Terry Real: How to Reinvent Your Marriage When You've Grown Apart

Have you reached a point in your marriage where you feel like you've changed, but your relationship hasn't? In this episode of Live Like a Girl, I'm joined by renowned couples therapist Terry Real to explore why so many women begin questioning their relationships during midlife and menopause, and what it takes to reconnect when you've grown apart. We talk about resentment, emotional intimacy, the childhood patterns that shape how we handle conflict, and how to communicate your needs without pushing your partner further away. Terry also shares his approach to relational empowerment and why reinventing your relationship may be another option worth exploring. IN THIS EPISODE: Why marriage can feel different after menopauseHow resentment builds when your needs go unspokenThe difference between individual and relational empowermentHow childhood experiences influence relationship conflictsPractical ways to communicate, reconnect, and repairDON'T LEAVE IT – REINVENT IT | LIVE VIRTUAL WORKSHOP | October 27, 2026 | 9 AM–12 PM PT Join Terry and me for a special 3-hour workshop exploring how to create a new chapter in your relationship. Your $47 registration includes access for you and your partner, live Q&A, and a full replay. SAVE YOUR SEAT:https://www.drmindypelz.com/reinvent _ MORE ON TERRY REAL YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@realterryrealInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/realterryreal/ https://www.instagram.com/realterryreal/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerryRealRLI/Website: https://terryreal.com/For more resources related to today’s episode, visit the podcast episode page:https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep379/ Connect with Dr. Mindy: Join Reset Academy https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/reset-academy?utm_source=libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=&utm_content=loc-description&utm_campaign=reset-academyWatch the episodes on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DrMindyPelz?sub_confirmation=1Follow Dr. Mindy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr.mindypelz/Subscribe to Dr. Mindy’s newsletter https://www.drmindypelz.com/Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, fasting routine, or lifestyle.

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

• 0:02Mindy Pelz?

  Hey, Dr. Mindy here, and welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast, where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in. Let's dive in.

• 0:27Mindy Pelz?

  There was a season in my marriage when I realized I was walking around with 20 years of grievances that I had never really said out loud. It wasn't that I had said nothing at all. I just never said, you know, those little things that were bothering me. And the reason I didn't say it is because my natural instinct was to swallow it in order to keep the peace. What I learned as I went through my menopausal years was that every swallow made me resentful. And then one day, I finally opened my mouth,

• 1:08Mindy Pelz?

  and 20 years of grievances came pouring out all at once. I don't recommend this. But I tell you this story because I hear it from so many women constantly. And it does tend to show up around 45, 50, 55 in that menopausal transition. During this time, many women wake up and say, "There are things in this marriage, in this family, in this home that I cannot accept anymore." Or what I hear at a lot of ladies' nights out, which is, "I don't know what happened to my libido. It is just completely absent."

• 1:52Mindy Pelz?

  Or what many women are experiencing, which is, "No matter what I do, I feel like it's wrong." The armor that has been worn for decades starts to come off, and the tolerance goes with it. And the numbers show this. The divorce rate for adults over 50 more than doubled between 1990 and 2010. And roughly 2/3 of divorces among older adults are initiated by women. This is a statistic we should pay attention to. So what do we tell women who reach their midlife and need a relational upgrade?

• 2:36Mindy Pelz?

  Most of what she hears is that she has two options. Stay, and you may be miserable. Or you can leave, it will be difficult, but you will be empowered. And honestly, I've watched too many women feel stuck between those two doors, not really loving either option. Well, I have good news, because today's guest believes there's a third option. Teri Reel is a family therapist, the founder of Relational Life Therapy, and the author of The New Rules of Marriage and the book Us. He specializes in couples on the brink,

• 3:21Mindy Pelz?

  the ones who've tried eight therapists and are down to their last shot. He himself has been married for 40 years, and he'll tell you, he is still practicing on his wife. This is a part two of our conversation. I interviewed Teri over a year ago, and it might be my favorite one yet. In this episode, Teri and I talk about why an attitude that can emerge during menopause, you know, that attitude of, "I was weak, and I was quiet, and now I'm strong, and I'm going to tell you everything that I want you to hear." Well, that isn't the finish line. And in this conversation, we dive deep into

• 4:03Mindy Pelz?

  why there may actually be a wounded little girl inside you who might be running your arguments. It's fascinating what he has to say on this, and how you can turn a complaint, one that might fall on deaf ears, into a request. And most importantly, why Cinderella is dead, and no Prince Charming is coming to hand you what you want. You are going to need to go and get it. Teri also gives us a three-step roadmap for getting what you want from your partner, which I promise, you know I love me a good checklist. This checklist is not what you are expecting.

• 4:48Mindy Pelz?

  And one thing I want to be clear about, this isn't about staying in a relationship that is unsafe. Teri says it himself, "If you have to leave, go." This is for the marriage you haven't yet given a real shot to, and you are potentially needing a whole new approach or view in which to look at it. This is exactly why Teri and I are doing something together that we're both very excited about. On Tuesday, October 27, Teri and I are hosting a live three-hour workshop called, "Don't Leave It, Reinvent It." In this workshop, we're going to walk you through what's actually happening in a woman's brain,

• 5:33Mindy Pelz?

  hormones, and nervous system in midlife, so you know you're not just becoming difficult. Your internal operating system is changing. And Teri's going to teach you the tools that will let that new version of you be heard and loved all at the same time. Bring your partner to this webinar, or watch the replay together. The link for the webinar is in the show notes. Because the goal isn't to be empowered out of your relationship, it's to take your power back in your relationship, not just in your marriage. But what you're going to learn in this conversation is that if you can nail it in your marriage,

• 6:17Mindy Pelz?

  you can nail taking your power back in all different kinds of relationships. There is so much to be learned when we are in relationship. There is so much we can discover about ourselves that we can't see when we are out of relationship. So in this conversation, I think you're going to find a whole new approach to those old relationships that feel like they are going nowhere and are holding you down. After just one conversation here, I believe you are going to have a true new lens to take your power back with. Are you ready?

• 7:00Mindy Pelz?

  Let's dive in. Teri Reel. Well, Teri, welcome back to my podcast. I am so excited to have part two of our first conversation on midlife and marriage, because this is this is a tangled mess for a lot of people. So I'm super happy that you're here.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Well, I love your work, and I think we're a great pair. So let's get going.

• 7:23Mindy Pelz?

  Let's go. So I'm going to be really frank. I have sat with a lot of friends in midlife. I've heard from my community over and over again that women start to go through this transformation as they move into their post-menopausal years, and they become a different person. And it takes time for their partner to catch up with this new identity that they're becoming, with the new preferences that they have. And a lot of women say, "I cannot tolerate my partner anymore." Have you seen that happen to women in midlife?

• 8:01Speaker 01

  I mean, we've all seen it. It's, you know, it's making headlines, particularly my age, the baby boomers, the gray divorce. And yeah, women hit menopause, and it's like, who needs you? But that's not necessarily what I recommend. So I have some thoughts about why that is such an epidemic, and what some possible alternatives, maybe. Hey, look, if you want to leave them, leave them, fine. But before you do, what was that phrase we came up with? "Don't leave it, reinvent it." So before you leave the relationship,

• 8:45Speaker 01

  let me tell you some tips about how to stress it, and see if you can wrangle more what you want from them.

• 8:52Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, because what I hear so much is, I have two options. I either go, or I stay. Both options for a lot of women are not attractive. Like, going is scary, and staying is suffocating, and they can no longer tolerate that. So if you are going to reinvent any relationship, but specifically a marriage, what are some of the tactics and strategies we would start with?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, first, I'd like to pull back, zoom back a bit, and have more of an aerial view about why the first impulse is to leave, which is an epidemic, particularly in the US. Women leaving marriages, children being estranged from their parents.

• 9:36Mindy Pelz?

  Canceling family members is a big thing now.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, narcissistic abuse is the new flavor of the month, and you can't treat them, just walk out. All of these...

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Just be empowered and get out of your relationship. Drives me nuts as a family therapist, a relational expert. That's your last resort. I mean, look, if you have to, you have to. But what this, the backdrop here, you know, from my work, I critique patriarchy and what it does to relationships, and I critique individualism and what it does. We do not live in a relationship cherishing culture.

• 10:18Mindy Pelz?

  And so this, therein lies where I think the meaning of marriage changes and even long-term commitments. I don't even know if it's marriage.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not always marriage, right.

• 10:28Mindy Pelz?

  I think we come together in connection because it feels good to do life with somebody.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:35Mindy Pelz?

  And then all of a sudden, it stops feeling good. And I'll tell you what I've learned from being married 30 years is that it's actually morphed now into like a relationship lab where I get to practice.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 10:54Mindy Pelz?

  Communication, like you just said, where I get to practice communicating in a different way to somebody that may, you know, chew in a certain way that I've heard for so many years and I'm like, oh, my God, there it is.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  I know, I got that one too.

• 11:09Mindy Pelz?

  That chew, I know that chew and it's going to drive me crazy. But what I have come to realize is that there has never been a better lab to learn how to communicate to other people than a long-term marriage.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Beautiful. That's exactly right. Marriage is not a place where you get nurtured and fulfilled in all the ways that your parents didn't and you want them to. Falling in love, you think that, you know.

• 11:38Mindy Pelz?

  Falling in love is the easy part.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. James Famo, the father of couples therapy, this is back in the 50s, when it was assumed you're sleeping with your spouse. He said, "The day you turn over and look at the person lying next to you and say to yourself, 'Holy crap, I've been had. This is a terrible mistake. This is not the person I fell in love with,' that," says the father of couples therapy, "is the first day of your real marriage." And I talk about harmony, disharmony, and repair. Disharmony sucks. I'm the guy who coined the phrase "normal marital hatred." It's dark, but come up out of that and with some skill and finesse as you're learning,

• 12:22Speaker 01

  your relationship is not, I hate it when people, your partner is not your mother, they're not your therapist, they're not even your best girlfriend. They're different. However, this becomes the place where you get to learn your skills. You know, I say to people, "All the skills I've taught for 40 years are clinically tested." Belinda's the clinic.

• 12:44Mindy Pelz?

  Right, exactly. I mean, so this is something I recently, again, discovered in my own long-term marriage is like, a couple of years ago, I realized, oh, my gosh, I am actually codependent.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:57Mindy Pelz?

  And the only reason I knew that is all of a sudden, I was getting to the point where I was like, I need him to be happy so I could be happy. And then, right? And then all of a sudden, I'm like, wait a second, I need my daughter to be happy so I can be happy. I need my mother to be happy so I can be happy. Who's the unifying factor here? It's me. Why do I need all these people to be happy so I could be happy?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Because you've got about 2,000 years' worth of training of women to do that.

• 13:29Mindy Pelz?

  Right, right.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Under your belt. That's what a good woman is supposed to do. But pay attention to this, those who are listening to this. Yeah, you leave your husband, all right, so then you're codependent on your girlfriend, you're codependent on your daughter, you're codependent on your boss. You haven't changed. I'm talking about, use the relationship to transform yourself. Men, open up your ears and be flexible and yielding. Men think that being yielding means that you're a ball-less wonder. No, you're a good husband. Women, open up your throats and speak the goddamn truth with some force, some oomph, but with love, not with disdain.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  And I talk about three, three phases of getting what you want in your relationship. One, rock the boat. Go ahead and say it, but try and say it.

• 14:26Mindy Pelz?

  I love that because women do, women try to not rock the boat.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:31Mindy Pelz?

  We've been taught to don't do that.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Right. And when you do, it doesn't work very well.

• 14:36Mindy Pelz?

  No.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Okay, one, rock the boat. This is really important to me. If you don't do it, either we're going to stay together and I'm going to be goddamn miserable, or I'm going to leave. But it ain't going to go well.

• 14:49Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  This is really important. You've got to shape up. Two, ready? Once the son of a gun says, "Uh, uh, okay, I'll try," you know, they're remedial. I've been listening to women for 40 years tell me that their husbands are relational idiots. Yeah, great, I got it. Okay, here's two, ready? Women don't like this. Once he says, "I'm going to try." Listen to yourselves. Remember, you're dealing with a guy who had the boom of patriarchy dropped on him at three, four, five years old. Does he know what he feels? Does he know how to share his feelings? Does he know how to be vulnerable? Does he know how to be compassionate to your feelings? Guess what?

• 15:35Speaker 01

  No. Can he learn? Well, we'll see. In theory, the men I work with can learn. Will your man learn? I don't know, we'll see. But give it a shot. This is what I want from you. So phase two, which women hate, is I call it helping him win. Why do you want to help him win? Because winning means giving you what you want. Hello? How, and this is brand new too. Okay, you're going to work on it. Let me teach you what works for me. And women get this wrong because of patriarchy, because of individualism. I'm not going to teach you what you need to do, your son of a gun, which is where all women go. I'm the objective authority.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  I know better at relationships than you do. This is what you need to do. Men will recoil from that.

• 16:25Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Speak subjectively with humility. I'm not the expert on relationships. I am the expert on Mindy. This is what I want you to do. And then, this is also hard. The third phase is, once the son of a gun starts to do it imperfectly, baby steps at the start, encourage, don't discourage. Don't, so many women, when the guys start to give it to them, they, yes, but, yeah, okay, but it sucks. Okay, you only, I teach people, celebrate the glass 15% full. And it's counterintuitive. But you do it with your kids, right? Your kid comes home with a D, you have a come to Jesus, and they come home with a C. You don't say, "Where's the B?" You say, "Good work, let's keep going."

• 17:11Speaker 01

  But you don't do that with this spouse.

• 17:13Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  We're amissly critical.

• 17:16Mindy Pelz?

  And then I would say to that, that a lot of women would say, "I'm too tired to like, applaud him, I'm too tired to train him, I'm too tired to go through all that work." And I'm curious what you would say to that, but I would say that I, as the older I get, the more I realize that everything we're looking for in self-growth exists in a long-term relationship.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Look, there are two pieces to this. One is, both women and men under patriarchy are saying, "I shouldn't have to work so hard on my relationship. If it was a good relationship, I shouldn't have to work that hard." That's just crap. You know, the reason why you have to work so hard now is because you didn't for 20 years you've been with the guy. You should have been confronting him all along. So, okay, now it's a big bill, but take some responsibility for your part in the bigness of that bill. But, okay, he's still here, you're still here. Do it now. Oh, I'm so, I don't have to.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  You know, men pull the same thing. Oh, I worked so hard, I don't have to, it's so hard. No matter what I do, it's never enough. It's just whining. Think about what life is really going to be like when you leave him. And you think that's not going to be work for you?

