How to Stop the Pain of Rejection & How Couples Can Fight Without Falling Apart

Walk through a crowded airport or packed stadium and something remarkable happens. Thousands of people weave around each other without collisions, almost as if everyone is reading everyone else's mind. Yet no one is directing traffic. So how does your brain constantly predict where complete strangers are about to move—and why does it work so well? (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08260) Rejection stings. Whether it's being turned down for a job, ignored after asking someone out, or hearing "no" when you were hoping for "yes," most of us spend a lot of energy trying to avoid it. But what if that's exactly backward? What if deliberately seeking rejection could make you more confident, more successful, and surprisingly happier? Jia Jiang decided to test that idea by intentionally getting rejected 100 times in 100 days. What happened changed the course of his life—and it may change the way you think about rejection forever. Jia is an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, and bestselling author. His TED Talk has been viewed more than 11 million times, and he is author of the book Easy Discipline: An Unconventional Way to Achieve Ambitious Things (https://amzn.to/4feqHOq). Every couple argues. The real challenge is to understand what those fights are actually about. The disagreement over dirty dishes, money, or who's late again is often just the surface of something much deeper. Once you understand what's really driving those recurring arguments, everything changes. Relationship therapist Kim Polinder explains why couples keep having the same fights, how to stop damaging each other in the process, and what healthy conflict really looks like. Kim has helped hundreds of thousands of people through her work online (https://www.youtube.com/@engineeringlovepodcast) and is author of Why We Fight: A Transformative Road Map to Healing Conflict in Any Relationship. (https://amzn.to/45nZ1AF). Your signature probably wasn't always a scribble. When you first learned to sign your name, you likely wrote every letter carefully and neatly. So why do almost everyone's signature eventually become an indecipherable scrawl? It turns out there's an interesting psychological reason behind that evolution—and it says more about you than you might think. https://www.wired.com/story/is-your-wobbly-illegible-touchscreen-signature-still-you/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

  I thought I had a pretty good idea of where my money was going. And then I started using Monarch. And it turns out, there's a big difference between thinking, you know, and actually seeing it all laid out in front of you. I've spent some time with Monarch now. I've connected everything and really tested it out. And I like it a lot. Your accounts, investments, savings goals, spending, they're all there in one place. But what really got my attention is Monarch doesn't just show you what's happened. It helps you spot what's happening right now. They have an AI weekly recap, and it can flag a spending spike or a change in your net worth or upcoming expenses,

• 0:44Mike Carruthers?

  things that are surprisingly easy to miss on your own. And I found that once you actually see the numbers, you look at your money differently. If you've ever wondered, where exactly is all my money going? I think you'll find Monarch pretty eye opening. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code SYSK at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code SYSK.

• 1:22Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know. Ever wonder why pedestrians don't bump into each other more often? Then many of us fear rejection. But you're going to meet a guy who does the strangest things to seek out rejection. And why?

• 1:38Speaker 01

  I ask people to take selfies with me. Okay, I was just in the airport the other day. I saw a guy sitting there waiting for his flight. I said, can I untie and retie your shoes? Instead of trying to find the path of least resistance through my life, let me have fun with rejection.

• 1:54Mike Carruthers?

  Also, why are most people's signatures completely illegible? And all couples fight, but the words you use can make all the difference.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Instead of you're so selfish, it could be, I feel lonely. When people speak in emotions, it's much easier to then have the other person tune in and care for those emotions versus speaking in thoughts and judgments.

• 2:17Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know. There's probably no better endorsement for a company than this. I keep buying their stuff. That's exactly what's happening with me and Quince. It started with their clothes. I've bought sweaters, polos, pants, jeans, shoes, a belt. And Quince has become one of the first places I look when I need something new to wear. And my wife and son buy from Quince too, all the time. What keeps bringing us back is the quality and the price. Quince uses premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, merino wool.

• 3:00Mike Carruthers?

  Their cashmere sweaters start at just $60. And with colder weather coming, they have down jackets and classic wool outerwear as well. Quince prices everything 50 to 80% less than similar brands by working directly with ethical factories and cutting out the middlemen. And it's not just clothes. They have bedding, bath, kitchen essentials, and furniture. We even have Quince pillows. So this isn't one of those endorsements where I try something once because they sent it to me. We shop at Quince, and I absolutely recommend you try it. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com.

• 3:42Mike Carruthers?

  Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, please let them know it was Something You Should Know. It's the best way to support our show.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

• 4:11Mike Carruthers?

