Re-Air: Drs. John & Julia Gottman: This Predicts Divorce!

In Honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re revisiting what we think is our most comprehensive episode on relationships to date! Relationship Experts Drs. John & Julie Gottman EXPOSE the SHOCKING REASON Why Relationships Fail. 94% Accurate Divorce Predictions: Discover the biggest predictors that guarantee which marriages will crumble and how to get the LOVE you WANT! The Gottman duo are world leading relationship researchers that have been studying couples for over 40 years, publishing over 200 academic journal articles and 46 books. They are the co-founders of The Gottman Institute and Love Lab. Drs Gottman drop the ULTIMATE Relationship Bombshells, including the 4 Horsemen of Relationship Apocalypse (Spot these 4 predictors of relationship demise before they DESTROY your love life!), PLUS....learn the #1 skill for Connection and BETTER SEX! Your relationship is either HELPING or HARMING you HEALTH, and is a big factor in how you fight disease. The Gottmans also break down: - The #1 Cause of CHEATING & how it can lead to PTSD - Childhood Trauma’s Hidden Role in Relationships: How a lack of positive relationship role models can WRECK your marriage - Ways to better support your partner’s trauma - Why Addiction can spell disaster for even the strongest of relationships - Phases of recovery from affairs & other forms of betrayal - How to argue with your partner in a healthy way - Why today’s culture seems to be afraid of long term commitment - Codependency: Is it really as HORRIBLE as it sounds, or could it be the key to your marriage’s survival & your own longevity? - Why Women Are UNHAPPY: The unsettling reason behind women’s relationship dissatisfaction and the FEARS they face daily - Men’s Emotional Needs: How today’s involved dads are CHANGING EVERYTHING - Social Media’s Role in Cheating: How it’s fueling nonmonogamy and screwing up your communication - Effects of porn addiction on the other partner - Key communication factors in healthy partnerships - The Managerial Marriage: Why losing PLAYTIME is the nail in the coffin for happy marriages - The Power of a 6-SECOND KISS: This simple act could SAVE your relationship! TUNE IN to MBB now & learn how to turn around your relationship before it’s too late! Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:04Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 0:05Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 0:06Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our Breakdown. This is fun. It's Valentine's Day tomorrow, so what better episode for us to talk about than this really, really special episode from 2024 with Doctors John and Julie Gottman, the relationship experts. They are world-leading researchers in the field of relating and connecting. They've been studying couples for over 40 years, publishing over 200 academic journal articles, 46 books. They're also the co-founders of the Gottman Institute and the Love Lab.

• 0:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Guess what, people? Who you choose to spend your life with will impact the quality of your life more than you can ever imagine. It will impact your immune system. It will impact your nervous system. It may also impact how you succeed at work. So why not work on that relationship? Doctors John and Julie Gottman are able to predict divorce with 95% accuracy. It's unbelievable.

• 1:11Mayim Bialik?

  Also, what are the four predictors of the demise of a relationship? Learn them before they destroy the one that you're in. Also, what's the number one skill for connection? How do you have an improved sex life for real? What's the number one cause of cheating? Where does trauma fit into relationship dynamics? Why is our culture so afraid of long-term commitment? Also, is porn addiction killing relationships? We're also going to talk about the power of a six-second kiss. We can't wait for you to hear this very special Valentine's Day airing of our episode with Doctors John and Julie Gottman.

• 1:48Jonathan Cohen?

  As always, check out Mayim Bialik's Breakdown on Substack, where you can get more on this content and content that we do not release anywhere else. Mayim Bialik's Breakdown on Substack.

• 1:58Mayim Bialik?

  And now here is our episode with Doctors John and Julie Gottman.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Break it down.

• 2:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:05Jonathan Cohen?

  We're really big fans.

• 2:06Speaker 03

  We have to say, we've only watched The Big Bang Theory 100 times. And we're going to watch it in honor of you. Now, we're going to watch it for another 12, the whole thing, all the seasons. We have all the CDs. We do. And we play them like whenever we're really depressed, like yesterday after the Supreme Court.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:27Speaker 03

  We play them religiously.

• 2:30Speaker 04

  Well, that is-

• 2:30Speaker 03

  We kind of worship you.

• 2:32Speaker 04

  That's really bizarre and-

• 2:35Speaker 03

  And, listen, I want to ask you if you would run for president.

• 2:39Speaker 04

  I will not run for president. No one, no one wants that. Um, no one wants that, especially my children.

• 2:52Speaker 04

  Well, during the time that you watched me on Big Bang Theory, I was reading your books. So that's kind of funny.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Wow, thank you.

• 3:01Speaker 04

  Were you reading the New York Times also before we started?

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 3:05Speaker 03

  He was.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was reading this right at start.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Unbelievable.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  It's Tuesday.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  It's Tuesday, my favorite day.

• 3:13Speaker 04

  Dr. Scottman, Dr. John and Dr. Julie, welcome to the Breakdown. It's really so incredible to have you here. I've, I've known about you and have read your books for decades. You should know, both Jonathan and I are divorced. So we are on our second go in life as adults. But we, we appreciate so much the work that you do and in particular,

• 3:43Speaker 04

  you know, I'm, I'm partial to the scientific rigorousness with which you have constructed your practice for, I don't want to say how many decades, but for the better part of this century. And, you know-

• 3:59Speaker 03

  It's true, we're really old, Maya. You can see it.

• 4:01Speaker 04

  I saw that in your afterword, that this will be the last book, the last revision of this book, because you said you're both really old. But, um, no, but, you know, you, you really have absolutely changed the face of not only how we view marriage or how we view divorce, but really how we, how we view how people interact. I kind of refer to, to the two of you as sort of the industry standard, you know, for all things relationship and-

• 4:27Speaker 03

  Somehow that sounds like a piece of iron or steel or something.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  I love your origin story of how this work began. So maybe you can talk a little bit about how you went from being, you know, two young kids interested in various aspects of interpersonal relationships to literally the experts in this field.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Back in 1976, my best friend Bob Levinson and I became aware of the fact that we were completely incompetent in our relationships with women. We went from one disaster to another. And Bob once said, well, there are some people who have relationships and there are other people who just study relationships. And that's you and me. So we built a lab. And we thought that there were some people who were probably really good at relationships. And, and so we recruited couples who varied a great deal on how happily married they were.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  And eventually, we spent a dozen years studying gay and lesbian couples as well. And just had them come to the lab and, and where these physiological sensors that were synchronized to the time code on the videotape. And that was done by this gigantic computer. And that has less computing power than your, your cellphone. But it synchronized the physiology with the video time code. And so we had couples come in at the end of the day talking about how their day went and trying to solve the major problem in their relationships and talking about a positive topic. And then we had no clue about how to help anybody.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  So we just waited three years, recontacted the couples and found that our measures were able to predict with over 90% accuracy how the relationships changed over, changed over that three year period. And the predictions were really very simple. Um, you know, the, the faster these people's hearts beat, the faster their blood was flowing, the more they were sweating from the palms of their hands, more they were jiggling around in their chairs, the more their relationships deteriorated.

• 6:55Speaker 04

  You just described every first date I've ever been on. And most of my

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. Yeah, I, you know, I like to say, you know, Julie's really the therapist in this family. And, you know, she's worked with every possible psychopathology in her therapy, but I've dated them all.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  So I have inside knowledge of all the psychopathologies known to humanity. And so does Bob. And so over time, you know, we kind of learned from our data

• 7:32Speaker 02

  how to have relationships. And Bob is happily married now, and so am I. And we're really fortunate that we learned from our data.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  Can you talk about what the disasters looked like for you? You know, I know what a lot of dating disasters look like now, but I'm sort of curious if you're open to sharing what specifically you struggled with.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Sure, you know, the, even in the way couples talked about how their day went, the disasters of relationships went out of their way to communicate boredom. And when their partner was talking, they just, they did a whole bunch of things that Irving Gottman, a sociologist, famous sociologist, called away behaviors. You know, I'm not here, I'm away. I'm not listening to you. That ceiling is much more interesting than what you're saying. Playing with my hair is more interesting than what we're saying. And the masters of relationships went out of their way to communicate interest and fascination with their partner's day.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  So it was a very simple, very simple differences. But, you know, when you actually look at the videotapes, the differences are quite dramatic. In one case, you know, somebody's enthusiasm about what happened during the day. Oh, you'll never guess what the baby did today. He spent 20 minutes looking at a flower. And meanwhile, you know, their partner's looking totally bored. And eventually they, the first person stops talking. And during conflict, again, the differences were so dramatic. The disasters of relationships pointed their fingers at their partner and said,

• 9:15Speaker 02

  I've been watching you and I have concluded you're defective. And here's what's wrong with you. As far as I can tell, I'm pretty much fine. You know, but you really need therapy to change your personality. If we're ever going to have a happy marriage. And, and they hope that their partner will respond by saying, oh, thank you, John, for pointing out all the ways in which I've screwed up my relationship with you and all the ways I'm failing as a human being, wife and mother. You know, but of course they get a response that's the opposite. Counterattack, defensiveness, whining, contempt. You know, and, and all these things just keep escalating.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Whereas when the masters present a problem, they point their fingers at themselves and they say, you know, everything's really okay. I love you, but we're in this lab talking about problems. So let me just tell you, you know, in this one small way, I would like, I'd like it if you turn off all of your electronic equipment during dinner and we can just talk. So they're giving their partner a recipe for success with them. And even if their partner is critical, and my hero in this regard is a lawyer who's helping his wife identify what it is about his personality that she, that makes her the most angry. And he's saying, well, is this the way I talk? She says, yeah, it's the way you're talking.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Well, what, do I sound authoritative? No, you sound authoritarian. Oh yeah, I guess I can be like that. You know, and that, that bugs you, it absolutely bugs me. Well, it works okay in the courtroom. Well, it doesn't work with me. Okay, I get that. You want to say more? So rather than shutting the other partner down and counterattacking, they're saying, tell me more. I really want to hear what, what you're feeling and what you need. So the differences are very dramatic.

• 11:14Speaker 04

  Dr. Julie, if you can kind of speak a little bit to some of the underlying, as John said, psychopathology here, because where my brain automatically goes to is, what if people are coming to the relationship with past trauma, past history, and inability to even understand how to start or where to go from? Can you build something from that? Or is that kind of what we're trying to teach people?

