn that in. I'm not sure how that, but I wanted to bring that up there because that's an important consideration, to be honest with yourself. Where is my feeling coming from? Yeah, and if I can go back a little bit to again, just the traditional roles, let's call them, of a heterosexual relationship, Correct me if I'm wrong here, but is there not a biological aspect to men wanting to, and garnering satisfaction from, taking care of a family, taking care of a partner, and again, not doing so in a chauvinistic or disrespectful way, but think there's a great deal of pride that comes from being able to provide for one's partner, a family. Whenever I work with people individually or in relationships, I always talk about values. Values are so important and ask them. And so for men, you're right. For many men, at least historically being the provider being the protector, you know, that that gave that was a value and that gave a sense of well-being, satisfaction of fulfillment, the most important thing in life is a sense of fulfillment. And if someone does all this effort or makes all these efforts and they're not appreciated, that's going to foster resentment if or if they feel that that they just if it's in themselves, that they don't feel that they can measure up, that they're insecure, if they feel that they can't be that provider and so on, they should have resentment toward themselves. But many times they will project onto their partner, and the partner may have said nothing at all. The partner may be perfect. She may never denigrate him. Maybe they make equal money, maybe she makes a bit more. She's never said anything to try to put him down or make him feel like less of a man, but his own internal neuroses make him feel that somehow she's poking or she's trying to subtly make him feel less than, and again: It's all about recognizing yourself, being able to have that discussion. Because if you have the discussion with your partner and she or he denies it, but you can see that now your denials don't ring true or they completely deny. And it's like you realize, oh, my gosh, I'm really reading things wrong. Right? Then there needs to be a change one way or the other. But you don't know that, or you can't decide what needs to be fixed if you don't have that discussion. And if you're not honest before you're honest with your partner, be honest with yourself. Have that level of self-awareness. And we could go on about relationships for for hours and hours. I mean, personally, professionally, as a species, I find relationships to be so incredibly valuable and important. But for the sake of time, let's let's talk now. What do we do with all of this? What what are the steps that people can take? Or, you know, what's even one thing that people can do to move towards having healthier, happier relationships? All right. Well, first of all, as you say, we can talk about forever. And so we didn't really touch about different forms of relationships, whether same sex or polyamorous. So in a future episode, we definitely will talk about that. So for now, what I about say applies to those as well. So a few things. As I said a few minutes ago, know your self. Be completely honest with yourself if you are selfish, if you are needy, if you are whatever, recognize that and either find a partner who is okay with that, who's compatible with that, which is probably not that healthy or work on improving yourself in the areas where you're lacking so that you can enter into a relationship from a position of strength. I don't mean strength as in dominance, I mean strength as in strength of character so that you can be footing with a partner. And because if someone if you have the self-confidence and you have a healthy self-esteem, you don't have to try to dominate to try to control or put someone down, you can come there as to equal respectful parties. So that's one thing. And the second thing, as I said earlier, really sit down and look at what are my values, And values simply are how do I want to live my life? What kind of a person do I want to be? What am I aspiring to know them well and find somebody that is compatible with that, that maybe shares the same values or if these are your values and they have other values and you can put them together, they complement each other. And you are, you know, you're a greater unit than an individual. But you know, don't the final thing is when you see the person that you think you're in love with or want to be with, recognize that at the very beginning what you see is not real. What you see is a projection of your own needs, of your own longings, of your own, wants, of your own insecurities, thinking that they're going to take care of the or they're going to compensate for these insecurities and so on. Recognize that you're seeing and illusion and everyone else is not in love with this person. They can see reality far better than you can, plus your brain chemistry. We'll talk about this. Another podcast, your brain chemistry. It's short science to show the messed up at the beginning. Okay, you're quote unquote crazy in love. So your neurochemistry changes. Recognize all of that and try to see the person for who he or she really is, not for who you want them to be or need them to be. And you'll have a better sense of whether this person is the kind of person with whom you can establish and maintain a long term relation or at least try to. Yeah, so this is one of my favorite topics to discuss so I’ll attempt to be succinct here with the couple that come in, you're going to come into our office. I would say that the majority of them, the advice or the recommendation that I provide is each of you need to work on yourselves before we can really get into some meaningful couples work. And simply put, two healthy individuals make a healthy couple. So, you know, even in the context of brand new relationships before it gets to the point where you need to see a therapist, you need to work on saying, look at what are you bringing to the relationship? What is it that what qualities do I have that are going to be able to serve and not in a subservient way, but what can I do to serve my partner in the best way possible? How do I become the best partner possible for whoever my future mate is? Excellent and on that note, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel. As much as we love listening to ourselves speak, especially me, we would love to hear from you as well. So our emails are in the description below. If you would, please write to us with your questions, feedback, comments, topics that you'd like us to cover. We can do this together, the two of us, but it's much better if we do it together. So we look forward to hearing from you and we are going to have a segment called Rounds Table, where we're going to discuss the the feedback and the questions and so on from our audience. And we will we will take it to the next level. We're going to help you be able to deal with some of these issues that you might be bringing us or it's going to be a topic for us to explore together. And we really look forward to building a community, a community of like minded people who want to do right by others, not just for themselves.