Speaker 1: Pushkin. Todd Barretts knew exactly how his boyfriend should be
Speaker 1: treating him. The right standards were very clear. They'd been
Speaker 1: set out in all the fairy tales and Hollywood rom
Speaker 1: coms that he'd grown up with.
Speaker 2: I had certain expectations for how he should be treating me.
Speaker 2: I was thinking, well, he should just be asking me
Speaker 2: how my day was. He should just be doing these things.
Speaker 2: And the reality is that it's a much more complicated
Speaker 2: dynamic than that.
Speaker 1: Many of us share this kind of naive view of relationships.
Speaker 1: We expect near perfection from our romantic partners and assume
Speaker 1: that accepting anything less would be settling. We want a
Speaker 1: soulmate who understands us, a rock who supports us in
Speaker 1: all we do, a therapist who heals us when we're hurt,
Speaker 1: and a lover who fulfills all our desires and makes
Speaker 1: us feel incredibly attractive.
Speaker 2: These rules, these lists, they're infiltrating our relationships from day
Speaker 2: one to These are things that we've internalized, and they
Speaker 2: become indistinguishable from our voice compared to our culture's voice.
Speaker 2: They just feel like absolute truths.
Speaker 1: The eventual collapse of Todd's ten year relationship was a
Speaker 1: wake up call. Todd had been demanding way too much
Speaker 1: from his boyfriend. It was more than any real person
Speaker 1: could reasonably deliver, So Todd decided to recalibrate in his
Speaker 1: future relationships. Sure he'd be thrilled if he met the
Speaker 1: perfect partner, but he'd also be okay with a kind,
Speaker 1: yet fallible and flawed human. He was ready to find
Speaker 1: a partner who is simply good enough. But Todd says
Speaker 1: this isn't just a personal decision, it's advice he wants
Speaker 1: us all to consider. You see Todd Barrett's as a
Speaker 1: sex and relationships therapist. He's also the author of How
Speaker 1: to Love Someone Without Losing Your Mind. In his practice,
Speaker 1: Todd sees countless couples tearing themselves and their relationships apart
Speaker 1: thanks to impossibly high expectations. So in this final episode
Speaker 1: of our season, Looking at Happiness and Love, we'll explore
Speaker 1: how so many of us ended up becoming way too
Speaker 1: demanding about what a partner should be, as well as
Speaker 1: unwilling to accept the inevitable flaws that come with being human.
Speaker 1: We'll also hear Todd's advice for finding not the perfect relationship,
Speaker 1: but one that's just good enough Forget the fairy tale
Speaker 1: and get real. That's the subtitle of Todd's new book.
Speaker 1: In it, he makes the observation that we spend more
Speaker 1: time as children learning to do long division than we
Speaker 1: do learning to identify our emotions. The lack of social
Speaker 1: and relational guidance in our culture is outrageous at best,
Speaker 1: Todd explains, and harmful to survival at worst. Without the
Speaker 1: right guidance, a lot of powerful ideas have bubbled up
Speaker 1: to fill this void, romance, novels, TV shows, rom coms,
Speaker 1: and now social media, and Todd says that these ideas
Speaker 1: often create problems. All those listicles and memes convince us
Speaker 1: we need to find a perfect partner and that we
Speaker 1: ought to reject anyone with any potential flaw or defect.
Speaker 2: The reality is that people don't have so many places
Speaker 2: to go for relationship advice. You know, we primarily get
Speaker 2: our relationship advice implicitly from our family and culture of origin. Oftentimes,
Speaker 2: as I said, it's implicit. It's not like this is
Speaker 2: how healthy relationships work. It's observational learning. It's experiential and emotional.
Speaker 2: In school, we get absolutely no education. We don't get
Speaker 2: good sex ed. We don't get relational ad it, we
Speaker 2: don't get an emotional ad we don't get a human head.
Speaker 2: But what's so interesting about the Instagram stuff, social media,
Speaker 2: TikTok is that is actually the only places that people,
Speaker 2: at least culturally in this moment, that we get information.
Speaker 2: And that's the beginning of the problem. And you know,
Speaker 2: some of the content's great, just like any TV film,
Speaker 2: any kind of media. Some of it is good, some
Speaker 2: of it is bad. But the biggest thing for me
Speaker 2: that I would want people to really slow down with
Speaker 2: how they're consuming the content and think deeper about it.
Speaker 2: There is no nuance, there's no complexity. Often sometimes the
Speaker 2: posts are literally black and white. We're looking at information
Speaker 2: that's really lacking their context that gives life to information.
Speaker 2: It's empty information really, and nothing can really be applied
Speaker 2: without fully understanding the context, especially the therapeutic information and
Speaker 2: psycho education that we are now seeing all of our
Speaker 2: social media.
Speaker 1: So, in my own kind of glimpses at what's going
Speaker 1: on on TikTok and Instagram, my sense is that a
Speaker 1: lot of the language that people used to talk about
Speaker 1: relationship seems to be really clinicalized. But clinicalized in this
Speaker 1: way that maybe people are like getting wrong, you know,
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking about terms like codependency and narcissism and gaslighting.
Speaker 1: Is this something that you've noticed. Are there's spots where
Speaker 1: some of these kind of online therapists might not be
Speaker 1: getting exactly the clinical context, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean all of posts are marketing. So it's information,
Speaker 2: but it's marketing. It's coming from a place that I
Speaker 2: want you to read my content so you can subscribe
Speaker 2: to my channel, and so I can monetize it in
Speaker 2: one way or another. I mean, that's really what it is.
Speaker 2: I mean, and that's fine. We live this is the
Speaker 2: world we live in. But words like narcissism and toxic
Speaker 2: gas lighter and toxic thiss and red flag and situationship
Speaker 2: then even trauma, these words are trending, and so people
Speaker 2: are often using these words to get people's interest, and
Speaker 2: so oftentimes what happens is that things get really watered down.
Speaker 2: And that's what we're saying is that, you know, these
Speaker 2: terms are being watered down to apply to literally anything
Speaker 2: at this point, any bad behavior, any sign of dependence.
