Dating Is Hard: Why Forgiveness Isn’t Always The Answer w/Lori Gottlieb EP 1190

Today’s guest is Lori Gottlieb. She’s a psychotherapist, podcast host, and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold over a million copies and is currently being adapted as a television series for ABC. She's the host of the popular podcast Dear Therapists and she’s now releasing a new workbook that serves as a companion to her best-selling book called Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Workbook: A Toolkit for Editing Your Story and Changing Your Life. In this episode we discuss why it’s so difficult to find love today, how to better understand your partner, how to break unhealthy cycles from your childhood, the main traits of a narcissist, the common myths around how to truly forgive someone and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1190Mel Robbins: The “Secret” Mindset Habit to Building Confidence and Overcoming Scarcity: https://link.chtbl.com/970-podDr. Joe Dispenza on Healing the Body and Transforming the Mind: https://link.chtbl.com/826-podMaster Your Mind and Defy the Odds with David Goggins: https://link.chtbl.com/715-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1,190 with New York Times bestselling author Lori Gable. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:29Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back, my friend. Today's guest is Lori Gable. She is a psychotherapist, podcast host, and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold over a million copies and is currently being adopted as a television series for ABC. And she's released an incredible new workbook that serves as a companion to her bestselling book called Maybe You Should Talk to Someone Workbook, A Toolkit for Editing Your Story and Changing Your Life. And you guys loved the last time I had Lori on, so we wanted to bring her back on for some incredible more content. And in this episode, we discuss why it's so difficult to find love today,

• 1:09Lewis Howes?

  how to better understand the partner you're with currently, how to break unhealthy cycles from your childhood. And this has been something I've been practicing for years, so it's so powerful. The main traits of a narcissist and what to look out for. The common myths around how to truly forgive someone, and so much more. This is a powerful episode. So at any moment, if you're enjoying this, make sure to share this with a friend or post it over on your social media, tag me and Lori as well. And this is such a powerful interview that we do, that I wanted to break it up into two parts and really go over two different topics that we discussed. So this is part one. We'll cover part two later this week. And I want to give a shout out to the fan of the week for the School of Greatness

• 1:55Lewis Howes?

  from Kay Baray, who says, "The School of Greatness is my go-to podcast for drives, cardio, morning routines, cleaning up around the house, and listening has pulled me out of those slumps that we can find ourselves in." Listening has jump started my ideas in my mind that I don't think I would have thought of if I didn't listen. And overall, this podcast has bettered my mindset in relationships, health, and motivation, just about everything. Thank you for creating this show. So, thank you for being the fan of the week and for leaving us a review. And if at any moment you're inspired by this current episode, please subscribe and leave a review over on Apple Podcast right now for your chance to be shouted out as a fan of the week as

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  well. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Lori Gottlieb.

• 2:48Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to School of Greatness. I'm very excited. We've got an incredible guest Lori Gottlieb in the house. So good to see you.

• 2:55Lori Gottlieb?

  So good to see you.

• 2:56Lewis Howes?

  Glad you're back. The last interview we did where we were talking about your book, Maybe You Should Talk To Someone, has helped so many people that we wanted to have you come back and talk about relationships. And I feel like you've been, you've been helping married couples and singles try to find love and also just rework their marriages and their relationships and have harmony and peace and love in their relationships for well over a decade now. You've got an amazing podcast, Dear Therapist, with another friend of mine, Guy Winch, and you guys help people in this as well. And I wanted to ask you, we were just talking for the last 15 minutes off camera about this. I feel like we should have just recorded that already. But I wanted to ask you about why you think it's so hard

• 3:41Lewis Howes?

  for just for people to find a partner today in this climate. It seems like it's hard for people to find a great partner.

• 3:47Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 3:47Lewis Howes?

  And then why is it hard to stay in a healthy, you know, thriving relationship when it just seems like so complicated and challenging for men and women or individuals coming together to be in a happy relationship?

• 4:01Lori Gottlieb?

  I think it is complicated because no one teaches us how to love and be loved. So you either get that modeling growing up, or sometimes you don't get the best modeling growing up. But people don't really talk about it in the way that I think people would need. And so I think one of the problems is that people both want closeness and they fear closeness at the exact same time.

• 4:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 4:23Lori Gottlieb?

  And so people kind of walk on that tight rope and a lot of people get tangled up in that paradox.

• 4:28Lewis Howes?

  Why do we want it so bad? And what is the thing we fear about it so much?

• 4:31Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, the thing we fear is that it's gonna wound us, right? So I mean, love has the power to wound, but it also has the power to heal. So that's why we have that paradox, because we want it, but we're a little bit afraid of what might happen. And by the way, if you sign up for this, you will get hurt. That's just, that's just part of the deal. Even with someone who really cares about you, even in a really loving relationship, at times, you will hurt each other.

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 4:55Lori Gottlieb?

  How do you repair it?

• 4:56Lewis Howes?

  Well, is there a way to get in a relationship without hurting each other?

• 4:59Lori Gottlieb?

  Um, no, because people are human.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:02Lori Gottlieb?

  And you know, when I'm talking about hurting, there's different degrees of hurting. You know, hurting could be, you didn't understand me and I felt really hurt by that, right? Hurting could be something much more, you know, deleterious.

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  Physical or this or that.

• 5:14Lori Gottlieb?

  It could be awful, right? Yeah, so there's something, those are very different things.

• 5:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 5:18Lori Gottlieb?

  You know, but I think, I think what happens is people need to learn what we call rupture and repair. So there's a rupture, something happens between you, and then how do you repair it? There will always be ruptures.

• 5:29Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:30Lori Gottlieb?

  And, and so, you know, how do you, how do you guys repair it together? That's the biggest predictor of whether a relationship is gonna be successful and people are gonna be happy in it.

• 5:38Lewis Howes?

  Your ability to repair.

• 5:39Lori Gottlieb?

  To repair with each other, yeah.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  What is, um, okay, first off, how do we get to a place where we have less ruptures?

• 5:48Lewis Howes?

  To where it's like, once a year, once every six months, as opposed to like, every other day, a little micro rupture? Is that even possible?

• 5:57Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, so I, I think that the, the reason that people have ruptures is because they, they don't feel like they under, they are understood.

• 6:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 6:05Lori Gottlieb?

  I remember, one of the most formative things that happened for me was very early on, when I started seeing couples. I had this couple come in, and I remember that they were, there was a lot of tension between them. And the woman said to her husband, she said, "You know what three words I really wanna hear from you?" And he said, what do you think?

• 6:23Lewis Howes?

  "I love you."

• 6:23Lori Gottlieb?

  "I love you," right? And she said, "No, the three words I wanna hear are, 'I understand you.'" And I just sort of sat there in my seat, and thought, "Wow." I understand you, that understanding someone is a way of showing love.

• 6:37Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 6:38Lori Gottlieb?

  Making the effort to really listen to them, to hear their point of view. And this is where, as a couples therapist, the idea of separate realities comes in.

• 6:47Lewis Howes?

  Okay, tell me more.

• 6:48Lori Gottlieb?

  Separate realities is, we have to acknowledge that you are going to view things through your own lens, and both of them are right, both of them are valid. And where people get into trouble is, they try to convince the other person that their reality is right.

• 7:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 7:07Lori Gottlieb?

  So, you see this, for example, take an example of a parent and an adult child. And you have the parent who, you know, the adult child comes to them and says, "I feel like you really favored my sibling growing up." And the parent says, "That's not true. We love you both equally. We were there for you." And they hear it as an accusation. So you have a choice in that moment. You can say, "Okay, I'm gonna defend myself against this accusation." And what the parent hears is, "You were a bad parent." That's not what the kid is saying. The kid is saying, "You weren't there for me in the ways that I needed you to be sometimes."

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes, sometimes, yeah.

• 7:42Lori Gottlieb?

  Sometimes. It's not black or white. It's not all or nothing. It's not good or bad. It just is in that messy middle.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:51Lori Gottlieb?

  And so you can say, "I'm gonna try to understand your reality, even though there's a gap between what I intended and what you experienced." It's okay that there's a gap.

• 8:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:00Lori Gottlieb?

  So where romantic couples get into it, is the same thing. There's a gap between my intention and your experience of me.

• 8:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:07Lori Gottlieb?

  And I'm going to make you believe that my intention trumps your experience of me.

• 8:15Lewis Howes?

  Right, but my intention was good. I meant to say it this way. I meant for you to be understood. But the other person's like, "Well, that's not what I felt."

• 8:22Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, what happens is, so you see this in therapy, right? So somebody says, "Well, that's not what I intended." And I will say to them, "It doesn't matter that that's what you intended. It did. It had that effect."

• 8:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:33Lori Gottlieb?

  Right?

• 8:33Lewis Howes?

  So how does someone change their way of being, or their intention, or their actions, so that the other person feels accepted, or heard, or seen, or understood, or loved in that moment?

• 8:45Lori Gottlieb?

  I think the question we don't ask ourselves enough is, how is what I'm about to do or say going to be experienced by the person I love?

• 8:53Lewis Howes?

  You've really got to get into the head and the the heart of the other person with how you just interact in that sphere of influence, right?

• 9:02Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, and I think people say, oh, that's so much work and it shouldn't be that that hard and that's too much effort. But once you start to, going back to, I understand you. Once you start to understand them, it becomes very easy. You see, it's kind of like they are giving you their owner's manual. They are giving you the operating instructions. But if you don't read it, then you're gonna keep making the same mistakes over and over. They're saying here, let me tell you what happens for me when you do that. Let me tell you what happens for me when you say that. And if you ignore the operating instructions, you're gonna keep getting into accidents.

• 9:38Lewis Howes?

  What if the operating instructions is completely against who you are? Like you're, I don't know, let's just say your love language is, you like giving physical touch, but the other person likes receiving gifts or acts of service, for example, and you're like, this is draining for me to do this thing that the person wants or feels loved by. It feels like so much effort and work. Is there a way to make it so that your strength is actually something they love?

• 10:05Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, well, let's let's turn this around. So if if your partner said to you, it's too draining for me to actually love you in the way you like to be loved.

• 10:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it sounds crazy.

• 10:16Lori Gottlieb?

  Right? It's too draining for me to make the effort to show you love in the way that makes you feel good.

• 10:21Lewis Howes?

