How to navigate changes in a relationship without fear (w/ Stephanie Yates-Anyabwile)

What is a romantic relationship “supposed” to look like? How do you feel when your relationship doesn’t check all the boxes? In this episode, licensed marriage and family therapist Stephanie Yates-Anyabwile talks about everything from how to get into couples counseling to navigating hard conversations to understanding the difference between relationship dynamics in reality and on reality TV (which she actually loves and thinks there’s a lot to learn from watching). Follow Host: Chris Duffy (@chrisiduffy https://www.instagram.com/chrisiduffy/?hl=en | chrisduffycomedy.com https://chrisduffycomedy.com/) Guest: Stephanie Yates-Anyabwile (Instagram: @_steph.anya https://www.instagram.com/_steph.any | Youtube: @stephanya https://www.youtube.com/@stephanya) Links whatsanyamind.com/ http://whatsanyamind.com/ Subscribe to TED Instagram:@ted https://www.instagram.com/ted/?hl=en YouTube:@TED https://www.youtube.com/@TED TikTok:@tedtoks https://www.tiktok.com/@tedtoks LinkedIn:@ted-conferences https://www.linkedin.com/company/ted-conferences Website:ted.com https://open.acast.com/networks/66e1e4bf9a7dcc160e617eef/shows/67572b3b2dd88df13220eb3b/episodes/www.ted.com Podcasts:https://www.ted.com/podcaststed.com/podcasts http://ted.com/podcasts For the full text transcript, visitgo.ted.com/BHTranscripts http://go.ted.com/BHTranscripts For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts https://go.ted.com/BHTranscripts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:01Chris Duffy?

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• 0:46Chris Duffy?

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• 1:25Chris Duffy?

  Donate at N R D C dot org slash human and your gift will be matched five times. You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. When it comes to romantic relationships, they often start with a lot of mystery. We're always trying to figure out, what does this person like? What's their favorite food? What makes them laugh? Where are we gonna go together? Later on, after you've been together for a while, sometimes we lose a little bit of that curiosity about the specificity of the other person and what our relationship with them is gonna look like. Instead, we can sometimes get bogged down in ideas about what a relationship is supposed to be. So then, instead of being thrilled by their idiosyncrasies and quirks, we're kind of comparing

• 2:10Chris Duffy?

  our actual relationship against this imagined scorecard of some hypothetical perfect one. And that can be really difficult to navigate. It's also incredibly common, and it's something that today's guest, Stephanie Yates Anyabwile, has thought about a lot. As a licensed marriage and family therapist, she has found that that mode of comparing our relationship to an imagined idea of what a relationship is supposed to be, it can often hold us back from deeper love and happiness and connection. Here's a clip from Stephanie's TED Talk.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Relationship experts have found that one of the primary obstacles that couples face are their own expectations. When we compare ourselves to societal norms, we can develop a sense of resentment toward our partner as well as a sense of shame for how we ourselves are coming up short. Now, before we really get into this, I have to say that some of us have to reckon with the fact that we may be with the wrong person. And that will be clear if your deepest desire is that your partner change fundamental aspects of who they are. You really want them to be a different person. But if you're confident that you're with the right person and you just still feel frustrated and dissatisfied,

• 3:25Speaker 01

  we may find that rejecting everything we've known about good relationships is the key to actually having one.

• 3:35Chris Duffy?

  In today's episode, we're going to be talking a lot about what a good relationship looks like and how anyone listening, yes, even you, can get there. Let's get into it.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Stephanie Yates Anyabwile, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

• 3:50Chris Duffy?

  Okay, well, Stephanie, let's start at the beginning. How did you first become interested in relationship dynamics?