Speaker 2: And to me, what it does is that it increases
Speaker 2: people's anxiety because it keeps us on alert, and it
Speaker 2: keeps us hyper vigilant to be looking out for certain
Speaker 2: signs certain behavior, as opposed to better understanding ourselves. So
Speaker 2: I think that yes, we might want to know some
Speaker 2: of these terms, but the most important thing we can
Speaker 2: do in our relationships and in our lives is not
Speaker 2: diagnosed somebody is not look out for the top ten
Speaker 2: red flags of a narcissist or if your person is toxic,
Speaker 2: but to better understand ourselves. The content is training us
Speaker 2: more to understand and analyze someone else's shitty behavior than
Speaker 2: our own, and that's a problem.
Speaker 1: It also really changes the standards that we bring to
Speaker 1: kind of relationship shopping. Right, If we're kind of looking
Speaker 1: for all these red flags, it seems like we see
Speaker 1: our job as kind of trying to suss out these
Speaker 1: red flags in a way that probably makes the entire
Speaker 1: dating landscape seem kind of terrifying. I mean, is this
Speaker 1: something you've experienced with the people that you talk to
Speaker 1: and that you work with as clients.
Speaker 2: This shapes the entire experience of how we think about
Speaker 2: even someone on an app, we have anything that you know,
Speaker 2: I see individuals and I see couples with the individuals.
Speaker 2: It's mostly is this person that I'm dating going to
Speaker 2: be the wrong person for me? Are they going to
Speaker 2: hurt me? And then most of the couples that I'm seeing,
Speaker 2: you know, they have some kind of fear that they're
Speaker 2: with the wrong person. So these expectations are literally physiologically
Speaker 2: shaping the way we react and prime ourselves to experience
Speaker 2: connection or rather what it is is really disconnection because
Speaker 2: the more we are focused on the top ten lists
Speaker 2: of what to look for, the less present we are,
Speaker 2: and the less present we are, the less capable we
Speaker 2: are of connecting. And the less capable we are being vulnerable,
Speaker 2: and the less capable we are being vulnerable, the more
Speaker 2: long we're going to feel.
Speaker 1: And so how do we get in this position? Because
Speaker 1: it seems like this is kind of something that seems
Speaker 1: to be pretty new and like modern love, it seems
Speaker 1: like we've kind of gone like really capitalist when it
Speaker 1: comes to kind of thinking about love and thinking about dating,
Speaker 1: Like how did we get here?
Speaker 2: People have a variety of different theories, you know, going
Speaker 2: from we're now really really independent and we stress independence
Speaker 2: and we don't necessarily have to focus on marriage for survival.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a whole historical basis for where love
Speaker 2: is today, which is something I talk about in my book.
Speaker 2: I interviewed my mom about love and what it was
Speaker 2: like growing up for her, and for her it was
Speaker 2: just get married by twenty one, have kids very soon.
Speaker 2: She's like, red flags, What is that toxic? What is
Speaker 2: that narcissism? She kind of had an idea, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't part of the relational discourse, whereas now it is.
Speaker 2: And I think it's a good thing. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't think this is bad, but it's something that's full
Speaker 2: of meaning that we need to understand better. So we're
Speaker 2: not just on autopilot expecting certain things and discounting our
Speaker 2: role in all of the dynamics we exist in.
Speaker 1: So it seems like on top of of these kind
Speaker 1: of new expectations we have for our partners, you know,
Speaker 1: we're kind of worried about red flags and trying to
Speaker 1: sess them out. At the same time, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like our same high standards have been applied to like
Speaker 1: our own behavior and kind of the way that we
Speaker 1: bring ourselves to relationships. It seems like if anything like
Speaker 1: those expectations have gone down, is that the sense you
Speaker 1: get from kind of talking to your clients and engaging
Speaker 1: with some of this work.
Speaker 2: Well, what's interesting about that is that people have high
Speaker 2: expectations of themselves and they're really really hard on themselves,
Speaker 2: But when it comes to relational dynamics, most people are
Speaker 2: particularly disconnected from that in terms of, you know, we
Speaker 2: want a partner who will do certain things for us,
Speaker 2: and in that focus, we fail to realize that how
Speaker 2: we interact with them will determine whether or not they
Speaker 2: do the things that we think they should be doing
Speaker 2: for us. The interesting is that people want to put
Speaker 2: in the work, but oftentimes people myself can feel so
Speaker 2: convinced that it's not us. And people are resistant to
Speaker 2: understanding the role that they play in relationships because it
Speaker 2: touches upon a very vulnerable and scary place that we're limited,
Speaker 2: that we have issues ourselves, that we are difficult to
Speaker 2: be with, and that we play a role, a very
Speaker 2: big role in our lives. But many of us default
Speaker 2: to this place where we just want our partner to
Speaker 2: rescue us and to do these certain things for us
Speaker 2: to make us feel valued and validated. And there's another
Speaker 2: trending word that drives me crazy. Validation. You know, we
Speaker 2: expect our partners not to be their job without again
Speaker 2: understanding the role we play. So people really want to
Speaker 2: work hard, but they don't want to work hard unless
Speaker 2: they think their partner is working hard in a similar
Speaker 2: or same way. And they definitely don't want to work
Speaker 2: hard if they think their.
Speaker 1: Partner is to blame, which most people do.
Speaker 2: Which most people do.
Speaker 1: So you've really argued that we need to unlearn some
Speaker 1: of these rules that we've been getting from modern love,
Speaker 1: that the act of unlearning these rules and coming up
Speaker 1: with new ones can help us do better. And one
Speaker 1: of the rules you talked about is this idea that
Speaker 1: we really need our partners to change. When we look
Speaker 1: at relationships, I think there's this idea like, oh, if
Speaker 1: only my partner could do X, Y and Z, or
Speaker 1: if only this person you know, I just started dating,
Speaker 1: would you do this sort of thing and everything would
Speaker 1: be better? Talk about why our partner's changing isn't necessarily
Speaker 1: the best answer to our relationship woes.
Speaker 2: One. I mean, it's a prison. If we say that
Speaker 2: someone else needs to do something in order for us
Speaker 2: to be happy, that's a pretty scary, powerless place to be.
Speaker 2: And that's the parallel to childhood, you know, where we
Speaker 2: needed our parents to do something specific for us and
Speaker 2: that was the reality in order for us to be happy.