  Right, yeah, it sounds.

• 10:23Lori Gottlieb?

  That's, you know, there was an episode on our podcast. We have this podcast called Dear Therapists where we do actual sessions with people. And then at the end, we give them homework where they have to try out the advice and they report back within a week. And so you can see, because we want people to see that actually even one conversation can help you make real shifts in your perspective. And so we had this mother and daughter on. And the mother, this was during COVID. And the mother like brought over, she said like, I have all these homemade masks and I'm gonna bring them to you. And the daughter said, I really don't want those. And what does the mother do? She brings over the mask. And she's like, I'm showing that I care about you. I want to keep you safe. And this is a way for me to show that I care about you. And she's like, and I also brought over cookies for the kids and I brought all over

• 11:08Lori Gottlieb?

  these other things. And the one thing you picked out was that I brought the masks. And that was a loving gesture. And the daughter's like, no, it actually was not a loving gesture because I told you specifically, I don't want that. So why do we have such a hard time listening to people when they tell us exactly how they want to be loved? It's not that hard to not bring the masks.

• 11:30Lewis Howes?

  Right. Then why do we do it? Is it because we feel like that's how we want to live our lives? Or why do we do those things?

• 11:36Lori Gottlieb?

  Right. Because we aren't, we're paying attention to our needs and we're not paying attention to the other person's needs. And this is the primary problem in most relationships, whether they're romantic relationships, friendships, siblings, work, whatever it is, is that people think about the me or the you. Like, am I the problem? Are you the problem? As opposed to, we have a problem. The us, right? We have a problem. I had this, I had this couple in therapy. He had had an affair and they both wanted to repair the marriage. So they were both interested in that.

• 12:09Lewis Howes?

  So there was a rupture.

• 12:10Lori Gottlieb?

  There was a rupture and a big rupture, right? Affairs are these incredibly painful betrayals. And he was all in, in wanting to repair this.

• 12:21Lewis Howes?

  He took ownership. He said, I'm sorry, I want to make this work. She said, okay, I want to figure out how to, how to accept this apology and forgive and move on as well.

• 12:30Lori Gottlieb?

  I want to figure out what, what do we do? Is it, who are we as a couple now? What does this mean? How do we move forward? And he was not a person who was used to opening up. And a lot of men experience this. They don't know how to be vulnerable. They're afraid to be vulnerable. And so many men will come in, by the way, to my practice and they'll say, "I've never told anyone this before."

• 12:50Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 12:50Lori Gottlieb?

  They've literally never told anyone. Women come in, they say, "I've never told anyone this before, except for my mother, my sister, my best friend," right? So they feel like they haven't told anyone, but they actually have. So he opens up for the first time and he says, it was almost like a whisper, he could barely say it, and he said, "I'm so lonely."

• 13:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow, in the relationship.

• 13:10Lori Gottlieb?

  In the relationship, just in general. Like, he didn't even know, "I'm lonely." He's not blaming her for the loneliness, by the way. He's just saying, "I'm so lonely."

• 13:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 13:18Lori Gottlieb?

  And it was almost like he had gone in, ripped his heart out, extended it to her on an outstretched hand, and here's his heart sitting there. And she says, "I feel exactly the same way."

• 13:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 13:31Lori Gottlieb?

  And I thought, "Oh, there's this bridge. There's this bridge now between them," right? But then she adds, "But I didn't do it, you did." Right? In other words, "I was lonely too, but I didn't cheat. I'm a better person."

• 13:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:45Lori Gottlieb?

  And what I said to them was, I said, "Listen, you can go to this place of who's morally superior..."

• 13:50Lewis Howes?

  Who's right and wrong.

• 13:52Lori Gottlieb?

  "...and who's more injured," right?

• 13:54Lewis Howes?

  I suffered more than you did.

• 13:56Lori Gottlieb?

  "I'm the victim here." You can go to the place of, like, casting someone, you can cast each other in a role of who's the villain and who's the victim. Or you can say, "It's not a him problem or a me problem, it's an us problem. There's a loneliness in our relationship, and how do we, as a team, deal with it? Because we both, we have the problem in the relationship." Relationships are like biospheres. You're like ecosystems. So what you put into the relationship is the air that you're both breathing. Someone says, like, "Oh, yeah, I yelled in the relationship, but, you know, but she, like, iced me out." It's like, look at the environment. Look at the toxic air that you're both breathing. If you yell, she'll ice you out. If you ice him out, he's gonna yell.

• 14:40Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 14:41Lori Gottlieb?

  Right? Like, this is the, this is the air. You can't put toxic, put toxicity out there and then expect that things are going to be okay, that things are gonna be healthy.

• 14:50Lewis Howes?

  Right. So how, what was the homework for that couple on how to repair? And what was the prescription, I guess, the therapeutic prescription?

• 15:00Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, well, for them, it was, it was really looking at the relationship from the us perspective is we have an issue that we're trying to solve. We want to solve this loneliness thing in our marriage. People think, people are so self-interested in relationships without realizing it, and we all do this. You know, we think like, in the moment, I'm gonna do this thing, right? And we don't think about, how is that going to affect the couple? It's gonna be good for me, so we're gonna do it. I'm gonna say this thing because I have to get it off my chest. You know, I'm, I'm gonna keep this secret because it'll be better for me. No, what's, what's better for the relationship? And we don't tend to think about that. So for them, it was about remembering that if the thing that you're about to do is good for the relationship,

• 15:44Lori Gottlieb?

  it's going to be good for you. We forget that. We think it's the opposite. You know, it's like, if it's good for me, it'll be good for, for him or her too, or them too. No. If it's good for the relationship, it's good for everybody.

• 15:56Lewis Howes?

  Does that mean certain things you shouldn't say then?

• 16:00Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, like, well, I didn't do that. Like, yeah, I'm lonely too, but I didn't cheat.

• 16:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 16:05Lori Gottlieb?

  Right? It's like, yeah, I'm lonely too. That's, that's the moment of connection, right there. I'm lonely too. And what he did in that moment before she made that comment, he reached toward her, he teared up.

• 16:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:16Lori Gottlieb?

  It was beautiful. He teared up and he, and he moved toward her and he took her hand. And then she says, but I didn't do it.

• 16:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh, dagger.

• 16:25Lori Gottlieb?

  Right?

• 16:26Lewis Howes?

  Right to your heart. You're already wounded, you're both wounded.

• 16:29Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, and so people put up their swords to protect themselves. And what they don't realize is that they're actually gonna make themselves feel lonelier. You keep that sword up, you're gonna be very alone. You're gonna feel very... Disconnected from your partner.

• 16:44Lewis Howes?

  That takes a level of what? Just emotional intelligence, awareness, peace. What does that take in order to like not say that final thing? Or, you know, try to one up the other person in a relationship? What does that take?

• 16:58Lori Gottlieb?

  Right. Well, the reason that we do that is because there's what's happening between you and your partner in the moment. You know, he cheated, she's very injured by that, that makes sense. They've talked about it a lot at this point. They'll talk about it more, it will be ongoing. But then there's sort of, you know, the unfinished business. We have this saying, "We marry our unfinished business." And what we mean by that is if I see a couple, you know, show me, tell me how you were loved as a child, and I will tell you how you're loved now. Right, how you love now. Tell me who you love now, and I'll tell you who loved you as a child.

• 17:35Lewis Howes?

  Really? Is there a way to break that cycle though?

• 17:37Lori Gottlieb?

  Yes, yeah, so that's where the awareness comes in. So the unfinished business, so part of it is she had, she grew up in a family where her father was cheating. Her mother knew, nobody said anything. So now, you know, she's got all of that on top of, you know, the crimes of her father in her mind are now the crimes of her husband.

• 18:01Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 18:01Lori Gottlieb?

  And they're very different people. You know, her husband was a very different person from her father, but she could not separate the two of them.

• 18:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  What is the, um, what's the reason why people want to know why the other person did something? Like, you cheated. Why does the partner always want to know why? Why did you do this? Was I not doing enough of this? What is the reason behind that? And is that beneficial to want to know why the person cheated? Or lied, or manipulated, or whatever thing they did?

• 18:35Lori Gottlieb?

  I think why is important, but why is not simple. So I think what they want is a simple why. Like, you know, let me connect the dots. I cheated because of X. And then it's like, oh, that makes sense.

• 18:45Lewis Howes?

  Right, it does always make sense why you cheat.

• 18:47Lori Gottlieb?

  So then we can just avoid X, and it'll never happen again. Have you ever had the situation where you find out that a friend, like somebody cheated in a friend's relationship? And everybody is asking, what happened? Why? And the reason they want to know is not so much that they're concerned for their friend, of course they are. But because they wanna know, oh, I don't want that to happen in my relationship. So if I can find out why it happened in your relationship, I can make sure that that doesn't happen in mine.

• 19:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 19:14Lori Gottlieb?

  And I think that when it happens in your own relationship, you think if we can figure out the why, then we can make sure it will never happen again. People want guarantees, but there are no guarantees. And the reasons that people have relationships are very nuanced. It's not like, well, my father died and I was feeling dead, so I wanted to feel alive again. Maybe that's part of it, but there might be other reasons too.

• 19:37Lewis Howes?

  Why they have affairs, you mean?

• 19:38Lori Gottlieb?

  Yes, yes, yes. So people always think that if I know why, and by the way, like in that example of him saying, I was really lonely, you know, there was a why, it did not bring relief.

• 19:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:49Lori Gottlieb?

  You think it's like, oh, if I solve the mystery, then I'm gonna feel like some sense of healing, of relief. No, you really have to deal with what's in front of you right now.

• 19:58Lewis Howes?

  From all the cases you've experienced, what are the three main causes of cheating or someone having an affair?

• 20:06Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, that's the thing, there are so many, right? So it could be something going on in the relationship, like there's a lack of connection, someone's trying to control the other person, someone isn't present enough for the other person, they're bringing their own childhood stuff to the relationship, so there's a lot of conflict in the relationship. There's, there's too much agreement in the relationship.

• 20:27Lewis Howes?

  Too much agreement.

• 20:28Lori Gottlieb?

  Agreement, meaning nobody's talking about what you need to talk about. So everybody's just kind of dealing with all of the things that are not working on their own. And it's like, I don't wanna rock the boat. And so everybody's very smiley, everybody agrees with everybody. But underneath, there's a sense of like, oh, I don't really feel like I'm in this. You know, we can't really talk about the things that I wanna talk about. Or the, both people generally feel that way.