  Wouldn't you think that people walking along a busy sidewalk or in a mall or at a stadium where it's really busy, you would think people would bump into each other more often than they do? Why is that? I'm Mike Carruthers, and that's what we're going to start with today on this episode of Something You Should Know. So if you've ever noticed pedestrians, if you watch them, will naturally sort themselves into lanes, even when there are no signs telling them to do that. Researchers studying crowds have found that people spontaneously organize themselves much like traffic. In countries where people drive on the right, pedestrians usually drift right.

• 4:55Mike Carruthers?

  In countries that drive on the left, people favor the left. It's not a law. It's just an unconscious way our brains reduce collisions and keep everyone moving. That's why airports, malls, and stadiums can move thousands of people with surprisingly little chaos. Until someone goes the wrong way. And that is something you should know.

• 5:22Mike Carruthers?

  Nobody likes being rejected. In fact, for many people, the fear of rejection is powerful enough to stop them from asking someone out, applying for a better job, negotiating a higher salary, starting a business, or even speaking up in a meeting. We avoid rejection because we assume it will be painful. But what if that's exactly backwards? What if the best way to get over your fear of rejection is to deliberately seek it out? Imagine trying to get rejected every day until it simply loses its power over you. As strange as that sounds, that's exactly what my guest did. And what he discovered completely changed the way he approached life.

• 6:07Mike Carruthers?

  It also revealed something surprising. We often expect to be rejected far more than we actually are. Here to explain is Ja Jung. He's an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, and bestselling author. His TED Talk about his quest to get rejected has been viewed more than 11 million times. And he's author of a book called Easy Discipline: An Unconventional Way to Achieve Ambitious Things. Hi Ja, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Hey Mike, I'm glad to be here.

• 6:42Mike Carruthers?

  Well, this is such an interesting idea. Talk about facing your fear. Here you decide, I'm going to try to get rejected every day for 100 days. Why did you do this? Where did this come from?

• 6:58Speaker 01

  About 10 years ago. My goal, I started my own company about 10 years ago. It was my dream to achieve funding, you know, to become, to build this huge company that I've always wanted to do, right? I met Bill Gates when I was a teenager. But my goal is to be like Bill Gates. About 10 years ago, I was rejected for funding my company. And after that, I was like, oh, my first thought is I'm going to quit. And then I thought, well, I can't quit. It's so easy for me to give up. So I was like, you know, I'm going to overcome my fear of rejection. I'm going to become tougher. So that's my goal. I'm going to become tougher. I'm going to, you know, get my funding.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Then instead of making that the outcome to go, I said, okay, what if I set my goals of 100 days? Every day I would get rejected once on purpose. So I did this pretty famous experiment called 100 Days of Rejection Therapy, where every day I would go out and look for rejection. And I tried to have some fun with it, right? So that's the input goal I can completely achieve, not the outcome goal, which I'll be funding, I'll become tougher, I'll become successful. What ended up happening is this thing I can completely achieve gave me so much motivation and gave me so much fun. And then what ended up happening is not only I achieved that goal

• 8:25Speaker 01

  of overcoming your rejection, I started just studying. A lot of people start following me online. You know, I started filming myself getting rejected and shared this with the world. And that fun and that input goal I had motivated a lot of people. They started doing this with me. So I became quite famous through that rejection experiment. But I can see that's 10 years later. And it started a movement online of people doing this. It's called rejection therapy. You can see these people doing TikTok. You know, you see people doing this on YouTube. You got like hundreds of millions of views. That's another example where I set a goal, an input goal. You want to have that outcome.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  But instead of focusing on that, you focus on your input and you try to have fun.

• 9:14Mike Carruthers?

  So when you set out to be rejected every day, how frequently were you surprised that you didn't get rejected?

