The Best Relationship Advice That Everyone Needs to Hear (From the World’s #1 Love Researchers)

Today’s episode is one of the most eye-opening conversations about marriage, love, and relationships you will ever hear. Whether you're married, dating, single, divorced, or in a long term relationship, get ready for the gift of the Gottmans. Dr. John and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman are the world’s leading relationship researchers. For over 50 years, they have studied thousands of couples, published hundreds of research papers, written 52 books, and changed the way the world understands love. And what they are sharing today is simple but life-changing: It’s not whether you have conflict that determines if your relationship lasts. It’s how you handle it. Today you are going to learn: -How the first 3 minutes of a fight can predict divorce -The 4 most common behaviors in every relationship that drive people apart -3 simple questions for your next date night that create real connection -The #1 predictor that a marriage will last (it’s not chemistry or sex) -One 10-minute Sunday habit that makes you both feel like you’re on the same team -“Turning away” vs. “turning against” - the tiny moments that make your partner feel loved… or alone If you’re feeling like you and your partner have become roommates who barely see each other, you’re not alone. Nobody taught you how to do this. And even if you had great role models, marriage comes with challenges no one can fully prepare you for. So let this episode be your wake-up call – and the way back to each other. For more resources related to today’s episode, click here for the podcast episode page: https://www.melrobbins.com/episode/episode-405/ Follow The Mel Robbins Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themelrobbinspodcast I’m just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I’ll see you in the next episode. In this episode: 00:00 Introduction 04:20 How to Stop Fighting With Your Partner 09:47 Relationship Advice Backed by 50 Years of Research 15:22 What Healthy Couples Do Differently During Arguments 23:33 The Right Way to Communicate During a Fight 28:28 How to Build Emotional Intimacy With Your Partner 36:50 The 4 Toxic Relationship Habits That Predict Divorce 40:45 What Emotional Flooding Is and Why It Takes Over 49:13 How to Deal With A Partner Belittling You In A Fight 58:53 What To Do If Your Partner Always Gets Defensive During Fights 1:03:51 How to Talk About Losing Physical Attraction 1:05:59 Why Stonewalling Is So Damaging in Relationships 1:15:10 The #1 Predictor of A Healthy Relationship — Follow Mel: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@melrobbins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melrobbins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melrobbins Website: http://melrobbins.com​ — Sign up for Mel’s newsletter: https://melrob.co/sign-up-newsletter A note from Mel to you, twice a week, sharing simple, practical ways to build the life you want. — Subscribe to Mel’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins​?sub_confirmation=1 — Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday & Thursday! https://melrob.co/spotify https://melrob.co/applepodcasts https://melrob.co/amazonmusic — Looking for Mel’s books on Amazon? Find them here: The Let Them Theory: https://amzn.to/3IQ21Oe The Let Them Theory Audiobook: https://amzn.to/413SObp The High 5 Habit: https://amzn.to/3fMvfPQ The 5 Second Rule: https://amzn.to/4l54fah

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 0:09Mel Robbins?

  So this year, my husband and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. I know, that's a long time. And people often ask me, Mel, what is the secret to a lasting relationship? And I'll tell you, I joke, I say, Mary Christopher Robbins, because the dude is so calm. Me, on the other hand, I am the erupter, the volcano, the hurricane. And here's the truth, like every relationship, we have conflict. We fight, we have frustrations, we irritate each other, we've had our ups, we've had our downs. But let me tell you something, because of what I just learned in the episode that you're about to listen to with two of the greatest relationship researchers of all time, I am

• 0:53Mel Robbins?

  so excited to go home to Chris tonight and to practice everything that I just learned. And by the way, apologize for a lot of what I saw in myself that was not so great for Chris over the years. And you're going to leave this episode feeling so excited about love, excited about what's possible. I cannot wait for you to experience the magic of Dr. John and Dr. Julie Gottman, who have spent over 50 years researching the science of relationships. The Gottmans are going to role play the four biggest behaviors in every single relationship that drive people apart. And by role play, I mean, they're going to have the arguments.

• 1:37Mel Robbins?

  I kid you not, this is so incredible, because you're going to see yourself, you're going to see your current partner. In fact, you may even relive a moment with an ex and understand why you're not together anymore. But more importantly, the Gottmans are going to teach you exactly how to handle conflict in a way that diffuses tension and brings you closer together, rather than tearing the relationship apart. And if you're sitting there thinking, well, you know, we don't really fight, I don't need this. They will tell you, avoiding conflict is why you feel disconnected and lonely. If you're thinking, "Well, I'm not really in a relationship right now. I don't really need this."

• 2:18Mel Robbins?

  Oh, yeah, you do. And the reason why you do is you don't want to keep repeating the same mistakes. You're going to feel so empowered. You're going to know yourself better. You're going to know what to avoid and actually what to do. And just, I mean, the humanity of all of this that you're about to learn and laugh, oh, my God, you're going to tear up. You're going to feel excited about being in love again. So whether you're dating, you're single, you're married, you're divorced, get ready for the gift of the Gottmans.

• 3:02Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. It's an honor to spend this time with you. If you're new, or if somebody sent this episode to you, I want to personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Today, in our Boston studios, we have two world-renowned researchers who have spent 50 years researching what makes relationships thrive and what makes them fall apart. I'm talking about none other than world-renowned Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman and her husband, Dr. John Gottman. Over the 50 years that they've been researching love and relationships, they've published hundreds

• 3:43Mel Robbins?

  of academic articles. They've written 52 bestselling books on love, marriage, and conflict. They run the most famous relationship research lab in the world. They are the founders of the Gottman Institute, which trains clinicians all over the world in the science of fostering and sustaining greater love and health in relationships. They are, quite simply, every couples therapist's favorite couples therapist. And if you don't have any experience in couples therapy, well, guess what? You're about to get it for free from the single greatest researchers in the world. They literally wrote the book on it. They have flown all the way across the country to be here for you. And trust me when I tell you, you're

• 4:25Mel Robbins?

  about to fall in love with them. So please help me welcome the extraordinary Dr. John and Dr. Julie Gottman to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Oh, we're so happy to be here, Mel. Thank you.

• 4:37Mel Robbins?

  Oh, honor's mine. Honor is mine. You know, I would love to have you start by just thinking about the thousands of couples that you have researched and this extraordinary body of work that spans 50 years. And speak to the person who is listening right now and share what might change about their relationships if they really take to heart all of this research and wisdom and they apply it as soon as they're done listening.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Beautiful. I think two things I would say that really change. One is that hopefully conflict, which is absolutely normal in every relationship, becomes more calm, more gentle, and more constructive, also more compassionate. Because the real theme of conflict is to understand your partner better. It's not to tear your partner down. It's to really get inside their world and understand where they're coming from. So hopefully, that might

• 5:49Speaker 01

  take place after listening to your beautiful show. And I would say, secondly, maybe they do more to express gratitude. Maybe they ask more questions of their partner to really understand where their partner is at here and now internally. They may have known them when they were first dating, knew that world, but people evolve and change. So who are they now? Asking questions draws that out.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would, I would say that in all the 54 years of studying couples, and my friend Bob Levinson and I started this research way back then, and neither of us had a clue about what makes relationships work. We went from one disaster to another. And if I was going to boil it down to one thing, I have this invention that I keep in my back pocket, and it's a little notebook.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  And I keep it there all the time. And if Julie utters the four terrifying words, "We need to talk." I get out my notebook, very slowly, so I can delay my reaction. I get out my pen very slowly. And I open the book up very slowly. And then I say, "Okay, baby, talk to me. What's on your mind? What's on your heart?" And I write down what she's saying. And the more defensive I feel, the more I take notes and slow her down. Because I think the one thing we've discovered is that the masters of relationships, the ones who are happy and stay together,

• 7:37Speaker 02

  really seem to have a motto that when your partner's upset about anything, the world stops and you listen. And this is my way of listening, taking notes and doing it very slowly so I can calm down and not react quickly by saying something of regret later on.

