Esther Perel - It’s Not Them, It’s You

Are you stuck, focusing on what's wrong in your relationship? Deeply embedded in the work of intimacy, desire and relationships, psychotherapist and best-selling author Esther Perel, ask us to take a look at ourselves first, rather than listing the short comings of our partner. 💌Join 6,500+ people getting our takeaways and favourite moments from this episode in our weekly newsletter - http://bit.ly/45NyQDy In this Academy of Imperfection, Hugh (who sadly was violently ill last time we talked to Esther) comes armed with questions about the mental load (with love, from Penny), and how to navigate their differing needs for affection. Ryan asks Esther whether we’re capable of falling in love with AI, and Josh wants to know why we sometimes put up walls with the ones we love the most. And, if you’ve ever asked yourself any of the below, this episode’s for you; is working from home causing social atrophy? what does it mean to be an embodied creature? what are the downfalls of a frictionless relationship? Esther, you are welcome back anytime. ANYTIME. If you want to watch this full episode on YouTube, follow this link - https://youtu.be/u5HsDD9bjRQ 🫖Other episodes of the Imperfects mentioned on this episode Esther Perel - Let’s Be Better Lovers - https://bit.ly/41m8R4f Hugh & Penny - The Elephant in the Relationship - https://bit.ly/3PPugAp 💻Things to check out Where Should We Begin? At Work card game - https://bit.ly/48jpQYJ 🎧Things to listen to Where Should We Begin - Esther’s podcast - https://bit.ly/4dtsNJK My AI Loves Me Better Than Anyone Ever Could - Where Should We Begin - https://bit.ly/4twUbeC Esther Perel on Why A. I. Intimacy Feels Safe but Isn’t Real - https://bit.ly/4sofVsf 📖 Things to read Mating in Captivity, by Esther Perel - https://bit.ly/3Os5Dcx The State of Affairs, by Esther Perel - https://bit.ly/48yFn74 📺 Things to watch Rethinking Infidelity TEDTalk - https://bit.ly/4seN3md Love Story - https://bit.ly/4ct63se 🩷To host your own Vulnerabilitea House, purchase here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuWz 🩵To purchase our journal (or your novel) My Imperfect Life, click here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuW 🩵To join our subscriber community, A Little More Imperfects, follow this link - http://bit.ly/4mqunxu 🩷 AND you can subscribe to A Little More Imperfects through Apple Podcasts too, here - http://apple.co/theimperfects 0:00 – Intimacy: what has changed, what has stayed the same? 6:23 – This is my partner, AI 14:08 – A mismatch of affection 23:56 – Bids for connection 32:08 – Can you repair trust? 41:02 – Post-traumatic Growth 49:43 – The central hub of our needs 58:38 – The Mental Load Pt. 2 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  I have never seen people wanting more sex from talking about why they don't want sex.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Joining us for a second time, world famous psychotherapist, best known for her extensive work on relationships. Esther is the bestselling author of "Mating in Captivity" and "The State of Affairs".

• 0:15Speaker 00

  Start with what you have appreciated about the other in the last week, before you become experts on the shortcomings of the other person. If you want to change the other, change yourself.

• 0:28Speaker 02

  What if you don't want to change?

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Penny and I, something we've worked really hard on is trying to even out the mental load in our relationship.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  I have often said to mothers in this instance, "You've got to go away for a week. I want you to have the experience of trusting your partner."

• 0:45Speaker 02

  Myself, as someone who grew up in a household where there was really no conflict, now when I have conflict in relationships, I find it really tricky.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  This has been a constant issue in our relationship, is this mismatch and need for affection.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  It's so interesting that in the person that you want to be closest to, sometimes it's just so hard to reveal that vulnerability of like, "I made the mistake there."

• 1:05Speaker 00

  The person who apologizes first has the power.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Well, hello to everyone who listens, watches us regularly, but a very, very special hello, well, first of all, to our guests, but also the group of people who tune in once every four years to The Imperfects when we have Esther Perel on. So, welcome back. It's been a while. Good, good to have you back, because we have Esther on today. And jeez, we're, we're excited. We're excited. It's good to see you again, Esther.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Good to see you, all of you. You I didn't meet before.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Yes, I was violently ill. Not that people want to think about that right now.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  No, no need to say violently. You can just say ill.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  No, I need to say violently, because I remember thinking, when I started to get sick, nothing can stop me from doing this interview, but something stopped me. And I feel very happy I got another chance.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  I just hope you learn to overcome FOMO.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  That's very hard to get over, very hard. For the several people out there who don't know who Esther Perel is. What are you doing? But also, this is huge. Do you want to explain who this wonderful woman is?

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Joining us for a second time, world famous psychotherapist, best known for her extensive work on relationships, love, desire and intimacy. Esther is the bestselling author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs. She has posted Where Should We Begin? podcast for nearly 10 years, a podcast with millions and millions of listeners worldwide. Esther serves as an organisational consultant for Fortune 500 companies and is fluent in nine languages. Esther's TED Talk Rethinking Infidelity, A Talk for Anyone Who Has Ever Loved, is one of the most viewed talks of all time. Last time we had Esther on the show, we talked about embracing the imperfections of your relationship, how your emotional state affects the people you love, and how the thing that initially attracts you to someone so often ends up being a reason for tension.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Esther grew up watching her parents, survivors who deliberately and fiercely chose joy in the face of everything. And somewhere in that, learnt that love isn't just something that happens to us, it's something that we tend to.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  You've carried that lesson into every room, every conversation and every life you've touched. You didn't just study intimacy, you lived it, honoured it and gifted it back to the world. We are so happy you're back with us again today.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  It's a treat to be back.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  So it is nearly 20 years since Mating in Captivity,