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Oh, a lot, a lot. So I would ask the craziest thing. In the end, I counted my, I wouldn't say winning, because again, my goal is not to get that rejection. My goal is to go out and ask. And but then I counted the yes and no's. I got 51 yeses and 49 no's. So I'll give you like a quick examples. The first day I went out and asked someone to borrow $100, right? And I got rejected. And also, I felt pretty bad. It was the first day. It was very scary. And the people, the person said no. I just ran away and said, sorry, I just ran away. Then I found that, hey, you know, that guy wasn't mean.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  In my mind, it was a really scary situation. And I was, I was running away accordingly because of the idea I had in my mind. And so the next day I said, I'm not going to run. I'm going to stay engaged. So the next day I asked for someone for a burger refill. You know, after having a burger for lunch, I was like, you know, hey, I'm going to get a burger refill. And he said no, but this time I didn't run. I stayed engaged with that person and negotiated. And I didn't feel too bad. I still got a no, but I didn't feel too bad. And then the third day I went and asked someone, I went to a Krispy Kreme donor shop and asked them to make me donuts that look like Olympic rings. And they say yes. I mean, I had no idea. I did, I thought there's no way they would say yes.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  But donor maker took me so seriously. And she was like, okay, what's the color look like? And I'm going to make it this way and that way. 15 minutes later, she came up with a box of donuts that looked like Olympic rings. And I was like, hey, this is different than I thought. And I thought, well, I'm going to get 100 rejections. As it turned out, people can say yes to me. And that opened up the whole range of possibilities and also the way I approach things. I had so much fun through the 100 days. And in the end, again, I got more yeses than no's.

• 11:23Mike Carruthers?

  And now, and now you don't fear rejection, perhaps, the way you did?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely not. I I went to the other side because now I kind of developed this almost like mental disease. Uh, when I see something that I could ask, now I have to ask. You know, I was I was walking by, I was like, ah, it'd be great to get a, you know, I was getting a coffee and I was saying, it'd be great to ask for discount. And I would ask and I would be like, I'd be like, can I get a good guy discount and and and then, you know, then the other person will laugh, right? And I would have a good time, you know, when I do that. The thing is, my mindset is, I'm gonna have a good time. You know, when I see opportunities of getting rejected, I'm gonna ask and with the goal of trying to crack myself up, trying to try to crack the other person up and lighten the mood for me and for the other person.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  And that has been, has so much application for me in business. You know, I try not to think myself so seriously when I ask for people in business. I try to create some even artistic experience when I talk to people, when I write to people. And and that make a huge difference.

• 12:31Mike Carruthers?

  Asking for Krispy Kreme donuts in the shape of Olympic rings is a pretty big ask. But was there another big ask that you were sure you weren't gonna get that you got?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there are quite a bit and I'll give you some example. So one of the asks that I felt there is no way I would get, but also very meaningful to me was, I wanted to teach a class, I wanna teach a college class. Come from a five generations of teachers, you know, and I never wanna be a teacher, I wanna be entrepreneur. But I said, okay, in these hundred days, when I'm just setting this input goal of getting rejected and just go on and ask, I have no fear. In fact, I had the opposite of fear. And I was like, this is a time to achieve all my dreams. So I went out and went to, um, at the time I was living in Austin, I went to the University of Texas in Austin.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  I started knocking on professors' doors and I just said, can I teach you a class? Can I teach you a class? But also, I didn't have that attachment to the outcome, right? I didn't say I must, I must get, teach your class. I said, I told myself, I'm gonna have attachment to the input. When I just sit down with the professor, I said, I'm gonna teach you, I wanna teach you a class and here's what I wanna teach. I started having, showing my lectures up in the PowerPoints on the, on the iPad. And one professor took interest in me. He was like, huh, okay, this is interesting. I've never seen anyone done this before. So two months later, I was invited to give a guest lecture to his class. And, you know, when I, when I finished, the students give me applause.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  And I just had tears in my eyes because I felt my grandma was there with me that day. You know, she passed away, I mean, you know, already, but she has always told me, hey, it'd be great if you're a teacher, yeah. And, uh, but I felt she was there with me spiritually. I felt I achieved my dream. That's one example that I, I didn't have the attachment to outcome, but I did have attachment to my own input. And in the end, I got my outcome.

• 14:39Mike Carruthers?

  But that's a, that's a real interesting distinction and one I wanna explore with you about. I imagine it is easier to ask for something where you have no attachment to the outcome. But if you do, that seems to get a lot harder. If you wanna buy that particular house or ask, ask out that particular girl and you're afraid of being rejected, that really raises the stakes.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Well, it does, but you have to have your own mental shift. I mean, that's why we speak, speak specifically about rejection, right? You try not to be like, I'm, I just have to get a yes. Think about it. If you have a, so attached to, I'm gonna get a yes from this girl. What you end up is you show up tense. You show up like, you know, wanting something, needing something. And the other person would feel it. That's the funny thing about human nature and about psychology. If they sense you want it, they're less likely to say yes to you in business and in dating, in anything. But if you come up saying, all right, I'm gonna focus on having fun, I'm gonna focus on having, you know, saying jokes.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  I'm focusing on being myself, being relaxed, you know, just let me just, let me focus on having a good conversation. Let me focus on knowing that person. Now, those are more inputs you can focus on. And then you perform better. You just do. You know, the other person feel like, oh, okay, she doesn't feel she's cornered. Or maybe the job searcher doesn't feel like, okay, this, this guy's needy, this guy's so tense, he has no other choices. Um, and then they more likely to say yes to you. So this is a paradox when it comes to input and output. And focus on input would actually give you better chance for the output.

