The Biggest Mistakes People Make In Relationships EP 1149

Today’s episode is all about relationships. We wanted to bring together some of my favorite moments from past episodes on the show to help you understand your relationships better and know when to take them to the next level OR possibly put an end to a relationship that isn’t serving you. In this episode Lewis and the guest discuss what causes most relationships to fail with Psychotherapist Esther Perel, the top things divorce lawyer James Sexton thinks most people get wrong about marriage, the biggest mistake people make when choosing a partner with Pyschotherapist Lori Gottlieb, how “Happily Ever After” is a myth we’ve been sold with marriage therapist Katherine Woodward Thomas, and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1149Our guest's most recent The School of Greatness episodes:Esther Perel: www.lewishowes.com/929James Sexton: www.lewishowes.com/626Lori Gottlieb: www.lewishowes.com/1013Katherine Woodward Thomas: www.lewishowes.com/231 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 1,149 on the biggest mistakes people make in relationships. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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?

  Lori Schwartz said, "The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love and to let it come in." And Rumi said, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." Today's episode is all about relationships, and we all love this topic. And I wanted to bring together some of my favorite moments from the past few episodes to help you understand your relationships better and know when to take them to the next level, or possibly put an end to a relationship that isn't supporting you and isn't really a part of your greater vision of your life. In this episode, we discuss what causes most relationships to

• 1:11Lewis Howes?

  fail with psychotherapist Esther Perel, the top things divorce lawyer James Sexton thinks most people get wrong about marriage, the biggest mistake people make when choosing a partner with Lori Gottlieb, how happily ever after is a myth we've been sold with marriage therapist Catherine Woodward Thomas, and so much more. If you're enjoying this, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired by this as well, someone who's in a happy relationship, someone maybe who's questioning their relationship, someone who's trying to get into a relationship. Send this to your friends, lewishowes.com/1149. And make sure to connect with me over on social media and subscribe to this episode and this podcast over on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else that you're listening

• 1:55Lewis Howes?

  to your podcast right now. And a big shout out to the fan of the week from Nancy Lee, who wrote a review over on Apple Podcasts about the law of attraction episode we just had on episode 1,145, who said, "I loved everything about..."

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  It's quick, informative, interesting, and has such great positive delivery. I've been listening to your School of Greatness since January. I enjoy the guests and your interviewing style. I'm 68 years old and try to learn new things and keep my brain growing. So Nancy Lee, thank you for being the fan of the week and for leaving a review. And if you want your chance to be shouted out on the podcast, then go to Apple Podcasts right now and leave a review of this episode as well. Okay, in just a moment, it's time to dive in and talk about relationships.

• 2:42Lewis Howes?

  In this first section, Esther Perel shares the biggest obstacles that come up for couples that cause a relationship to either thrive or fail.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  What are the core reasons or the core things you see over and over that either end or make a relationship challenging to be in the longer you're in? What are the ones that, what are the challenges that come up over and over that you see?

• 3:08Esther Perel?

  So there's always three questions, right? What's a thriving relationship?

• 3:12Lewis Howes?

  A thriving one?

• 3:13Esther Perel?

  Yeah. What can go wrong? And how do you fix it?

• 3:16Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 3:16Esther Perel?

  So you started with the middle question. What goes wrong?

• 3:21Esther Perel?

  I think there's a number of things in a relationship that, that, that become the, the kind of cornerstone of the demise. Okay. And I'm not going to list them in order, but they all are part of each other.

• 3:36Esther Perel?

  Indifference and contempt and neglect and violence are probably the four most important. I'm not talking about big violence. Microaggressions are plenty. Indifference, when you start to feel like the other person fundamentally is not really caring about you anymore, or you don't care about them. What they feel, what they think, who they are, what they're about.

• 3:59Lewis Howes?

  You just don't care. You've lost interest.

• 4:01Esther Perel?

  But it's more than losing of interest. It's also when you are indifferent, you degrade the other person. They're less important to you. They don't matter. And ultimately, what we feel in relationships is that we matter. That is the essential reason for connecting to people is that we are creatures of meaning. I matter to you. I'm someone. You care about me. You want my, you want my well-being. You're proud of me. You, you want good for me. You're benevolent. All of that. When you are indifferent, the whole thing goes. And then you start to, there's that coldness that creeps in, that sense of estrangement, that complete disconnect. That. The second one is neglect, neglect, when people just basically take each other for granted.

• 4:44Esther Perel?

  You know, they take more care of their car than of their partner.

• 4:47Lewis Howes?

  Their dog.

• 4:48Esther Perel?

  Or their dog, anybody, anything, their yard, anything, anything gets attendance.

• 4:52Lewis Howes?

  Their business.

• 4:52Esther Perel?

  Their business for sure, their business for sure, you know, everything gets priority, everything gets reviewed, evaluated, attended to, three sixties, you name it, you know, new input. My god, it's like people have this idea that they put it all in when they were dating. And then, once they seal the knot, it's like as if they tied the knot, it's like now they don't have to do squat anymore. And they go into this kind of complete sense of complacency and laziness. It's an amazing thing, they think this thing is just gonna live on its own.

• 5:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:25Esther Perel?

  Like a cactus.

• 5:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:27Esther Perel?

  Violence, violence, the abuse, the level of disrespect, I mean, most people talk nicer to anybody else than their partner when a relationship degrades. Because you can't get away with it. Because you can't get away with it, because if you talk like this at work, you're gone. Because if you talk like this with the police, you're gone. Because if you talk like this on the street, you're being punched. But with your partner, you have that sense that they're gonna be there anyway, they're just gonna take it, because it's family. And family is this kind of, this thing that doesn't dissolve so easily. So you can just lash out at them and talk to them with a tone and a dismissal that is phenomenal, so that kind of violence, I'm not talking physical violence and all the other big, big things.

• 6:12Lewis Howes?

  Talking about aggression or resentment or...

• 6:15Esther Perel?

  All of that, all of that, you know.

• 6:17Lewis Howes?

  Passive aggressiveness, all those things, yeah.

• 6:19Esther Perel?

  All of that, and then, and then, um, contempt, I think, is the top one. Contempt is the killer of them all. Because in, in the contempt, there is a real, there's the degradation of the, it's that, that complete, you're nothing. You're nothing. I can kill you with that one gaze, that one eyebrow that goes up, that, you know, stuff. Who do you think you are, what are, and that's it, you're done, you're done.

• 6:45Lewis Howes?

  So how do we even get to this place of these, these places?

• 6:48Esther Perel?

  After having been so in love and so romantic, right?

• 6:51Lewis Howes?

  Is desire, uh, reflect that, or if we're not desiring the person anymore, then we start to feel one of those categories? Or does that not play into...

• 7:00Esther Perel?

  Look, the truth is this, there's only two relationships. That resemble each other. The one you have with your parents, or the people who raise you, and the one you have with the people you fall in love with.

• 7:12Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 7:13Esther Perel?

  People can sit in my office all the time and say, "I have this with no one else. I don't have this with anybody at work. Nobody among my friends ever thinks like that. You're the only one who speaks like this, or thinks this about me, or with whom I do this." No. You're the only one, and now we go back in history. And I'm sorry to be the psychologist, but that's really...

• 7:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:34Esther Perel?

  It is the place where we often learned about closeness, trust, loyalty, commitment, sharing, taking, receiving, asking, all these essential verbs of relationships. We learned that at home.

• 7:48Lewis Howes?

  We also learned jealousy and all these other things.

• 7:51Esther Perel?

  Possessiveness, vengeance, you name them. The beauty and not beauty.

• 7:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we saw it all as children, right? We saw the fights, we saw the love, we saw the, you know...

• 7:58Esther Perel?

  We saw the coldness.

• 7:59Lewis Howes?

  The lack of intimacy, the intimacy, yes.

• 8:01Esther Perel?

  Yes, and we bring that with us. And we often promise ourselves, "I'll never be this one. I'll never be this way. I'll never talk like this." I'll, you know, and we find ourselves often much closer to the apple.

• 8:15Lewis Howes?

  And then resenting ourselves.

• 8:16Esther Perel?

  Apple to the tree.

• 8:17Lewis Howes?

  We resent ourselves, we're like, "How did we do that? Well, why did we get to this place?"

• 8:20Esther Perel?

  And then we feel ashamed about it. And since we don't like to feel ashamed about it, we hide it. And one of the ways we hide it is we blame the partner. That's just one of the ways. There's a lot, we are very resourceful in not owning our shit.

• 8:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly, exactly. Wow, okay. Um, and where does sex play in all this, in desire?

• 8:40Esther Perel?

  So, I mean, the, one of the fascinating things for me in, in looking at sexuality is that it's probably one of the dimensions of relationship that has changed the most in a very, very short amount of time. For most of history, and in still the majority of the world, sex is for procreation. Sex is a marital duty on the part of the woman. Nobody cares particularly if she likes it, and how she feels, and if she wants it. And, um, and men have the privilege to go and find sex elsewhere. In a very short amount of time, we're talking sixty years. We have contraception, which is the liberation of women for the first time to free sex from reproduction,

• 9:22Esther Perel?

  from mortality, from death in pregnancy and in childbirth, sorry, all of that. And for the first time sexuality moves from just biology and a condition to a part of our identity and a lifestyle.

• 9:35Lewis Howes?

  In sixty years.

• 9:36Esther Perel?

  In sixty years. The women's movement, which goes after the abuses of power. The gay movement, which introduces the concept of identity to sexuality. The fact that sex is for connection and pleasure. The fact that for the first time we have sex before marriage. And many times, a lot. We used to marry and have sex for the first time. Now we marry and we stop having sex with others. Okay, monogamy used to be one person for life. Now monogamy is one person at a time. And people go around telling you, I'm monogamous in all my relationships. And it makes perfect sense to say, okay. All of that, in a very short amount of time. The fact that I choose you to marry or to live together, doesn't matter, commitment,

• 10:20Esther Perel?

  because I'm attracted to you, because you give me butterflies in my stomach. And the fact that I think that if I don't have these butterflies anymore, maybe I don't love you anymore. And the fact that sexuality in long-term relationships is rooted in wanting only, desire. I feel like it. I want to. Not I have to, not we want many kids. After two kids, the only reason to continue doing it with you is because we feel like it.

• 10:48Lewis Howes?

  Right, it's fun, it's pleasurable, yeah.

• 10:50Esther Perel?