• 11:39Speaker 03

  That's exactly what we are trying to teach people. Most of us come from families that are a mess, right? We don't come from families that were completely healthy and normal. We didn't see good role playing in terms of how to handle conflict, how to reach out, and sustain romance, sustain friendship, sustain passion. So in terms of psychology, Mayim, you're so right. So many people have experienced trauma. In fact, that's one of my specialties that started in, ah, 1972, actually. So I've been working with PTSD all along.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  And when people feel attacked in relationship, and that can be just by somebody saying, "The kitchen is really a mess. How come you're so lazy? You're not cleaning it up." They feel like they are being attacked by a saber-toothed tiger. And it could be because they grew up with a mom, let's say, who was very critical of them, very contemptuous of them, and perhaps humiliated them in front of other people. And they sustained a lot of emotional injuries from that early criticism and contempt, maybe even physical abuse, maybe sexual abuse.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  And that never goes away entirely. A lot of people want PTSD to disappear. It doesn't. You learn how to handle it. And in working in relationships, what we've figured out is, given somebody might be traumatized in a relationship, then how can the other person support them?

• 13:33Speaker 03

  Let me give you a good example. I treated a guy and his wife, and he had been deployed for several times in Vietnam and still came home with lots and lots of trauma. Fast forward 15 years, he still, when he heard helicopters, would dive under the dining room table, right? Because he was afraid it was going to be one of those machine-gunning helicopters in Vietnam that would shoot him. So here's what he asked his wife to do. "Please get under the table with me. Get under the table, just hold me while that's going on, and I'll feel 100% better."

• 14:16Speaker 03

  And so they established a routine and a ritual for how to support one another if trauma came up. Another thing that we deal with a lot, especially in this country, is addiction. It's everywhere. You know, there's, what did we hear? 107,000 overdoses are happening per year now. It's crazy. So that's not accounting for all the people who actually survive the drugs they're on. They bring that dynamic into the relationship, and the individual, who is the partner,

• 14:59Speaker 03

  doesn't know who they're relating to because the addiction creates a mask over their face, one of blurry outline at best. And so people really struggle for some kind of emotional connection when there's addiction plaguing the family. You know, depression is another one. So, you know, just about every psychopathology you think of comes into distressed relationships very frequently.

• 15:36Mayim Bialik?

  My and the Alex Breakdown is supported by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you reach for over and over again? That sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? The bag you carry everywhere? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe, and that's what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14-karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. I'm personally obsessed with Quince's 100% European linen wide-leg pants.

• 16:20Mayim Bialik?

  I can wear them year-round because I live in Southern California. They feel like PJs, but it looks like I put a ton of effort in, whether I'm dressing for casual workdays, lazy weekends, or vacation vibes. I'm also obsessed with their sheets, so soft. Everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work with ethical factories and cut out the middle people, so you pay for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just apparel. Quince brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel-quality bedding to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully-designed furniture. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was My and the Alex Breakdown.

• 17:05Mayim Bialik?

  It's the best way to support our show.

• 17:08Speaker 04

  Um, I feel depressed now. Um, no, but that's a-

• 17:13Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm so sorry. Listen, I have some Prozac. Would you like a pill?

• 17:17Speaker 04

  No, I mean, I think it's... Look, I think that the reality of the work that you do has only gotten more necessary and more important and more significant as all of this complexity, you know, both emerges, is identified, is named. You know, I often, you know, think back to-

• 17:39Speaker 04

  You know, a lot of people talk about like, oh, back in the good old days, or it was better when, or, you know, greatest generation. And I'm kind of thinking, because, you know, my parents were born during World War II. And, you know, when I think about my grandparents' lives, you know, there was a real need to have a sort of veneer of normalcy. And I think there was for a lot of people. But I also feel like maybe that's just how it's been for all of history. It's like, everybody acts like things are OK, but really underneath, there's terrible things going on. And there's, you know, a real eroding. And it's only when we sort of start to name it that we get to uncover it and explore it. So I want to go back to sort of, you know,

• 18:21Speaker 04

  you mentioned the masters, the people who are sort of masters at relationships. I wonder if you can talk about, what are some of the things that those kinds of people, the people who not only succeed in relationships, but feel a sense of contentment and, you know, elevated partnership? What are people, what are those things that people are doing right?

• 18:42Speaker 02

  One thing that we discovered that really is different about the masters is they have a different habit of mind. As they scan their social environment, they're looking for things that their partner and other people are doing right. Even their children, when they teach them something, it turns out they're looking for how their kids are succeeding. And then they praise them, you know, directly and encourage them. Whereas the habit of mind of people who have disastrous close relationships is the opposite. They're scanning their social environment for other people's mistakes. And they see their role as correcting them and giving them constructive feedback.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  And it's almost like they're cops, you know, trying to really monitor the world. You know, some people drive too fast, some people drive too slowly. They're perfect. And so that habit of mind is a very important quality of the masters.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, let me add another thing, and that is that... You know, it's kind of a ironic twist. People have high expectations of being loved, of being cared for. But at the same time, there's also a tremendous amount of acceptance that your partner is actually a human being with lots of cracks, lots of flaws. So are you. And so, you know, there's much more acceptance of the fact that your partner's not going to be perfect. And an example of this is in our apartment lab, where couples came for 24 hours. And they were coming to a room that was just like a B and B,

• 20:29Speaker 03

  except there were four cameras bolted to the walls. And we took their urine every now and then.

• 20:34Speaker 04

  That's the kind of Airbnb's Jonathan and I go to.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Hey.

• 20:37Speaker 04

  There's always the cameras when they take our urine.

• 20:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, they're really, really comforting because you get to be an exhibitionist. I mean, they're wonderful. So anyway. And, you know, what we saw is how much did people turn towards their partner? And I'm not talking physically, but more emotionally or just with interest when their partner made a bid for connection? Well, you know, maybe you'd think in an ideal world, the masters would do that, I don't know, 99% of the time. Well, they didn't. They did it 86% of the time, which is great. You know, that's pretty high, but it's not perfection. Right?

• 21:21Speaker 03

  There's going to be times when, for example, you go to your partner, you want to talk to your partner about something. They're on their computer. They've got a work assignment to finish. Okay, so they're not going to be there for you in that moment. All right, so is that a crime? Is that a terrible thing? No, it's not. So the person on the end of that, the receiving end of it, is accepting that, okay, they're busy. I'll find another time to talk to them. Meanwhile, the disasters only turn towards each other in terms of really responding to their partner's bid for connection 33% of the time.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  So look at that difference. There's a 53% difference in the time that masters turn towards one another versus disasters. Nonetheless, it's not perfect. So you're accepting the fact that your partner isn't perfect, but they're doing their best.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Can you talk about these bids? Because one of the, one of the things that Jonathan and I often talk about, you know, in our work relationship, is Jonathan really likes to brainstorm. He likes to, you know, think up things that haven't yet been created and see if we can create them together. And he, I think what he's doing is making bids, and I normally shut them down, and I don't want to do that. Can you talk a little bit specifically about bids for connection? And can you also talk about the difference between

• 23:06Speaker 04

  turning towards 100% of the time and what can be, you know, I don't mean to use a flashy term, but you know, where does codependency come in to this conversation? Is there a fine line here?

• 23:19Speaker 03

  Oh, God, I love that question. Okay, so, let's see. So first of all, in terms of turning towards one another, what are we talking about? So when somebody makes a bid for connection, what that means is it can be as simple as saying, hey, John, look out the window. There's, there's a beautiful boat out there, or something like that. Okay, so John might say, huh, pretty nice. That is turning toward. It can be the smallest little thing, little bitsy. So when Jonathan is brainstorming, right, and bringing up lots of, you know,

• 24:04Speaker 04

  Pretty boats.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Creative ideas, birds in trees, you know, that's been on, I don't know, Instagram or something. Then, all you really have to do to turn towards him is say, huh, that's interesting. Period. You don't have to give a long exposition about why that idea is a good idea or not such a great idea. So, you know, it's just a matter of saying, "Your words matter to me. You count. You're not invisible. Your thinking matters to me, even if I don't agree with it, even though it's, you know, not my favorite thing to do to brainstorm.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  Nonetheless, it's kind of parallel to John and I driving down the road. You know, I'm usually the driver. And he says, "Let me tell you about this incredible mathematical discovery I made." Boom, I glaze over, right? So I'm like, "What?" You know, I don't know what he's saying. But what I do is say, "Oh gee, tell me more." And then I, you know, think about our grocery list or something. But I try to listen and try and understand. Okay, so that's turning toward.

• 25:24Speaker 04

  And also, I just want to clarify, you're not talking about pretending that you're interested in things or being interested in things that you're not interested in because you want to maintain a connection and feel like you need to coddle your partner. We're not talking about like, "You're so amazing. Tell me all about your socks that you bought." You're talking about, "You matter. Whatever matters to you matters to me because it matters to you, even if it's not to the same degree and even if I don't necessarily agree with it." The common denominator in, with me and Jonathan and me and my children is me in terms of what do I feel I have patience for? What do I have tolerance for? What's acceptable? What's... I mean, I didn't know any of these things as a parent or in my marriage.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  So that's why we got here. But I just wanted to clarify that you're not talking about pretending to be enamored with some aspect that is not for you, but it's giving enough attention so that that person gets validation that they matter.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  That's correct. Yeah, sure. I was being facetious. I really do try and understand. But the glazing over part actually does happen after about 10 minutes. I have to confess. Julie, say something about the codependency thing. Yeah, okay. So, you know, codependency is one of those words that actually cropped up in the 80s around the adult children of alcoholics movement. Where people were enabling somebody in the family who was alcoholic.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  And that was its original meaning. So you were covering for somebody if they were hungover one day.

• 27:04Speaker 04

  It's often called a co or a para alcoholic.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, something like that. So that's where the term codependency came from. And over the decades, it's gotten generalized into meaning the wrong thing. What people think it means now is that, oh gee, you lean on your partner too much. You're too needy, right? You're expecting your partner, wanting your partner to fulfill, you know, too many needs. You depend on them to be the one and only for all those. And therefore, that's a bad thing. You shouldn't express as many needs. You shouldn't be needy. And this comes from a movement in psychotherapy, both individual and couples therapy,

• 27:52Speaker 03

  where people are supposed to be individuals. They're supposed to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, right? Sounds very American, doesn't it? And you're not supposed to really need people. And in particular, this hurt women. Women who, yeah, had emotional needs and would express them. And therefore, they were called irrational, illogical, not individuals, and quote, codependent. Okay. Well, here's the thing. Human beings are pack animals. We do not survive unless we depend on one another, right?