• 8:00Mel Robbins?

  I want to just pause. It's okay. It's okay, honey. You know what's adorable about you two? And if you're listening, I'm just going to describe it. If you're watching this episode, you will have already seen it, is that you both keep turning toward one another and smiling. And you have this very warm, loving gaze at one another as the other is talking. How can you not love this? This is beautiful. And you also are like holding hands. And there's a, there's a physical touch connection.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:40Mel Robbins?

  Which is extremely noticeable because you don't see it all that often in couples. And I wanted to just... Unpack the genius of your response, Dr. Gottman, to those four terrifying words, "We need to talk."

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:01Mel Robbins?

  Which I'm also realizing, sometimes I don't give Chris the grace of preparing him for the fact that I'm about to blast at him like a volcano. But what I loved, because I do think there is something very intentional about what you just described, that as you're imagining, Dr. Gottman, and he leaned forward and he reached into his back pocket and he pulled out a notebook that's like the size of a three by five card.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:33Mel Robbins?

  And you opened it up slowly and then you said, you started to write. And that is your way of listening. But it's so important to also point out as you're hearing this, that you are also managing your reaction.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 9:51Mel Robbins?

  In the middle of what could become an argument or conflict.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, delay is the way of engaging the frontal lobes. Instead of reacting direct from your amygdala, you know, which is terror, right? And defensiveness comes out. So when you engage the brain, the thinking brain, then you can be a little less defensive.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me add.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  You can be less physiologically aroused.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  You know, one of the things that we found in our research is that oftentimes, people can be sitting as calmly as John and I are right now, having a conflict. But one of their heart rates will be over 100 beats a minute. And they've gone into fight or flight, which means blood has left this prefrontal cortex, moved back into the motor cortex. They cannot think clearly, listen clearly, problem solve and be creative. It's impossible because this is offline. So by John pulling out that notebook very slowly, there's a couple of ways it's wonderful. For one, it keeps you calm.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  It keeps you more focused on kind of the cognitive element

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  of what I'm saying as opposed to, "Ooh, did he? Did she really say that?" Or, or for me, what it tells me is that, gosh, he's going to take me seriously. Right? He's not going to be thinking about, okay, when do I get the oil changed in the car? I can tell that he's listening because he is taking notes. And that's meaningful for me. It helps me to feel his presence. And it's a wonderful thing for all of you to do as well.

• 11:45Mel Robbins?

  I love that. And I could imagine Dr. Gottman reaching. Hold on, let me get my notebook out of my pocket here. You study love in a lab. What does that mean? For the person that's not familiar with your groundbreaking foundational research on relationships, what do you do?

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Julie and I, after we first met, you know, we designed this apartment where 130 newlywed couples, just a couple of months after the wedding, would spend 24 hours, cameras rolling, no instructions. You know, they have an opportunity to eat together, clean up together, you know, read the newspaper, watch TV, whatever they want to do. And the cameras are just rolling. And while they're walking around, we're measuring their heart rate. They're measuring all kinds of physiological measures. Every time they urinate, we take a blood, we take a sample and measure stress hormones.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  And then we take blood from them next day and, and look at the immune system and stress hormones and the immune system. So we're just kind of watching couples. And it turns out that we can predict the future of the relationship six years later from the way they interacted in that apartment lab. So the prediction is really 94% accurate at predicting the future.

• 13:13Mel Robbins?

  So you could predict with 94% accuracy who is going to make it and who wasn't?

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:17Mel Robbins?

  That's right. This is like the original reality TV. It sounds like they've added the format.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  That's right. Let me add also that this brilliant man over here created a fantastic system for codifying emotions. That means looking at the face, looking at the movements of the body, looking at the words, the tone of voice, the eye gaze, and assessing from that, what emotion is that individual feeling when they speak? Then, what's the other individual going to respond with? What kind of feeling is that? So, we call that SPAF, Specific Affect, which means emotion, Specific Affect Coding.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  And that in itself tells us a huge amount about the dynamic. Who's being belligerent? Who's being domineering? Who is being subordinate? Who's being kind? Who's trying to make a repair if they said the wrong thing? So that the other person doesn't get their feelings hurt.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Or using humor as a way to wind things down. Humor turns out to be very important.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:34Mel Robbins?

  Why is how we handle conflict so important in a relationship?

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Because we fight all the time. We are human beings. You know, one of the things, Mel, that I have really tried to understand since I was a kid is how come people are mean to each other? Why is that? What's evil? What does that even mean? What I've really understood from lots of archaeological reading and so on is that people have aggression, they've also got altruism. They can be very, very kind. But all of us have those aggressive instincts inside of us. So, what happens with it? Typically, it goes to the person that's closest to us

• 15:24Speaker 01

  because that person, we assume, is not going to abandon us, is not going to run away. They're gonna be there to listen to us. And so, we have personality differences from our partner, lifestyle preference differences from our partner. Everybody has those. And 69% of the issues couples struggle with are perpetual conflicts. They never, ever go away.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  That was a big surprise to us.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they just keep coming up, right? Over and over and over again, in some different format, through the side door. So, what do you do with that? Well, people can avoid those, sweep them under the rug. But, you know, they don't have conflict, but they grow more distant typically over time. Or, they can learn to really talk in a way that's calm. Little bit of emotion, maybe a little more intellectual. You know, trying to solve the problem very fast. We call those validators. And then, there's me. I'm a volatile, like maybe you are. And, we love to explode.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  We love to be passionate about expressing our emotions.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  And I'm a conflict avoider.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  It's a great combo. So, we've figured it out over time.

• 16:56Mel Robbins?

  Um, we're gonna get into these different types. But before we do, I wanna just talk a little bit about the research, because it's so fascinating. Um, you've already mentioned that by observing a couple in this apartment love lab, you could predict with 94% accuracy

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:16Mel Robbins?

  whether or not they were gonna be together in six years.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 17:20Mel Robbins?

  And, we're gonna get into what you were looking at, that really was the signal that they're not gonna make it. But there's also interesting research that you have, around how the first three minutes of a fight

• 17:35Mel Robbins?

  Predict everything.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:36Mel Robbins?

  Let's hear about that.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  You know, Bob and I found that, that if we, we had couples talk about a conflict issue for 15 minutes, we could predict with almost 90% accuracy whether they would divorce or stay together, and if they stayed together, how happily married or unhappily married they would be. But then, somebody in my lab, Civil Carrer, said, "What if we lop off the data from the last three minutes and we only have 12 minutes? What's the prediction like with only 12 minutes of data?" And it was just fine. And she said, "Well, let's lop off another three minutes." And it was just fine. She got down to the first three

• 18:18Speaker 02

  minutes, and we were still predicting the future of the relationship very accurately by just looking at that first three minutes. Because couples who really are gonna wind up divorced or together unhappily, start off the conversation really differently from couples who are, we call the masters of relationship. That beginning is so important.

• 18:42Mel Robbins?

  Now, I'm like, okay, well, what's the beginning that predicts divorce and breakup?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:48Mel Robbins?

  Versus the beginning that doesn't?

• 18:50Speaker 01

  I have an idea. Let's role play it.

• 18:52Mel Robbins?

  Let's do it.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Let's role play it.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  All right. So this is predictive of going down.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I wanted to talk to you about this. I really think that you're, you're really ruining this marriage.

• 19:05Mel Robbins?

  What?

• 19:06Speaker 02

  And it's, it's, it's your responsibility, because you're being so obsessive compulsive.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Wait a minute, wait a minute.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Let me finish.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna let you finish. You're such a slob, that, you know, I can't even walk through the living room.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  I am charmingly sloppy. But you are really a nut. I mean, you're, you need therapy. You really do. I mean, everything has to be perfect for you. Everything's gonna be perfect.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Well, that's right. And I need therapy just to live with you.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  I don't even wanna talk about this anymore.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  All right.

