Speaker 1: Hi everybody. Hi, Hi Catherine, Hi, Hi, how are you. Oh?
Speaker 1: I'm so good today. I'm just I'm feeling cheerful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're always cheerful though, Yeah, those cheerful faces. Oh good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have the opposite resting bitch face. I mean that's okay.
Speaker 1: I sort of sometimes have resting bitch voice where I
Speaker 1: sort of like a little bit of vocal fry and
Speaker 1: like people think I'm being bitchy, but I'm actually not.
Speaker 1: I'm just like stating a fact. Joe says, I do
Speaker 1: this thing when people are talking to me that I
Speaker 1: don't want to be talking to that I have a
Speaker 1: low grumble where I go, And he says, when people
Speaker 1: are approaching us or if somebody, if somebody's annoying me,
Speaker 1: he goes, He'll look at me, goes, honey, I could
Speaker 1: hear you. And I'm like what, And then I go,
Speaker 1: can I make a confession? I have heard that noise.
Speaker 1: In fact, earlier today, you know, we were recording something
Speaker 1: and there was something that you're trying to say and
Speaker 1: it kept coming out kind of wrong, and you did
Speaker 1: you had just sort of a yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's disdained for the circumstances, I find myself and I go,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you know, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: own it. That's part of me being a bit you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, That's who I am. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a whole brand. Yeah, one side, bitch, one side,
Speaker 1: sunny side up. Well, I have an interesting update from
Speaker 1: our Dex episode. You guys asked about fentanyl in cocaine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we may never know, but here is a
Speaker 1: theory that one of our callers wrote in with. She says, Hi, Chelsea,
Speaker 1: I had the same question as you and Dex about
Speaker 1: why fentanyl is ending up in people's coke. My former
Speaker 1: heroin Slash cocaine addict boyfriend explained that when dealers cut
Speaker 1: fentanyl into the coke, it balances it out a little,
Speaker 1: so you're able to do more of the coke without
Speaker 1: getting too anxious. It gives more of a euphoric effect,
Speaker 1: so it makes you want to do more of it
Speaker 1: and call them quicker for another eight ball cute huh ps.
Speaker 1: In case you're wondering, he's been sober three years of
Speaker 1: this January ja. Yeah, well that makes sense until you
Speaker 1: find out that fentanelle kills people, and then you're losing customers.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it's not great. It's a great
Speaker 1: idea for the beginning, but then when you find out
Speaker 1: the effect, then you have to like, why would you
Speaker 1: want to kill your own cocaine customers, right, or they're
Speaker 1: not good for business exactly, Or then you can do
Speaker 1: more coke, but then like you can also overdose on
Speaker 1: that and die. You know, It's just it's not good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Fenton al needs to get fuck careful out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: be careful out there. Don't too cocaine anyway, Coke is
Speaker 1: out of style. Yeah. Yeah, we have a professional on
Speaker 1: the show again. This is a fun new thing we're doing.
Speaker 1: I like every once in a while to throw in
Speaker 1: somebody with a degree or some background in psychotherapy or expertise,
Speaker 1: since the two of us are just bouncing off of
Speaker 1: what we've read and absorbed through other people. Although we've
Speaker 1: been doing a pretty good job, a lot of our
Speaker 1: patients are thriving. Yeah. Yeah, So we have a great
Speaker 1: guest today. He's a social psychology professor who studies romantic
Speaker 1: relationships meaning initial attraction, marital dynamics, shared goal, per suit,
Speaker 1: and he's the author of the best selling book The
Speaker 1: All or Nothing Marriage, How the Best Marriages Work. And
Speaker 1: he's a professor at Northwestern University. This is perfect timing
Speaker 1: since I'm probably gonna end up getting married. Oh hi, Eli,
Speaker 1: how are you good? How are you very well? I'm
Speaker 1: loving life. How about yourself? I mean, yeah, things are
Speaker 1: going you know, other than the state of the world,
Speaker 1: but that's always a pain in the ass, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got some state of the world issues, state of
Speaker 1: the world issues. Personally, things are going fine for me,
Speaker 1: actually better than fine, but so I'm doing well. To
Speaker 1: answer your question more succinctly, I recommended your book to
Speaker 1: Chelsea because she's newly in love and she's in a
Speaker 1: really solid, wonderful relationship with a great guy. And when
Speaker 1: I read your book a couple of years ago, I
Speaker 1: was just I have to say, one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that I liked it is it pointed out a lot
Speaker 1: of things that like I'm doing right in my relationship,
Speaker 1: which felt very good for like sort of a self
Speaker 1: healthy type of book. I feel like normally when you
Speaker 1: read books like that, you're like, Okay, here's what I'm
Speaker 1: doing wrong, and here's what I'm doing wrong, and here's
Speaker 1: what's wrong. I've recommended it to so many people. I
Speaker 1: feel like your book The All or Nothing Marriage is
Speaker 1: just a perfect introduction to Here is what a good
Speaker 1: relationship looks like. It can actually look like a lot
Speaker 1: of different things, but here are some of the things
Speaker 1: that you have to either have or get rid of
Speaker 1: in your relationship to make it last. Yeah, And what
Speaker 1: I really appreciated about the book, it's called The All
Speaker 1: or Nothing Marriage, How the best marriages work. What I
Speaker 1: really appreciated about the book is the historical context that
Speaker 1: you put it into, what marriages have been over the
Speaker 1: course of history and what they have become in a
Speaker 1: more pragmatic modern society. And so that is very helpful
Speaker 1: to understand what people needed a long time ago versus
Speaker 1: what people need today. You know, everyone talks about how
Speaker 1: we're all a lot more touchy feely emotionally in touch
Speaker 1: with ourselves now more than ever, right, and and how
Speaker 1: to kind of make that work in today's society, and
Speaker 1: what and all the with all of the demands. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not just sitting here going hunting in the morning
Speaker 1: at anymore. Because that's what I'm always comparing myself to
Speaker 1: as a hunter gathering. Right, I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 1: life's not so bad at least you're not hunting today,
Speaker 1: So you kind of break that down in a really
Speaker 1: relatable way, right. I think that is what the point
Speaker 1: of this book is, is to understand what your expectations
Speaker 1: are and how to communicate, which is, you know, the
Speaker 1: bane of everybody's existence. I think communication is can be
Speaker 1: so hard and such a hurdle, and once people learn
Speaker 1: how to do it and are able to exercise it
Speaker 1: more frequently, the results kind of show, right. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that that is the hope, right, that all of
Speaker 1: us are born into a certain cultural and historical moment
Speaker 1: and that just feels like what reality is. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's only when we step outside that moment and say, well,
Speaker 1: how do they used to do it and how do
Speaker 1: they do it in other countries and other cultures that
Speaker 1: you start to get perspective on, first of all, the
Speaker 1: range of the ways people do things, for example, the
Speaker 1: different ways that marriage functions in different times in different places.
Speaker 1: But also you can get a novel perspective on your
Speaker 1: own circumstances and say, look, this is where there's a
Speaker 1: you know, a flexibility that I might not have otherwise
Speaker 1: seen an opportunity to make things better that would have
Speaker 1: been out of reach if I hadn't had this perspective
Speaker 1: from the outside. And what is your background? How did
Speaker 1: you come about writing this book. I am a social psychologist.
Speaker 1: I'm an academic. I'm having a psychology department. I'm having
Speaker 1: a business school actually, But basically I do research on relationships.
