Speaker 1: Men tend to demonstrate what psychologists call the dark triad
Speaker 1: of characteristics more often no, no, Everyone's like, WHOA, what's
Speaker 1: the dark triad? So the dark triad of characteristics are narcissism, psychopathy,
Speaker 1: and this last one is the manipulativeness and an extreme
Speaker 1: focus on their own interests over others. These traits don't
Speaker 1: sound at all attractive, right, I mean, you're not going
Speaker 1: that's what I want? But are you? Hey? Everyone, welcome
Speaker 1: back to our Purpose, the number one health podcast in
Speaker 1: the world, where you come back every week to become
Speaker 1: a happier, healthier and more healed. Imagine we lived in
Speaker 1: a world that was happier, healthier, and more healed. I
Speaker 1: think that it would have such a huge impact on
Speaker 1: our lives or emotions, the lives and emotions of future generations,
Speaker 1: and on purposes. Your commitment to making that happen. So
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. Thank you for all the
Speaker 1: love on the Lewis Hamilton episode, on the Kevin Hart
Speaker 1: episode that we just had. For those of you that
Speaker 1: heard me on Call Her Daddy. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for all the Instagram, dms, the tags, the tweets. It
Speaker 1: has been an unbelievable couple of weeks because my book.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this right now, my book is
Speaker 1: out in four days. I would love for you to
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Speaker 1: You can do the audiobook. So if you want to
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Speaker 1: also order the audiobook. I read it as well, and
Speaker 1: I know a lot of you last time for think
Speaker 1: like a monk, read and listened. At the same time,
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Speaker 1: for my global tour Love Rules. Go to j shettytour
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Speaker 1: and more. I can't wait to see you this year now.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is something I think that's so so important,
Speaker 1: and I'm hearing about it more and more because I
Speaker 1: think we underestimate the impact that the last few years
Speaker 1: have had on our relationships. We underestimate the impact that
Speaker 1: it's had on us, whether we're inner relationship or whether
Speaker 1: we're single, and for a lot of us, our relationship
Speaker 1: status changed during the pandemic. Some people got into new
Speaker 1: relationships so we're just starting. Some people actually broke up
Speaker 1: from even long term relationships. And then there's all of
Speaker 1: us who may feel social anxiety now being out in
Speaker 1: public meeting new people. And so I want to start
Speaker 1: addressing these issues in these challenges because I know they're
Speaker 1: very real and often as society we like to gloss
Speaker 1: over them and move on, but then we don't feel seen,
Speaker 1: heard and understood. And so today I want to talk
Speaker 1: about reasons why we lose the spark in relationships and
Speaker 1: how to get it back. Raise your hand if you've
Speaker 1: ever lost this spark in a relationship, and by the way,
Speaker 1: this episode is for you, whether you're in a relationship
Speaker 1: or not, because I promise you you're going to bump
Speaker 1: into someone, You're going to find that spark, you're gonna
Speaker 1: feel that chemistry, and then you're going to be feeling
Speaker 1: this way in six months time. It's actually biologically chemically
Speaker 1: going to happen, I'll explain in this episode, and I
Speaker 1: want you to stick around for that. But raise your
Speaker 1: hands if you've ever lost the spark in a relationship,
Speaker 1: I think every single one of us can attest to that.
Speaker 1: And today I'm going to talk about the reasons why
Speaker 1: that happens, and I think some of them are actually
Speaker 1: going to surprise you. And then I'm also going to
Speaker 1: share with you methods that I've used that I could
Speaker 1: rather have used, and that research shows will actually work.
Speaker 1: Whether you're in a relationship, whether you just started dating,
Speaker 1: whether you're single, or you just broke up. Please do
Speaker 1: listen to this because it may even answer your questions.
Speaker 1: If you're someone who just broke up or the relationship
Speaker 1: just ended, this may actually answer a lot of questions,
Speaker 1: especially if you didn't get closure. All right, so let's
Speaker 1: dive straight in. We are fascinated and addicted to this
Speaker 1: idea of chemistry the amount of times they're here. So
Speaker 1: we went on a couple of dates but I didn't
Speaker 1: feel any spark, or I'm not going on a second
Speaker 1: date because I didn't feel any chemistry, or we've been
Speaker 1: seeing each other, but you know, there isn't that feeling.