• 3:56Speaker 01

  As a child, I became really obsessed with what was a traditional family structure versus what was untraditional, because I grew up in a traditional family structure with two parents, two kids. As a child, I was very inquisitive, and I was kind of encouraged to just ask whatever was on my mind. And so I remember going to like someone's house, and I would look at a family photo, and I'd say, okay. Is this their child? And they say, yes, I'm like, and are they married? And they say, no, and I'd be so confused. This is their child and they're not married. You know, and then I remember a time when I was like a toddler. My mom tells the story or told the story. She passed away in 2014. I was in a high chair and we were at her sister's house.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  And my aunt is a principal. And so sometimes, you know, if there's a kid who's having a hard time. At the time, she would kind of open her home up to them. She had three kids of her own. So here I am, three years old. I have a crush on this 16 year old boy that my aunt's taken in. And, you know, I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, we're gonna get married one day. In this high chair, we're at dinner and my cousin refers to him as her brother. And I was like, brother, don't say brother, then him can't marry with me. So

• 5:12Speaker 01

  literally at three years old, I understood that if my cousin claimed this man as her brother, that made him my cousin and that would be inappropriate for us to get married. A lot of little girls at that age still believe they can marry their father. So those are the kind of things that my dad was paying a lot of attention to. And he was like, this girl is obsessed with relationships and family and marriage. And as I got older, I became more inquisitive, you know, less rude of my questions, but definitely always curious about how a family became the type of family they are today.

• 5:46Chris Duffy?

  Well, I'm curious because obviously this is one of the big things that people think about when they think about you and your work is taking some of this pressure off of relationships to conform to, and I'm putting this in big quotes, what a relationship is supposed to look like. You have really been a strong advocate for a relationship is supposed to look like whatever is healthy and functional for the two people in it, or for the more than two people in it.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  When I was younger, I, we were in a church environment that my grandparents founded, where most of the children around me were in a similar family structure like me. And I just assumed that that's how all families worked. So that's why I was always very perplexed when I would see families that were structured differently. But what's interesting is that as I got older and really paid attention to the health of those relationships around me, I realized that just because a person is in what would be considered a traditional or classic family structure, it doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy, doesn't mean it's thriving, doesn't mean that they're happy. My parents, their story is really weird because my mom was actually engaged to someone else

• 6:57Speaker 01

  when she got engaged to my dad, and he knew and he didn't care. My dad was just like, if she likes me, she likes me. And then she told, she told her other fiance like three weeks before the wedding with my dad that she was marrying my dad. But they knew each other for a very short period of time, very short engagements. People would be engaged for maybe like six weeks. They put it together, get married at the church. And so when I got with my husband, I was 18 and we dated for six years before we even got engaged. And I remember, you know, having family members, close friends saying, you know, I don't agree with this. I don't believe in being with someone that long before you get married. And, you know, at the time I was kind of thinking, but this is the healthiest relationship I've even seen.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Like it's the relationship I'm in, but it's the healthiest one that I've seen. And so why are we judging it based off of like an arbitrary decision of when we should get married or if we should get married? It was always our plan to get married, but it frustrated me that people were putting their own projected timeline on it. So as I got older and I witnessed and experienced different types of structures for families and relationships, that the people who were choosing to do their own thing were the people that I found to be the happiest and I see the same in my work.

• 8:16Chris Duffy?

  It seems like there's often this challenge in healthy relationships, which is even though this is good and healthy, I worry that it doesn't live up to what it is supposed to look like.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Hmm, absolutely. And I think it's based on those preconceived notions we have about how a relationship should be structured and the trajectory that a relationship should take. For example, if I'm, you know, on year four or five with my boyfriend and, you know, I'm looking around at other people who are getting married and thinking, wow, that's where we should be. If we're not there, then maybe that's a reflection of us not actually being as happy as I thought we were. That comparison can create some tension in a relationship that otherwise would have been fine. But it's the comparison itself that's creating the tension. So I find that helping people peel back the layers of why is this important to you?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  And seeing how much of it is just this is what you've seen, this is what you expect, and this is actually in alignment with your personal values. For me, my personal value was being with someone who was respectful, someone who was reliable, someone who was committed to me. That was more important to me than just being married, especially at a time when we're not financially ready, when we hadn't gotten our degrees yet, when we really hadn't done any living yet. It was more important to me to have those experiences than just to get married.

• 9:47Chris Duffy?

  What does it mean to be in a traditional relationship? And what does it mean to be in an untraditional relationship?