• 18:46Mindy Pelz?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  I know, it's not fair. And you know, maybe you'll be happier alone with your girlfriends, but I don't know. I mean, you're gonna disassemble your family. Your life is not gonna look at all.

• 19:02Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. So is the problem maybe that we're all trying to look at relationships and want them to be easy? Because when you first meet somebody, all of a sudden, they're making your life so much easier. Like, life is so much better when you're first in love.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know what? You're lying. Both men and women lie in the audition stage.

• 19:24Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  You know, the reason why you're happy with your guy 20 years ago is because he was nicer to you 20 years ago. He acted like a lover, and that went away. You have to be woken up. Can I tell you a story?

• 19:40Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, please.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  It's a true story. You know, these are wonderful people, but they were literally from a rural village, you know, in another country. And very simple people, and they were brought to me by one of my students. And not to, you know, be condescending, but they barely spoke English. And they were simple rural farm people, right? So she was gonna leave him. Okay, why? He treats me like a desk, she said. He treats me like furniture. Okay, has he always been that way? What do you mean? Well, you married him.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Did he treat you that way when he was courting you? No, you know, they're Latin. No, he was very romantic. He actually made, he wrote love songs and stood by my window with his guitar and sang me love songs. He hasn't done that in 20 years. I go to the guy, honest to God, this is the simplest therapy I've ever done in 40 years. I turn to the guy, I go, is that true? Yeah. I go, okay, do you love her? Yeah. Do you realize she's gonna leave you? Yeah. You know what you did back then in the beginning to win her? Yeah, do that. And he said, I can do that. And he did, and he's married.

• 21:08Mindy Pelz?

  Wow, yeah.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  So I was saying.

• 21:11Mindy Pelz?

  You know what most women want? Most women that I talk to want the kitchen cleaned. Like, I've heard so many women say, if he would just clean the kitchen, I would give him more sex. Like, I just want the kitchen cleaned. I just want like him to carry his load in the house.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want you to take some of my weight.

• 21:31Mindy Pelz?

  That alone would be romantic to me.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, but you can also act like a lover if you want to. Listen, I have a saying, women make passes at men who wash glasses, but yeah.

• 21:44Mindy Pelz?

  Totally, it's the sexiest thing. If any man listening, the sexiest thing is you cleaning the kitchen.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Because women don't want to make love to boys. They, oh, how many times have you heard this? I want a partner. I want an adult on the other side of the seesaw. I don't want another child. Okay, let's see if this son of a gun can grow up. I agree with you. Lean in and tell him, but in a way that he might possibly hear. Break it down and teach him. And if he's trying and you used to love him back in the day, be more encouraging. Don't yes, but everything he does, which is what we all, what we all do.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Now, the other thing, though, that's going on is what I call the Cinderella syndrome. Men shouldn't have to work on a relationship because I'm perfect. What the hell's the problem? Women shouldn't have to work on a relationship. You know why? I just said it. Prince Charming should just know and give it to me.

• 22:54Mindy Pelz?

  Right, yeah. Well, that's patriarch. We all watch all the Disney movies.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 22:59Mindy Pelz?

  Right? That infiltrates what we think a husband should look like.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 23:05Mindy Pelz?

  And act like.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and men gunk up marriages because they treat their wives like they're their mothers. And women gunk up marriages because they long for their husband to act like fathers. You should just know what I want and give it to him. Really? That's a kid talking to a parent. That's not a grown up. Sorry, girls, here's what I say, ready? Cinderella's dead. Prince Charming probably just got out of rehab. If you want it, roll up your sleeves and go after it. Nobody's gonna just give it to you because you're so.

• 23:38Mindy Pelz?

  And Cinderella's like, Cinderella's like, I don't need, I don't need him to give me the shoe. I'll just go buy my own damn shoe.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  I'll buy my own goddamn shoe, yeah.

• 23:46Mindy Pelz?

  That's what, that would be the new version. She wouldn't be waiting. She would just go buy her own shoe, so.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Right, and her therapist and her 12 cent sponsor and her mother and her girlfriends will all go, girl.

• 23:59Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  You know, I say this all the time. As a couples therapist, the bane of my existence are individual therapists who individually empower their people to get right out of relationships that I can make work.

• 24:14Mindy Pelz?

  Ooh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah, I've seen that. And you know, again, for people listening, this is exactly why Terry and I are doing a webinar. We'll leave the link below in the notes, but I love the name that you came up with, which is don't leave it, reinvent it. And I, and I just don't think we give marriages, whether they're heterosexual or same sex. We don't like say, hey, guess what? This structure looks like this, and it doesn't work for us anymore.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  It doesn't work.

• 24:46Mindy Pelz?

  Let's break that apart and create a new structure. That, to me, will be the savior of long-term relationships.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Right, and I can already hear women saying, I tried it. Every woman, I tried it. I tried it, and the son of a gun didn't listen. Yeah, well, try it with a little, try it with more love and more oomph, both of those things. You know, it's like parenting. I say the hallmark of bad parenting is high emotion and low follow-through. I want women to be powerful. That means you can be soft.

• 25:20Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Talk, speak softly and carry a big stick. Don't yell and scream and have no stick. Have your stick. I'm gonna leave you if this doesn't work out. I love that.

• 25:30Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  I have a saying, men can be relational if they got a gun to their head. I'm gonna leave you if this doesn't work out.

• 25:36Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Okay, that's your daring to rock the boat. Let me help you rise to the occasion.

• 25:44Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Before we junk this family and this, you know, 25-year relationship, let's roll up our sleeves and give it a Hail Mary shot.

• 25:54Mindy Pelz?

  Right. And do you see the same dynamic happen in same-sex relationships?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:59Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, talk a little bit about that, because I think, you know, we've been putting a lot of emphasis on heterosexual. But from what I look at with midlife, the brain is changing for women and new identities and new ways in doing life emerge. And so I would think it would play out in a same-sex relationship as well.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  It does, you know, it's a funny thing. I don't want to be overgeneralized because there's lots of variety. But we straight therapists, I have to work with my therapist. We have this, on the one hand, we pathologize same-sex marriages, and then we idealize them both. That's what we do to women, too. We idealize and devalue them both. So we have this fantasy that if you're gay or a lesbian, by definition, you stepped out of patriarchy and you're not. Bullshit. You're as saturated as anybody else with this stuff. So just because you're a same-sex marriage or a relationship, it doesn't mean that you've liberated yourself from everything you got on.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Here's why I teach my therapists, ready? You wanna know what it's like? You wanna know the most important thing? A relationship between two women is between, drumbeat, two women. A relationship between two men is two men. Look at sex. Non-monogamy before AIDS was the norm for gay men. We're primary, have a fling on the side, go off on, I don't wanna hear about it. Don't disrupt our relationship. Don't give me any diseases and go have a good time and fine. That was the norm, and I had to teach therapists, don't pathologize that. You know, gay men were the pioneers of polyamory.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Gay women, on the other hand, you've got two people have trouble asserting themselves and making their.

• 27:52Mindy Pelz?

  Oh, yeah, I could see that, yeah. And the resentment would be there, too.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Of course it is, and you know.

• 27:58Mindy Pelz?

  Because you're not speaking it.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  It's a cliche, but people talk about lesbian bed death. Again, if you don't take each other on, passion dies.

• 28:09Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  And the issue is, okay, Terry, I have taken them on, my wife, same-sex, whatever, and they don't listen. I understand that, but learn some more sophisticated ways of taking them on.

• 28:26Mindy Pelz?

  So one thing that really helped in my marriage that I translated into all my relationships is when I was interacting with him, and even whether we were fighting or in conflict, I visualized him holding a mirror up. And I would tell myself, what are you seeing about yourself right now? What is the reflection that's coming back at you? And because I got to practice it so much with him, I then started using it with my sister, and I started using it with my daughter, and I used it with my mother and my friends. And I realized that every relationship I am in, the person's holding a mirror up, and I'm seeing a different version of myself in all of these relationships.

• 29:11Mindy Pelz?

  And even I, I even have friendships that were gonna be tossed aside, but then I was like, wait, the reflection I'm seeing of myself is this part that maybe I don't wanna be anymore. And what if I change that? Would that relationship change?

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you change, what is the sound of one hand clapping? If you change the way you're handling yourself. Maybe not, maybe yes, but that's your snowball chance in hell of getting not the other person. You don't can't control the other person.

• 29:44Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  But you can control the seesaw. If you change your move, maybe they'll change theirs. And if I'm accommodating and resentful, I'm not going to get what I want. If I yell and scream and talk about how angry I am, I'm not going to get what I want. Okay, what's the move here? But here's what's dicey, and we're heading toward the end. Do you have to have me on a third one?

• 30:10Mindy Pelz?

  We can talk for hours. Come to the webinar, everybody. We're gonna be doing a long, long breakdown of this.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  But here's the thing. I don't believe in the romantic Cinderella tale. I believe in what we've learned in infant mother development. Harmony, disharmony, repair. We don't teach people how to do that.

• 30:31Mindy Pelz?

  No, we don't.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Disharmony sucks. It's really raw. Okay. The issue is, when you don't get what you want, not only do we not have to teach people the skills of climbing back up on the bank, but the best, most thoughtful part of you, your prefrontal cortex, whoop, goes offline. And what I call the adaptive child, what you learned as a little girl to cope. You know, it's that survival, it's subcortical, it's automatic, it's not thoughtful. Fight, flight, fawn, which becomes fix, which is the norm for traditional women.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Fight, flight, or fawn. So you move from fawn to flight. I'm out of here.

• 31:20Mindy Pelz?

  Right, right.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  No. How about moving from fawning to power? So what happens is, when we are unhappy with our partners, we go right back to our childhoods. And we automatically do what we learned to do as kids. If you're a fixer, I'm gonna make them better. If you're a fleer, I'm gonna shut down. If you're a fawn, or if you're a fighter, I'm gonna let them know just how miserable I am. That's all automatic.

• 31:55Mindy Pelz?

  So beautiful.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  You talked about the opportunity, the crucible.

• 31:59Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, right.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Okay, here it is. When you're, I call it whoosh, when you're flooded with that automatic, the first skill, take a breath, take a break. I'm a big fan of breaks. Take a walk around the block. Remember who you are. Remember who you're talking to. I may not remember that I love the guy, I used to, but he's the father of my children. We have 20 years together. Let me try and give this a shot, but not with harshness. That's the adapter child, with thoughtfulness and skill. I mean, women have to learn relationship, just like men do.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  They're more relational skilled, but they're not great.

• 32:47Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  You know, the way we try and get more of what we want in our relationships is we complain about what we're not getting.

• 32:54Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  That ain't gonna work. So, the reason why people back off of taking each other on is because it doesn't work when they do. And then you think, well, that's because my partner's an idiot. No, it doesn't work because you're not being skillful. Try and learn how to do it better. And if that doesn't work, get an ally to help you. And if none of that works, you're done. But do a little work first, before you sew in the towel.

• 33:25Mindy Pelz?

  So let me repeat back, because what you just said was gold. I'm in an argument with my spouse, and I'm finding myself getting more and more angry. All of a sudden, I'm not in my prefrontal cortex. I've gone back into what I would call the lizard brain. I've gone back into that little girl who reacted before the prefrontal cortex came online. In my self-growth book, that's gold. That's gold. Because if I can go down and understand the habits of my little girl and how she formed communication skills, and I can change that,

• 34:07Mindy Pelz?

  that is going to change every relationship in my life.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  That's right. That's the crucible. And the way out of this mess is you stop handing your little girl to your husband to deal with.

• 34:21Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  You start dealing with her.

• 34:23Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  And that's growth.

• 34:25Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  That's healing. But we don't do it in this culture. It's like, you know. So you were a fighter, Mindy?

• 34:33Mindy Pelz?

  As a little girl, I felt like I had no voice. And then when I wanted to speak up, I yelled in my family.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  So that's the binary. Either traditionally feminine, accommodating, resentful, or you shift over to the masculine, and you scream and yell. And you're dominating and powerful. And neither of them work. But here's the prefrontal cortex. I'm gonna be powerful, but I don't need to scream and yell. This is really important to me. Please pay attention. You don't want me to be unhappy with you. You don't want to live with me when I'm unhappy. This is in your own self-interest. We're together.

• 35:10Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  So, but there's more choices than that automatic, I either have to accommodate, or I have to be a banshee. The more sophisticated, but nobody teaches you that in this culture.

• 35:21Mindy Pelz?

  No. No, and I learned this from you, is this idea that when you're in a fight, it's like a little girl and a little boy. Like, if I'm in a fight, and I all of a sudden see this moment, that I'm like, I see him as a little boy, knowing his childhood, I all of a sudden have more compassion for him. If I see my little girl there, we're not adults arguing with each other. It's like, all of a sudden, there's a deeper healing. And we even will talk different, because I've become very aware that, yeah, that I'm operating from the past, and he's operating from the past. And if I can, in that moment, have that awareness and bring it forward,

• 36:06Mindy Pelz?

  the conversation dramatically changes.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  It changes completely. Because, you know, I say to my students, the most important question is not, what are the stressors, couples, not even what's the dance. The most important question is, which part of you am I talking to? Am I talking to that automatic survival? Knee jerk, which you learned as a kid, is what you needed to do as a kid to grow. Good for you, you learned how to do it. But I say, adaptive then, maladaptive now. You can't bring that, you can't let that five, six-year-old run your goddamn adult relationship. Honey, I know that you're pissed as a rat, and I know you think that the only way you can get heard is to yell and scream and make a fuss.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  I got you, hon. You stand behind me. That's what I do with my little boy. He's a fighter. You stand behind me. Look, Belinda and I are both fighters. We come from violent families, and our knee jerk is, screw you, yeah, well, screw me, screw you. That's where we go. And you take a breath, or take a break. Wait a minute, what am I doing? You know, that automatic response, everybody listening? You've done that a million times, ladies.