Speaker 2: But adult partnership is a completely different ballgame than early
Speaker 2: childhood attachment. You know, when we're responding to our partners
Speaker 2: not doing something for us, we're responding to our dynamic
Speaker 2: that we are integral into, shaping and creating and eliciting
Speaker 2: the reaction from our partner that we want them to
Speaker 2: be doing. But it's a big piece of the book,
Speaker 2: which is I say, you know, in many other therapists
Speaker 2: and people say, you know, change yourself first, you know,
Speaker 2: stop trying to get your partner to change, and work
Speaker 2: on changing yourself. And most people hate that because they're
Speaker 2: like in the self righteous place of I didn't do this,
Speaker 2: they should be doing this. I deserve, I'm entitled to whatever.
Speaker 2: It can be really hard to think except and understand
Speaker 2: that if we can make change that can have an
Speaker 2: impact on a relationship, that we actually have more power
Speaker 2: in our adult partnerships than our reflexes might be telling us.
Speaker 1: And so one of the forms of that change that
Speaker 1: you really advocate is that we need to look back
Speaker 1: at our past to really understand where our current tendencies
Speaker 1: are coming from. You've argued that we need to explore
Speaker 1: our emotional ghosts. So what are emotional ghosts and why
Speaker 1: do we need to explore them so much?
Speaker 2: Emotional ghosts are basically any historical experience that was traumatic, hard, challenging,
Speaker 2: whatever that's left to mark, that's left a wound that's
Speaker 2: been a big part of your story. A lot of
Speaker 2: our needs and relationships come from never receiving those needs
Speaker 2: due to trauma and neglect, abandonment, to lack of nourishment
Speaker 2: from parents, etc. And their emotional ghosts, and they're with us,
Speaker 2: and those are the things that will come to shape
Speaker 2: our relational dynamics as adults, like literally will shape them.
Speaker 2: And it's important to become aware of that because oftentimes
Speaker 2: what gets mixed up and our own emotional ghosts is
Speaker 2: again that my partner is doing this when it's usually both,
Speaker 2: it's usually some version of our attachment trauma, our earlier
Speaker 2: experiences in our family of origin. These emotional ghosts, these triggers, wounds,
Speaker 2: et cetera that are coming up in the president of
Speaker 2: a dynamic that feels very similar to what we grew
Speaker 2: up with. That doesn't mean our partner is in doing
Speaker 2: something they usually are, but the power with which we
Speaker 2: respond is coming from these earlier scary ghosts.
Speaker 1: I know this is something that you navigated with your
Speaker 1: relationship with Alex. Would you talk a lot about in
Speaker 1: your practice and in your book. So maybe first off,
Speaker 1: who is Alex and where are some spots where in
Speaker 1: that relationship these emotional ghosts came up?
Speaker 2: A relationship ended about like six years ago, which is wild.
Speaker 2: We were together for ten years. You know, huge learning
Speaker 2: experience in my life, but like it was really hard
Speaker 2: for me to acknowledge, even though my therapist was saying, Todd,
Speaker 2: this is about you know your father. But even when
Speaker 2: being told about this, I was like, no, Elks should
Speaker 2: be doing this. He's limited in this way. While you know,
Speaker 2: I was convinced, and on the one hand, I wasn't
Speaker 2: wrong with the way that I was seeing in the
Speaker 2: perspective that I was or that I had of him
Speaker 2: was based on my earlier experiences. Now I know that,
Speaker 2: you know, I had wanted him to do certain things
Speaker 2: that I actually didn't need him to do in terms
Speaker 2: of the emotional caretaking that I was expecting. And you know,
Speaker 2: these are things that I could have done of my
Speaker 2: own as an adult in.
Speaker 1: Our quest to sort of figure out our emotional ghosts.
Speaker 1: You actually have a practical suggestion that I found quite striking,
Speaker 1: which is that we need to dig into the past
Speaker 1: a little bit more, and that might really involve talking
Speaker 1: to the people who often make up the situations that
Speaker 1: cause our emotional ghosts aamely, our parents. So talk to
Speaker 1: me about this advice and what you did in your
Speaker 1: situation and why it can be so powerful for kind
Speaker 1: of digging up those things that are from the past
Speaker 1: that might be affecting us so.
Speaker 2: Much a big part of our story. We can't fully
Speaker 2: know it without fully knowing our parents and our history
Speaker 2: and our generational stories and our ancestors and as much
Speaker 2: as information as we can possibly get. So what I
Speaker 2: did was I interviewed my mom. I asked and my dad.
Speaker 2: I asked them both a lot of questions about what
Speaker 2: love was like, what dating was like, what growing up
Speaker 2: was like, what their parents were like, what their relationships
Speaker 2: were like, you know. And what I found was that,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of their experiences paralleled what I
Speaker 2: went through with them in terms of maybe some of
Speaker 2: the neglect that I felt and I was neglected by
Speaker 2: my parents, and then when I talk to them about
Speaker 2: their story, the neglect that they experienced and weren't even
Speaker 2: able to acknowledge. And then when I asked about their
Speaker 2: parents and their grandparents, I mean, it was literal war
Speaker 2: and death. So oftentimes our stories have real, real intergenerational basis,
Speaker 2: and we can't fully understand ourselves and our relationships without
Speaker 2: fully understanding that. The challenge with some of these interviews
Speaker 2: and interactions with their parents is they don't want to
Speaker 2: talk about it. Sometimes I push a lot of my
Speaker 2: clients to do this and they say they do and
Speaker 2: their parents will only talk about the positive relationships they
Speaker 2: had despite their parents having a lot of emotional problems.
Speaker 2: So the challenge with some of these generational traumas is
Speaker 2: they've been kept inter repts and sometimes if we ask
Speaker 2: our parents, they may also continue to do that. But
Speaker 2: it's really important and I would really encourage anyone if
Speaker 2: their parent is still alive, their grandparents is still alive,
Speaker 2: to write out a set of questions and it's not
Speaker 2: an interrogation, it's not therapy, it's an interview, and to
Speaker 2: ask questions about you know, what was love like for you?