• 9:53Speaker 01

  So I think of it just that traditional expectation we have with relationships or historically we've had. You meet someone, you know, typically you would meet them when you're maybe in your twenties. Maybe you date. I think the expectation now is probably around two or three years. Then you get engaged. Maybe nowadays engagements are about a year to two years. And then you get married. But it's even interesting to think about how that timeline has changed because 30 years ago, that timeline would have been considered pretty long. Whereas now that's, that's more expected. And so monogamous and being in a relationship where you're following this expected timeline.

• 10:36Chris Duffy?

  It does seem like a lot of what we're talking about is the performance of a relationship rather than the like reality of her relationship. So I wonder if you could just speak about that, the difference between like performing a relationship and living a relationship.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and I think social media is a huge factor in that now. You know, we used to, we had to perform in our relationships. You're performing for your community, maybe your church, maybe the people at your job. Now we're performing on a really large scale. You know, getting the perfect picture, having the perfect captions, you know, getting that silly moment on your story to show people how unserious you and your partner are. And so when I think about performance, it's so much bigger even than just that timeline. It's how we interact. You know, we don't want people to even know that we have conflict a lot of the time. My husband and I have always been kind of big on, well, I am, he's not. But if something's frustrating, I just say it.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  I don't care where we are, I don't care who's around, you know, I'll just say it. And people, when we were dating, people would always come and I'm like, you guys will get so annoyed with each other. And then like five seconds later, you're hugging and kissing. And I'm like, to me, that's how it should be is just get it out, express the grievance, address it, get past it and move on. Whereas a lot of times I see people kind of harboring because they so badly do not want other people to see that they're having frustrations with their partner. And then by the time you get home, maybe you're also not comfortable bringing it up because now it was hours ago. Then now it's days ago, then now it's weeks ago. And so I think the performance aspect can affect so many elements of our relationship, even just a conflict management.

• 12:20Chris Duffy?

  We're going to take a quick break and then we will be back with more from Stephanie Yates Anyabule. Don't go anywhere.

• 12:36Chris Duffy?

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• 13:20Chris Duffy?

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• 13:30Chris Duffy?

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• 15:07Chris Duffy?

  And we are back. We've been talking with marriage and family therapist Stephanie Yates-Anyabule about how many of us get held back by our ideas about what a good relationship is supposed to look like. And then we feel disappointed if our actual relationship doesn't match this like movie template that we have in our minds. Letting go of some of those rigid ideas can help us figure out with our partners, the relationship that actually works best for both of us. And yet, you know, there is a reason why these relationship templates are so appealing. It's nice to not have to spend all your mental energy making decisions and reinventing the wheel, building a relationship shape from scratch. There's an ease to these templates, and I don't think that's all bad. So how do we balance that tension, Stephanie?

• 15:50Chris Duffy?

  I imagine this must come up in your practice with couples all the time.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Actually, it doesn't, but I love that point. And I think there's a lot of value in the template. It's one of those things where it's not about totally invalidating the template. It's about allowing yourself to customize when needed, right? So if I get a car, I love the car, but I don't really love the color, I can change the color of that car. Even if other people aren't a big fan of bubblegum pink, if that's what I like, you know, that's what's going to make me happy. I'll hop in that car, that bubblegum pink car and have a smile on my face. And so I totally agree with that. I mean, we're not talking about necessarily like the most drastic, most unconventional changes. Sometimes it's something very, very small. So small, in fact,

• 16:37Speaker 01

  that one of the biggest asks I'll get when I'm doing interviews is people want to hear those crazy examples of, you know, what's something really out there that somebody did, because that's what's enticing. That's what is juicy. But the reality is the most effective changes are things that really sound boring, because at the end of the day, they are boring. They're just different. It's like, yeah, they sleep in two different beds. That's really not that exciting, but somebody could hear that and now it's a juicy piece of gossip. You know, they're like, oh, did you hear they're here? They're sleeping in separate beds. It's interesting, you know, how fascinated we are with what other humans

• 17:16Speaker 01

  are doing. And because of that, we can make the most basic, boring, benign things, you know, topics for weeks. And so that's, that's what I'm talking about.

• 17:28Chris Duffy?