• 19:43Mel Robbins?

  I feel like I now know what it's like to be a marriage therapist.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Oh, you ain't seen nothing. That could be worse. I once had somebody who was so upset, so flooded, and she was all of about four foot ten. And her husband was six five and had cheated on her, etc. So I tried to calm her down. She finally sat down on the couch. And my couch was a beautiful red leather gorgeous couch. When she left, there were scratch marks on the couch. That, that can be...

• 20:24Mel Robbins?

  I bet her heart rate was up.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  I bet it was.

• 20:26Mel Robbins?

  So unpack what was happening in that because I think that we've all experienced those kinds of fights, whether it's about the relationship or now you're arguing about, well, you're, you're, you're giving the kid too much money and that, that, that, and you're over parenting and like, you know, aiming at, like, what was happening in that fight you just had?

• 20:48Speaker 02

  So I was describing the problem in terms of her personality being deficient. That there was something wrong with her. It was all her fault.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  So you, you, you, you. That's all he was saying. And of course I got defensive and I counterattacked. That's a classic form of defensiveness. You counterattack.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  So then I moved into you, you, you, you. And it was all about character flaws.

• 21:20Mel Robbins?

  He's a slob.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  And all I'm doing is trying to give her feedback about what's wrong with her so she can improve. Cause I'm pretty much perfect as far as I can tell.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  See this? It's a halo.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  It's not a yarmulke. It's a halo that God gave me. So I'm always innocent and it's always her fault.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  That's the way the disasters argue.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  And notice, did you see any listening there?

• 21:45Mel Robbins?

  No.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Zero listening, right?

• 21:47Mel Robbins?

  Zero.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  That's right. So people were talking over each other and immediately coming up with their rebuke before even hearing the last words of their sentence of the partner.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  And right away persuasion enters. I'm trying to persuade her that I'm right and she's wrong. You know, and I haven't even listened to what her concerns are, right?

• 22:12Mel Robbins?

  The other thing that happened is the volume.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:16Mel Robbins?

  Started getting higher and higher and higher.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:20Mel Robbins?

  Because neither one of you were listening and you're both blaming and now you're trying to talk over one another and then you both went like huh.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  And if I'm physiologically flooded, I think all I need to do is repeat myself louder in order to be more persuasive. That's the way I reason when I'm flooded.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Sixty-three times later, have I listened? No.

• 22:48Mel Robbins?

  What does a positive argument look like?

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Okay, let's role model that. We can use the same topic.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Okay, so what's going on, honey?

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Well, I'm kind of thinking that I can't do anything right, you know? I've tried, I've tried, you know, being neater, more tidy, cleaning things up and, you know, it's never good enough for you. It feels like that. And like, I can't satisfy you. It's just like, I kind of give up. You know, what am I supposed to do to make you happy?

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Oh God, that sounds actually like a pretty terrible feeling.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  So you're really frustrated because there's nothing you can do that you feel is good enough? Is that right?

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Am I making you feel that way?

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Oh dear. What am I doing that leads to you feeling that way? Because I don't want you to feel that way. I don't want to treat you that way.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  Well, you know, like for example, you asked me to clean up the kitchen. You know, so I clean it up, you know, and... It doesn't meet your standards. So I don't even know what your standards are. I mean.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Do you want me to tell you what they are? Probably not.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Well, no, that would help.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Would it?

• 24:03Speaker 02

  I really would like to know, yeah.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Because I think I've done it just fine.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  And then you're disappointed. I just don't get it.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Hmm, I see. Well, I tell you what. What would make a huge difference for me.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  All right.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Is after.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Wait, let me, let me write this down.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Okay, that's a great idea.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  All right, so what?

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Get out of your notebook.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  Hang on a minute.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  Let me just breathe a little bit. Okay, so.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  I promise I won't hurt your feelings.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  After, after washing the dishes.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  It would be wonderful if you would wipe down the counters. You know, just get all those crumbs into the sink. And then rinse them down the sink. That's really all I need. Just to have counters that are clean. That would make a huge difference for me.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  It would be great.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  You know, I really can't tell when a counter is clean or not. Because it's got, you know, you've got this pattern of, you know.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Colors.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  This is true. This is why I chose a counter with brown in it. It would disguise all of the crumbs.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Just wipe it down really well.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Just wipe it. Yeah, just wipe it. That's all you have to do.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  All right, all right.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Would you, would you mind doing that?

• 25:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, I'll do that.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 25:30Mel Robbins?

  My God, I love you too.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  That makes sense.

• 25:34Mel Robbins?

  I, you are adorable.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  We're okay.

• 25:38Mel Robbins?

  Can you explain what just happened in that conflict?

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, easy. So it started, it started in a perfect way. Which was John bringing up that he's feeling bad about an interaction of ours. But notice, he's not saying, you're a schmuck and that's why I feel bad. He's saying, I feel like I can't do anything right. So is you in there? No? He is having that feeling which pulls on my heart, Mel. He's being vulnerable with me and telling me what his feeling is like. And that feeling, I'm translating into, oh, God, he's feeling hopeless.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  He's feeling despair. I don't want him to feel that way. But here's the kicker. I want to understand what's making him feel that way. So instead of just responding with, you know, just a comment, I ask a question to try to understand. Tell me more. Tell me more because, you know, it's sort of like if something pretty smelly is bubbling up from the earth. I want to know what's under the earth. You know, what's going on down there? That is creating something that feels bad for him.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  So I ask him a question and that gives me information about, oh, that's what's happening inside. That's something that we can change. It leads to a solution.

• 27:24Mel Robbins?

  I love this example and I'm going to tell you why. I personally know that Chris and I for years would have this reoccurring fight. And when I'm volcanoing and he's turtling, when he pokes his head out of the shell to say something, it would literally be, nothing's ever good enough for you.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:46Mel Robbins?

  And I think that's a very common, like, way that people then bark at each other. And it's very different to say, well, nothing's good enough for you. I don't even know what to do because it's never enough for you. Versus what you just taught us. Which is instead of accusing, it's you. I feel that no matter what I do, it's never enough.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:14Mel Robbins?

  And you're right, as soon as Chris started saying that to me, I immediately feel like a monster and then I want to know, okay, well, what exactly? I'm sorry. And I can see why this works.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Sure, right.

• 28:27Mel Robbins?

  You know, if couples fight the first way, yelling at each other, it's never enough for you, fine, door slams, go into your corners.

• 28:37Mel Robbins?

  Is there hope?

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Sure, of course. You know, the thing is this. When in our lab, we saw couples who were going down the road of distress. Remember, they weren't getting any intervention. They weren't reading anything. They weren't listening to fabulous podcasts like yours. They weren't trying to learn a different manner of relating to one another. So without intervention, they're falling back on old habits, on what they learned at the feet of their parents or caretakers, which didn't work. So, you know, nobody takes relationships one-on-one in high school. You gotta learn different ways of talking to one another.

• 29:25Mel Robbins?

  When somebody says to you, "Oh, we never fight."

• 29:30Mel Robbins?

  What do you think?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  I think they're probably conflict avoiders. And I think, oh dear.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  We've gotta help this couple surface, unearth the differences, the things that are irritating, annoying. Because if you hold them inside and you don't bring them up, after a while, they accumulate. And then you may end up with an eruption, right? Which doesn't help anybody.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  One thing that can happen. We saw in this study that the Sloan Center at UCLA did on dual-career couples with young children. And they spent less than 10% of an evening in the same room. They talked to each other an average of 35 minutes a week. And mostly what they talked about was errands. Who's gonna do what, when? So they wound up really living these parallel lives where they ignored the relationship. They ignored friendship, intimacy, fun, adventure. They were just... Their lives had devolved into this infinite to-do list that they did together,

• 30:48Speaker 02

  but that was the only contact they had. So they lived life in parallel. You know, he goes to work, she goes to work. They come home, they're with the kids, but they're not really talking to each other. They're not saying, "God, you know, we used to have so much fun and we don't have any anymore. We're just kind of becoming drudges." They don't say that to one another.