Speaker 1: I don't get the butterflies, right, We've all heard this,
Speaker 1: We've all said this, and it's true. We want to
Speaker 1: feel chemistry with the person we potentially could spend our
Speaker 1: lives with. There's nothing wrong with that, And I don't
Speaker 1: want to say that is anything wrong with that. I
Speaker 1: think it's normal. It's natural. When I first met rather,
Speaker 1: I felt tons of chemistry, and even today I feel
Speaker 1: it in a different way. And it's something that I
Speaker 1: don't think should be underestimated. But also sometimes it's overrated, right.
Speaker 1: It's that balance between underestimated or underrated and overrated that
Speaker 1: we need to get right. And so so many of
Speaker 1: us sometimes overrate this chemistry idea and we underrate the
Speaker 1: character idea. Chemistry starts relationships, character continues relationships. Let me
Speaker 1: repeat that again. Chemistry starts relationships, character continues and keeps relationships.
Speaker 1: And I think this idea that someone's character and your
Speaker 1: character is really shown by when you're stressed, when you're tired,
Speaker 1: when you're exhausted, and that's what happens as a relationship progresses.
Speaker 1: When you're seeing each other in the beginning. The reason
Speaker 1: why there's so much chemistry is you only see each
Speaker 1: other one hour a day, or two hours a week,
Speaker 1: or two hours every two weeks, or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: For a day every month, and in that time, you're
Speaker 1: not really seeing a three sixty degree view of this person.
Speaker 1: You're seeing a forty five degree view or less of
Speaker 1: an individual. We're so much more complex, we have so
Speaker 1: much more going on, and our character traits, such as
Speaker 1: our interests and our values are more of the nurture
Speaker 1: part of who we are and come from the cultural
Speaker 1: forces that surround us as we grow up. So what
Speaker 1: I would say is that in any relationship, we have
Speaker 1: to evolve from chemistry to character if we really want
Speaker 1: the relationship to progress. And I think too many of
Speaker 1: us keep placing too much emphasis on chemistry for too long.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like saying, I really enjoy driving in
Speaker 1: gear five, and so even when I'm going up a hill,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and drive up in gear five. Right.
Speaker 1: I just want that feeling. I just want to hear
Speaker 1: the sound of the car. I just want to feel
Speaker 1: that experience. Now, some of you may have actually tried
Speaker 1: to do this, if you've ever tried to drive a
Speaker 1: car in gear five, And now everyone's like, what's gears
Speaker 1: do we just have for automatic cars or electric cars?
Speaker 1: Very true, I get it, but I remember driving a
Speaker 1: manual car, and the idea of just driving a manual
Speaker 1: car up a hill in gear five just doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. But that's what we're trying to do in relationships.
Speaker 1: I will come back to you with a better analogy
Speaker 1: that is more relevant right now, but we will get there.
Speaker 1: I also want to talk about I want to highlight
Speaker 1: a particular experience where this happens. So this happens in
Speaker 1: many different ways. How we overrate chemistry and underrate character.