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:55Lori Gottlieb?

  And so there's a lot of like, you know, just being too nice.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, okay.

• 21:00Lori Gottlieb?

  So those are the couples who are saying, oh, I never saw it coming. If I see a couple and they agree on everything and they have no conflict and there's like nothing going on there, like, what are we not talking about here? Not because I'm looking for problems, but because people... Are not clones of each other.

• 21:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:16Lori Gottlieb?

  You know, they're going to have differences.

• 21:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 21:18Lori Gottlieb?

  And then there are reasons that people cheat. They have literally nothing to do with their partner.

• 21:22Lewis Howes?

  The partner could be amazing.

• 21:23Lori Gottlieb?

  Partner is amazing, and it's not about the partner. So I remember I had a couple and she and she was so confused by this. She was so injured by this beyond just the betrayal, but because she said, "I gave you everything that you always wanted. I gave you stability. I gave you warmth. I gave you unconditional love. I gave you joy and fun and gave you all those things and still you cheated. Why was I not enough?" And he said, "But you were enough." It wasn't, it wasn't that you weren't enough. It was that I did not know how to deal with enoughness. Like, I have not, I have not dealt with my childhood wounds.

• 22:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:03Lori Gottlieb?

  Right? Um, I didn't feel worthy of enough.

• 22:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:06Lori Gottlieb?

  And so he had a lot of stuff to work out and it literally had nothing to do with what she was or was not giving him. And she was like, "Why, why, why?" And she was like beating this out of him. And he's like, "It's not about you." She could not accept that because it was better for her to feel like I have an answer that makes sense to me, that there's something I can do differently. And that was not the answer.

• 22:28Lewis Howes?

  That's why you hear the cliche thing, "It's not you, it's me." When someone's like breaking up or when something happens, no one can really accept that. Because they always think, "Well, if, if you, if I was great, you'd still want to be with me."

• 22:40Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, no, no, no. I'd say sometimes it is the other person. And that's just, and that is how they're breaking up, right?

• 22:45Lewis Howes?

  They just say it that way.

• 22:46Lori Gottlieb?

  They just say it that way. But what, but what, but in this case, it was true. He was saying, "There was nothing that you could have done differently. This was something about me that I'm just seeing now." And by the way, sometimes, and this is the thing that, that betrayed partners have the hardest time accepting, the reason for the affair is I was trying to save the marriage. People think, "Oh, please." You know, like, "Don't give me that."

• 23:06Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 23:06Lori Gottlieb?

  Um, but this is what people do. They're trying to save the marriage. So they want, they're trying to get their partner's attention. They're trying to say, they couldn't say it to their partner for whatever reason. Uh, because maybe they had tried to, tried to say it to their partner and their partner was like, "I don't know what you're talking about."

• 23:22Lewis Howes?

  Say what? What were they?

• 23:23Lori Gottlieb?

  You know, like, like, "I don't have enough of you," or "We don't have enough connection," or "I can't bring up things that are uncomfortable in this marriage." Because every time I do, you try to shut me down. So they've tried, maybe. And so then they blow it up and they say like, I'm, this is the only way that I can get you to see that there is a problem in our marriage.

• 23:43Lewis Howes?

  They sabotage it, yeah.

• 23:44Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, and it's not necessarily conscious. It's like, they're doing this thing because they, they didn't know what else to do, but they're not like, I'm gonna have an affair to do that. Sometimes, they do it because they say, I really want to keep, there's so much good in this marriage and I really want to keep it, but there are certain things, needs that I'm not getting met in this marriage and my partner's not listening to me about this. So I'm gonna get those needs met, and I'm not even talking about sexual needs. They're gonna get those needs met somewhere else so that the marriage can stay intact, so we don't rock this boat, because if I bring this up, my partner might leave me.

• 24:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so it's getting the needs somewhere else because the partner's not giving you what you need in that moment, but you still wanna keep.

• 24:22Lori Gottlieb?

  Or doesn't wanna hear it.

• 24:22Lewis Howes?

  Ah, but you still wanna stay in the marriage, but you need to get your needs met somewhere. If you can't get them met in the marriage, you're like, well, where do I go?

• 24:29Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, and they're not necessarily sexual needs. People think affairs are always about the sex, they're not always about the sex.

• 24:34Lewis Howes?

  What could it be about? What other ways?

• 24:36Lori Gottlieb?

  About, I wanna feel alive, I feel dead, yeah, I wanna feel, I wanna feel special. I wanna feel understood, this other person listens to me.

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  So they, they're still having a sexual interaction, but it's not necessarily about the sex?

• 24:49Lori Gottlieb?

  Sometimes, and by the way, because we don't know how to define affairs. Everybody defines it differently, so it's kind of like, people think, when I'm with my partner, because we see the world through a similar lens, we're going to agree on what betrayal means. What does it mean to cheat? What does an affair actually mean? And you'll find that people have wildly different definitions.

• 25:08Lewis Howes?

  Like, what's the range?

• 25:09Lori Gottlieb?

  Is cheating, is cheating, you have been getting together with your ex, even though it's completely on the up and up, you've been getting together with your ex, but you didn't tell me you were having these lunches with your ex. That feels like a betrayal to me, I should've known about it, even if nothing's happening. I should've known about it.

• 25:26Lewis Howes?

  That may seem like an affair to some people.

• 25:27Lori Gottlieb?

  It seems like a betrayal, we can call it a betrayal, yeah. Or someone will say, like, you're having an emotional affair with this person, how do you define that? What does that actually mean? You might have different definitions of that, like, why can't I have a friend who is, you know, who is not a romantic partner, but you see this person as, as threatening? But this person is not threatening.

• 25:49Lewis Howes?

  Right. Do you think, do you think people can have? Opposite sex friends while they're in marriages.

• 25:56Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 25:57Lewis Howes?

  And the partner should be.

• 25:58Lori Gottlieb?

  But the, but the, but the boundaries, the lines have to be explicit. Like, what do you and your partner say about what those lines are? So that you'll know when they're crossed. If you haven't talked about what those lines are, you don't know when they're crossed. Until they're crossed, until someone says, wait a minute, you crossed a line and the other person says, I didn't know the line was there. I thought it was over here.

• 26:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, so it could be like, um, it's interesting. I was meeting with someone years ago, who is, um, someone older than me in my industry. And I was like, I'd love to meet you to like, it was non-romantic at all, but I was just like, I'm inspired by what you're creating. I'd love to like have lunch with you or have a coffee. And, um, I can't remember what she said. She said something like, we just have to make sure it's in public because me and my husband have an agreement if we're meeting someone of the other sex, something like that. But it was, it wasn't that detailed, but she was like, oh, we just need to make sure it's in public. And, you know, I just never do anything one-on-one privately with anyone. Like, so, and I was like, okay, cool. Yeah, wherever you want to go. And I was like, that's a good boundary, an agreement. It's like.

• 26:55Lori Gottlieb?

  And that, and that works for them. That might not work for someone else. Someone else might feel like, well, that's really controlling. But you don't know the history of their relationship. And, um, and she didn't, by the way, have to say that to you. She could have just said like, let's meet at wherever.

• 27:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 27:07Lori Gottlieb?

  Right?

• 27:08Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 27:09Lori Gottlieb?

  Um, you know, so maybe she was just trying to let you know, hey, by the way.

• 27:12Lewis Howes?

  This isn't anything, yeah.

• 27:13Lori Gottlieb?

  Whatever, whatever you might be thinking.

• 27:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, don't be trying anything, so. Uh, but what I thought was cool, like.

• 27:17Lori Gottlieb?

  But it is, but it is cool that, that they talked about it.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:20Lori Gottlieb?

  And, and that's the point is that people need to talk about these. People assume that their partners think about the world in the same way they do. And they get into trouble when they realize, wait a minute, you think this? And then they judge the person for thinking something else. Like, how, and I'm not talking about affairs now, but just anything like, how could you think that? How do you think that way? How do you believe that? As if.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, then you wouldn't want to have, you wouldn't want to talk about that person anymore because you feel judged already, right?

• 27:45Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right.

• 27:46Lewis Howes?

  Sorry, what were you gonna say?

• 27:47Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, I think that people need to come at each other with curiosity rather than criticism.

• 27:51Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 27:52Lori Gottlieb?

  Isn't that interesting? Oh, you think that? Tell me more. Just say those three words. Tell me more or say more. Tell me, I'm curious. I want to understand how you think about this. Not because my way is better.

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  So what if the thing that someone starts telling this, you know, story or fantasy or whatever it is, value system they have and it's completely against what their partner thinks or believes, then what? If they're like, oh, we're in a big conflict here of what you think and what I think.

• 28:22Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, I think it's, I think underneath the sort of content is the process. The process is what's going on on an emotional level between you. And usually there's some, there's some kind of agreement on an emotional level. Like you might think blue and I might think green, but actually we both think colors. Right? Like there's something that's, that's, there's some point of connection there. But people kind of back into their own corners because again, the worst thing that you can do to somebody is try to get them to think your way instead of being curious about understanding how they think.

• 28:57Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 28:58Lori Gottlieb?

  You don't have to agree with it, but you just have to understand it.

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  Because people want to be understood more than anything else.

• 29:03Lori Gottlieb?

  More than agreed with.

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 29:04Lori Gottlieb?

  Just, I can see why you think that way or why you felt that way. I don't, you know, I don't agree with it, but I can see, I can see that that's how you think about it. I get that.

• 29:16Lewis Howes?

  So, understand, but you don't have to agree with someone.

• 29:19Lori Gottlieb?

  You don't have to agree.

• 29:20Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I like that.

• 29:21Lori Gottlieb?

  Those are two different things, understanding them and agreeing with them. It's kind of like if your kid comes home from school and says like, you know, that teacher was terrible, they marked me off for not turning in my homework. You might agree with the teacher, yeah, okay, they should mark you off for not turning in your homework.

• 29:36Lewis Howes?

  But I understand where you're coming from.

• 29:37Lori Gottlieb?

  But I understand that you're really upset about this. I get why you're upset. I get that it feels bad to be marked off for something and maybe, you know, maybe we can talk about like what's going on for you and why you didn't turn it in. Let's talk about that.