  And hopefully, it's pleasurable, we connect, it feels good, it rounds up the edge, the whole thing. That's it. And hopefully, it's at the same time and for each other. Because plenty of desire continues, but it's not always at home.

• 11:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly.

• 11:04Esther Perel?

  So this is an amazing revolution. Sex that is rooted...

• 11:08Lewis Howes?

  It's confusing all of us.

• 11:09Esther Perel?

  And how do we sustain it? So that's why I became fascinated in the nature of erotic desire and how do we sustain desire? Because it is the first time. Ever that we have a grand experiment of the humankind where we want sex with one person in the long haul that is fun and connected and intimate and playful and we live twice as long. Go figure.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly. For sixty years you're gonna be with them or whatever it is, yeah.

• 11:36Esther Perel?

  It's an amazing ideal.

• 11:38Lewis Howes?

  So how do we navigate this? If we're gonna choose one partner and be with them until, you know, we're both gone, how do we navigate the challenge of keeping the desire continuously?

• 11:50Esther Perel?

  I think the first...

• 11:51Lewis Howes?

  Both men and women, because the woman probably sees other men who are attracted to her and, you know, vice versa, so it's like, how do both parties do this?

• 11:59Esther Perel?

  Look, we know that women get bored with monogamy much sooner than men.

• 12:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Is this a fact or is this a...

• 12:06Esther Perel?

  That's research.

• 12:07Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 12:08Esther Perel?

  That's not just fact. That's, that is, men's desire in long-term relationship goes down gradually. He actually is much more able to remain interested and maybe just because he's interested in the experience itself and he has a partner there. Women's desire post-marriage...

• 12:22Lewis Howes?

  Really? Wow.

• 12:24Esther Perel?

  And it's always been translated as, well, that's because women care less about sex, rather than it's because women care less about the sex that they can have in their committed relationships, which is often not interesting enough for them.

• 12:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 12:38Esther Perel?

  And it often has to do with the fact that the story, the character, the plot is not, is not seductive, that the romance, which is an essential ingredient of turn-on for the woman, often disappears in the long-term relationship. It's like when people look at each other at the end of the day and you wanna fool around? You wanna do it? You're up for it tonight? Now, this is really not, this is not very much of a turn-on for most women.

• 13:03Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 13:04Esther Perel?

  And the idea that foreplay often starts at the end of the previous orgasm, you know, and not five minutes before the real thing.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:11Esther Perel?

  Which for her is not the real thing. The whole, the real thing is everything else around it.

• 13:14Lewis Howes?

  So it's essentially the game.

• 13:15Esther Perel?

  Yes, yes.

• 13:16Lewis Howes?

  It's creating a game.

• 13:17Esther Perel?

  It's seduction.

• 13:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:19Esther Perel?

  It's a plot. It's a coming close. It's a tease.

• 13:22Lewis Howes?

  Mystery.

• 13:23Esther Perel?

  It's what animals call pacing. It's that I come to you, but I don't overwhelm you. I come just a little bit so that you can come a little bit toward me. And then I don't immediately answer. I actually go back a little bit too. Have you ever seen animals? They do this kind of pacing. And it is an essential playful ingredient of seduction and excitement. So women's desire plummets. But we interpret it as women are less interested in sex. Rather than women are interested in probably just about the same kind of things that many men are. But women have always known what to choose above what turns them on, which was what gives them stability and security in their life.

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  Safety, security, family, someone to protect, be there, right?

• 14:04Esther Perel?

  So what people do, look, this is, we want one partner today to give us everything that involves stability and security and everything that involves playfulness and mystery. Okay, that's the grand ideal, okay? I want to be cozy with you and I want to have an edge. And I want you to surprise me and I want you to be familiar. And I want you to give me continuity and I want you to give me novelty. That's it, as if it's a, right? And no Victoria's Secret is gonna solve that, right? So then it becomes, what is desire? Desire is to own the wanting. If you ask people a question that goes like this, I turn myself off when? I turn myself off by? Not you turn me off when and what turns me off is.

• 14:50Esther Perel?

  You're gonna hear, I turn myself off when I do emails, when I spend too much time on the phone, when I overeat, when I don't exercise, when I have bad days at work, when I don't feel confident, when I numb myself, when I feel dead, when I don't feel thriving, when I'm not alive. You will really hear that it has very little to do with sex. And when you ask people, I turn myself on when or by? I awaken my desires.

• 15:18Esther Perel?

  Not you turn me on when and what turns me on is, which is, i.e. you're responsible for my wanting.

• 15:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:24Esther Perel?

  What people will talk to you about is when I'm in nature, when I'm connected with my friends, when I get to do my sports, when I play music, when I listen to music. It's stuff that gives me pleasure, that is alive, that is vibrant, that is vital, that is erotic in the full sense of the word as life force.

• 15:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:44Esther Perel?

  And from that place, people remain interested in having sex with somebody else for the long haul. Not because they've scratched their arms for two seconds, you know? It's, I feel good about myself. The biggest turn-on is confidence.

• 15:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:59Esther Perel?

  Confidence. You ask people, when do you find yourself most drawn to your partner? Every description has to do with when they're in their element, when they're on stage, when they're with, when, when, when they're doing their sport, when they, when they are radiant, when they are in their studio, on the piano, on the horse, you name it. It's when they are in their element, i.e. they don't need me to take care of them.

• 16:24Lewis Howes?

  They're not depressed and down and lonely and sad.

• 16:27Esther Perel?

  They're not needy. They don't need me because desire is about wanting you. Love is also about needing you. Caretaking is a very powerful experience in love and it is a very powerful anti-Afrodisiac.

• 16:41Lewis Howes?

  So how do you experience love and desire at the same time?

• 16:44Esther Perel?

  You calibrate it.

• 16:46Lewis Howes?

  So sometimes you're...

• 16:47Esther Perel?

  It's the same as when you walk. You have to move from one foot to the other. A balance is not about staying on one side. A balance is the ability to see, right now, we don't need caretaking. We can be mischievous, we can be naughty, we can be playful, we can break our own rules, we can stay home and not go to work at eight o'clock.

• 17:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:06Esther Perel?

  And now we are in a playful zone. Now we are feeling that we are bringing our own little transgressions home. We are alive. We're not just being dutiful, responsible, good citizens.

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:18Esther Perel?

  It's that. It's very small, you know? I always think, when I go and I see people at lunch and you see them talking and they're well dressed and they're awake and all, I think, who is here with their partner?

• 17:32Esther Perel?

  Because you can see them, they're engaged, they're giving the best of themselves, that's erotic. No, the majority are not there with their partner, they're there with their friends, with their colleagues, their partner is gonna get the leftover when they come home at night. Sorry, you know what, forget the night date, meet at lunch, when you actually have energy. You know, and in the middle of the day like that, when you're awake, when you have something to offer. It's a very small thing, but they don't do it, they don't do it, and you say, "Why not?" Why not? Why don't you stay an hour extra at home in the morning and not just because when you have a headache? And just say, "This matters to me." All in all, you know, committed sex is premeditated sex. It's not just gonna happen. Because whatever is gonna just happen already has.

• 18:17Esther Perel?

  So, you're gonna make it happen. Because you say, "We matter, we're important, let's do this." It doesn't mean if you're gonna make love or have sex, it just means, "We're gonna take this hour, and there's nothing else that matters in this moment, but just you and I to be together, to check in, and then we'll see what unfolds." That's the erotic space, in which sex may happen, probably will, doesn't have to. But it is the place from which it is much more likely to emerge. But people don't do that. They do the responsibility, that's the love, right? The citizen, the commitment, the caretaking, the burdens, the safe. And then they say, "I'm bored." I would be too.

• 18:57Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, there's no mystery, there's no risk-taking, right, exactly, yeah.

• 19:00Esther Perel?

  There's no risk-taking, that's the word. If you want desire, it's risk. And the risk is an emotional risk, it's not about sexy risks. It's really a risk on the emotional front, is that I bring something else to you differently from the way I typically present myself.

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 19:20Esther Perel?

  You know, how can I do this, what can I do today that will be different from the ways that I've done it until now? How can I do something that I think would actually improve our relationship? Me, right? Not something that I want or that you want, but that I think would be actually good for us, that third entity, the us, right? And you check, every time, you know, how often do you just... Go on the tried and trodden, as in, you know, it works. Sex that just works for most people is really not interesting enough.

• 19:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:56Esther Perel?

  Because what does it mean it works generally?

• 19:58Lewis Howes?

  Right. What about the people listening who are saying, man, that sounds like a lot of work. That every day you have to change, do something different and unique and be...

• 20:05Esther Perel?

  Not every day, not every day, not every day. But what you can do every day is just a quick check with yourself. You know, is there something that I should notice? Is there something that I can be thankful for? Is there a little note that I could write? Is there, you know, just a way that I can show up? It's small, it's really small.

• 20:29Esther Perel?

  Here's the thing, there is work and then there is the creative work. You know, I'm talking about a level that is creative and that elevates you and that actually gives you, you feel taller. You just feel like you're engaged, you feel awake, rather than this. This is the other seated position. It's comfortable, it's great, but nothing happens here.

• 20:53Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 20:54Esther Perel?

  This, this is alert. Here's the essential word is curiosity. When you're curious, you lean forward and you watch, you're open to the mysteries of life. This is, please don't bother me with anything because I don't want any stimulation. I've had my share, you know. And this is the position that most people have at home. So when people say it's too much work,

• 21:22Esther Perel?

  I basically say, look, if I was to say this in your business, would you say this is too much work?

• 21:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:31Esther Perel?

  Or you would say, that's very good advice. This is high rate consulting fees. It's like, excuse me. But you don't think for a minute that your business would thrive if you let it languish like that. Never. You have a reward system, you have incentives.

• 21:48Lewis Howes?

  Bonuses.

• 21:49Esther Perel?

  You have bonuses. But there is no incentivized system in the private domain. So people just think, why bother?

• 21:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:57Esther Perel?

  And that's the difference is that the ones who have good relationships are the ones who created their own internal incentivized system.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  What are some of those incentive systems that you've seen over time that really work or affect it for long-term relationships?

• 22:11Esther Perel?

  I would say the first thing is almost one of the first things that our parents teach you. Please and thank you. Do you know how many people stop thanking their partners? Thank you. Thank you for doing this for me. Thank you for picking up the shirts. Thank you for, you know.

• 22:27Lewis Howes?

  Then you feel appreciated.

• 22:28Esther Perel?