• 37:24Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  You know exactly what lies behind that door. This is your moment of liberation. Take a breath and go through another door, a new door that you create. That's called being an adult. You know, one of the great spiritual teachers, Krishnamurti, said, "True liberation is freedom from our own automatic responses." Take a breath.

• 37:51Mindy Pelz?

  That's so beautiful.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Do a little trauma work with that little boy or girl. Honey, Terry, you grew up in blood. I mean, thank God you were a fighter. But I don't want to take a 60-year-old fighter into my marriage. Stand behind me. I love you, I got you, you're demoted. You're in the backseat, I'm running my marriage.

• 38:12Mindy Pelz?

  And the way I use it is, I will, in the morning, when I do my meditation, I literally will visualize my little girl sitting next to me. And I'm like, tell me what you need, what you didn't get heard. Tell me what you need to speak right now. And it's really interesting how she'll show up and tell me, well, you know, when this happened, and this happened, and this happened, my voice wasn't heard in my family. And sometimes I can go back to my husband, and I can say, hey, I'm thinking about the argument we had yesterday, and I'm realizing it really triggered something in me from my childhood. And he'll listen to that. Sometimes I gotta take it to my own therapy

• 38:53Mindy Pelz?

  and say, this happened to me, and it's just still running me. Help me understand how I can heal it. But I really want to say, this little boy, little girl idea becomes so powerful when you're in these really intense experiences in marriage.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Utterly compelling. Fight, flight, or fix. It feels like the world's gonna, if I don't stand up for myself, if I don't shut this down, if I don't make it better, it's so compulsive. And it literally feels like you're gonna die if you don't do that. That's the hallmark of those automatic early reactions. But you're not in your adult.

• 39:33Mindy Pelz?

  No.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Look, here's the tip-off. If you're having an extreme reaction to a stimulus which is not proportionate to the oof that's coming over you, that's not you. That's your little boy or girl. Turn to that person. Help them, but don't let them run your relationship.

• 39:59Mindy Pelz?

  And therein lies why relationship is where you heal yourself.

• 40:04Mindy Pelz?

  And that is, I'm, I'm, I'll be 57 in two days. I've been married for 30 years. And I will say that I just came to this realization a couple of months ago, that actually, relationship, my marriage being the most probably challenging one, because you're, have history and you've been together all day long.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  And you hurt each other much more deeply than people you don't care about. Yeah. It's a challenge.

• 40:33Mindy Pelz?

  But in that, I found the unhealed child that really wanted to speak out and wanted to be nourished. And, and I all of a sudden became the adult that the little girl wanted. I became that person who could turn around and heal her. And I think about all, what we started this conversation with, where when it gets tough, people leave. But this is why I'm so excited about this. Don't leave it, reinvent it, because in there, you are going to find a version of yourself.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:05Mindy Pelz?

  That is crying for help.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:08Mindy Pelz?

  If you allow yourself to approach it the way that we're talking about it.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  That's right. And you know, you turn that little girl who was never heard. And here's the revolution. Sweetheart, that son of a gun may not hear you. He's not reliable. He could have his own issues. He could have a stomach ache that day. You know, I may not get the corrective experience from my spouse. That's the merry road to hell. You want it, and sometimes you get it, but sometimes you don't. He may not give it to you, but guess what? I will give it to you. He's not consistent, but I am. So if I was abandoned, I'm here. If I was squelched, I'm listening.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  If it was helpless, I will change for you. You have power. Whatever was missing, you give it. Then you put that little person behind you. And with your thoughtful prefrontal cortex, turn to your partner and go, okay. What do we need to do here? But it's a whole different ballgame.

• 42:19Mindy Pelz?

  When you approach it like that, going back to the, you know, the fighting is okay sort of idea, that push against each other can be really helpful. I actually start to welcome some of those tense moments. Because I walk away from him and I go, oh, okay. What was that part of me? Who, what, where did that part of me show up? And what is she asking to be healed? And I have, I do that now in all my relationships.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 42:47Mindy Pelz?

  Wait, why am I feeling this? Oh, because there's this little part of me of this little girl.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  That's right. And listen, you leave, you leave your long-term relationship, you have to do the same goddamn work with your girlfriend.

• 42:59Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  It's easier, but you're going to repeat the same thing, no matter where you are, because that's who you are. That's what I call your adaptive child. That's what you learned to do as a kid. That's your knee jerk response. You can heal yourself by tending to that person and then choosing a different move.

• 43:19Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  That's the opportunity. So Dr. Mindy, you know, I can't be too straight for a whole. So you want to, so my wife, Belinda, is a brilliant therapist. People come from all over the country to work with her. And you know, I am who I am. So I like to tease audiences. Do you, what the two world renowned therapists.

• 43:41Mindy Pelz?

  Right. How does that relationship work?

• 43:43Speaker 01

  What do we say to each other? One or the other, we have this little thing, shtick. But one of the others will look and smile and bow and say, I just want to thank you for this opportunity to work on myself, which is our way of saying, screw you.

• 44:03Mindy Pelz?

  It's a much better way. It's easier, easier to heal.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  I just want to thank you for this opportunity to work on myself.

• 44:08Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  But that's what we are. We're, we're opportunities. So go in there and fight like a grown up, not like a little girl. And see what you can get. If he, if he or she isn't listening, get an ally in couples therapy who will support you. And then see what you can get. And only after you've done those, okay, go, go throw in the towel. But if you, transforming the relationship will leave you a lot happier nine out of 10 times than walking out of it.

• 44:46Mindy Pelz?

  Right, right.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  It's just, it will.

• 44:47Mindy Pelz?

  And as an individual, it will leave you happier. And that, that's the, the aha I'm having is it's as an individual. Because you can learn more in relationship than you can learn on your own about yourself.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  And we're born to be relational. We live longer, we're healthier, we're a better model for our kids. You know, what are you modeling for your kids? I took the son of a gun along, grabbed him by the collar and we transformed it. Or I'm fed up and I left the guy. What, what kind of role model you want to be? So if you have to, you have to, but it's too easy. Learn more skills and get an ally. If you get a therapist who throws you under the bus, get a different therapist. Get an ally and do your best. You know, I, I'm very 12 step. I live the serenity prayer. Do what you can do. That's all you can do.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  At the end of the day, it, it either gets better or it doesn't. And then make your move.

• 45:50Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. Well, I, I love talking to you. I feel like I learn something new every time. And then I take it back to my marriage that I learned something new there. And you know, I have a quest that, you know, on the day I die, I want to be able to just say, I tried to understand myself from every direction I possibly could. Like that is literally my goal in life at 57 is I just want to understand myself. Why do I think the way I think? Why do I behave the way I behave? I, maybe I find myself the most fascinating. But I think there's no greater way to understand yourself than to put yourself in a long-term commitment with another human.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  It is the best if you can swing it. And if, you know, you can, you can't. But you're better off transforming it if you can.

• 46:44Mindy Pelz?

  Right, right. Tell me what you're the most excited about with our webinar.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I, I want to talk about loving power. I want to talk about relational power. The, the choice is not the binary. You know, forgive me, I know we're going to get, but I like to say, after 50 years of feminism, that binary, women have earned the right to be as obnoxious as men have always been. Look, there, there's more than those two choices.

• 47:12Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  There are smarter and more kind ways of, we, we can't think about how asserting ourselves kindly. This, this doesn't work under, this is pioneer work. And it's hard, but here's what I want to say. Those of you who are listening, if you wanted to pick this challenge up, you are pioneers. You are heroes. You are pushing the boundaries of the culture you're in. This isn't just for you. It's for your kids and their kids. You are changing the paradigm. It's hard work. You're tired. I'm sorry, tough shit. We're all tired. It's all hard work for all of us. This is a unloving culture we're in.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  We're trying to find love in an unloving culture. Guess what? Somebody said about my work, an old teacher, I was so flattered. She said, you are deconstructing patriarchy one couple at a time. You don't like your marriage? Go for it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't. But go for it.

• 48:19Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. And I think what I am the most excited about is I'm watching women seeing that they only have two choices. I need to leave it. And that for a lot of women can be really scary. But I can't stay in it anymore. And what I'm excited about is that we're going to offer up a third perspective, which is reinventing.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Don't leave it.

• 48:40Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Don't tolerate it. Change it.

• 48:45Mindy Pelz?

  Right. And I don't think anybody's, yeah, nobody's brought that forward. It's like the, the new path of marriage is that there are going to be, like Esther, Esther said, there's going to be five or six different versions of it. So how about we create the roadmap for that now? And that's what I think I'm the most excited about.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  That is because, you know, these, you know, gray divorce women in their 50s and 60s, they've been putting up with crap for decades. That's why they're so fed up. Plus this romantic claptrap that I shouldn't have to work that hard. I understand. I really, I do get it. But also, I wish I'd talked to you 20 years ago. Now you're all burnt out at what you've been putting up with. But honey, you shouldn't have been putting up with it to begin with. Challenge the son of a gun. Now we'll have to go through a layers of damage that you're carrying. I understand, but.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Challenge the person in skilled ways. See what, find your voice with love and see what you can do.

• 49:55Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, amazing. Well, I'm looking forward to it. I definitely have to ask you my last podcast question because this podcast is now called Live Like a Girl. And we've talked a lot about the little girl. But what I'm curious from your perspective, what do you think the healthiest thing a woman could do in any long-term relationship? What do you think if there was one advice you would give a woman as she ages? What's the best thing she can do in relationships?

• 50:24Speaker 01

  I mean, you are a living example. This is partly why we get along. You're a seeker. There's first consciousness, your automatic wish, and then there's your second consciousness. Wait a minute, maybe I can do something different here. And I don't care whether you're talking about your kids, your spouse, your colleagues, your dog. You know, wait a minute, you know when you're reactive. You can feel it.

• 50:51Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  But wait a minute, this part of me is not going to do well. We call it relational mindfulness. First order of business, get centered in the part of you that can think and choose. Okay, now let's try. The act, it's just like meditation. The act of moving from the automatic to the thoughtful, that's your healing right there. That's your opportunity.

• 51:19Mindy Pelz?

  And that's where happiness is. That's the happiness you are seeking is exactly what Terry just said, is that decision to not react, but to investigate and stay curious. That, like, here I am at 57, I'm like, there it is. The thing I've been searching for was in the challenges of all of my relationships.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  It's growth.

• 51:42Mindy Pelz?

  And this is why I love relationships.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  It's growth. The next step, which is new for our culture, is what I call relational empowerment. It sounds like this, I was weak, now I'm strong. I'm going to stand toe to toe with you. I'm going to lobby for what I really want from you. Are you willing? The stakes are high, I'm going to leave you if not. Do we need help? Do you need somebody to teach you some of these skills? What do we need here? But give it a shot. You know, do I want to leave this marriage? Yes, you want to leave this marriage. But is that the only marriage that's possible?

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Why don't you test it before you throw it out the window?

• 52:32Mindy Pelz?

  Do you think people get into marriage, like, most people get married in their 20s? And then they start to have this realization in their 50s? And it's like, the reason they got in to the relationship and wanted to get married now is not sticky for them anymore. They don't, it's not attractive for them anymore. They've got maybe career independence, financial independence, they're thinking for themselves. And all of a sudden, they're like, why did I do this thing that I thought was going to be great 30 years ago? It's almost like the institution of marriage has, is set up to cause couples to fail.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Well, it is the way it's set up. I'll tell you why. You know, my pal Esther Perels, she's French Belgian. She says, I hope I have six marriages in my life, and I hope they are all to the same men. We don't have a model of transformation in our relationships. So either love it or leave it, which is stupid. That's not relationally sophisticated or skilled. Look, if you're going to leave it anyway, grab the son of a gun by the collar and tell him, you know, these are the changes I need. If you can't get through, go to a therapist who will help. And, you know, I've created a school of therapy, as you know, it's called RLT, relational

• 53:52Speaker 01

  life therapy. Go to my website. It's different from other therapies in that we support whoever is demanding more intimacy. And it's nine out of 10 times it's the woman. We take size. I specialize in couples on the brink that nobody's been able to help. Every single one of these women has been thrown under the bus, right? You know, she says, well, he never talks to me. We stopped having sex two years ago. He's pretty demeaning and shows no interest whatsoever. Okay, and Bill, what's your issue? Well, she's kind of flaky and she's often 15 minutes late. Well, okay, you both have, that is a false equivalence. But we're taught as couple therapists to do that. It's nonsense.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  Get somebody who will be your ally. If you can't get through to them, Belinda and I, we've been married 40 years. We're in couple therapy. If you can't get through, get somebody who will really help you, take them on, which is not most therapists, but find one that will. If you can't rock the boat, and I'll go back to talking about how you do that, and you find a therapist who's going to support you and try and get through, and they can't get through, well, then you're done. But there are a lot of steps before you run out the door.

• 55:14Mindy Pelz?

  The way, what I typically see with women is that they want to have more of an emotional connection if they're in a heterosexual relationship, so they're not getting the same emotional connection. And they can go to their girlfriends and ladies' night out, and they can get the emotional connection. And meanwhile, their husband's like, hey, this relationship's working. It's great.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's working for them.

• 55:40Mindy Pelz?

  Right. And the woman is saying, I no longer feel a heart-to-heart connection, and the man doesn't have the skill set

• 55:50Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 55:50Mindy Pelz?

  to be able to open up his heart to meet her in the place that she wants to be met at. And he's also like, this is great. What are you talking about? This relationship is awesome.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So first of all, as you know, I have RLT therapists that we've trained all over the world, but my, I don't see that many couples, but the couples are, my beat are couples on the brink of divorce that no one's been able to help. And usually they trail, the record so far is eight therapies that did nothing for them. Let me tell you what's going on. Someone once described RLT as, women have had a revolution and now men have to deal with it. And women have had a revolution. So all these women are wearing T-shirts going, what do I need you for? Okay, so it goes like this.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  The great story of the 20th century is going to be the changing role of women. Back in Jane Austen's day, if you weren't supported by your husband, you know, you were a spinster in the little cottage in your uncle's house. It was not a good life. You needed that guy to be a breadwinner. Well, guess what? Women have joined the workforce. Women have at least as good careers as men these days. And we don't need you to be the breadwinner. We have our own career. All right, so then the question is, what do we need you for? One of the things I get up on stages and say is, we've never wanted more from our relationships than we want right now.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Look, you and I are, I think, both old, in our parents' and grandparents' marriage, it was a companionable marriage. Side by side, you don't cheat, you don't drink, you don't beat, good enough. You don't talk to each other. I went, well, tough shit. But these days, women want these quality of relation, they want

• 57:47Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  You know, one of the things I say is, we really want to be lifelong lovers in our marriages. Long walks on the beach, hand-to-hand talks, good sex in our 60s, 70s, heart-to-heart sharing, emotional sharing. Well, guess what? When I say we want to be lifelong lovers, that we is mostly women. It's not men. So the conundrum we're all in right now is women are asking, hetero women are asking men for a level of emotional intimacy that patriarchy does not raise boys to deliver. In fact, it's the opposite.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Patriarchy lands on, you know, the interesting, boys at three, four, or five are more emotional and sensitive than girls.