• 29:49Lewis Howes?

  Underneath it, interesting.

• 29:50Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 29:51Lewis Howes?

  How many of the, the married couples that come in, how many percentage wise would you say there's some type of affair or cheating that happens with the couples that come to you? Or just in therapy, do you think, what's like the percentages?

• 30:08Lori Gottlieb?

  It's really interesting that you ask that because when I think about all the betrayals that happen in couples, you know, betrayals of like, you gave me the silent treatment when I needed you. Or I was sick and you had a toothache, you know, it's like, or, and you didn't call me. Or, you know, like all the betrayals that just happen in, on a daily basis.

• 30:33Lori Gottlieb?

  Um, the betrayal that really gets people is, you know, this idea of cheating.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 30:39Lori Gottlieb?

  That really cuts to the core in a way that the other people can be awful to another person. Like you can scream at someone and say horrible things, which I think is just psychological, you know, just betrayal right there.

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  Trauma, yeah.

• 30:52Lori Gottlieb?

  It's trauma. It really is. Yeah, yeah. It's like holding someone hostage to your emotions.

• 30:59Lori Gottlieb?

  You know, you're, you're really like, it, it's a real assault. It's an emotional assault.

• 31:04Lewis Howes?

  I think, yeah, I think it's horrible.

• 31:06Lori Gottlieb?

  And then, you know, oh, but, but wait a minute, you had lunch with this coworker. Oh my God, can you believe? And then you tell all your friends, he was having lunch with her, right?

• 31:14Lewis Howes?

  He betrayed me. Yeah, yeah.

• 31:15Lori Gottlieb?

  But then you don't say to your friend, like, you wouldn't believe the way, what he called me or what he said to me when he screamed at me in that moment, right? It's really interesting to see, you know, what affects us on this deep core level. And I think it's because we have this idea in, in modern society that our partners are supposed to be everything to us. And there's this little bubble of the two of us. And it's the two of us against the world. Like, it used to be you'd have community for some of your needs. You had friends, you had family, you had all these different things. And now it's like, this is the person, if the person strays in some way, then I am threatened in this way because I don't have the safety of us anymore. Even though the, the other thing is, is arguably just as bad.

• 31:57Lewis Howes?

  Just as bad.

• 31:58Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Lewis Howes?

  If someone screams at you and allows their emotions to take over and puts it on the person they say they love the most. For me, it's just, like you said, psychological war.

• 32:09Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Lewis Howes?

  And I feel like, you know, psychological things are harder to get out of than someone like punching me in the face. I don't know. I mean, physical abuse is not good either, but for me, it's like the psychological messes with your emotions.

• 32:22Lori Gottlieb?

  Right. Well, what's so confusing about it is that people are not always that way.

• 32:27Lewis Howes?

  Right. So it's once in a month he does this, or she yells this way, you know?

• 32:31Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right. So it's kind of like, you know, but look at all the, look at all the good things. Look at all the other things. And so it's, it's hard for people to reconcile. You see this with narcissistic people a lot. And I, I don't like to use diagnostic terms very much because I think the behavior is more important than the, the diagnosis. But when we look at narcissistic traits, for example. We all know people who have been with someone who is incredibly charming, incredibly confident, incredibly into you in this way that makes you feel like you are the center of the universe. You're the center of this person's universe. And then they do something so callous.

• 33:11Lewis Howes?

  Like what?

• 33:12Lori Gottlieb?

  So, I mean, you know, something that they just, they lack empathy. In a moment when, you know, like your, your mother died and they didn't show up for you in the way that you would expect.

• 33:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:27Lori Gottlieb?

  Or even just something on a daily basis, you know, just something where like their needs were so much more important than yours. We had on, on the Dear Therapist podcast, we just did an episode called, I think it was like Audrey's narcissistic ex-husband. And again, we don't, we haven't met him, so we cannot give him a diagnosis. And I don't even know that he, you know, fits a diagnosis. But her perception in the marriage was just that his needs came above hers. But she said, "I was addicted to his approval. His approval meant everything to me. The fact that he could have had anybody and he chose me." So we all get sort of swayed by those people. It's very easy to get swayed by those people. Some people figure it out before they get into a relationship with them that,

• 34:10Lori Gottlieb?

  oh, wait a minute, you know, this feels really good for a moment, but this isn't what I want to live with.

• 34:14Lewis Howes?

  This isn't my vision, this isn't, yeah.

• 34:15Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right. But other people, you know, it takes them a long time to kind of figure it out. And so for her, she was so damaged by it. Then they, they got divorced and he was about to get remarried. And it's been seven years since they got divorced. And she's still so damaged by it. Because she never processed it. She never understood her own role in it. Why was she with him? So I think it's easy to blame the, the person who's, you know, narcissistic.

• 34:41Lewis Howes?

  You chose to be in a relationship and stay in a relationship at the same time.

• 34:44Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, what, what was the draw for you? You know, what is that pattern? And usually it's, it's people who have their own issues with intimacy. You know, it's, it's, a narcissist is a great partner for someone who, and I say great partner, meaning, you know, it's, that's how, who they're gonna choose. It's not a fun, it's not a fun relationship. But it's a great partner for somebody who really is afraid of getting too close. Because the narcissist will never let you get too close to him.

• 35:08Lewis Howes?

  Never fully open up vulnerably.

• 35:09Lori Gottlieb?

  They will never let you get there because they are so ashamed. Their main thing is they're covering their shame.

• 35:17Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the main traits of a narcissist?

• 35:20Lori Gottlieb?

  Grandiosity, really wanting to be the center of attention. This veneer of confidence, being very easily wounded. Oh, wait a minute, you complimented this other person's whatever it is. They get so wounded, like, well, why didn't you compliment mine? Right?

• 35:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Lori Gottlieb?

  Oh, you think that person's attractive? They'll like ice you out.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow, is that so super jealous too, or no?

• 35:48Lori Gottlieb?

  Very, but they act like they don't care. Oh, you wanna do, go ahead.

• 35:52Lewis Howes?

  Like passive aggressive jealous or something, right?

• 35:54Lori Gottlieb?

  Very passive aggressive, yeah.

• 35:56Lewis Howes?

  Huh. Any other signs that people should look out for if they're like starting to date someone? They're like, huh, this seems very narcissistic.

• 36:02Lori Gottlieb?

  I think that Jekyll and Hyde quality, that, you know, one minute you're like this, and the next minute you're incredibly cruel. You can be incredibly warm and loving and incredibly cruel. And the two, you toggle between the two in a way that is frightening.

• 36:18Lewis Howes?

  It's like a split personality, huh?

• 36:20Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, yeah. But it's not, because the narcissist is doing the thing, you reel them in. The narcissist reels the person in with the charm, with the seduction. Which you are the center of the universe. And then, uh-oh, you're getting too close to me, so I'm gonna be cruel.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  So it's interesting, so it's like if you're with someone who's showing these traits and they're just wowing you and they're so nice and loving and grandiose. But then if you truly open up and you wanna get to know their heart, that's when they start to do other things, or what happens then?

• 36:52Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  If you get too close.

• 36:54Lori Gottlieb?

  If you get too close to them, right. Either you're being too intimate with them, although they want you to be somewhat intimate with them so they know how to use it against you.

• 37:02Lewis Howes?

  Right. Tell me your deepest darkest secrets, then I can use it against you later.

• 37:05Lori Gottlieb?

  Then I will use it against you in the moment when you are most vulnerable.

• 37:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:10Lori Gottlieb?

  Or they don't want, they don't want you to know too much about them, right?

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  They hide.

• 37:15Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, they hide their vulnerabilities. They don't know how to get authentically close to another person.

• 37:22Lewis Howes?

  Why does someone become a narcissist?

• 37:24Lori Gottlieb?

  Oh, that's, you know, I think so many people, anybody who's had experience with someone like that wants to know that. And, and you'll see that, you know, this is, this is when we talk about we marry our unfinished business, right? So it's, it's the person who grew up feeling very, they didn't get their needs met. They didn't get, you know, they, they were either neglected, or they were, or they grew up with a narcissistic parent. So what do we do with parents who don't meet our needs? On the one hand, we rebel against them. We say, "I'm not gonna be like that. I'm not gonna choose someone like that." So the narcissist doesn't choose another narcissist. If the narcissist grew up with a narcissistic parent, they don't choose another narcissist. They choose someone like the other parent who was with the narcissistic parent.

• 38:09Lori Gottlieb?

  And then what they do is they take on the traits of the narcissistic parent. Now, why do they do that? Even though they were so injured by that kind of parent? It's like, it's like the person who grew up with an alcoholic parent, or, or a person who like couldn't self-regulate. Why did they become the angry yeller, even though their parent was the angry yeller? And they said, "I would never do that." How do you get close to a parent who couldn't get close to you? You become like them. That's your connection to them. This is completely outside of your awareness. You don't realize that. But we still, the wish never dies that we can be close to our parents. The wish never dies. So what do we do if we don't process this?

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  So if we process it, then we-

• 38:49Lori Gottlieb?

  If we process it, then we know, okay, I have to watch out for that. I have to find another way to grieve what I didn't get growing up. I have to really go through that grief process. And I'm going to have that, that, that loss is gonna live with me, but it's gonna live with me in a way that isn't so sharp. So you really have to grieve it. But if you don't grieve it, you repeat it.

• 39:11Lewis Howes?

  You take on the trait of one of your parents or something?

• 39:14Lori Gottlieb?

  You take on their traits because that helps you feel close to them. "Oh, I'm gonna feel close to you in this way." This is not in your conscious awareness. And then people don't realize it. They think, "Oh, my gosh, one day, someone says to them, 'You are exactly like your mom, your dad.'" And they go, "Oh, my God, I am." Right? If they're not, if they, if they, if they can get past sort of like the narcissistic protection.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Which would be what? I'm not like my parents and-

• 39:38Lori Gottlieb?

  No, I'm not like them at all. I'm not like, I'm not like them at all. Like, if you could take a videotape of a scene from your childhood, and you take a videotape of how you're acting now with your own child, you would be stunned.

• 39:51Lewis Howes?

  So how does someone if they're, okay, they've realized they're, maybe there's narcissistic traits, or that's a full-on narcissist that they're in a relationship with? What are the next steps they should take? Is there a way to actually, I mean, you can't really change someone in a relationship, what I'm hearing you say. You can't, no matter what you do, the person's not gonna change.