  Yes, appreciation. Appreciation is huge. Gratitude, acknowledgement of the presence of the other in your life. Not, "Did you do this? Did you call? Did you pick up? Do this?" You know, half the time.

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  Expectation.

• 22:45Esther Perel?

  Expectations. Of course, you know, expectations is often a resentment in the make.

• 22:51Esther Perel?

  But the expectation comes the fear of it's not gonna... Thank person, first of all. And because it also makes it feel like this is not a given. Nobody owes you squat. You're not owed anything. You're not that important. You're actually quite replaceable.

• 23:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:07Esther Perel?

  And with the divorce rate that we have.

• 23:11Lewis Howes?

  What's the rate at right now?

• 23:12Esther Perel?

  About fifty on first and sixty-five on second.

• 23:15Lewis Howes?

  Sixty-five on second, wow.

• 23:17Esther Perel?

  It's not good.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:18Esther Perel?

  It's really, you know, it costs a lot of money. It's not good for the health. I mean, it's just like, you know, it's not good for the jobs. It's just, it's like... Okay, now you could say maybe people should marry, but it doesn't matter if it's marriage legally or... The idea is that we can do better. We can do better in general. I really think that the quality of our lives depends on the quality of our relationships. I mean, nobody's gonna write, you know,

• 23:47Esther Perel?

  "You worked sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety hours a week." And, you know, no, they're gonna say, "He was there for people when they needed to. He was there at every game. He was there at a party. He's the guy who, when you were in his presence, he had charisma, not because he could stand in front of a huge crowd, but he had charisma because when I was in his presence, he made me feel special." It's a different charisma. So, appreciation.

• 24:13Esther Perel?

  Gratitude, thank you. Um, little things to go out of your way, rather than just to do the minimum. A lot of people start to do the bare minimum, just so that they can't be scolded.

• 24:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:24Esther Perel?

  Go an extra thing. Um, on occasion, just do something for the other person, just because it matters to them, even if you couldn't care less.

• 24:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:32Esther Perel?

  Rather than, I don't, it's not important to me, I don't, I don't need this, or I don't care about this. Uh, give each other a lot of individual space, not everything needs to be shared. People have different passions, different interests, different friends, and they need those separate spaces to exist. Um, admiration, I think is huge, um, because admiration is also that you can really see the otherness of the other person. Um, don't try to make your partner into one person for everything. There is no such a person. Find multiple sources of connection, of intimacy, of friendship, so that you can have a group

• 25:13Esther Perel?

  of people support you, and don't have one person who has to be there for you for everything, especially when you're in the dumpster.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. We used to have a village of people to do that, and now we just expect one person to be the village, right?

• 25:24Esther Perel?

  Yes, yes, yes. One person for the whole village. That, that is, that is a unique, and, and then we're upset when they don't fulfill the mandate.

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  In this section, divorce lawyer James Sexton talks about the top things to consider before getting married, and what most people get wrong.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  You were talking about before we started that marriage is a technology.

• 25:49James Sexton?

  Yeah.

• 25:50Lewis Howes?

  Now, what does that mean? What is the technology of marriage?

• 25:53James Sexton?

  I, I think, anything that's designed to solve a problem is a technology, right? So, I mean, this mug is, is a technology, you know, and, and what is the problem to which this technology is a solution? Well, it's the problem of I can't hold hot tea in my hand. It's a problem of I, I don't want to use, and, and kudos to you for using non-disposable ones, um, that zero-waste, you listen to it. Um, and the truth is, is that it, it's designed to solve a problem. So, the, the next question is, who? Has that problem. Well, you know, anyone who wants to drink a beverage has that problem, you know? And the next question, and I think the most important question is, what problems does it unintentionally create?

• 26:32James Sexton?

  Okay, so every technology is a Faustian bargain in the sense that it solves a problem and it creates a problem. Now you gotta clean it, you gotta use water to wash it, you gotta store it. Find stylish ones. I mean, you went, you know, classic plain, but you gotta find ones with witty sayings on them. And it can break, and now my favorite mug was broken, and how am I gonna replace it? I mean, again, some of these problems are silly little problems in exchange for really great benefits. But most people never ask themselves the question, the technology of marriage, which is a man-made technology, a human-made technology, we got together and said, hey, let's create this legal contract. Governed by a state. Right, governed by the state. Let's come up with something that, let's turn a lover into a relative.

• 27:15James Sexton?

  You know, let's find a way to turn this into a legally binding contract. And people just go and sign up for this technology. And they spend more time thinking about what cake they should serve at the ceremony than thinking about, what did I just sign on for, and why did I sign on for it, and what are some problems it might create for me in exchange for the things that it solves for me. And by the way, will it even solve the problem that I'm trying to have it solve? And one of the things I talk about in the book is, you know, if you got married to solve the problem of being alone, you might be alone still in your marriage. Like, if you solved, if you got married because you wanna have sex, you wanna have more sex, you know, being married is no more a guarantee of getting sex

• 27:59James Sexton?

  than living near a restaurant is a guarantee of getting fed. You know, it doesn't mean just because you're in it, you're gonna receive the benefit that you think you're gonna receive of it. And, and how many couples, before they get married, really sit down and say, hey, we're gonna sign up for this technology, what do you wanna get from it? What should I be wanting to get from it? How will it change over the years? That just doesn't happen. So, so if that doesn't happen, how are we then surprised that it doesn't work 53% of the time? 53% is now the statistic. Is the divorce rate.

• 28:30Lewis Howes?

  And that the divorce rate, then more probably still don't work when they're in it.

• 28:34James Sexton?

  Exactly. So, so that's the, that's the part, and it's funny that you go there because that's where I go with it. So 53% is already terrifying, right? If I said to you, there's a 53% chance when you walk out of this room, you get hit in the head with a bowling ball.

• 28:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're probably not gonna go out.

• 28:48James Sexton?

  Or you're gonna wear a helmet at a minimum, right? At a minimum, you're gonna wear a helmet, but you probably wouldn't go out. Now, let's look at that number though, 53% end in divorce.

• 28:55Lewis Howes?

  That's US or global?

• 28:57James Sexton?

  US.

• 28:57Lewis Howes?

  US.

• 28:58James Sexton?

  US only, okay? Now, think about how, what percent stay together for the kids?

• 29:03Lewis Howes?

  That should get divorced, but stay together?

• 29:05James Sexton?

  Can't stand each other.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  But they stay together.

• 29:07James Sexton?

  That they stay together because they don't want to upset the kids, or they don't want to give away their stuff.

• 29:11Lewis Howes?

  I would say another 75% stay together, even though they want to get divorced.

• 29:15James Sexton?

  Okay, so let's say 20, so another 25% of married people, let's say. I mean, so, so now we've got a technology with a failure rate over 75%, okay? So now, what percentage stay together for religious reasons? Probably a declining percentage over the years, but let's say.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  More.

• 29:32James Sexton?

  You know, 5%.

• 29:33Lewis Howes?

  That might be the same as kids and, you know, might be the same, yeah.

• 29:36James Sexton?

  So, if I say there's a technology with a failure rate of 80%, Toyota had a .0001% brake failure.

• 29:46Lewis Howes?

  Nice save.

• 29:47James Sexton?

  On their, uh, a .001% brake failure on one of their vehicles, and they recalled all of the vehicles.

• 29:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:55James Sexton?

  So if I said to you, 80% of technology, you.

• 29:58Lewis Howes?

  We still use it, yeah, yeah.

• 29:59James Sexton?

  Not only we use it, we celebrate its use.

• 30:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's part of our culture, and we're ashamed if we're not married almost.

• 30:05James Sexton?

  Absolutely. Well, because it's, it's considered a sign that you're not mature and forward-thinking.

• 30:11Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, and we're ashamed if we're divorced.

• 30:13James Sexton?

  Right.

• 30:13Lewis Howes?

  But now we're being celebrated to get out of marriages if it's not what we want, or if we're not getting what we want.

• 30:18James Sexton?

  That's, that's a trend that's definitely starting to change, so, so I think.

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  Leave him, divorce him, or whatever, you know.

• 30:24James Sexton?

  Right. Well, I think as self-actualization, you know, became more of a thing, and, and, and after the 1970s, you know, people started thinking about like, you know, themselves and their happiness. It wasn't just about the unit anymore, it was about, you know, finding yourself. Then, yeah, it became more acceptable to be self-interested. I'm not gonna say selfish, because not all self-interested behavior is selfish. But it became more acceptable to say, "I'm not happy." You know, "I married this person when I was." Twenty.

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:52James Sexton?

  And now I'm forty. And shockingly, I'm not the same person at forty that I was when I was twenty. And now I'm a different person and it's no longer a good fit, you know? I mean, the analogy I tell people is, is if I said to you right now, you can have any car you want, what car would you have?

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  Well, I just got a Tesla.

• 31:13James Sexton?

  I have a Tesla too.

• 31:14Lewis Howes?

  I actually don't care about cars at all.

• 31:17James Sexton?

  I'm not a big car guy either.

• 31:17Lewis Howes?

  But I got one for tax reasons, actually.

• 31:20James Sexton?

  Okay, cool.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  And I had a nineteen ninety-one, I still have a nineteen ninety-one Cadillac El Dorado.

• 31:25James Sexton?

  Okay.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  That had like sixty thousand miles on it.

• 31:27James Sexton?

  Okay.

• 31:28Lewis Howes?

  I Uber everywhere, I don't really use it.

• 31:29James Sexton?

  It's a great car, yeah. If you have any car you want, if you ask most people.

• 31:32Lewis Howes?

  But I like the Tesla, I like the Tesla.

• 31:33James Sexton?

  Okay.

• 31:33Lewis Howes?

  Because it's fuel efficient, it's, you know.

• 31:35James Sexton?

  Right.

• 31:36Lewis Howes?

  I just wish it had a bigger battery.

• 31:36James Sexton?

  So you're a pragmatic guy. You ask most people, you ask most people that question.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  They're gonna go Ferrari, Lamborghini.

• 31:43James Sexton?

  Ferrari, Lamborghini, I want a Maserati, okay.

• 31:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:46James Sexton?

  Now, if I then said to them, okay, you get one car, though. Whatever car you pick, that's the car you're gonna have for the rest of your life. Suddenly, a Lamborghini's a terrible idea. Because you can't put a car seat in it for a kid. And you can't, you know, when you're eighty years old, get into that car, right? So if you are only allowed to have one car, you gotta find a car that not only makes sense when you're twenty and thirty and forty, but when you're seventy.