• 31:09Mel Robbins?

  They stay roommates.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  They stay roommates. They avoid conflict. They avoid saying how lonely they are, how unhappy they are, how much they miss the way they used to really pay attention to the relationship.

• 31:22Mel Robbins?

  If the person listening is thinking, "Well, that's me." Because I can think of periods of Chris and my marriage where we have three kids, who are now all in their twenties. But when they were little, that was us.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  That was you.

• 31:35Mel Robbins?

  We were two ships passing in the morning and the night and arguing about who didn't go to the grocery store and that no matter what I do, it's never enough.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have to build in rituals of connection in the relationship. Build in times that you can count on having your partner's ears. And, you know, we have an annual honeymoon that we do. And for 27 years, we've gone to the same bed and breakfast and took our kayak. And we spend two weeks asking each other three questions. What sucked about last year? What did you hate about last year? What did you love about last year? And what do you want next year to be like? So we have that ritual where we know we can connect.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  And it's romantic and it's fun and we kayak and, you know, we hike and, you know, it's always magic.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Let me point out, though, what John is talking about, especially for really busy two-career couples, are those rituals of connection. But they don't have to be great, big, you know, broadcasts. They can be something so simple, like, how do you say good morning first thing when you wake up? How do you say good night? And you look forward to that. What do you do on the weekends when you get to sleep in? How about a date night? You know, I mean, lots of people talk about that, but do they actually do it?

• 33:11Speaker 01

  So there's so many ways we can connect with one another that sustains the sense that, ah, they're right beside me. They're right there, even though they're in a different office.

• 33:24Mel Robbins?

  I love that recommendation because I do think when you're in that moment, as the research suggests, which I think most couples are both probably working because of the reality of how expensive life is.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:36Mel Robbins?

  And coming and going and that only 35 minutes a week in the, I mean, that's just sad.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Can you imagine?

• 33:44Mel Robbins?

  And I appreciate the small thing, like, could you create something first thing in the morning? Could you create something that's part of the wind down at night? One of the things that I remember that made a big difference, and I'll just share it in case it's helpful for the person listening, is since logistics was the reality, and it was also the source of all of our conflict. The one connection ritual that really changed things was we had a Sunday night calendar meeting. Now, that doesn't exactly sound like a date night.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:12Mel Robbins?

  But it became a consistent thing we could do every week that helped us be aligned and helped us coordinate the logistics at one point.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  You were a team.

• 34:26Mel Robbins?

  Yes. And to this day, we do it.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 34:32Mel Robbins?

  And it's just the smallest of things. And the other thing that I'll, I have to give a huge shout out to Chris that he does that makes a big difference for me is he puts little notes, just kind of like the notebook you have. He'll rip out a page and just put, "I love you," and I'll open up my eyeglass case in the middle of the day.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 34:51Mel Robbins?

  And there it is.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 34:52Mel Robbins?

  Or I'll open up my wallet and there it is. And I had no idea that he had done that. And so it's kind of this little signal that I'm still here with you even though I may not be standing next to you.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  You know, a consistent research finding is that you cannot just focus on conflict as a therapist. You have to work on friendship and intimacy, romance, passion, play and fun. You have to work on all of that together. It's not enough to just make conflict better. You really have to bring, you know, the two souls together in a way that is... It brings joy into the relationship.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Let me just mention something about your meeting, which is fabulous, doing that as a ritual of connection. One thing that we also talk about is a weekly meeting, which often takes place on Sundays. We call it the State of the Union, right? And so, what we suggest is that first, you begin with gratitude. You think of something your partner has done that maybe you haven't yet thanked them for, and you express your gratitude and your appreciation to your partner for having done that. You know, so often, we take our partners for granted, right?

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Especially after years of being together. So, all of us, however, still need to be seen. We need to be appreciated. And so, starting with that is lovely. And then, in the middle piece, maybe there is a complaint that you have, you haven't talked about, or maybe you had a little regrettable incident that you need to process. Clear the air about that. Try and understand what went wrong during that and what to do right next time. And then, you end the meeting with another appreciation, another expression of gratitude. I mean, there's nothing better than hearing gratitude

• 37:05Speaker 01

  as a sign that, look, you're visible, you're important to me. I see who you are. I love what you do. And I want you to know, I recognize you. And it's, you're beautiful.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  And a great question to end the meeting with is, what can I do next week to make you feel loved?

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Is that the best question in the world?

• 37:30Mel Robbins?

  The best.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  I know.

• 37:32Mel Robbins?

  You guys are so incredible. I don't want to take a break, but I have to hit the pause button so we can give our extraordinary sponsors a little love. And listen, if you're thinking of a friend, a sister, a brother, anyone who's walking on eggshells at home, or keeps replaying the same fight on a loop and you keep hearing it about it, send them this episode. One of the most loving things that you can do for people is to give them a resource, like Dr. Julie and John Gottman. And don't go anywhere, because a little later in the show, the Gottmans are going to walk you step by step through how you can bring up something that you're afraid to talk about without it turning into a big fight. You do not want to miss this, so stay with me.

• 38:26Mel Robbins?

  Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins, and today you and I are here with Dr. Julie and Dr. John Gottman. They are the world's leading experts on love and what it takes to make a relationship work. And they're teaching you and me everything we need to know about the four things that'll blow up your relationships and what you can do to break these patterns of conflict. I am so excited about the role playing, so let's just jump right back into the next one. I would love to have us just really highlight the warning signs around conflict. And there are four horsemen of the apocalypse in your relationship. What are they?

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Okay. So the first one is criticism. Criticism means blaming a problem on a personality flaw of your partner. Like, you're so selfish, you're so lazy, you're so inconsiderate, thoughtless, whatever. So, a characteristic that's bad that you're seeing in your partner, that's criticism.

• 39:30Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Secondly, is contempt. And contempt is the worst one we have. Contempt is like criticism, but you're coming from a place of superiority, looking down your nose at your partner, and you're sneering a little bit. You've got a look of disgust, maybe, on your face. There's scorn, there's mockery, sometimes sarcasm is contempt. And contempt is not only the best predictor of relationship demise, but, as John was saying, and I'll fine tune it a little bit, the number of times a listener hears contempt

• 40:17Speaker 01

  in a conflict for 15 minutes predicts how many infectious illnesses they're going to have in the next four years. Right. Because it is sulfuric acid for the immune system.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a big deal. The third horseman is defensiveness. We all love defensiveness. Everybody's defensive unless they have an ego of a rock. I haven't met a rock lately. So, defensiveness gets manifested as either counterattack, as we described, or whining. Innocent victim. Oh, I did too, clean the kitchen. What do you mean? Okay, I love whining, it's great. And then, there's stonewalling. And stonewalling is completely shutting down. But it's not shutting down for just a few seconds, you know, to come up with the right phrase.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  It's shutting down completely for minutes, minutes, minutes, long minutes, maybe hours at a time. And what brilliant John here and his colleague Bob Levinson discovered with physiology is that when a person was flooded... They were in fight or flight. Their heart rates were often over a hundred beats a minute as they sat there.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  And they started stonewalling.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  And they started stonewalling in order to go inside and try and soothe themselves. Because being in fight or flight while you're sitting there feels awful. Makes you sick.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  So that turtle thing that Chris does, right?

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  And he's just trying to calm himself down. But to the person speaking to him, it looks like he doesn't care.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  And he's tuned out.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Well, now I'm yelling. I'm yelling because he's like not responding.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  And it makes it worse. Yes, I can see that.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  The other thing is that Bob and I also, as we kept following couples, we found there was a group of couples who didn't do the four horsemen. But when they talked about the events of the day, there was no connection. And they even went out of their way to show that they were bored with their partner talking about their day. So it's not that they had all this negative stuff. They didn't have very much positivity. Not very much interest in one another, not very much shared humor, affection. And those couples divorced an average of 16 years after the wedding. They last longer, but you know, it's still disastrous.