• 58:42Mindy Pelz?

  I had a boy, I know that.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Boys love their mummies.

• 58:46Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Boys love their mummies. Yeah, they're delicate creatures. But patriarch, the masculine code lands on them. If it's not in your family, brother in the playground, you ready? Patriarchy lands on girls, adolescents, this is Carol Gilligan's work, 12, 11, 13. That's where all the symptoms show. You know when patriarchy lands on boys? Three, four, five years old. Before some of our sons have learned to read, they've already read the code. So the research says, they still feel, but they know better than to speak it. So I get these guys, and you're right, there's always an asymmetry.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Look, it's women who are listening to this, it's women, I write books on men and women buy them. I like to say my books appear under pillows all over America.

• 59:40Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, right.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's women who are dissatisfied, it's women who want more. Why? Women's roles have changed. Guys, guess what? It hasn't. The role hasn't changed. That's not a criticism, it's just reality.

• 59:54Mindy Pelz?

  The way it is.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Women want the institution of marriage to shift from a companionable marriage to an intimate marriage. And men are going, what's your problem? I deal with, I deal with couples last ditch, I mean, after me is, and, you know, I pulled a woman, I talked to the guy, I went, honest to God, hey, Terry, things aren't that bad around here. If you just kind of get her, you know, off my back, I think we'd be fine. You're wrong. So why my therapy is so unique?

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Is we take the side of the person wanting a truly intimate marriage. We're compassionate to the men. Hey, look, in order for you to be, I say over and over again, what you learned as a boy, whether you wanted to or not, it's imposed on you, often violently. What you learn as a boy, you know, strong, independent, unemotional, logical. These are the very qualities that by today's standards will guarantee that you're a lousy husband. So, okay, you want to lose her or you want to reconfigure?

• 1:01:10Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  And a lot, when you put it, men are logical. When you put it to the guy, do you love her? Yeah. You know you're gonna lose her? Yeah. We're talking about a total transformation. It's good for you, good for your body, you'll live 10 years longer, good for your kids, good for your marriage. I can teach you. You want it? Yeah, sign me up. They almost always do. Now, the women may be so burnt out, they don't have patience.

• 1:01:34Mindy Pelz?

  I was just gonna say that. You know, that's what I hear from so many women. They're like, I just raised my children. I don't want to raise my husband.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  You don't have to.

• 1:01:44Mindy Pelz?

  I'm tired of, but yet so many women, you know, they feel like they're the social director of the house. The husband doesn't have as many friends as she has. They wouldn't go out and do things if, if the wife didn't say, hey, this is what we're gonna go do on Saturday night. So they're like the social director. In some cases, they're the chef. Like, you know, they're, I'm gonna just really boldly say that, that marriage works better for men than women. And that's the problem.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Well, there's research on that. Married men don't get sick, single men get much thicker. Married men don't have as many psychiatric symptoms, single men do. Married women are generally less happy, more symptomatic, and physically more ill than single women. So you're right. On the other hand, at the deepest level, I'm a relational guy, and I've been saying this for 40 years, and the research is caught up to me. Being in an intimate relationship, which could be your girlfriends, okay, but being in an intimate relationship is what we're born for, is what we're designed for.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  And, you know, true relationality makes us healthier, makes our kids happier, and makes us happier. So, you know, the woman's, look, honest to God, my wife, we've been married 40 years. My wife, Lynn, and I just had a knockdown drag out, but I've changed so many things over the years, but she's still, like, if I don't scan the calendar and come up with cool things for us to do, we'll sit home, all you do is your work and the news and TV. It's like you're boring. Now, God bless AI, if there are any guys listening. I would get overwhelmed.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Now, I just, you know, go to chat, TBT or Claude. Okay, give me an overview of everything that's happening in Boston, and all of a sudden,

• 1:03:51Mindy Pelz?

  Well done.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  A lot of things that women are asking for, a guy can learn with AI. So, yes, I don't want to do all the cooking. I don't want to do all the socializing. I want you to have friends. Say it. Stand up and shake the guy by the collar. This marriage isn't working. This is the marriage that might work if you're interested, but here's the thing. I was weak, now I'm strong, go screw yourself. Don't say it with hatred.

• 1:04:22Mindy Pelz?

  Yes.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Don't say it with harshness.

• 1:04:26Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Look, I'm, I'm pretty fed up. I've got one and a half feet out the door, but we're a family, we have history, we have kids, I'm gonna give you one shot. Here's what I want. Let's work on it. And if you're not getting what you want, let's go see one of Terry Reel's therapists, and they'll take my side and tell you you gotta work on it. I gotta tell you, a lot, a lot of relationships come to RLT therapists, and they look like they're on death, they are on death door.

• 1:05:00Mindy Pelz?

  Mm-hmm, yep.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  But you know what? It goes like this. Hey, how long you been with the guy? How many kids you had with the guy? Did you ever love him? Yeah, I loved him back when. Okay, great, well, let's get him to shape up. I always say there are two gates. The first gate is he has to completely transform. I mean completely. Has to learn how to be relational, the way you were taught as a girl to be relational.

• 1:05:28Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Men are taught to not do any of those things.

• 1:05:31Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  He has to relearn. That's the first gate. And we're talking a matter of a few months in RLT, not years, three, four months.

• 1:05:39Mindy Pelz?

  They can learn that.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  Get it going. That's the first gate. Here's the second gate, and I always tell the guys, you could totally transform, and your partner could say, you know what? Too little, too late, thanks for the effort, I'm done anyway. And you gotta know that coming in. But, look, come on, you've been 20 years together, you got three kids, you know, the church, the country, this is.

• 1:06:06Mindy Pelz?

  It's expensive.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 1:06:08Mindy Pelz?

  Divorce is very expensive.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  You know, Ray Charles saying, you know it's cheaper, you're a better keeper than making a rookie. Think about what you're gonna lose before you storm out the door, and be forceful and skilled. People don't teach women how to be forceful and skilled. They teach them how to be either accommodating and resentful, or pissed off and individualistic. How about pissed off and I'm gonna give you a shot?

• 1:06:37Mindy Pelz?

  So talk a little bit about resentment, because I will tell you, I had a, that was one thing I noticed in my marriage, was that I was resentful when I didn't speak my truth. And the more times I didn't speak my truth, the more resentful I got. And to the point that it, I was just walking around with all these grievances that I had never expressed, and then once I expressed them, they all came, like, like 20 years of things I wanted to say came pouring out of me. How do we say in the moment? I was just, my daughter just got married, she's 26 years old, and she called me to tell me a situation that she was going through in her marriage, and I'm like, you have to

• 1:07:20Mindy Pelz?

  speak your truth, because if you don't, that stuff is gonna sit in there and fester. And I see that over and over again with women. They, they are martyrs. Well, he should know. He should know that I want to do, and I, I, no, he's, he's not gonna know.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Well, I got good news and bad news.

• 1:07:38Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, tell me.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  First of all, bad news. Accommodating and resenting it. Remember, I say over and over again, leading men, women, people of all genders into intimacy is synonymous with leading them beyond patriarchy, leading them beyond the culture. Our culture does not support vibrant intimate relationships. It's individualistic. What does that mean? Men are taught to not have open hearts, not be connected, go out there and perform. You gotta perform or they won't love you. Sitting down and talking to them, that's a waste of time. Bullshit, they're just brainwashed.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Women traditionally are taught, eat it and resent it, like you.

• 1:08:30Mindy Pelz?

  Yes, yep.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Well, that's a traditional woman under patriarchy. Accommodating and resentful. You're talking to the guy who wrote the, I wrote, I did an audio book, they're gonna turn it in. Fierce intimacy. Take each other on. And I've said over and over again, the first casualty, when you don't take each other on, which most people don't, is a passion, generosity, open-heartedness. You resent, if you're walking around resentment, how sexy are you? How generous are you? You know?

• 1:09:05Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  So that's the norm in our culture. Cut off men and accommodating resentful women. Let's move beyond that. You speak up, but relationally, not individualistically, let me teach you how. I'm gonna go back to that in a minute. And buddy, you listen up, open your heart, and give, yield, it won't kill you. So both men and women have to move to see what happens with individual empowerment. Like, patriarchy is a binary, right? You draw a line down a piece of paper, all these qualities are feminine, all these qualities are masculine. And we all know the drill, right?

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  You know, peace, accommodating, nurture, independence, competence, logic, okay. It's all bullshit. So when women move out of the traditional part of the binary, accommodating, resentful, and they become powerful, they move over to the masculine side of the binary.

• 1:10:11Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  And it's like, hey, hey buddy, I'm powerful now, shut up and listen. And then they wonder why that doesn't work. This is moving beyond patriarchy. I call it loving power. You don't have to be harsh in order to be powerful. And nobody knows this in this culture, it's brand new. So can I give you an example?

• 1:10:34Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  Okay, please, we're role-playing, don't, I don't mean to be disrespectful.

• 1:10:38Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, no way.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Okay. Hey, Dr. Mindy, I don't like how you're talking to me. I'm respectful of you, please be respectful of me. Okay? That's okay, it's a C plus. Okay, that's standing up for yourself as an individual with harshness. How about this? Hey, Dr. Mindy, you're my friend. You know, we like each, I want to hear what you have to say. Could you like drop the volume a little bit and talk to me in a way that I can actually listen? I want to listen, but help us out here, okay? Two ways of saying the same thing. But one is about me, me, me, me, me, I'm not taking it. And the other is about us.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  You can stand up for yourself and cherish your partner and be loving, and cherish the relationship all at the same time, but people don't know how to do it in this culture, we have to learn. You know, I have a dear friend and a great fan of Carol Gilligan, the feminist psychologist, she's a legend, 90 now. And Carol taught me this, I'm Jewish, she said, everybody knows, and I was with, I was in Israel with a bunch of, we call them black hat, you know, Orthodox, and they all knew it. They said, they're connected, they knew the word. Everybody knows. God made Eve out of Adam's rib to comfort him. Right? Everybody knows that. King James. Guess what?

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Here's the real Aramaic. God made Eve out of Adam's rib to comfort him by opposing him.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  You're not here for endless gratification. That's an AI program. Be a real woman. We're here to challenge each other and be the occasion for each other's growth. That's the challenge.

• 1:12:31Mindy Pelz?

  Amazing. Well, I can't wait for the webinar, so we'll leave all the links so people can join. And Teri, always mind expanding, so I just really appreciate you so much.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  And you know, I respect you so much. And one of the things we say in relational life therapy is, yeah, you've been trained. Yeah, you have experience, but we speak from the authority of our own process. And when you talk about your own life and your own marriage, you know, you talk about wise, post-menopausal women. You speak with women. You speak with wisdom. So do I. I'm 76. Your wisdom is hard won. Nobody gave it to you. But it's that mind that says, wait, wait. You're an artist. You're a creator. Let's be artists in our own relationships.

• 1:13:20Mindy Pelz?

  I love that. Okay, well, we're going to continue this discussion in our webinar. And those of you that want to join us, we'll leave links. And let's see where we can even go deeper with this concept. So thank you, Teri, for showing up and for who you are and what you're doing in the world. And I can't wait to have more conversations with you.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  I love our relationship and thank you for doing the blessed work that you've been doing for years and years, not with me on your own. And it's a great benefit to a great many people.

• 1:13:54Mindy Pelz?

  Thank you.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 1:13:59Mindy Pelz?

  Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.

• 1:14:18Mindy Pelz?

  Hey, Dr. Mindy here, and welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast, where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in. Let's dive in.

• 1:14:44Mindy Pelz?

  There was a season in my marriage when I realized I was walking around with 20 years of grievances that I had never really said out loud. It wasn't that I had said nothing at all. I just never said, you know, those little things that were bothering me. And the reason I didn't say it is because my natural instinct was to swallow it in order to keep the peace. What I learned as I went through my menopausal years was that every swallow made me resentful. And then one day, I finally opened my mouth and 20 years of grievances came pouring out all at once.

• 1:15:30Mindy Pelz?

  I don't recommend this. But I tell you this story because I hear it from so many women constantly. And it does tend to show up around 45, 50, 55, in that menopausal transition. During this time, many women wake up and say, there are things in this marriage, in this family, in this home, that I cannot accept anymore. Or what I hear at a lot of ladies' nights out, which is, I don't know what happened to my libido. It is just completely absent. Or what many women are experiencing, which is, no matter what I do, I feel like it's wrong.

• 1:16:17Mindy Pelz?

  The armor that has been worn for decades starts to come off and the tolerance goes with it. And the numbers show this. The divorce rate for adults over 50 more than doubled between 1990 and 2010. And roughly two thirds of divorces among older adults are initiated by women. This is a statistic we should pay attention to.

• 1:16:46Mindy Pelz?

  So what do we tell women who reach their midlife and need a relational upgrade? Most of what she hears is that she has two options. Stay, and you may be miserable. Or you can leave. It will be difficult, but you will be empowered. And honestly, I've watched too many women feel stuck between those two doors, not really loving either option. Well, have good news, because today's guest believes there's a third option.

• 1:17:24Mindy Pelz?

  Teri Reel is a family therapist, the founder of Relational Life Therapy, and the author of The New Rules of Marriage and the book, Us. He specializes in couples on the brink, the ones who've tried eight therapists and are down to their last shot. He himself has been married for 40 years, and he'll tell you, he is still practicing on his wife. This is a part two of our conversation. I interviewed Teri over a year ago, and it might be my favorite one yet.