Speaker 1: And when I say do research, I mean it in
Speaker 1: the data way. Lots of us have hypotheses or ideas
Speaker 1: about what makes for a good relationship or a add relationship.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, very few of us, including most
Speaker 1: self help writers, put those ideas to any sort of test.
Speaker 1: All of us have instincts that are wrong, and the
Speaker 1: only way you can really know is to, you know,
Speaker 1: to test them in a formal way, which is which
Speaker 1: is a pretty cool thing. There's this area of research
Speaker 1: that people don't really know about um called relationship science,
Speaker 1: where we try to try to use data to test
Speaker 1: hypotheses about what makes relationships better, what makes them worse?
Speaker 1: And can you give us some of that info, like,
Speaker 1: you know, what, what are the most common themes to
Speaker 1: a marriage that isn't going to make it? And what
Speaker 1: are the most common ways to improve things. Well, the
Speaker 1: way I lay it out in the book and They
Speaker 1: All or Nothing marriage is that our expectations are essential
Speaker 1: and to somethric we all of us realize that it's
Speaker 1: not hard to come across advice. Hey stop asking so much,
Speaker 1: for example, But the story ends up being much more
Speaker 1: complicated and much more interesting, I think in terms of
Speaker 1: of what is it that we should look for from
Speaker 1: our relationship? And and once you have this historical and
Speaker 1: cultural perspective, you realize the range of things that people
Speaker 1: do ask for their marriage, things that people don't ask
Speaker 1: from their marriage. And then and then it puts us
Speaker 1: in a position to say, well, what's crucial for us?
Speaker 1: How can we play to our strengths and limit our weaknesses?
Speaker 1: That is yours mind and ours this particular relationship. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that are that are essential
Speaker 1: and pretty well validated from the data. For example, most
Speaker 1: of us have a pretty strong need to love and
Speaker 1: be loved. We simultaneously have a pretty strong need not
Speaker 1: to feel rejected. And this leads to an interesting tension
Speaker 1: right that that is, how do I simultaneously get very
Speaker 1: close and intimate with you while making sure that I'm
Speaker 1: not vulnerable to paying an exploitation from you. And this
Speaker 1: is one of the things that's most interesting about our
Speaker 1: our really intimate relationships is that is that we don't
Speaker 1: get to maximize both. You can't simultaneously be totally protected
Speaker 1: and totally intimate, and so you have to, through trust
Speaker 1: and other things like that, you have to be willing
Speaker 1: to to calibrate how willing am I to be vulnerable
Speaker 1: to you? And if the answer is a lot, that
Speaker 1: means that we're prioritizing closeness and the relationship over self protection.
Speaker 1: If the answer is no, I'm a little scared and
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I can be that vulnerable, then
Speaker 1: we're prioritizing self protection over over the relationship, neither one
Speaker 1: of which is right or wrong. But until we start
Speaker 1: thinking that way, we we don't really have a perspective
Speaker 1: on the choices that we face, in the trade offs
Speaker 1: that we face. Yeah, because I think that what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, Like, one of the things in the book
Speaker 1: that I thought was interesting was making everybody watch those
Speaker 1: kind of romantic comedy movies and then write their notes
Speaker 1: on it, like what they liked about it, what they
Speaker 1: didn't like about it because I think romantic comedy movies
Speaker 1: are a major factor of why women have expectations that
Speaker 1: are not mad, you know what I mean. I mean, Luckily,
Speaker 1: I'm in a relationship with somebody who has succeeded any
Speaker 1: expectations I could have ever had for any man. I mean,
Speaker 1: I didn't even think this was possible, so I but
Speaker 1: I know that I when I ever I had an experience.
Speaker 1: You know, even the wedding planner with Jennifer Lopez, are
Speaker 1: remember going, what the funk is this ship? Seriously? You know,
Speaker 1: like I mean, the formulaic aspect of a movie and
Speaker 1: and and watching that and expecting that that to happen
Speaker 1: is just so unrealistic because every individual has their own
Speaker 1: life history, their own personal demons, their own personal trauma,
Speaker 1: and then you have to join forces with another person
Speaker 1: and try to be you have to be so healthy,
Speaker 1: you know, in my experience, you have to be so
Speaker 1: healthy to be able to be in a relationship. Like
Speaker 1: until I got healthy, I was useless. I could not
Speaker 1: be in a relationship because I have to understand that
Speaker 1: I have to give, and that I have to shut
Speaker 1: up when I want to say something, and that I
Speaker 1: have to be quiet, you know, in certain times, and
Speaker 1: to choose moments for certain conversations. And without therapy I
Speaker 1: would have I didn't know how to do any of
Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, I mean a couple of interesting things there.
Speaker 1: First of all, one of the things that from my perspective,
Speaker 1: is so striking about that genre, the rom com, is that,
Speaker 1: at least traditionally, it ends with the wedding or maybe
Speaker 1: even the proposal, and from my perspective, you're just getting
Speaker 1: started right Like it's like, well, they met and it
Speaker 1: didn't go well, and they had to resolve the conflicts
Speaker 1: and then they sort of fell in love and he
Speaker 1: said will you and she said I do, and then
Speaker 1: we cut to the credits. It's like, my god, no,
Speaker 1: wonder we suck at at at actually living a year
Speaker 1: marriage with somebody, because it's it's like not considered part
Speaker 1: of the romance or part of the story. There's like
Speaker 1: and they all lived happily ever after what they get
Speaker 1: to the proposal and everything from there is sort of
Speaker 1: just is just epilog. A second thing that that is
Speaker 1: so interesting about what you just said about about the
Speaker 1: importance of you know, really getting good with yourself, going
Speaker 1: to therapy, discovering who you are, maybe cultivating a stronger
Speaker 1: sense of self esteem and so forth. That is indeed crucial.
Speaker 1: That's that's a really essential part of what makes for
Speaker 1: a good marriage. One of the things that I found
Speaker 1: so interesting when I was working on my my marriage
Speaker 1: book is that that didn't used to be the case, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to go that far back before, Like
Speaker 1: nobody married for these sorts of reasons. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: marrying you because you know, you make me feel psychologically whole,
Speaker 1: or or you're my best friend. I mean, you go
Speaker 1: back literally just two hundred years in this country, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, life was way too precarious for that. It
Speaker 1: would have been an extreme luxury to feel like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you make me, you know, become my ideal
Speaker 1: self and and I'm like a whole person, and therefore
Speaker 1: it can connect to you in the in this this
Speaker 1: intensive emotional way. Literally it used to be about food, clothing,
Speaker 1: and shelter, to be about like how do we not
Speaker 1: freeze in the wintertime and make sure there's enough to
Speaker 1: eat um throughout the you know, the difficult months. And
Speaker 1: what's what's so interesting I think about these changes, right
Speaker 1: like I'm not just talking about an abstraction. I'm not
Speaker 1: just saying like two years ago, isn't that a fun fact?
Speaker 1: The changes are crucial because as we think about the
Speaker 1: way that marriage used to be and way it is now,
Speaker 1: we can think, well, okay, well what opportunities does it
Speaker 1: afford today that it didn't used to afford? And what
Speaker 1: challenges does it bring today that it didn't used to bring.