• 43:00Mel Robbins?

  I would love to go deeper into all four of the horsemen of the apocalypse of a relationship. Could you describe for the person who's listening right now, what do you mean by flooding? So if somebody's never heard this term, and they're not quite, and you know, I think there's a, it's kind of obvious if you're like the stonewalling or rather you shut down and you're like the turtle or you're a volcano like me. But can you describe what does it mean to have this emotional flooding? And what are the, what are the kind of personality types of flooding, if you will? So the person can see themselves as we unpack. The four different horsemen, if that makes sense.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Sure, sure. So, first of all, there is no correlation between personality type and flooding. Anybody can get flooded.

• 43:55Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Anybody, first of all.

• 43:57Mel Robbins?

  And what does that mean, when you use that term flooded?

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Okay, so what it means is that you are so overwhelmed by what feels like facing a saber-toothed tiger.

• 44:11Mel Robbins?

  Hmm.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  So what's happening is you're hearing what feels like an attack. It may not be one, but it feels like one. And because it feels like an attack, right? And it's a dangerous attack, it's threatening, it sets off this fight-or-flight response. And so, men who experience this and get flooded are going to look like this. They give themselves permission to look away, to look away. But a female doesn't typically. And here's why. Because you know, as women, from, you know, this high, we are trained to relate to others,

• 44:57Speaker 01

  to nurture others, to take care of others, right? To be sensitive to others' feelings. So we don't give ourselves permission to break contact and look away. So what flooding for a woman looks like is very different. It looks like this.

• 45:17Mel Robbins?

  And you're just kind of staring.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Nobody's home.

• 45:21Mel Robbins?

  No one's home.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Nobody's home.

• 45:23Mel Robbins?

  Blank face.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  That's right. You may be meeting the other person's eyes, but nobody's home. You've taken yourself out.

• 45:32Mel Robbins?

  I just realized my daughter does that.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 45:35Mel Robbins?

  When I get, like, scary.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:39Mel Robbins?

  That she...

• 45:41Speaker 02

  A deer in the headlights.

• 45:42Mel Robbins?

  Yes, doesn't know what to do.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 45:45Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. That was very helpful. Because you're right. If, and I know that this is all based on your research, that for a lot of men, it's the crossed arms.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:54Mel Robbins?

  It's the looking away, it's the walking out of the room.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:57Mel Robbins?

  Or going to make a drink as you're walking, like, following them, yelling at them.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Mm.

• 46:03Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  And it feels kind of awful in your body. You know, it's almost like having a panic attack. The breathing is more shallow and more rapid. And it really feels like there's no way to win here.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  I mean, you just have to escape.

• 46:22Mel Robbins?

  Yes, I can see that.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:24Mel Robbins?

  And you're escaping your body or the room.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 46:27Mel Robbins?

  That was super helpful. Let's dig into each of the four horsemen and start with criticism.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:35Mel Robbins?

  How is criticism defined in the research? And I'd love to have you role play.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 46:42Mel Robbins?

  A example and teach us how we can shift out of it.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:50Mel Robbins?

  When we're in the middle of it.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Let me just mention that the shifting that you are pointing out, which is very astute, is what we call repair.

• 47:00Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  So making a repair during a conversation is a great way to step aside from those four horsemen and make the conversation flow better.

• 47:12Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Okay. So again, I think the definition of it would be blaming a problem on a personality flaw of your partner. That's what it is.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  So let me start.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Okay, go ahead.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  I've been meaning to talk to you because I think that I have something to teach you.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 47:33Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I noticed that, you know, you kind of get upset when the house is in some kind of disarray. And I don't have that problem. You know, I can concentrate really well, you know, whatever's going on around me. So I can kind of teach you to focus your mind more because I think your mind is kind of weak. You know, I think your mind is not strong.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  You think my mind is weak?

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you have a weak mind and I can help you strengthen your mind.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Honey, I got better grades in college than you did.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  What?

• 48:07Speaker 01

  I don't have a weak mind. What are you talking about?

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Well, I'm just trying to be helpful to you. You know, I'm trying, I'm trying to help you strengthen your mind. So it's more like my mind.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  I tell you what, go help the dog. Okay? Not me. Okay, so that's criticism. All right. Got it.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Let's show the rapport.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so how do I do that? Well, we're gonna, so I'll make a repair.

• 48:31Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Okay. Okay, so why don't you pick up?

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, like I was saying, you know, I really can help you focus your mind better. And be more, much more like me.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Honey?

• 48:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  I need to tell you, I'm really feeling defensive right now.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  You are?

• 48:52Speaker 01

  I don't want to be defensive, but I feel that way. The way that you're describing me feels to me like a put down.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Can you say what you want to say in different words?

• 49:06Speaker 02

  Um.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  Well, okay, um.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  I think it'd be great if, even when there are a lot of books around and papers around, that you were okay with that. You didn't get upset.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Phew, tall order.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Well, I tell you what. I, I hear you and I know that I probably come across as a nag sometimes.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  I'm sure I do.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  I would say that, yeah.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I bet you would. Um, but, you know, I think I can spend some of the time feeling comfortable with everything scattered around. However, I think you probably know me well enough to understand that when my environment feels chaotic, just to me, it may not be to you, but it is to me.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Then I get all discombobulated inside. I feel really disorganized. And so, all the papers and so on contribute, unfortunately, to my having that feeling. I wish I wasn't like that, but I am.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Because I think that a house ought to be a little bit messy to be comfortable.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know you do.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  My mom used to clean the place to within inch of its life, you know?

• 50:38Speaker 01

  I love your mom.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  She put plastic on all the furniture.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  She was crazy. That's true. I remember. Yeah. Okay. Well, you don't have to sit on plastic, okay? It's okay.

• 50:51Mel Robbins?

  Beautiful. And I saw you repaired by using "I."

• 50:56Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 50:56Mel Robbins?

  "I feel."

• 50:57Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 50:58Mel Robbins?

  "I feel defensive." So when you're getting criticized, saying, "I feel defensive," right now.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Instead of going defensive.

• 51:05Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Right? Instead of counterattacking.

• 51:08Mel Robbins?

  Yes, or, "Stop criticizing me."

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 51:12Mel Robbins?

  "I feel defensive." That's the repair for criticism.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:15Mel Robbins?

  Got it. Beautiful. On that note, how about we take a quick break? And let's let our sponsors share a few words with you. And don't go anywhere. Coming up, the Gottmans are going to talk about what you need to start doing to turn toward your partner. And the mistakes that you are making in the micro-moments that are pushing your partner away. We can fix that, and the Gottmans will show you how when we return. So stay with me.

• 51:54Mel Robbins?

  Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. And today, you and I are here with the world's leading experts on relationships, Dr. John and Dr. Julie Gottman. I told you you would fall in love with them. And aren't you in love with them? I know I am. All right, I'm so glad we're back. Let's just jump right back in. Let's move on to contempt.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Okay. You wanted to find that one, huh?

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, contempt has this air of superiority. You know, "I'm better than you."

• 52:19Mel Robbins?

  Can you show us what contempt looks and sounds like? And how it is different than criticism?

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  You can't do anything right, can you?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  What are you talking about?

• 52:35Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, even when you go shopping, you spend too much money. You know, you spend too much money on clothes.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  So what?

• 52:43Speaker 02

  I, you know.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  So what?

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Well, we're, we're trying to save for a down payment on a house. And you're ruining the whole thing. You're just a spender.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  I'm ruining the whole thing?

• 52:53Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  How dare you?

• 52:56Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  You just went out and bought a Porsche, for God's sakes, and I'm ruining everything?

• 53:00Speaker 02

  I need that for my work. I need that. I, you know, I wouldn't spend it if I didn't need it for my work.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  To take it back. I need to take it back. Okay, so that's one example.

• 53:11Mel Robbins?