Speaker 1: But I want to give a very specific example and
Speaker 1: a study on this. And it's all about the bad
Speaker 1: boy and biology or the biology of the bad boy. Now,
Speaker 1: how many of you have ever been attracted to the
Speaker 1: bad guy? Right, the bad boy? How many of you
Speaker 1: have ever been be honest, be honest, do not be ashamed,
Speaker 1: do not feel embarrassed? Right? And how many of you
Speaker 1: have ever been attracted to the bad person or the
Speaker 1: bad girl, like someone who kind of is a rebel,
Speaker 1: kind of has that edge. Right's super attractive. And certainly
Speaker 1: there are bad boys and bad girls out there, and
Speaker 1: the bad boy type is far more common because men
Speaker 1: tend to demonstrate what psychologists call the dark triad of
Speaker 1: characteristics more often. No No, everyone's like, ooh, what's the
Speaker 1: dark triad? So the dark triad of characteristics are narcissism, psychopathy,
Speaker 1: and this last one is the manipulativeness and an extreme
Speaker 1: focus on their own interests over others. Now, when we
Speaker 1: look at them clinically, these traits don't sound at all attractive, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not going that's what I want? But
Speaker 1: are you? When we look at that clinically, even though
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem attractive, in the real world, they can
Speaker 1: be quite alluring. Now. Gregory Lewis Carter of the University
Speaker 1: of Durham and his team gave one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: eight undergraduate women descriptions of two types of men, what
Speaker 1: we'd call regular guys who served as the controls for
Speaker 1: the study, and bad boys. The bad boys were described
Speaker 1: using traits from an inventory of characteristics typically associated with narcissism,
Speaker 1: such as a desire for attention and admiration, a lack
Speaker 1: of remorse or sensitivity, lack of concern with moral standards,
Speaker 1: and cynicism. The researchers then asked the women to rate
Speaker 1: the attractiveness of the men based on these descriptions, and
Speaker 1: you guessed it. Bad Boys came out on top. The
Speaker 1: researchers concluded that two issues may be at play in
Speaker 1: the women's choices. For one, biology, the bad boys had
Speaker 1: traits that women could have interpreted would make them stronger
Speaker 1: genetically and therefore better mates for reproducing. But on a
Speaker 1: more everyday level, it could have been down to the
Speaker 1: bad boys ability to sell themselves. Remember among the dark
Speaker 1: triad our characteristics of manipulation and ability to represent themselves favorably.
Speaker 1: So the reason why I'm sharing that with you and
Speaker 1: why we lose the spark is because we're attracted to
Speaker 1: the wrong person in the first place. Right, So what
Speaker 1: ends up happening is we get attracted to the wrong person.
Speaker 1: We then start to see the reality of that individual.
Speaker 1: And after we see the reality, we have to readjust
Speaker 1: And I want to break down those three steps. Right,
Speaker 1: It's natural to make the wrong decision to be attracted
Speaker 1: to the wrong thing, then see reality. And the biggest
Speaker 1: mistake we do is often it's glaringly obvious that this
Speaker 1: person is obviously wrong for us, and we keep trying
Speaker 1: to readjust to stay the best thing we can do
Speaker 1: in that moment when we've really learned about the reality
Speaker 1: and if it's fully that extreme is to move on.
Speaker 1: So the first lesson of today, the first reason is
Speaker 1: this idea of how we have to transition from chemistry
Speaker 1: to character. Right, chemistry to characters one of the biggest
Speaker 1: reasons why relationships end. Now, I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about how this changes biologically. Right, So let's dive
Speaker 1: into a study about love at first sight. According to
Speaker 1: a study in the Journal for the International Association for
Speaker 1: Relationship Research, that's a mouthful, Participants who reported having had
Speaker 1: love at first sight experience were also more likely to
Speaker 1: emphasize the importance of physical attractiveness over concepts associated with
Speaker 1: true love, such as intimacy and commitment. Notice how we're
Speaker 1: constantly led astray now. Studies show that when we're younger,
Speaker 1: our prefrontal cortex is less developed, so we're more likely
Speaker 1: to follow our feelings as opposed to reasoning in self control.
Speaker 1: That's why, Actually, which is so fascinating. Don't you feel
Speaker 1: like you felt more chemistry when you were younger? Like,
Speaker 1: don't you feel you just felt more naturally attracted to
Speaker 1: people when you were younger, even when you didn't go
Speaker 1: on a date, whereas now, as an adult, you go
Speaker 1: on so many dates and you don't feel anything. And
Speaker 1: the reason is because now your brain is developed and
Speaker 1: your reasoning and your self control is so high that
Speaker 1: you're actually able to be more discerning. Now, the reason
Speaker 1: why I'm talking about this is that, as the researchers wrote,
Speaker 1: we therefore suggest that at first sight is not a
Speaker 1: distinct form of love, but rather a strong initial attraction
Speaker 1: that some labelers love at first sight, either in the
Speaker 1: moment or retrospective. Now, when I talk about me and
Speaker 1: RADI it was definitely attraction at first sight. Rady did
Speaker 1: not care. If you ask Grady, she would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't even notice him. I noticed her for sure, right,
Speaker 1: Just to clarify how deceiving it can be. Now. Hedonic
Speaker 1: adaptation is a psychological concept that describes why. For instance,
Speaker 1: studies show that while happiness spikes in the first two
Speaker 1: years of marriage, this could be a two years of
Speaker 1: living together then returns to prior levels. Researchers call this
Speaker 1: early stage of love passionate love. Over time, if love lasts,
Speaker 1: it tends to morph into something still beautiful, but less
Speaker 1: charged by the exciting and sometimes stressful dopamine spikes that
Speaker 1: accompany newness. Now, this is really interesting. When something's new,
Speaker 1: you experience stress and excitement at the same time. So
Speaker 1: the excitement is they gave me their number, distresses, will
Speaker 1: they text me? The excitement is, oh, my gosh, we're
Speaker 1: going on our first date. Distresses do they like me? Right?