• 32:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:10James Sexton?

  And when you have kids, and when the kids have gone away. So, again, like a minivan, that might make sense when you got three kids. When the kids go off to college, that minivan no longer makes sense. Well, marriage is a technology where you're signing on with one person and saying, for the rest of my life, I'm gonna be with this person. And that's a very challenging thing. But here's the thing, I actually think people give more thought to the car they're buying than they do really to the technology of marriage and what about it specifically they like or don't like.

• 32:41Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What training or information do you think, do you wish every couple would go through before signing up for the technology of marriage?

• 32:50James Sexton?

  That's a great question. I, I think...

• 32:55James Sexton?

  You know, if you buy a house, you get a lead paint disclosure, you get a HUD disclosure that talks about the loan. You get all kinds of disclosures, right? You sign a will, there's all these pages that explain to you in great detail, you know, what's happening when you sign that will. You get married, you don't even get a pamphlet. You don't even get like a one-page brochure that says, "By the way, this is the most legally significant thing other than dying that you will ever do legally." And you don't get any information about what just happened. So the first thing I would say is I think everybody who's gonna get married should have an hour consultation with a divorce lawyer. Absolutely. So they should go into your office before... Yes, but for a different reason. For a different reason. Prophetically. Yes, they should come in proactively and learn about

• 33:39James Sexton?

  what's about to happen legally, what's about to happen to my rights. You know, what's about to change in terms of how I own property, the financial obligations I'll have to this person. I would also say one of the best things they could do is talk to someone candidly who's been married for an extended period of time. You know, that's not something we do. We're not encouraged to be honest about our relationships. We're not. I mean, one of the things you talk about mask of masculinity that I loved is about, particularly for men, but I think it's true for women too. We don't share candidly what's really going on in our lives. We're in a very curated society where you put up on social media the best picture and the best vacation photos and the best of everything we're doing.

• 34:24James Sexton?

  And we don't share with each other the challenges. We don't share with each other even really relevant information. Like when I meet a couple who's been together for 20 years, you know, I wanna know, I mean, I love the story, "Oh, how did you meet?" And you know, "How many times a week do you have sex? Who initiates it? Do you ask the shit? Do you always do the same stuff? Cause you've been together for 20 years and you know what each other like? Or like, do you try, like, do you like call an audible every once in a while? I'll just do some wacky thing." Like, what is it, like, what is it really like, the day-to-day of your relationship? And so many people, I mean, you've been in relationships, I've been in relationships. So many people just don't talk honestly, even when I'm with my guy friends. You know, do we really talk honestly about the day to day of our relationships?

• 35:09James Sexton?

  The way we talk to the women in our lives, like the nickname they have for us or the nickname we have for them. Again, it's private to some degree information. But if we could share that stuff a little more, we'd have a lot more accurate of a perception of where our relationship stands in the scheme of things and how we're doing. You know, because I really think there's this perception that people have of, you know, oh, we're only having sex this many times a week. It's like, well, okay, is that a lot? Is that too little? Like, you have nothing to compare it to. Right, right. You know, so in marriage, there's no way to know if you're doing well at it. Because you can't say, well, you know, we have fights every now and then. Well, okay, people have fights every now and then. But if you have a fight every week, that might be a lot. But how would you know? What would you compare it to? Right.

• 35:54James Sexton?

  So I would say one of the best things you could do to people who are considering getting married is put them in a room with people who've been good at that technology, who've managed to not only endure marriage, but endure it and still like it. And thrive, and thrive. Right, and still say, you know what, I'd sign on for this again. Yeah. Like, in a room full of people, I'd still pick this person. Yeah, that's cool. You know, and how many of those opportunities do we really get to talk to people that way about their relationship? Not many, yeah. And maybe also talk to someone who's been through divorce and ask them, what didn't work and why didn't it work? Where did it break down? Yeah. Exactly. See, one of the principles that inspired me to write the book was the idea that, you know, again, I hate using car metaphors because I'm not a car guy, but it's the best

• 36:36James Sexton?

  analogy I can think of in the sense that if when you bought a car, you did every bit of preventative maintenance that a mechanic told you to do. You changed the oil every two months or whatever. Yeah, my sister's a dentist, you know, and she always says to me, by the time your tooth hurts, you're screwed. Prevent it. Floss every day, not after. Right. If you do all the stuff she tells you to do when you go see her, your teeth are gonna do well. So it's, for me, who knows more about how a car breaks down than a mechanic, right? So I know what, I know

• 37:10James Sexton?

  People are in my office and I get a very candid view of them and I get to talk to them. And I have been very blessed that people trust me with tremendously personal information. And so what I wanted to do with that information is just find a way to leverage that into some kind of wisdom that people could use and say, you know what, just don't do what they did. When we were talking about titles for the book, you know, it was a hilarious escapade because, you know, one of the first ideas was, well, we'll call it everyone screwing everyone because it was about how people just abuse each other in the process of divorce and how they're really taking advantage of each other. And then we said, well, no, that's too pessimistic. And we said, well, you know, maybe we could, you know, just call it, you know, vows and

• 37:54James Sexton?

  talk about like the promises that people make, but it's not really the promises that are interesting. It's the way that people go in with good intentions with those promises and they just can't keep it together.

• 38:03Lewis Howes?

  Can't keep it, yeah.

• 38:04James Sexton?

  So I really think that, that, you know, for me, the best thing we can do with anybody is, is to, yeah, show them a model of success, right? And show them a model of failure. You know, and, and, and look, you've said it a million times on this show that you learn just as much from your successes as your failures. You might learn more from your failures even to some degree. So we don't have those role models. We don't have relationship role models, you know? And, you know, one of the things, you talked about masculine masculinity when you're talking about Neil Strauss and his marriage and how he says, look, it was my stuff. It wasn't, like I said, oh, I don't like marriage because I don't like this about it. And I don't like that it would force me to do this and force me to do that. And really what it was is he just didn't want to look at his own stuff.

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:49James Sexton?

  And, and he felt like to have a good marriage, you'd have to look at his own stuff, which is absolutely true, you know?

• 38:55Lewis Howes?

  Terrifying.

• 38:56James Sexton?

  And most of what my book is about is about, yeah, you gotta look at your stuff. If you wanna, if you wanna be successful in this technology, you gotta look at it, own it and share it with this person.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  And be aware and be honest with the person about who you are and what you, what you want, what you don't want. Now, you were, you were married for how long?

• 39:14James Sexton?

  I was married for 12 years.

• 39:16Lewis Howes?

  12 years?

• 39:16James Sexton?

  Yeah.

• 39:17Lewis Howes?

  Got divorced?

• 39:17James Sexton?

  Yep, got divorced.

• 39:18Lewis Howes?

  While you were divorced...

• 39:20James Sexton?

  Yes, while I was a divorce attorney. So you're hearing these stories every day. And going through it. Going through your marriage. But you know, my, yeah, I mean, my marriage, I think benefited from my experience as a divorce lawyer. Because you knew the cues of what not to do, or what was gonna work. But it, it was hurt by the fact that I love what I do for a living and was so consumed with it that I worked constantly. You know, my ex-wife, who is one of my dearest friends to this day. She's remarried to an amazing guy who's a great stepdad to my sons who are now older. They're, they're both in college. But I'm very blessed. I mean, I've, I've had an experience of divorce where I, I'm still close friends with her. I'm, I'm friends with her husband. You know, and I, I'm very lucky for that.

• 40:05James Sexton?

  Because I look at it like, there's a lot of people I love that I wouldn't want to be married to. Sure. And she's one of them. She's someone I love, she's someone I appreciate, who I think is just an amazing person. But we don't have the chemist, the exact ingredients that you need to be successful in marriage. Long-term. Because we met when we were seventeen. And what we wanted when we were seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-two, when we got married, twenty-four, when we had kids. When we turned around and we're in our thirties, we went, you know, we don't actually have that much in common. And so either I'm gonna have to stop being who I actually am. Like, I love to travel, you don't love to travel. You love, you know, I mean, from silly things.

• 40:47James Sexton?

  You love shabby chic furniture and I like very zen aesthetics. You know, like, you love this kind of movie and I love this kind of movie. And you reach a point where you kind of go, well, do we white knuckle it now because we don't want to quit something that isn't working? Or do we say, you know what, let's call this. Let's call this and let's find someone who feeds us in the right way. And, and, and see if, or, or just be alone for the right reasons, you know? And I'm very blessed that the person who I was married to was mature enough to see it the same way and to have that painful.

• 41:23James Sexton?

  But really wonderful conversation that so few people can have. And that is to say, look, this, this thing was successful. You know, we, we, we both are leaving this better people than we were when we came into it. And we're leaving it with two kids that are, are the exact chemistry of the two of us and they're made up of the two of us. But we're gonna kind of take our different paths now and let's still love each other. Let's still respect each other. Conscious uncoupling. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the term that's been handed to it. But you know, the truth is, is I think people have been doing it for years. You just don't hear about it. It's not that interesting. My divorce is the least interesting thing about me. It really is. Like if I said to you, like, you know, tell me 10 things about yourself.

• 42:07James Sexton?

  The fact I'm divorced wouldn't make a list because the fact that I tried to marry someone and stay with them forever and it didn't work out, isn't that interesting? It's not that unique. You know, what you hear about in divorce, the people who talk about their divorces incessantly are people who were wounded by them. Yeah. And, and now they've been victimized by their divorce. And so it becomes a tremendous part of their identity. And they hold on to it for a while and they talk about it and here's what happened. Absolutely. And, and so, you know, they're the silent, you know, there's a huge number of people that had divorces like mine. Where the marriage just ended, it ended in a friendly fashion. They continue to co-parent successfully together and they both live their lives. There's not this pain and resentment for years and...

• 42:51James Sexton?

  No, and I have to tell you, as a divorce lawyer, as a practicing divorce lawyer, a huge, I would say more than 50% of the people that I represent, it's that kind of transaction. It really is that it's just two people that their time is done. And now we just have to figure out how to divide up the things they have and work out the schedules with the kids. That's good to know, 50%. Yeah, I would say at least 50%. That's good. But, but the thing is, the other 50% Are louder. Are so much more interesting. I mean, so much, it's like, because really, who wants to hear about like, oh, I talked to my ex-wife yesterday and she's lovely. She's moving to Rochester soon. Like, that's her life. It's the drama on the train wreck. She threw a bat at me. She set my car on fire. It's way more interesting, you know? Oh, man. Um, do you feel like...