Speaker 2: What was independence like for you? What was affection like
Speaker 2: for you? What were the expectations you had? Were your
Speaker 2: parents present, did they have a drinking problem, did they
Speaker 2: do drugs? Did anybody die? Were there any relational breaks
Speaker 2: early on? You know all of this stuff because you
Speaker 2: can really learn a lot about yourself, and you can
Speaker 2: humanize your parents, which is a really big piece of
Speaker 2: this story, because as we talk and learn about our
Speaker 2: own early traumas with our parents, we can often view
Speaker 2: them as our perpetrators, which sometimes they are, or as
Speaker 2: the people who didn't give us this thing and who
Speaker 2: deeply hurt us, and all of that, which can be true.
Speaker 2: But the other side of that story is that they're
Speaker 2: human beings who had very very deep stories just like ours,
Speaker 2: and experienced challenges and or the way they are for
Speaker 2: a reason, and so if we can understand that reason,
Speaker 2: it really can help to humanize them and connect with
Speaker 2: them as a human being rather than this person who
Speaker 2: mistreated us when we were ten or fifteen or didn't
Speaker 2: give us what they should have given us. I really
Speaker 2: encourage people to do it.
Speaker 1: So understanding our own stories and those of our parents
Speaker 1: and grandparents can be an important first step in finding
Speaker 1: greater stability in our romantic relationships, but Todd says there
Speaker 1: are also some narratives that we need to better understand
Speaker 1: and challenge, specifically our persistent myths about fairy tale romance.
Speaker 1: We'll hear more after a quick break. Sex and relationship
Speaker 1: therapist Todd Barrett's sees many clients who began their idea
Speaker 1: of romance as kids from reading the usual Happily Ever
Speaker 1: After fairy tales. Todd writes in his book, people date
Speaker 1: with the goal of finding their perfect match, the one
Speaker 1: we all want somewhat special, but our ideas of the
Speaker 1: one can get kind of extreme. The one has to
Speaker 1: be one hundred percent emotionally available, stable, healed through years
Speaker 1: of past therapy, and able to communicate. They've got to
Speaker 1: be motivated, funny, growth oriented, and mature. They've got to
Speaker 1: have a good job and impeccable taste. Gotta love travel
Speaker 1: and dogs, plus be in shape, oh, and a foodie,
Speaker 1: and have no imperfections or red flags whatsoever, just chemistry,
Speaker 1: connection and love it for a site. Oddly enough, in
Speaker 1: his youth, Todd felt a bit detached from these expectations.
Speaker 2: Growing up gay in the nineties. You know, the idea
Speaker 2: of the one and being with someone forever wasn't really
Speaker 2: on my radar.
Speaker 1: But after the painful end of his ten year relationship,
Speaker 1: Todd unhappily found himself back in the dating pool and
Speaker 1: searching for that perfect meat.
Speaker 2: It'd be so great to just find one person to
Speaker 2: be done with it, and you know, not to have
Speaker 2: to worry that that ever again. But the reality is
Speaker 2: that relationships are ending. People get divorced. This is the thing,
Speaker 2: and it's normal and it's okay. I do see that
Speaker 2: as kind of the biggest problem and the biggest part
Speaker 2: of the fairy tale that we need to let go
Speaker 2: is the idea of happily ever after, the one where
Speaker 2: everything is just going to work. It doesn't exist, It
Speaker 2: really doesn't, and it really ends up just adding anxiety
Speaker 2: to dates and to our relationships.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the idea of how we can
Speaker 1: overcome this idea of the one. You had this lovely
Speaker 1: practical suggestion that I've heard you mentioned before, which is
Speaker 1: that we need to sort of switch what we're doing
Speaker 1: in the search for the one You're Rather than getting
Speaker 1: all anxious, we need to get a little bit more curious.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by getting curious?
Speaker 2: Curious about who the other person is, curious about who
Speaker 2: we are when we're with them. I try to reframe
Speaker 2: dating not in terms of who we can find, more
Speaker 2: so what we can find out taking it one singular date, experience,
Speaker 2: conversation at a time. You know, the power of being
Speaker 2: present might sound cliche, but it's really important, especially when
Speaker 2: it comes to relationships and getting to know somebody. If
Speaker 2: your mind is are they going to satisfy me in
Speaker 2: twenty years? If your mind is there on day two,
Speaker 2: you're not going to be seeing them as who they are.
Speaker 2: You're not going to be learning about them, and you're
Speaker 2: not giving yourself the opportunity to let them get to
Speaker 2: know you. But this is what we grew up with.
Speaker 2: This is what we see in movies. You know that
Speaker 2: people are together forever, and there are certain things to
Speaker 2: look for that may not fit that criteria.
Speaker 1: You had this term that I love normal marital hate
Speaker 1: that you talk about. You get an example with your
Speaker 1: dog that I love.
Speaker 2: Oh, that is Terry real. It was a quote of
Speaker 2: Terry Reel's book Us Normal Marital Hate. Great line. Everyone
Speaker 2: is intolerable to an extent, everyone is going to disappoint us.
Speaker 2: Everyone is going to annoy us. I talk about my dog,
Speaker 2: and even my dog who's so cute. Her name is Ellie.
Speaker 2: She's a kavapoo and all she wants to do is cuddle,
Speaker 2: but she's really annoying sometimes and sometimes I just want
Speaker 2: her to leave me alone. And our partner, no matter
Speaker 2: how cute and sweet they are, they're going to get
Speaker 2: on our nerves. They're going to disappoint us. Happily ever
Speaker 2: after just you know, unfortunately, it's not a thing, and
Speaker 2: it's a really big disappointment. And the challenges is really
Speaker 2: learning how to embrace our partner's limitations and honor them
Speaker 2: and understand them as a human being without seeing those limitations, disappointments,
Speaker 2: frustrations as a way to understand them as a whole.
Speaker 2: Everyone is a little disappointing, including myself.
Speaker 1: You talk times about this idea of the good enough
Speaker 1: relationship or the good enough marriage. What do you mean
Speaker 1: by good enough here? And how can we find that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? People hate that. Whenever I post about that on Instagram,
Speaker 2: people come for me. But yeah, something that's good enough
Speaker 2: I mean, And this applies to practically everything in our life.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for a house now, and I'm like, but
Speaker 2: I want this and this, and meanwhile, I live in
Speaker 2: New York City and nothing is going to be what
Speaker 2: I want it to be. But we're talking about relationships
Speaker 2: so good enough meaning, you know, we don't need one
Speaker 2: hundred percent. We don't need our partners to be perfect.