• 28:36Speaker 03

  We have to lean on each other in order to survive. And we've actually seen this in the research in longevity, where people who live alone, who don't have a support system, who don't express their needs, live a shorter time with a lot more illness than folks who are in a family where they do depend on one another.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  The reality, and this is what we saw in our research, is that turning toward, where one person is expressing a need towards the other person, and the other person is responding to it, which could be called codependency, is actually one of the most functional things you can do in a relationship.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  That's, so there isn't really a line between codependency and turning towards, except when it comes to addiction.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  And again, women are the ones who've been criticized the most for being codependent, because they often want to express their needs a little bit more than men, who are even trained and socially conditioned more so to not depend on anyone and be autonomous.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  Whoa, whoa, that's a huge point. I really would love for you to talk a bit more about that, because, you know, a lot of, a lot of what, what I got in looking at the new marriage clinic, and, you know, kind of knowing about how you counsel people, you know, how your books and also, you know, you individually counsel people is, I'll be honest, I feel like you're asking too much of men in particular. And I know, I know that's not true, and it's not that I don't believe that men cannot rise to the occasion, but, you know, part of me wonders, and this is, you know, really kind of devil's advocate here,

• 30:36Speaker 04

  part of me wonders if like, these techniques, and I want you to tell me that I'm wrong, if these techniques are, you know, kind of a luxury. You know, part of me looks at some of the conversations that you're facilitating, and my fear is that a lot of, and forgive me for being gendered about it, but that a lot of men are, you know, culturally and socially constructed to not really engage this deeply in this kind of emotional understanding and conversation. And I know a lot of women who have decided to date women. Women, not because they feel particularly lesbian, but because they want to be with someone who has more of an emotional vocabulary from the get go.

• 31:18Speaker 04

  And the fact is, you know, men can go along their merry way. And there's plenty of women who don't want that level of emotional connection with men and want other aspects of a relationship with the guy. But I wonder if you can sort of talk about this notion of, you know, women have very specific needs as homo sapiens. Men do as well, but the, the kind of pack animal structure typically revolved around women and children hanging out together. And the dudes who were farsighted because they would, you know, make baskets with the ladies. Your primary emotional connection as a primate female really has not been a male that you have to live in a box with

• 32:02Speaker 04

  for your whole life. You, you know, you, you typically were getting a lot of stimulation, validation, information from other women, who for the most part were more interested in the kind of connection that you were. But the need to procreate or the need to be intimate in a sexual sense was often satisfied by a communal need to further the species. But, you know, oftentimes, you know, when I was married, like I would look at this person and be like, I don't know if we're supposed to be doing this, raising our kids with nobody else in this house for decades. Help. Right.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Can I say something about that? I, I think that men's need for friendship and emotional connection is really undervalued. When men, you know, our ancestors who survived, hunted cooperatively or protected the tribe or were involved with their children as men were in the past and still are now. There's a tremendous need that men have for. Being connected, even in war, it's the connection between soldiers that really matters in the success of any battle.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  It's that connection that is so deep and powerful. And in some ways, men are different stylistically. You know, we stand shoulder to shoulder rather than eye to eye and face the world together. But it's stylistically different, but it's not really very different. You know, in research that studied friendship among men, sometimes it takes a little alcohol before men wind up actually putting their arms around one another and, you know, and saying, you know, you're such a great guy. I really need you. Thanks for being there with me and I'll be there for you forever. You know, camaraderie is really important to men,

• 34:07Speaker 02

  among men, and very important between men and women. Very often, the only confidant a man has really is his female partner.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Let me jump in here as well. You know, I think what you're describing, Mayim, you know, is absolutely true. In prehistoric times, back to our primate ancestors and so on, men would disperse amongst themselves, go out into the field, go, you know, kill game and so on, or protect the women and the children who gathered, at least that's the theory at this point, who gathered food from all the growth around them, the vegetable growth and the roots and berries and so on.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  However, a lot of stuff has changed. And I think women, the women's liberation movement, which took women out of the home and out into the field to work to achieve.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  What do I want to say? Fulfillment of other parts of themselves left men with more responsibility, or at least women hoping men would take on more responsibility for the home, for the family. I know, I know where you're going with this. And, but, you know, I'm here to say that since the 60s, when, what was the guy's name? John something or other. He chained himself to his wife's bed in a hospital to be participating in the birth of the child. John Quinn, right. It was cute. Anyway, and wanted to be there

• 36:05Speaker 03

  for the birth of the child, wanted to take the child as the mother gave birth and so on. Fathers have been so much more involved with their children than they ever have been before, at least more than I've ever seen in my 73 years. And with that comes emotional connection, comes more freedom to feel. When men were separated from their families, you know, with the assignment really to go out, make money, provide, you know, it's kind of a parallel to going out and hunting. Bring the food back, bring the money back, right?

• 36:50Speaker 03

  But all of that is changing now. Men don't have as much of a burden in terms of supporting the whole family that men used to have. Women now are helping participate in that. There's much more of a trade-off and a balancing of honoring each other's dreams in terms of career, in terms of schooling, education, you know, whatever it is. And as a result, you know, there's nothing like having a child to connect you with.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  A love that is beyond anything you've ever experienced before. That's true for most people, no matter how pathological they are or what gender they are. So as men connect more with their children, they crack open their hearts and they begin to feel things that they haven't felt before, at least not expressively before. They feel sorrow. They feel compassion for their kids. They feel fear all the time. There's something terrible is going to happen to their kids. They can talk about that. They can talk about that with their mates as well.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  And so it's a changing world, slowly, slowly, slowly, where men are getting freed, really, from the chains of their social conditioning to be able to voice more vulnerable feelings that used to be very, very critically labeled as feminine feelings, i.e. the ones that are more vulnerable. So thank goodness for that, that men are experiencing more emotional freedom and women are getting to experience both emotional and more intellectual freedom.

• 38:57Speaker 04

  Why has this become politicized? Because a lot of the things you're talking about are often viewed from the lens of that's for, you know, I grew up on Free to be You and Me, right? The record. And, you know, the Alan Alda was sort of like that image of that man. But a lot of this has become politicized where I don't think it should be. And I'm sure that there are exceptions, but I feel like there's this sort of notion of like, that's for the liberal hippies, you know, wanting to like talk about their feelings and the dad wanting to, you know, be so loving and communicative. And, you know, I do, I hear this sort of like, you know, I speak lots of places in this, you know, great country.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  And, you know, there's a lot of places in the country where I interact with a lot of people who are really not interested in having men who have this level of feeling, involvement, or opinions. So why has this become politicized? And why shouldn't it be?

• 39:57Speaker 03

  Oh, God, what a great question. You are brilliant. Here are my thoughts about it, and John, I'm sure you'll have some too, which is that this was a country that allegedly was born with the values of pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And I think that came from the fact that we are a country of immigrants. We're a country who had to flee, you know, other countries for different kinds of persecution and prejudice, came to this country, of course, committed genocide in order to grasp this

• 40:36Speaker 03

  country, unfortunately, and were pioneers. And the spirit of being a pioneer is literally to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, grow that corn, pray to God you don't get a drought, and try to survive, right? Well, it was a group effort, but men got a lot of the credit for that, I think. So that, that particular value of being an individual, being, you know, your own person, it's, it's born and bred into this country. It's part of our capitalist economy.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  And this is obviously a country that's very anti-socialist in the sense of Scandinavian socialism, where you provide safety nets for people, right? Which is much more embracing of everybody and trying to take care of everybody. And no accident that Sweden, Denmark, and Norway all have a Minister of Gender Equality. Fascinating, isn't it? So, we do not, for obvious reasons.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  And so, you know, I think that that value still holds today. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, don't lean on anybody else.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  Well, I want to talk about something about men that I think is very important, and is true of all men. And that is that...

• 42:22Speaker 02

  We really shine in the area of play with our children very naturally. Men are really great playmates. Women are kind, sensitive and gentle teachers of their children. But men are like another child. We just jazz them up.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  I've never said that before, John. We noticed, we noticed.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  We, yeah, we just get down on a floor and play with them. We become the choo-choo train.

• 42:49Speaker 04

  There are gonna be dishes piled up, dirty laundry everywhere. Does nobody just play?

• 42:53Speaker 02

  Doesn't matter. If we just wanna have the most fun possible with our kids, we throw them around. We pick them up by their feet and, and hold them upside down and swing them around. And kids really prefer their dads as playmates. And by the way, it's not biology. So, uh, but we shine in the area of play. And it turns out, research shows that children's intellectual and emotional development is really greatly enhanced by developing the skills of emotion regulation, which they, which kids learn from their dads primarily. Cause dads get bored with the play, they start new play. The kids have to really follow along.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  And so that's independent of whether they're Republican or Democrat, or rural or urban. And so the key really is that when men connect with their children, rather than being distant and punitive toward their children, but really are connected and loving toward their children, the children thrive and everybody thrives. So this politicization that you talked about of roles between men and women is damaging to everyone and really needs to be eliminated.

• 44:15Speaker 04

  I would have a lot more time in general is what I think a lot of women are thinking. I would have a lot more time to play and even, you know, have more time for myself if the bulk of housework and childcare in terms of, you know, food prep and stuff did not still fall on the woman, even when she is the primary breadwinner. I think that's a more, obviously more complicated, but I do want to, you know, honor this notion that there are different kinds of play that, um, that are, you know, important and fundamental for development and generally will fall on those kinds of gender lines, although of course there are exceptions.

• 44:51Jonathan Cohen?

  John, who traditionally in the research has been more unhappy in a relationship?

• 44:58Speaker 02

  Women overwhelmingly.

• 45:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:02Speaker 04

  Like, are we unhappy because we're unable to be pleased or are we unhappy because there's really something wrong?

• 45:07Speaker 03

  There's too much laundry. That's the problem.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  There's too much laundry.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  Well, it is, it is, it is a research fact that men who do more housework and childcare get more sex.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  Specifically vacuuming. Vacuuming is the key to more sex.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  So, um, but, but it's true that, um, I think women have more requirements, um, especially, you know, for intimacy than men do. Men are much more easily satisfied, I think, Jonathan. Um, and, and part of it is that, um, you know, we're kind of stupid. Um, you know, we, you know, we don't notice a lot of needs, you know, that people have and, and we don't respond to them unless, you know, they really get our attention. So, um, women, you know, typically

• 46:06Speaker 02

  have had a different relationship with the emotion of fear than men have. The world has always been a much more dangerous place for women and infants than it has been for men. So, you know, a national probability study that was done in the United States has shown that, uh, the probability that a woman will be severely attacked sexually and physically in her lifetime is 40% and for men it's 9%.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  So the world is so much more dangerous place for women. In Japan, they have a pink train so that women can just, just for women. So they don't get groped, which they do in the regular train. So because of that, and because women have traditionally had the responsibility for keeping their infants alive and being aware of danger, sitting in a circle, even our non-primate, non-human primate cousins, when they eat, the females with the infants sit in a circle so they can have a 360 view, degree view of potential predators. Women have this different experience of fear.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  And so, safety is absolutely important for a woman. Even to feel like a situation is erotic, they have to feel safe. And that means they have to feel emotionally connected to their men. You know, as, as Billy Crystal once said, "Women need a reason for sex, men only need a place." Women have more requirements.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, so let me jump in here a little bit. So, yeah, John is, this John, is absolutely right about this. You know, if you put these pieces together, where men, first of all, are socially conditioned to be much more autonomous and to not express their needs as much as women. But sex is an important need for men. And they're wanting sex as a way, oftentimes, to actually get physical connection. Men are not going to be asked to be held, to be cuddled, right? To just cuddle with me on the couch, right?

