this is, you know, the unromantic thing that I say to many times when they find themselves in that position that, you know, while we love each other, that's great that you love each other. Love is one of 100, if not more, things that need to be present for a relationship to be successful. So that's great that you guys love each other. But what about the other 99 problems that exist? Hello and welcome to Awake at the Wheel. Today, we're going to be discussing modern dating. We're going to talk about some of the observations that Oren and I have had in our clinical practices as far as the challenges that folks are having with regard to pairing off and finding a mate. So specifically with the younger generation, we've noticed a shift that looks nothing like what has existed in the past, likely because the world looks quite different. Technology is quite different and that influences dating habits. But we're seeing a lot of a lot of changes and a lot of challenges amongst the younger generation as far as finding a mate. Right. And, you know, I think we can talk mostly about heterosexual pairings, but, you know, I it can apply to gays and lesbians as well, but in a different sense, because we're talking about like, let's say, males and females having a hard time understanding each other and navigating with each other. So, you know, with all due respect to other types of, you know, of pairings or coupling and so on, that will deal mostly with the and the battle of the sexes, so to speak, and how this playing out these days. Yeah. So in a previous episode we talked a little bit about the challenges with young women and finding men who are, as let's say, enthusiastic about life or enthusiastic about moving out of mum and dad's house and getting on with life. I think that there are some challenges amongst young women as well. One that I've noted is this almost celebration in some ways, and I think it comes it certainly comes from the feminist movement as far as, you know, it's cute or funny to not have any sort of domestic skills or domestic abilities. And I know that that's the challenge that a lot of men face in terms of finding a suitable partner. A lot of that in general comes again from the feminist movement. As far as you know, we don't have to be able to to cook and clean to be able to find a mate. But I really take issue with that narrative because these are basic life skills. I don't care if you're a man or a woman or whatever the case may be, but if you're a functioning adult, this is really important. What are your thoughts on that? Well, on that very particular topic, yeah, if I had sons, I would. First of all, I'm a hypocrite because my culinary skills are pretty deficient. I happen to have a wife who is excellent at that and she enjoys the more traditional roles and I enjoy the role. You know, I do my part as well, but that's her domain. And so, you know, I'm a bit of a hypocrite in that way. But I would be telling my son, you know, that you want to be able to do that, because whether it's the health benefits or it's much cheaper to learn how to cook than to be eating out every day kind of thing. So I agree with that. And the fact that as you're saying, that it kind of stems from, I think, a let's say, an unhealthy perspective on feminism. It's not that that's all that you have to offer. It's not. But if you are able to do that, whether male or female, in fact, that's an added bonus. And I hear so many women who are saying and we see this, by the way, on the Internet all the time now where they're making certain demands and they're not blaming women. I'm just saying that we see women not wanting to adopt certain traditional roles, yet they expect the man to do certain things that are associated with traditional male roles, like paying for things, everything like that. So you can't have it both ways. I see a lot of and I've use this term before, I'm using it colloquially, but I'm seeing a lot of narcissism on both sides. You know, males and females. But that's something I think we're going to be talking about in this discussion, how this narcissism, this I deserve the best. I deserve everything. And I don't have to you know, I don't have to do my part. I don't have to reciprocate. It's whole me, me, me. And very few people will admit that to go. No, come on. People don't say that. They don't think that. But the reality is, this is what I am seeing in my clinical practice. This is what I'm hearing from my students, that there is that to some degree, that mentality. And embarrassingly admittedly, I bought into that nonsense narrative early on too. I've mentioned before that my husband and I have been together for 20 years, so in my early twenties I kind of had that bullshit attitude of, well, you know, I'm going to focus on my career. I don't have to do any of these things. And when we first got married and cook and clean, I didn't do any of those things. But like you said, I had the expected the expectation that he do all the things that are traditionally expected of of a man. The turning point for me was when we had our kid and I was on maternity leave, still didn't cook and didn't do any any anything of the sort, but it felt completely ridiculous. So I truly I had a moment of, okay, so I'm at home all day taking care of our baby is at work all day long, and I'm expecting him to come home and cook. That's stupid. That's ridiculous. Again, you can't have it both ways. So that was kind of a point where I had a real realization of, well, there's something wrong with the message that's being sent to young women as far as this entitlement, frankly. Right. And the entitlement. So I'll say something along around that entitlement. And it's a word I think there's entitlement in like especially among younger people and in it manifests in many different ways. But that is one of the greatest flaws in younger people today, is that sense of entitlement. Now, every generation will hoist shit on subsequent generations, and I always say that that we're the ones to blame for the next generation because we're the ones who raise them. So. Right. But this entitlement I may have said it before, but I am seeing more and more young men. Sometimes they are what would be called simps okay that they're they're just desperately they'll do anything for for a woman who doesn't even care for them. But all the way up to the greatest of players where they've said and again, I met this before, but they are dumbfounded the woman actually the certain entitlement or just almost abusive, whether it's emotionally abusive, manipulative, whatever else, and when the guy calls her out on it and not in a rude way, but just assertive needs expresses his feelings and everything like that. I again, I've had so many men all up and down the the, the hierarchy on dominance and so on, say I walked out of that discussion totally gaslit I was the bad guy in the end, I couldn't believe it. And so just raising this as an issue, just expressing my needs by feeling, etc., it got turned around on me. Why am I being so difficult? Why am I doing this? Why do I have these expectations? And so it went beyond entitlement. It went to almost malignant narcissism. And again, I'm using this term not to diagnose, but just describe the attitude and the impact that it has. So what I've heard as far as, you know, a criticism to to that type of behavior or I guess the defense for that behavior is that nowadays many men aren't fulfilling their masculine duties, let's say. So you know, that the basic ones of protecting and providing so women feel this need to then ignore their feminine side and be hyper masculine. So while I can