• 43:38Lewis Howes?

  You know, marriage, I hear this all the time, it's something that's not gonna be easy, right? There's gonna be challenges, there's gonna be fights or arguments, and there's gonna be some things that you're not gonna agree on.

• 43:49James Sexton?

  Sure.

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  If you ground everything awesome, but it doesn't sound like, there's many marriages that are always perfect and always smooth. After ten, twenty, thirty years, there's gonna be some conflict. So does that mean, in your opinion, that we should just be like, you know what? Let's just throw in the towel when it gets too challenging? Or, you know, it's getting challenging, that's when we gotta dive in deeper and like, come together as a marriage, because we signed up for this.

• 44:13James Sexton?

  It's a great question. I would say the following. I think one of the most common things people will say to you about marriage is, you know, marriage is hard, marriage is hard. I don't know that that's true. I think if you consider paying attention hard, then marriage is hard.

• 44:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:35James Sexton?

  If you don't consider paying attention hard, then I don't think marriage has to be hard. I think that, it's again, not to use the metaphor again, but, you know, losing weight is harder than maintaining your weight. And I really think, look, you're gonna have challenges. You're not necessarily gonna have fights, you're gonna have challenges. Life is gonna throw challenges in your way. Illness, adversity, career issues, you know, day-to-day miscommunications with each other. If you're not paying attention, those things get huge. And then the big, big things happen. So people come in and they go, I'm getting divorced because he's sleeping with his secretary. You are.

• 45:20James Sexton?

  That's a great reason to get divorced, and that's a legit thing. He's not, he's sleeping with his secretary because there's something wrong in the marriage.

• 45:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:26James Sexton?

  That, you know, and if you don't wanna look at that, because you have some culpability in that, and it's easier to just go, oh, this harlot came and took him away, and it's a lot easier to say that. But the truth is, you know, you stopped paying attention, you know? And this is the question I find myself when I have a minute, you know, with a client who I've been some miles with. And we're sitting outside of the courtroom waiting for the case to be called. And I have enough of a rapport with them, and we've been enough of a distance together, that I feel like I can be candid with them. I'll say to them, was there a moment where you realized your marriage was over? What was that moment? And you would be amazed at the insight if people think about that question that they give to you.

• 46:10James Sexton?

  I had a woman who said to me, and it was, to me, a very powerful example. I discuss a little bit in the book. She said, there was a kind of granola that she liked. And you could only get it at like a certain store, like a Whole Foods or something like that. And her husband used to always buy it. He used to always buy it. Whenever she was running low, she would just open the cabinet and there'd be another bag of it there. And she loved that. Because he didn't say like, oh, and look, honey, I bought your granola. Like, I get credit for that. You know, like, he just, would do it. He just saw that this was something that he was paying attention. He just saw that there was this little thing, and it was this little kindness that he showed her that let her know she was important to him. He was still kind of trying to woo her without being obvious about it. And he was still paying attention.

• 46:54James Sexton?

  And she said that one day, she just ran out of the granola and it wasn't there. So she thought, oh, well, maybe he's like busy and he just didn't notice. So she kind of left the bag out. And, you know, sure enough, he still didn't replace the granola. And she said she had a tangible memory. It was about a year before the actual divorce. But she said she had a tangible memory. She thought, okay, this is over. You know, this thing is over now. And I think that that's the thing. That's kind of, if you boiled my book down, one of the things I say to people is, there's this thing in every relationship, some little thing that you had to, that you did for your partner, or some little thing that you just had to tell them, that at some point, you just stopped telling them.

• 47:36James Sexton?

  You know, I don't know if it's just in the morning saying like, God, you're so pretty when she walks by. Or if it's her saying to you like, you know, I love your strong arms, or whatever it might be. Like, there's just those little things. Like, we just want someone cheering for us. We just want, why do we get together? We want connection. We just want connection. Like, there's no other reason to get married, other than wanting connection.

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  In this part, psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb discusses the biggest mistakes people make when choosing a partner.

• 48:11Lewis Howes?

  What happens when we never deal with our emotions or feelings?

• 48:15Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, you, first of all, get sick.

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  Physically sick, emotionally sick, mentally...

• 48:20Lori Gottlieb?

  Everything, everything, right? So we have, just like we have a physical immune system, we have a psychological immune system. And we have to take care of our psychological immune system. So it's just like, you know, what do you do to keep healthy with your body? Like, you're gonna eat right, you're gonna exercise, you know, you're gonna do all the things that you wanna do to take care of yourself. You're gonna get enough sleep. Those things also help your psychological immune system. They're not totally separate. The mind-body connection is profound. But at the same time, you know, are you going to be around people who don't nourish you? That's going to hurt your psychological immune system. That's gonna make you sick. Are you gonna stuff down your feelings? That's going to make you sick. And so, how do we take care of ourselves?

• 49:03Lori Gottlieb?

  And part of it is, instead of trying to numb out your feelings, because numbness isn't the absence of feelings. Numbness is a state of being overwhelmed by too many feelings.

• 49:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:13Lori Gottlieb?

  And then, not only do you not experience the feelings that you don't want to experience, but you don't experience the other feelings. You mute one feeling, you mute the others. You mute the pain, you mute the joy. So you're living in this state where you don't actually get to feel the range of feelings that make us human.

• 49:31Lewis Howes?

  What is that state called?

• 49:32Lori Gottlieb?

  I would say, sick, I was gonna say dead. I mean, I feel like you can be alive, but not living. And that's what happens to people, is that they're alive, they're going through the motions, they wake up every day, but they're not really living their lives.

• 49:46Lewis Howes?

  What's an assessment we could take for ourselves, if someone's listening or watching, to ask themselves how alive or how dead they are? And if the people in their life closest are actually good for them? Or are hurting their psychological states?

• 50:01Lori Gottlieb?

  Right.

• 50:02Lewis Howes?

  Is there a questionnaire we could take, like, just off the cuff? Is there an assessment? Is there a few things we could ask ourselves?

• 50:08Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that it has to do with a sense of vitality, right? Which, of course, like, vitality, the word, like, life is right in there. When you wake up in the morning... Are you excited about what you're doing? Is there meaning in what you're doing? Do you feel connected to how you're spending your days? Because at the end of your life, are you gonna look back and say, "What did I do that was meaningful?" You know, and maybe you should talk to someone. In my book, there's a woman that I treat. She's this young woman who goes on her honeymoon. She's newly married. She comes back and she has cancer. And she says to me at one point, she says, "Why do we need a terminal diagnosis?"

• 50:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, to have a wake-up call.

• 50:46Lori Gottlieb?

  Why do we need a terminal diagnosis to live our lives with intention? Why do we need that to really pay attention? And I think that if we can keep the awareness of death, sitting on one shoulder, and I don't mean in a morbid way or in a creepy way, it's not depressing. It's actually, again, going back to vitality, it helps us feel alive because life has 100% mortality rate, and that's not for other people. We like to believe that, right? And so, the thing is that if we know that we have a limited time here, I think we would pay more attention to what we're actually doing every day.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  Why is it so hard for people to pay attention?

• 51:23Lori Gottlieb?

  Fear.

• 51:24Lewis Howes?

  But they feel like they're stuck sometimes for years.

• 51:27Lori Gottlieb?

  Yes.

• 51:27Lewis Howes?

  It's like I stay stuck in a relationship that's, I know it's not right for me for years. I stay in a depressed state for years. I stay in a job that I hate for years. It's all based on fear.

• 51:39Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, I think it is fear. You know, I think it's fear of uncertainty. This is gonna sound strange, but change is really hard because we cling to something that's familiar to us. So even though we may know, "Oh, this would help me. This would be a good change for me." We don't do it because it's unfamiliar. And so, if you grew up with a lot of chaos, if you grew up feeling sad all the time or anxious all the time, that feels like home to you, even if it's unpleasant or even miserable.

• 52:09Lewis Howes?

  She'll keep finding chaotic environments.

• 52:11Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, you keep recreating it. Yeah, and so, and so, you know, it was funny because my own therapist gave me this great analogy. He said to me, he said, "You remind me of this cartoon, and it's of a prisoner shaking the bars, desperately trying to get out, but on the right and the left, it's open, right? No bars." So basically, the prisoner is not in jail. And that's what so many of us are like. We feel like we're trapped.

• 52:34Lewis Howes?

  We're not in jail.

• 52:35Lori Gottlieb?

  We're not in jail. We can change. We can just walk around the bars. But why don't we? Because with freedom, the freedom to walk around the bars, comes responsibility. And if we're responsible for our own lives, that scares us. We feel like, "Oh, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I'm competent enough to do that." Or, "Now, I'm to blame if things don't go right. I can't blame it on everything else."

• 52:55Lewis Howes?

  Is this one of the reasons why inmates, after a long time being in prison, who get out, go back into prison? Because they feel like they need to be back in that environment? Or are there other reasons?

• 53:05Lori Gottlieb?

  I think there are other reasons. I think we don't give people the support when they come out. You know, the mental health issues that they needed to be treated for were whenever, you know, they never got that support. And then they come out, and they're back in the same situation where they don't have that community support.

• 53:22Lewis Howes?

  Why is it so hard for us to take responsibility for our own happiness?

• 53:27Lori Gottlieb?

  I think that if you grew up in a household where you were seen and heard and understood, those are the people who do take responsibility for their own happiness. I think for people who felt like they were ripped off in their childhoods, there's a part of them that's still in a fight. There's a part of them that still wants that redo. And so, it's kind of like, they're not aware of this, but what they're saying is basically, "I will not change, Mom and Dad, until you give me the things that I did not get in childhood."

• 53:57Lewis Howes?

  So they'll go find a partner that... Emulates their environment from mom and dad and try to change them so they

• 54:04Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, right, this is the irony of relationship, right? For those people who have not sort of worked through it. This is so common. And I think all of us have this piece in us, right? Because nobody had a perfect childhood. So what happens is people say, okay, when I'm an adult, I'm going to pick a partner who really makes me feel nourished, who really gives me all those things that I did not get growing up. But what they don't realize is unconsciously, they have this radar for the people who are who look very different from their parents on the surface. But then, once they get into that relationship, it's kind of like, uh-oh, this feels familiar. Right? And so what they did was their unconscious said, when they were picking their partner, hey, you look familiar, come closer.

• 54:46Lori Gottlieb?