Speaker 1: So you're going through this is pendulum of excitement and stress,
Speaker 1: excitement and stress, excitement and stress, and that's what makes
Speaker 1: you feel like you have a spark. Biologically chemically, Now,
Speaker 1: over time, if love lasts, it tends to morph into
Speaker 1: something still beautiful, but less charged by that excitement and stress.
Speaker 1: This later state is called compassionate love and is characterized
Speaker 1: by deep connection. So when something becomes routine or consistently available,
Speaker 1: it naturally lose its spark. Right when someone when you
Speaker 1: have to kind of guess when you're going to see someone,
Speaker 1: when you're going to surprise each other, naturally that a spark. Now,
Speaker 1: though our brains can and do adapt to anything that's routine,
Speaker 1: arousal and physical passion tended to be affected more when
Speaker 1: these things fade. Much of love's heavy lifting is done
Speaker 1: by our deeper attraction, that of our character and values
Speaker 1: and how well they are suited to one another. If
Speaker 1: we never looked beyond the spark, when the initial chemistry
Speaker 1: begins to fade, the relationship fizzles. Right. So I want
Speaker 1: to keep emphasizing the power of goals, values, a deeper
Speaker 1: understanding of the human being. And by the way, if
Speaker 1: reality surprised you and you don't want reality, that is
Speaker 1: absolutely fine too. You don't have to keep putting yourself
Speaker 1: in a position you don't want to be in. So
Speaker 1: that's a big reason, right, That's a really really big
Speaker 1: reason as to why the spark goes away. Because we've
Speaker 1: talked about the idea that you know, we're attracted to
Speaker 1: the wrong thing in the first place. We're not switching
Speaker 1: from chemistry to character. And if we don't the chemistry,
Speaker 1: you have to understand that's biology. It's literally changing, right.
Speaker 1: Our hormones are changing, The chemicals that are released are changing.
Speaker 1: As you spend more time, you become more comfortable with
Speaker 1: with them, you become more natural with them. Now, this
Speaker 1: one's a really really big one. This next one, I
Speaker 1: think it's something that again we don't talk about enough.
Speaker 1: I find that it's fascinating that at the beginning of
Speaker 1: a relationship you want to win the other person over.
Speaker 1: But then fast forward into the relationship, you want them
Speaker 1: to lose in an argument. Right, You spend the whole
Speaker 1: first few months trying to win the other person over,
Speaker 1: and now all you want to do is beat them
Speaker 1: in an argument. Notice how you went from winning them
Speaker 1: over to wanting them to lose. Now that's the challenge
Speaker 1: that the relationship now goes from being a collaboration to
Speaker 1: a competition. Right, it goes from being a collaboration to
Speaker 1: a competition. And that's where relationship starts to disintegrate, it
Speaker 1: starts to break down, it starts to fall apart. So
Speaker 1: this is fascinating to me because you went from having
Speaker 1: a collaborative, exciting, chemistry based, compatible connection and now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it became a competition. Right, it became
Speaker 1: a competition. And listen to this author and Leary met
Speaker 1: her husband when she was twenty and he was twenty five.
Speaker 1: They were perfect together. They had similar attributes and psychological makeup.
Speaker 1: They were both intensely competitive, both emotional and sensitive. They
Speaker 1: loved kids and animals. They even looked similar to one another.
Speaker 1: But as Leary writes, when the couple had kids, their
Speaker 1: matching attitudes and temperaments started to cause problems. They began
Speaker 1: to keep scool, noting who each thought was doing more
Speaker 1: to contribute to the family and who was being more
Speaker 1: critical and self serving. After years of this, they sought therapy,
Speaker 1: but one evening, while sitting in the marriage counselor's office,
Speaker 1: they simply agreed it just wasn't going to work and
Speaker 1: they should get a divorce. On the way home, they
Speaker 1: stopped for a bite to eat, during which Anne decided
Speaker 1: to finally tell her husband everything she'd been holding back
Speaker 1: every time he'd failed in our eyes or led her down.