see that, I can understand that and acknowledge that they're really not working, regardless of, you know, what you or that. Right. And and the thing is, we talked about this in another podcast that these traditional male roles, ethos beliefs have been toxified like it's been called toxic masculinity That's been called harmful, it's been called patriarchal and so on. And and so what's a young man to do is and he by the way, we've used this term before, they feel gaslit because they're being told do this, don't do that. Yet when they try that, they're being told you did the wrong choice. They're doing what they're being told and they're still being told that it's the wrong thing. So there's a lot of confusion. There's anxiety when you don't understand what's expected of you, when there's no sense of structure, when there's no shared reality, it causes anxiety and everyone's terrified of doing the wrong thing. So and I really think that part of it is about make basically castrating males and it's going to sound like some right wing, blah, blah, blah. I'm not, ok? I come from a family where the roles were very nontraditional. My mother was the breadwinner. she wore the pants, the family and so on. You know, my father's an artist, so it was not very stereotypical. So I don't come from that old school mentality. But I see again, all I'm saying is, you know, we're doing is we're just describing what we are seeing. We're describing mixed, we're seeing mixed messaging, we're seeing confusing messaging, and we're seeing people really feeling a lot of discomfort, distress and resentment. And that's going to be something we're going to talk about. Okay. We have to talk about the power of resentment. Absolutely. And I've said it before and I'll say it again, raising a young man in this world, I am concerned, Right. I'm concerned about the confusing messaging, as you said. I'm concerned that it's purported to be a bad thing, to be masculine, to be a masculine male. But it's like a catch 22, right? Like you said. On the one hand, they're being told, well, if if you're too masculine, it's toxic. But then if you're not, then women don't want to date you. So the which is it? And that has, I think, in many ways led to this MGTOW movement, men going their own way. Right? They have this this attitude that, well, you know, women I think it's basically and correct me if I'm wrong, women suck. They they don't like me. I don't like them. So I'm just going to, you know, live my life on my own. And I don't know if it ties into contributing to asexuality in any way or what that's all about. I don't know enough about the topic, but I do know that that's, you know, one of the results of all of this. And beyond that and we touched upon this when we talk about the Andrew in the Andrew Tate episode where a few things. So one) it’s not just women suck, blah blah, but they're going to use me for everything they can get from me. And all they have to do is marry me. And the next thing I know they got 50% of my soul, ok? of my finances, of everything else like that, that the court systems are rigged against me. And a basically, I'm being told that women are being told that my only my only value is whatever happens to be once they get it from me, they can just use me and, you know, toss me aside. That's part of the MGTOW movement. That's part of the Andrew Tate movement. And that's why when Andrew Tate says all I'm doing is teaching men how to know their worth, be proud of themselves, blah, blah, there's value in that. But the problem is I won't go into it again. People can watch the episode, but there's there are it's not just about knowing your worth, and it's not just about being able to present yourself with pride. It's so and so. It's it's almost it's a battle, basically, that has to come at a cost. You know, you have to dominate. It's not so and most people we talk about it before. Most people don't have the wherewithal to be able to filter out the toxic parts of whatever and direct that. Here's the healthy message in all of this. A lot of people go for the cheap, the simple, the, you know, the gratifying. And that's not the healthy message. So if there's anything good for what Andrew Tate is saying and there are some good things, people are either not hearing that or they're hearing that, but it's couched within all this toxicity. So but they're saying, who else is speaking up for us? Well, Jordan Peterson spoke up for young men and people you can call that toxic, even though I think he took the most, I don't know, either benign or, you know, neutral approach to to describing, you know, positive male attributes. And even that was described as, you know, as a terrible patriarchal blah, blah, blah. You know, just harm to society. Yeah. So as far as like where this is all coming from, I'm having a hard time kind of tracing back like when it changed and why it changed. So again, I'm blaming the feminist movement for a lot of things, and I think that that's certainly part of it. Parenting obviously is another part of it, but, you know, as far as men not being masculine and, therefore I keep saying the old trope of they're living in their parents basement, they're not ambitious, they're not wanting to work or educate themselves. What's up with that? Well, so yeah, what is so there's a few things. One, that that's first of all, that's what they're seeing for a lot of their peers, whether it's real life peers or their peers online. Hey, that, that it's the easy way out. It's hedonistic. It's we talked about another episode. It's the inability to delay gratification. It's messaging that you deserve it. Now, by the way, males and females are getting this messaging. Gay straight doesn't matter like everyone's getting this messaging, but it's going to manifest itself differently depending on the person and one of those sex differences. And just to be clear, anytime you and I talk about sex differences, we know we're not talking about everybody and we're not denying that there's a lot of overlap between the sexes, but we're just saying that there are more people on certain sides of the spectrum, you know, whether it has to be male or female. So, you know, the fact is males are more likely to manifest in this hedonism, self-gratification and so on. They're more likely to do it either in the in the realm of, say, drinking and drugs or playing video games, hanging out with their buddies because they're saying, you know, this is my socialization. I can't see a lot of people when they're doing these video games. If they're on Discord or Twitch, I think like whatever it is, that this is their way to socialize. You know, they're busting balls, having fun, they're doing whatever, they're sharing stuff. So and it's true. It is true. So there is benefit to that. But just like with Andrew Tate, they're looking at the benefit. They're telling themselves about this benefit, but they're failing to see that it also comes at a cost. And that cost is ambition, and that cost is learning to grow in other ways. That cost of learning to compete with others, that you may not be number one, you might not even be one number of thousand, but still you're competing in a way that makes you a desirable to somebody. You might not be the top top 10% or 90%, but to work on yourself, to be able to find somebody or something that is fulfilling, that's rewarding, that makes it makes you want to even do better, to even grow for yourself even more. Okay. And by the way, if that's the only reason you're doing it, it's not a healthy motive. But if that's the thing that gets you started, if somebody is out of shape and they go, well, you know, I