  I'm so glad you brought up the beds thing. It's a good example of something that is like, at its core, just a purely logistical thing, right? Like, where do we sleep at the end of the day? And yet, it can get loaded up with all of these sort of expectations, societal, personal, and also like, what will our friends think? Even if you wanted to sleep in separate beds and you had the space for another bed, you might think like, but what will that mean? When it doesn't have to mean anything?

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I actually even hate the term for it now, you know, before people were just sleeping in separate beds, and now they're calling it a sleep divorce. I'm like, woo, why, like, why that language? That's so intense. Sleep divorce. I remember there was a couple that has a big platform that came out about sleeping separately because they had two babies under one, right? They'd just had a newborn and then they had like an 11 month old and they were having a super hard time with their schedule for sleep. And so one of them was sleeping, I think in a bed in the nursery and the other one was sleeping in the bed. And everybody was like, oh, well, I hope you're ready to get a divorce. This is step number one. Or people were using it really to support their own theories about

• 18:43Speaker 01

  how unhappy this couple really was and how they were pretending to be in this great relationship. And I was like, wow, we're really reading a lot into something that they didn't even have to share. They were sharing it so that they could help other couples who might be having the same struggle. Because at the end of the day, if we're well rested, we're better partners for each other. We're better parents. But if we're both exhausted, we're cranky, we're frustrated, we're resenting each other, we're questioning why we ever had kids in the first place, that's not really a thriving environment. Environment for a relationship to grow and transitions are some of the most stressful aspects of life. And most of the time when people are coming into therapy, it's because they've just experienced some major transition, whether it's,

• 19:27Speaker 01

  hey, I just got married. Hey, I just moved. I just had a baby. I just got divorced. Those changes create somewhat of an identity crisis. And in those moments, we have to be willing to reevaluate the rules of our life. And something as simple as sleeping in the same bed with our partner could be a rule that we kind of change, just so that we can both get sleep and know that we're tending to our kids and being our best selves.

• 19:51Chris Duffy?

  How do you handle transitions and reevaluate rules in a way that brings you together rather than pushes you apart?

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Well, I think by really checking in with each other on how do you envision yourself changing through this transition? That's an ongoing conversation, especially when people are making that transition from zero to one kid, you know, it goes from just us to now we have somebody who needs all of our attention and, you know, how do we still focus on ourselves? Then to the transitions like two to three kids where now the kids outnumber the parents. And it's like, you know, we can't just both take one and do something, you know? So in those moments, you really have to check in with each other and be honest. Sometimes we don't really share where we're at because we're worried about our partner being offended. Let's say you might not be the primary caretaker. Maybe you're back at work,

• 20:42Speaker 01

  but you're still helping with the kids while working a full-time job. And maybe one partner is working, staying at home at this time, taking care of the kids. That partner who's working might not feel comfortable saying like, I'm so exhausted. And it's so hard now transitioning into having these kids and, you know, having to manage not just my life, but our lives. And they might be worried that there are other partners like, you're stressed, you're tired, I'm the one at home all day. And when we don't allow our partners the space to really process what they're going through emotionally, nobody has the opportunity to rethink what they're doing. So if we can just hear that and say, and validate it, I can

• 21:25Speaker 01

  understand that I'm also really exhausted. I can't imagine what it's like to be working and helping out in the capacity that you are. Like, I thought it would be a little bit easier being at home, but I'm finding this to be way harder than what it was when I was working full time. So. I get it. And then asking each other, is there anything that I could do that would make your life a little bit easier? They might say, I haven't been able to sleep well. That's how we get to sleeping separately. Or maybe they say, you know, I've been really thinking that I need to go on a trip by myself. I I know that sounds super selfish, but I'd be willing to take care of the logistics. Maybe get my mom or your mom to come and stay with you for a while. Then it's your turn. You take a trip by yourself.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  You know, really allowing ourselves to think creatively because your partner could get offended by that. Oh, you're gonna take a vacation and I'm gonna be stuck here with the kids? And if they feel that way, they say, hey, how about you go first? I can see you be, you're probably really burnt out. Let me hold down the fort and then I'll go because we really, realistically, both of us can't go right now with the kids. And so I think that checking in with each other, being really honest about how you're feeling with the current structure of your relationship, of your life, that naturally opens the door for conversations about what we could be doing differently. And if you're struggling, come to a couples therapist because so many of the, you know, little bit outside of the box things that my couples do, really, they came up with those ideas.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  And I just kind of said, hmm, you said you wish that you guys could live in a different, live in different houses. You wish that. Is that a possibility? Is that feasible? And they're kind of taken aback like, oh, I didn't really mean that. But it's like, let's think about it. That's a possibility. Could we make that happen if we really wanted to? How would we feel about that? What would that mean on a larger scale? Would you look at that as your relationship is failing? Or is that something that your relationship could survive? And so those kind of conversations, I think, can open up the door to those creative solutions.