• 40:11Lori Gottlieb?

  Right.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  So do you need to change in order for them to change? Or is it just if you're with someone who's diagnosed narcissist, there's no hope for actually healthy growth in the relationship?

• 40:23Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, someone who has narcissistic traits generally doesn't come to therapy because they don't think they have a problem.

• 40:29Lewis Howes?

  Right. They're like, no, I'm good.

• 40:31Lori Gottlieb?

  Right. So how they come in is they're having some relational difficulty.

• 40:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:35Lori Gottlieb?

  And the relational difficulty is either they're coming in for couples therapy because the other person dragged them there.

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:41Lori Gottlieb?

  You know, so often we say that, you know, the reason that people come to therapy is to deal with the people who won't go to therapy.

• 40:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:47Lori Gottlieb?

  You know, you're coming to therapy to deal with the person in your life who won't come to therapy.

• 40:52Lewis Howes?

  It's funny that, yeah, the three previous relationships I was in, I was like, we need therapy. We need to like, we're getting to a point where I was like, something's not working here. Let's go to therapy and like, try to work this through. None of my partners wanted to go to therapy. They resisted, resisted, resisted, and I was like, what? We're not figuring it out on our own. Like, I'm trying, you're trying, it's not working, let's go, let's have someone look at it. No, it was like so much resistance. I was just like...

• 41:16Lori Gottlieb?

  Right. And so in that, in that case...

• 41:18Lewis Howes?

  I'm not saying they were all narcissists, but there was definitely some...

• 41:20Lori Gottlieb?

  No, no, no, so I'm not even talking about, so, so I, well, let me differentiate. So, there's, if, you know, a narcissistic person, meaning diagnosed narcissistic, or even people with narcissistic traits, they tend not to come on their own to therapy unless they actually agree to come in couples, and they're coming because their partner is making them come.

• 41:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes, that's the only reason.

• 41:40Lori Gottlieb?

  Or, and, and then you kind of see like, how flexible are they with their story? Right? Because everybody's coming in with their story. Both people, both people need to be.

• 41:48Lewis Howes?

  Their perspective, yeah.

• 41:49Lori Gottlieb?

  Right. The other reason, like, and maybe you should talk to someone, John, right? When I talk about him, he's this guy who's in his 40s, he's married, he has some kids, and he is incredibly insulting to me from the minute, you know, he walks in the door. Everybody else is the problem. You know, in fact, the, the chapter's called idiots, because he says, everybody else is an idiot, right? Why can't people, why aren't people as smart as he is? Why aren't people as competent as he is? Why can't people do things right? Why does he, and he's like, the, the beleaguered victim.

• 42:21Lori Gottlieb?

  You see that sometimes, right?

• 42:22Lewis Howes?

  I'm so talented and smart, I'm the victim because no one else...

• 42:25Lori Gottlieb?

  I'm the victim of all these other people are causing so much anxiety in my life. Like, why are they doing things the way that they should be done? Why are they complaining about all these things? Not realizing that he's the one doing the complaining.

• 42:36Lewis Howes?

  About every day, yeah.

• 42:37Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right. You know, we call it complaining from the victim position. You know, or being offended from the victim position.

• 42:45Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 42:46Lori Gottlieb?

  Everybody else is the problem. Or the reason that people are cruel to another person is they say, you know, like, "I was the victim, so I can hurt you twice as much." So if you hurt me, I have a right to hurt you.

• 43:00Lewis Howes?

  Back.

• 43:01Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right. I'm doing this to protect myself.

• 43:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:04Lori Gottlieb?

  No. So when John came in, you very much say, a lot of people would say, "I don't want to treat somebody like that," because they don't know how much progress they're going to make. Because if they can't self-reflect...

• 43:16Lewis Howes?

  They're so resistant, yeah.

• 43:16Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, you have to be able to see yourself. You know, in the book, I talk about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. So idiot compassion is what we do with our friends. So your friends say like, "Listen to what my partner did, or my mom, or my kid, or my sibling, or whatever it is." And we say, "Yeah, that's terrible. You're right. How dare they." You know, "You're right, they're wrong." It's just, we just back them up blindly because we think we're being supportive. But if you actually listen to your friends over time, you might hear that there's a pattern, that they are kind of complaining about similar types of things. It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. We don't say that in idiot compassion. So in therapy, what we offer is we offer wise compassion. And in wise compassion, we hold up a mirror to you

• 44:01Lori Gottlieb?

  to help you to see yourself in ways that maybe you haven't been willing or able to do. And compassion is the key word here because we're doing it compassionately. So someone who comes in and they're not able to self-reflect, they're not able to see their reflection in the mirror and say, "Yes, oh, I have a role in this too." "Yes, it's true, the other person does this, but I have a role in this too." So when you are asking about change, when people come in for couples therapy, I always give them an assignment before they come in. And the assignment is this, because normally, the first thing that'll happen if I don't is they're going to come in and they're going to name all the ways that their partner needs to change. And then we get nowhere. So I say to them, "I want you to come up with how you can make this relationship better.

• 44:44Lori Gottlieb?

  I want you to come up with what you're going to do." What are you going to be working on to make this relationship better? Even if your partner never changes. And they each have this assignment. So from day one, they come in. And even though they might have a lot of reasons that, you know, things aren't working out, that they think are their partner's issue. Their goal in therapy is to work on the one thing, or the two things, or the three things that they think they can do to make the relationship better. And it changes the whole course of the couples' therapy. Because it's not about changing the other person. The magic of this is that they say, "Well, what's the point of doing it if they're not going to change?" Well, first of all, again, going from the me and the you to the us is, things are going to go more smoothly.

• 45:29Lori Gottlieb?

  Because you're going to be doing something to improve the relationship. But the other part of it is, and where the magic comes in, is you can't change another person, but you can influence change in another person.

• 45:39Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 45:40Lori Gottlieb?

  So when you do something differently, you are helping the other person to change. No one changes because you say, "I want you to change in this way." That doesn't really happen. They might do it, you know, they might pay lip service to it. It doesn't really last. But if you start changing, if you make it easier, you help them to change by making it easier for them to change. So let's say they really need space. Give them some space. Let's say, you know, you try to control them less. Let's say that you don't engage in the same familiar argument over and over and over. Maybe you do something kind for them. And then people say about that. They say, "Well, why should I do something kind? Why should I go first? If they would be nice to me, I'll be nice to them." It doesn't matter.

• 46:25Lori Gottlieb?

  You need to go first because someone needs to do something. Someone needs to change the dynamic. It's like a dance. And so if you do something nice for them, you might notice that they, not because it's a tit for tat, not because they're doing it because you do, it's because they feel safer. They feel more loving toward you. They feel like, "Oh, that was really nice. I really liked that. Now I actually want to, on my own volition, want to do something nice for you."

• 46:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And what if? What if someone says, "I'm gonna improve all, you know, three, five, 10 areas that I know can improve." And after six months, the other person's like, "Yeah, I deserve all these things, and I'm not gonna give anymore." Then what? You keep coming back. Have you seen that where people come back to therapy, it's like, "Okay, I've done this, I did this, I did this," and they're still not happy, and they're still upset, and they're still not shifting in certain ways?

• 47:15Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, first of all, I think that what they engage in then is what I call the pain Olympics, which is like, whose pain is greater?

• 47:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:22Lori Gottlieb?

  You know, like, "I'm working so hard, I'm working 12-hour days." "Well, I'm taking care of the kids," or "I'm doing this," or, you know, like, "I'm doing all of this kind of labor in the relationship, and you're doing all of it." It's, there's no, there's no winning the pain Olympics. Like, let's just say that you're both at a 10, okay? You both win. You both are in pain.

• 47:39Lewis Howes?

  You both lose.

• 47:40Lori Gottlieb?

  But you both lose if you keep trying to compare it. The point is, you're both, you're both struggling. And, and what's really interesting about couples is that couples don't tend to tell the other person exactly how they're struggling in a relationship. Instead, they act it out. They act out their fears, or their disappointment, or their hurt, in other ways. But they don't directly say, "This is how I'm struggling." And so if you're in couples therapy, you're gonna start talking about those things. And if you're, you know, if you're not, then, then you're not really doing couples therapy. So, you know, I mean, I think that your therapist will tell you very early on, like, "This is the work that we're doing, and this is..."

• 48:21Lori Gottlieb?

  I think some people think that couples therapy is you come in, you download the, the argument of the week, or the struggle of the week, you leave. You come back the next week, and you download the new thing. No, that, that's, that's like talking to a friend. There's no point to that.

• 48:35Lewis Howes?

  What should, what should the point of therapy be?

• 48:37Lori Gottlieb?

  The point, the point is, is that you want to be doing, that most of the therapy of couples therapy takes place outside of the therapy room, meaning, what happens in between sessions? So, we came in, we talked about this. You learn something new about yourself, you learn something new about your partner, and then we always say insight is the booby prize of therapy, that you can have all the insight in the world, but if you don't make changes out in the world, between sessions, the insight is useless. So then, okay, you have this insight, you learned something. What are you going to do with that knowledge? Use it. Like, why are you wasting your time and your money coming in here every week?

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  Right, go apply.

• 49:11Lori Gottlieb?

  If you're not gonna use it?

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  What's been the thing that you've seen as a therapist? Where you realized, "Oh, this is something that I have done in my relationships." Or, "Oh, actually, this is a really good lesson for me because I used to do that and I don't wanna do that anymore." Or something like that. Has there been anything?

• 49:29Lori Gottlieb?

  I would say all of it.

• 49:30Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 49:31Lori Gottlieb?

  I mean, I think that that's what makes relationships so interesting. And people think that it's only happening to them. They're like, "You only do this..." You know, it's really interesting that they think...

• 49:41Lewis Howes?

  You're the only one that does this. My friends don't do this.

• 49:43Lori Gottlieb?