Speaker 1: To her surprise, instead of pushing back and arguing, he apologized.
Speaker 1: Shocked at his response and softened, then confessed everything she
Speaker 1: was sorry for two, Instead of discussing the divorce, they
Speaker 1: called their apartment and asked their kids if they wanted
Speaker 1: to see a movie together as a family. They never
Speaker 1: did file for divorce, and instead learned to shift the
Speaker 1: dynamics of their relationship. Their competition is now more of
Speaker 1: a friendly rivalry, and instead of being critical, they've learned
Speaker 1: to celebrate one another success. Now, notice how those two
Speaker 1: trajectories right, You're going down this road of chemistry hopefully
Speaker 1: you find compatibility, and then you have this split point.
Speaker 1: You either choose competition or you choose connection. Competition leads
Speaker 1: to complaining, criticism comparison, and you know, connection leads to
Speaker 1: all the great stuff that we're really looking for. And
Speaker 1: so everyone that that fork in their relationship always right
Speaker 1: and you have to decide whether you're choosing to compete
Speaker 1: with this person or you're choosing to compete on who
Speaker 1: can love each other more deeply. And so that's another
Speaker 1: reason why relationships fizz all out, is that we choose
Speaker 1: competition over collaboration. We choose competition over connection, We choose
Speaker 1: comparison over care and compassion. And I think if we
Speaker 1: can really think about our life as we're always choosing
Speaker 1: between those two. When you're next in an argument, ask yourself,
Speaker 1: am I competing with the person I tried to win
Speaker 1: over because that doesn't make any sense? Or do I
Speaker 1: want to collaborate with them? Literally ask yourself that question.
Speaker 1: So I hope this is really being illuminating for you,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk to you about where we
Speaker 1: can go right, how we can improve this right for ourselves,
Speaker 1: Like what are some of the things that we can
Speaker 1: do So I looked at some research as to what
Speaker 1: makes a marriage good after the honeymoon, and this applies
Speaker 1: to what makes a relationship good after the honey moon phase.
Speaker 1: And to answer this question, anthropologist Helen Fisher did some
Speaker 1: great research. The team found a group of unicorns, not
Speaker 1: real unicorns, but people who had been married for an
Speaker 1: average of twenty one point four years and reported they
Speaker 1: were still very much in love. They scanned their brains
Speaker 1: while these people looked at pictures of a familiar acquaintance,
Speaker 1: a close long term friend, and acquaintance with whom they
Speaker 1: were less familiar, and their partner, unlike when they looked
Speaker 1: at photos of others. When they looked at pictures of
Speaker 1: their partners, they showed activities in areas of the brain
Speaker 1: that are associated with all three of our basic human drives.
Speaker 1: The sex drive, our drive for romantic passion, yes that's
Speaker 1: an actual drive, and our drive to feel attachment. Now attachment,
Speaker 1: what research is call liking, can form the basis for
Speaker 1: a happy long term relationships. It's almost that idea of like,
Speaker 1: you say you love someone, but do you like them?
Speaker 1: I had someone say this to me. I was officiating
Speaker 1: a wedding a couple of years ago, and this person
Speaker 1: came up to me and they said, jay, I broke
Speaker 1: up with someone because we realized we loved each other,
Speaker 1: but we didn't like each other. And I thought that
Speaker 1: was such a fascinating statement, because you think love encompasses everything,
Speaker 1: but liking someone means you actually like being around them.
Speaker 1: Love means you care about them. You may have deep
Speaker 1: feelings towards them, but you don't like them, you don't
Speaker 1: get along with them. So when the researchers compared the
Speaker 1: results to brain activity in those who are experiencing early
Speaker 1: stage love, the newly and Love showed activity pretty much
Speaker 1: entirely in wanting areas associated with dopamine fueled passionate love.