  So it's judgment.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  But from a place of superiority.

• 53:17Mel Robbins?

  What about the eye rolling? And the like, huh?

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Well, I was thinking of an example that one of our therapists talked about. He seen this couple. And she was being contemptuous and he said, "Do you think you're better than me?" And she said, "Better than I?"

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Boom.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Wow. Isn't that a killer? Correct their grammar. That's a great way to be contemptuous.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Ouch.

• 53:52Mel Robbins?

  I have a couple in my life that's uncomfortable to be around because as one person's talking, the other one is like rolling their eyes.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 54:00Mel Robbins?

  As they leave the room, they complain about them. And why is contempt the most harmful? And let's start there.

• 54:13Speaker 02

  It's really, it's really a murder attempt at the person's sense of self.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  And the Jewish Talmud talks about it as murder. You know, you're destroying the other person's sense of self. And you're saying, "You are worthless." And that's the worst attack. It's not just something you do that I don't like, but I don't like you.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  I don't value you.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  I call it character assassination. That's what it is.

• 54:47Mel Robbins?

  And do people that are contemptuous actually, are they able to recognize it?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Uh, not always. Usually, the listener is the one who recognizes it, you know? Um, the other person usually has a pretty heavy sense of entitlement, that they deserve to say that. But let me also add something about why it's so destructive. That, you know, a lot of people don't really think about and acknowledge, but none of us got parented perfectly, right? None of us got taught with absolute appreciation in school. So, all of us have at base, at least a part of ourselves that's insecure,

• 55:36Speaker 01

  that needs to be loved, that needs to be cared about. And some people like to say that that's immature, or, you know, you're just not a grown up. And I would like to say to them, no, that's wrong. We all have that inside ourselves. We don't lose that core of insecurity. And the need to be looked at with care, with love, with understanding, to be spoken to with respect, even admiration. None of us lose that.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  We just add layers on top of it as we grow older. But it's still inside there, and it can still get hit if somebody expresses contempt.

• 56:32Mel Robbins?

  That makes a lot of sense. So if you're the one that's getting stepped on, and demeaned, and interrupted, and corrected by your partner, how do you repair this?

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Okay, so, here's how I would repair it. Let's say he's just been contemptuous. So, you know, John, there is no way that I can hear what you're saying right now. Because I feel so insulted by what you're saying. I don't know if that's your intention or not, but I feel like shrinking away. I wanna just disappear.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  I don't want that.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Because it, it, it really, I feel really hurt by what you're saying. So, I wish you would flip what you just said on its head and tell me what you do want.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Or you do like, rather than this wave of negativity I'm getting.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  I feel like I'm judging you.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 57:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  That's what it looks like.

• 57:46Mel Robbins?

  And when you get somebody that says, "I am judging you", now you're like realizing, "Okay."

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Okay, well, that's okay. So, let's say I am, you know...

• 57:55Speaker 02

  I'm just trying to give you feedback.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Honey, the effect of the feedback and the way that you're giving it to me pushes me away. It makes me wanna run away from you because it hurts so much.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Feedback I can hear if you're telling me what you do want, not what you don't.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Or what you don't like.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Good point.

• 58:23Mel Robbins?

  Amazingly helpful.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:25Mel Robbins?

  I love that. I, I feel insulted. I feel hurt. Because what ends up happening when it's you that is getting stepped on is you tend to flood.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:35Mel Robbins?

  And you don't know what to do.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:37Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, respect is, is as important as affection.

• 58:43Mel Robbins?

  Respect is as important as affection.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Especially for women. I think, you know, today, women need to feel that their partner values and respects them and...

• 58:57Speaker 02

  As much as they respect anybody.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  So, one of my New Year's resolutions was, let me try to treat Julie with the kind of respect that I treated my father with. And I had to work on that. And become self-aware of ways in which I was not communicating respect. For example, it takes her longer to get ready than it does me. So, you know, I would get in the car and wait for her, and while I was in the car, I was saying, "What the heck? Why does it take her so long?" You know, by the time she came out to the car, I had worked myself into a frenzy, you know, of anger about this thing.

• 59:44Speaker 02

  And, you know, instead, I sat in the car and said, "You know, she, there's a lot of really important stuff that she sees that I don't see at all, and she needs to get those things done before she feels ready to leave the house." So, I think I'll just read my novel whenever she comes out, you know?

• 1:00:05Mel Robbins?

  This was an issue in our marriage, too.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  Yeah?

• 1:00:08Mel Robbins?

  Chris would be sitting in the pickup in the driveway, running. And I'm still putting my makeup on, and then I'm running around the house looking for my keys, because I forgot that he's driving. And when I would then get in the car, he would be really frustrated.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Mel Robbins?

  And I'd get an earful about it, and now I try a little harder, and he's usually listening to an audiobook when I get in the pickup truck. It's been running for 11 minutes. I've shaved like four minutes off.

• 1:00:40Mel Robbins?

  He is the best ever. The third horseman of the apocalypse of your relationship is defensiveness. What is defensiveness? And...

• 1:00:53Mel Robbins?

  Why is it so automatic, you know? Like, it's just, like, you, you just kind of feel like you should defend yourself. What should you do instead?

• 1:01:01Speaker 02

  You know, that lawyer that I talked about?

• 1:01:03Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  He was amazing at not getting defensive. And his wife was criticizing him. And he, he really was saying, "She's got an important point. I just don't know what it is. I have to help her, I have to help her get to it," you know? "But I'm sure she's, she's got something she really wants to tell me that's important." And he had that attitude, very respectful, you know? And I think that's the attitude you've got to take. Instead of saying, "I'm innocent, you know? I have, I have no responsibility in this. I'm, I'm pretty much perfect. If there's anybody defective, it's you." That's a really bad attitude. Because you're not going to listen if you have that attitude.

• 1:01:44Mel Robbins?

  I would love to hear you guys role-play. And if you could do an example where one of you wishes the other one would either lose weight, or take a little better care of themselves, or, you know, get a trainer, or actually pick up the weights that we bought last year and use them. You know what I'm saying? And that, you know, and then the other ones, because I think this is something that is...

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 1:02:10Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  That's a hot issue.

• 1:02:11Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, it's a hot issue.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  So, let's say, let's say you criticize me, you know?

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  For, you know, having a tummy. But you're really worried about my health. It's really...

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  It's really tummy.

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  Okay. Uh, let's see. John, uh, I need to talk to you about something.

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  You know, I know that you love sitting and reading your books.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Especially your mathematics books.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Which I cannot understand one page of.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  But, honey, I'm, you know, you really, really, really should go to the gym more often. You really should. You're only going to the gym like, once a month. That's not going to do anything for your body. That's, I mean, you know, your body's starting to get a little kind of flabby or something. I mean, just, that belly is going out further and further.

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  Well...

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  I think I'm fine.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  You think you're fine?

• 1:03:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Honey, the thing that I'm worried about, and this is true for both of us, is that we're both getting older, right? And, you know, you've read all the newspaper articles about being fit really adds years to your life. Being healthy, exercising is one of the best things you can do.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  I just read this article about a guy who's a long-distance runner, and he had a heart attack while he was running. And he was 40 years old. So I don't think, I don't think exercise is such a great thing.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  But honey...

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  A lot of these athletes are pretty stupid.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  Oh, sweetie. What they found is that there was a heart defect there. It wasn't the running that caused it, it was the heart defect. But...

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  You don't think he overdid it?

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so. But if you don't exercise, I'm really afraid that you may suffer a heart attack. Right?

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't want to lose you. I do not want to lose you. And so I'm wondering, how can I support you going to the gym more often? Or does that feel too controlling?

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  No, I think, what if we went together?

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Love it. Would you be willing to make the time?

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, if I can swim.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  I like to swim.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Swimming is great.

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  Swimming is wonderful.

• 1:04:51Speaker 02

  I haven't been in a long time.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  You haven't?

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  You want to do it again?