don't want to be embarrassed when I go to the beach or I want to be able to be attractive to, you know, to women or to men. And that's what starts you going great, That's the first step. And then learn to be able to internalize that, to say, you know what? Actually, this benefits me in other ways as well. And, you know, and improving one area of my life is going to help me. It's going to help kind of propelled me in other areas as well. That's a fact. So what I'm saying is all the stuff that we're talking about, it can be interpreted and played out either in a harmful, negative or positive way. And and, you know, I try to help patients, you know, to to change their narrative so that it goes from the negative to the positive. And, you know, I get lost in the weeds or I'm going to stop right there. But, you know, but again, this idea of we're saying, like what's happened with men, like really, by the way, going back to what you're saying earlier, it's it's it's a cheap excuse. It's a rationalization. And I want to be clear, we've talked about this before. When I say rationalization, I mean making excuses for why you do or don't do something. Okay. And so when they say, look, you know, 99% of the women are going after 1% of the guys. So what chance do I have? Okay. Or women are this and that. So why even bother? That's an excuse. Is it tough? Yes. Is it tougher than before? Yes. Is it discouraging? Is upsetting is it a toxic minefield of, you know, dating and so on? Yes. But do they just throw up your hands and go, that's it. I give up. I'm not going to participate. You know, you can't justify that. You can't. But that's what they're doing. They are justifying it. And because part of their mind knows that they're lying to themselves, part of it, they try to block that out by distract themselves further. What easier ways than getting high drunk, playing video games, hanging out with friends. Huh? Holy shit. Okay, where where do I take this? Because as you're talking. No, no, I'm. I'm visualizing kind of all of the topics that we've spoken about in previous episodes stacking on top of each other. And this is almost the result of all of these different social phenomena and, you know, lack of of parenting, lack of accountability, lack of goals, laziness, like work, like I could go on and on with this list. But long story short, this is kind of the result of it right? Where people don't want to hold themselves to account. People don't want to strive for excellence. Parents are enabling it too, right? That's a really big piece of the puzzle as well. You know, whether or not they they failed in some fundamental way, we don't know, because there's so much variance in people's lives. But the fact is, in many of these cases, parents are enabling their kids and encouraging mediocrity. I think that's a big piece of it. Right there, because the fact that if a child lives at home and in today's world, we know with with housing costs and so on, I don't begrudge anybody who stays home longer. But if they stay at home and they don't contribute, whether financially a little bit or, you know, helping out, being a good citizen in the home. Right. And a parent allows them to do that, then yes, the parent is encouraging mediocrity because, you know, a mediocre person does the bare minimum. If you feel like I want to contribute. Right. That's it. It makes you grow better. You grow when you when you try to strive to be better. But mediocrity is the opposite of that. It's stagnation. So you're absolutely right. Parents are many, too many parents are encouraging that. I've had many parents say, Well, what can I do? I don't want to throw them out. Whatever I say, fine. Just, you know, enforce some expectations. Well, let them know about it first, enforce it. And, you know, we talked about this in another podcast, this need for internal structure. If you don't have these guardrails, if you don't have this structure, you're all over the place. So, you know, we have school, we have rules, we have all these other things that help a child say, Oh, if I stay within these, you know, these guardrails, I'm going to move forward. But I don't have those guardrails. I'm all over the place. Right. And so to this point, here's something I don't think I talked with you about this before. I may throw truth concepts in. One is and it sounds so ridiculous. And again, if I said this before, I apologize. It sounds ridiculous, but the fact is, most people, they act as if they're in a different stage of their either life or of a situation. And they don't realize that. So obviously of two examples. One is like if someone's actually going through an ugly divorce and their partner throughout their relationship, their partner always had the upper hand. Okay? And throughout the divorce, at first the partner had the upper hand because the other person had been gaslit had been broken in meek and they could never be taken seriously. But now they go to court. But they have a lawyer and the judge smacks down the dominant partner. The judge makes these rulings and so on. The judge saying, No, no, this crap isn't going to do this anymore. And the parent or the partner, the partner who was on the lower end, the submissive person, the one who's always, you know, taking advantage of what I've told them. I said, no, you have the upper hand now. I'm not saying to be a tyrant, but act that way. But they're still acting like that meek person who no one's ever going to believe, who has no credibility. And so because that's what they learn to live with. Okay. So even though times have changed, even though family members, friends, you know, the kids, the courts, the lawyers, everybody recognize that and they are in the driver's seat. They're not acting that way. That's just one example. But I just want to show that it's quite it's quite powerful to see that try to help them. It is terrifying to go into this new role. But to your point and to our point that we're talking about and again, I may have said this before, but so many young men in their late twenties to early thirties, even if they have a good job, even if they're making lots of money, they're still acting as if they're in college. They still don't mind having a roommate as opposed to a, you know, a partner, a living partner. They still don't mind you, you know, again, living like a frat boy, right? Even though they're five, ten, 15 years beyond that. So they're still stuck in that old mentality. So a lot of people, they don't recognize again, intellectually, you tell them, they go, well, obviously, but they didn't live as if they are in this next stage. So I said there were two points. The second point is, and again, I can't remember I said this before, but most people that like in a previous podcast, most people they use, they look at age, they look at the big zeros, 20, 30, 40, 50. They might even go 20, 25, 30, 35. Okay. But I tell people that's the wrong way to look at age brackets. I say I start with 18, I do five year increments 18 to 23, 23 to 28, 28, 33 to 1. Because I say for a woman, what for a woman? That's. I'll ask you, Malini, what does 30 for most women, what is what when they think of the big 30, what either fear or their mind. Oh, I'm getting old and I'm not going to have children. And it's a crisis for a lot of women. Right? Okay. The children part. Exactly right. Because that's one of the few things in life where there's a solid window that closes. There's a few exceptions, but for the most part, right, we're talking 40 is the next. Right. So 30. But I've never met a woman who once they hit 30, they go, Oh my God, blah, blah. Few years before that they see 