• 23:27Chris Duffy?

  It also makes me think that a lot of what we've talked about is underlied by, by like a real fear that if we step away from what I've been holding on to, that this thing is going to instantly dissolve. The house of cards is going to collapse, like. The one thing that is keeping our marriage together is that we sleep in the same bed. Or the one thing that is keeping our marriage together is that I'm not admitting how hard it is right now. And if I was to say like, this is actually a challenge, or I was to say like, hey, I'm gonna sleep in another room, then like, that is the first step in an impossible to reverse slide towards divorce, heartbreak, disaster. And I think it's also worth saying, like, sometimes divorce isn't the worst option.

• 24:08Chris Duffy?

  But people are really thinking about these as like, if I do this one thing, it's gonna go terrible and it's gonna be horrible for everyone. And what I'm hearing from you is that a lot of your work is to say, it doesn't necessarily mean that. You can try things and you can be honest without it meaning that this person is gonna get pushed away.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the key word there is try. I always present it to my couples as an experiment. Let's test it out. So if you feel like, all right, we've tried for two weeks sleeping apart and I'm actually crankier, I actually feel more distant, this is not working for me, then we need to figure out other solutions.

• 24:47Chris Duffy?

  I do want to ask, though, we are just talking from the assumption that couples may have different needs, but that they're working in good faith and that it's a healthy relationship. Where is the line where it's like, this is untraditional, but not because it's just different because it's unhealthy? Or it's like a power dynamic that you don't want to continue in the relationship? How do you figure that out?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  I think simply by measuring both partners' level of wanting or being open to the change, right? So if one partner is like, I want to live separately, and the other partner is like, live separately? Like, so who's going to have the kids? This is dysfunctional for our kids. They're going back and forth between two different places, you know, where I'm gonna be stuck with watching them. And then they're like, well, I just feel like this is what's going to work for me. And otherwise, I just don't want to be together. Well, that's an ultimatum. That's, that's not you putting the relationship first. You're not doing it for the health of the relationship. You're doing it with the sole focus of what works for you. That is what I think is dysfunctional.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  So if you and your partner are both open to experimenting and also coming through on your promise that this is an experiment. If I have a couple that's going to test out living apart, for example, I like to have some sort of contract in place. How often are we going to talk on the phone? How often are we going to have a date night? How often are we having sleepovers? Let's be very concrete. Because this is going to be what we consider the bare minimum for making sure you're maintaining your emotional intimacy. While living apart. So making sure you're coming through on those things, being loyal and making it clear. The reason we're making this change is so that our relationship can be better. This is not a punishment toward you. This is not me just testing out the waters of being without you.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Right? Because this is not a trial separation. Me sleeping in a separate bed is not me just saying, how would I like if I slept in a separate bed so we can break up? You know, if you're looking at it as I want to be my best self for you and I recognize when I'm losing rest, I'm not a good partner. That's a healthy motivation to try something different. If the motivation is exclusively about what benefits you. Or more so about punishing your partner or testing out what it's like not to be together. And just not using the word separation, I would consider those to be unhealthy intentions.

• 27:11Chris Duffy?