  Even though, inconsciously, they thought, oh, you're totally different from my parents. I'm going to, this is going to work out great. But no, they have radar for that if they haven't worked out the stuff that's sort of their unfinished business. There's this saying, we marry our unfinished business. We actually do marry our unfinished business. So that is why it is so important as an adult to take responsibility and say, you know what? I am going to have to grieve this loss of what I didn't get. And I'm going to have to work through this and assess where I am as an adult so that I pick people and surround myself with people who are healthy for me.

• 55:20Lewis Howes?

  What if you've chosen someone that you love deeply, but it's unconsciously your unfinished business? Is that the wrong person for you, once you realize, oh, they're never going to change? Or is that a point for us to reflect back and say, actually, I need to heal the past, accept this person for who they are, and be willing to flow within this relationship?

• 55:42Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, what happens is, so you married your unfinished business, but so did they. And so if you can both recognize that, if you realize, hey, wait, we have a lot of conflict in our relationship, or we're really avoidant in our relationship, or we don't feel connected in the way we want to feel connected, that's a great opportunity for both of you to work out your unfinished business.

• 56:01Lewis Howes?

  To heal together.

• 56:01Lori Gottlieb?

  To heal together, right.

• 56:03Lewis Howes?

  And so that relationship could thrive.

• 56:06Lori Gottlieb?

  If you both are willing to look in the mirror at yourselves and do the work. Yes, that could be a really beautiful relationship. And it could be very healing for both of you, in fact.

• 56:17Lewis Howes?

  It could potentially be the strongest bond ever if you both were able to go through that.

• 56:20Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  But if you're unwilling to go through that. Then what? You're gonna be in pain.

• 56:25Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, well, both people have to be willing. I mean, that's the thing. So, it's like you may wake up one day and say, "Oh, wait a minute. I have all this unfinished business." And then your partner says, "Yeah, it's all you. You're the problem in the relationship." You know, it's kind of like in couples therapy so often. I'll see something like, someone will say like, "You never listen to me." And I'll say, "How well do you listen to them?"

• 56:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 56:44Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, it's always like...

• 56:45Lewis Howes?

  If you're just yelling at someone all day, are they gonna wanna listen to you?

• 56:48Lori Gottlieb?

  Right, right. So, you know, there's this dance that we do in relationship. And what happens is people are doing these dance steps. And people become very, they become very ingrained. It's like, "Oh, here we go." You can, you can script out people's arguments. You know exactly what they're gonna look like.

• 57:02Lewis Howes?

  It starts with one thing and then it goes back into many different things. You're like, "Oh, man."

• 57:05Lori Gottlieb?

  And you know exactly how it's gonna go and who's gonna feel what and who's gonna accuse the other person of what. And that's the dance. And so if one person changes their dance steps, the other person either is going to fall flat on the dance floor or they're gonna have to change their steps too if they wanna keep dancing.

• 57:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 57:20Lori Gottlieb?

  And usually, so we always say, "You can't change another person, but you can influence another person."

• 57:26Lewis Howes?

  How?

• 57:26Lori Gottlieb?

  By changing your dance steps. So, so for example, we like to say insight is the booby prize of therapy. Meaning you can, people will come and they'll be like, "Oh, now I understand why I keep getting into that argument with my partner." And so then they go home and they come back the next week. And I'll say, "Well, did you do something different when you got in that argument?" "Well, no, but I understand why I did."

• 57:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:43Lori Gottlieb?

  So, you have to be both vulnerable and accountable when you come to therapy.

• 57:48Lewis Howes?

  How do we fight better? When we are in constant repeat pattern, every month or every week, it becomes an argument around something for whatever reason.

• 57:57Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 57:57Lewis Howes?

  It's a pattern.

• 57:58Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 57:58Lewis Howes?

  Couples start to notice it. How does one person or both people recognize and say, "Okay, I'm gonna change my dance steps and I'm gonna fight or dance better?"

• 58:07Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah. The first thing is to notice sort of what, what do you own in this? What is your reaction? So, we have a choice. Every time someone presents us with something, there's a, there's a great quote in the book, it's a Viktor Frankl quote, where he says, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space and in that space lies our freedom to choose."

• 58:26Lewis Howes?

  Between stimulus and response. So, between an action happening and your response to the action.

• 58:31Lori Gottlieb?

  So, your partner says something.

• 58:32Lewis Howes?

  There's a window of opportunity.

• 58:34Lori Gottlieb?

  Yes, there's that space. Usually that space for us will look like a breath. The breath is everything. The breath, really.

• 58:41Lewis Howes?

  If you don't breathe, you're screwed.

• 58:43Lori Gottlieb?

  If you need to take the breath, or you will just respond. It's sort of like we have these neural pathways that are wired, right? And someone says something, and you react not just to what that person in front of you is saying, but it goes back to something that reminds you of something from a long time ago. People who aren't even in the room are in that moment with you. And so that's that neural pathway. And so what you need to do is you need to take a breath. It's like a big stop sign on that road. That's your neural pathway. So hold up the stop sign. You can even picture a stop sign in your mind. Stop, breathe. Now, you get to choose. How do I want to respond to this? Do I want to respond in the way I've responded the last gazillion times? Which has not worked out well?

• 59:27Lori Gottlieb?

  Or do I want to try something different? So that's part one. Part two is perspective-taking. A lot of people who are in really highly conflictual relationships have trouble with perspective-taking. They can't imagine that the other person has a valid perspective. Now, you might not agree with every piece of how they view this, but there's some overlap between how this person views it and how you view it. But you are not willing to see that. And so I have this new podcast called Dear Therapist. And on the podcast, so much of what we do is we help people to take the perspective of the other person. There's something that you are not seeing right now.

• 1:00:09Lewis Howes?

  Why is that so hard for people? To see someone else's perspective?

• 1:00:12Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, two things. One is because, you know, that unreliable narrator thing, that we think that we are right, and we don't want to be told. And so what we hear when we say there's another perspective, we're not saying you're wrong. We're saying there's more to the story. So there's a difference between their perspective is valid as well is not saying your version is wrong. We're saying there's more. So people hear it, though, as you are wrong. And the other part of it is that there's a lot of shame. That people are sticking to a certain story because if they allow that other part of the story to come in, the part that they're responsible for will probably come up, and they feel a lot of shame. So when I see individuals in therapy, they come in and they tell me a story, and they

• 1:00:57Lori Gottlieb?

  leave out the parts that they are embarrassed about, the parts that they feel like, that was not my finest moment.

• 1:01:04Lewis Howes?

  Like what? Give me an example, like, why I screamed back, or I did this.

• 1:01:07Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, yeah, like, you know, here's what happened, or here's, here's, this is, this is the situation, and my, my partner did this, or my mother did this, or my child did this, or my boss did this, whatever. And they don't tell you these other details, and they sort of trickle out later on.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Lori Gottlieb?

  And they're very relevant to the story.

• 1:01:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:25Lori Gottlieb?

  But that's shame, right? And so, you know, that's why the therapeutic relationship is so important, because you get to a point where you really trust the therapist, and you're able to be really honest about what happened.

• 1:01:38Lewis Howes?

  How much does shame shape our stories?

• 1:01:40Lori Gottlieb?

  Oh, so much. I think that, you know, as humans, we want to belong. And what shame is about is, I'm not going to belong. I'm not going to be loved. The greatest human need is, you know, how can we love and be loved? And when you feel like, there's something I did that people will look upon badly, they might not like me if I tell them this. That's just, you know, wired into us.

• 1:02:07Lewis Howes?

  It's like the ego death to us. It's like the emotional death. It's like, if someone knew this about us, they would not love me, and I would emotionally die.

• 1:02:14Lori Gottlieb?

  And I would be alone.

• 1:02:15Lewis Howes?

  And I'll be alone, yeah.

• 1:02:16Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah, and we need other people.

• 1:02:19Lewis Howes?

  I felt like this way for many years, where I opened up about sexual abuse about seven years ago, and for 25 years, no one knew, because I was so ashamed. And I felt like if anyone knew, how could they possibly love me?

• 1:02:31Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Lewis Howes?

  Or accept me? Or how would anyone want to date me? Or my family, how would they not disown me? These were the stories that I was writing. I was a bad editor.

• 1:02:39Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Lewis Howes?

  How does someone who's done something that they're not proud of in the past, who's had something done to them that they're not proud of, whatever, they've been in a situation that they feel shame around, how does someone start to process that shame to heal so that it doesn't continue to run their life and keep them imprisoned?

• 1:02:59Lori Gottlieb?

  Yeah. Well, I think they do what you did, which is you started talking about it. And I think you have to choose your audience, which is really important, especially as you're just starting out. So you want to make sure that-

• 1:03:13Lewis Howes?

  Don't tell your abuser, who's the toxic relationship with you.

• 1:03:17Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, you know, I think you have to really choose someone who's safe. And if you don't have those people, you know, I think a therapist is a really good place to start. But I do think that it's harder for men to talk about anything, whether it's sexual abuse or even, you know, just sort of like, anything they feel vulnerable about. And so men will come into my office and they will say to me at some point, you know, "I've never told anyone this before."

• 1:03:42Lewis Howes?

  Do women say that?

• 1:03:44Lori Gottlieb?

  Yes. So here's the thing. Women will say that. They'll say, "I've never told anyone this before, except for my mother, my sister, and my best friend."

• 1:03:52Lewis Howes?

  You're the only one who, "I don't know."

• 1:03:53Lori Gottlieb?

  You're the only one, right, right.

• 1:03:54Lewis Howes?

  Who I haven't told this to.

• 1:03:55Lori Gottlieb?

  I told my book club, I told, you know, whatever it is. They've told like a few people, but they feel like, because women, it's acceptable for women to talk about these things. And so they feel like they haven't told anyone because they still feel like there's some degree of privacy around it. Men literally have told no one. And even if they have like a great partner and they have close friends, you know, they have a great family, whatever it is, they feel like, "I cannot tell anyone" because vulnerability for men in our culture is not okay. Even though we say that, so this is funny.

• 1:04:29Lewis Howes?

  Even though women say, "I wish she would open up. I wish she'd be emotional. I wish she would cry and be more sensitive." But then when they are, they're like, "I need you to be strong right now."

• 1:04:38Lori Gottlieb?

  Right. So this is exactly what happens in couples therapy. So I'll have two people sitting on the couch and I have a couple. And say it's a heterosexual couple and the woman says to the man, like, "I really want to get to know you. I feel like we would connect so much more if you would just open up to me. I want to know what's going on inside there, right?" And he does. And let's say he tears up. Let's say he actually starts crying in a way where like his body is convulsing, right? She looks at me like deer in headlights.