• 16:30Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. I wanna explore that a little more when we come back in just a moment. A big thank you to today's sponsor, Vinted. I think most of us have what I call someday clothes. I'll wear that someday. That'll fit better someday. Someday, I'll have a place to wear that. Meanwhile, it's been hanging in the closet for three years. Vinted offers another possibility, sell it. Every day, people can sell clothes they're no longer wearing and make some extra money. And they've made the process pretty painless. Take what you don't wear, list it on Vinted. Listing is quick and simple.

• 17:11Mike Carruthers?

  And when an item sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. And importantly, there are no seller fees on Vinted. So when you sell something, you keep everything you earn. I like this whole idea because instead of clothes just taking up space, somebody else gets to wear them and you get some money out of the deal. Your closet looks better too. I mean, everybody wins, even the closet. So maybe it's time to stop waiting for someday. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing with no seller fees, so you keep everything you earn.

• 17:55Speaker 03

  The action's on the court and as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside seats, merch and more. Visit michelobultra.com/courtside to enter. Michelob Ultra Courtside, 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026 and ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details.

• 18:23Mike Carruthers?

  My guest today is Ja Jung. He's author of a book called Easy Discipline: An Unconventional Way to Achieve Ambitious Things. So you were saying, and it's true, we've all been in that situation where you're trying to ask for a raise or a job and it would be so much easier if you didn't care so much.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Like I, I would, if I buy a car, right? And I see a, your example, I see, I see my dream car. Okay, I know if I set my goal of having that dream car, I will overpay a lot, you know? And the, the salesperson will sense it. They know, they can sense your emotion. They're like, okay, that person wants this. Now I'm, I'm gonna jack it up and hold firm. I will set my goal to say, I'm gonna have an amazing, fun, epic negotiation session with the salesperson. That's my goal. You know, I'm gonna be like, how, okay, how much fun can I have with this conversation?

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Whether I get the car or not, you know, I know I want the car, but I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna see how much I can push this. I'm gonna see how much I can hold firm. I'm gonna see how much tactics I can use in negotiation. Now you flip that around, you're coming in so relaxed and so much about the process and then you, you're just getting the upper hand.

• 19:45Mike Carruthers?

  But what if you really are invested in the outcome? What if it really needs to be that car, that house, that girl? And you can't shake that because it, it really feels like that's what I, that, that I am invested in the outcome.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Okay, practice. I say practice. So I'm a sports fan, right? And I watch a lot of basketball and, you know, say guys like, I don't know, Steph Curry, right? He's the best shooter in NBA history. People think, you know, when he makes last second shot, you know, like a buzzer beater, people think the game are won or lost at that moment. But the games are not. The games are won and lost in dark gyms. He's shooting when no one's watching. That's why I use everyday situation to toughen myself up. So, you know, I would ask, you know, when I see a random person, I, you know, a girl or guy, you know, alike, I would be like, can I get a selfie with you? Right? And in that way, now I practiced.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Now I'm able to have the input. I'm able to do it when I don't have this strong attachment to the outcome. So when I do that, I practice and I'm able to use these tools. Now I'm better when I do something that I really care about. Now I gain this muscle memory to focus on the input. And then when the real outcome, when the real important meeting comes, I'm way more relaxed.

• 21:17Mike Carruthers?

  During your journey to get rejected 100 times in 100 days, you would ask people if you could take a selfie with them. Talk about that.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  I do. And it's funny, especially when I go to big cities and I'm like, hey, can I take a picture with you? Can we do a selfie together? Right? And I have all kinds of techniques I develop over the years. So for example, if I go to New York, I will say, can we do a selfie? You know, some people think, you know, I want them to take a picture for me. And I'm like, no, no, no, I want to take a picture with you, with you in the picture. And sometimes I tell people and then people ask why, I'd be like, you know, most people take pictures of buildings, you know, in New York City. And because they think that's New York. I mean, I want to take a picture with New Yorkers too. I want to take pictures with people and you just happen to be that New Yorker. Can we take a picture together? And people were like, oh yeah, here's my good side.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  And so, you know, and yeah, I do, I ask people to take selfies with me. I, there's one, okay, I was just in the airport the other day. I saw a guy sitting there waiting for his flight. I said, can I untie and retie your shoes? And I know it's weird, but can I do that? The guy was just laughing. And so I asked all kinds of weird things. Because again, I use those moments as ways to train my mind, to keep myself relaxed.