Speaker 1: And you're talking, Chelsea, it sounds like you, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you believe in soul mates or whatever,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like you've met somebody who's lighting your
Speaker 1: fire and all the dimensions, somebody that feels profoundly compatible
Speaker 1: with you. And you know, those of us who live
Speaker 1: in the current climate, live in one America and are
Speaker 1: able to find that are indeed able to have a
Speaker 1: level of marital connection that was out of reach not
Speaker 1: only two hundred years ago, but even like nine fifty
Speaker 1: right where people just weren't looking for this sort of
Speaker 1: stuff from their marriage. So so that's the positive side.
Speaker 1: On the negative side, these expectations aren't easy to meet.
Speaker 1: And you know, if if you, Chelsea, are bringing the
Speaker 1: assumption to your relationship and you have to correct me
Speaker 1: if I have this wrong. But but if you're bringing
Speaker 1: the assumption that I need to be my full, whole
Speaker 1: self and I need him to be his whole, full self,
Speaker 1: so it's two whole full selves connecting and really cultivating
Speaker 1: the best in each other, which I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people, a lot of us these days, are are
Speaker 1: looking for. It's a big ask, and a lot of
Speaker 1: relationships that would have been totally fine, not only two
Speaker 1: years ago, but I don't know fifty like would have
Speaker 1: been totally fine now disappoint us. And that really is
Speaker 1: the thesis of the all or nothing marriage. That's the
Speaker 1: thesis of my book, that that we've arrived at a
Speaker 1: moment in time where the average marriage is worse than
Speaker 1: in earlier eras because it's harder to meet the needs
Speaker 1: in the expectations that we're bringing to it these days.
Speaker 1: But the best marriages today are better than the best
Speaker 1: marriages of earlier eras. And in fact, i'm a little
Speaker 1: beyond the data here, but but my perception, based on
Speaker 1: the evidence is probably the best marriages today are are
Speaker 1: the best marriages that the world has ever known. That's
Speaker 1: so interesting to me that you say that and reading
Speaker 1: your book, like it almost takes a little bit of
Speaker 1: pressure off a marriage to think, you know, this person
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be like the best sexual partner I've
Speaker 1: ever had, and the best emotional partner I've ever had,
Speaker 1: and an intellectual equal and all these other things and
Speaker 1: my whole community. And you talk a lot about how
Speaker 1: for EON's we had the whole village would fulfill most
Speaker 1: of those roles, and the partner was just the partner
Speaker 1: of the person who raised children with and you kept
Speaker 1: each other from starving. But to come to a place
Speaker 1: where you realize, like, oh, my partner might fill four
Speaker 1: of those roles and not ten, or they might fill
Speaker 1: nine of those roles and not ten, and like that's okay.
Speaker 1: And maybe if I do just need to vent and
Speaker 1: he's not ready for me to just vent, he wants
Speaker 1: to give me advice. Maybe I take that to my girlfriends,
Speaker 1: you know, who know that I just need to vent
Speaker 1: or whatever role that person might be lacking for you.
Speaker 1: It's not that the whole relationship is a wash. It's
Speaker 1: just that this one need that I have might need
Speaker 1: to be met elsewhere. Yeah, I think that is one
Speaker 1: of the essential things that we're kind of losing track
Speaker 1: of as a culture. It didn't used to be the
Speaker 1: case that your spouse was supposed to be your best
Speaker 1: friend and your source of primary emotional fulfillment, the person
Speaker 1: who really helped you with your spiritual quests. There were
Speaker 1: certain circumscribed roles that were played by different people in
Speaker 1: your community and in the you know, through throughout the
Speaker 1: course of u S history in particular, but especially in
Speaker 1: the current era. We all write our own vows, our
Speaker 1: own wedding vows. Now it's it's too much of an
Speaker 1: authentic moment for us to take the stuff off the
Speaker 1: shelf and use that stuff. And then I go to
Speaker 1: a lot of weddings. You probably do too, and you
Speaker 1: can listen to the vows, and the vows are things
Speaker 1: like I want to marry you because you're my best friend.
Speaker 1: I want to marry you because again, you know, you
Speaker 1: bring out the best in me. And and you go
Speaker 1: down this this rather long list of social emotional, psychological
Speaker 1: reasons why we marry these days. And if I sound
Speaker 1: like I'm on the verge of becoming a scold and
Speaker 1: telling everybody to stop doing that, no, I just want
Speaker 1: everyone to realize that it doesn't have to be this way,
Speaker 1: and it didn't used to be this way. We've set
Speaker 1: up a particularly idiosyncratic system. And so again, as you
Speaker 1: were saying, Catherine, one of the ideas in the book
Speaker 1: is not just well, I expect this from my marriage,
Speaker 1: and I expect that from my marriage, and I expect
Speaker 1: this other thing from my marriage, but very deliberately and
Speaker 1: very strategically saying I will not expect this thing from
Speaker 1: the marriage. I will not expect this other thing from
Speaker 1: the marriage, because we have this tendency to just pile
Speaker 1: more and more and more stuff expectations needs on this
Speaker 1: one relationship. And I'm not saying that always a bad idea.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the person who is your best friend really is
Speaker 1: your spouse, and that person also is the best person
Speaker 1: to be your primary source of emotional support, and that
Speaker 1: person also is the person with whom you have the
Speaker 1: most sexual chemistry and down the list, and you know,
Speaker 1: God bless like that's convenient that he's in your house
Speaker 1: with you. But there aren't rules, there's no tablets from
Speaker 1: Mount Sinai that say that that your partner has to
Speaker 1: be this one person, this spouse has to do all
Speaker 1: of those things. And so yes, one of the things
Speaker 1: that that I urge people to do is figure out
Speaker 1: where is it that we have strengths and really lean
Speaker 1: into those things. Yeah, yeah, where is it that we
Speaker 1: come up a bit short? Like we're chronically sort of
Speaker 1: bickering about some something or I'm chronically disappointed in you
Speaker 1: and you hurt my feelings about some things. It might
Speaker 1: be so essential for you that you have to work
Speaker 1: it through with this person, and the book talks about
Speaker 1: that too, But maybe it's something you can let go
Speaker 1: of and say, you know what, every time I want
Speaker 1: to talk about work, he gets kind of cranky with me.
Speaker 1: Do I really need to talk to him about work?
Speaker 1: And you realize, you know what, I don't. I have
Speaker 1: plenty of people to talk to about them. Interesting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems like a common problem. Well, we want to
Speaker 1: put you to work right away because we have a
Speaker 1: professional here as opposed to the two of us who
Speaker 1: are constantly dolling out advice with no credentials whatsoever. Accept
Speaker 1: my own therapy experience, which I take very seriously. So
Speaker 1: we want we have callers call in and we're gonna
Speaker 1: have you kind of you know, help everybody, so that
Speaker 1: we have some legitimacy thank you for lending it to us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and before we get to our collars, we'll take a
Speaker 1: quick break and we'll be right back. Okay, We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break and we're back, and we're back. So,
Speaker 1: Chelsea and Eli, our first question comes from Charmagne. Charmagne says,
Speaker 1: Dear Chelsea, I've been married to my husband for nearly
Speaker 1: fifteen years, and we've gotten into a rut with two
Speaker 1: young kids, busy jobs, and COVID killing our social life.