30 coming. So they're already thinking about that. They're rejecting it. This future, you know, this dystopian, childless future. So that's why I see with my age bracket, starting from 18, 18, 23, 23, 28, 28 to 33, that's 33 to 38 and so on. So I help people. I say, look, if you're 18, 23 and you're dating, you're looking for somebody very different than if you're 20. You know, if you're 33 or 38, you have different priorities, whether as a partner or for yourself. Okay? And I say, you know, 23 to 20, that's when you focus on your career more. You're also trying to find a partner who might be suitable, maybe depending on where that 23 to. So I tell people, think of it that way. And if you're in a relationship, especially, let's say you started seeing your partner at the age of 19 or 23, the 1823 bracket. Now you guys are like 30. You've gone through several different brackets and maybe one of you is acting in accord with those different brackets with regard to the relationship thinking about the future of a house and so on, or your career or your personal growth. And the other person might still be stuck in the previous brackets. Yeah, right. So when I talked with those brackets, I tell that people they go, Oh, wow, you know, it just it gives us the same language we can use and it helps us understand like, where are we? Because in the different brackets we have different expectations, different needs, different agendas. Absolutely. And I want to just quickly go back to something I said earlier, because I don't want anyone to misconstrue my meaning, because I completely acknowledge that in different contexts, living at home is different, right, with the South Asian community and the Asian community in general, staying home until I'm married is is totally normal. So I you know, I don't want to diminish that that custom. But, you know, to the points that you just made, it's more so about this feeling of learned helplessness as well. You know, there's nothing I can do, so I'm just going to live at home and block it all out with, you know, video games and drinking and being a frat boy and so on and so forth. But to the point of, yeah, looking at different age brackets as far as, you know, what people want in those age bracket, I think that that's a huge contributor to a lot of younger relationships breaking up. Right. Because at 18, for example, maybe they want the same thing, but at 20 to 25, priorities change, priorities shift. And, you know, unfortunately, I see it a lot and I'm sure you see it a lot in our practices. Yeah, exactly. And it's you know, people again, they they know it, but sometimes they don't have the language for it. Sometimes they don't know how to, you know, to frame it something that they want to give their partner the benefit of the doubt. Or more likely, they're afraid to look at the reality of what's facing them. And so a lot of people, I guess more women, very, very rarely have I seen the man who's willing to go like who's prepared to go ahead. And the woman is not. I'm talking the earlier years maybe in your for your fifties might be different, but in the earlier stages, very rarely have I. I don't know if I have ever seen actually, I have seen a few times where the man is like, okay, let's do it. And I'm going to interject here. This is I'm surprised at how much personal stuff I'm divulging today. But early in my and my husband's relationship, we actually did break up briefly for that reason because he was ready to move forward with things. And I'm like, I don't want kids. I don't want to get married. I don't want any of that crap. Whereas he's like, Well, that's a really important value of mine. So if that's not going to work for you, then we have to have a different discussion. So it's rare, but you know, since you mentioned it, I feel it's it's important for me to point that out. And that's what I love about when when we're talking is that we're being transparent, we're being honest or being vulnerable. Right. Because we're not just talking about this as an abstract, esoteric concept. These are real things and they affect all of us in some way. So yeah, I appreciate sharing that. So yes, so the age brackets, the different needs and so on, and where is the person at the stage of life and why, by the way, thing is we get a sense in previous episodes, my favorite definition of love is the feeling that your partner has got your back no matter what, because that gives you a sense of security. Well, security is great, but another thing that people want if they can't get security, is comfort. And so if a guy is living at home again, it can be a woman, but it's usually the guy living at home. His mom's doing his laundry. She's paying mom or dad or paying the bills and so on. They get dinner made for them. They don't have to worry about so many different things that you do when you move out on your own or where you live with partner and I, you're independant right? That's comfort. So I've worked with many women and I've told them, I say, here's what's really sad. I say, and this is building something I want to talk about earlier this talk about afterwards. Okay, another conceptualization. Okay. But I say the sad thing is your partner will resent you for dragging him out of the comfort of his comfy little bed. You know, with everything made and so on, right? Even I'm saying that the point is metaphor for fact is being at home gives him a sense of security, even if they don't like being at home while there's, you know, four walls, that ceiling bubble, like. Right. It's just it's an illusion of security because real security comes from within. And if you have self-confidence, then you're going to feel secure. And they're not building that self-confidence because they haven't had the chance to try to succeed, to maybe fail to learn to, you know, to adapt and to do better. So I think that when you talk about the parents breeding mediocrity, that's another way that it manifests, right? This insecurity and comfort and not want to give up the comfort. Yeah. So I want to focus a little bit about on women now, because I know that it like I said, we we see it regularly in our work that, you know, it's affecting both sides. And I think that a big problem that women are facing is that, you know, they have established these really big goals and want to do well for themselves. And that's great. It's it's amazing. But I wonder how much of that ties in to not only all these things that we're talking about as far as the cushiness of life that's preventing men from manifesting their goals. But is there a level of intimidation that they're feeling, you know, towards these women or from these women who are perhaps exceeding what they feel they're able to do? Well, the research is pretty clear that, you know, if a woman makes more money than the husband, that that's a predictor of relationship dissatisfaction. And now it could be because the woman holds the over his head. It could be more of it more often than not, that the man just feels resentful, inappropriately and unfairly so that you know, that she's doing better than him rather than being inspired by her, rather than praising, Oh my gosh, you're so hard. You work so hard and so on. Right? And then there are some men who, when they have a woman who makes more than them, they're happy to be her sort of sugar baby. She's your mama, so to speak. Right. Which is goes against the kind of the masculine thinking, right. To, you know, a woman take care of him. So and even in those cases, there's a part of his mind, whether conscious or unconscious, that sort of saying this isn't quite right, not because it's male female