• 1:18:00Mindy Pelz?

  In this episode, Teri and I talk about why an attitude that can emerge during menopause, you know, that attitude of, I was weak and I was quiet, and now I'm strong and I'm going to tell you everything that I want you to hear? Well, that isn't the finish line. And in this conversation, we dive deep into why there may actually be a wounded little girl inside you who might be running your arguments. It's fascinating what he has to say on this and how you can turn a complaint, one that might fall on deaf ears, into a request. And most importantly, why Cinderella is dead and no Prince Charming is coming to hand

• 1:18:45Mindy Pelz?

  you what you want. You are going to need to go and get it. Teri also gives us a three-step roadmap for getting what you want from your partner, which I promise, you know, I love me a good checklist. This checklist is not what you are expecting. And one thing I want to be clear about, this isn't about staying in a relationship that is unsafe. Teri says it himself. If you have to leave, go. This is for the marriage you haven't yet given a real shot to, and you are potentially needing a whole new approach or view in which to look at it.

• 1:19:28Mindy Pelz?

  This is exactly why Teri and I are doing something together that we're both very excited about. On Tuesday, October 27, Teri and I are hosting a live three-hour workshop called, Don't Leave It, Reinvent It. In this workshop, we're going to walk you through what's actually happening in a woman's brain, hormones, and nervous system in midlife, so you know, you're not just becoming difficult. Your internal operating system is changing. And Teri's going to teach you the tools that will let that new version of you be heard and loved all at the same time. Bring your partner to this webinar or watch the replay together.

• 1:20:13Mindy Pelz?

  The link for the webinar is in the show notes. Because the goal isn't to be empowered out of your relationship, it's to take your power back in your relationship, not just in your marriage. But what you're going to learn in this conversation is that if you can nail it in your marriage, you can nail taking your power back in all different kinds of relationships. There is so much to be learned when we are in relationship. There is so much we can discover about ourselves that we can't see when we are out of relationship.

• 1:20:52Mindy Pelz?

  So in this conversation, I think you're going to find a whole new approach to those old relationships that feel like they are going nowhere and are holding you down. After just one conversation here, I believe you are going to have a true new lens to take your power back with. Are you ready? Let's dive in. Teri Reel. Well, Teri, welcome back to my podcast. I am so excited to have part two of our first conversation on midlife and marriage, because this is, this is a tangled mess for a lot of people. So I'm super happy that you're here.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  Well, I love your work and I think we're a great pair. So let's get going.

• 1:21:39Mindy Pelz?

  Let's go. So I'm going to be really frank. I have sat with a lot of friends in midlife. I've heard from my community over and over again that women start to go through this transformation as they move into their post-menopausal years, and they become a different person. And it takes time for their partner to catch up with this new identity that they're becoming, with the new preferences that they have. And a lot of women say, I cannot tolerate my partner anymore.

• 1:22:15Mindy Pelz?

  Have you seen that happen to women in midlife?

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  I mean, we've all seen it. It's, you know, it's making headlines. Particularly my age, the baby boomers, the gray divorce. And yeah, women hit menopause and it's like, who needs you? But that's not necessarily what I recommend. So I have some thoughts about why that is such an epidemic. And what some possible alternatives, maybe. Hey, look, if you want to leave him, leave him, fine. But before you do, what was, what was that phrase we came up with? Don't leave it, reinvent it.

• 1:22:57Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  So before you leave the relationship, let me tell you some tips about how to stress it. And see if you can wrangle more of what you want from him.

• 1:23:08Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, because what I hear so much is I have two options. I either go.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:12Mindy Pelz?

  Or I stay. Both options for a lot of women are not attractive. Like going is scary and staying is suffocating. And can, and they can no longer tolerate that. So if you are going to reinvent any relationship, but specifically a marriage, what are some of the tactics and strategies we would start with?

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  Okay, well, first, I'd like to pull back, zoom back a bit and have more of an aerial view about why the first impulse is to leave, which is an epidemic, particularly in the US. Women leaving marriages, children being estranged from their parents.

• 1:23:52Mindy Pelz?

  Canceling family members is a big thing now.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, narcissistic abuse is the new flavor of the month. And you can't treat him, just walk out. All of these, just be empowered and get out of your relationship. Drives me nuts as a family therapist, a relational expert. That's your last resort. I mean, look, if you have to, you have to. But what this, the backdrop here, you know, from my work, I critique patriarchy and what it does to relationships. And I critique individualism and what it does. We do not live in a relationship cherishing culture.

• 1:24:34Mindy Pelz?

  And so this, therein lies where I think the meaning of marriage changes. And even long-term commitments, I don't even know if it's marriage.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not always marriage, right.

• 1:24:45Mindy Pelz?

  I think we come together in connection because it feels good to do life with somebody.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:52Mindy Pelz?

  And then all of a sudden, it stops feeling good. And I'll tell you what I've learned from being married 30 years is that it's actually morphed now into like a relationship lab where I get to practice.

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:25:09Mindy Pelz?

  Communication, like you just said, where I get to practice communicating in a different way to somebody that may, you know, chew in a certain way that I've heard for so many years. And I'm like, oh, my God, there it is again.

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  I know, I got that one too.

• 1:25:25Mindy Pelz?

  That, well, that chew, I've, I know that chew and it's going to drive me crazy. But what I have come to realize is that there has never been a better lab to learn how to communicate to other people than a long-term marriage.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. Marriage is not a place where you get nurtured and fulfilled in all the ways that your parents didn't and you want them to. Falling in love, you think that, you know.

• 1:25:54Mindy Pelz?

  Falling in love is the easy part.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, James Faimo, the father of couples therapy, once, this is back in the 50s, when it was assumed you're sleeping with your spouse. He said, the day you turn over and look at the person lying next to you and say to yourself, holy crap, I've been had. This is a terrible mistake. This is not the person I fell in love with. That, says the father of couples therapy, is the first day of your real marriage. And I talk about harmony, disharmony, and repair. Disharmony sucks. I'm the guy who coined the phrase, normal marital hatred. It's dark, but come up out of that and with some skill and finesse as you're learning. Your relationship is not, I hate it when people,

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  your partner is not your mother, they're not your therapist, and they're not even your best girlfriend. They're different. However, this becomes the place where you get to learn your skills. You know, I say to people, all the skills I've taught for 40 years are clinically tested. Belinda's the clinic.

• 1:27:01Mindy Pelz?

  Right, exactly. I mean, so this is something I recently, again, discovered in my own long-term marriage is like, a couple of years ago, I realized, oh, my gosh, I am actually codependent.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:13Mindy Pelz?

  And the only reason I knew that is all of a sudden, I was getting to the point where I was like, I need him to be happy so I could be happy.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:27:22Mindy Pelz?

  And then, right? And then all of a sudden, I'm like, wait a second. I need my daughter to be happy so I can be happy. I need my mother to be happy so I can be happy. Who, who's the unifying factor here? It's me. Why do I need all these people to be happy so I could be happy?

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  Because you're, because you've got about 2,000 years worth of training of women to do that.

• 1:27:45Mindy Pelz?

  Right, right.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Under your belt. That's what a good woman is supposed to do. But pay attention to this, those who are listening to this. Yeah, you leave your husband, all right. So then you're codependent on your girlfriend. You're codependent on your daughter. You're codependent on your boss. You haven't changed. I'm talking about, use the relationship to transform yourself. Men, open up your ears and be flexible and yielding. Men think that being yielding means that you're a ball-less wonder. No, you're a good husband. Women, open up your throats and speak the goddamn truth with some force, some oomph, but with love, not with disdain.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  And I talk about three, three phases of getting what you want in your relationship. One, rock the boat. Go ahead and say it, but try and say it.

• 1:28:42Mindy Pelz?

  I love that because women do, women try to not rock the boat.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:47Mindy Pelz?

  We don't, we've been taught to don't do that.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  Right. And when you do, it doesn't work very well. So one, okay, one, rock the boat. This is really important to me. If you don't do it, either we're going to stay together and I'm going to be goddamn miserable, or I'm going to leave. It ain't going to go well.

• 1:29:06Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  This is really important. You've got to shape up. Two, ready? Once the son of a gun says, uh, uh, okay, I'll try. You know, they're remedial. I've been listening to women for 40 years tell me that their husbands are relational idiots. Yeah, great, I got it. Okay, here's two, ready? Women don't like this. Once he says, I'm going to try. Listen to yourselves. Remember, you're dealing with a guy who had the boom of patriarchy dropped on him at three, four, five years old. Does he know what he feels? Does he know how to share his feelings? Does he know how to be vulnerable? Does he know how to be compassionate to your feelings? Guess what?

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  No. Can he learn? Well, we'll see. In theory, the men I work with can learn. Will your man learn? I don't know, we'll see. But give it a shot. This is what I want from you. So phase two, which women hate, is I call it helping him win. Why do you want to help him win? Because winning means giving you what you want, hello? How, and this is brand new too. Okay, you're going to work on it. Let me teach you what works for me. And women get this wrong because of patriarchy, because of individualism. I'm not going to teach you what you need to do, your son of a gun, which is where all women go. I'm the objective authority.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  I know better at relationships than you do. This is what you need to do. Men will recoil from that.

• 1:30:42Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  Speak subjectively with humility. I'm not the expert on relationships. I am the expert on Mindy. This is what I want you to do. And then, this is also hard. The third phase is, once the son of a gun starts to do it imperfectly, baby steps at the start, encourage, don't discourage. Don't, so many women, when the guy starts to give it to them, they, yes, but. Yeah, okay, but it's, okay, you only, I teach people, celebrate the glass 15% full. And it's counterintuitive. But you do it with your kids, right? Your kid comes home with a D, you have a come to Jesus, and they come home with a C. You don't say, where's the B? You say, good work, let's keep going.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  But you don't do that with his spouse.

• 1:31:29Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  We're endlessly critical.

• 1:31:32Mindy Pelz?

  And then I would say to that, that a lot of women would say, I'm too tired to like applaud him. I'm too tired to train him. I'm too tired to go through all that work. And I, I'm curious what you would say to that. But I would say that I, as the older I get, the more I realize that everything we're looking for in self-growth exists in a long-term relationship.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Look. There are two pieces to this. One is both women and men under patriarchy are saying, I shouldn't have to work so hard on my relationship. If it was a good relationship, I shouldn't have to work that hard. That's just crap. You know, the reason why you have to work so hard now is because you didn't for 20 years you've been with the guy. You should have been confronting him all along. So, okay, now it's a big bill, but take some responsibility for your part in the bigness of that bill. But, okay, you're still here, you're still here. Do it now. Oh, I'm so, I don't have to.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  You know, men pull the same thing. Oh, I work so hard, I don't have to, it's so hard. No matter what I do, it's never enough. It's just whining. Think about what life is really going to be like when you leave them. And you think that's not going to be work for you? I know, it's not fair. And, you know, maybe you'll be happier alone with your girlfriends, but I don't know. I mean, you're gonna disassemble your family, your life is not gonna look at all.

• 1:33:18Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. So, is the problem maybe that we're all trying to look at relationships and want them to be easy? Because when you first meet somebody, all of a sudden, they're making your life so much easier, like life is so much better when you're first in love.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  You know what? You're lying. Both men and women lie in the audition stage.

• 1:33:40Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  You know, the reason why you're happy with your guy 20 years ago is because he was nicer to you 20 years ago. He acted like a lover. And that went away. You have to be woken up. Can I tell you a story?

• 1:33:56Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  It's a true story. Now, these are wonderful people, but they were literally from a rural village, you know, in another country. And very simple people. And they were brought to me by one of my students. Not to, you know, be condescending, but they barely spoke English. And they were simple rural farm people, right? So, she was gonna leave him. Okay, why? He treats me like a desk, she said. He treats me like furniture. Okay, has he always been that way? What do you mean?

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Well, you married him, did he treat you that way when he was courting you? No, you know, the Latin. No, he was very romantic. He actually made, he wrote love songs and stood by my window with his guitar and sang me love songs. He hasn't done that in 20 years. I go to the guy. Honest to God, this is the simplest therapy I've ever done in 40 years. I turn to the guy, I go, is that true? Yeah. I go, okay, do you love her? Yeah. Do you realize she's gonna leave you? Yeah. You know what you did back then in the beginning to win her? Yeah. Do that. And he said, I can do that. And he did. And he's sort of married.

• 1:35:24Mindy Pelz?

  Wow.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  So, I am saying.

• 1:35:27Mindy Pelz?

  You know what most women want? Most women that I talk to want the kitchen cleaned. Like, I've heard so many women say, if he would just clean the kitchen, I would give him more sex. Like, I just want the kitchen cleaned. I just want, like, him to carry his load in the house.

• 1:35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want you to take some of my weight.

• 1:35:47Mindy Pelz?

  That alone would be romantic to me.

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, but you can also act like a lover if you want to. Listen, I have a saying, women make passes at men who wash glasses. But, yeah.

• 1:36:00Mindy Pelz?

  Totally. It's the sexiest thing, if any man listening, the sexiest thing is you cleaning the kitchen.

• 1:36:06Speaker 01

  Because women don't want to make love to boys. They, oh, how many times have you heard this? I want a partner. I want an adult on the other side of the seesaw. I don't want another child. Okay, let's see if this son of a gun can grow up. I agree with you. Lean in and tell him, but in a way that he might possibly hear. Break it down and teach him. And if he's trying and you used to love him back in the day, be more encouraging. Don't yes, but everything he does, which is what we all, what we all do.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  Now, the other thing, though, that's going on is what I call the Cinderella syndrome. Men shouldn't have to work on their relationships because I'm perfect, what the hell's the problem? Women shouldn't have to work on their relationships, you know why? I just said it. Prince Charming should just know and give it to me.

• 1:37:10Mindy Pelz?

  Right, yeah. Well, that's patriarch. We all watched all the Disney movies.

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:37:15Mindy Pelz?

  Right? That infiltrates what we think a husband should look like.

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:37:21Mindy Pelz?

  And act like.

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. And men gunk up marriages because they treat their wives like they're their mothers. And women gunk up marriages because they long for their husband to act like fathers. You should just know what I want and give it to him. Really? That's a kid talking to a parent, that's not a grown up. Sorry, girls, here's what I say, ready? Cinderella's dead. Prince Charming probably just got out of rehab. If you want it, roll up your sleeves and go after it. Nobody's gonna just give it to you because you're so stupid.