• 1:04:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  Well, yay!

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  That would be terrific.

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  Okay, all right, I'll work on it.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:03Mel Robbins?

  How do you tell someone that it's not that you're worried about them, it's that you're losing interest in them?

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, that's a good one.

• 1:05:12Mel Robbins?

  Because I think the exercise thing is a big one.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Mel Robbins?

  And, you know, like, really taking care of yourself. And yes, there's the, I'm afraid something's that's going to happen, but it's also like, I actually am pulling away from you because I'm not proud to be with you, or I am losing my attraction to you.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  I have something I want to talk to you about that is super sensitive.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Uh oh.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  Let me get my notebook.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  You better get your notebook.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  And let me preface it, let me preface it by saying, I adore you. I love you so, so, so much.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  It's nice to hear.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. But.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Oh, there's a but.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Yep, here comes the sensitive part. I don't know exactly what's happening. But as you've been gaining weight.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Becoming more of a sphere instead of a triangle.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  I don't know, my libido is going down. My sexual interest is declining.

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  Oh, that sucks.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Well, it does because I love you and I really, really want to express that physically to you. But at the same time, I really, really loved it when you were working out. And I could feel the muscles in your back, in your shoulders, your arms. It, it felt really wonderful.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  So I wrote down, lose weight and get more sex.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  That's a possibility.

• 1:07:03Speaker 02

  All right, okay.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  What do you think?

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Would you like that?

• 1:07:07Speaker 02

  I'd like, I'd like more, I'd like.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Because if about 20 pounds melted away, I bet you my sexual interest would go up.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Great idea.

• 1:07:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Okay. Ta-da.

• 1:07:29Mel Robbins?

  I'm sorry I'm laughing, but I, you two are adorable and, and we have all been in a relationship like that. The fourth horseman that's gonna destroy your relationship potentially is stonewalling.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:43Mel Robbins?

  We've talked a little bit about it, but just so we're clear about what it is, okay?

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  You know, we actually didn't understand it when we first saw it. And we brought men back in and said, what was going through your mind right there? So we got this sort of internal monologue that guys were going through. And they really were saying, this is hopeless. I just gotta, I gotta endure this. I gotta get through this and don't say anything, because whatever you say, you're gonna make it worse. And, you know, I'm just gonna go get a, get a beer and watch the game. You know, and not think about this. Let me out of here. That's what they were thinking.

• 1:08:31Speaker 02

  You know, and it was sad, you know, it was really like, I'm overwhelmed, you know, I'm in a war zone. You know, and there, there aren't any shelters.

• 1:08:43Mel Robbins?

  Can you give us a example of what this sort of sounds like in a relationship?

• 1:08:50Mel Robbins?

  When one, when, you know, the man, or typically the guy, but often, it can be the, the woman.

• 1:08:57Speaker 02

  Can be, yeah. Fifteen percent of the time, it was a woman stonewalling.

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  Right. Well, let's, let's do you stonewalling.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  So I don't understand why you haven't paid the bills. I mean, the bills have gotta be paid. Why aren't you paying the bills, man? They're sitting there on the table.

• 1:09:20Speaker 02

  This is not a big deal.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  I don't want to talk about this.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  John, it's a huge deal. You're gonna ruin our credit if you don't pay the bills. Would you please pay the bills? So what are you doing now? You're pretending I don't exist? You're just blocking me out?

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  Honey, pay the friggin' bills. What's the big deal?

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  God.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  There.

• 1:09:54Mel Robbins?

  That.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  That's what it looked like.

• 1:09:57Mel Robbins?

  Because we've all seen it and experienced it.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:00Mel Robbins?

  If you were listening and not watching this episode, as Julie was, you know, basically telling him what to do and criticizing him, and then the huff at the end is contempt.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yes.

• 1:10:14Mel Robbins?

  Right?

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:14Mel Robbins?

  That exclamation point of, huh.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:18Mel Robbins?

  You, John, crossed your arms and looked down and looked away, and it is this act of like, there's nothing to do. I just need to endure this until she shuts up.

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:30Mel Robbins?

  And that's the only option here.

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and also, if I say anything, it'll get worse.

• 1:10:37Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:10:38Speaker 02

  It's bad now, but if I say anything, I'll make it worse.

• 1:10:41Mel Robbins?

  How the heck do you repair something like that if you're the stonewaller? And you've got somebody who's critical of you?

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:10:49Mel Robbins?

  Like, can the stonewaller, like, can you teach a stonewaller to repair? Because a stonewaller does not trust that it's gonna get better if I say anything.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Okay, don't forget.

• 1:11:00Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  That what goes along with stonewalling is a heart rate over a hundred beats a minute.

• 1:11:07Mel Robbins?

  Oh, because it's true. It looks like you're calm.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Yes, it does. But because John and Bob had their couples hooked up to physiology that, that measured heart rates.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  We saw those heart rates like through the ceiling, 140, 150, and so on.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  Ten seconds before they started stonewalling.

• 1:11:31Mel Robbins?

  I never, ever, ever looked at stonewalling as somebody who's panicked and overwhelmed.

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:40Mel Robbins?

  I've always seen this as a power play.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:11:44Mel Robbins?

  That you're denying me attention, and you are trying to just block me out as a way to control me.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that is wrong.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  Stonewalling is an attempt to self-soothe.

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  Right, going inside. Okay. She can't touch me when I watch the game. So the game starts in 10 minutes. I'm gonna go watch the game.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  I'll have a beer. I'll calm down.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  Yep. So let me tell you.

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  I can't do anything now.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Let me tell you what the antidote is. It's not saying something exactly. The only antidote is to do something to calm your physiology down. Okay. So we've seen the antidote. It is you tell your partner you need to take a break. That you're flooded. You need to take a break. And you tell your partner when you will come back to continue the conversation. And typically, the minimum a break takes is 20 to 30 minutes. The most would be 24 hours. Okay.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  What do you do during the break? You do not think about the fight. Because if you keep thinking about the fight and, oh, I should say this when I go back, you'll stay flooded. Because you're still hooked into the fight. That is elevating your heart rate. You need to do something else, like reading a book, reading a magazine, watching TV, playing with the puppy, even going for a run is fine. Taking a walk, doing your email. Something that takes your mind off the fight. Okay.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  So that those stress hormones can metabolize out of your body. You see?

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  So, and it's especially hard for guys.

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  I would imagine.

• 1:13:52Speaker 02

  Because, you know, Bob Levinson did a study of startle. You know, you have a gun, a blank gun go off behind somebody. Women feel fear. Men feel a desire to get even.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  Get angry.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  Get angry, get even with the experiment. They feel, you know, rage about having been startled. And so that maintains the physiological arousal. And it was probably adaptive in our ancestors' time to stay physiologically aroused when you were hunting or protecting the tribe. But during a conversation with your lover, it's not helpful to stay physiologically aroused. It's counterproductive. Can't listen, right? So it's a challenge for men during the break to really distract themselves and do something entirely different.

• 1:14:53Mel Robbins?

  But the big breakthrough is to utter the words, "I am emotionally shut down," or "I'm emotionally flooded."

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  I'm flooded. I'm flooded. I'm flooded.

• 1:15:05Mel Robbins?

  I'm flooded.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  I need to take a break. And, you know, the good thing about saying, "I'll be back in 30 minutes," is that a lot of people, when you say, "I'm gonna go take a break," and they go, the other person feels rejected, thinks, "Oh, great, we're never gonna get back to this topic. We're never gonna solve this. We're never gonna talk about it."

• 1:15:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  So saying, "Let's come back in a half an hour, when I'm calmer, and let's try again," makes a huge difference.

• 1:15:43Mel Robbins?

  It makes a lot of sense. Why is... Can we just move on? Why is that one of the biggest mistakes that you can make after a blow up?

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  Flooding, you mean?

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  Oh, can we just move on?

• 1:15:55Mel Robbins?

  Can we just move on?