• 48:31Speaker 03

  They want to have sex because it's too soft, it's too wimpy to ask. It's too infantile to ask to be held. Women, on the other hand, as John said, 40% over a lifetime, it's 25% of girls by the age of 18 have been sexually molested. So think about, you know, think about the kind of fear that women are living with all the time.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  And as a result,

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Women are looking to have their needs met for safety. And what does safety look like? Well, it looks like knowing that they're loved, knowing that somebody wants to be with them, knowing that somebody respects them, which is, in some ways, a very new phenomenon, because there's a lot to respect in women, but it remained underground until women really started to get out in the world and work in the world itself.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  And so, women's emotional needs for support are, I don't know, you know, they're more visible, they're more transparent, I guess. Especially, too, because we are conditioned to believe that it's okay to express the vulnerable emotions. It's not okay to express the powerful ones, like anger, you know? We're called the B-word if we express anger, which is much more of an energized, empowering emotion, actually. Men get to experience and express that one. Women don't as much.

• 50:29Speaker 03

  So, as a result, when women have a feeling of vulnerability, not necessarily being loved, not being important, a man, you know, choosing to go play golf instead of being with his wife when she's having a hysterectomy, you know, we've had cases like that. Well, women have a lot to complain about, you see? Lots and lots and lots.

• 50:57Speaker 02

  But there is a fundamental biological difference. And we see this even in eight-year-old children. You know, when eight-year-old boys are playing run-and- chase games. There and and there's a conflict that comes up between the kids. Their ultimate goal is resolving the conflict quickly so they can get back to the game and play the game and have the maximum amount of fun. When you look at eight-year-old girls playing with one another, the conflict is the most important thing and talking about the relationship is the most important thing. That intimacy, it's not at all about what they're doing. It's about how they connect face to face emotionally. It's totally different.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  You know, men and women are so different. And so men are satisfied by much less interpersonally than women are. Intimacy is so much more important to them. And I think part of that is really that they are the ones who nurture children.

• 51:58Speaker 04

  I think that's that's very well said. I I do wanna I wanna bring up the issue of monogamy because from the time that you, you know, started your work, which was at a time when we were sort of in the middle of a wellspring of consciousness-expanding notions of sex, sexuality, you know, transcendental experiences, tuning in, turning on and dropping out. You know, the the free love era is sort of right when, you know, the the two of you, you know, were sort of starting this work, or at least the the immediate aftermath of that. And, you know, when you talk about the respect that women deserve, you know, we also, you

• 52:44Speaker 04

  know, we're seeing a really different perspective on relationships with a lot of young people and even some middle-aged and older people. There seems to be this sort of general notion in, you know, in the zeitgeist of social media, which I, you know, try and avoid at all costs. But, you know, this this notion that, you know, taking back, for women, taking back our sexual power means having sex like men do, or not feeling like you need to be attached, or I can, you know, have that kind of freedom and see that as liberating. But what often happens is there really has been, I would say, you know, a kind of breakdown in the notions of serial monogamy. And, you know, I I don't mean to put you on the spot like this, but I do wanna know,

• 53:29Speaker 04

  with your decades and decades of research about connection, about relating, about what feels safe, about what You know, what predicts longevity and true contentment and, you know, personal growth that only comes from intimacy? What can we say about the kind of notion of like, doesn't really matter if you're, you know, with one person? Or you can have many sexual relationships and still feel connected? Or you can have many sexual and intimate relationships, which like, I can barely manage half of one. So I don't know how people do it. But this really seems to be something that's kind of like in the water right now, especially if you live like where we do in Los Angeles.

• 54:13Speaker 04

  Like, it's everywhere. And I feel like such a fuddy duddy. You know, you're not supposed to even ask someone, do you have a girlfriend or boyfriend? Because it's presuming, you know, monogamy.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, can I say something about that? I think the answer to your question lies in a new field that's developed in the past 50 years called social epidemiology. And epidemiologists who study, you know, disease and illness and pandemics were really interested, and particularly this guy at Berkeley named Leonard Sime, was really interested in longevity and thought that diet and cholesterol were the important ingredients and not having arteries that are clogged up with cholesterol and plaque. And so he's studying these immigrant populations, Chinese Americans and Mexican Americans and then Anglo-Americans.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  And sure enough, the diets were different. But what accounted for the difference in longevity in these populations? And he did this classic study called the Alameda County Study with 9,000 people, was the quality of people's relationships, their closest relationships. And over the course of research in social epidemiology, what mattered the most to give people health and longevity and the ability to fight disease was the quality of their closest relationships. And those relationships had to have the ingredients of trust, high levels of trust and high levels of commitment.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  In other words, you're really cherishing another person and saying, "There's nothing in the world that can replace you. You're it for me." And when a love relationship and a family relationship has those qualities of trust and commitment, people are healthier, they recover from illness faster, they live longer, and their children prosper more, much, much more, dramatically more. And so, these casual relationships just don't give people those qualities. They don't get that if they have casual relationships. They have to have deep, committed, and trusting relationships.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, let me add to that. Again, I keep thinking of historical perspectives on some of these questions.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  You're right that our research began in the age of free love, right? Where women were finally, you know, getting out into the, into the world outside the home. And a lot of people think that women had fewer affairs before that time or were more monogamous because they didn't have access to men. They were in the home, all the other women were in the home. They had coffee, you know, in the backyard of somebody, and that was about it. That's who they met.

• 57:18Speaker 03

  But, over time, I think what's happened is also as women have gotten out into the world has been compounded by another factor. And that is that our divorce rates have been high for quite some time. You know, they've been close to 50%. And when kids are raised seeing parents break up...

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Seeing parents divorce. What ends up happening is the kids grow up with less faith in the institution of marriage, in the institution of commitment, no matter, you know, what gender it is to, you know, that you're committing to, except lesbian women have, you know, a lot more monogamy, I think, than gay men. However, for heterosexual couples, there's, there's fear. You know, we keep coming back to fear. There's a lot more fear of people really committing themselves to another human being

• 58:27Speaker 03

  for the course of a lifetime because they've seen that fail over and over and over again in their own families and in the families of their friends. So it's very scary to really quote unquote, "put all your eggs in one basket" and commit to somebody for a lifetime so they don't. And along with that, of course, has become, has come social media, internet access to people all over the globe, and much more availability of people who want some kind

• 59:08Speaker 03

  of oxytocin release, which you get, which is the hormone of bonding and some joy there, when you have sex with somebody, but still, they're wanting to protect themselves from the failure they might feel if they committed and that commitment failed.

• 59:32Speaker 04

  Are, are people more able to voice being bored with only having one sexual partner? Is that part of what might be going on? Like that people are finally free to be like, "I don't want to have sex with the same person for the rest of my life." I don't know.

• 59:48Speaker 03

  Well, here's the thing. You know, there are some theories out there, not going to name any names, but there are some theories out there that if you get emotionally close to your partner and you keep having sex with the same person and you're emotionally close to them, you get bored. You know, that's where the boredom comes from. You know this person so well, inside and out, that, ah, what's the big deal? You want a sense of mystery. You want to have sex with somebody you don't know really well, because that's exciting and maybe more sexually arousing.

• 1:00:29Speaker 04

  Because they don't have needs that you have to tend to.

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, no kidding. They don't have laundry you have to wash. So, you know, laundry seems to be also the theme today. So, as a result, there's, you know, people are just afraid, afraid, afraid to move forward in a relationship where they're emotionally close. And so, it's kind of justified as, oh, it's boredom. But, you know, the reality is that, and this

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  is what we've seen in our research, this is what a study that looked at 70,000 couples from 24 countries found, that was written about in a book called The Normal Bar, that, you know, the baker's dozen, the 13 characteristics of a couple where there's a lot of wonderful passion and romance that's sustained over decades, the characteristics of a relationship like that are actually emotional intimacy.

• 1:01:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:01:44Speaker 03

  You know, there's closeness, there's friendship, there's dependency, there's...

• 1:01:51Speaker 03

  Cuddling, kissing, hugging, you know, all the stuff that connotes emotional intimacy. And so the whole theory that gee, we get bored and we need mystery is actually wrong. And it's been shown to be wrong in study after study.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  It's called the Coolidge effect in our, in our field because Calvin Coolidge and his wife were being shown this farm and, and, and there was a rooster there. And the farmer pointed out that this rooster had sex 15 times a day. And Mrs. Coolidge said, tell that to the president. And when the president came by, the, the farmer said, you know, Mrs. Coolidge wanted me to tell you about this rooster that has sex 15 times a day. And the president said, with the same hen? And the farmer said, no, always a different hen.

• 1:02:54Speaker 02

  And Calvin Coolidge said, tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.

• 1:03:00Speaker 04

  Maybe we can turn a little bit to, to, to other things that, you know, that, that people are doing right.

• 1:03:09Speaker 04

  You know, I think that the, you have this, this really, you know, beautiful, very long, you know, list, you know, of the things that you can do to sort of increase connection.

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  I hate to keep playing devil's advocate, but I want to sort of hear you support, you know, support this in a way that I think will be helpful for people.

• 1:03:33Speaker 04

  You know, you, you talk about the managerial marriage and I think a lot of people can relate to that. And I think that the managerial marriage for a lot of people is, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a straw person or straw man, as we used to say, it's a straw person in that it's the things that we say are the actual problem for why we can't get close. Right? Can you talk a bit about the managerial marriage? Because I think parenting has changed so much. And I think one of the things is when you have, you know, two parents working or when you have a single parent, everything does feel like a schedule, something to manage or control. Yeah. Can you speak to the managerial marriage and sort of what, what happens when that takes over?

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Sloan Center at UCLA did a study of thirty dual-career couples in Los Angeles. And they discovered, they put microphones and cameras in there, in these people's homes. And they discovered that they were in the same room less than ten percent in an evening. Ten percent of the time they were in, ninety percent of the time, they were in different rooms. And the average amount of talk that these couples had was about thirty-five minutes a week. And almost all of that talk was about errands, who's gonna do what, when?

• 1:04:55Speaker 02

  And so, these couples had really abandoned romance, adventure, playfulness, fun. And we did a study with forty thousand couples about to start couples therapy, gay and lesbian and heterosexual couples. And eighty percent of them said fun had come to die in their relationship. It's not just sex and romance. It's really about adventure, learning together. A lot of these things get shut down in the interest of just managing complexities of two careers and children. And that's something that couples have to intentionally maintain in their relationship.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  And when they do, as Julie mentioned, that study in the book, The Normal Bar, when they continue to maintain play and friendship and cuddling, they wind up having a great sex life for the rest of their relationship.