Speaker 1: I'm always looking for ways that we can spark the
Speaker 1: romance and do something active. Our nights are mostly spent
Speaker 1: in bed, watching TV and scrolling through our phones. How
Speaker 1: common is that we're too fucking young and cool to
Speaker 1: be acting like a couple of geriatrics. Help Charmaginne Okay, Eli,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you go first. Obviously, you know that
Speaker 1: is such a sort of classic example, and assuming I'm
Speaker 1: reading the subtext properly, it sounds like this is generally
Speaker 1: a strong, loving marriage that's just as as the as
Speaker 1: Charmaine says, just in a rut. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that's cool about this this line of research. I
Speaker 1: was talking about this area of work relationship sciences is
Speaker 1: we can actually do a better job than even five
Speaker 1: or ten years ago at at saying not only general
Speaker 1: things like Wow, I'll try a date night, but being
Speaker 1: specific about which sorts of activities together are likely to
Speaker 1: cultivate what sorts of connections and and so one of
Speaker 1: my favorite studies is one that that randomly assigns people
Speaker 1: to do some additional tasks, so there's a control condition
Speaker 1: that they don't do anything. There's one condition, one of
Speaker 1: the two intervention conditions has people do comfortable activities and charmaine.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you have totally nailed it Netflix and chill,
Speaker 1: but perhaps not with the hashtag and chill component to it.
Speaker 1: And then the third one is do novel and exciting activities,
Speaker 1: that is, things that you don't normally do. Turns out
Speaker 1: that both of those interventions, relative to people who are
Speaker 1: in the control condition, make people feel closer to each other.
Speaker 1: If you actually report like how connected do you feel
Speaker 1: to your partner? Doesn't really matter if you're doing Netflix
Speaker 1: or you know, reruns of Friends, or you're going ballroom dancing,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. But for hotness, like if the if
Speaker 1: the thing that you're really trying to cultivate. Is this
Speaker 1: sense of fire that maybe you had fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: and is waning a little bit, not because of any
Speaker 1: sort of severe conflict, but maybe something closer to boredom.
Speaker 1: It's really that other type. It's not watching friends, it's
Speaker 1: trying something new and different that tends to cultivate a
Speaker 1: hotter sense of connection with the partner. So do you
Speaker 1: have any examples of what that might be, like, what
Speaker 1: like taking a cooking class at home? You know, I
Speaker 1: feel like the phones are such a We all fall
Speaker 1: into that grossness of being on our phones at the
Speaker 1: end of the night. And I think it's a really
Speaker 1: good rule to incorporate into anyone's life to just designate
Speaker 1: a period of time that you are not on your phones,
Speaker 1: because it also feels lame when you're on your phone
Speaker 1: in bed, even when you're watching TV. It's like I
Speaker 1: remember reading, like, if you're walking down the street and
Speaker 1: you're on your phone, you're doing both of those things poorly.
Speaker 1: So if you're gonna be on your phone, it's an
Speaker 1: allocated amount of time that you're like, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be on my phone. Joe and I do this all
Speaker 1: the time. I'm like I'm gonna be on my phone
Speaker 1: for the next twenty minutes. He's like, okay, I'll do
Speaker 1: the same thing. And when we're in bed together, we're
Speaker 1: never on our phones unless we're you know, watching a
Speaker 1: funny video or something like that. Like we we really
Speaker 1: try not to. So it's just bad habits too. It's like, hey, honey,
Speaker 1: you and me, when we're in bed together, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be in bed together. We're not going to have our
Speaker 1: phones on for an hour, an hour and a half,
Speaker 1: two hours at night. Nothing is that important. You don't
Speaker 1: need to be scrolling through TikTok or Instagram for those
Speaker 1: two hours. You know, whatever you're looking for will be
Speaker 1: there in the morning. And it is brain fry when
Speaker 1: we do that, So why not redirect that brain fry
Speaker 1: towards each other and just at least be snuggling or
Speaker 1: you know, do something online together, play a game online together,
Speaker 1: or get out of board game and play it together.
Speaker 1: You know, even simple activities like watching TV can be
Speaker 1: much more meaningful if you both don't have phones in
Speaker 1: your hand. Yeah, yeah, I mean, there is something diabolical
Speaker 1: about the size of the phone. It's it's definitely like
Speaker 1: for a single individual, not necessarily romantically on a tech us,
Speaker 1: but for one pair of eyes. Chelsea, I'm curious, how
Speaker 1: long have you been with this new person. I've been
Speaker 1: with him since June, like five months, I think, But
Speaker 1: I've known him for a long time. He's an old
Speaker 1: friend of mine, so we've been friends for like fifteen
Speaker 1: years and we just got romantically together in August. I
Speaker 1: love it. I mean, I think what our you know,
Speaker 1: what our first caller would say was five months in,
Speaker 1: like why you were talking about right? Right? Right? And
Speaker 1: I think she's she's actually right. And I think this
Speaker 1: is one of the things that we start to lament
Speaker 1: as our relationships progress. Is like, at first, we really
Speaker 1: are thinking about each other all the time, and nobody
Speaker 1: needs any sort of prompting or anything put on the
Speaker 1: schedule to you know, have some sexy time together. And
Speaker 1: then as the relationship gets more let's just say, has
Speaker 1: existed longer, it tends to be harder. Right, Like, there's
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things that that really favor hotness
Speaker 1: in the early stages of a relationship. One is novelty
Speaker 1: and the others. It looks like there's a couple of
Speaker 1: different forms of love that go into these meaningful long
Speaker 1: term relationships. One is something that you might call infatuation
Speaker 1: or something like that, and it seems to be a
Speaker 1: fundamentally different like set of neural systems, like a different
Speaker 1: set of processes in the brain. And during that phase
Speaker 1: we often think, oh, I would never be with anybody
Speaker 1: else because all I can think about is you and
Speaker 1: and it's this sort of obsessive passionate things. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: almost feels like an obsessive compulsive disorder. I literally can't
Speaker 1: stop thinking about you, and I'm chronically checking to see
Speaker 1: if you texted back. But there's a second type that's
Speaker 1: slower to emerge, right, So if we call that something
Speaker 1: like infatuation, there's a second type that's slower to emerge
Speaker 1: but really is like the long term blue and we
Speaker 1: can call it attachment or something like that. And if
Speaker 1: you look at the the ratio of infatuation to attachment
Speaker 1: and say five months into a relationship versus a fifteen
Speaker 1: years into the relationship on average, you see a large difference.
Speaker 1: And this will surprise literally none of your listeners that
Speaker 1: the infatuation stuff is very intensive at first, and then
Speaker 1: the sort of more warm, friendly sort of stuff really
Speaker 1: builds more gradually over time. And so the real question
Speaker 1: is is not like, how can we have a really
Speaker 1: hot relationship six for six months? It's how can we
Speaker 1: have a really hot relationship for sixty years? And that
Speaker 1: is again a different set of challenges that probably requires
Speaker 1: that we make a real effort, whereas having a hot
Speaker 1: relationship for six months, like everything's hot in the first
Speaker 1: six months, right, Yeah, And something you talk about in
Speaker 1: your book is reminding each other and reminding yourself about
Speaker 1: what what caused you to fall in love with this person,
Speaker 1: going back to the basics, going back to the O
Speaker 1: G reason why you guys got together, you know, thinking
Speaker 1: about those moments, thinking about the things they did that
Speaker 1: made you fall in love with them. And that is
Speaker 1: a powerful tool for anybody to remember, whether you're in
Speaker 1: a romantic relationship or a friendship, whenever your hit hit
Speaker 1: a tough patch, it's important to remind yourself why you
Speaker 1: came together with this person in the first place. And
Speaker 1: that's a good aphrodisiac that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people benefit from remembering why why do you love this person?