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  Let's not talk about this anymore.

• 1:15:58Mel Robbins?

  Let's not talk about this.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Oh, God, that's so terrible. Well, the problem in the relationship, when you say, "Let's just not talk about this anymore," it's another way of saying, "Whatever you're thinking isn't important, so let's just drop it. You're not important." What a message, right? It's a terrible message.

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  So that's why you don't do it.

• 1:16:27Mel Robbins?

  Yes, that is, you're absolutely right.

• 1:16:32Speaker 02

  And then there's a loss of trust.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  Which is really damaging to the relationship.

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  I can't trust you to really keep your promises.

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  Or be there for me.

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  Or be there for me.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:45Mel Robbins?

  Let's talk about turning toward each other.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  Oh, so important, so important.

• 1:16:51Speaker 02

  So that's something that, that one of my grad students, Janice Driver, really noticed in the apartment lab. There'd be these small moments when one person would try to get their partner's attention, or interest, or a conversation, or show them something they were reading. And the cameras turned to the other person, and we recorded the response. And they either responded, you know, or, you know, turned toward, we called it, or they didn't respond at all, turning away, or they responded irritably, turning against. And what Janie discovered was that when you look back at the couples who divorced six years earlier, their average

• 1:17:34Speaker 02

  percent of turning toward their partner's bids for connection was 33%. And the couples who were still married, look six years earlier, their average is 86%.

• 1:17:46Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  Rather than 33%. So these small moments are really important. Plus, she also discovered the secret to having a sense of humor during conflict was having a lot of history of turning toward, building an emotional bank account of connecting. Then people had a sense of humor about themselves during conflict.

• 1:18:09Mel Robbins?

  I want to make sure that as you were listening to John say that, that you got the very helpful distinction of the three things that people do in those micro moments. And obviously, what we want to learn to do.

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:18:23Mel Robbins?

  Is turn toward one another.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:18:25Mel Robbins?

  But the thing that a lot of people do is you either turn away. Or you turn against.

• 1:18:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:18:32Mel Robbins?

  Right. And I think it's a very useful tool to ask yourself, am I turning against them when they're trying to hold my hand? Or engage in a conversation or tell about their day? Am I turning away from them?

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  So what turning away means, a lot of people misinterpret that. They think it means, oh, you turn your body away. No, it doesn't at all. It means you completely ignore what they've said.

• 1:18:59Mel Robbins?

  Oh.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  You ignore it. So let's say I'm reading a book. And John calls to me from the kitchen, Julie. I ignore him. I keep reading the book. He says again, honey, do you know where the big fork is?

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  I ignore him. As if he never said anything. That's turning away. Turning against would be, would you stop interrupting me? I'm trying to read.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  That's the hostility, you see, that comes in turning against.

• 1:19:41Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 1:19:42Speaker 02

  They're really small moments, but the probability that a person will rebid

• 1:19:50Speaker 02

  after their partner's turned away is 22%. So only 22% of the time do they say, honey, where's the fork? Or, you know, listen to this. They, they kind of crumple a little bit when their partner turns away.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  Well, of course.

• 1:20:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  You know what it reminds me of? You know what a sea anemone looks like? You know, it's this little circle of a, of a being in the water, in the ocean, that has little tiny fingers. And when it's relaxed, all those fingers are spread out towards the center of this little circle.

• 1:20:29Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, like if you saw the movie Finding Nemo, all the baby whales are in one, yes.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Okay, so if you poke that sea anemone gently, all those fingers pull back.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  And then, very slowly, it'll start stretching, stretching, stretching, stretching again. Let's say you poke again. That sea anemone is not gonna stretch out its fingers. It's gonna hide. That's what happens.

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  Good image.

• 1:21:03Mel Robbins?

  That makes a ton of sense. And I would just love to have you speak directly to the person who's been with us this whole time, because there's a lot that you have shared. There are so many tools and frameworks, things that you can put to use right now, and also things that you can really reflect on in yourself. Because you can't change them. You can use these tools to connect more deeply and to strengthen your relationship, but ultimately, you can't change them. But a lot of what has happened for me with your work is it's made me understand the things

• 1:21:41Mel Robbins?

  that I'm doing, that I need to change, that can strengthen the relationship, and the things that I can proactively do differently, that build better connection. And so, I'd love to have you just speak to the person directly, and if they take everything to heart, but they wanna do one thing, right after they finish listening, what's the most important action to take today?

• 1:22:11Speaker 02

  Well, I would say that when you realize conflict has a goal, which is mutual understanding, and what you need to do is postpone persuasion and problem solving, until you can really hear what your partner is saying, what your partner feels, what your partner needs, what your partner's hopes are, and get that notebook out. Slowly, open it up. Slowly, get your pen out, and take notes and listen. Because when you do that, you realize your partner's not your adversary. Your partner is your ally at solving a problem together.

• 1:22:54Speaker 02

  You can be a team that together is more powerful than either person individually, and you solve that problem together. So buy a little notebook and a pen and take notes. Slowly get out your pen so you can wait at least two beats before you respond.

• 1:23:15Mel Robbins?

  Well, I cannot wait to listen to this again with my husband, Chris. Maybe it's what we'll do to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. And I now know what I'm gonna get him. I'm gonna get him a little notebook, right?

• 1:23:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:23:29Mel Robbins?

  That's a great idea. And, you know, one of the other... And a pen. And a pen. And one of the other things that I really loved about being with you two is that you reminded me of one of my favorite pieces of advice and truths about relationships that really go the distance and are satisfying for both people. And I first heard this from James Sexton, but it's just this idea that you're my favorite person. And being in the presence of the two of you and experiencing in person your warmth towards each other, your fondness towards each other, your kindness towards one another,

• 1:24:13Mel Robbins?

  the fun that you have as you are sitting together. It is the little things that are available and right in front of us. And I am so excited to get home to Chris tonight in southern Vermont because I feel rejuvenated in terms of just that energy between you two, the warmth.

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  You know, Helen Fisher taught us that...

• 1:24:41Speaker 02

  Being in love has no shelf life. You can be in love for 35 years, 40 years, 50 years. And we are, you know, and I feel enormous joy in the morning when Julie's in my arms.

• 1:24:56Mel Robbins?

  Mwah.

• 1:24:57Speaker 02

  Every morning.

• 1:24:58Mel Robbins?

  Mwah, you're gonna make me cry. The Gottmans, everybody, thank you, thank you.

• 1:25:04Speaker 02

  Thank you, Mel.

• 1:25:05Mel Robbins?

  Thank you. Thank you, Mel, thank you. I just love you two.

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:25:09Mel Robbins?

  Thank you. And thank you, you know, I told you at the beginning of this episode, you would fall in love with the Gottmans, and didn't you? I mean, how could you not? I am so excited for everything that's gonna happen in your relationships and in your life, based on what you just learned, because the truth is, you deserve love, you deserve connection, you deserve respect and kindness, and now you have research-backed tools from the world-renowned Gottmans to use and to share for the rest of your life. How cool is that? And in case no one else tells you today, as your friend, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life, and the thing that's gonna make your life better is stronger and more loving

• 1:25:53Mel Robbins?

  relationships. And now you have everything you need to know, do, and say to create them, so go do it. Alrighty, I'll see you in the very next episode, I'll welcome you in the moment you hit play.

• 1:26:10Mel Robbins?

  They are the founders of the Gottman Institute, which trains, blah blah blah, and today, they have flown to our Boston studios from the west coast, they have flown all the way across the country to be here for you. One of the most loving things that you can do for people is to give them a resource, like Dr. Julie and John Gottman. And don't go anywhere, because when we come back, because a little later in the show, Dr. Gottman, thank you so much for saying that. I feel like you are, thank you for, Dr. Gottman, thank you so much for saying that. And now you have all these incredible research-backed tools from the world-renowned Gottmans. Ladies and gentlemen.

• 1:27:02Mel Robbins?

  Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.