• 1:05:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, let me also put this in a cultural context. Again, you know, in this country, people who are out there working are typically working at least forty hours a week. A lot of times, they're working more than that. Well, that, you know, we don't realize, because we're so nearsighted, how skewed that is towards working so hard compared to, you know, folks in France, for example, who are working 35 hours a week as a standard, and they're fighting to make it 32. I mean, wow, wouldn't that be sweet?

• 1:06:37Speaker 03

  So as a result, you know, we are so stacked up over our heads with tasks, so many tasks that we have to perform. Plus, as a very competitive society, that means our kids have to beat out everybody else, which means our kids have to be engaged in 25 different extracurricular activities, including advanced math. What is it about math today? Anyway, advanced math, to, you know, prepare for the world, the competitive world. So, parents are just over their heads with so much stuff that they're trying to navigate. So, you know, what we're talking about in our book

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  is how crucial it is that the relationship not disappear beneath the waters of all that managerial stuff that we have to do, that the relationship not drown. And thus, it takes concerted effort to carve out the time for what we call rituals of connection. Rituals of connection mean times you can count on, you can predict that you may even co-design to spend time together, just being together, and maybe just talking about your day, or not managing tasks, but talking about...

• 1:08:05Speaker 03

  The emotional experiences of your day, or the stresses of your day, or your hopes and dreams. A beautiful example is a couple that I treated where he'd had a couple of affairs and they were really trying hard to rebuild their relationship. And part of the problem with it was they were so busy. I mean, they had the executive, they had the executive, not even the managerial marriage. And so as a ritual of connection, they carved out time once a week that they called dream time. I just love that.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  Where they would sit on a couch together, facing one another, and just sharing their dreams and how their dreams were taking shape over time and morphing over time as to what values they really wanted to uphold to create meaning for both themselves individually and for the relationship itself and what they as a couple could contribute to the world. That's a ritual of connection and we're needing more and more of those.

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  And we're about to go on our annual honeymoon.

• 1:09:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, yay.

• 1:09:29Speaker 02

  Very soon.

• 1:09:30Speaker 03

  Yay, that's right. What's your annual honeymoon? Oh, it's so cool. So we were actually married thirty-seven years ago. But when our daughter was eight years old, she went to overnight camp, you know, for a couple of weeks. Summer camp. We decided we would go to camp too. So we took ourselves to a B and B without cameras in Canada on Salt Spring Island. We took our kayak and we just went kayaking for like nine days. And we talked, not about work, we talked about...

• 1:10:10Speaker 03

  How did the year go for us? You know, what were the great things about last year? What were the hard things about last year? Where are we now? And what do we want the next year to look like? Well, that's an expanded dream time, if you will.

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  It was, you know, the first year was just magic. It was incredible to have limitless conversation, at least for nine days. It was just so wonderful.

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  And this is year 25.

• 1:10:43Speaker 03

  And this is year 25.

• 1:10:45Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:10:45Speaker 03

  Yahoo.

• 1:10:46Speaker 04

  What are, what are some of the other things that you recommend people do? Cause I think a lot of people, you know, probably feel like this is not the ideal relationship or it's not going well, or it's not exactly what I thought it would be. How do you get things sort of to a place of seeing if you can get it on track? What are some of the other suggestions you have?

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  One, one story that, that we love to tell is about a couple who really had a managerial relationship for quite a long time and they, and their daughter was eight years old at the time and they were really thinking about getting a divorce. And one of them suggested going to couples therapy. So they went to this couples therapist and the couples therapist said, you know, the problem in your relationship is that you don't play anymore with each other. So I want you to go into the backyard and it's summertime. Get your, get your hose and create a big pile of mud and have a mud fight.

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  And they, and they left that therapist and they said, this guy's nuts. Let's fire this guy. And they told their daughter about this and she said, let's try it. And they did it. And pretty soon, they were covered with mud and laughing with each other. All three of them were laughing and throwing mud at each other. And something broke open in that relationship. And they started realizing how much they had missed adventure and play and really loving each other. And it turned the marriage around, just that one mud fight.

• 1:12:33Speaker 02

  So that's what we recommend for a lot of couples, that they really open up those worlds of play, adventure, learning together, taking a cooking class together, almost anything.

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  And having a mud fight. You know, that's the key to a great marriage, unless you live in Arizona, when it's a waste of water. But let me talk about a few other things that really help a marriage that is struggling. You know, one is that when marriages are struggling, people grow distant from one another. They're really afraid to bring up problems in the relationship because it's going to lead to conflict. Conflict won't be resolved. They'll use the wrong methods of speaking to one another. It will hurt one another and cause, you know, some emotional wounds.

• 1:13:27Speaker 03

  And so they stop bringing up their problems in order to just have peace and quiet. And they grow more and more emotionally distant over time. So as we like to say, marriages don't end with a shout, you know, they end with a whimper. What couples often really need to do, first of all, is to carve out time to talk about what they need from the relationship. And they don't bring up what their needs are by bringing up criticisms or contempt,

• 1:14:08Speaker 03

  you know, which are the big predictors, a couple of them, of relationship demise. Instead, they may speak something like this. They may say, you know, honey, I've been really feeling lonely lately.

• 1:14:21Speaker 03

  I've really been missing you. And it just seems like we're ships, you know, passing at night and we almost never connect. And I would love to have time every week. It's just a couple of hours of us either taking a walk or just connecting at a deeper level with you because I miss that connection. Now, listen to how different that sounds than somebody saying, "Man, you know, you're so rejecting. You've been abandoning me for the last year and you're making me miserable. And why are you doing that? You know, are you having an affair?

• 1:15:06Speaker 03

  You know, it's just, it's, it sounds so different when you describe the other person versus describing yourself and what you're feeling inside and what you need from your partner that is a positive need. Not a negative need, which means expressing a resentment and saying, "I wish you'd stop doing that," but a positive need, which means, "Here's how you can shine for me. This would feel so good if you could just do this, you know, a little bit more. Give me a hug when you walk through the door at the end of the day,

• 1:15:49Speaker 03

  as opposed to just going straight into your den and going to your computer." So, you know, things like that can really make a difference where you're being honest and forthright about where you're living inside you, letting your partner inside that space and knowing who you are.

• 1:16:14Speaker 03

  And also getting instruction about how to make you feel better, which in turn will probably make that partner feel better.

• 1:16:23Speaker 04

  Well, that is super helpful. And I think also, as someone who has spent some time in couples therapy, you know, that kind of conversation, in my experience, really often does need some support, some guidance, some guardrails. And, you know, I don't mean to be like touting your book like this, but that's what this book does is, you know, for a lot of people, it's cost prohibitive to get resources for a good therapist. There's a lot of bad therapists, but to get a good therapist who really understands this kind of work, that's kind of what, you know, the, the book, which is, you know, it's meaty. It's a reference book. Like, this is sort of your book that sort of walks you through. And there's a lot of really great examples. I wonder if we could do another example, because I like how you

• 1:17:08Speaker 04

  talk. So Jonathan, do you want to suggest one? Why don't you suggest something that I'm always picking on you about? And we can see the better way for me to do it.

• 1:17:19Jonathan Cohen?

  I think we should tie this to the area of bad conflict. Because Julie, what you're suggesting is we're presenting a need. And when we present a need in a specific way that isn't in criticism, we have a much higher chance of being met by our partner and for that need to be going, to be received. However, a lot of people, especially if they're used to finding their faults, pointing out what doesn't work, they may fall into the category of the four horsemen. So maybe we can describe some of those four horsemen, explain how

• 1:18:01Jonathan Cohen?

  they're playing out and do the opposite of them, contempt being obviously a huge one.

• 1:18:06Speaker 03

  Okay, so when John and Bob did the original research, following couples without intervening, you know, for as long as 20 years and doing that with over 3,000 couples, they found there were four really significant predictors of relationship demise. You're referring to Jonathan, called the four horsemen of the apocalypse, big predictors of disaster. So what they are, first of all, is criticism. Criticism means blaming a problem on a personality flaw of your partner. You're so lazy, you're so thoughtless, you're so inconsiderate. What's the matter with you? Never.

• 1:18:49Speaker 03

  You always, you never, you know, those words imply personality flaws, right? Or what's the matter with you? I mean, how are you supposed to answer that question? Where do I begin? I can't answer that. Don't give them an opening for that. Okay, so that's criticism, okay. Contempt is real sulfuric acid for a relationship. It totally destroys relationships. Is that eye rolling? It includes eye rolling. So it can be both facially expressed or verbally expressed.

• 1:19:25Speaker 03

  And what it means is criticism with the extra spice of disgust, scorn, really looking down your nose. Disdain, beautiful, yes.

• 1:19:40Speaker 02

  Superiority.

• 1:19:41Speaker 03

  Superiority, that's right. You are superior, your partner is inferior. Sarcasm fits into that, mockery fits into that, name-calling, you know, calling your partner nasty names, that kind of stuff. All of that is contempt. And it not only destroys the relationship, it also destroys the immune system of the listener, which blows our minds. Yeah.

• 1:20:10Speaker 03

  Another study found that the number of times a listener heard contempt from their partner in 15 minutes correlated highly with the number of infectious illnesses that listener would have in the next four years. I mean, it's incredible. So contempt is awful. Defensiveness is another one. That's the hardest one to overcome. Where we're either whining in refusal to admit something that's wrong, like, "I did too pay the bills," or we are counterattacking. "Oh, yeah? Well, you never pick up the dry cleaning."

• 1:20:53Speaker 03

  You know, it's something that just pushes back on what the person is saying as opposed to actually taking it in and listening to it. And then the fourth is stonewalling.

• 1:21:09Speaker 04

  Oh, it's so painful. This is a really painful one.

• 1:21:11Speaker 03

  Stonewalling is horrible, yeah. What we found with stonewalling is that people will shut down as if the other person isn't even there. They will not give any facial recognition, like nodding their heads, you know, smiling, or just looking at them and with recognition of what they're saying. They won't speak to them. They may turn away from them. And that doesn't go on just for seconds. It may go on for minutes or even longer, sometimes even days. So stonewalling, we found, was highly correlated with the individual who was stonewalling

• 1:21:55Speaker 03

  being physiologically in fight or flight inside their bodies. They were feeling attacked. And the attack caused that reaction of fight or flight. "I gotta get the heck out of here or fight back." And they would go inside themselves, cutting off the external stimuli, i.e. the other person, in order to self-sue. Because physically, sitting there in fight or flight feels horrible physically. So they would try and self-sue and talk to themselves, you know, rather than the other. So. What to do when you have a terrible conflict?

• 1:22:39Speaker 03

  The first step, as I mentioned, was describing yourself and what your needs are, your feelings and your needs. The second thing, though, that really creates emotional connection and intimacy is something we've called the dream within conflict. And this is what it looks like. One person will simply ask the other partner a series of questions to more deeply understand that first person's point of view. What are they really saying? And where does that come from?