  Nobody does this. Their partners don't do this. Or, "I only act this crazy around you." Right? Like, "I don't do this. Nobody else elicits this kind of response to me." Well, of course, they don't elicit that kind of response in you because you're not in an intimate relationship with them. They're not bringing up all that unconscious stuff that comes up when you're in that intimate relationship. So, I think that the good news for couples is that anything they bring in, I've seen it before. I've experienced probably some of it before. You know, and it's so universal. And if people could stop, be so... You know, people can blame and shame. You know, they blame the other person, they feel shame themselves. And then they don't really make progress because they're afraid to really look at these things

• 50:28Lori Gottlieb?

  because they're really uncomfortable talking about them.

• 50:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 50:31Lori Gottlieb?

  But when they find that, "Oh, this is just the human condition." And this is what happens when we get scared. This is what happens when we feel threatened. And maybe it's not even your partner who's threatening, but it's something about being this close to someone. Or there's something your partner does that reminds your nervous system of something that happened earlier.

• 50:49Lewis Howes?

  In the past.

• 50:50Lori Gottlieb?

  Like, who am I talking to right now? Am I talking to the child who had to come up with a way to protect yourself from whatever was happening? And it was very effective. It was ingenious as a child because you had to. You didn't have agency. Or am I talking to the adult who has agency and doesn't need to use that way of protecting yourself that is actually creating some conflict in your relationship?

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  Which everything goes back to healing.

• 51:14Lori Gottlieb?

  Yes.

• 51:14Lewis Howes?

  Like, if we wanna create a thriving, healthy relationship within the human condition, which is gonna have some... You know bumps along the way. It sounds like we we need to constantly going back to healing. If there's something within me that's stressed, where can I heal? Is that what I'm hearing you say?

• 51:30Lori Gottlieb?

  And and the thing is that that we expect our partners to do that healing for us. The person who's going to heal us is ourselves. And that is goes against everything we believe about love. And when I said at the beginning of our conversation that love can wound, but also love can heal. What I mean is that if you can heal yourself in the context of a loving relationship.

• 51:49Lewis Howes?

  Right, not the other person healed me.

• 51:51Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, the other person didn't heal me, but I was healing myself and the other person was there. As I was doing it and the other person was healing themselves as well. And and what happens is you learn how to heal yourself because you have the safe environment in which to do it. If you have an environment that's not safe, you're not going to feel safe enough to do the work that you need to do to heal yourself.

• 52:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So what does a safe environment look for another partner to feel I'm safe? And I can process the things I need to process in a healthy manner?

• 52:22Lori Gottlieb?

  That your partner can handle the truth of who you are.

• 52:25Lewis Howes?

  Ooh. All the messiness of you, all the stuff in your past.

• 52:29Lori Gottlieb?

  As long as you're kind.

• 52:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:31Lori Gottlieb?

  That your partner can handle the truth of who you are, that you can show up. You can be authentic, they're not going to judge you. They're not going to use it against you and say, ah, yeah, see that thing that you told me like three months ago? That's why you're doing this thing right now. No.

• 52:45Lewis Howes?

  Never do that.

• 52:46Lori Gottlieb?

  Don't do that, don't use it against them.

• 52:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:49Lori Gottlieb?

  Um, you know, you're just like your mother. Don't do that.

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  That's the worst thing probably.

• 52:54Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right, it's like I'm showing up here. And I need you to show up here and how can we show up for each other? What does that look like? Can you handle the truth of who the other person is? And so what does that require? Requires emotional regulation. This is the best thing you can do, by the way, as a parent for your child. Emotional regulation. That can you regulate? We did on the Dear Therapist podcast, we had someone on who was like, I just, I can't. When my children have big feelings, I can't handle their feelings.

• 53:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:25Lori Gottlieb?

  And, and when my husband, and I can't deal with this with my husband, right? And so it was like, how do you handle, how do you regulate yourself emotionally?

• 53:34Lewis Howes?

  How do we learn to do that? That's a skill.

• 53:36Lori Gottlieb?

  That it is a skill.

• 53:37Lewis Howes?

  It's a masterful skill.

• 53:38Lori Gottlieb?

  Especially if your parents did not know how to regulate themselves emotionally.

• 53:42Lewis Howes?

  People are screaming and reacting or passive aggressive and yeah slamming up doors.

• 53:46Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, or the opposite, where there was just, they couldn't regulate at all, so they numbed out.

• 53:51Lewis Howes?

  They didn't express at all.

• 53:52Lori Gottlieb?

  So you got nothing, right?

• 53:53Lewis Howes?

  They didn't say they love you, they had, yeah.

• 53:55Lori Gottlieb?

  There was no kind of warmth or affection, or even talking about feelings like you had a bad day at school, but you knew. I don't, I, my parents are not gonna know how to talk about that with me. They're gonna, or they're gonna try to talk me out of my feelings.

• 54:07Lewis Howes?

  You're fine, it's okay.

• 54:08Lori Gottlieb?

  You're fine, like, oh, don't be sad, hey, let's go get some yogurt.

• 54:13Lori Gottlieb?

  Let's go get some ice cream.

• 54:14Lewis Howes?

  When, when our partner comes to us at the end of the day, let's say, or in the middle of the day, they call us and they say, I'm feeling emotionally overwhelmed, I'm feeling like betrayed with my friendship, my parents did this, my work, like, ah, they're just feeling like, I'm emotionally a wreck. What can the partner do in that moment to make them feel in a safe space? And feel like it's okay to express it? Without also having them be like, okay, are they gonna do this every day? You know, it's like, because

• 54:42Lori Gottlieb?

  Right.

• 54:42Lewis Howes?

  That's not good either, if they're always gonna be an emotional like avalanche uh, on your partner daily, you know what I mean? It's like, how do you create that balance?

• 54:50Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, I think that you need to learn how to listen, and you need to learn how your partner wants to be listened to. And people don't bother to ask, and so we assume that the person wants in that moment what we would want if we had that exact same problem that day. So when your partner comes to you and they say, oh my gosh, you have to hear what happened today, you might say to them, what, how can I help right now? Do you wanna just vent right now? Do you wanna hug? Do you want me to help problem solve with you? What would be helpful right now? And they might say, right now, I just wanna tell you what happened? And I don't want to hear what you think about it. I don't want to hear, I don't want to problem solve. I just want you to hear it. I just, I just want, I just want to vent right now. And then they might say, but like tomorrow, I might want your ideas.

• 55:35Lewis Howes?

  Opinions, yeah.

• 55:36Lori Gottlieb?

  Right? I might want to talk about this with you.

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  That's such a challenging thing for someone. When someone comes to them with like a problem or a challenge. It's, I think it's so hard for someone to have the self-awareness to say, how do you want me to listen to you right now? And

• 55:49Lori Gottlieb?

  How can I help right now?

• 55:50Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 55:50Lori Gottlieb?

  How can I help right now? What can I do?

• 55:52Lewis Howes?

  I feel like it's so hard for, maybe I'm speaking for myself. And for, you know, men in relationships that I've talked to, it's hard for them to be like, okay, you're overwhelmed. How can I listen and help you right now?

• 56:02Lori Gottlieb?

  Yes, like there's a fire, I've got to put it out. No, no, no, no, no.

• 56:04Lewis Howes?

  It's challenging, I think.

• 56:05Lori Gottlieb?

  Can you, can you emotionally regulate yourself? Because just like with the parent and the child, if you are emotionally regulated, if your child comes home and says, oh, this, the thing happened and oh my gosh. You're like, oh my gosh, oh no, let's call the school, let's call the teacher. No, right? So it's, it's more like, oh, let's talk about it.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  It's almost like both parties learning emotional, emotional regulation for each other. It's like, without dumping on someone, how do I regulate and heal or process? And then communicate, ah, I'm going through something challenging.

• 56:34Lori Gottlieb?

  We always say, one person, there can only be one person going crazy at a time.

• 56:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 56:39Lori Gottlieb?

  No, really. I mean, seriously. Like, like someone, like, it's like a seesaw, right? You can't like, someone, like, one person has to be the adult. Only one person can go crazy at a time. So if one person is going to regress and kind of go into that childhood place, or they're really dysregulated, whatever it is, the other person has to stay emotionally regulated. You can't get dysregulated by your partner. You have to be regulated in that moment for your partner.

• 57:04Lewis Howes?

  And emotional regulation or learning that skill, what I'm hearing you say goes back to healing first, right? It's like, learning to process whatever trauma, challenges, pains, hurts, that's happened in your life, whether it be recent or in the past. Processing, grieving, healing, forgiving, that journey, which my therapist says, healing is not an event, it's a journey. It's not like, it doesn't happen one time, it's like a journey.

• 57:32Lewis Howes?

  It seems like it's something we should be working on consistently, is that right?

• 57:35Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, and working on healing yourself. And so when your partner comes to you and you feel really just activated by what they're coming at you with, you kind of have to take some breaths and you have to take care of yourself then. In a way that you weren't taken care of before. If you're getting really triggered by it, it's probably because you had that experience with your parents and nobody was there for you. You didn't know what to do in those moments.

• 58:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you didn't have a boundary or something.

• 58:02Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right, yeah. And so to be able to say, okay, how can I stay grounded right now? What do we do as a couple right now so that we both are able to have this conversation?

• 58:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Should people get into relationships without healing first?

• 58:18Lori Gottlieb?

  So people always think that, this is a really interesting question, because people always say, you have to be whole and then you can get into a relationship. I think that it's not, again, not that your partner's going to heal you, but we start to heal when we are able to learn more about ourselves. And you don't learn a lot about yourself in a vacuum. Okay? We are most revealed in an intimate relationship. That is where we are most revealed.

• 58:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 58:43Lori Gottlieb?

  And if you, by the way, if you think, oh, my friends know me really well, you know, this other person knows me really well, this person I've known since kindergarten knows me really well, they don't know you in the way your partner knows you.

• 58:53Lewis Howes?

  Intimately like that, yeah.

• 58:54Lori Gottlieb?

  They're not gonna see you in the same way. And so when somebody, when somebody can really see you in that way and love you and be there for you and be imperfect and not be all good or all bad, you know, when you say to your partner, like, you're always this. Well, no, there's, you're sometimes that, but you're not always that. You know, and you paint, somebody becomes, you know, you get roles in a relationship, like you're the irresponsible one. You know, you're the one who overreacts. Well, no, sometimes you're right. I was late for pickup. You know, you're right. But let's not, let's do kitchen sink fighting, which is like, let's name all the times that not only was I late, but that I let you down in these other ways, right?

• 59:36Lori Gottlieb?