role, but rather when some when you kind of give in to somebody else, when you let them take care of you and they're not your parent, you're not a child, part of the mind. Not for everybody. Most people who have any sense of ambition. Right. It just it it doesn't resonate. It it's what's right where you're it rings untrue and they feel a bit of they feel a bit off because they may not be aware of it. It's probably highlighting their insecurity, though, I would think. Well, yes. I mean, and if they're aware of it, then it's even worse. And then they either they again, they they lash out at their partner or they withdraw from their partner or they make themselves the victim. And maybe the partner maybe she's all she's doing is asking to help out a little bit. Okay. But in his mind, because he can't justify being a slug, he has to say, Oh, she's always trying to control me or she's a ball breaker or something like that. The power of the mind, the ability to lie to herself and to distort reality in a self-serving way can never be overstated. Now, can I just barely. Do you mind if I just sort of talk about if you talk about this resentment and this other model, and I don't think I've talked about it before, but if I have this with you again. So first of all, I'm going to bring in the Plinko board mashup. I've done this before from The Price Is Right. And for those of you watch Stranger Things us in the last season 11 would would play this game where you put a disk at the top board and there's all these pegs and it goes bump up and it falls down to slot the various slots. And I use the Plinko board analogy when I say if we're discussing something and whether it's a problem or a need or something else like that, I say, what you're talking about is a peg at the top here. It's not the most profound or the deepest pattern or phenomenon that we're dealing with. Like, Oh, let's look at the bottom slot. Okay? And so resentment. So there's two things I want to talk about. So number one is the resentment. I say there's no way I think this before in a previous podcast. You cannot fix a relationship or make it really better without dealing with the underlying resentment because it's toxic. I call it relationship cancer. It eats away at you and at the relationship. I'm pretty sure I've talked about it before. But just very quickly, I think it's worth saying that resentment, basically it means I feel you've wronged me somehow and I'm upset about it. And because I feel you've wronged me by my primate DNA tells me to get back at you. Right. So if you've never addressed it, I'm going to get back at you in a plethora of ways, some of which I'm not even aware of, because I may have been aware of my resentment. So I tell couples all the time or family members, anybody, everybody, I say, look at the resentment in any type of relationship you have, either talk about it with the other person or at least acknowledge it yourself and understand that resentment is often it's often unconscious, often unfair and irrational. Okay. So I just want people to understand that and I help people understand that. That's all that is. It's just again, I feel that for whatever reason, even if it's irrational, unfair, etc., I feel wronged somehow. So I need to get back to number one. Number two, the second model I want to talk about, I don't think I've talked about this before. I just I came up with years ago or not that maybe about a year ago or so, I saw it happening all the time, but it just kind of formalized it last year where I realized that when I talk with couples and everything, when I look at the source of insecurity and or resentment and insecurity’s a peg that leads to the resentment, I say that I talked about the three factor model. I say three plus one factor model. Okay? And so four people understand the plus one is respect. And what I'm going to say is that if you feel that in totality, these four factors, I'll talk about a second. If there's a wide discrepancy between you and your partner or a family member or someone you're in a close relationship with, if there's a large discrepancy between them, that makes you feel usually very resentful to be insecure, especially in romantic relationships. But it's also about that resentment. And those four factors, once again, is respect. By the way, it's not each one is supposed to equal, it's in totality. So respect is one. And it's, again, it's the plus one. The only reason I included is because when I asked, you know, so many people, a lot of people mentioned respect when I said, what do you think when there's an imbalance in the relationship cause this or that. So people that have respect. So that's plus one. But the other three, these are bottom slots. So everything that you talk about in a relationship can be a peg. Here's the three slots. I talk about investment, okay, to what you do for the person and for the relationship commitment, how committed you are to the person, to the relationship, and the flip side of investment, which is sacrifice. Okay. And so what I talk about those three things I say with a sacrifice. For example, if there's two people who are working and then let's say the mom gets pregnant and she takes the year off to take care of the child, or that externally mom goes back to work, you can call that a sacrifice, that you've sacrificed your job, your sense of self that goes with being at work and all these things that go along with it. Right? Or you can look at it as an investment in the family, in the relationship. Right. But so I try to shift if it's possible, if it makes sense to go from the sacrifice to the investment over, sometimes they go, No, no, it's a sacrifice. There's no other way to deny it or to frame it right? So when people feel I've given up so much or I've done so much for the other person or for the relationship and the other person is not reciprocating, how else can you feel but resentment? So I tell people that I say to all this, if you guys are talking about those are all pegs, try to look at this again. Investment, sacrifice, commitment and respect. See if you it's never going to be perfect. But if the bands don't overlap at all, you're going to really feel that. And so I say, look, it's not a perfect model, but it's a great starting point. And the two is a common language. You don't have those before. It's like having a language that both parties can share so that we know we're talking about the same thing. And to me, again, because they're so fundamental, just like with resentment, you have to be able to deal with that because anything else up here, these pigs, these are not what sustain a relationship. These are not what heals a relationship. These are not what help you go forward. You got to deal with the bottom slots. So I threw a lot of that at you. Yeah. So to tie that back to the main topic at hand here, I think that one of the challenges or one of the things that is missing amongst young people looking for a mate is strong communication. The ability to strongly communicate. You know what? What are those resentments? What are those those areas where you feel that you've unfairly sacrificed,