Speaker 1: What are the things that he did to make you
Speaker 1: feel special? That things that turned you on about him?
Speaker 1: What were the things that he did that made you
Speaker 1: feel like he was sexy and he you wanted him,
Speaker 1: you know, as your husband, as the father of your children,
Speaker 1: all of those things. You know. It's interesting this like
Speaker 1: reflecting back part is especially interesting because it underscores something
Speaker 1: kind of wild about the idea of marriage as a
Speaker 1: as a means of deep psychological and emotional and sexual connection,
Speaker 1: right like if it was a sacrament before God, or
Speaker 1: let's just kind of do it and then we'll run
Speaker 1: the household or something that would be different. But for
Speaker 1: the sorts of things we're looking for. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you were to take this sort of I don't
Speaker 1: know default example of like well, I don't know. We
Speaker 1: met when we were twenty eight and that seemed like
Speaker 1: the right time, and then we went to Europe and
Speaker 1: like the sex in Paris, I'll never forget it, and
Speaker 1: I just can't stop thinking about him. And it was
Speaker 1: a couple of years and he proposed and I was thrilled,
Speaker 1: and we got married. All totally reasonable. I feel no
Speaker 1: judgment of any of that stuff. But how representative of
Speaker 1: your hut your life together were those two three years
Speaker 1: that you used to get to know each other, right,
Speaker 1: like what we traveled around Europe and hot text compariss
Speaker 1: Like sure, that's like a little bit of what a
Speaker 1: long term marriages, especially if you're considering having kids. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know, Like then suddenly I'm involved
Speaker 1: in like imposing discipline on racalcitrent little people and like
Speaker 1: in in Sometimes it's like, well, the things that I
Speaker 1: really liked about you don't emerge as often. And so
Speaker 1: if you find, like, as I think back about what
Speaker 1: was so nice about us when we first met, it's like,
Speaker 1: to some degree we can try to get back into
Speaker 1: those habits. To some degree, it's like, well, our lives
Speaker 1: are different now. And again here I think your first
Speaker 1: caller had a really good insight, which was, well, it's COVID,
Speaker 1: we've got young kids at home, we're watching Netflix and
Speaker 1: so forth. It's like, you know what you found exciting
Speaker 1: about that guy when you first met him, how he
Speaker 1: charmed people at the bar, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: it is for relationships that are generally solid but kind
Speaker 1: of in a rut. It's breaking out of that rut
Speaker 1: in a way that you can find that person, like
Speaker 1: where you know he's covered in spit up. Fifteen years
Speaker 1: have spit up on that guy. Right, it's like, where
Speaker 1: do we find that person who was playful and naughty
Speaker 1: and irreverent and and again it's not impossible to do,
Speaker 1: but it is a deliberate effort at that stage of
Speaker 1: a relationship. It's also important to find that about yourself, right,
Speaker 1: to find your kernel of truth you're real, like standing
Speaker 1: in your own power, knowing who you are because many times,
Speaker 1: and especially I know, I can only imagine with people
Speaker 1: having children that that's what they lose, the person that
Speaker 1: they used to be. So, you know, to know that
Speaker 1: that person isn't gone, that that person has shifted, you know,
Speaker 1: and to kind of remind yourself of the playfulness that
Speaker 1: we all had, you know, or people who with children
Speaker 1: had before the children came along. Yeah, one of the
Speaker 1: you know, if I had a magic wand and could
Speaker 1: wave it and change the relationships of America or something
Speaker 1: like that the long term ones, One of the things
Speaker 1: I would wish for is more play. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: mean hashtag play or quotations play, but that too. But
Speaker 1: it's easy to get into habits. And again, some habits
Speaker 1: are good, Some are bad, but it's like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is the time I wake up, and then I see
Speaker 1: the kids off and that's this process, and then it's
Speaker 1: another process. It's like, you know, when was the last
Speaker 1: time we were really naughty? Like when was the last
Speaker 1: time we were irreverent or just cracked up? And those things.
Speaker 1: You know, life is busy, especially you have a two
Speaker 1: career couple, and and you're chronically especially with young kids. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: I could see why there's like extended periods of time,
Speaker 1: possibly a decade or something where it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it just felt so chaotic, and in the meantime, did
Speaker 1: we really attend to what is really, at least for
Speaker 1: most of us, the organizing relationship, the most central relationship
Speaker 1: in our life, and and sometimes we're a little bit
Speaker 1: neglectful of it in a way that's benign and mild
Speaker 1: for each individual day, but over the course of a
Speaker 1: thousand days or five thousand days, end up taking a
Speaker 1: real toll. And so yeah, I would love it if
Speaker 1: I could break people out of their routines in a
Speaker 1: way that was naughty, irreverent, playful, childlike in a way,
Speaker 1: but perhaps with sex. I think Joe has a lot
Speaker 1: of those qualities. Um My husband also like he's just
Speaker 1: constantly being like silly. He makes me laugh. And it
Speaker 1: was a couple of years ago that I had to
Speaker 1: make a really conscious choice when he'll do a thing
Speaker 1: sometimes where he tries to make me laugh if we're
Speaker 1: sort of starting an argument or starting to disagree, and
Speaker 1: I used to just be like, well, I'm not gonna like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna buy into that. And I just came
Speaker 1: to a point a few years ago where I'm like,
Speaker 1: guess what, life is a lot more fun if you
Speaker 1: just laugh, and then you guys get back into normal
Speaker 1: if you just giggle, you like, you know, give him
Speaker 1: the win, right right right. I think that's a that's
Speaker 1: a really important thing. It's like getting to a point
Speaker 1: where you can give it away, like you give the
Speaker 1: person to win. You're like, let them take this, because
Speaker 1: then you're not operating out of ego. And that's the
Speaker 1: biggest problem that we all kind of stumble on is
Speaker 1: our own pride, which is pointless and that kind of dynamic. Well,
Speaker 1: our next caller is is Caitlin. Caitlin is in Seattle,
Speaker 1: and she says, Dear Chelsea, my name is Caitlin, and
Speaker 1: I'm looking for some advice and a ray of hope
Speaker 1: from you and the team. Last week, I broke up
Speaker 1: with my loving and dependable boyfriend of one and a
Speaker 1: half years, all because of this tiny feeling in my gut.
Speaker 1: He wasn't the one. I tried so hard to make
Speaker 1: the unsurreness go away and just couldn't, even though he
Speaker 1: was completely wonderful and the partner anyone would want. I
Speaker 1: found myself forced to reckon with the decision I've made,
Speaker 1: and I'm constantly wondering if something better is actually out there.
Speaker 1: I miss him so much and I'm so sad at
Speaker 1: the pain I've caused us both. I'm scared I made
Speaker 1: the wrong decision and that I may never find love again.
Speaker 1: Any advice for staying the course and letting go of
Speaker 1: fear of the unknown? I feel overwhelmed that I may
Speaker 1: never find happiness again. Caitlin, Hi, Caitlin, Hi, Chelsea, Hi.
Speaker 1: This is Eli Finkel. Hi. Eli. He's a relationship scientist.
Speaker 1: I need Eli in my life. Yeah, and you do.