  If you can deal with that one incident, that person will probably say, you're right. I needed to leave earlier, I didn't account for traffic, next time I'm gonna do it better. As opposed to, oh my gosh, this avalanche is coming at me, I don't even hear this person anymore. I don't even hear what they're saying.

• 59:50Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's because then you're just shut down.

• 59:52Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 59:53Lewis Howes?

  You're being made wrong over and over again.

• 59:54Lori Gottlieb?

  Right.

• 59:55Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to really like pay attention and focus, you're just like a wall.

• 59:58Lori Gottlieb?

  And when someone says to their partner, like, you're too sensitive, you know, you're so sensitive. The response there is, yes, I'm sensitive and you know that. And so, why wouldn't you want to take my sensitivity into account? I see it as a strength, that I feel things. I feel a lot of things.

• 1:00:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:00:18Lori Gottlieb?

  And I use those feelings. And I know that maybe my boundary has been crossed, or this doesn't feel good to me. And so, if you know that I have these sensitivities, why wouldn't you take those into account?

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Let's say we've gone through a breakup. And you're like, man, I feel wounded from this previous relationship where there was a lot of hurts and pains that just, you know, didn't feel good. What would be the process that you would recommend for someone while they're single? To really grieve, heal, forgive, process? In order to set themselves up to being the best person they can be? When they're in that next relationship?

• 1:00:58Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, first of all, you've used the word forgiveness a little bit, so I just want to talk about that for a second. So, I think there's this idea that if we forgive someone, that we will be set free in some way. And I don't think that's always the case. We have this expression, forced forgiveness. Which is like, you know, you don't actually forgive the person, whether it's a parent, or an ex, or, you know, someone who really wounded you. You don't have to forgive them. And I think with parents, it's easy to say, I can have compassion for them now as an adult because I see what their life was like, or I see what their struggles were, I see that they had mental health issues, or whatever it is, or I see how hard their upbringing was. But I don't necessarily forgive what they took from me in my childhood, or how they treated me.

• 1:01:41Lewis Howes?

  So you're saying it's sometimes it's good not to forgive?

• 1:01:43Lori Gottlieb?

  I'm saying, I'm saying if you truly forgive that person, great. But that's not necessarily the goal. It doesn't make you less of a person, it doesn't make you less evolved, because you can have compassion but not forgiveness. And the same with an ex. If someone really hurt you, maybe you can have compassion for the woundedness in them that made them treat you in that way. But you don't necessarily have to forgive them. In fact, I think that can do more damage than good. When you tell yourself that you forgive someone when you actually don't. That forced forgiveness can be a trap. And it can leave you in a stuck position for much longer than you would be. If you just acknowledge that I don't actually forgive them. I can see that they were wounded. I'm not going to put myself in that position. I'm going to choose a different kind of partner next time.

• 1:02:26Lewis Howes?

  Right. I'm not gonna, I don't need to beat myself up or hold a grudge anymore. But I don't want to forgive. Is there a way to like not hurt yourself and still not forgive?

• 1:02:35Lori Gottlieb?

  But why am I, why is so much of my emotional real estate going in that direction? You know, it's like we only have so much emotional real estate. How much time are you thinking about, thinking of this other person? We had this again, I keep talking about the podcast because these are such common issues. That on the Dear Therapist podcast, we had this, this woman come on. And she was spending so much emotional real estate on this person who, this person who had treated her badly. And, and, and we were like, you are spending so much time on this that you are not even available for another person right now. You are not available. You won't even think about people who are, who are, it's kind of like, I use this analogy, the dry well. That there are people who, they keep going back to the dry well. They know there's no water there.

• 1:03:18Lori Gottlieb?

  They know that there's like an emotional void there. And they keep going back every day, expecting that there's going to be water there.

• 1:03:24Lewis Howes?

  Just thinking about it or trying to talk to them?

• 1:03:26Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, like thinking like, I'm gonna keep trying to get this, like this time, you're gonna be emotionally, the person's never been emotionally there for you in the way that you want.

• 1:03:34Lewis Howes?

  What should they do? Just move on then?

• 1:03:35Lori Gottlieb?

  So it's like, go where the water is. Go to a different well. And they don't, they're so focused on, but I want water from that well. I want it from this particular well.

• 1:03:44Lewis Howes?

  Dry well.

• 1:03:45Lori Gottlieb?

  The dry well. It's, it's like, you're never gonna get water. That well is dry. Go where the water is.

• 1:03:51Lewis Howes?

  Psychologically, why do we fixate on that sometimes?

• 1:03:54Lori Gottlieb?

  Because they, they had a dry well somewhere in their lives. And they think, I'm going to now, we call this repetition compulsion. Freud called it repetition compulsion. And I'm not all on board with Freud. But, but there are certain things that, that he wrote about that actually do play out, that I see all the time. And one of them is, we say, this time, I'm gonna choose a partner who is exactly like that person who didn't meet my needs. We don't do that consciously, right? They, in fact, they look very different. We think, aha, I won because I chose someone very different. But then when you get into a relationship with them, you see, they're also not emotionally available. Or they also have an anger issue. Or they also are withholding, or whatever it is. And so then we say unconsciously, but this time. I'm going to win. This time, I'm going, I couldn't get my parent to do it, but I'm gonna get them.

• 1:04:38Lori Gottlieb?

  Because sometimes, they can be so loving and kind and all of these other things. So this time, I'm gonna get them to do that. But you won't. Again, we don't change another person. You can only change yourself. In that case, the change might be, I'm going to go where the water is.

• 1:04:51Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I'm gonna choose differently, I'm gonna go where the water is.

• 1:04:55Lori Gottlieb?

  And, and I'm gonna look at why I don't go where the water is. Because so many times, people don't see that they are literally surrounded by water. But they don't take it, they won't drink it. To them, it's almost like water is, the water is the poison, even though the poison is the dry well.

• 1:05:09Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 1:05:10Lori Gottlieb?

  Because they don't know that it's safe. They've never experienced, it feels so foreign to them. It's like, it's like, it's kind of like, you are in this war zone. And we're gonna fly you, right, your whole life. And we're gonna fly you into a safe territory. And you land in the safe territory, but you've never been in a safe territory before. So they speak a different language and, and they drive on the other side of the street. And they have different customs and, and they wear different clothes. And you're like, this feels really uncomfortable because I've never been in a place like this, even though it's really warm and safe.

• 1:05:42Lewis Howes?

  It's so funny you say this.

• 1:05:43Lori Gottlieb?

  And the people are really nice there.

• 1:05:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:05:44Lori Gottlieb?

  But you're like, I don't know, all I know is the familiar. This is why people don't change, because they say, I would rather be in something that is familiar to me, because at least I know it, than to go in this situation where I don't know the customs and the language and I don't know how to be around people who are kind to me. I don't know what, how to be in those situations.

• 1:06:03Lewis Howes?

  This is so relevant to me right now, because my, my girlfriend, uh, we started dating and, uh, within the first couple of months, I go, this is really weird. This is really weird. It's, and I go, I don't know what it is, it just, something feels weird. There's nothing wrong, it just feels weird because it's so healthy. I go, it's so healthy that I just never experienced this. And it's so foreign, but I know this is so much healthier than anything I've ever experienced. And I'm like, I just need to communicate. And I was telling my therapist, I was like, I don't know what it is, it's just so healthy. It just feels good.

• 1:06:39Lori Gottlieb?

  It feels good, but then you don't trust it, you don't trust it.

• 1:06:42Lewis Howes?

  But it's just, it's just different. It's just like, this is, it's just blow, it's just weird to the mind.

• 1:06:48Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, and you, and you have to get used to it, too.

• 1:06:50Lewis Howes?

  You gotta get used to it, like, wait, there's peace? Wait a minute. Not bombs going out everywhere like, okay, yeah, there's peace. I'm not gonna get exploded on, you know, it's like, it's it's like a process of like, learning how to adapt to a healthy environment.

• 1:07:06Lori Gottlieb?

  Right.

• 1:07:07Lewis Howes?

  At least it has been for me.

• 1:07:08Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, and for people who grew up that way, that is what they seek and that feels good to them. And when someone isn't good to them, they get out of that very quickly.

• 1:07:16Lewis Howes?

  They're aware of it.

• 1:07:16Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, and they say, they say, so the way you feel in a healthy relationship is how they feel in an unhealthy relationship.

• 1:07:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:07:22Lori Gottlieb?

  They feel like really on edge and they're not gonna stick around. The, the goal here for you is to say, wait a minute, this is actually safe.

• 1:07:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, don't sabotage it.

• 1:07:29Lori Gottlieb?

  And to, and to not let your fear.

• 1:07:30Lewis Howes?

  Don't blow it up.

• 1:07:31Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's, uh, it's weird. I don't know, it's just really weird.

• 1:07:36Lori Gottlieb?

  There's a word, charophobia, which means fear of joy. So charo means fear and phobia, I'm sorry, charo means joy and phobia means fear. And people who grew up in those environments that didn't feel safe, often struggle with charophobia because when they feel joy, they don't trust it. Like maybe, sometimes their parents were there for them and then, oh, my depressed mom would go back into her room again and, you know, I couldn't trust it. Like it felt so good to have a mom, but then she's gone again, right? So then when they grow up and then they meet someone who's there and really available to them.

• 1:08:12Lewis Howes?

  Consistently.

• 1:08:12Lori Gottlieb?

  They think, uh-oh, the other shoe's gonna drop.

• 1:08:14Lewis Howes?

  Eventually, they're gonna do something.

• 1:08:16Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, I cannot trust this peace, this healthiness, this joy.

• 1:08:20Lewis Howes?

  So what does someone do when they're in that situation where it's like, wow, there's a healthy environment? But maybe they're in a previous relationship where it felt healthy for six months or a year and then something switches in the relationship and it's not healthy, but you stick to whatever pattern you had before. What should they do in that, speaking of myself, what should I do? Or someone like me, when they're in a healthy environment, when they've got an amazing partner?

• 1:08:45Lori Gottlieb?

  That's when you have to realize that the war is over.

• 1:08:48Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:08:48Lori Gottlieb?

  So, you know, you're not in the war zone, the war is over and it's like PTSD.

• 1:08:53Lewis Howes?

  It is.

• 1:08:54Lori Gottlieb?

  It really is. And so you have to look around and you have to ground yourself.