You know, if we as a society, whether it's through the schools, through parenting, through social media, aren't properly equipping kids who are going to become adults with how to communicate their their emotions in a productive manner, that's a big problem to write. How to communicate them, and also this idea of reciprocity. If people are being told, you know, the hedonism, if it's me, me, me, I deserve, I deserve, well, what are you doing to pay the other person back? Well, how are you earning your keep? How are you? I sit in another podcast. How you being a good citizen, whether in a system or in a relationship. So and yeah and being able to communicate these in a healthy way rather than just saying, well, I'm a victim. Well, what is being a victim? Do say, well, if you're at school, maybe you get certain things. If you're at work, maybe get some benefits. But in a relationship, being a victim isn't very helpful. And by the way, I use gaslighting in so many other podcasts. But when people are dealing with a narcissist, actual narcissist, one of the things that and we talked about entitlement earlier, one of the things that the narcissist does, one of the greatest weapons they have is somehow they make themselves the victim. So when I talked earlier about, you know, what a guy feels he's being misused or abused or mistreated, disrespected by this know, female friend or partner, and he brings it up and suddenly in the end, he's the bad guy. He's the abusive one. Right. She's the victim here. Right. So always be mindful of that because, you know, it's so insidious. You don't realize until afterwards. Like what? What just happened. Right. I'm trying to communicate all these things and somehow, again, they're the victim in all of this. My needs aren't being met. So it's not just about learning how to communicate your needs, but it's also learning how to to recognize if the other person's not hearing it, if they're not capable. And is it because of the circumstance? Is it because of the way you communicated it, or is it because there's something inherently deficient in that person that they can't see What you're saying they can't empathize? Or is it that they have so much resentment built up that they can't overcome that and say, okay, I'm going to even though I've been hurt, even though I feel that you you know, you've you've wronged me, even though I feel you haven't done enough to make amends for it, I'm still going to rise above and do what you want me to do and then go back to communication. So many people don't communicate even these little resentments or these little hurts or whatever else that it builds up into a mountain of resentment that you can't overcome despite your best efforts. Yeah, And, you know, situations with pathology aside, I think that one of the biggest challenges is that and I'm sure you see it, I see it working with couples that they they're on separate ends of every issue. Right. They're not there isn't enough of a safe foundation there for them to give their partner the benefit of the doubt or, you know, recognize, okay, maybe something's going on. And that's why they're viewing the situation this way. It's they're at odds almost all the time about every issue. And if you're on separate ends of the coin here are separate ends of the issue. You're not going to come together. You're not going to be willing to compromise or talk it out because there's this automatic assumption that, well, they're against me, we're against each other. So whether you're dealing with a partner or a family member or friend, if you're in conflict, if you feel that you've been wronged or something's not fair or something like that, everybody always naturally is expressing their perspective, their needs, their hurts, their upsets, their wants and everything. And they really it's rare that they would actually think about how the other person is receiving it. And I always say to people, I say, what you say is irrelevant. It's what the other person hears. So, yes, you know, you might have felt really good in that moment to tell them what a piece of crap they were or how they hurt you or wrong you, whatever. It felt good. But what was actually achieved, right? You got more defensiveness, you got more resentment in the other side. You have to think, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to take the time. I want to have some kind of outcome, some positive outcome, you know, or as self, self interested or self-serving. So you have to think, how am I going to be able to communicate this in a way that the other person's going to hear me? And the only way to do that is to understand what is the other person's issue, What do they what issue do they have with me? You know, what have I done wrong? Take ownership for how I've screwed up or have been selfish or whatever else like that. And and start with that. And by the way, this is a good communication tip. I always tell people it again, doesn't matter what the context is. I say, if you're going to have a difficult discussion, always open up with one of two things or both things. One is an acknowledgment of the other person's good traits or how you appreciate them or something like that. So basically appreciation for the other person and if appropriate, apologize, own your own shit or whatever you've done wrong and stuff like that. You say those too. It's disarming. The person's defenses go down a little bit and then you can express your own thing and don't say, but you never say it. But you say it. You pause that the person kind of digest it, and then you can share, you know, your needs, wants, etc.. Okay. But you start off with those two things. In regarding the word“but”, replacing it with “and” can be very powerful. Yep. Yeah. And I say even if it's if end doesn't work, if you can I say just pause, don't use any where there's pause and then say it and then say, you know the next part that you want to say, you know, that pause serve at the end. Right. So I mean these are important communication tools and it's a cliche. It's the biggest cliche where we say that the biggest problem with couples is the it's not the lack of communication necessarily is the poor communication. Right. It can be lack of it can be poor, unhealthy, you know, unproductive. So it's learning how to communicate it once again in a way that the other person's going to hear it. Otherwise, it's all a waste of time. And if I can throw in a communication tool as well, just along the same lines is what you said when arguing, keeping the focus on yourself, right? We call them I statements. And rather than pointing the finger and saying, you know, you did this and you did that, and this is these are all the things that are wrong with you keeping the focus on. Well, I feel this way because and this is how X, Y, and Z made me feel, right. That's far more productive than pointing the finger. Right. And by the way, so I do this couples first of all, I, I always apologize. I go I, this is relationship therapy one on one. I'm embarrassed to have to say it. I say, but there's a reason. Have it. I say I say number one. I say number two. I think because again, as soon as you say you, I say you're putting the person on the defensive. Right. Saying I number one, the number two, it's always it's a joke that I thought a joke was real, but it's almost humorous where I see the person say, well, I feel hurt because, you're a jerk. K or I could hurt when you love a la la la la la la. Right. And that's not productive. All right. So, you know, and then I find people how they try to work around. They work anyways. The point is absolute, right. You, you know, you do the “I” and everything like that. And that's what I say to people. Try it again. Does that to be a couple? It can be even at work or something. I say try to try to use like passive statements like it was sad or like, you know, again, because you're trying to soften the blow of whatever you're saying. And some people say, no, you should be direct. Yeah, you can be as direct and forthright as you want. But if the other person's hearing that as an attack, what kind of progress are you going to make? If someone's