• 22:46Mike Carruthers?

  So wait, you actually have gone up to people and said, strangers, and said, can I untie and retie your shoes?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  I did, I did.

• 22:58Mike Carruthers?

  I would imagine, and you just used that example with the selfie thing, that people are going to ask why and you have a reason why, ready to go. Because if you don't have any reason, it seems to me like your rejection rate would go way up.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I always do. Sometimes people don't ask a reason, they just let me do it. And then because again, I'm very relaxed, you know, I'm not there to stare at the person saying, can I retie and retie your shoes? And that'd be very creepy, right? I'm there like very friendly. And you know, again, this is something I've trained over the years. And I just, I have this very high energy in fun seeking. And the other person is like, okay, this guy's having fun. And if they ask, and I always, I always tell them, hey, you know, I'm trying to have some fun. I'm going to see if this is possible. I want to lighten the mood. I want to see if you can say yes. If you're not, that's okay. Don't worry about it. I know it's pretty weird, but if you do it, hey, that's a story we can tell to everyone.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  So people, let me do it.

• 24:00Mike Carruthers?

  So you said at the beginning of our conversation that the motivation for doing this is because you got rejected for funding for your company that you were starting, and that hit you hard.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  In fact, the person who rejected the funding for me, he's a very well-known local investor. And I thought that person has seen so many, he's built his own companies, he's invested in so many companies. If he didn't like my idea, that must mean something. That must mean some sort of truth. That must mean like, you know, and I'm, you know, I should quit. And instead of wasting time, that's where it dawned on me. Like, this is such a loser mindset. And for my whole life, I want something. And because I've wanted something so bad, I've always had this, you know, holding back, then eventually ask and they get rejected. And I'm like, man, why should I do it?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  That's a doom loop, you know, that's a rejection loser doom loop. And I need to break out of that loop. And I said, let me focus on the input.

• 25:07Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it must have taken a lot of courage, or it seems like it took courage to actually say, I'm going to go out and get rejected. And yet, look what happened. It's such a great story.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  What ended up happening is I started opening up different windows in my brain. I started seeing things differently. I started acting differently. What, so when you change your inner world, you change your outer world. What ended up happening is the world turned out to be much different than I thought. It's a kinder world, in fact, if you open your inner self. You start opening up other people, you start opening up other possibilities. And you started just, you know, and the world would be saying a lot more yes to you.

• 25:49Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I've heard a lot of advice over the years about dealing with rejection, and I've never heard this, the idea of seeking it out and having fun with it rather than fearing it. I've been speaking with Ja Jung. He's an entrepreneur, speaker, and bestselling author, who has a TED Talk about rejection that's been viewed more than 11 million times. And there's a link to that in the show notes. And his new book is called The Easy Discipline: An Unconventional Way to Achieve Ambitious Things. And there is also a link to that in the show notes. Ja, thanks for sharing this. What a good story.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Thank you, Mike. It's been a pleasure and I had a great time.

• 26:29Speaker 03

  The action's on the court. And as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside seats, merch, and more. Visit michelobultra.com/courtside to enter. Michelob Ultra Courtside, 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026 and ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  Pink Panther is here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 27:29Mike Carruthers?

  Every couple has arguments. Some are about money, some are about the kids, and some are about whose turn it is to take out the trash. But according to my guess, those fights are almost never about what they seem to be about. Underneath that argument is something much deeper, an old emotional wound that keeps getting triggered over and over again. Until you figure out what the wound is, you'll likely keep having the same fight, just with different words. Kim Polinder says the secret isn't to stop fighting. Every couple fights, it's to learn how to fight better. She is a relationship therapist whose practical approach to conflict

• 28:11Mike Carruthers?

  has attracted more than 600,000 followers online. Her new book is Why We Fight: A Transformative Roadmap to Healing Conflict in Any Relationship. Hi, Kim. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Hi, Mike. Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

• 28:28Mike Carruthers?

  So I think if you ask people why they fight, they'll tell you they're fighting about whatever the thing is that they're fighting about. So what is it you say we're fighting about?