Speaker 1: So you can see it's very, very different. The researchers said,
Speaker 1: for someone they look at their partner, it looks almost
Speaker 1: as if their brain is on fire, and in a
Speaker 1: way it is. We can still experience intense love many
Speaker 1: years into marriage, but in these later years what fuels
Speaker 1: love changes. You can think one of the early stage
Speaker 1: of relationship and all of that initial passion like gasoline.
Speaker 1: It will burn hot and fast when it ignites, but
Speaker 1: it's not sustainable. When we connect on a deeper level.
Speaker 1: When we listen fully to one another, when we hold
Speaker 1: hands or share long hugs, we're putting wood on the fire,
Speaker 1: and over time we get the enduring warmth of a
Speaker 1: long lasting relationship. And what we understand from the Gottman
Speaker 1: Institute is that rather than creating a climate of disagreement
Speaker 1: and resistance, couples embrace each other's needs. Right, it's the
Speaker 1: idea of do I make my partner feel seen, heard
Speaker 1: and understood? And do I feel seen, heard and understood?
Speaker 1: And are we making enough time to feel seen, heard
Speaker 1: and understood. And I think too many people we feel
Speaker 1: that I already heard my partner, I've already seen them,
Speaker 1: I already know them. Right, there's this assumption of I've
Speaker 1: already figured them out, I already fully understand them, and
Speaker 1: that actually blocks us. And that's why the spark goes away,
Speaker 1: because now we're only looking at old things about our partner.
Speaker 1: We're not learning about the new things. I want to
Speaker 1: go a bit deeper with you all if I can.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why relationships and chemistry fade and
Speaker 1: what we can do about them, is that we don't
Speaker 1: realize that relationships are not just for pleasure, but therefore
Speaker 1: reaching our truest potential. Your partner is going to push you,
Speaker 1: challenge you in ways that no one else ever has,
Speaker 1: and actually it could bring out the best out of
Speaker 1: you if you're willing to let it come out. And
Speaker 1: I think too many of us are scared of letting
Speaker 1: it come out because of our ego. We don't want
Speaker 1: our partner to challenge us. Now, I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: your partners should criticize you or compare you to other people.
Speaker 1: That's not healthy. But our partner can challenge us in
Speaker 1: so many other ways and challenge our ego in so
Speaker 1: many other ways. And so there's a lot of growth
Speaker 1: to be had. And there's a beautiful statement from relationship
Speaker 1: counselor and form a monk as well, Thomas Moore. He
Speaker 1: writes in his book Soulmates, relationships are not meant to
Speaker 1: provide us with unending happiness. When we focus our attention
Speaker 1: on the soul of the relationship instead of on its
Speaker 1: interpersonal mechanics, a different set of values come to the foreground.
Speaker 1: We begin to see relationships as the place where the
Speaker 1: soul works out its destiny. With our focus on the soul,
Speaker 1: we won't feel the impossible burden of doing the relationship right.
Speaker 1: So he says, when we look at the issues from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of our soul, we stop putting ourselves as
Speaker 1: the center. We don't ask what's wrong with me? We
Speaker 1: ask how does the failure of this relationship serve me?
Speaker 1: Or what is our out of alignment within me? That
Speaker 1: I chose to be in a relationship that does not
Speaker 1: honor my values. So More also writes that the problems
Speaker 1: within a relationship don't necessarily mean that something is wrong. Instead,
Speaker 1: these challenges may bee invite us to lean into one another.
Speaker 1: Periods of stress and points of disagreements can actually serve
Speaker 1: as initiation of sorts into a more meaningful relationship where
Speaker 1: we understand and relate to ourselves and the other person
Speaker 1: on a deeper level. I love this idea. I love
Speaker 1: this idea that challenges doesn't mean we just walk away,
Speaker 1: that we throw it away, That this could be the
Speaker 1: greatest growth that we could go through. See. The problem
Speaker 1: is in a relationship, we measure our self worth by
Speaker 1: how well the relationships going. We don't measure it by saying, well,
Speaker 1: how much am I growing? Right? We measure our self
Speaker 1: worth and our self esteem by how well is this
Speaker 1: relationship going, not by how am I feeling or how
Speaker 1: am I growing or what am I accomplishing Separately. The
Speaker 1: other thing I'm going to mention here is the investment
Speaker 1: we make in our relationship. Now. Researchers from the National
Speaker 1: University of Singapore and Emory University use data from more
Speaker 1: than three thousand married people to determine the correlation between
Speaker 1: how much money you spend on weddings and divorce rates.