being attacked? They run, they shut down, they get defensive or they fight back. Exactly. Yeah. So I feel that, you know, perhaps some young listeners may think, well, I'm back at square one, This is hopeless. This is way too much to implement. But, you know, as is typical for us, I think focusing a little bit of our time on what people can do about this is really important. So with regard to relationships, whether they are romantic relationships or friendships or business partnerships, whatever the case may be, it is so vitally important to focus on what you're doing and what you're bringing to the table rather than, you know, searching around for the perfect friend, the perfect partner, the perfect mate, whatever the case may be. So being very cognizant of who you are, what you want to be, what your goals are, and then finding people whose values align with you is far more important than just looking out there and saying, Well, it's hopeless. There's nobody out there for me. Right? And that's what we were talking about with age bracket and so on, because at different ages, what you're doing, what you're looking for, what you're trying to accomplish, it can be different. And if, as you say, you're 18 with a partner, you might have similar goals, it can be a friend as well. Like, you know, you might be at 16, 17, maybe just getting high, having fun, whatever. That's, you know, that's the peak of fulfillment, the moment. And now one of you is 18 or 20 or something and the other person is still in that stage of I just want to get high and have fun. They're going to drag you down. It doesn't mean you can't be friends with somebody, doesn't mean you can't even have a relationship with them. But you have to recognize if that person's not just values are so important with their values, their actions, their their, their plans, if they don't align with you either, you have to find a way to navigate that relationship in a way that it doesn't hinder you, that if they want to stay stagnant, that you're able to keep progressing without them holding you back. Or sometimes unfortunately, you have to, you know, kind of either jettison this, this waste or you to remove yourself or you'll find other avenues. You have to find people and situations that are going to inspire you. If you can't generate that in yourself, then you find other people who are going to again inspire you to do these things. Because, you know, as with all other animals, humans are meant to self-actualize. We're meant to, you know, to be as good as we can be. Problem is, unlike other animals, we have all these psychological issues and all of these historical factors that prevent us sometimes from, you know, again, from either having that ambition or actualizing it. There's a lot that impedes us. And one of the biggest things is the people in our lives. We're social animals. So once again, friend, family partner, whatever else, if they are holding you down, right, you have to decide what is the best thing to do with this relationship. And the only way you recognize that is to, as you said earlier, know yourself, know what you want, and also understand it's not a one way street. If you want them to do all these things for you, what are you prepared to, you know, to bring to the table? And by the way, that's why go with that model. If you can truly say, look, I've done all this, I've invested, I've done all these things, and they're not either A) own it and say I've let it happen. So I need to really you know, I need to express myself and everything like that. B) If you say, well, I've already tried and tried and tried, they're just not hearing me. Okay, well then maybe you have to say sorry, I've given enough chances. I need to, you know, need to move on. Right. You have to look at this. By the way, one other thing. It's funny. I've had so many people say this recently where and it's usually a woman saying it about a man where she's saying a really sweet guy. He's great. All you know, he's really, really nice. He's loving all these things. And there's two problems, or at least one problem. One, the big problem is, as you said earlier, lack of ambition. Right? And they feel so bad. Like they're saying, you know, I feel terrible because he's so sweet, he loves me and all these things that I'm going to leave him just because he doesn't have a good job or eat right. I say, Well, if you're thinking about a forever, but you know, supposedly forever, you're thinking of starting a family with this person. If they don't have that ambition or sense of responsibility or ability to prioritize somebody other than themselves over themselves, well, guess what? They're going to be a terrible partner, terrible father or wife or mother, whoever. If you want to. If you're thinking of having a family with somebody, you need to believe that that person is going to be your partner, not another child that you have to take care of. So I say these are not bad things to expect of a partner, because again, it's a reflection of how they're going to be later on. And by the way, when people say, oh, I know he's going to be a great father, why or because he loves playing with his nephews or whatever. Well, that's playing with them. You might be a great playmate, but he might not be the best father. Okay. And then the final point I was going to say about that, where they say and I, I always distressed the person when I say this at first, but there's a reason they say I'm never going to find somebody who loves me as much as I say. Bob. And I say, you know what? You're probably right. He will not. You'll never find somebody based on what you told me. I don't think anybody's ever going to love you as much as Bob loves you. Yeah, I see that. And they're like, But you're, you know. But. But, but we're talking about believing him, so. And they get freaked out. I go, Yeah, well, I'm using the word love like you're using the word love, but I don't see love in this case. I say what I see. That's not love. That's overdependence. That's fear. Fear of losing you. Okay? That's not love. Okay? Now, it may be curly. There may be some love there, but I say that's what you have to look. And I blown people's minds when I see that so simple. But when they think of it that way, that when the person goes, Oh, don't leave me, blah, blah, blah, I say, If they really love you, as if they truly, truly love, you know what they'll do? They'll step up. That's desperation. That's not love. Yeah, exactly. That's what it is. And they say, well, what if they're just not capable of blah blah? I say, Well, fine. Then again, think about your future as 18 years old. If they're not capable of doing these things ten years down the road, that's fine when you're 18. But ten years down the road when you need them, right? Yeah. If this is something inherent to them, if they just lack in these abilities or in the motivation to do it, I say you're going to look back at your life and go, Oh my gosh, I made a terrible mistake. Okay, you're young now. Make the decision the best one. And, you know, I actually we talked about this previous episode about knowing what you want, etc.. So obviously there's overlap in some of these things. But by the way, for another episode, I don't do it this time, but we do have to talk about the realities of the difficulty for young people of dating in the age of, you know, of of apps, of, you know, of how difficult that makes things, of how people the the most common type of early relationship is one that's not built on on on trust and fidelity. But basically saying if I'm starting to date you, I know there's like ten other people or five other people on