Speaker 1: It's perfect timing, And you know Katherine right. You guys corresponded. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you called in and I'm glad to talk
Speaker 1: to you. So tell us when did this happen? So
Speaker 1: this happened about We're going on three weeks now, so
Speaker 1: this is pretty recent. Okay, So that's natural. All of
Speaker 1: your feelings are totally natural. I would say, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let Eli weigh in. I would say, though, trusting your
Speaker 1: instinct is a very very important thing for women to do,
Speaker 1: especially moreover I think than anyone, because women have such
Speaker 1: a habit of ignoring our instincts. So I would say
Speaker 1: that trusting your instinct is the number one thing that
Speaker 1: you can do for yourself to be an empowered person.
Speaker 1: And you did that, and all of these feelings that
Speaker 1: you're having come with that decision, you know, missing somebody
Speaker 1: second guessing your decision, wondering what you did, if you
Speaker 1: did the right thing, And I think that's all natural,
Speaker 1: and you have to know that, like, you're not experiencing
Speaker 1: these feelings as a result of making a wrong decision
Speaker 1: per se. This is all comes with that kind of
Speaker 1: decision making. Once you make a decision to get rid
Speaker 1: of somebody in your life that there's not necessarily anything
Speaker 1: wrong with, but it's not a hundred and fifty percent
Speaker 1: right in your mind, You're signing up for all of
Speaker 1: these emotions that come along with breaking up, and that's
Speaker 1: totally normal and natural, and there's no reason to second
Speaker 1: guess yourself. You know, if you feel like this in
Speaker 1: a year, then I would say, oh, okay, then maybe
Speaker 1: you really need to revisit it. But all of this
Speaker 1: stuff is, these are the things that are going to
Speaker 1: happen to you emotionally after you make a decision like that, Eli,
Speaker 1: what do you think? You know? One of the things
Speaker 1: about really engaging with life, being somebody who's truly alive
Speaker 1: is that you are in the arena and that you
Speaker 1: are going to make decisions. This is all of us.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking just to you, Kaitlin, all of us.
Speaker 1: We're gonna make decisions. Those decisions are made under uncertainty,
Speaker 1: and we will have some regrets. And that is like
Speaker 1: this existentially agonizing state of what it is to be
Speaker 1: a human being. Um, and so I don't know, like,
Speaker 1: did you make the right decision? Did you make the
Speaker 1: wrong decision? I don't know. I do think a lot
Speaker 1: of Chelsea's analysis is deeply wise in that, you know,
Speaker 1: the ability to trust oneself is one of the things
Speaker 1: that has great value. And I also agree that these
Speaker 1: sorts of issues have been gendered historically. You know, to
Speaker 1: what degree do we empower women to really trust themselves
Speaker 1: and and go with their instinct. As a relationship scientist,
Speaker 1: I can tell you we we ran a study once
Speaker 1: where this i'll talk an average is now rather than
Speaker 1: about your specific situation. But we ran a study once
Speaker 1: where we followed people over time and perhaps uh deviously,
Speaker 1: these are all people who were in relationships. Every two weeks,
Speaker 1: they completed a survey and we asked them every two weeks,
Speaker 1: if you were to break up with your partner in
Speaker 1: the next two weeks, how happy will you be in
Speaker 1: two weeks from now? And then we also asked four weeks,
Speaker 1: eight weeks, and twelve weeks. We were like, how will
Speaker 1: you be doing? And on average, people were way better
Speaker 1: off than they themselves had forecasted. Now, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's true for you. It sounds like you're having
Speaker 1: some residual thinking about, you know, some regrets. We don't
Speaker 1: know what your baseline was, like how and Bill and
Speaker 1: you felt one we could go versus now. But what
Speaker 1: we do know is that is that on average, people
Speaker 1: significantly overestimate how distressed they'll be. We could also figure out,
Speaker 1: on average, who are the people who got it most wrong,
Speaker 1: the people who were most in love at the time
Speaker 1: they made their forecast, Like these are people who think
Speaker 1: my life will never go on, I will never be
Speaker 1: whole again. On average, they tend to recuperate reasonably well.
Speaker 1: I don't know if any of that is resonating with you, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: but that's a little bit from the perspective of the science. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it definitely resonates with me. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's hope in itself, as I just keep wondering like
Speaker 1: when will it end, like when will this emotional pain end,
Speaker 1: and forecasting that it won't, and that's really difficult to
Speaker 1: get past because you're just in the cycle of thinking
Speaker 1: like I'll always feel this way. So it's nice to
Speaker 1: know that I might have overestimated it and the timeline
Speaker 1: I'm expecting is going to be a lot shorter than
Speaker 1: I can see now, so it is useful to have
Speaker 1: some data. I'm kind of a solution oriented person, That's
Speaker 1: why I reached out, so it's nice to know. But also,
Speaker 1: you know, emotions don't have like a beginning, middle, and
Speaker 1: an end all the time, you know, so to say
Speaker 1: to yourself, when is this going to be over? I
Speaker 1: thought this was gonna be over. I've done that with relationships,
Speaker 1: Like why am I still feeling this way? It's been this,
Speaker 1: it's been three months, it's been six months. We don't
Speaker 1: have an exact gauge about how long it takes us
Speaker 1: to get over or pass something. You know, we don't
Speaker 1: have it. And it's not permanent. Nothing is permanent. That's
Speaker 1: the only thing we know for sure is that nothing
Speaker 1: is permanent, right. Our emotional states are physical states. Everything
Speaker 1: is moving and changing, So you're definitely not going to
Speaker 1: feel like this interminably. It's not going to go on
Speaker 1: and on and on, you know. And if you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you feel strongly like you made
Speaker 1: the wrong decision, then you'll have the opportunity to go
Speaker 1: back and correct it. And as a woman, I honestly
Speaker 1: think trusting your gut was the strongest move you could make,
Speaker 1: and that you're going to be fine and you're going
Speaker 1: to go through this. It's been three weeks. That's pretty new. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't get over things in three weeks, and I
Speaker 1: think that's pretty new. You were there with him for
Speaker 1: a year and a half. Give it some space out
Speaker 1: of respect for both of you. Give it some space
Speaker 1: because you don't want to go back prematurely and be
Speaker 1: like hey, because that's not nice either are fair to him.
Speaker 1: So you have to, you know, honor the fact that
Speaker 1: you did end the relationship and not be playing games
Speaker 1: and really get your head to a place where you
Speaker 1: can reflect with some perspective and then no, okay, because
Speaker 1: you will know you're going to get to a place
Speaker 1: where you're gonna go thank god I made that decision,
Speaker 1: or the opposite, you'll get to that place, okay. Are
Speaker 1: you guys of the mindset that not talking or not
Speaker 1: communicating in any way is the fastest path to to
Speaker 1: healing or do you feel like some communication could be okay, Eli,
Speaker 1: that's a you question. I'm not aware of the data.
Speaker 1: I can offer my best intuition. I think if the
Speaker 1: if the goal really is to split, I do think
Speaker 1: there's something to be said for taking a legitimate breather.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean forever. But you see lots of instances.