• 1:37:55Mindy Pelz?

  And Cinderella's like, Cinderella's like, I don't need, I don't need him to give me the shoe, I'll just go buy my own damn shoe.

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  I'll buy my own goddamn shoe, yeah.

• 1:38:02Mindy Pelz?

  That's what, that would be the new version. She wouldn't be waiting, she would just go buy her own shoe, so.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  Right. And her therapist and her 12 cent sponsor and her mother and her girlfriends will all go, girl.

• 1:38:15Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  You know, I say this all the time, as a couples therapist, the bane of my existence are individual therapists who individually empower their people to get right out of relationships that I can make work.

• 1:38:30Mindy Pelz?

  Ooh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah, I've seen that. And, you know, again, for people listening, this is exactly why Terry and I are doing a webinar. We'll leave the link below in the notes, but I love the name that you came up with, which is don't leave it, reinvent it. And I, and I just don't think we give marriages, whether they're heterosexual or same sex, we don't, like, say, hey, guess what? This structure looks like this and it doesn't work for us anymore.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  It doesn't work.

• 1:39:03Mindy Pelz?

  Let's break that apart and create a new structure. That, to me, will be the savior of long-term relationships.

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Right. And I can already hear women saying, I tried it. Every woman, I tried it. I tried it, and I said, listen, yeah, well, try it with a little, try it with more love and more oomph, both of those things. You know, it's like parenting. I say the hallmark of bad parenting is high emotion and low follow-through. I want women to be powerful. That means you can be soft.

• 1:39:36Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Talk, speak softly and carry a big stick. Don't yell and scream and have no stick. Have your stick. I'm gonna leave you if this doesn't work out. I love that.

• 1:39:46Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:47Speaker 01

  I have a saying, men can be relational if they got a gun to their head. I'm gonna leave you if this doesn't work out.

• 1:39:52Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  Okay, that's your daring to rock the boat. Let me help you rise to the occasion.

• 1:39:59Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  Before we junk this family and this, you know, 25-year relationship, let's roll up our sleeves and give it a hail mary.

• 1:40:09Mindy Pelz?

  For the past two years, I have been in a stuck nervous system. A lot of you have heard me talk about it here on this podcast. And I've been experimenting with all kinds of ways to balance my nervous system. And I gotta tell you something that's gonna sound incredibly backwards. Because what I've learned is that sometimes the fastest way out of a stuck nervous system or out of fight or flight isn't more calm. It's not sit your butt down on the couch. It's actually a little bit of heat and light. Now, stay with me because I discovered something that I'm really excited to share with you.

• 1:40:54Mindy Pelz?

  There has been something that my Sunlighten Infrared Sauna has done to my nervous system that no other tool has been able to accomplish. At the end of a crazy long day, a few minutes in a gentle heat with some warm red light on me, and all of a sudden, I feel myself coming down from the chaos of the day. And let's be really honest, we could all use a way, a quick way, to get out of fight or flight, not only so we can feel better, but so that we can be our best and we can

• 1:41:34Mindy Pelz?

  show up in a very balanced way for the people that we love. For me, this is the rare kind of self-care that's actually doing something. And what I love about Infrared Sauna is that the heat is gentle and comfortable. It's like, it's like sitting in the sun and you instantly feel relaxed, but you're in your own home, there's no schedule. There's no driving to a gym to share sauna space with anyone. Sunlighten has been the pioneer in infrared for more than 25 years. And their science holds up, which you know me, I love the science behind a good health tool.

• 1:42:19Mindy Pelz?

  If that sounds familiar and you're needing another tool, I can honestly tell you that this has been a game changer for me. So, go check them out. Visit sunlighten.com/drmindy and use the code DRMINDY to save up to $2,100 on your sauna purchase. And plus, the shipping is free. This is honestly self-care that I could absolutely get behind. Sunlighten, thank you. I am so grateful for this tool.

• 1:42:56Mindy Pelz?

  Right. And do you see the same dynamic happen in same-sex relationships?

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:01Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, talk a little bit about that because I think, you know, we've been putting a lot of emphasis on heterosexual, but from what I look at with midlife, the brain is changing for women and new identities and new ways in doing life emerge. And so I would think it would play out in a same-sex relationship as well.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  It does. You know, it's a funny thing. I don't want to be overgeneralized because there's lots of variety. But we straight therapy, I have to work with my therapist. We have this, on the one hand, we pathologize same-sex marriages and then we idealize them both. That's what we do to women, too. We idealize them and devalue them both. So we have this fantasy that if you're gay or a lesbian, by definition, you stepped out of patriarchy and you're not, bullshit. You're saturated as anybody else with this stuff. So just because you're a same-sex marriage or a relationship, it doesn't mean that you've

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  liberated yourself from everything you got taught. Here's why I teach my therapist, ready? You want to know what it's like? You want to know the most important thing? A relationship between two women is between, drumbeat, two women. A relationship between two men is two men. Look at sex. Non-monogamy before AIDS was the norm for gay men. We're primary, have a fling on the side, go off on, I don't want to hear about it, don't disrupt our relationship, don't give me any diseases, and go have a good time and fine. That was the norm. And I had to teach therapists, don't pathologize that. You know, gay men

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  were the pioneers of polyamory. Gay women, on the other hand, you've got two people have trouble asserting themselves and making.

• 1:44:54Mindy Pelz?

  Oh, yeah. I could see that. Yeah. And the resentment would be there, too.

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  Of course it is. And, you know,

• 1:45:00Mindy Pelz?

  Because you're not speaking it.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  It's a cliche, but people talk about lesbian bed death. Again, if you don't take each other on, passion dies.

• 1:45:12Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  And the issue is, okay, Terry, I have taken them on, my wife, same-sex, whatever, and they don't listen. I understand that, but they're, learn some more sophisticated ways of taking them on.

• 1:45:28Mindy Pelz?

  So one thing that really helped in my marriage that I translated into all my relationships is when I was interacting with him, and even whether we were fighting or in conflict, I visualized him holding a mirror up. And I would tell myself, what are you seeing about yourself right now? What is the reflection that's coming back at you? And because I got to practice it so much with him, I then started using it with my sister, and I started using it with my daughter, and I used it with my mother and my friends. And I realized that every relationship I am in, the person's holding a mirror up, and I'm seeing a different version of myself in all of these relationships.

• 1:46:14Speaker 01

  Oh, that's good.

• 1:46:15Mindy Pelz?

  And even friendships that were going to be tossed aside, but then I was like, wait, the reflection I'm seeing of myself is this part that maybe I don't want to be anymore. And what if I change that? Would that relationship change?

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you change, what is the sound of one hand clapping? You change the way you're handling yourself, maybe not, maybe yes, but that's your snowball chance in hell of getting, not the other person, you don't, can't control the other person.

• 1:46:46Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  But you can control the seesaw. If you change your move, maybe they'll change theirs. And if I'm accommodating and resentful, I'm not going to get what I want. If I yell and scream and talk about how angry I am, I'm not going to get what I want. Okay, what's the move here? But here's what's dicey. And we're heading toward the end, so you have to have me on a third one.

• 1:47:14Mindy Pelz?

  We could talk for hours. Come to the webinar, everybody. We're going to be doing a long, long breakdown of this.

• 1:47:20Speaker 01

  But here's the thing. I don't believe in the romantic Cinderella tale. I believe in what we've learned in infant-mother development. Harmony, disharmony, repair. We don't teach people how to do that.

• 1:47:33Mindy Pelz?

  No, we don't.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  Disharmony sucks. It's really raw. Okay. The issue is, when you don't get what you want, not only do we not have, teach people the skills of climbing back up on the bank, but the best, most thoughtful part of you, your prefrontal cortex, whoop, goes offline. And what I call the adaptive child, what you learned as a little girl to cope, you know, it's that survival, it's subcortical, it's automatic, it's not thoughtful. Fight, flight, fawn, which becomes fix, which is the norm for traditional women. Fight,

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  flight, or fawn. So you move from fawn to flight. I'm out of here.

• 1:48:22Mindy Pelz?

  Right, right.

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  No. How about moving from fawning to power? So what happens is, when we are unhappy with our partners, we go right back to our trousers. And we automatically do what we learned to do as kids. If you're a fixer, I'm going to make them better. If you're a fleer, I'm going to shut down. If you're a fawn, or if you're a fighter, I'm going to let them know just how miserable I am.

• 1:48:54Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:48:55Speaker 01

  That's all automatic.

• 1:48:57Mindy Pelz?

  So beautiful.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  You talked about the opportunities, the crucible.

• 1:49:01Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:49:02Speaker 01

  Okay, here it is. When you're, I call it whoosh, when you're flooded with that automatic, the first skill, take a breath, take a break, I'm a big fan of breaks, take a walk around the block, remember who you are. Remember who you're talking to. I may not remember that I love the guy, I used to, but he's the father of my children, we have 20 years together. Let me try and give this a shot, but not with harshness. That's the adaptive child. With thoughtfulness and skill. Let me, women have to learn relationship,

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  just like men do. They're more relational skilled, but they're not great.

• 1:49:49Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  You know, the way we try and get more of what we want in our relationships is we complain about what we're not getting.

• 1:49:56Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:49:57Speaker 01

  That ain't going to work. So the reason why people back off of taking each other on is because it doesn't work when they do. And then you think, well, that's because my partner's an idiot. No. It doesn't work because you're not being skillful. Try and learn how to do it better. And if that doesn't work, get an ally to help you. And if none of that works, you're done. But do a little work first before you sew in the towel.

• 1:50:27Mindy Pelz?

  So let me repeat back, because what you just said was gold. I'm in an argument with my spouse, and I'm finding myself getting more and more angry. All of a sudden, I'm not in my prefrontal cortex. I've gone back into what I would call the lizard brain. I've gone back into that, that little girl who reacted before the prefrontal cortex came online. In my self-growth book, that's gold. That's gold. Because if I can go down and understand the habits of my little girl and how she formed communication skills,

• 1:51:08Mindy Pelz?

  and I can change that, that is going to change every relationship in my life.

• 1:51:13Speaker 01

  That's right. That's the crucible. And the way out of this mess is you stop handing your little girl to your husband to deal with.

• 1:51:23Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:51:23Speaker 01

  You start dealing with her.

• 1:51:25Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  And that's growth.

• 1:51:27Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  That's healing. But we don't do it in this culture. It's like, you know, so you were a fighter, Mindy, when you were young?

• 1:51:35Mindy Pelz?

  As a little girl, I felt like I had no voice. And then when I wanted to speak up, I yelled in my family. I was.

• 1:51:41Speaker 01

  So that's the binary. Either traditionally feminine, accommodating, resentful, or you shift over to the masculine, and you scream and yell.

• 1:51:48Mindy Pelz?

  That's right.

• 1:51:49Speaker 01

  And you're dominating and powerful. And neither of them work. But here's the prefrontal cortex. I'm going to be powerful, but I don't need to scream and yell. This is really important to me. Please pay attention. You don't want me to be unhappy with you. You don't want to live with me when I'm unhappy. This is, in your own self-interest, we're together.

• 1:52:12Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 1:52:13Speaker 01

  So, but there's more choices than that automatic, I either have to accommodate or I have to be a banshee. The more sophisticated, but nobody teaches you that in this culture.

• 1:52:24Mindy Pelz?

  No. No, and I learned this from you, is this idea that when you're in a fight, it's like a little girl and a little boy. Like, if I'm in a fight and I all of a sudden see this moment that I'm like, I see him as a little boy, knowing his childhood, I all of a sudden have more compassion for him. If I see my little girl there, we're not adults arguing with each other, it's like, all of a sudden, there's a deeper healing. And, and we even will talk different because I've become very aware that, yeah, that I'm operating from the past, and, and he's operating from the past. And, and if I can, in that

• 1:53:05Mindy Pelz?

  moment, have that awareness and bring it forward, the conversation dramatically changes.

• 1:53:11Speaker 01

  It changes completely. Because, you know, I say to my students, the most important question is not what are the stressors, couples, not even what's the dance. The most important question is, which part of you am I talking to? Am I talking to that automatic survival? Knee-jerk, which you learned as a kid, is what you needed to do as a kid to grow. Good for you, you learned how to do it. But I say, adaptive then, maladaptive now. You can't bring that, you can't let that five, six-year-old run your goddamn adult relationship. Honey, I know that you're pissed as a rat, and I know you think that the only way you can

• 1:53:52Speaker 01

  get heard is to yell and scream and make a fuss. I got you, hon. You stand behind me. That's what I do with my little boy. He's a fighter. You stand behind me. Look, Belinda and I are both fighters. We come from violent families, and our knee-jerk is, screw you, yeah, well, screw me, screw you. That's where we go. And you take a breath or take a break. Wait a minute, what am I doing? You know, that automatic response, everybody listening? You've done that a million times, ladies.

• 1:54:26Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 1:54:27Speaker 01

  You know exactly what lies behind that door. This is your moment of liberation. Take a breath and go through another door, a new door that you create. That's called being an adult. You know, one of the great spiritual teachers, Krishnamurti, said, "True liberation is freedom from our own automatic responses." Take a breath.

• 1:54:54Mindy Pelz?

  That's so beautiful.

• 1:54:55Speaker 01

  Do a little trauma work with that little boy or girl. Honey, Terry, you grew up in blood. I mean, thank God you were a fighter, but I don't want to take a 60-year-old fighter into my marriage. Stand behind me. I love you, I got you, you're demoted. You're in the backseat, I'm running my marriage.

• 1:55:15Mindy Pelz?

  And the way I use it is I will, in the morning, when I do my meditation, I literally will visualize my little girl sitting next to me. And I'm like, tell me what you need, what you didn't get heard. Tell me what you need to speak right now. And it's really interesting how she'll show up and tell me, well, you know, when this happened and this happened and this happened, my voice wasn't heard in my family. And sometimes I can go back to my husband and I can say, hey, I'm thinking about the argument we had yesterday, and I'm realizing it really triggered something in me from my childhood. And he'll listen to that. Sometimes I gotta take it to my own therapy and say, this happened to me, and it's just still running me.