• 1:23:20Speaker 03

  So they put their own point of view on the back burner, just temporarily, in order to just listen to the answers of the other person with questions like, do you have any values, ethics, or core needs that are part of your position on this issue? Is there some background history or childhood history or other relationship history that's part of your position on this issue? Why is this so important to you?

• 1:23:54Speaker 04

  This is the third level in difficult conversations. There's what happened, there's how you feel about it, and then there's the meaning that you give to how you feel about it. So you're asking people to kind of get to that level.

• 1:24:06Speaker 03

  Exactly. Well, except, except.

• 1:24:08Speaker 04

  I got an exactly from John and I got an except from Julie. I'm going with John.

• 1:24:13Speaker 03

  You know why? No, don't go with John because I'm the one who's OCD and like really perfectionistic. So, okay. So here was the only little, little tiny divot in that answer, which was, it's not about a past, past thing. It's about a current problem. We have a different way of dealing with past big fights. Okay, so with a current conflict, it's step two. It's, okay, before we try and work on a resolution, I want to really understand where you're coming from and I want you to understand where I'm coming from. So why is this so important? Is there some underlying purpose or meaning

• 1:24:58Speaker 03

  to your position on this issue that is really crucial to you? And of course, what are you feeling about it? Is there an ideal dream? Exactly. Is there an ideal dream here? You know, there we go, back into dreams. And when you do that for a conflict, where you really have a difference of opinion about something, what happens is your understanding of the other person, as well as your feeling of being understood, is really expanded in a way that allows you a little more room for compassion, a little more room for understanding. Let me give you an example of that.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  I mean, this is a basic example, but it's really common. In a heterosexual relationship, the guy wants more sex. The woman doesn't. The woman is exhausted, she's got twins, you know, she's, she's just... Laundry. By the end of the day, of course she has laundry, and there's like seven loads of it, and it's all over the hallway, right? So, um, what do you do there? Well, when she talks about, "Look, you know, I just really can't have sex, don't want to have sex," as often as you may want it or need it, um, and he'll say, "Well, do

• 1:26:26Speaker 03

  you have any values or beliefs or ethics that are part of this?" Well, she might say, "Yeah, you know, one of them is that I, I have to be emotionally close to you in order to be sexually open to you. I can't do it unless I really feel emotionally close." Okay. All right, so that's one. Two, you go to background history. "Well, it just so happened that I was molested when I was 12 years old by the neighbor, and uh, I've never been the same since. I've always been a little afraid about sex, and when you approach me sexually, it's really

• 1:27:08Speaker 03

  hard for me to get pictures of that neighbor out of my head when you're approaching me." And the husband says, "What? You never told me that."

• 1:27:18Speaker 02

  That is a typical example of stuff that we see all the time when it comes to conflicts that could be as simple as who's going to drive the kids to school on Friday. Then you find out, you know, there's some history in there that jams up the gears and makes just saying yes much more difficult.

• 1:27:47Jonathan Cohen?

  John, can you talk a little bit more about contempt and the nervous and the immune system? That was just such a striking comment.

• 1:27:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:58Jonathan Cohen?

  I think we need to understand more because we're not just talking about, oh, are we going to be at peace? We're talking really about how we interact with each other is literally impacting our fundamental health.

• 1:28:12Speaker 02

  Exactly. Well, this relationship was really spelled out. So we actually know the mechanism through which people get sick through contempt. And this was a search done at Ohio State University by Jan Kiko Glazer and her husband Ron Glazer. Jan is a psychologist, Ron Glazer, an immunologist, and they also had an endocrinologist on their team. So rather than getting these signals that Bob and I got from electrodes, they actually had an indwelling catheter in each person's arm and they took small bits of blood from them while they were discussing a conflict issue.

• 1:28:57Speaker 02

  And what they discovered was the amount of stress hormones that are secreted, our two stress hormones are cortisol and adrenaline. That predicted whether the couple would get divorced or not in the next 10 years. So the couples who got divorced eventually, these were newlyweds they studied. Had much more cortisol and adrenaline getting secreted during the conflict discussion. And then because of Ron Glaser being an immunologist, they looked at the white blood cells, natural killer cells, T cells, B cells, macrophages and so on, and found that even in the course of a half an hour argument, the ability of the immune system, these parts

• 1:29:41Speaker 02

  of the immune system, to fight off a potential infection was decreased in 30 minutes and overall was much lower in those couples that were secreting adrenaline and cortisol. So that's the mechanism by which people get sick. Not only are T cells and B cells and macrophages problematic, but natural killer cells also are less cytotoxic and those are the cells that are guarding against tumor formation in the immune system. So you can see that overall health really gets compromised by contempt.

• 1:30:19Speaker 04

  Well, and also I just want to add a little caveat to that. This is not necessarily to say that the relationship alone can make you sick, but if you look at people as, you know, Julie, you have for your whole career, if you look at people who come from histories where their cortisol is already going to be elevated or they already have a dysregulation. Jonathan and I are, you know, kind of fixated on the number of autoimmune diagnoses that women in particular get, right? So you have all of these systems, which we also know has a link to complex PTSD and to trauma. So when people come into a relationship, if you already have a system that was not

• 1:31:02Speaker 04

  primed, let's say for optimal receptivity, what you're then having is when conflicts arrive, which they're going to, they have to, it's part of the normal, healthy course of relationships, as you talk about, the idea is not to have no conflict. The idea is to know how to have the right kind of approach when conflict arises. So if you have someone with an already compromised system and you add more to that, That's where it feels like, not speaking for myself, why would I do that? I don't know how to be in a relationship, right? Everything feels too hard. Everything feels scary. I keep needing to shut down. I'm using compensatory mechanisms. I need to drink or I need to smoke pot in order to have sex, right?

• 1:31:45Speaker 04

  Like, this is like the epidemic that we're living in, right, Jonathan?

• 1:31:49Jonathan Cohen?

  Yes, and um your bid for connection is received, and I think that was a great point.

• 1:31:58Jonathan Cohen?

  John, is it only contempt? Does criticism do the same thing? Does defensiveness is?

• 1:32:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it really, they, they used an observational coding system called the MIX, Marital Interaction Coding System, that Robert Weiss designed. And it's really all four horsemen that create this cortisol and adrenaline secretion that suppresses the immune system, you know, and, and you're absolutely right. You know, if there is any kind of PTSD response in, in a person, it lowers the threshold at which people start secreting adrenaline and cortisol. And that's been documented. It's true of combat soldiers coming back from war.

• 1:32:47Speaker 02

  The threshold is lower, so it takes less to set the whole thing off. And that's why safety is so important. Emotional safety is so important for everyone in a relationship, male or female.

• 1:33:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Do men or women tend towards one of the four horsemen exhibiting them more than others?

• 1:33:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:10Speaker 02

  So

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  everybody is equally defensive. I think guys tend to be a little bit more defensive than women. But criticism and contempt is much more likely for women than men.

• 1:33:23Speaker 04

  And stonewalling is much more likely for men.

• 1:33:26Speaker 02

  And stonewalling is, 85% of stonewallers were men.

• 1:33:30Speaker 04

  85%?

• 1:33:32Speaker 02

  85% of stonewallers were men. So it's really Guys are sort of having an internal monologue of, don't say anything. I can endure this.

• 1:33:44Speaker 04

  And look, to your point, not to throw it back in your face, but like, men want emotional connection. They want friendship. They want intimacy. They're not going to get it if they keep stonewalling me.

• 1:33:54Speaker 02

  Eighty percent of the time, women are bringing up the issues in a relationship. Only 20% of the time are men bringing it up.

• 1:34:02Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought it was criticism. No? Oh, good. We're innocent. Yay. Okay. But anyway, when we bring up issues, you know, we have to realize that what is creating the stonewalling is typically criticism or contempt.

• 1:34:18Speaker 04

  Which is not to say that women deserve to be stonewalled, but this is a process we need to understand. No, but I want to make sure.

• 1:34:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:25Speaker 04

  Because, you know, I'm like, the voice in the back of my head is like, oh, maybe if I don't say anything, I won't get stonewalled.

• 1:34:30Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, not so.

• 1:34:33Jonathan Cohen?

  Just say it slightly nicer and you won't get stonewalled.

• 1:34:37Speaker 03

  So, you know, it's, it's more about what you got role modeled for you as a kid, you know? And that, it's almost like you learn the language of conflict a lot of times from growing up in whatever family you did, right? So you learn that particular language and doing it any other way feels like a foreign language to you.

• 1:35:03Speaker 02

  Or you rebel against what you've seen.

• 1:35:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, can be. That's right. It can be done kind of with this, with a different pathway, but still related to that origin. So.

• 1:35:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. What's, what's really helpful about this book, the sort of 2.0 version, as you call it, is there's so much about it that reflects the times that we're living in, you know, both with your extra attention to different kinds of relationships, to homosexual and heterosexual relationships, and sort of presenting all of that research. But one of the things that. That has changed since, you know, the first time I started reading your books when I was married, you know, many moons ago. I think that technology has presented an extra challenge. And I actually see it, I see it a lot with, with my, my 18 year old.

• 1:35:59Speaker 04

  Those earbuds in his ear, which seems to be this sort of like ever-present soundtrack that he would like to his life.

• 1:36:09Speaker 04

  You know, this seems to be an extra new barrier to communication. Meaning every time I would like to interact with him about anything from, you know, where we're gonna eat breakfast, or what time we're leaving, or can you please grab like the laundry out of the machine? Like, everything now involves me saying it, not being heard, needing to make myself heard, needing to, forgive me, like walk upstairs instead of just being like, hey, you know, meaning no one can hear me anywhere in the house, and maybe they don't want to. But I see this also in relationships because so many people, you know, have this sort of like

• 1:36:51Speaker 04

  layer now of sort of protection. And it's funny because I was on a flight with my son recently, and there was really, really loud chattering just like going on of people who clearly were not paying attention to the fact that there was people right behind them and were stuck, you know, in a metal capsule for hours. He heard nothing because he has his own personal soundtrack. But I've also just noticed that it's really shifted communication. And I wonder if you can speak a little bit to not only, you know, AirPods in people's ears, but this notion that there's always something that is pulling us away when that phone is in our hand. There's, you can tell when someone is waiting for you to be done because they want to check their phone. Can you speak a little bit to the shift in relationships with technology?

• 1:37:38Speaker 03

  Yes, indeed.

• 1:37:40Speaker 02

  That's a great question.

• 1:37:41Speaker 03

  Oh, God, really. You know, technology is both a blessing and a bane to our existence. Right? And so there's been so much written now, especially about teenagers, and how they are plugged into technology. God, almost all the time, you know, during classes, during dinnertime, during

• 1:38:07Speaker 04

  Bathroom. They love a phone in the bathroom. They love a phone in the bathroom.