Speaker 2: We need them to be there for us most of
Speaker 2: the time. We need a relationship that's good enough. And
Speaker 2: good enough includes limitations, problems, fights, conflicts. That doesn't mean
Speaker 2: an unhealthy relationship. It doesn't mean an abusive relationship. It
Speaker 2: just means a relationship that's mostly satisfying. Part of the
Speaker 2: fairy tale is that we will find a relationship that's
Speaker 2: fully satisfying, that doesn't require work, and that you're entitled
Speaker 2: to a love that dot dot dot. You know, I
Speaker 2: see so many means like that. The reality is is
Speaker 2: no one's really entitled to anything when it comes to
Speaker 2: love in that sense, because it's hard work. We can't
Speaker 2: just sit there and have these things appear. We have
Speaker 2: to do the work. And part of that work is
Speaker 2: tolerance and forgiveness and forgiving ourselves and forgiving our partners.
Speaker 2: And it's really, really hard and can be disappointing.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that you get pushed back for this
Speaker 1: idea of the good enough relationship. And it kind of
Speaker 1: makes sense given how much we push people these days
Speaker 1: never to settle. But my sense is like this is
Speaker 1: also a new thing about modern love that we're so
Speaker 1: obsessed with not settling. This isn't the way our parents
Speaker 1: dealt with it, right, I mean, like.
Speaker 2: I was telling you with my mother in her interview,
Speaker 2: she settled, and you know, she chose somebody that was
Speaker 2: extremely abusive, but because culturally, you know, as a woman
Speaker 2: in the fifties, she was told to stay, told to
Speaker 2: get married, and told to settle no matter what, for
Speaker 2: a sense of security and because family was the most
Speaker 2: important thing. And so I do think that this pendulum
Speaker 2: having swung to the exact opposite direction of never settle,
Speaker 2: is due to you know, a lot of intergenerational trauma
Speaker 2: where we've come from parents or grandparents or histories where
Speaker 2: people were really hurt and we're told to settle because
Speaker 2: that was the cultural narrative. Settle down. You know, that's
Speaker 2: what people were told. And now you know, the pendulum
Speaker 2: is from the other direction. And I'm not suggesting that
Speaker 2: it's wrong. I'm just suggesting that we should take that
Speaker 2: pendulum and put it a little bit in the middle.
Speaker 2: You know, the only way we learn about ourselves in
Speaker 2: relationships is by being in them. And so if we're
Speaker 2: constantly waiting for this perfect person, one they don't exist,
Speaker 2: but two we don't get the opportunity to one have
Speaker 2: a relationship, experience attachment and love, but to really learn
Speaker 2: about what it is that we want in the first place.
Speaker 2: So what I think is more important is for people
Speaker 2: to settle down, but not to settle down for a
Speaker 2: shitty relationship, but to settle down with somebody that's good
Speaker 2: enough and to see what you can develop and to
Speaker 2: see what the connection is like, and to see what
Speaker 2: happens when you have conflict and to work through that.
Speaker 2: And also what's important is to end a relationship. I
Speaker 2: do believe that having the experience of being able to
Speaker 2: have a relational ending at least once in your life
Speaker 2: is a very important experience to have in terms of
Speaker 2: personal growth, self awareness, and development, at least for me
Speaker 2: and a lot of my clients. A big, big problem
Speaker 2: with the fairy tale relationship is when it comes to endings.
Speaker 2: Relational endings. So people think they should last forever, and
Speaker 2: when they don't, they failed, They blame their partner, they
Speaker 2: blame themselves. People often don't think about creation laws. When
Speaker 2: people do get to the end of a relationship, they
Speaker 2: think it should just feel like a hiccup or a sneeze,
Speaker 2: and then they decide to end it. When the reality
Speaker 2: of relational endings is so much further from what we
Speaker 2: see in a rom com and what we see in
Speaker 2: some of these expectations on Instagram, you know, in terms,
Speaker 2: cut them out, go on a trip, get back to yourself,
Speaker 2: be single on purpose, get to know yourself better. That's
Speaker 2: the model for relational endings that we see. We celebrate
Speaker 2: love and we totally avoid the topic of any kind
Speaker 2: of relational ending, including pain, ambivalence, regret, years of hard work,
Speaker 2: and tears. You know, we often think about a relational
Speaker 2: ending as on this day, I decided I wanted to
Speaker 2: end my relationship, and then next week I'm going to
Speaker 2: go on a vacation by myself. I'm going to do yoga,
Speaker 2: and then I'm not going to start dating for another
Speaker 2: three to six months until I'm healed, and then I'm
Speaker 2: going to start dating again. And I'm going to look
Speaker 2: for someone who fits these criteria with no red flags.
Speaker 2: Like my top it gets and it is nothing like that.
Speaker 2: You know, when I ended my relationship, it was a
Speaker 2: horror show. You know, no one prepares us for what
Speaker 2: it's like when you think about yourself as someone who's
Speaker 2: a wee, and even the language is different. So, you know,
Speaker 2: I think the fairy tale about the way relationships begin,
Speaker 2: the way that they feel, and the way that they
Speaker 2: end infiltrated the way we experience and expect love to feel.
Speaker 2: It's a real challenge because it just creates more shame,
Speaker 2: more anxiety, more confusion, and in that space prevents us
Speaker 2: from fully understanding ourselves, which is really what we need
Speaker 2: in the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship. It's
Speaker 2: self understanding, self compassion, empathy. So the fairy tale I
Speaker 2: see as this kind of black or white portrait of love,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't fit whether we're talking about the beginning, middle,
Speaker 2: or end of a relationship.
Speaker 1: And this gets to another rule that I think we
Speaker 1: need to unlearn, which is this idea of manifesting. You know,
Speaker 1: when I look on Instagram and TikTok, I think there's
Speaker 1: this idea that like I'm just going to manifest the
Speaker 1: perfect relationship as if it doesn't require any work at all.