  And what about if you feel like if you're the partner who is not proposing it, but who is being proposed to? I think a lot of people feel fear when they're talking about navigating changes in relationships. That it's like, if I don't do this, I'm going to lose this person. And so I'd rather try anything than lose them, even if they really wouldn't rather try that thing. What do you say to those people?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  And that is a tricky, that's a tricky balance, right? Because in that sense, it could also feel like an ultimatum. If you have that mentality that if you don't do this, you're going to lose your partner. That is you basically giving yourself an ultimatum, even if that's not what your partner is saying, right? But. I think if you recognize that your relationship is in a place where experimenting with something different from what you all have been doing for the last few months or years of your relationship, and you think that there's a chance that this relationship that you do really want could be salvaged, even if you know, you're not, you aren't really sure about this, who would be? It's out of the box for a reason. It's not normal.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  You have no model for what this would look like and how successful it will be. It's scary for everybody. I don't expect you to be completely comfortable with something you've never seen. But if you're open to seeing if this can improve what has felt like a dysfunctional dynamic, I think that's still, that's still healthy. You're just worried and concerned about the outcome. That's the case for all experiments. We don't know the ending. We don't know the outcome of an experiment. That's the purpose of doing it.

• 28:50Chris Duffy?

  We're going to do a quick experiment right now that's called Taking a Break for Podcast Ads, and my hypothesis is we will be right back. It's a very strong hypothesis.

• 29:14Chris Duffy?

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• 29:59Chris Duffy?

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• 30:06Chris Duffy?

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• 30:48Chris Duffy?

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• 31:31Chris Duffy?

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• 31:44Chris Duffy?

  And we are back. Stephanie, how do you encourage people to have conversations to figure out what their individual and then shared relationship expectations are? Just to give a low stakes example, silence can be really bad. It can be like, you're giving me the silent treatment. You're fuming, we're not communicating. Or it can be, you're so comfortable that you don't need to say anything, that we're just sitting in the same room and you're reading your book and I'm eating my breakfast and we're not talking in the most loving of ways. But often, there's a mismatch in like, how we interpret silence. And I know that there's many, many, many other things that could fill in that blank instead of silence. So how do you encourage couples to actually have communication about that?

• 32:26Speaker 01

  In that case, most of the time, it is our history, our past, a lot of times, trauma, that influences the way we experience a situation. So if I grew up in a withholding environment where my mom punished me by not talking to me, for example, then I might interpret my partner's silence as doing the same thing. Whereas if they grew up in like a household full of introverts where everybody did their own thing, they view silence as a comfort, it means something totally different to them. And this is why it's very hard to talk about managing these conversations without therapy. I'm biased on that because I, a lot of my couples, I just can't imagine them trying

• 33:10Speaker 01

  to manage these conversations on their own because we so rarely can see our own bias or the impact of our history on how we're engaging without an objective person telling us that. And that objective person sometimes can't be our partner, right? Because it feels like you're taking things I've shared with you and using them against me. So it feels like they're breaking that trust by bringing up your past. Whereas a therapist is a little bit of a safer, more neutral person to bring up something, maybe your partner, or maybe even you already see, but they're bringing it up in a way that's going to feel more productive. So for me, it's important sometimes if you're at that point to bring it to therapy. I have couples who come to me preventatively.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  They're like, okay, we're, we're just going to be preemptive here. We don't have any issues, but we want to make sure that we have good skills for communication. We want to explore if there's anything in our history that might affect our upcoming marriage or just our relationship. And I love sessions like that because we're not conflict focused. Let's explore what you've learned about relationships growing up. What is your, the healthiest relationship you've seen? What's been the most damaging interaction you've ever had? Those sorts of things so that we can kind of plan ahead. But if you haven't already done that in advance, it's not too late. But I think it is helpful to have a third party that can help you kind of process and see.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Okay, you know, you you said something similar about your child, that when your child isn't speaking to you, you get really anxious and worried and frustrated. So that lets me know it's not just your marriage. You're feeling this in multiple contexts. So do you think there's a possibility that it's more your perception than what the person's intention is? And gently walking them into that. Silence is a great example of how people can be having completely different experiences in the same moment.

• 35:03Chris Duffy?

  How do you actually get into couples therapy as a couple? How do you have that conversation and then make it actually happen?