• 1:56:00Mindy Pelz?

  Help me understand how I can heal it. But I really want to say this little boy, little girl idea becomes so powerful when you're in these really intense experiences in marriage.

• 1:56:13Speaker 01

  Utterly compelling. Fight, flight, or fix. It feels like the world's gonna... If I don't stand up for myself, if I don't shut this down, if I don't make it better, it's so compulsive. And it literally feels like you're gonna die if you don't do that. That's the hallmark of those automatic early reactions. But you're not in your adult.

• 1:56:35Mindy Pelz?

  No.

• 1:56:36Speaker 01

  Look, here's the tip-off. If you're having an extreme reaction to a stimulus, which is not proportionate to the oof that's coming over you, that's not you, that's your little boy or girl. Turn to that person, help them, but don't let them run your relationship.

• 1:57:01Mindy Pelz?

  And therein lies why relationship is where you heal yourself. And that is, I'm, I'm, I'll be 57 in two days. I've been married for 30 years. And I will say that I just came to this realization a couple of months ago, that actually, relationship, my marriage being the most probably challenging one, because you have history and you've been together all day long.

• 1:57:28Speaker 01

  And you hurt each other much more deeply than people you don't care about. Yeah, that's a challenge.

• 1:57:35Mindy Pelz?

  But in that, I found the unhealed child that really wanted to speak out and wanted to be nourished. And I all of a sudden became the adult that the little girl wanted. I became that person who could turn around and heal her. And I think about all, what we started this conversation with, where when it gets tough, people leave. But this is why I'm so excited about this. Don't leave it, reinvent it, because in there, you are going to find a version of yourself that is crying for help. If you allow yourself to approach it the way that we're talking about it.

• 1:58:14Speaker 01

  That's right. You know, you turn to that little girl who was never heard, and here's the revolution. Sweetheart, that son of a gun may not hear you. He's not reliable. He could have his own issues, he could have a stomach ache that day. You know, I may not get the corrective experience from my spouse. That's the merry road to hell. You want it, and sometimes you get it, but sometimes you don't. He may not give it to you, but guess what? I will give it to you. He's not consistent, but I am. So if I was abandoned, I'm here. If I was squelched, I'm listening.

• 1:58:58Speaker 01

  If it was helpless, I will change for you. You have power. Whatever was missing, you give it. Then you put that little person behind you, and with your thoughtful prefunnel cortex, turn to your partner and go, "Okay, what do we need to do here?" But it's a whole different ballgame.

• 1:59:21Mindy Pelz?

  When you approach it like that, going back to the, you know, the fighting is okay sort of idea, that push against each other can be really helpful, I actually start to welcome some of those tense moments. Because I walk away from him and I go, oh, okay, what was that part of me? Who, where did that part of me show up? And what is she asking to be healed? And I have, I do that now in all my relationships.

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:59:50Mindy Pelz?

  Wait, why am I feeling this? Oh, because there's this little part of me of this little girl.

• 1:59:54Speaker 01

  That's right. And listen, you leave, you leave your long-term relationship, you have to do the same goddamn work with your girlfriend.

• 2:00:01Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  It's easier, but you're gonna repeat the same thing, no matter where you are, because that's who you are. That's what I call your adaptive child. That's what you learned to do as a kid. That's your knee-jerk response. You can heal yourself by tending to that person and then choosing a different move. That's the opportunity. So, Dr. Mindy, you know, I can't be too straight for a whole... So you wanna, so my wife, Belinda, is a brilliant therapist. People come from all over the country to work with her, and you know, I am who I am. So I like to tease audiences. Do you, what the two world-renowned therapists?

• 2:00:44Mindy Pelz?

  Right, how does that relationship work?

• 2:00:46Speaker 01

  What do we say to each other? One or the other, we have this little thing, shtick. But one of the others will look and smile and bow and say, "I just want to thank you for this opportunity to work on myself," which is our way of saying, "Screw you."

• 2:01:05Mindy Pelz?

  It's a much better way. It's easier to heal.

• 2:01:07Speaker 01

  "I just want to thank you for this opportunity to work on myself."

• 2:01:10Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:11Speaker 01

  But that's what we are, we're opportunities. So go in there and fight like a grown-up, not like a little girl, and see what you can get. If he or she isn't listening, get an ally in couples therapy who will support you, and then see what you can get. And only after you've done those, okay, go, throw in the towel. But if you, transforming the relationship will leave you a lot happier nine out of 10 times than walking out of it.

• 2:01:48Mindy Pelz?

  Right, right. And as an individual, it will leave you happier. And that's the aha I'm having, is it's as an individual, because you can learn more in relationship than you can learn on your own about yourself.

• 2:02:03Speaker 01

  And we're born to be relational. We live longer, we're healthier, we're a better model for our kids. You know, what are you modeling for your kids? I took the son of a gun along, grabbed him by the collar, and we transformed it? Or I'm fed up and I left the guy? What kind of role model you want to be? So if you have to, you have to, but it's too easy. Learn more skills and get an ally. If you get a therapist who throws you under the bus, get a different therapist. Get an ally and do your best. You know, I'm very 12-step, I live the serenity prayer. Do what you can do, that's all you can do.

• 2:02:47Speaker 01

  At the end of the day, it either gets better or it doesn't, and then make your move.

• 2:02:53Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. Well, I love talking to you. I feel like I learn something new every time. And then I take it back to my marriage, that I learned something new there. And, you know, I have a quest that, you know, on the day I die, I want to be able to just say, I tried to understand myself from every direction I possibly could. Like, that is literally my goal in life at 57, is I just want to understand myself. Why do I think the way I think? Why do I behave the way I behave? Maybe I find myself the most fascinating, but I think there's no greater way to understand yourself than to put yourself in a long-term commitment with another human.

• 2:03:36Speaker 01

  It is the best if you can swing it. And if, you know, you can't, you can't. But you're better off transforming it if you can.

• 2:03:46Mindy Pelz?

  Right, right. Tell me what you're the most excited about with our webinar.

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  Oh, I want to talk about loving power. I want to talk about relational power. The choice is not the binary. You know, forgive me, I know we're going to get bit, but I like to say after 50 years of feminism, that binary, women have earned the right to be as obnoxious as men have always been. Look, there's more than those two choices.

• 2:04:14Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  There are smarter and more kind ways of, we can't think about asserting ourselves kindly. That doesn't work under, this is pioneer work. And it's hard, but here's what I want to say. Those of you who are listening, if you wanted to pick this challenge up, you are pioneers. You are heroes. You are pushing the boundaries of the culture you're in. This isn't just for you. It's for your kids and their kids. You are changing the paradigm. It's hard work, you're tired, I'm sorry, tough shit. We're all tired. It's all hard work for all of us. This is a unloving culture we're in.

• 2:05:00Speaker 01

  We're trying to find love in an unloving culture. Guess what? Somebody said about my work, an old T-shirt on it was so flattering. She said, "You are deconstructing patriarchy one couple at a time."

• 2:05:13Mindy Pelz?

  Hmm, that's beautiful.

• 2:05:14Speaker 01

  You don't like your marriage? Go for it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't, but go for it.

• 2:05:21Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. And I think what I am the most excited about is I'm watching women seeing that they only have two choices. I need to leave it, and that for a lot of women can be really scary, but I can't stay in it anymore. And what I'm excited about is that we're going to offer up a third perspective, which is reinvented.

• 2:05:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't leave it.

• 2:05:43Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 2:05:43Speaker 01

  Don't tolerate it. Change it.

• 2:05:47Mindy Pelz?

  Right. And I don't think anybody's, yeah, nobody's brought that forward. It's like the new path of marriage is that there are going to be, like Esther said, there's going to be five or six different versions of it. So how about we create the roadmap for that now? And that's what I think I'm the most excited about.

• 2:06:07Speaker 01

  That is, because you know, these gray divorce women in their 50s and 60s, they've been putting up with crap for decades. That's why they're so fed up. Plus this romantic claptrap that I shouldn't have to work that hard. I understand, really, I do get it. But also, I wish I'd talked to you 20 years ago. Now you're all burnt out at what you've been putting up with. But honey, you shouldn't have been putting up with it to begin with. Challenge the son of a gun. Now we'll have to go through layers of damage that you're carrying. I understand, but challenge the person in skilled ways.

• 2:06:52Speaker 01

  See what, find your voice with love and see what you can do.

• 2:06:58Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, amazing. Well, I'm looking forward to it. I definitely have to ask you my last podcast question because this podcast is now called Live Like a Girl. And we've talked a lot about the little girl. But what I'm curious from your perspective, what do you think the healthiest thing a woman could do in any long-term relationship? What do you think if there was one advice you would give a woman as she ages? What's the best thing she can do in relationships?

• 2:07:26Speaker 01

  I mean, you are a living example. This is partly why we get along. You're a seeker. There's first consciousness, your automatic wish, and then there's your second consciousness. Wait a minute, maybe I can do something different here. I don't care whether you're talking about your kids, your spouse, your colleagues, your dog. You know, wait a minute, you know when you're reactive. You can feel it.

• 2:07:54Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 2:07:54Speaker 01

  But wait a minute, this part of me is not going to do well. We call it relational mindfulness. First order of business, get centered in the part of you that can think and choose. Okay, now let's try. The act, it's just like meditation. The act of moving from the automatic to the thoughtful, that's your healing right there. That's your opportunity.

• 2:08:21Mindy Pelz?

  And that's where happiness is. That's, the happiness you are seeking is exactly what Terry just said, is that decision to not react, but to investigate and stay curious. That, like, here I am at 57, I'm like, there it is. The thing I've been searching for was in the challenges of all of my relationships.

• 2:08:44Speaker 01

  It's growth.

• 2:08:44Mindy Pelz?

  And this is, how many of you felt your brain go offline the minute you hit your 40s? When my brain started to go offline in my early 40s, I was crazy scared. I went from being the woman who could hold everything together to not being able to get through a full workday. The positive thinking that had always been my superpower, it just disappeared. Worst-case scenarios replaced it. Anxiety I didn't recognize, aversion of myself I didn't sign up for. I thought something was deeply wrong with me. And then I went looking for answers. What I found didn't just help me, it changed the entire way I understand what it means to be a woman moving through this season of life.

• 2:09:29Mindy Pelz?

  Your brain is not broken, it's remodeling. That's why I wrote Age Like a Girl, to really lay that out for all of you. It's part science, it's part my own story, the messy, humbling, ultimately beautiful story of a woman who had to fall apart a little before she could figure out who she actually was. If you're in that right now, I want you to know you are not alone. And this is not the end. It might just be the beginning of the most powerful chapter of your life. So Age Like a Girl, it's available now at drmindypelz.com/books. And please know, I am always cheering you on.

• 2:10:13Mindy Pelz?

  Why I love relationships.

• 2:10:16Speaker 01

  It's growth. The next step, which is new for our culture, is what I call relational empowerment. It sounds like this, I was weak, now I'm strong. I'm going to stand toe to toe with you. I'm going to lobby for what I really want from you. Are you willing? The stakes are high, I'm going to leave you if not. Do we need help? Do you need somebody to teach you some of these skills? What do we need here? But give it a shot. You know, do I want to leave this marriage? Yes, you want to leave this marriage. But is that the only marriage that's possible?

• 2:10:58Speaker 01

  Why don't you test it before you throw it out the window?

• 2:11:03Mindy Pelz?

  Do you think people get into marriage, like, most people get married in their 20s? And then they start to have this realization in their 50s? And it's like, the reason they got into the relationship and wanted to get married now is not sticky for them anymore. They don't, it's not attractive for them anymore. They've got maybe career independence, financial independence, they're thinking for themselves. And all of a sudden, they're like, why did I do this thing that I thought was going to be great 30 years ago? It's almost like the institution of marriage has, is set up to cause couples to fail.

• 2:11:38Speaker 01

  Well, it is the way it's set up. I'll tell you why. You know, my pal Esther Perels, she's French Belgian. She says, "I hope I have six marriages in my life, and I hope they are all to the same men." We don't have a model of transformation in our relationships. So either love it or leave it. Which is stupid. That's not relationally sophisticated or skilled. Look, if you're going to leave it anyway, grab the son of a gun by the collar and tell him, you know, these are the changes I need. If you can't get through, go to a therapist who will help.

• 2:12:18Speaker 01

  And, you know, I've created a school of therapy, as you know, it's called RLT, relational life therapy. Go to my website. It's different from other therapies in that we support whoever is demanding more intimacy. And it's nine out of 10 times it's the woman. We take size. I specialize in couples on the brink that nobody's been able to help. Every single one of these women has been thrown under the bus, right there. You know, she says, "Well, he never talks to me. We stopped having sex two years ago. He's pretty demeaning and shows no interest whatsoever." Okay, and Bill, what's your issue? Well, she's kind of flaky and she's often 15 minutes late. Well, okay, you both have, that is a false equivalence.

• 2:13:03Speaker 01

  But we're taught as couple therapists to do that. It's nonsense. Get somebody who will be your ally. If you can't get through to them, Belinda and I, we've been married 40 years. We're in couples therapy. If you can't get through, get somebody who will really help you take them on, which is not most therapists, but find one that will. If you can't rock the boat.

• 2:13:30Speaker 01

  And I'll go back to talking about how you do that. And you find a therapist who's gonna support you and try and get through. And they can't get through, well, then you're done. But there are a lot of steps before you run out the door.

• 2:13:45Mindy Pelz?

  The way, what I typically see with women is that they want to have more of an emotional connection if they're in a heterosexual relationship. So they're not getting the same emotional connection. And they can go to their girlfriends and ladies night out and they can get the emotional connection. And meanwhile, their husband's like, hey, this relationship's working. It's great.

• 2:14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's working for them.

• 2:14:11Mindy Pelz?

  Right. And, and, and the woman is saying, I no longer feel a heart to heart connection. And the man doesn't have the skill set to be able to open up his heart to meet her in the place that she wants to be met at. And he's also like, this is great. What are you talking about? This relationship is awesome.

• 2:14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. So first of all, as you know, I have RLT therapists that we've trained all over the world, but my, I don't see that many couples, but the couples are, my beat are couples on the brink of divorce that no one's been able to help. And usually they trail, the, the record so far is eight therapies that did nothing for them. Let me tell you what's going on. Someone once described RLT as women have had a revolution and now men have to deal with it. And women have had a revolution. So all these women are wearing T-shirts going, what do I need you for? Okay, so it goes like this.