Speaker 1: Talk about why we need to overcome this idea of manifesting.
Speaker 2: Manifestation plays a really big role for a lot of people,
Speaker 2: and it's I don't want to say it's worked for them,
Speaker 2: because I don't know what work means. I do believe though,
Speaker 2: that you know, one piece of manifestation is the energy
Speaker 2: we put out is the energy we get back. I
Speaker 2: do believe in that, and that gets back to change
Speaker 2: yourself and you change a relationship. You know, if we
Speaker 2: are putting energy out with our partner that is non
Speaker 2: critical and warm and kind and empathic, we're likely to
Speaker 2: receive a similar response. But in terms of just magically
Speaker 2: manifesting a partner, you know, that's not something that I
Speaker 2: think can happen through inaction or just thought. Like I
Speaker 2: had a friend ones tell me to like clear out
Speaker 2: a closet and like make space for my partner. Know,
Speaker 2: it's like, I don't know if that's going to necessarily
Speaker 2: do it. I need to go on dates and like
Speaker 2: put effort into meeting and growing a connection. But relationships
Speaker 2: take work, not manifestation. Relationships are built over a long
Speaker 2: period of time, and that requires patient's effort, tolerance forgiveness,
Speaker 2: all the stuff I was just saying.
Speaker 1: One of the key observations in Todd's book is this,
Speaker 1: as our expectations for love have soored to unprecedented heights,
Speaker 1: Todd our commitment to doing the necessary work to sustain
Speaker 1: that love has plummeted. So after the break, we'll unpack
Speaker 1: the facet of love never mentioned in fairy tales, all
Speaker 1: the work it requires. The Happiness Lab will be right back.
Speaker 1: As a therapist, Todd Barrett sees clients who are deeply
Speaker 1: unhappy with their relationships, but many of those clients are
Speaker 1: also either unwilling to do the work needed to fix
Speaker 1: things with their partner or feel like it's just not
Speaker 1: their job to do the necessary repairs. It's a self
Speaker 1: sabotaging mindset that Todd knows only too well from his
Speaker 1: ten year relationship with his ex Alex.
Speaker 2: There was a dynamic with Alex and I wear I'm
Speaker 2: in the therapist that I was waiting for him to
Speaker 2: bring certain things up. I was waiting for him to
Speaker 2: do certain things before I took any action. And if
Speaker 2: I was upset about something, I would just do in
Speaker 2: frustration and disappointment, or I would spiral and feel sad
Speaker 2: and alone, as opposed to engage and as opposed to
Speaker 2: verbalizing myself, as opposed to really taking an active role
Speaker 2: in the relationship. Basically, I was going silent. I was retreating,
Speaker 2: and I was withdrawing, which is something I did as
Speaker 2: a kid, something I learned to do with my father
Speaker 2: and my family, and the role I was actually encouraged
Speaker 2: to take on as a child, which was to be
Speaker 2: quiet when I was upset, when I was hurt, no
Speaker 2: matter what, be quiet. And I was doing the same
Speaker 2: thing with Alex. The difference was is I was doing
Speaker 2: it in response to Alex not taking care of me
Speaker 2: in a certain way, him not fulfilling my needs in
Speaker 2: a certain way. Instead of me saying, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: could you do this, I would go quiet. And so
Speaker 2: that's the dynamic, and the reaction of me not taking
Speaker 2: up space caused him to take up more space and
Speaker 2: overlook me more, which made me feel more alone, which
Speaker 2: was the same loneliness I experienced as a kid. And
Speaker 2: so I was playing a huge role in creating a
Speaker 2: dynamic that contributed to my own lack of satisfaction and misery.
Speaker 2: And so that's not to say that Alex wasn't doing
Speaker 2: certain things and he could have done other things, but
Speaker 2: it is just to say that this was the role
Speaker 2: I was playing and shaping my relationship and it wasn't
Speaker 2: working for me. And you know, the same thing came
Speaker 2: up last night with me and my new partner.
Speaker 1: Can you unpack like what came like? What was the
Speaker 1: situation that came up a little bit?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, it was something similar to I
Speaker 2: wanted to be asked questions about something specific or to
Speaker 2: have more interest be expressed. But I still you know,
Speaker 2: as a therapist, I tend to default to the space
Speaker 2: of asking questions, of not taking up space of listening,
Speaker 2: or just shutting down, Like if someone doesn't ask me,
Speaker 2: I shut down instead of just start talking. And I
Speaker 2: shut down because I get disappointed. And this is a
Speaker 2: common thing that I see often in the couples with
Speaker 2: my friends, is that people are wanting interest to be expressed,
Speaker 2: but they're not willing to express themselves. And so this
Speaker 2: is what you know, in terms of change yourself, change
Speaker 2: your relationship, as I attempt to try and change myself here,
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that it'll create a different dynamic in terms
Speaker 2: of I will take up more space and therefore I
Speaker 2: will receive more space.
Speaker 1: And another part of kind of understanding yourself to understand
Speaker 1: the relationship, To understand this kind of co created dynamic
Speaker 1: is to really dig into something that might be very painful,
Speaker 1: which is your triggers, and so explain what a trigger
Speaker 1: is and why understanding them for yourself can be so
Speaker 1: powerful for relationships.
Speaker 2: When you're feeling something really powerful, like if it makes
Speaker 2: you feel really sad or really disappointed, or to a
Speaker 2: point where you shut down, you can be sure that
Speaker 2: you're being triggered. Triggers are any kind of stimulus that
Speaker 2: pulls out some kind of emotional reaction, and sometimes it
Speaker 2: is just about the present, but oftentimes it's about both
Speaker 2: the past and the present, and so the past being
Speaker 2: these earlier wounds from our family of origin and culture,
Speaker 2: and so they're really important to become aware of because
Speaker 2: it deepens the story and it often will help us
Speaker 2: elicit a better reaction from our partners when instead of
Speaker 2: blaming them and criticizing them for not fulfilling or need,
Speaker 2: we can understand first why we're feeling so intense to
Speaker 2: have that need fulfilled, and where those responses come from,
Speaker 2: and we can approach them much much better from a
Speaker 2: place not of desperation, not of entitlement, not of objectifying
Speaker 2: them to be our need fulfilling machine, but as a
Speaker 2: human being with experience, those that have contributed to why
Speaker 2: we want what we want.