• 1:05:07Lewis Howes?

  How do I do?

• 1:05:09Lori Gottlieb?

  She's so profoundly uncomfortable.

• 1:05:11Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 1:05:11Lori Gottlieb?

  And yet, this is the thing that she was asking for. So what she'll say is, "I don't feel safe when you don't open up to me. And I don't feel safe when you're vulnerable with me." Like, it's like Goldilocks. It's like, not too much, not too little, but right in the middle. That's how vulnerable you can be with me.

• 1:05:31Lewis Howes?

  I've been saying this for a long time, that I feel like this is one of the main things that hurts all intimate relationships.

• 1:05:39Lori Gottlieb?

  Yes.

• 1:05:40Lewis Howes?

  When a person doesn't feel safe to share their emotions to the person that says they love them the most. And actually makes them wrong for it, or makes them less than, or retracts their love when they're vulnerable. So, I don't know the solution for this, besides saying this all the time, and besides saying, ladies, like, if you want a vulnerable man who's emotional, you have to accept him when he's emotional.

• 1:06:03Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, not just accept, but embrace. I mean, that's the thing.

• 1:06:06Lewis Howes?

  Encourage.

• 1:06:06Lori Gottlieb?

  Encourage that.

• 1:06:07Lewis Howes?

  Because it's so much harder for a man, in general, in our society, to be vulnerable based on what we've grown up with, and based on what we see, that if you're not encouraging it consistently, and celebrating it almost, why would you expect them to keep opening up when they have something they want to share, if you're gonna make them wrong for it?

• 1:06:28Lori Gottlieb?

  Well, right. So, that's exactly what happens. There's somebody I write about in the book, who, you know, there's this tragedy that happens in the family, and he feels like he has to be the rock for the family.

• 1:06:38Lewis Howes?

  Always, right?

• 1:06:39Lori Gottlieb?

  He's like, "My wife, she can cry about this, she can be sad about this, but if I break down, I'm the thing holding everything up." And that was just not true. Actually, that was the thing that was making their marriage not work, that was making him feel anxious, and not sleep, and not function well, right? And that was the thing that got his wife to, at a certain point, saying like, "I can't be in this marriage if we can't connect." But he thought he had to be the rock for the whole family. He could not feel his feelings. And instead, what happened was, when he finally said, "No, actually, this is tearing me apart too," that's when they started healing.

• 1:07:15Lewis Howes?

  And in this section, marriage and family therapist Katherine Woodward Thomas breaks down how living happily ever after is a myth that we've all been sold.

• 1:07:27Lewis Howes?

  No one ever teaches you how to get out of a relationship in a healthy, loving...

• 1:07:33Speaker 04

  It's astounding how few of us know how to do this.

• 1:07:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're the only one I know who knows how to do it.

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  I have seen the most high-level, advanced spiritual people make a total mess of, you know, the end of a relationship.

• 1:07:48Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. We just don't know how to navigate it. I have a theory about it. I think that inside of our happily ever after myth, which kind of assumes that if the relationship ends before one or both people die, that it was a complete disaster and a complete failure of love. And so, inside of that, we just never really, like, figured out, well, how can we bring conscious completion to our intimate relationships, or to really any relationships for that matter?

• 1:08:20Lewis Howes?

  I mean, why do people... And just so people listening know, you're a marriage/family therapist, right? You've been doing this for 20, 30 years. And you've been teaching hundreds of thousands of people all around the world about, you know, relationship advice and all this good stuff. So, you've got some great wisdom as a licensed therapist, but also with your own experiences. So, I think that's where we learn the most from our own experiences, because your divorce as well.

• 1:08:45Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:08:46Lewis Howes?

  And you had to figure this out for yourself also.

• 1:08:47Speaker 04

  Well, and, you know, let me just say, I'm also the author of Calling in the One.

• 1:08:53Lewis Howes?

  The One, yes.

• 1:08:54Speaker 04

  Right? Which came out in 2004, which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

• 1:08:58Lewis Howes?

  So, you called in the one, and then the one...

• 1:08:59Speaker 04

  So, I called in the one, and then after a decade, we decided to un-married.

• 1:09:04Lewis Howes?

  So, it wasn't the one anymore?

• 1:09:06Speaker 04

  Well, he was, though, for that time.

• 1:09:08Lewis Howes?

  For that time, okay.

• 1:09:09Speaker 04

  For that time. And this goes back to the happily ever after myth, because, you know, when I... When we decided to end our union... I mean, it wasn't... You know, an easy thing to do.

• 1:09:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  And when it, when we made the decision, you know, my prayer was like a little less than pious. It was, you know, are you effing kidding me, God? Like, seriously?

• 1:09:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  I'm like, God, all these people who look to me for the answers.

• 1:09:33Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:09:34Speaker 04

  And how to find love and they really like open up to possibility in their lives after all sorts of things. And they learn the calling in the one technique and process, which has, you know, worked for many, many thousands of people. But then I'm gonna get divorced. So what's that message? And how do I even convey that message? So I know you talk, you love to talk in School of Greatness about failure a lot. So that was like a great crash and burn.

• 1:09:56Lewis Howes?

  Sure, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:57Speaker 04

  In that moment, it could have really been a disaster.

• 1:09:59Lewis Howes?

  And you were the woman that was like, I'm calling the one, I'm teaching you all how to do it. And now I'm essentially failed at calling in the one.

• 1:10:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, and so you know what? I, I know enough to look at my own feelings and whatever's going on for me. And to see it as reflective of what's going on for all of us. So I have kind of an, I, you know, I have a deeply personal relationship, obviously, with my feelings, as we all do.

• 1:10:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  But I also have an impersonal relationship with them because I'm really interested in the evolution of love in the world. You know, both for myself and our, but our collective capacity.

• 1:10:33Lewis Howes?

  Conscious love, yes.

• 1:10:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, conscious love, conscious relationships. So as, and I'm committed to that. So as I'm going through this, I'm going, wow, you know, this is really common. That when we go through the end of a relationship, we feel ashamed. Where does that come from?

• 1:10:46Lewis Howes?

  Why do we feel ashamed?

• 1:10:47Speaker 04

  Like, why do we feel ashamed? Like, why do we go to, oh, now I'm inferior to be single again? Or, you know, I'm, I was better when I was, like, what, where is that coming from? So I actually started to research that happily ever after myth. And I found out a lot of things about it that were really fascinating to me. One is that it's only about 400 years old. Believe it or not, it was created in Venice, Italy.

• 1:11:08Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 1:11:08Speaker 04

  You know, us romantics, we're not surprised.

• 1:11:11Lewis Howes?

  That's funny.

• 1:11:11Speaker 04

  But it was created during a time when the lifespan was under 40.

• 1:11:15Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:11:16Speaker 04

  When half the children were dying before the age of 16.

• 1:11:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, really?

• 1:11:19Speaker 04

  Which, you know, is probably a good idea, a better idea to keep families together. To give them the best possible chance at survival. And also, there was a law at the time that these fairy tales were created, that a noble person could not marry a commoner. And so people, if you were born into poverty, you were gonna die into poverty. Like, there was no hope of ever getting out of poverty. So the happily ever after myth was, was, came as like an escapist fairy tale for people, because it was right after the Renaissance, so people actually were literate. Even though they had no money, they were literate. And they loved the fairy tales, in large part because of the upward mobility.

• 1:12:01Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, okay.

• 1:12:02Speaker 04

  You know, it was like the, and, and also it happened in a faraway distant land, you know, because it couldn't happen in Venice, because there was a law against it. So, you know, it's kind of, but then it went to France and it kind of stuck, and it almost like took over our world about what our aspiration for love should be. And we're also kind of collectively in that trance that it actually occurs to us as a failure, if we do not, but, look, this is the reality. If you like, look at the statistics, the statistics are that the majority of us are gonna have two to three major relationships in our lifetime, which also implies at least one or two major breakups as well.

• 1:12:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:12:39Speaker 04

  So it's no longer the norm to meet and marry one person.

• 1:12:44Lewis Howes?

  The one, like 21, when you're in college and then you're with them for the rest of your life.

• 1:12:48Speaker 04

  Very unusual. I mean, it happens.

• 1:12:50Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:12:50Speaker 04

  You know, so, so I think, you know, like, we, we update our computer programs and our child-rearing practices and our diets and our exercise programs. I think we have to update our aspirations around love. And we need to shift from the question of, you know, how we're gonna value the union according to how long did it last? And start to ask the question, what did I learn? And how have I expanded my capacity to love moving forward?

• 1:13:15Lewis Howes?

  It's so challenging. When you're, you're in the relationship and you love someone so much.

• 1:13:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Lewis Howes?

  And they bring so much value to your life and they're so incredible. But something's not working, or you can't give them what they want, or they can't give you what you really want.

• 1:13:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:30Lewis Howes?

  And there's like this conflict where you can't figure it out. And you've gotta end it, or you've got to evolve it, I guess. And, you know, how do we, first off, before we even go into that, because you've got five steps to doing that.

• 1:13:44Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:13:44Lewis Howes?

  How do you call on the one? And how do you know it's the one if you're gonna end it at some point? Like, that's the confusing thing.

• 1:13:52Speaker 04

  Well, I think, see, this is important for us to realize that we live in a very mobile society that values growth and evolution.

• 1:14:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:14:01Speaker 04

  Right, and in a way, America's kind of torn between these two ideals of the stability of family and commitment and devotion, and most of us really believe in that, ninety percent of us are gonna get married at some point in our lifetimes. But we also are a country that was kind of founded upon the ideal of the pursuit of happiness. And we are a creative bunch, and we love change, and we love evolution, and we love, you know, personal growth and development, and those two things are not always the best bedfellows. So, in a, you know, perfect world, we all grow together, but different people have different callings, and different people have different aspirations to how much they're willing to

• 1:14:43Speaker 04

  grow, and what that, how they're gonna navigate the tension between just wanting to be, you know, comfortable in life, and kind of set in life, or how much you're gonna be risk-oriented and keep, you know, striving to become your best self. And I think, you know, I think here, in the school of greatness, I can pretty much assume that most of us are the latter.

• 1:15:02Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:15:03Speaker 04

  And so, it is going to create a lack of stability. It's gonna do two things. It's going to create, you know, it's gonna create a lack of stability that we are gonna, and it's also gonna inspire us to grow.