your roster that I'm competing with. At the same time, this is. Not to mention it's based on the facade that they put out there. Right, Exactly. And so you never get a chance. It was very hard to get a chance of seeing the person who they really, really are. And we can talk about that in another episode about how to navigate that in a way that doesn't make you look needy or clingy or desperate, but rather saying, okay, you know, we've had this many dates. Where do we go from here? Not being afraid to discuss that and just saying, you know, I'm not being I'm being a responsible, you know, self efficacious individual. Yeah. And I want to add to the the really great point that you made as far as you know, people say, well, you know, I can't leave this person because I feel guilty. And two things I want to say about that. It's not selfish to look at, you know, what's in your best interest for your life long term. That's that's not selfish. It's not rude, It's not mean. It's the reality of the situation. And secondly, this is, you know, the unromantic thing that I say to many times when they find themselves in that position that, you know, while we love each other, that's great that you love each other. Love is one of 100, if not more, things that need to be present for a relationship to be successful. So that's great that you guys love each other. But what about the other 99 problems that exist? Exactly. Exactly. Now, just very quickly, whenever somebody is afraid to leave a relationship and I say, Well, why not? And they go, because I, the person will be devastated or love. I say, that's the biggest red flag date when you're not leaving out of guilt, not leaving because of loyalty or whatever, that's one thing. You're not wanting to hurt the other person, That's fine. But if it's just guilt, I say you're not their you know, their keeper. You know, if you're going to leave them behind, well let them learn from that experience. Otherwise they just keep dragging you down, number one. And the number two, the selfish, right? It's not self. I tell people there's selfish, which is the worst, and you can be selfish. And then there's self-interest and all humans, all animals were all self-interested. And the difference is self-interest is taking care of yourself. Selfish is taking care of doing something for yourself without caring what the impact on others. If you're self-interested, but you are concerned about the impact and you're doing everything you can, but you realize it's just not workable, right? That's not being selfish. That's being self-interest in self-interested, and that's also bad. There's self-interest then self-serving and again, self-serving can be selfish at times, but it doesn't have to be. As long as you commit to trying not to harm the other person. But if the other person makes it impossible not to harm them because they don't have their act together, because they can't live without you, because they're desperate to be with you, because they can't do it on their own, that's not on you. That's not your burden to bear. And you know, you and I have talked about this before, especially you, about the like more even more about the you know, if you get into a relationship, you're committing to it. Yes. If you've made a permanent commitment, if it's a marriage, if it's a long term thing, if you have children, that's one thing. But we're talking about earlier on in a relation or even a long term relation that hasn't gone to the next stage yet. Right? Then that's again, if that person can't commit sufficiently because as I said with the Plinko with these pegs here, if someone says, Oh, I'm so committed to you, well what are you willing to do to show that commitment? Words are not commitment. Actions are not demonstrated that you're if you're just saying it. And yeah, as far as the commitment aspect, absolutely. When you know, when people are dating or even the early stages of a longer term relationship not to be you know, not to suggest that people should be careless in any way, but not at all. But the whole point of dating is to test the waters and see what works and what doesn't work. Exactly. And to have the honesty again, if you know what you want and everything like that to be. To be honest ago, you know what? It seemed good at the time. Maybe I've invested one, two, maybe even ten years in this relationship, but far better to cut it off now. You know, I then look back at my life and go, Oh my gosh, I wasted so much of my life trying to make something work or lying to myself or pretending that this is something that it wasn't. Once again, going back to those age brackets or stages of your life right at a certain time, it might have seemed great. But later on, when you realize, no, no, at the time it was good, or I was so in love with that person. Yeah. So as far as you know, what people can do about this, I think that it can be very tricky and confusing to navigate. And I also feel that a lot of people, you know, in in trying to find the right partner and, you know, do what feels right in their life, they're compromising maybe their own values or the way that they behave or the way they conduct themselves. Right. And, you know, we've talked about this in so many different podcasts, the influence of social media. You can't deny that we are social animals. So our norms, it's not the societal norms, It's it's the people closest to us, our peers, our peer group, whether the neighborhood, culture, religion, whatever. And so, so many people are being told every day either directly or, you know, just seeing it through the social media, you know, what it's supposed to be like, What is a healthy partner, what's a healthy relationship, what you know, what you deserve, what you should ask for and everything like that. And so, so many people are allowing those other potential realities either fantasy or reality to dictate their own realities, their own needs. And so I think it's really important. We've talked about this so many times, but as we said earlier today, truly know what you want to know what you think will work for you. There's no guarantees in any of this. That's the other thing we've talked before about being able to be comfortable with the discomfort of the unknown and knowing that there's no guarantees in these relationships and learning to be able to say, yeah, I have, you know, I'm, you know, I'm taking a chance. I'm maybe sacrificing certain things for this person, like, for example, sacrificing the ability to be with other people, right? Or maybe I'm going to sacrifice living the way that I want to live. Maybe I want to live in a condo and this person wants to live in a house or I want to live here or do that, like whatever the case is, right? Just not allowing all these other influences to determine what is best for you. That's something you have to work out with your partner, and both of you have to make sure that you are able to sort of filter out a lot of these external influences. And it's not just social media, it can be parental pressures, it can be like religious dictates, whatever else like that. But again, just look that we've talked before in other podcasts about knowing your intuition knowing yourself, knowing what is in your best interest. And if something doesn't feel right, well, maybe it's a neurosis, maybe it's part of pathology, or maybe there's truly something that's happening that isn't in your best interest and your spidey sense is going off and that you will be careful. Be mindful, I guess with that, as always, 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 Roundtable 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.