Speaker 1: Sometimes our triggers wind up making us behave in ways
Speaker 1: that don't necessarily make sense for our current partners. You
Speaker 1: told a story about this with Alex when you had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a fender bender in Alex's car.
Speaker 1: Curious if you'll share that story.
Speaker 2: I completely wrecked his car, and I was petrified. I
Speaker 2: was so afraid he was going to scream at me,
Speaker 2: reject me, leave me, like I thought. I was in
Speaker 2: big trouble. I'm the least handy person, like I literally
Speaker 2: can't fix anything. But I was freaked out so much
Speaker 2: that I went to the auto store and I bought
Speaker 2: car parts and I started to try to fix the car.
Speaker 2: He came out and he found me and he's like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing. I know you can't do this.
Speaker 2: I don't care. Really, it's not a big deal. And
Speaker 2: it was really reparative for me to know that I
Speaker 2: could make a mistake, I could even damage his car
Speaker 2: and I could still receive love and it wouldn't get punished.
Speaker 2: And so these are moments that are extremely reparative with
Speaker 2: our partners. And it was a sweet moment and it
Speaker 2: was hot, But our triggers can bring out the opportunity
Speaker 2: to really work through something powerful. And this is how,
Speaker 2: you know, we hear people say we heal in the
Speaker 2: context of our adult relationships, and this is how we
Speaker 2: do it. We can relearn that we can make a mistake,
Speaker 2: we can be ourselves, and we can still be loved.
Speaker 1: The sort of sensitivity to our own set of triggers
Speaker 1: means that we might need to extend the same courtesy
Speaker 1: to our partners too. We might need to recognize that
Speaker 1: they have triggers and sometimes when they're responding kind of
Speaker 1: really intensely, it might not be about us. It might
Speaker 1: be about something that happened in the past. So talk
Speaker 1: about how we can kind of navigate our partner's triggers
Speaker 1: and do that a little bit better.
Speaker 2: It's really hard, and I call this emotional karate or
Speaker 2: mission impossible. You know, we're all a little narcissistic, and
Speaker 2: we all do think that things are everything is about us,
Speaker 2: and if our partner is going to act in a
Speaker 2: certain way, it has certain implications on who we are
Speaker 2: or what they think about us. But we really have
Speaker 2: to become a bit more curious when we see our
Speaker 2: partners struggling, getting really angry, feeling really sad, looking really withdrawn.
Speaker 2: We all have a tendency to feel, why are they
Speaker 2: doing this to me? Why are they in this mood?
Speaker 2: I don't like it? So we view our partner, their behavior,
Speaker 2: their thoughts, their feelings, their reactions through a lens of
Speaker 2: what they're doing to us or how it relates to us,
Speaker 2: as opposed to how it relates to them. So it's
Speaker 2: really important and helpful to get into the habit of empathy.
Speaker 2: Is everything okay? What's happening? Where does this come from?
Speaker 2: Do you have an idea about why you're feeling so
Speaker 2: upset right now? So it's really important to first go
Speaker 2: a place of curiosity rather than blame, criticism, contempt. I
Speaker 2: did this with Alex. He would get into a bad
Speaker 2: mood and instead of just asking is everything okay? I
Speaker 2: would get annoyed. I'd be like this is annoying. I
Speaker 2: don't want to be with someone who's in a bad mood,
Speaker 2: or I would feel threatened if he raised his voice
Speaker 2: not to me, but like we're driving and he was
Speaker 2: having road rage, which sure it's not pleasant, but like
Speaker 2: it had nothing to do with me, but I made
Speaker 2: it about me, and I was like, this is unpleasant
Speaker 2: for me, as opposed to, you know, letting him be
Speaker 2: a human being who has his own histories, who has
Speaker 2: his own anxieties, his own triggers, and trying to understand.
Speaker 1: That the understanding. Also, it seems like you needed to
Speaker 1: ask Alex about what was going on, You needed to
Speaker 1: get curious, but also to maybe have a hard conversation
Speaker 1: that involved him delving into his past. And so how
Speaker 1: can we normalize this idea that conversations aren't always easy
Speaker 1: and fun, that sometimes they're hard, and that can actually
Speaker 1: be healing in the long run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean also that fighting isn't necessarily bad. Conflict
Speaker 2: isn't bad. Again, you know, conflict for all of us
Speaker 2: is a trigger. Though it's how you do the conflict
Speaker 2: that really makes a difference. And it's really making sure
Speaker 2: that one that we can have the conversations that feel hard,
Speaker 2: but they don't have to involve scary, screaming, yelling things
Speaker 2: that are unsafe. You can insert humor, touch, eye contact,
Speaker 2: caring expressions, caring responses. It can be fighty. That's okay too.
Speaker 2: Don't get into the contempt and the name calling and
Speaker 2: the screaming and the real means stuff. But if we
Speaker 2: don't have these conversations, it will lead to future resentment,
Speaker 2: it will lead to disconnection. It will really back to
Speaker 2: your relationships. So it's just kind of one of those
Speaker 2: things you have to do, like going to the dentist,
Speaker 2: which sorry dentists, but no one wants to go.
Speaker 1: As we talk about unlearning all of these rules, I'm
Speaker 1: cognizant that you're both the therapist and the expert on this,
Speaker 1: but also someone who yourself is dating and engaging your relationships.
Speaker 1: Has unlearning all of these rules helped you out too.
Speaker 2: I have friends that you know, when we first met,
Speaker 2: they thought I was a therapist and had it all
Speaker 2: figured out and didn't experience challenge. And my traumas remain.
Speaker 2: They don't go away. No one's trauma goes away. I've
Speaker 2: learned to understand my traumas and understanding my traumas and
Speaker 2: expanding my conscious awareness of who I am has helped
Speaker 2: me better understand what happens for me in relational dynamics.
Speaker 2: I'm better at understanding it. I'm better at not just
Speaker 2: reacting right away or sending that text message that I
Speaker 2: might have sent that was really not helpful to send.