Speaker 1: Again here I'm talking less about data, but you see
Speaker 1: lots of instances where well, we're still each other's best friends,
Speaker 1: we still sleep together sometimes, and if the goal really
Speaker 1: is too you know, this wasn't the right fit for
Speaker 1: me for what I'm looking for in a relationship right now,
Speaker 1: and therefore I need to get myself to a place
Speaker 1: where I can move on. Then I see some wisdom
Speaker 1: in the plan of in the long run, I hope
Speaker 1: we can be friends, but let's wait until the desire
Speaker 1: to reach out doesn't come from a place of pain
Speaker 1: and craving before we reinitiate that. And that time will
Speaker 1: also give you some space to get into your gut
Speaker 1: and really check, really see, like in two three weeks,
Speaker 1: does this still feel right? Whereas if you do still
Speaker 1: have that connection and that ongoing conversation, it can be
Speaker 1: a little a little muddier. I will say, like, even
Speaker 1: since I originally reached out to you, guys, I feel
Speaker 1: like I've seen an evolution and how I felt what
Speaker 1: once was this gut feeling like has started to uncover
Speaker 1: reason and I didn't feel that initially. So I think
Speaker 1: that is at least some progress of that space you're
Speaker 1: talking about, I'm uncovering more. It's it starts with a
Speaker 1: gut instinct but I think that gut is based on something,
Speaker 1: and when you're so emotionally invested, you can only see that.
Speaker 1: So I do feel like that's you know, changed even
Speaker 1: since I reached out. So that's good. You sound like
Speaker 1: you have your ship together. Also, you know, with the
Speaker 1: holiday season coming up, just because your background, says ho
Speaker 1: Ho made me think of it. You know, just know
Speaker 1: that that those feelings are going to come up, that
Speaker 1: you're not going to be with each other this year,
Speaker 1: and be prepared, like manage your expectations, like Eli talks
Speaker 1: about in his book, you know, manage your expectations for
Speaker 1: what you're going to be feeling. And know there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a couple of rough days where you're really gonna
Speaker 1: miss him and you're gonna want to reach out, and
Speaker 1: if that's the right thing, maybe it's the right thing.
Speaker 1: But have enough respect for him and for yourself to
Speaker 1: stick to the plan because space is the only thing
Speaker 1: that will give you the information you really need to know.
Speaker 1: And you're halfway there and you made a strong decision.
Speaker 1: I respect that a lot, and you're gonna be just fine,
Speaker 1: And I have no doubt you'll know exactly what to
Speaker 1: do when the time is right. Thank you. That's nice
Speaker 1: to hear. Yeah, well, thank you Kitlin. Thank you Caitlin
Speaker 1: for calling in. And have a great holiday season with
Speaker 1: your family and enjoy them, you know. Guys. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: need to lean into that and let us know what
Speaker 1: happens for sure. Yeah. So nice to meet you guys.
Speaker 1: Thank you. This is a dream. Take care Okay, bye,
Speaker 1: Well let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Well,
Speaker 1: there's one more question. I definitely want to get to
Speaker 1: with Eli, because this was one of the most surprising
Speaker 1: things that you talked about in your book. This question
Speaker 1: comes from Brett. Dear Chelsea. My name is Brett and
Speaker 1: I'm a twenty six year old female and my partner's
Speaker 1: name is t J. He's a twenty year old transmail.
Speaker 1: We've been dating for a year and four months, just
Speaker 1: moved in together and have recently started having conversations about
Speaker 1: opening up our relationship. We've always prioritized open communication and
Speaker 1: our patient and a empathetic with each other. We've been
Speaker 1: honest about our attraction to other people and think that
Speaker 1: opening up our relationship would benefit both of us. Do
Speaker 1: you have any advice about how to open it up?
Speaker 1: While maintaining our long term relationship. Brett, Chelsea, come on,
Speaker 1: I'm not carrying my weight on this episode. This is
Speaker 1: a major decision for couples. But what I appreciate about
Speaker 1: the question is that this is a couple that is
Speaker 1: making the decision deliberately. And actually, this is how I
Speaker 1: felt about the previous caller too, is that it's easy
Speaker 1: to let life happen passively. It's really living in the
Speaker 1: arena to make deliberate decisions that you know may well
Speaker 1: involve regret, but at least the regrets of commission rather
Speaker 1: than regrets of omission. And I have a fairly long
Speaker 1: discussion laid in the book about consensual non monogamy, and
Speaker 1: here I feel obligated to do an aside. This is
Speaker 1: not infidelity and this is not cheating. There's nothing in
Speaker 1: my book that's says, yeah, like promise that you'll be
Speaker 1: faithful and then don't do it. There's nothing in my
Speaker 1: book like that. But this question of is monogamy the
Speaker 1: standard default for all relationships? Well it usually is. Is
Speaker 1: that a good thing? That it's something that almost nobody discusses?
Speaker 1: I think no. I think on average, the state of
Speaker 1: our marriage is the state of our relationships. And let's
Speaker 1: say the US, for example, would be stronger if we
Speaker 1: had a better lexicon, a better ability to talk openly
Speaker 1: about our needs and preferences in the sexual and frankly
Speaker 1: romantic domain. It's it's usually not that you just want
Speaker 1: to go off for a quickie with someone. It's usually
Speaker 1: that you want some type of connection with someone else.
Speaker 1: And so I don't have an opinion about whether any
Speaker 1: individual person should do it, and I don't know enough
Speaker 1: about rhet's circumstances to recommend that they open things up
Speaker 1: or don't. Here, I would like to set myself apart
Speaker 1: from people who are like advocates or zealots for consensual
Speaker 1: non men got me. I think many people, perhaps most people,
Speaker 1: are probably happier in a monogamous relationship. That said, a
Speaker 1: healthy substantial minority of us would probably be not only
Speaker 1: happier at the personal level, but have a stronger relationship,
Speaker 1: a stronger let's call it primary relationship or marriage or
Speaker 1: whatever we want to say, if there were more openness
Speaker 1: and open discussion about opening things up. So how does
Speaker 1: one do that? I'm not an expert on the you know,
Speaker 1: the conversational gambits, that you need. Just remember that your
Speaker 1: partner might not start from the same headspace that you're in.
Speaker 1: You might think, Oh, I love this person so much.
Speaker 1: But one of the things i'd really and one of
Speaker 1: the things I'd really like to do to make sure
Speaker 1: the relationships stay strong is to see other people. And
Speaker 1: he might hear you say you don't love me and
Speaker 1: you're not attracted to me, And so the ability to
Speaker 1: convey that this desire for opening the relationship doesn't come
Speaker 1: from a place of lack. It doesn't come from a
Speaker 1: place of void. It does come from a place of
Speaker 1: need and desire to live big, ambitious, fulfilling lives that
Speaker 1: are ideally well suited for both of us. And I
Speaker 1: think that if we had a society where those conversations
Speaker 1: were easier to have, relationships would be better. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I would also recommend um just a book for them
Speaker 1: to read called Swinging. Oh is there a book a swing?
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sure there is, but no, I just made
Speaker 1: that up. Well, this is kind of about that, but
Speaker 1: it's called The Ethical Slut. I read it just sort
Speaker 1: of out of curiosity a few years ago, and it's
Speaker 1: really it really sort of breaks down like how to
Speaker 1: have certain conversations. But I think as someone who has
Speaker 1: a couple of friends, you know, a pair of friends
Speaker 1: who were married and spectacularly blew up their marriage by
Speaker 1: deciding to open it up without having read one article
Speaker 1: or one book on the subject, I would say, just
Speaker 1: research the heck out of it before you go into it,
Speaker 1: Talk the heck out of it before you go into it,
Speaker 1: and then like decide if it's right for you, and
Speaker 1: set super clear boundaries. That's basically like as far as
Speaker 1: I've read with things, that's the best way you can
Speaker 1: go about it, and then keep talking once you start. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think honesty is the best policy for everything with
Speaker 1: relation to non monogamy and with having relationships. If you're
Speaker 1: both on the same page, that's your decision to do
Speaker 1: that together. But just try not to lie about anything
Speaker 1: and just be as open and honest as you possibly
Speaker 1: can for the most successful outcome. I'd like to add
Speaker 1: one other bit on this that that I just think
Speaker 1: sort of frames the discussion, not not for any individual
Speaker 1: caller or any individual person, but but as a society,
Speaker 1: how are we going to think about monogamy in merit,
Speaker 1: let's say, and for me in this won't surprise you.