• 1:38:10Speaker 03

  No kidding. I mean, it's ideal. And when they take in their phone, you can count on the bathroom not being free for at least forty-five minutes.

• 1:38:20Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 1:38:20Speaker 03

  Which is terrible, which means you have to have two bathrooms in your home.

• 1:38:23Speaker 04

  It's a first world problem, but still.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  I know. Isn't it? So, first of all, and all of this stuff also got complicated by the pandemic, when literally, we were cut off from each other for at least a year in terms of physical presence. So, you know, it was a very difficult time. So, what also is happening is that, so people are cutting off because of the technology, cutting off from each other to some degree, but they're also going shallow. You cannot have deeper conversations through black and white text.

• 1:39:09Speaker 03

  You just can't. You don't see what people's facial expressions are. You don't hear the tone in their voice. You don't see what their body is doing. You're missing at least half of the actual language of communication, if you will, when you're doing it over technological devices. So, as a result, language becomes very truncated, right? So, it's just brief little phrases, and then we get into emotional battles or we get into conflicts.

• 1:39:46Speaker 04

  Because that's where misunderstanding can happen so much of the time.

• 1:39:49Speaker 03

  You got it.

• 1:39:49Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:39:49Speaker 03

  That's exactly right. You know, there's so much misinterpretation of what's being said.

• 1:39:56Speaker 03

  And people haven't learned yet that technology shouldn't be used for any kind of emotional and relationship dynamic. It can be used for tasks. It can be used for, hi, how you doing? But anything of depth, it's gone. You know, you can't do it with technology. And yet, here's technology interfaces. So it is a real problem.

• 1:40:27Speaker 04

  Sometimes it is easier for people to communicate certain things in writing that they wouldn't in speech. Is there, is there an avenue where that can be helpful? I mean, obviously, the distraction issue, meaning if I'm trying to talk to someone about anything and they're distracted, that's not what I'm talking about. But is there any avenue in which, I don't know, maybe men in particular finds it easier to sometimes communicate things in writing as opposed to speaking?

• 1:40:51Speaker 03

  You know, I think what I've seen, and actually, there have been times when I have prescribed this in a couple. When somebody has a terrible time in the presence of their partner, especially a partner who is angry at them, trying to communicate what their internal world looks like, where they're at. And so sometimes, you know, in therapy, for example, I'll prescribe that that person who's really fearful of somebody jumping on them to write out, not, not in text, but

• 1:41:35Speaker 03

  actually handwriting, write out what your experience is, what you're feeling, what's going on with you, so that your partner doesn't have a knee jerk, reflexive response to it, which is immediate defensiveness, or anger, or cutting you off, but can actually contemplate what you're saying, think about it, and give a more thoughtful response. Sometimes that's helpful.

• 1:42:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, this feels like a good time to, to ask about.

• 1:42:10Speaker 04

  Sometimes that's, you know, recommended or prescribed when there's been an affair, or when there's been betrayal, right? To be able to accurately communicate what you're feeling. Can you talk a bit about affairs? Because, you know, for a lot of people, I mean, look, I'm a million years old. So it used to be like, oh, affair, the relationship's over, right? Or affair, we brush it under the rug and we never talk about it again and hope everything's okay. But there's a lot more conversation about, you know, and, and I have heard a lot of this under the rubric of like, well, he didn't want monogamy, so he had to, you know, go have sex with someone else. But women also have affairs.

• 1:42:53Speaker 04

  It could be lots of things, and I think you would probably argue it's not about that. Um, but can you speak a little bit about a relationship that is trying to recover from some sort of betrayal? I, I think the question that a lot of people want to know is, how do you know if your partner is repentant enough to make it work and to stay together? What are some of the signs that you should keep working to keep it together? And what are some of the signs that it's over?

• 1:43:24Speaker 03

  Great question. So this is actually something we've been doing research on, which is great. So we created a way for couples to recover from affairs. And so far, it looks like our treatment approach is, early on now in the research, having about 70, 75% success rate, uh, which is great. But you have to do a variety of steps. And most therapists handle it really badly. Um, they will either say, okay, you shouldn't talk about that. Let's just talk about what you're doing now and make it better. Nope, that's going to fail.

• 1:44:10Speaker 04

  Why?

• 1:44:11Speaker 03

  Secondly, here's why.

• 1:44:13Speaker 04

  Can you just explain to the folks at home?

• 1:44:14Speaker 03

  Yes, ma'am. Um, so the reason is because affairs cause PTSD in the hurt partner.

• 1:44:24Speaker 03

  And that has been observed clinically and it's being also observed now in the research that they suffer from PTSD. And let me explain why PTSD is a response to something that turns their world upside down, that is something that comes out of the blue, is unpredictable, and is very, very destructive to your construction of your world, be it your body or your mind. So when you have constructed your world around

• 1:45:02Speaker 03

  the belief that your partner is faithful, is loyal, loves you, is perhaps, you know, the parent of your children and really wants to be a part of this family, and knows that you're really, you know, dependent on them and loving them. And then they go out and they betray you. And affairs are not the only form of betrayal, there's lots, but deception is a key element of it. You find out that your partner is none of those things, and

• 1:45:41Speaker 03

  you typically find that out in a, in a blast of white light, you know, hot light, where, you know, your kid discovers a text on the computer, or, and then comes and tells you about it, or you find a letter from, you know, the lover or something. And all of a sudden, you are in shock. The person that you thought your partner was, is not that person, has a whole secret life, doesn't love you enough to be truthful and transparent with you. Wow, what does that mean about whether or not they love you? Why should

• 1:46:24Speaker 03

  you trust them? So, everything turns upside down. And when you're married to somebody, your whole foundation tends to be the relationship, right? And so, boom, you are turned upside down, and in, in outer space, not having a foundation to stand on anymore.

• 1:46:48Speaker 03

  That creates PTSD. And the signs of PTSD, I mean, listen to this. You're looking, you're hypervigilant for it to happen again. You're having huge emotional swings, up and down. Some of the time, you're numb. Some of the time, you're enraged. Some of the time, you're heartbroken. You never know what you're gonna feel. You have intrusive thoughts or intrusive pictures in your mind that may not be flashbacks, like you have in a combat yet, but are imagined pictures of your partner with that lover, with that other partner.

• 1:47:31Speaker 03

  And they come unbidden. You don't want them. They come anyway. And they are horribly upsetting. So all those signs-

• 1:47:41Speaker 04

  Also, you get dissociative episodes, right? People can also have somatic reactions.

• 1:47:47Speaker 03

  Can.

• 1:47:48Speaker 04

  Meaning like, these are sort of under this umbrella of what happens to the body and the mind in trauma?

• 1:47:54Speaker 03

  So, okay. So the first thing one has to recognize is that the affair causes PTSD. So if you don't talk about it, what happens to the PTSD, you know, it's a, it's a burning fire that is never put out. You know, it's, it's there in that individual. And we've found that memory with PTSD operates very differently than ordinary memory. Where if a person is triggered by the partner, let's say, coming home from work, all the feelings, all the hormonal outputs of stress hormones,

• 1:48:35Speaker 03

  all the physical sensations, everything comes back up in the memory, in that hypervigilance of, oh, my God, they're sleeping with that partner again.

• 1:48:45Speaker 04

  Right, the body keeps the score, in that sense.

• 1:48:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Bessel van der Kock. So, how do you fix it? What we have done is we've realized that, first of all,

• 1:49:00Speaker 03

  You have to explain the PTSD to the person who's had the affair, because it looks like their partner's gone crazy, and they don't understand why, especially if it's like a one-night-stand or something, and it seems trivial to them, but isn't to the other. Secondly, in that first phase, the person who's been betrayed gets to ask the person who had the affair any question they want to. And now, that partner has to be transparent and honest, because that's the only way you can rebuild a marriage.

• 1:49:45Speaker 03

  And we call it building marriage number two, because marriage number one has burned to the ground. So, gets to ask any question, and oftentimes, you have to do this in therapy. You can't do it on your own. And gets to express all the feelings they have had regarding this affair, and they're still having, and all the traumatic responses. And the job of the therapist is to help them do that without contempt and without criticism. And that's really hard, because you want to throw every knife you can at the partner who's hurt you so bad.

• 1:50:28Speaker 03

  Also, the therapist has to support the person who's hearing all of this, as the person who had the affair, because it's so hard. It feels so shaming to hear oftentimes, if that partner has a conscience, what they have wrought in the relationship. So, that phase can take a long time.

• 1:50:53Speaker 03

  Take a long time. When you begin to move out of that and the other person has really, the person who had the affair has expressed a huge amount of remorse, of guilt, of responsibility, of, God, you know, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize it would have this, you know, whatever, have this impact, has to really sit there and observe the pain of the other and try to empathize with it, which again, comes with the help of the therapist. You can finally move in to the second phase of recovery.

• 1:51:34Speaker 03

  And the second phase has to do with building marriage number two. And only here, only here, after that first phase, which is so kind of, you know, tipped in balance, do you now look at the marriage itself, marriage number one, and what was wrong? Because usually what leads to affairs is loneliness. It's not, you know, God, they're really hot, I want to go, you know, have sex with them. It's loneliness, and the loneliness often is related to avoiding conflict and getting more and more distant.

• 1:52:15Speaker 03

  So you have to go back into rebuilding, how do you deal with conflict? How do you recreate trust? How do you recreate friendship? Sex may be off the table, though not always, but it may be off the table for quite a while, because sex may trigger the PTSD in the hurt partner. So you rebuild marriage number two, teaching both people how to really attune to one another on a whole different level, a much deeper level, a much more emotionally close level. And then number three, the third phase, is recommitting, reattaching, and hopefully

• 1:52:58Speaker 03

  reestablishing a sexual relationship if that hasn't already.

• 1:53:02Jonathan Cohen?

  John, are there any stats on how many marriages survive the rebuilding process after an affair?

• 1:53:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, there are some statistics that our collaborators, Paul Peluso and Taylor Irvine, did with about 6,000 couples who had had affairs. And what they found was that almost 80% of them sought therapy. Only about 20% of them just, you know, didn't seek therapy at all. And that 20% that didn't seek therapy, most of them really broke up the relationship. Of the 80% who sought therapy, they, quite a few of them only had one session of couples therapy.

• 1:53:52Speaker 02

  About 35% of them had just one session and then made a decision either to, you know, stay together or break up. And it went 50/50, one way or the other. And they also found that almost 40% of therapists were uncomfortable talking about the affair. You know, kind of said, that's in the past, let's move forward, which as Julie points out, you really can't do. And so, and fewer than 10% of the therapists had any kind of structured approach to dealing with affairs, even though, you know, we've discovered in that study of 40,000 couples

• 1:54:35Speaker 02

  that about 35% of couples presented with an affair and 45% of there were gay male couples presented with an affair that really was disruptive. So therapists really need a lot of guidance in how to deal with affairs. So in general, most affairs really wind up going 50/50, either just breaking up or, you know, in the other case, just trying to cope with it, you know, maybe by seeing a therapist for a session or two or putting it behind them. But of course, if you don't deal with it the way Julie's talked about, which is very unusual, you know.