Speaker 1: This is scary. They found that the more a couple
Speaker 1: spent on a wedding, the more likely the marriage wouldn't last.
Speaker 1: Those who married on the cheap, relatively speaking, for a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or less, were fifty three percent less likely
Speaker 1: to divorce, and couples spending between one thousand and five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars were eighteen percent less likely to split up. Conversely,
Speaker 1: couples who forked out over ten to twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for the big day were twenty nine percent more likely
Speaker 1: to divorce. Among those who went all out, spending more
Speaker 1: than twenty thousand dollars, the odds their marriage wouldn't last
Speaker 1: rose to forty six percent. Now I'm not telling you
Speaker 1: not to have a big wedding. I'm really not restricting you.
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying is are we investing more in
Speaker 1: moving in and getting married or are we investing in
Speaker 1: our relationship? How many of us are? You know, when
Speaker 1: you're getting married, you think about a guest list. How
Speaker 1: many of you have thought about the couples you really
Speaker 1: want to spend time with. That's the thing we should
Speaker 1: be thinking about when we get married. We have efficiant.
Speaker 1: The officiant is guiding the ceremony. Who are our marriage mentors?
Speaker 1: Or even if you're not getting married, our relationship mentors? Right?
Speaker 1: Who's coaching us? Who's guiding us through this? Who are
Speaker 1: we turning to? And clinical psychologist Seth Meyers says that
Speaker 1: seeking counseling before getting married, and I'm just talking about
Speaker 1: getting married is almost like a commitment in a relationship,
Speaker 1: even if you choose not to get married. So Seth
Speaker 1: Meyers says that seeking counseling before getting married is the
Speaker 1: smartest decision that any couple can make. Myers believes this
Speaker 1: is one thing that religious institutions and spiritual traditions that
Speaker 1: require or at least recommend premarital counseling, get right. Yeah. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: many couples who aren't required by institutions or spiritual leaders
Speaker 1: to have counseling before marriage avoid seeking this kind of
Speaker 1: support because of fear. They're afraid that if they talk
Speaker 1: about challenges they're already having, putting a spotlight on their
Speaker 1: problems will magnify them and they'll split up. Mis says,
Speaker 1: it's typically the opposite. That's true, having a structured environment
Speaker 1: where you can express your feelings and be supported. Working
Speaker 1: through early challenges actually helps you resolve the issues so
Speaker 1: they won't creep up later on when you're in a relationship.
Speaker 1: So at that point later on, you could be so
Speaker 1: entrenched that they're harder to resolve and really could lead
Speaker 1: to divorce. So I think our avoidance of problems in
Speaker 1: hope that things will work out really tend to work.
Speaker 1: I hope this episode has been really illuminating on how
Speaker 1: it's natural that chemistry will go, it's natural that compatibility
Speaker 1: and character will rise. We then have a choice between
Speaker 1: competition or collaboration. And finally we have a choice between
Speaker 1: really excavating and creating long lasting soul connection and work
Speaker 1: as opposed to the idea of I just want to
Speaker 1: have a good time. I'm not saying that relationships are
Speaker 1: not fun, they're not exciting. They are, they're thrilling, But
Speaker 1: at the same time, there is a growth that comes
Speaker 1: from it that is even more satisfying. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: feel that if you're someone who's gone to the gym regularly,
Speaker 1: even though it was uncomfortable in the beginning, the feeling
Speaker 1: is so much better. If you've been eating really healthy,
Speaker 1: The feeling is so much better if you've worked on
Speaker 1: a tough relationship. Their success, the accomplishment you feel from
Speaker 1: this type of growth is so much greater than any pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to on Purpose. I
Speaker 1: hope you'll go and pre order my new book. It's
Speaker 1: four days away eight Rules of Love dot com. Get
Speaker 1: the audiobook or the hardcover. I can't wait for you
Speaker 1: to read it, and I can't wait to connect with
Speaker 1: you on my tour. I'm going on tour jstour dot com.
Speaker 1: If you want to come and see me live, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a phenomenal experience. Can wait to see
Speaker 1: you there.