Speaker 2: But in terms of understanding my trauma, there's no cure
Speaker 2: for that, like I was saying, And so, you know,
Speaker 2: this is part of life that often gets missed in Instagram,
Speaker 2: is that part of it is feeling pain, part of
Speaker 2: it is feeling happy. In one you know, there's an
Speaker 2: entire spectrum of emotion, just like there's an entire spectrum
Speaker 2: of weather. And while all of this information insight has
Speaker 2: been crucial and helpful and really help me de escalate
Speaker 2: the anxiety and panic I can feel at times with
Speaker 2: the partner, it still comes up, but I think from
Speaker 2: a much calmer place than I used to. But the
Speaker 2: end of a relationship part I think is particularly important
Speaker 2: because the amount of people that I get questions from
Speaker 2: how do I know when to end it? You know,
Speaker 2: questions like that. You know they're so complicated. That's really
Speaker 2: helpful to think about not just dating, not just you know,
Speaker 2: love in general while we're in it, or conflict or
Speaker 2: reasonable disappointment, but also you know the idea that relationships
Speaker 2: do in fact end, and they don't end in this
Speaker 2: fairy tale kind of period at the end of a
Speaker 2: sentence kind of a way. Sometimes greed goes on forever.
Speaker 2: It's hard, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So what's some of your best advice for somebody who's
Speaker 1: ended a relationship. How can they give themselves some grace
Speaker 1: and self compassion to navigate that ending.
Speaker 2: I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind
Speaker 2: is stop evaluating yourself for your partner. All of that
Speaker 2: is resistance to just feeling our pain. Relational endings are
Speaker 2: incredibly painful, incredibly painful, and evaluating it looking back, thinking
Speaker 2: about our ex spiraling about one thing or another. It's
Speaker 2: just resistance to pain. And the best thing that people
Speaker 2: can do when they're going through a relational ending is grieve,
Speaker 2: let themselves feel their emotions, to let themselves be where
Speaker 2: they are. If it's you know, like I was saying,
Speaker 2: I've ended my relationship in three years later, is still
Speaker 2: having nightmares, nightmares about my ex with these goods, you know,
Speaker 2: these things, they follow us and there's meaning behind it.
Speaker 2: So stop evaluating yourself let yourself feel things, which is
Speaker 2: so hard to do and not the response that people want.
Speaker 2: They want a top ten list of like these are
Speaker 2: the things you do, be with friends, do this, which
Speaker 2: you can. But the reality is to get through a
Speaker 2: breakup and heartbreak requires tolerance and courage and patience and self.
Speaker 1: Awareness and so any tips on how to make that
Speaker 1: hard decision about whether a relationship needs some work and
Speaker 1: will continue on versus it's over and you should give.
Speaker 2: Up on it? Question so much, when do I know?
Speaker 2: When do I leave? What I usually tell people, and
Speaker 2: this is it's so counterintuitive, but I tell them to
Speaker 2: work on it. Go to couples counseling. If you're at
Speaker 2: this place, that doesn't mean that you're going to repair
Speaker 2: your relationship. But I truly don't think that people are
Speaker 2: really equipped at times to fully know how to move forward,
Speaker 2: which is why they're feeling so confused and so having
Speaker 2: someone to help you and your partner work through this
Speaker 2: because it's a couple's issue. Relational learnings are a couple's issue,
Speaker 2: even if only one person is initiating it. That can
Speaker 2: be really helpful of course, not everybody is access to
Speaker 2: or even wants to go because they're feeling so hopeless,
Speaker 2: which fine, but even still, sometimes you know, if you're
Speaker 2: not there to pull the trigger, which most people are not,
Speaker 2: it can take years sometimes of ambivalence and confusion. Is
Speaker 2: still to work through it as best as you can
Speaker 2: with your partner. It's often through those steps that you're
Speaker 2: going to get more information about what it's like to
Speaker 2: work through your disappointments with them, what it's like to
Speaker 2: bring up that conversation of I'm thinking about ending this
Speaker 2: relationship and to see how they respond and to have
Speaker 2: a conversation about it. Sometimes people do have some light
Speaker 2: bulb that goes off most of the time that when
Speaker 2: I'm seeing a client. In my own experience with Alex,
Speaker 2: it's really confusing because these are people at times who've
Speaker 2: been with for years that we deeply, deeply love, and
Speaker 2: it's not just a matter of they're terrible, I don't
Speaker 2: want to be with them anymore. And sometimes even when
Speaker 2: they are terrible and you don't want to be with
Speaker 2: them and even still be difficult because of your life's context.
Speaker 2: So I mean, the direct advice is to try and
Speaker 2: work through it and to go to counseling to get help.
Speaker 2: We didn't do that, me and Alex and I really
Speaker 2: actually do regret not doing that, not because I think
Speaker 2: we would have still been together, but I think it
Speaker 2: really would have been helpful to work through the ending together.
Speaker 2: And I think that's often a very scary step to
Speaker 2: take again because of helplessness, and it feels counterintuitive, but
Speaker 2: it's one really helpful way to approach an ending.
Speaker 1: Speaking of endings, we've now come full circle with our
Speaker 1: short season on Happiness and Love. We've talked about happier dating,
Speaker 1: happier long term love, happier arguing and repair, and finally
Speaker 1: now happier breakups. But hopefully you won't be thinking of
Speaker 1: ditching us for someone else. Because The Happiness Life has
Speaker 1: many new shows in store. We'll soon be celebrating World
Speaker 1: Happiness Day with a few special episodes and some very
Speaker 1: special guests.
Speaker 3: The Twitter fans guys are out there like all day
Speaker 3: for like weeks. It's insane. They're like risking their lives.
Speaker 3: They're losing twenty pounds, their butts, sore, their back. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just like incredible, like what they go through the
Speaker 3: whole thing is just nut.
Speaker 2: It's just nuts.
Speaker 1: But before that, I'll take you on a strange happiness journey,
Speaker 1: high high up in the sky. I would work your back.
Speaker 1: If you listen to Jagger's cockpit recordings, his fear is
Speaker 1: very obvious and his relief is palpable.
Speaker 2: I can't very much. Before I got
Speaker 1: About, he knew he was in troubled right, that's still
Speaker 1: to come on the Happiness Lab with me, Doctor Laurie
Speaker 1: Santos