• 1:55:20Speaker 02

  You know, we actually did the first randomized clinical trial that's ever been done in this field and with very good results. But most therapists don't have the equipment to really help people with an affair, so.

• 1:55:33Speaker 04

  This is sort of a, it's, you know, many people also don't, don't have access or can't afford therapy.

• 1:55:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:40Speaker 04

  Which already is now dooming a portion of the socioeconomic population. That if you cannot afford support, you cannot get further support to see if you can even keep your family together.

• 1:55:54Speaker 02

  And then if you can afford it, most of the, most of the therapists you'll see will be incompetent.

• 1:55:58Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:55:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Let me mention something, just as a side note, a tangent. We wanted to democratize our methods precisely because of the problem you're bringing up. And so we have created a software platform that couples can go on that will assess their relationship, like, you know, within seconds after they fill out some questionnaires and then they videotape themselves having a conversation or two. And then gives them recommendations for all the interventions we've created, whichever

• 1:56:44Speaker 03

  ones fit their profile.

• 1:56:47Speaker 04

  That's terrific.

• 1:56:48Speaker 03

  Their relationship.

• 1:56:49Speaker 02

  All on brief videos that they can watch on their phone.

• 1:56:53Speaker 03

  Right. John and I made 87 brief little videos.

• 1:56:58Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:56:59Speaker 03

  That demonstrate how to do something and how not to do something.

• 1:57:03Jonathan Cohen?

  Speaking about videos on our phone, John, there's another aspect of technology that I think has drastically impacted relationships and our sex drive, which is the access now, the ubiquitous access to pornography. Can you talk a little bit about the change from, you know, magazines at one point and the limited access to now how prevalent it is? Are we seeing an increase in what people, some people are calling pornography addiction? And how is the access to pornography and viewing of pornography impacting relationships today?

• 1:57:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, let me, let me first answer your question. It's a great question again, Jonathan. Thank you. There's a great book by Jonathan Haidt called The Anxious Generation. We just spoke to him last week, yes. It's a bestseller, yeah. And, and for a lot of teenage guys, you know, their world consists of playing video games and, and visiting porn sites and masturbating, you know, not having relationships at all, any kind of relationship. Now, you know. Teenage guys or? Yeah, Gen X is, uh, Gen Z, I'm sorry. Gen Z is what they, uh, he writes about. Okay. It's a beautiful book, uh, really well researched and well argued.

• 1:58:26Speaker 02

  And so it's, you know, porn plays a really big role in that and people avoiding really close relationships. And that's what's happening for a lot of people as well is that for non Gen Z people, you know, porn has made it much easier to just get sexually fulfilled, you know, if you can't get it in any other way. But the problem is that in pornography, you're in total control and it, there's no communication. It's so impersonal. And if you bring that into the bedroom, it completely ruins your relationship with your intimate partner.

• 1:59:07Speaker 04

  So just to, sorry, just to underscore that, the kind of interaction, especially for young boys, the kind of interaction that they're learning from pornography and especially the, you know, the increase in the types of content that are available and some of the more disturbing and violent and extreme things that, that young, young brains are having access to, that is not, it's not compatible with a real life relationship, either in terms of expectation or in terms of feedback.

• 1:59:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and because 60% of these pornographic websites degrade women and picture the degradation of women, both adolescent males and females have become more inured to rape and have, you know, and think it's kind of a normal thing because of that, because they're seeing women getting degraded in 60% of these websites. So it's really affecting adolescents in a very negative way.

• 2:00:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, not only adolescents, but adults. You know, so I'm seeing so, you know, just many, many, many, many, many couples where pornography is the big issue. And it feels, it's really interesting because for women, for the partners, it often feels like the women are being compared to these idealized photoshopped images of women in the pornographic films, right? So they will some experience them like it's an affair.

• 2:00:52Speaker 03

  You know, even though it isn't a person, it's still a body that the other person is having a sexual response to, whether it's three dimensional or two dimensional. So they will feel cheated upon. It's often done deceptively where, you know, it's behind the partner's back. They don't know how often it's going on. And they'll feel betrayed when they find out. And, you know, one has to realize, especially with heterosexual pornography, where the man is the person observing it.

• 2:01:33Speaker 03

  That women, it's, it's thought that women are exposed by the age of, I don't know, 20, to about 6 million images of women with perfect bodies through advertising, through TV, through magazines, through billboards, through, you know, every medium. And as a result, most women feel horrible about how they look because they, you know, were taught, unfortunately, in our bones, that our value is in how attractive we are physically. Okay, so compare yourself to a photoshopped, you know, image and man, you're in trouble.

• 2:02:18Speaker 04

  Or even plastic surgery, which now starts in your teens. It's apparently like a normal thing in many cities.

• 2:02:24Speaker 03

  Isn't that incredible?

• 2:02:25Speaker 04

  It's so crazy.

• 2:02:26Speaker 03

  Botox. It is. It's totally insane. The other thing too, is that, as John was saying, men are in control with pornography. They can, you know, pick and choose what form of sex they want. They're totally in control. And then they go into their marriage expecting to have the same kind of control over their partner with the sexual erotic activity they participate in. And guess what? The woman doesn't want it. And the other thing is that the woman, or in fact, the male, you know, whatever, it can be whatever gender,

• 2:03:06Speaker 03

  may feel the emotional distance of impersonal sex that feels horrible. I had a case where a couple came in. It was his third marriage, her first, though she was 32. And he was raised in a pretty fundamentalist religious home of a certain kind where if you were married, you could have sex, but you couldn't unless you were sexually involved. And the most you, unless you were married and the, the...

• 2:03:48Speaker 03

  Only thing you could do, and the only thing a woman could experience, was a kiss on the cheek. Couldn't even have a kiss on the lips. Had to be a kiss on the cheek. So this guy had been married three times. One of them was to a porn star. But also, this guy got into sex. He grew up in a trailer park. He got into pornography by a person in their trailer park when he was five years old. Incredible. So he was so accustomed to pornography, he watched pornography once or twice a day, every single day, sometimes more. He would masturbate all throughout that.

• 2:04:32Speaker 03

  So, marriage number three, he gets involved with this woman from the same religious group, only had a kiss on the cheek. Meanwhile, he had experienced, through pornography, every kind of sex you can imagine. On their wedding night, he says, "Here's what I want to do." And it was a very traditionally-based marriage due to their backgrounds. He wants her to do every single thing the porn stars have been doing on his watching of porn movies. He demands she do all of that.

• 2:05:13Speaker 03

  So guess how she came out of that marital night? Traumatized through the roof, through the ceiling. And that continued for 14 years. He scheduled their sex. He would demand what kind of sex they would have. It was all based on the porn stuff he saw because he didn't really know what emotional sex looked like. He had no idea. Porn was his entire education. And so, by the time they came in, she was dissociating. She'd take herself into the ceiling every time they had sex, which was three times a week.

• 2:05:59Speaker 03

  Now, how do you repair that? Well, you know, clearly, the poor fellow was horribly addicted to pornography, was terrified of emotional intimacy, didn't know what it looked like. And so, I gave her a book called For Yourself: Female Sexuality by Lonnie Barbock, one of the great pioneers of women and their own sexuality, and had her read that book, do the exercise in it, and sex was off the table. There was going to be a moratorium on all sex.

• 2:06:41Speaker 03

  Meanwhile, he needed treatment for his sexual addiction, or his porn addiction. So, was seeing him also individually for that, as well as the couple. And she's learning, and learning, and learning, and learning, and getting to explore for herself, what the heck is sexuality in my body? What do I like? What do I not like? She had no idea. That went on for nine months. And finally, when she was ready, and he was ready, to try to have more, let's say, physical activity,

• 2:07:24Speaker 03

  let alone sexual, we didn't get to sex for a while, she had all the control, which he'd never experienced before. And they had to rebuild a whole different sexual dimension to their relationship that neither had ever experienced before. That's the effect porn can have. It's scary.

• 2:07:51Speaker 02

  Can I say one other thing before we leave this pornography thing? Which is that porn doesn't have to be destructive.

• 2:08:00Speaker 02

  You know, it can represent female eroticism as well as male. It can be romantic, it can be exciting, if both people, you know, are inclined to watch it. It doesn't have to be degrading to women. It doesn't have to be what it is. And, you know, it can change, so it's not so destructive.

• 2:08:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, true enough.

• 2:08:25Speaker 04

  We really appreciate your time. You've given us so much of your time. I wonder if we can end with something fun and quick. John, tell us about, tell us about the six-second kiss and why it's important.

• 2:08:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, it turns out, and part of this is the work of a man named Paul Zach, that when we kiss for at least six seconds, or hug for at least 20 seconds, we, we both secrete oxytocin, which is the hormone of bonding and trust and connection. And so it's just a wonderful thing to do, especially at the end of the day, when you haven't seen your partner all day. There's kiss that lasts six seconds, a hug that lasts 20 seconds, and secrete oxytocin together, and it really creates warmth, as does cuddling as well.

• 2:09:22Speaker 02

  Cuddling does that, too.

• 2:09:24Speaker 04

  John, what's your favorite thing about Julie? And Julie, what's your favorite thing about John?

• 2:09:28Speaker 02

  I guess my favorite thing about Julie is her sense of humor. He's just really, really funny.

• 2:09:35Speaker 03

  That's what I was gonna say about you.

• 2:09:38Speaker 02

  Really?

• 2:09:38Speaker 03

  You cheated. You got to go first. That's no fair.

• 2:09:43Speaker 02

  She's very playful, and I love everything about her.

• 2:09:47Speaker 03

  Aw.

• 2:09:47Speaker 02

  There's nothing I don't love about her.

• 2:09:49Speaker 03

  He's a big sweetie. Yeah, it's his sense of humor, too. Plus, he's so darn smart. When I first met him and started talking to him, I knew I'd never be bored, speaking of boredom, because he reads everything, you know, under the sun. I don't. So I get to learn everything, just by listening, even math.

• 2:10:12Speaker 02

  And quantum mechanics.

• 2:10:14Speaker 03

  And quantum mechanics, right.

• 2:10:16Speaker 04

  Well, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. It's really been an honor to get to talk to you. And we have so many more questions, but we will turn to your videos and hopefully get the answers there.

• 2:10:26Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 2:10:28Speaker 02

  It's a real honor to meet you and both of you.

• 2:10:31Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:10:32Speaker 02

  And thank you for those great questions.

• 2:10:33Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:10:34Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 2:10:35Speaker 03

  Brilliant.