• 28:39Speaker 02

  So many reasons, but I think at the top of the list is that we are running off of a programming that got seeded, shall we say, a long time ago. I spent 20 years in IT engineering and I learned to approach life with a systems approach, a structured approach, where there is a root cause to every problem. And so when we look at human beings and how we are, let's say, conditioned to look at the world, love, ourselves, that conditioning, that programming, shall we say, or operating system started very early.

• 29:13Mike Carruthers?

  And so explain how that operating system operates.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Well, it's how we interpret the world. So if we look at it as a lens and we get two people together and one of them interprets the other, let's say, not texting them for 12 hours. I just had a client situation where one spouse was just furious, really hurt that the other spouse did not check in with them for 12 hours, didn't text them or call. Now, one could easily say, oh, well, you don't care about me. That was really hurtful. What's wrong with you? And it by itself is upsetting, sure. But when we're triggered, meaning when we have huge emotions, now we're talking about a charge that got seeded very young,

• 30:00Speaker 02

  where someone, let's say, frequently had their emotions discarded or ignored or criticized and wasn't taken care of when they were struggling. Now, when someone doesn't text you for 12 hours, it feels like a knife to the heart.

• 30:14Mike Carruthers?

  Well, that's a really interesting example to me because it would seem a lot of it would depend on

• 30:22Mike Carruthers?

  What's normal? Because if you typically text every 12 hours or less, then I would assume, yeah, okay, well, why didn't you? But if this isn't a normal thing to do, then why would someone get all upset because you hadn't texted them in 12 hours?

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Interesting question. I agree that context is everything. What is the pattern? Once again, now we're getting into a system sort of troubleshooting. What is the pattern? Well, in this couple, the pattern is that he does normally text regularly. But because they had had a huge blowout fight the day before, and they were both going into a situation that included a lot of stress around family, the scene was set for how they now approach conflict and confrontation. His approach is, I know my wife's upset. I'm just gonna lay low a little bit. I'm completely overwhelmed here with my family. I'm just going to let her decide when to contact me. Her side is, hey, we just had a big fight yesterday.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  You know I'm stressed today about you being with your family and how that's going to play out. Why wouldn't you check in with me? And so her idea of, we just had conflict. You should be checking in more. His idea of, we just had conflict. Ooh, I'm not gonna check in more, is now where we have the makings of a big fight.

• 31:40Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, that's a great example. Because you can see both sides, and yet, they, I get both arguments. But when, so when that happens, when you've got two people with fairly reasonable ideas about why we're fighting, what's the next step?

• 32:02Speaker 02

  I believe that the fastest, quickest, most effective way to de-escalate a situation is to express understanding. Empathy first. And the best way to set someone up to really understand the other person's point of view is to trace the breadcrumbs back to this early conditioning. For her to understand why he would even respond to conflict, why he, even though she knows that he loves her and cares about her very much, why in this moment of high stress would he not come in and check in with her? For her to understand that it's not just this cold, callous, like, you don't care about me. And this is a dynamic that most relationships have, where one person shuts down in a fight,

• 32:45Speaker 02

  and one person pursues engagement in a fight. And it's critical to know that the person who goes silent in a fight is just as overwhelmed as the one who's more expressive.

• 32:57Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it also seems, I mean, it's common for people to say, when you shut down and you don't communicate, that that's a very passive-aggressive response, that you're basically giving them the silent treatment and you're punishing them by not talking.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. And it can certainly segue into something as punitive and something as manipulative as that. I'm going to not talk to you until you get yourself together and calm down, right? So there is an argument for that. But what's interesting to me is that, you know, the Gottman research, the Gottmans are a pretty famous couple, and they did a lot of research on couples' conflict. And one of the things, the ideas that they promoted, was that if you were to actually put a pulserometer, like, measure someone's pulse and their physiological symptoms during fighting, in the beginning, for people who shut down, it is a physiological overwhelm, where their pulse,

• 33:58Speaker 02

  they, on the outside, they may look super calm, right? But on the inside, their pulse might be going 120, 130 beats a minute. They might be sweating. Their brain, and this is what's been, you know, expressed by people who shut down, is that the inner dialogue goes, such as, I feel completely overwhelmed. I, I can't, it's difficult to form sentences. Anything I say is going to be wrong and going to result in more criticism. Why do I even try? I'm just gonna lay low, and nothing I do is going to improve things.

• 34:36Mike Carruthers?

  So every couple fights, and everybody knows every couple fights. But I bet people in couples think, are we fighting too much? Are we fighting the right way? Is, what's normal?