• 1:15:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:15:17Speaker 04

  Right, because we don't wanna lose each other. We wanna learn how to stay related. In a way, conscious uncoupling is about that, because I don't-

• 1:15:26Lewis Howes?

  It's not about losing each other?

• 1:15:27Speaker 04

  No, it's, well, I mean, look, if you have a, you know, crash and burn relationship, somebody's got a personality disorder, they're like an addict, they're like unethical with you, they're toxic, you're gonna have to-

• 1:15:39Lewis Howes?

  You need to cut it off.

• 1:15:39Speaker 04

  You need to set that boundary, you're not gonna be able to do that. But in, you know, in many relationships, you can transition, certainly if you have children, or if you're business partners, we wanted to kind of wrap in business, too, because I think, you know, I've had two business breakups in my lifetime that were almost as heart-wrenching as my divorce.

• 1:15:56Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my goodness, yes.

• 1:15:57Speaker 04

  Right, they can be very, very difficult to navigate. So, any kind of, so you really don't wanna lose people entirely, you want to do things like, one of the things I have people do is to become very conscious of the agreements that you've had as a couple.

• 1:16:10Lewis Howes?

  As you had as a couple.

• 1:16:11Speaker 04

  As a couple, like you will always prioritize me, you will always rescue me when I'm in trouble. That kind of thing, you'll, you know, or you will always love me the most. Um, I will always love you the most. I will sexual fidelity, that kind of thing. You know, we are people of our word. There was one woman that I worked with who had been divorced 10 years earlier. Hadn't seen her husband in eight years. He was already married to somebody else. She hadn't talked to him in eight years. She had never been on a date. And when we worked together, it was because she was still, like, she was Catholic. So she was still kind of covertly keeping her vow of fidelity to him. So we have these agreements with each other. And then we have to update the agreements and become conscious. Like, who are you going to be to me now? What are my expectations of you? What are your expectations of me?

• 1:16:55Speaker 04

  And when you start, so that's how you kind of evolve a relationship to a new, healthy form. But I think you asked me how to call in the one.

• 1:17:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so much I want to learn.

• 1:17:04Speaker 04

  There's a lot that I have to say, I'm sorry.

• 1:17:07Lewis Howes?

  The challenge is, you know, the challenge is how do you call in the one? And then how do you know it is the one? And how do you, and then how do you deal with coping with when it's not the one right now? Or it's not the right time, or it's not working, that it's not the one anymore for right now.

• 1:17:21Speaker 04

  Well, so they're different questions. So I think how to call in the one is about being very intentional and being more future oriented than past oriented. So a lot of us have, you know, certain things in our histories, in our childhoods. We have certain, you know, dynamics that were happening in our families. And so we have insecurities, we have beliefs, you know, I'm not good enough, or I'm not wanted, or men always leave, or those kinds of stories that we're.

• 1:17:46Lewis Howes?

  Or I can't trust people, or whatever it is. I don't have faith in humanity, or something, yeah.

• 1:17:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then, you know, and so we're kind of like, or, and then we go to, how am I going to have love? And there's like a sense of resignation, like, because it's become an identity. It's become a self sense. So one of the things we do in calling in the one is we look and name that identity really specifically, according to each person's story. Like, if your dad left when you were five, what did you make that mean about you?

• 1:18:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes, I'm not worthy, or that everyone's always going to leave me, or that.

• 1:18:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17Lewis Howes?

  When I get close to someone, they're going to leave.

• 1:18:19Speaker 04

  Right, because inside that consciousness, we're going to show up in ways that then validate that story. And it's so covert, and it seems like it's just happening to us, and we don't see how it's happening through us. One of my favorite stories about this is a woman who was. Uh, in her twenties and she was a client of mine and she met this guy and they really liked each other and they were hot and heavy for a few weeks. And then all of a sudden, he stopped calling. Completely no texts, no calls, one day, two day, three day, four day, five day. By the fifth day, she's like beside herself because her dad left when she was five. And never came back. So in her world, men leave. And so she did what she thought was a great preemptive strike against being hurt.

• 1:19:02Speaker 04

  And she just texted him that she met someone new and she's not interested in the connection anymore. Like that to her was her way of getting her power back.

• 1:19:08Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to just having a conversation or reaching out and not making assumptions.

• 1:19:12Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:19:12Lewis Howes?

  And just saying, oh, can we hang out again or? Yeah.

• 1:19:15Speaker 04

  She was so in her assumption. So anyway, two years later, she met him at a club and found out that he had been taking a break because he was like seriously thinking about asking her to be in a long-term committed relationship. And then he had to go back to certain women and close things up with them.

• 1:19:28Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:19:29Speaker 04

  So he was like distracted, ending these other relationships.

• 1:19:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and trying to make sure it was the right thing. Wow.

• 1:19:35Speaker 04

  Sabotaged herself.

• 1:19:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:19:36Speaker 04

  So it, so in calling in the one, we make that conscious. And then we go back and say, what's the deeper truth?

• 1:19:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:43Speaker 04

  You know, well, your dad left, but not every man will ever leave you.

• 1:19:47Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:19:47Speaker 04

  And probably if you learn some relationship skills on how to navigate difficult conversations, you'd have a higher chance of staying together.

• 1:19:53Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:19:54Speaker 04

  Right?

• 1:19:54Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Yeah. And maybe they will leave you again.

• 1:19:57Speaker 04

  And may-

• 1:19:58Lewis Howes?

  But not everyone will.

• 1:19:58Speaker 04

  But not, exactly.

• 1:20:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:00Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:20:01Lewis Howes?

  You can't say, well, see, I'm just, I'm right now because this person left or they were interested and then they left. Like, that's called dating.

• 1:20:07Speaker 04

  It is called dating. I say that to people all the time.

• 1:20:10Lewis Howes?

  It's called, they don't have to make a decision in the first two weeks or the first two months to be with you or not.

• 1:20:15Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:20:16Lewis Howes?

  It's called getting to know someone and seeing where it goes.

• 1:20:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:20:19Lewis Howes?

  It's not like you're not good enough.

• 1:20:20Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:20:21Lewis Howes?

  Maybe it's just not a good fit or the right timing, or maybe he's into someone else, whatever.

• 1:20:25Speaker 04

  So I'd so so so I'd get people I kind of help people to wake up out of that trance and get into a place of real possibility, like the recognition that you actually have the power to influence what comes your way and does it come your way and get into a sense of possibility and then begin to live into a vision and start to align with that vision and live in integrity with that vision.

• 1:20:48Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:20:48Speaker 04

  So that you're not like living your neurosis, you're kind of living and you know, the thing about having these, you know, a lot of us have been doing our work and we kind of know our issues quote unquote backwards and forwards, but there's something different about actually even giving up the right to have a certain conversation, right? So you can like sit in therapy for five years and talk about men always leave me, or you could have a moment where you say, it's not actually true, it's the story of a five-year-old, this is what's actually true and that's going to require me to show up in a different way and I need to start showing up now in integrity with the future I'm committed to creating.

• 1:21:19Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:21:20Speaker 04

  Because calling in the one is not about necessarily, you know, finding the guy, it's about becoming the woman that you would need to be or becoming the man that you would need to be in order to find that partner.

• 1:21:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I had a another friend of mine who's a, you know, does a lot of relationship work as well. I was like, what's the the best way to find like a great partner? He said, create a list of everything you want out of that person, everything you want from them, and then go be that yourself.

• 1:21:43Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 1:21:44Lewis Howes?

  I was like, oh, man, that's strong. You want them to be funny and attractive and outgoing and adventurous and successful, then you've got to be all those things.

• 1:21:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:54Lewis Howes?

  You can't just be half those things and expect someone else to give you more value than you're bringing to the table, really. I mean, you've got to show up in a powerful way.

• 1:22:01Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 1:22:02Lewis Howes?

  So I was like, that is strong.

• 1:22:04Speaker 04

  That's it. And the other thing about calling in the one, I mean, you're a man of a very clear mission.

• 1:22:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:22:09Speaker 04

  And a lot of folks who are here with us today are very clear mission people. So you really need to find like, you need to be living your mission and you need to find someone who's sharing your mission with you.

• 1:22:20Lewis Howes?

  Sharing it or supporting it?

• 1:22:21Speaker 04

  Sharing it or supporting it, but even the support needs to be, this is my contribution to that vision.

• 1:22:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes, and if it's taking away from the vision, it's really challenging.

• 1:22:30Speaker 04

  Because if somebody doesn't actually have that same value system and they're just kind of rah rah, I'm not going to get in the way, like, you're going to go create a family, then you're going to create a home, and then you're going to have kids maybe, and you know, and if they really have like, A traditional value system, they're gonna be like, "Oh, you're, you're out, you know, running around talking to people again?" No, you should be home with the kids this weekend.

• 1:22:51Lewis Howes?

  That's a challenge, you know.

• 1:22:52Speaker 04

  So you really do, I think you have to find a mission partner if you really want to go all the way. And also to maximize the potentials of the, of the connection. I mean, that's the ideal. And then you know what? We human beings seem to make it work in all sorts of funny configurations. And every single relationship is unique to the people who are in it. And, um, and, and relationships will inspire us to continue to grow if we're really committed to maximizing the potentials of each connection.

• 1:23:19Lewis Howes?

  Thank you so much for listening to this episode all about relationships. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure to subscribe to the podcast over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Make sure to leave a review over on Apple Podcasts as well. And let me know what part of this episode you enjoyed the most. And of course, share this with some friends, lewishouse.com/1149. You can take that link and post it over on social media or text a few friends that you think would be inspired by this episode as well. And I want to leave you with a quote from Marcus Aurelius, who said, "When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." I'm so grateful for you being here today, for you listening and

• 1:24:01Lewis Howes?

  taking part in this episode. I hope you got a lot of wisdom and I hope you can take this wisdom and integrate and apply it into your daily life in your relationships. In my opinion, the key to success in life is successful, happy, thriving relationships. And, and the key to successful relationships is really being your most authentic, vulnerable self in those relationships and being of service in those relationships. So see about your relationships right now. Look at them, reflect on them, take inventory on them. Are they working for you? Are you supporting one another? Or are they maybe not where they need to be? If so, what can you do to get them back on track? Or what can you do to start creating new relationships to really help you thrive in your life? Again, I'm so grateful for you. And if no one has told you lately, I want to remind you that you

• 1:24:45Lewis Howes?

  are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.