• 35:08Speaker 01

  I always say to focus on the positives and to focus on your goal of like thriving in your relationship. What the mistake we make a lot of times is we want to bring it up when we've just had an argument or when we're in a bad place frustrated with our partner. And we're like, oh, my gosh, we need to go to couples therapy. Or you need help. Or I need somebody to explain to you why you're doing this and this wrong. That that's not really saying I'm invested in our growth as a couple. That's saying you need to fix yourself and I want to be there to witness it. So making sure it's clear to your partner, you know, I'm noticing that we're kind of coming to the same issue over and over again. And I don't think we're successfully talking about it. It's super important to me that we communicate well

• 35:53Speaker 01

  because I want us to be together as long as possible. And I don't want something as small as this or even as big as this to get in the way of that goal. When I decided to be with you, I didn't mean to do that short term. And so let's get as much help as we can to make sure that's a reality for us. So as couples, it's easy to look at our partner as the problem or our partner's behavior as the problem. The more that you can externalize that and look at the problem as separate from your partner or from your relationship, the more successful communication will be as we're talking about that issue. Right? So let's say your partner smokes cigarettes. We don't want to say, ah, your smoking is such an issue. We'll say, you know, I've noticed in our relationship cigarettes have been a major stressor for our relationship.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  And then your partner probably can't agree with that. You know, they probably can say, yeah, that has been a challenge, not just in this relationship, but others I've had. Or it's something, you know, I don't want to continue doing, but I'm having a really hard time stopping. Now we're a team tackling the issue of cigarettes, not me attacking you for smoking. That makes sense.

• 36:56Chris Duffy?

  Oh, it totally makes sense. I mean, I think this is long enough in the past that it's fine for me to talk about. But like seven years ago now, my wife and I had like a really big fight. And I remember like going into the other room and furiously typing on the computer like marriage and family counseling, how to have a loving relationship, like fix my marriage now.com. And you know, I'm just like, this is probably not the best way to like approach a loving partnership is to be like angrily typing like how to make love bigger, how to help relationship. Ah, you know, like, that's just like, not the energy you want to bring into like a productive counseling. And I just remember like feeling like we need to help. This is how we're going to do it. And I know that that's not the right way, but it does seem like that's often how people

• 37:40Chris Duffy?

  end up in couples counseling is like in these low moments, in these really challenging moments.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just think that as long as you can reiterate to your partner, like I recognize that I also play a big part in the issue that we're having. I think there's a pattern playing out here. I'm not smart enough to figure it out and I'm struggling and I would like for us to get some help so that it doesn't continue happening. Just communicating that because when your partner feels like they're about to be brought into a situation where they're attacked because you found this counselor and you updated them on all these issues you're having with your partner, that is not an environment where they're going to feel comfortable opening up enough and being vulnerable enough to really identify the issue that's causing the problems in your relationship.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  It requires so much trust and safety and therapy, especially couples, therapy to really, really find the issue because we've developed a pattern of skirting around problems in our relationships and it takes a while to feel safe enough. To actually say the problem or to actually show emotion or be comfortable with our partner showing emotion. The better you can approach the idea of therapy, the more open your partner will be coming into therapy. Because if they already come in feeling like they need to be as defensive as they are in your arguments, it's going to take us a while to get to where we need to be so that we can make some real progress.

• 39:06Chris Duffy?

  Do you view couples counseling and marriage and family therapy? Is it more like you have a house that has a burst pipe? And you don't know how to fix the pipe. So you call a plumber in and this plumber fixes the pipe and solves the problem? Or is it more like you have an issue with the landscaping? And it gets fixed, but you're always going to need to mow the lawn and trim the hedges and rake the leaves? Is it like a discreet fix? Or is it this ongoing thing that you can't really ever be done with? Because that's not how it works.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  I love both of those metaphors. And it depends on the issue we're coming in about, right? So if we're coming in about an issue really with one of these out of the box solutions that we've been talking about, like if, if it really boils down to you're having a hard time sleeping and you want to make sure that your partner understands your intention in asking about sleeping in separate rooms? And you guys are able to do that? We get three months passed and you know, everything is still going well. No one's feeling threatened. That, that issue has been resolved. That is not really something we need to continue being in therapy about. But if things come up later, feel free to come back. You know, if we're talking about something that's a trauma response, like I have couples that might come to me where their sex life is affected because one person has experienced