• 34:52Speaker 02

  You know, it's, I love this question because I get many people, many couples, actually, who say, oh, we never fight. You know, we never have issues. And I always raise an eyebrow. I get very concerned about couples who never fight, especially if they've been together for, let's say, more than three years. Because that just tells me that someone's suppressing. Because if you look just statistically, you put two people on the planet into a home environment, an emotionally intimate, physically intimate space, right? What are the chances that one of them's never gonna have a bad day? Never gonna have a difference in opinion? Never going to just have a fight with their parent and not have it come out within the relationship?

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Just statistically speaking, if people are honest, there's going to be a little bit of friction, at least. And so it's healthy, really healthy, if people can communicate that friction and hurt feelings and unmet needs in some way, shape, or form. Now, the question of, are we fighting in a healthy way? Comes down to resentment. How do you know if resentment is starting to take down your relationship? You can ask yourself, what is unfair or imbalanced in this relationship? What do I feel is unfair? Because that's the very definition of resentment. The perception that you're being treated unfairly.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  Now, you can ask yourself, okay, I feel this X, Y, Z. Me taking care of the kids every night, doing the bedtime routine without their help is unfair. Okay. Now, we communicate with the partner, hey, you know, this is unfair, expressing your needs, all of that. And their response to it is going to be critical as to whether that resentment gets resolved. And this is where people run into trouble, is that, A, getting back to empathy first, they don't know how to express understanding in a way that the person feels less lonely. What usually happens is defensiveness. What, I do so much, you know, you know I'm working 12 hours a day. I helped out with the kids, you know, two weeks ago

• 37:03Speaker 02

  when you were off visiting your mother. And now we start getting into, you know, scorekeeping and this and that. But really, to be able to communicate your needs, have it heard, and then respond with, okay, where do we go from here? What does that, what does the schedule look like? Get into logistics. But what happens is that people, once again, we're caught in our lens, and we can't hear the other person. We don't get resolution. And then we walk away feeling very unsatisfied.

• 37:34Mike Carruthers?

  Would you actually use the word unfair? That this situation is unfair? Because isn't that kind of a judgment about the other person? As opposed to coming in saying, I have a concern about this thing, and I'd like to see if we can come up with a better solution. But when you call somebody unfair, it seems like you're lighting the fuse.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  Absolutely, absolutely. Because what I love about the definition of resentment is the perception of being treated unfairly. Once again, when we talk about perception, we're now talking about your lens. Them showing up 20 minutes late for date night means that they don't care, the perception. I'm always punctual. It's unfair that I'm always waiting for them. It's them not taking care of the kids at bedtime with me, helping me with that, is unfair, true. That means that they are selfish. They don't care that I'm struggling. So once again, whenever the lens comes into play of how we perceive unfairness,

• 38:41Speaker 02

  it's always adjacent to, enmeshed with that lens, with our beliefs that are associated with our emotional experience. I'm suffering, they don't care. This, this math, this bad math that gets set when we're very young. If I take care of everything, I am lovable. If I'm crying and upset and struggling and they don't check in with me, I'm unlovable.

• 39:07Mike Carruthers?

  I've heard people say, people in your profession say, that things like resentment and contempt are poison to a relationship. But if they're there, if they're already in there, how do you get them out?

• 39:22Speaker 02

  Well, it's interesting because when we talk about signs of contempt, and I completely agree with this, that contempt is the relationship killer. Signs of contempt are more subtle. They might be a sarcastic tone. There'll be rolling of the eyes. There'll be, sure, name-calling, but a lot of the signs, like sighing, rolling the eye, here we go again. That is not, I would call that more indirect communication, where if you were to ask that person, hey, if you couldn't roll your eyes, if you couldn't sigh, if you couldn't have that sarcastic kind of edge to your voice, what would you actually communicate?

• 40:05Speaker 02

  And if you can get to that place of what you would actually communicate, you might get to a more effective place in expressing your needs, being able to, once again, getting back to verbiage and how you open a conversation, express it in a way that the other person can hear. So you're not coming out of the gate accusing you, you, you. Coming out of the gate, instead, communicating your emotional experience. Instead of you're so selfish, it could be, I feel lonely. I feel hurt. When people speak in emotions, and this is what's called the classic I-statements, when people speak in emotions, it's much easier. Once again, we're trying to set people up to feel understood, that empathy piece. When you talk in emotions, it's more, it's much easier to then have the other person

• 40:50Speaker 02

  tune in and care for those emotions versus speaking in thoughts and judgments of, you don't care, you're this or that. Because when we speak in thoughts and judgments, of course, the other person is going to defend their honor, defend their character. So how we communicate, the language that we use, is very important to, and kind of determines how the conversation will play out.