• 1:08:57Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 1:08:58Lori Gottlieb?

  You can put your feet on the floor, you can breathe, you kind of have to orient yourself to your environment and say, hey, it's peacetime. The war is over.

• 1:09:07Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh, yeah.

• 1:09:08Lori Gottlieb?

  And, and not conflate your past with the present. So people are time traveling, what they're doing in that moment. They're saying, wait a minute, you know, like, I, but I'm in the war, I've gotta be hypervigilant. No, you're actually, you're safe.

• 1:09:21Lewis Howes?

  Otherwise, when you yell that or explode it on or whatever.

• 1:09:23Lori Gottlieb?

  I'm gonna step on a bomb, yeah, yeah. And also, the first time something happens in those relationships, like a healthy relationship doesn't mean that there's no conflict or that you don't disagree or whatever it is. It's that it's gonna be handled really differently. It's, hey, let's talk about this.

• 1:09:39Lewis Howes?

  It's all good, let's figure it out.

• 1:09:40Lori Gottlieb?

  Like, it's okay, it's not, again, rupture and repair. How do we repair? And so it's not like, oh, there's a rupture, that's the end of our relationship. If there's a rupture, and we're gonna have lots of them in the course of our relationship, so let's learn, let's see how we repair things together. Let's see how we work as a team.

• 1:09:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's powerful. What would you say, someone's getting into a relationship, a new relationship. When would they know? What would the signs be that this is the environment of a really great match for both of you? What would that environment look like? Or those things happening look like or feel like?

• 1:10:17Lori Gottlieb?

  It depends who you are. So if you're someone, again, who grew up with, you know, what we call secure attachment, then what looks good to you is what you saw growing up. That you guys, you know, you might have disagreements, but there's a, there's a lot of goodwill. You know, there's that, the Gottmans, who are these marital researchers. They always said, you need, you know, we talked about the goodwill bank, that you need to put five deposits into the goodwill bank for every one withdrawal that you make. So, you know, do you have that five to one ratio? Are there like five positive interactions between the two of you for every sort of difficult interaction between the two of you?

• 1:10:50Lewis Howes?

  Because if it's five difficult and one positive, the relationship's not gonna work.

• 1:10:53Lori Gottlieb?

  It's, it's, it's, well, again, it's not gonna work, but if you grew up, again, with, with this other kind of modeling.

• 1:10:59Lewis Howes?

  Secure attachment, or?

• 1:11:01Lori Gottlieb?

  Insecure attachment.

• 1:11:01Lewis Howes?

  Insecure attachment. Secure attachment is what you want, right?

• 1:11:04Lori Gottlieb?

  You want secure attachment, right.

• 1:11:05Lewis Howes?

  Insecure attachment is?

• 1:11:07Lori Gottlieb?

  Is you grew up, you grew up with, you know, different, there are different versions of it. You got too much of something, not enough of the other thing, whatever it is. But in, but in a way that was exaggerated, in a way that it really affected you. So, you know, we talk about the good enough parent. Like, no parent is perfect. So it's more about being the good enough parent. That's secure attachment. But if there was, you know, like, a constancy to the enmeshment, or the, or the withdrawal, or the neglect, or the chaos, or the anger, or whatever it was. Or the, you know, the parent who was really inconsistent. Which is really confusing for kids. Like, one minute the parent is like this, the next minute the parent is like that.

• 1:11:44Lewis Howes?

  So they're more insecure attachment.

• 1:11:46Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right. And then, so then, if you're in that relationship, that might feel normal to you as an adult.

• 1:11:51Lewis Howes?

  Was that healthy?

• 1:11:52Lori Gottlieb?

  No, of course not.

• 1:11:54Lewis Howes?

  So when do you know you have a healthy match? What does that look like?

• 1:11:58Lori Gottlieb?

  Right. So, so, you know, it's, it's, I think you have to, you have to say, like, what is the, what is the quality of, of this relationship on a daily basis? What does it look like on a daily basis? And sometimes it helps people to keep a journal. We had this woman on the podcast. She was in this relationship and it was really, really dysfunctional. And Guy and I were like, you know, it was so apparent, and, and I think to the listeners too. And Guy and I were saying to her, listen, you keep justifying his behavior. You know, you keep saying, oh, but then he's also like this. So, you know, there was no reality checking. We said, we want you to actually keep a journal. Every day, we want you to write down, like, what is going, what's, what are the deposits in the bank? What are the withdrawals from the bank?

• 1:12:41Lori Gottlieb?

  And she kept the journal and it was very eye-opening for her.

• 1:12:44Lewis Howes?

  A maze of all the things, yeah.

• 1:12:45Lori Gottlieb?

  Right. Because it was kind of like, you know, you can, you can justify anything in your head, but when it's all there on the page. You're like, is this the kind of relationship that I want?

• 1:12:57Lori Gottlieb?

  And then you have to do the work of, why, why am I attracted to this?

• 1:13:00Lewis Howes?

  Why am I in this?

• 1:13:00Lori Gottlieb?

  Why do I stay?

• 1:13:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Why do you think people stay in something like that where they, they have pages and pages daily of things that like, are around neglect and, you know, frustration as opposed to an environment, quality of peace and abundance?

• 1:13:16Lori Gottlieb?

  You have to remember too, that, that change doesn't happen just because you have an insight. So, you know, if it did, it would be so easy.

• 1:13:23Lewis Howes?

  I'm aware this isn't good for me, but I'm not gonna change though, yeah.

• 1:13:26Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, people, you know, it's like, this is why New Year's resolutions don't work too. Because, you know, it's not like you just, the Nike thing, like, just do it. Change goes through this process. So you, there's a, there's actually a chapter, and maybe you should talk to someone, called How Humans Change. And it starts with, Pre-contemplation, where you don't even know that you're thinking about making a change. Like, maybe I'm gonna leave this relationship someday. You don't even know you're thinking that. That's pre-contemplation. Contemplation is you're thinking about it, but you're not ready to do it.

• 1:13:54Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:56Lori Gottlieb?

  Then there's the preparation stage. And in preparation, you're actually thinking about, what would that look like? Let me look at apartments.

• 1:14:03Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So it's a process.

• 1:14:05Lori Gottlieb?

  It's a process.

• 1:14:05Lewis Howes?

  I have an idea, I'm leaving tomorrow.

• 1:14:08Lori Gottlieb?

  But here's the thing about the stages of change. So there's the preparation, then there's action where you make the change. Like, you actually leave. That's not where it ends. Maintenance is the next phase.

• 1:14:18Lewis Howes?

  Because you might wanna go back.

• 1:14:19Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right. It's that 3 a.m. of the soul, right? Where you're like, oh, I'm so lonely, and, oh, he's texting me, and, you know, whatever. Maintenance is, how do you maintain the change? And the big misconception people have about maintenance is that you make the change, and you're gonna maintain it. And if you slip up, like, you know, you give in at 3 a.m., and you're like, oh, yeah, no.

• 1:14:38Lewis Howes?

  You're lonely and you miss, yeah.

• 1:14:39Lori Gottlieb?

  Or, you know, like, oh, you know, I'm gonna eat healthy, and then, oh, no, you didn't eat healthy for one day. Oh, I failed. No. Built into the maintenance phase is that you're going to slip back. That's human. And you have to have so much self-compassion in the maintenance phase. And people think, oh, if I have self-compassion, then I'm not holding myself accountable. That's not true, because nobody has ever succeeded at something through self-flagellation. At least in the long term. Self-flagellation is where you're like, you know, oh, you're so terrible, you're awful. Think if your kid came home and was like, oh, I really, you know, I did really badly on that test. And you said, that's terrible, that's awful. You know, like, are they gonna do better on the next test? Or you're gonna say, oh, let's see what didn't work. Let's see what you didn't understand. It's okay. Let's see what you can do. Maybe you need to study differently, or let's see what happened.

• 1:15:23Lori Gottlieb?

  If you slip back, which you will, you have to be really kind to yourself and say, okay, let me try to check in with myself. What happened? Oh, my mother called, and that triggered me. Or, oh, I'm really worried about this thing about work, and, you know, and I was feeling insecure. Or, I'm just really lonely, and I didn't have a better coping strategy for being lonely. So next time, when I'm lonely at 3 a.m., I'm gonna do this instead. Right? And you're really kind to yourself. And then the next time, you do it differently.

• 1:15:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:15:54Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so more quality. The quality on a daily basis, that's really like the main thing I'm hearing you say of like, this could be a potentially healthy match. If the daily quality is solid, is good, is positive, is inspiring, right? Is there anything else to look for of like, this could be a great match? Same values?

• 1:16:14Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, yeah, I mean, you, people, people think, you know, just because we're really, we really have fun together, we're really attracted to each other, that it's all gonna work out when one person wants kids and the other person doesn't. Or one person wants this lifestyle and the other person doesn't.

• 1:16:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:16:28Lori Gottlieb?

  Or this person's values are different from mine, as you said. You know, and I may think at the end, it really comes down to the character qualities. So many times, people ignore the basic character qualities about a potential partner. Like, is this person responsible? Do they do what they say when they say they're gonna do it? Can I trust them? And I don't just mean trust in terms of what we were talking about earlier with affairs. I'm talking about, can I trust that they have my back? Can I trust that, that, you know, they're going to show up for me in the way that they say they will? Are they reliable? Generosity, and I'm talking about emotional generosity. Can they be emotionally generous in the moment with me?

• 1:17:12Lori Gottlieb?

  And the number one quality, by the way, when, when you look at studies of what, what will predict whether a couple, whether somebody is a good partner in a, in a couple, is how flexible is this person?

• 1:17:23Lewis Howes?

  Flexibility, right?

• 1:17:23Lori Gottlieb?

  Flexibility, yeah. Flexibility.

• 1:17:26Lewis Howes?

  Around what?

• 1:17:27Lori Gottlieb?

  Around everything. Just can you be flexible instead of like, my way is the right way? And that doesn't mean, by the way, that like you give up your sense of self, that you agree with everything the other person says. It's can you see another point of view? Can you entertain another point of view?

• 1:17:42Lewis Howes?

  Be open to it.

• 1:17:43Lori Gottlieb?

  Can you be open? Are you open? Yeah. Is your partner flexible?

• 1:17:47Lewis Howes?

  Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.