Speaker 1: At this stage of our conversation. It's really about what
Speaker 1: are the expectations that you're bringing to the relationship and
Speaker 1: what is it that's realistic that the relationship can deliver.
Speaker 1: And I feel about the monogamy side of things, and
Speaker 1: this I mean both romantic and sexual monogamy, that that
Speaker 1: assumption that all of us, almost everybody has, that that
Speaker 1: that's what marriage is. By the way, that certainly was
Speaker 1: not what marriage always was. Um, anybody who's read the
Speaker 1: Bible knows that that's not the case. But but for
Speaker 1: those of us today, you know, we might decide that
Speaker 1: that's absolutely essential. And that's fine. What I regret or
Speaker 1: lament about the way we're thinking about non monogamy is
Speaker 1: it is accepted as a default, and consequently we don't
Speaker 1: have any discussion of how we're going to do it.
Speaker 1: So it's not like we're you know, we're thirty and
Speaker 1: we hope to be married for the next sixty years,
Speaker 1: and it's like, boy, that's like a long time to
Speaker 1: be with only one person romantically and sexually. And I
Speaker 1: like flirting, like how are we going to keep this hot? Playful?
Speaker 1: Like how are we going to make this work. I
Speaker 1: just don't think that we're having mature conversations about that
Speaker 1: because we're not having mature conversations about what the alternatives
Speaker 1: might be. And so from my perspective, it is a
Speaker 1: damn big ass to say you will be with nobody
Speaker 1: but me in any romantic or sexual way for the
Speaker 1: next sixty years until death does us part, and and
Speaker 1: so good lots of people should make that ask. I
Speaker 1: have no objection to that ask. Great idea for many people,
Speaker 1: but there should be some sort of follow up thinking
Speaker 1: or conversation about how are we going to deliver on that?
Speaker 1: And I wish we had those conversations. Can you expand
Speaker 1: a little bit on in your book you talk about
Speaker 1: the bonds that a lot of marriage that you saw
Speaker 1: that were open, how their bond was sort of like,
Speaker 1: in a lot of instances, closer than some people who
Speaker 1: are monogamous. Yeah. So again, this is one of the
Speaker 1: cool things about being a relationship scientist rather than a speculator, right, Like,
Speaker 1: so this is an interesting question. So let's imagine that
Speaker 1: you're with one person as a primary partner. There are
Speaker 1: obviously other versions of non monogamy than that, but let's
Speaker 1: imagine that you have a primary partner. And we want
Speaker 1: to compare people who are with a primary partner and
Speaker 1: have a consensual nonmonogamy norm of some sort that is
Speaker 1: something other than complete monogamy, and another group of people
Speaker 1: that are again have a primary partner but really it's
Speaker 1: the only partner because you have a strong monogamy norm. Well, look,
Speaker 1: if you're an empiricist, if you're a social scientist, you
Speaker 1: can actually collect data and to what degree are the
Speaker 1: people in group A happier than the people in group
Speaker 1: and and by and large there's no difference. That is,
Speaker 1: by and large if you look at if I'm remembering correctly,
Speaker 1: if you look at intimacy, commitment, and satisfaction, you cannot
Speaker 1: find differences on average between the people who have opted
Speaker 1: into a non monogamy norm versus the people who have
Speaker 1: opted into a non monogamy norm um. And again they're
Speaker 1: reporting on on how committed and satisfied and intimate they
Speaker 1: are with their own relationship with their primary partner. Let
Speaker 1: me just say there are small differences on a couple
Speaker 1: of variables, trust and jealousy. The effects they're not huge effects,
Speaker 1: but they go in the direction that I think is
Speaker 1: not intuitive for most people. That is, people who have
Speaker 1: opted into a consensually non monogamous norm relative to people
Speaker 1: who have opted into a monogamous norm, are a little
Speaker 1: more trusting and a little less jealous. M it's such
Speaker 1: surprising information. I'm like, I'm a person who's monogamous, but
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated endlessly my non monogamy too. I'm also fascinated,
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think it makes sense because the
Speaker 1: reason why people don't want to be in that kind
Speaker 1: of dynamic is because they're not trustworthy or because they
Speaker 1: are jealous. Like I don't want an open relationship. I
Speaker 1: don't want my husband or boyfriend fucking other women. I'm
Speaker 1: not without me. You know, perhaps i'd be open to
Speaker 1: like that, but not not. No, I wouldn't be open
Speaker 1: to that. You know, it's just not a comfort level
Speaker 1: for me because I would be jealous. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like you again. You you talked earlier
Speaker 1: about how you know you have some hard earned wisdom
Speaker 1: that you've accrued as an adult, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: you have a pretty good sense of where you stand
Speaker 1: on this. But that means that you're in a position
Speaker 1: to have a sophisticated conversation about it, like it could
Speaker 1: come up and you could say, well, these are circumstances
Speaker 1: that I could potentially imagine if they were important to you.
Speaker 1: These other circumstances I don't think will work. I know myself,
Speaker 1: and I tend toward jealousy in those cases, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to go crazy in this relationship. Like that
Speaker 1: is a great reason to opt into monogamy. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't know, just because nobody's ever thought about it
Speaker 1: or we're not allowed to talk about it, is a
Speaker 1: great reason to opt into monogamy, right right, exactly. Well, Eli,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being with us today. Thank
Speaker 1: you very fun. Thank you, Eli. Niced to meet you.
Speaker 1: Die And for those of you listening, the book is
Speaker 1: called The All or Nothing Marriage, How the Best Marriages Work.
Speaker 1: This will be good for Joe and me because Joe
Speaker 1: wants to get married and you know I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to do that one day, right yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think it's great even for if you don't get married.
Speaker 1: It's great for like relationshipship for sure. And also, like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, patting yourself on the back when
Speaker 1: you get stuff, right, tell us about your stand up dates. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we added new shows for stand up. I vaccinated
Speaker 1: in a horny tour which I wanted People's Choice Award
Speaker 1: for you guys, the best comedy tour. Can you fucking
Speaker 1: believe that? I can't. I love it. For the people
Speaker 1: who voted for me, my god, thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had added second shows in Portland's do we just
Speaker 1: added second show. I added a show in Mauie, Pittsburgh, Philly,
Speaker 1: and Los Angeles. So we have a whole slew of
Speaker 1: shows if you go to Chelsea handler dot com that
Speaker 1: are already up. We've added a bunch of second shows
Speaker 1: and we're adding second shows in Kansas City, Mountclair, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and Santa Rosa, California. Excellent, that's fantastic. You're all over.
Speaker 1: I'm all over. I'm coming your way, alright, alrighty, goodbye, byodbye.
Speaker 1: And if you have a question, or you and a
Speaker 1: loved one have a question, please write into Dear Chelsea
Speaker 1: Project at gmail dot com.