• 41:17Mike Carruthers?

  When couples fight, especially when there's big fights, I wonder if, well, how you deal with the fact that, for some people, anyway, that every fight takes a little piece away, and it's cumulative, that every fight just knocks a little chip off the veneer, and after a while, you've got a pretty chipped veneer. And like, it's just taken a toll. And I guess that's because people don't let it go. But sometimes fights, you know, they're hard to, you can't un-hear them, you can't un-see them, and so they do take a toll.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  Yes, I agree. When you get into those big gnarly fights, and someone says something that they really regret, you can't take it back. It's always there to some degree. And this is an aspect that most, not every, but most relationships will hit, this aspect of hitting below the belt, of going to that really ugly place that then makes you repulsive to your partner. And I would explain all of it with protection. The number one job of the brain is not to love and to be happy. The brain is designed to survive.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  And what is key to survival? Well, when there's a threat, when there's a danger in front of you, you're going to protect at all costs. And what's the best way to protect? Put up your guard, so it might be shutting down. If they keep pursuing, it might be lashing out. If they are shutting down and not responding to you, which is so hurtful, then lashing out at them, going, just going to that ugly place to try to get a reaction out of them, to go to that ugly place to express to them how much they hurt you, so you're going to hurt them back. It's very much related to protection aspects, is how I'd describe it.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  And yes, it certainly does chip away, and it does eat away at the relationship, which is why, at some point, you know, the two-to-three-year mark is a very critical point, also the seven-to-eight-year mark, critical point for couples, because it will show you how you've handled that resentment, how you've handled those ugly moments. Did you come back the next day, or two, or three, to talk about it? To get to a better place?

• 43:53Mike Carruthers?

  There are certainly couples who, it's not that they fight, at least not anymore, but they've just kind of drifted, and now they kind of coexist, and they don't really fight, but they probably don't do a whole lot of fun things together either. They've just kind of settled for, eh, this is it. You would say what to that?

• 44:17Speaker 02

  This is a very common outcome of what's called the companionit phase. When you first start dating someone, you're in the honeymoon phase. Everyone's familiar with that passionate stage. And what is supposed to happen, by design, actually, is at the, let's say, 18-month mark to three-year month, three-year mark, is you get into more of a companionit stage, where they're your best friend. They're, you're more emotionally intimate. And when you are in the companionit phase, things such as falling into routines and not, and letting, sweeping things under the rug, starts to happen.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  So the things, just as a high-level, you know, high-level, like, tips, to get through that is, being friends, first and foremost, will carry the relationship. It's going to be actually critical to the relationship. Doing new things has been proven. When you do new things with your partner, it stimulates the brain in a different way. You're getting out of the old pattern. So doing new things with your partner will also make you feel closer to them. Getting through conflict, high conflict, coming back, having apologies, having empathy, understanding the other person, seeing that they care, that makes you feel closer.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  And so for couples who have kind of fallen into this eh sort of place, by the way, which is very common, I can't tell you how many couples tell me, we haven't had sex in 10 years, we sleep in separate bedrooms, you know, we're just kind of raising the kids, we've just kind of accepted that. How you want to be in a relationship is up to you.

• 46:00Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, but you've got to figure out how to work together to do that. And I think your advice has been really helpful. Kim Polinder has been my guest. She is a relationship therapist and author of the book, Why We Fight: A Transformative Roadmap to Healing Conflict in Any Relationship. And there's a link to her book in the show notes. Kim, great, thanks for being here and coming on and talking about this.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  All right, thank you, Mike, it's been a pleasure.

• 46:30Mike Carruthers?

  Most people's signatures look like scribbles. They're illegible. And that's okay. The purpose of a signature was never to make your name legible. But when you first learned to sign your name as a kid, it probably was legible. So what happened? Well, as you sign your name thousands of times over your lifetime, your brain gradually converts it from handwriting into a motor pattern. Eventually, you're no longer writing letters of the alphabet, you're just performing a memorized movement. That's why your signature can become almost unreadable while your normal handwriting stays perfectly neat.

• 47:14Mike Carruthers?

  And that is something you should know. I certainly appreciate you listening and telling people that you know to listen. In fact, it happened just the other day. Someone said, yeah, my friend told me about your podcast, and I listened, it was great. So that really is helpful to us, I appreciate you doing it, and thanks. I'm Micah Rutherford, thanks for listening to Something You Should Know.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you, based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 48:05Speaker 05

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.