• 2:15:15Speaker 01

  The greatest story of the 20th century is going to be the changing role of women. Back in Jane Austen's day, if you weren't supported by your husband, you know, you were a spinster in the little cottage in your uncle's house. It was not a good life. You needed that guy to be a breadwinner. Well, guess what? Women have joined the workforce. Women have at least as good careers as men these days. And we don't need you to be the breadwinner. We have our own career. All right. So then the question is, what do we need you for? One of the things I get up on stages and say is, we've never wanted more from our relationships than we want right now.

• 2:15:57Speaker 01

  Look, you and I are, I think, both old, in our parents and grandparents' marriage, it was a companionable marriage. Side by side, you don't cheat, you don't drink, you don't be, good enough. You don't talk to each other. I went, well, tough shit. These days, women want these quality of relate, they want, you know, one of the things I say is, we really want to be lifelong lovers in our marriages. Long walks on the beach, hand to hand talk, good sex in our 60s, 70s, heart to heart, sharing, emotional sharing. Well, guess what? When I say we want to be lifelong lovers, that we is mostly women.

• 2:16:42Speaker 01

  It's not men. So the conundrum we're all in right now is women are asking, hetero women are asking men for a level of emotional intimacy that patriarchy does not raise boys to deliver. In fact, it's the opposite. Patriarchy lands on, you know, the interesting, boys at three, four, or five are more emotional and sensitive than girls.

• 2:17:13Mindy Pelz?

  I had a boy. I know that.

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  Boys love their mommies.

• 2:17:17Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:17Speaker 01

  Boys love their mommies. Yeah, they're delicate creatures. But patriarch, the masculine code lands on them. If it's not in your family, brother in the playground. You ready? Patriarchy lands on girls, adolescents, this is Carol Gilligan's work, 12, 11, 13. That's where all the symptoms show up. You know when patriarchy lands on boys? Three, four, five years old. Before some of our sons have learned to read, they've already read the code. So the research says they still feel, but they know better than to speak it. So, well, I get these guys, and you're, you're right, there's always an asymmetry.

• 2:18:00Speaker 01

  Look, it's women who are listening to this, it's women, I write books on men and women buy them. I, I like to say my books under, appear under pillows all over America.

• 2:18:11Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, right.

• 2:18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's women who are dissatisfied, it's women who want more. Why? Women's roles have changed. Guys, guess what? It hasn't. The role hasn't changed. That's not a criticism, it's just reality.

• 2:18:25Mindy Pelz?

  The way it is.

• 2:18:26Speaker 01

  Women want the institution of marriage to shift from a companionable marriage to an intimate marriage. And men are going, what's your problem? I deal with, I deal with couples last ditch, I mean, after me is, and, you know, I pull the woman, woman, I talk to the guy alone, honest to God, hey, Jerry, things aren't that bad around here. If you just kind of get her, you know, off my back, I think we'd be fine. You're wrong. So why my therapy is so unique is we take the side of the person wanting a truly intimate marriage. We're compassionate to the men.

• 2:19:11Speaker 01

  Hey, look, in, in order for you to be, I say over and over again, what you learned as a boy, whether you wanted to or not, it's imposed on you, often violently. What you learn as a boy, what, you know, strong, independent, unemotional, logical, these are the very qualities that by today's standards will guarantee that you're a lousy husband. So, okay, you want to lose her or you want to reconfigure? And a lot, when you put it, men are logical. When you put it to the guy, do you love her? Yeah. You know you're gonna lose her? Yeah. We're talking about a total transformation. It's good for you, good for your body, you'll live 10 years longer, good for your kids,

• 2:19:56Speaker 01

  good for your marriage. I can teach you. You want it? Yeah, sign me up. They almost always do. Now, the women may be so burnt out, they don't have patience for it.

• 2:20:05Mindy Pelz?

  I was just gonna say that. You know, that's what I hear from so many women. They're like, I just raised my children. I don't want to raise my husband.

• 2:20:13Speaker 01

  You don't have to.

• 2:20:15Mindy Pelz?

  I'm tired of, and, but yet so many women, you know, they feel like they're the social director of the house. The husband doesn't have as many friends as she has. They wouldn't go out and do things if, if the wife didn't say, hey, this is what we're gonna go do on Saturday night. So they're, they're like the social director. In some cases, they're the chef. Like, you know, they're, I'm gonna just really boldly say that, that marriage works better for men than women. And that's the problem.

• 2:20:44Speaker 01

  Well, there's research on that. Married men don't get sick, single men get much thicker. Married men don't have as many psychiatric symptoms, single men do. Married women are generally less happy, more symptomatic, and physically more ill than single women. So you're right. On the other hand, at the deepest level, I'm a relational guy, and I've been saying this for 40 years, and the research is caught up to me. Being in an intimate relationship, which could be your girlfriends, okay, but being in an intimate relationship is what we're born for, is what we're designed for.

• 2:21:28Speaker 01

  And, you know, true relationality makes us healthier, makes our kids happier, and makes us happier. So, you know, the woman's, look, honest to God, my wife, we've been married 40 years. My wife, Belinda, and I just had a knockdown drag out, but I've changed so many things over the years, but she's still, like, if I don't scan the calendar and come up with cool things for us to do, we'll sit home, all you do is your work and the news and TV. It's like you're boring. Now, God bless AI, if there are any guys listening. I would get overwhelmed.

• 2:22:11Speaker 01

  Now, I just, you know, go to chat, GPT, or Claude, okay, give me a overview of everything that's happening in Boston. And all of a sudden, a lot of things that women are asking for, a guy can learn with AI. So, yes, I don't want to do all the cooking. I don't want to do all the socializing. I want you to have friends. Say it. Stand up and shake the guy by the collar. This marriage isn't working. This is the marriage that might work if you're interested. But here's the thing.

• 2:22:47Speaker 01

  I was weak, now I'm strong, go screw yourself. Don't say it with hatred.

• 2:22:53Mindy Pelz?

  Yes.

• 2:22:54Speaker 01

  Don't say it with harshness.

• 2:22:56Mindy Pelz?

  Yep.

• 2:22:57Speaker 01

  Look, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty fed up. I've got one and a half feet out the door. But we're a family, we have history, we have kids. I'm going to give you one shot. Here's what I want. Let's work on it. And if you're not getting what you want, let's go see one of Terry Reel's therapists. And they'll take my side and tell you, you gotta work on it. I gotta tell you, a lot, a lot of relationships come to RLT therapists and they look like they're on death, they are on death's door.

• 2:23:31Mindy Pelz?

  Mm hmm, yep.

• 2:23:32Speaker 01

  But you know what? It goes like this, hey, how long you been with the guy? How many kids you had with the guy? Did you ever love him? Yeah, I loved him back when. Okay, great. Well, let's get him to shape up. I always say there are two gates. The first gate is he has to completely transform. I mean completely. Has to learn how to be relational, the way you were taught as a girl to be relational.

• 2:23:59Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 2:24:00Speaker 01

  Men are taught to not do any of those things.

• 2:24:02Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:02Speaker 01

  They have to relearn. That's the first gate. And we're talking a matter of a few months in RLT, not years. Three, four months.

• 2:24:10Mindy Pelz?

  They can learn that.

• 2:24:12Speaker 01

  Get it going. That's the first gate. Here's the second gate. And I always tell the guys, you could totally transform and your partner could say, you know what? Too little, too late. Thanks for the effort. I'm done anyway. And you gotta know that coming in. But look, come on, you've been 20 years together. You got three kids. You know, the church, the country. This is.

• 2:24:37Mindy Pelz?

  It's expensive.

• 2:24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 2:24:39Mindy Pelz?

  Divorce is, is very expensive.

• 2:24:41Speaker 01

  You know, Ray Charles saying, you know, it's cheaper, you better keep her than making her a rookie. Think about what you're going to lose before you storm out the door. And be forceful and skilled. People don't teach women how to be forceful and skilled. They teach them how to be either accommodating and resentful or pissed off and individualistic. How about pissed off and I'm going to give you a shot?

• 2:25:08Mindy Pelz?

  So talk a little bit about resentment because I will tell you, I had a, that was one thing I noticed in my marriage was that I was resentful when I didn't speak my truth. And the more times I didn't speak my truth, the more resentful I got. And to the point that it, I was just walking around with all these grievances that I had never expressed. And then once I expressed them, they all came, like, like 20 years of things I wanted to say came pouring out of me. How do we say in the moment? I was just, my daughter just got married. She's 26 years old. And she called me to tell me a situation that she was going through in her marriage.

• 2:25:50Mindy Pelz?

  And I'm like, you have to speak your truth because if you don't, that stuff is going to sit in there and fester. And I see that over and over again with women. They, they are martyrs. Well, he should know. He should know that I want to do that. And I, I, I, no, he's, he's not going to know.

• 2:26:07Speaker 01

  Well, I got good news and bad news.

• 2:26:09Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, tell me.

• 2:26:11Speaker 01

  First of all, bad news. Accommodating and resenting it. Remember, I, I say over and over again, leading men, women, people of all genders into intimacy is synonymous with leading them beyond patriarchy, leading them beyond the culture. Our culture does not support vibrant intimate relationships. It's individualistic. What, what does that mean? Men are taught to not have open hearts, not be connected, go out there and perform. You gotta perform or they won't love you. Sitting down and talking to them, that's a waste of time. Bullshit. They're just brainwashed.

• 2:26:56Speaker 01

  Women traditionally are taught, eat it and resent it, like you.

• 2:27:01Mindy Pelz?

  Yes, yep.

• 2:27:02Speaker 01

  Well, that's a traditional woman under patriarchy.

• 2:27:05Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:05Speaker 01

  Accommodating and resentful. You're talking to the guy who wrote the, I wrote a, I did an audio book, they're going to turn it in. Fierce intimacy. Take each other on. And I've said over and over again, the first casualty, when you don't take each other on, which most people don't, is a passion, generosity, open heartedness. You resent, if you're walking around resentment, how sexy are you? How generous are you? You know?

• 2:27:35Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 2:27:36Speaker 01

  So that's the norm in our culture. Cut off men and accommodating, resentful women. Let's move beyond that. You speak up, but relationally, not individualistically. Let me teach you how. I'm going to go back to that in a minute. And buddy, you listen up, open your heart and give, yield. It won't kill you. So both men and women have to move to see what happens with is individual empowerment. Like patriarchy is a binary, right? You draw a line down a piece of paper. All these qualities are feminine, all these qualities are masculine. And we all know the drill, right?

• 2:28:21Speaker 01

  You know, a piece accommodating, nurture, independence, competence, law, okay. It's all bullshit. So when women move out of the traditional part of the binary, accommodating, resentful, and they become powerful, they move over to the masculine side of the binary.

• 2:28:42Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 2:28:43Speaker 01

  And it's like, hey, hey buddy, I'm powerful now. Shut up and listen. And then they wonder why that doesn't work. This is moving beyond patriarchy. I call it loving power. You don't have to be harsh in order to be powerful. And nobody knows this in this culture. It's brand new. So can I give you an example?

• 2:29:05Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, please.

• 2:29:06Speaker 01

  Okay, please, we're role playing. Don't, I don't mean to be disrespectful.

• 2:29:09Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, no way.

• 2:29:10Speaker 01

  Okay. Hey, Dr. Mindy, I don't like how you're talking to me. I'm respectful of you. Please be respectful of me. Okay? That's okay, is a C plus. Okay, that's standing up for yourself as an individual with harshness. How about this? Hey, Dr. Mindy, you're my friend. You know, we like each other. I want to hear what you have to say. Could you like drop the volume a little bit and talk to me in a way that I can actually listen? I want to listen, but help us out here, okay? Two ways of saying the same thing. But one is about me, me, me, me, me. I'm not taking it. And the other is about us.

• 2:29:52Speaker 01

  You can stand up for yourself and cherish your partner and be loving and cherish the relationship all at the same time. But people don't know how to do it in this culture. We have to learn. You know, I'm a, a dear friend and a great fan of Carol Gilligan, the feminist psychologist. She's a legend, 90 now. And Carol taught me this, I'm Jewish. She said, everybody knows, and I was with, I was in Israel with a bunch of, we call them black hat, you know, Orthodox. And they all knew it. They said, as they're connected, they knew the word. Everybody knows, God made Eve out of Adam's rib to comfort him. Right? Everybody knows that. King James.

• 2:30:37Speaker 01

  Guess what? Here's the real Aramaic. God made Eve out of Adam's rib to comfort him by opposing him.

• 2:30:47Mindy Pelz?

  Ooh.

• 2:30:49Speaker 01

  You're not here for endless gratification. That's an AI program. Be a real woman. We're here to challenge each other and be the occasion for each other's growth. That's the challenge.

• 2:31:02Mindy Pelz?

  Amazing. Well, I can't wait for the webinar, so we'll leave all the links so people can join. And Terry, always mind expanding, so I just really appreciate you so much.

• 2:31:12Speaker 01

  And you know, I respect you so much. And one of the things we say in relational life therapy is, yeah, you've been trained, yeah, you have experience, but we speak from the authority of our own process.

• 2:31:25Mindy Pelz?

  That's it.

• 2:31:25Speaker 01

  And when you talk about your own life and your own marriage, you know, you talk about wise, postmenopausal women. You speak with women, you speak with wisdom, so do I. I'm 76. Your wisdom is hard won. Nobody gave it to you.

• 2:31:41Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 2:31:42Speaker 01

  But it's that mind that says, wait, wait. You're an artist, you're a creator. Let's be artists in our own relationships.

• 2:31:50Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. I love that. Okay, well, I, we're going to continue this discussion in our webinar. And those of you that want to join us, we'll leave links. And let's see where we can even go deeper with this concept. So thank you, Terry, for showing up and for who you are and what you're doing in the world. And I can't wait to have more conversations with you.

• 2:32:10Speaker 01

  I love our relationship and thank you for doing the blessed work that you've been doing for years and years, not with me on your own. And it's a great benefit to a great many people.

• 2:32:25Mindy Pelz?

  Thank you.

• 2:32:26Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 2:32:29Mindy Pelz?

  Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.