• 40:23Speaker 01

  sexual trauma. Something has happened that has activated that trauma response for them. And now they're not interested in sex. That's probably going to take us a long time because you know, maybe we've had a few moments where we've been able to safely enjoy sex with each other. That doesn't necessarily mean that that issue has been addressed. And I would go further to say that that's a problem that probably be better addressed in individual therapy. So couples therapy might be good for just helping your partner understand the root of these issues and how, you know, it can safely touch you and things like that. But as far as really unpacking the impact of that trauma, that's probably going to be best addressed in individual therapy. I always say, You know, if we can, let's get everybody in individual therapy and couples therapy.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  And if we have to choose, if you can't afford all three, let's do the individual therapy. Because individual therapy, I think, can be more effective when we're talking about those longstanding history-related issues that are affecting your relationship today. I have worked with people individually where their relationship has improved just through individual therapy. And I've never even met their partner, but because they've dealt with the issues they were having with their own anger response and things like that, their relationship has improved.

• 41:40Chris Duffy?

  You break down a lot of relationship dynamics from popular TV shows and movies on your YouTube and in other work that you've done. What do you think that you learn from watching and analyzing those shows as opposed to the real people who you're working with in your practice?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  I love looking at the earliest seasons of these shows before they really take off, you know.

• 42:01Chris Duffy?

  Like reality dating shows?

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, like Married at First Sight, Love is Blind, because I'm genuinely invested in the people who looked for love and could not find it any other way. And they had to resort to something that's a little out of their comfort zone, being on television and, you know, really put themselves out there to find love. So, you know, there are some couples like Brett and Tiffany from season four of Love is Blind. I'll even say like Jamie and Doug from season one of Married at First Sight. Those couples that really show you that if you allow yourself to really be open, like Jamie on Married at First Sight, she didn't even find Doug attractive at all.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  And she made that clear. She was crying before she walked down the aisle. And here they've been married now 10 years later, four kids. And you came on a reality TV show and you were paired with someone that you didn't even find attractive. But 10 years later, you're still in a successful, happy marriage because you were open to an experience very different from what you want nowadays are just casting hot people who anybody would be attracted to and who love to create drama. And this just makes it a lot harder sometimes to pull out those lessons, but there are lessons to be found. For the couple, the people who are there and really looking for something serious. So there's something you can pull from, from anything for relationships.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  And I have a lot of fun doing it because unfortunately, I can't just sit back and watch things. I'm just doing the same, same thing when I was three years old.

• 43:34Chris Duffy?

  Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Looking at pictures and like, are they married? Is that their kid? Like, I can't just watch it. I'm just dissecting everything.

• 43:41Chris Duffy?

  Oh, that's amazing. Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure talking to you. I really, really, I can't thank you enough for making the time.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  This was amazing. I love this. I can't wait for it to come out. And I can't wait to see the other episodes because you actually have me walking away from this with so many great examples and metaphors. And I really appreciate it because I'm using examples and metaphors every day with clients.

• 44:02Chris Duffy?

  Oh, thank you. Please steal, steal it all. It's all, it's yours now. That's so nice. I really appreciate that.

• 44:12Chris Duffy?

  That is it for this episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, Stephanie Yates Anya Boulay. You can find more from her on YouTube, social media, or at what's Anya Mind dot com. That's what and then the name Anya, A-N-Y-A, Mind dot com. I'm your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects at Chris Duffy Comedy dot com. How to Be a Better Human is put together by a team who all sleep in tiny, separate beds in a large room together each night. On the TED side, we've got Daniela Bellarezzo, Ben Ben Cheng, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina Bohanini, Laney Lott, Antonio Le, and Joseph DeBryne. This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Mateus Salas, whose deepest and most powerful love is for the truth.

• 44:55Chris Duffy?

  On the PRX site, they are throwing out all expectations and building a more beautiful audio relationship from the ground up. I'm talking about Morgan Flannery, Nora Gill, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. Thanks again to you for listening. Thank you for being in this audio relationship here with us. Please share this episode with a friend or a family member. Someone who you love and you think would enjoy it is the number one way that we reach new listeners. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We will be back next week with more how to be a better human. Until then, take care and thanks again for listening.

• 45:37Chris Duffy?

  This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them in and out of court, and that fight needs your support today. Donate at N R D C dot org slash human and your gift will be matched five times.

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