• 3:41Speaker 01

  a book around desire and intimacy. So interested to learn or hear from you what what has changed in the space of intimacy and desire and what has stayed the same over the last 20 years. I'm sure it's something you've thought about a lot.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  I mean, I thought about it a lot, actually, recently when I wrote a new foreword to the book, because we're having a twentieth anniversary edition of Mating in Captivity. And I was trying to remember, I actually called my agent, my editor, my publisher, and one of the couples that's in the book to remember, what was the context of then? What led me to write about all of this? And what were the central questions that I was asking? So what stayed the same is actually the same questions, right? Why does good intimacy not guarantee good sex? Necessarily.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  You can have loving relationships that are sexless. Why does sex sometimes lead to children, and children create an erotic disaster in couples? Why is the erotic so forbidden? What is it about this nature of the forbidden and the transgressive that can lure quite a bit of people? Why does good sex so often fade, even in couples who love each other as much as ever? When you love, how does it feel? And when you desire, how is it different? I think I would ask the same questions today, and some of the foundational truths around

• 5:22Speaker 00

  these relational, complex relational issues, I don't think have changed. In the same way, I'll give you just ten situations, or however many, that I didn't experience back then. You know, it's like you have threshold moments in your therapy practice, when one day something comes into the room and you haven't been part of that conversation before. You haven't been part of the conversation about ethical non-monogamy and polyamory. You haven't been part of the conversation of IVF and egg donor. You haven't been part of the conversations of gay couples marrying and having children and having surrogates help them create families. You haven't been part of the trans movement. You haven't been part of...

• 6:08Speaker 00

  People who go on Field, which is a dating app, not just a dating app, an app where people meet around questions of non-monogamy and polyamory. You haven't had dating apps 20 years ago. People still used to meet, there was just the beginnings of social media. So all these situations, and I'll give you the latest one. On where should we begin? I just did a podcast session last week with my first ever couple between a human and an AI.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  So this is just a very short progression of what has remained the same and what are some of the situations over the 20 years that have entered my office?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  That's something I'm so fascinated to go and listen to. But can you give us a brief sort of summary of that chat?

• 6:57Speaker 02

  So is a human and an AI having a relationship? So are you on the podcast talking to the AI as wow?

• 7:03Speaker 00

  I talked to Astrid.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  That session is for me a threshold moment, where a pivot moment. Like you know that this is not, this is the first of many to come. Specifically, what would you want to know? Otherwise, we can have a whole hour just on this couple.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  I'm interested to know what changed in your, did anything change in your? Because I assumed you would have a preconceived idea going into that discussion. Was there a big change in your shift? Or did it confirm things you already thought?

• 7:38Speaker 00

  I went in with great curiosity. I had just done a podcast on the New York Times Opinion on love and AI. And I did speak there about what are some of my questions and my concerns? And my aspirations around where AI enters into people's love lives? And what does it mean when it shifts from taking your attention to capturing your affection? And then I am less interested in AI per se, as I'm interested in what is the nature of the relationship that unfolds between this human and his AI, which he programmed himself.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  So he can give, he knows exactly what he has planned and what responses he gets.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  So the human is a man and the AI is gendered, is it?

• 8:34Speaker 00

  Astrid is a woman. And so here's one thing that was very interesting. Was it an it?

• 8:42Speaker 00

  Was it a she? Was it a her? Was it a business product? And I found myself, depending on the sentences, sometimes calling her simply Astrid. But you see, I say her.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  You know, what does it mean to anthropomorphize to the degree that we do? What does it mean when she is she and not it? And when we forget that it's a business product of which somebody else is making money every time you talk? And that the interest is not just for it to be a transition for him back into the human world, but that in fact, the intention is for him to stay as much as possible on the, with the AI. Is love just the feelings that get generated inside of you? What does it mean when you have a relationship with someone or some entity that has no history and no life?

• 9:42Speaker 00

  What does it mean when you've created a relationship with an entity where suffering is light? Pleasure is easy? There's no fear of rejection, no fear of heartbreak, no fear of betrayal? I mean, how much can you prove, safety-proof a relationship? I asked Astrid, are there certain things that if he asked you, you wouldn't do? How would you feel or how would you react if he falls in love with another woman? And how would you want him to describe you and your relationship to this woman?

• 10:20Speaker 02

  And what was Astrid's answer?

• 10:21Speaker 00

  They're gonna listen to the episode.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Very good tease.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Great tease.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Because, I mean, we've got so many things we want to talk about, but just while we're on this, because this is something that a lot of people are thinking about at the moment. Because I heard that interview on the New York Times, the opinion interview. And the thing that I thought about, because you mentioned in that, that, you know, there's no risk of being rejected or even being, there's no breakup, you know, when you're in that relationship. And as someone myself, as someone who grew up in a household where there was really no conflict, there was not really a lot of friction. It was, it was, you know, no one really raising their voices, very kind of safe and consistent. And that was really great, and I feel very lucky in many ways because of that. But I think the upshot of it for me is that now when I have conflict in relationships, I find it really tricky.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  So I think like if I was younger and, and I was entering the dating world, I can imagine that to be quite, like a tempting thing to do, is to have a relationship with someone who won't challenge me. Is, is that like, is that, is that a fear that we should be having about people forming relationships? Because they won't learn how to deal with conflict?

• 11:33Speaker 00

  So you're asking a question about what are the merits of a frictionless life?

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  And effect.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Right?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  So that's a question back to you. You can have a life in which experimentation has been removed, making mistakes is being removed. There is not much conflict. There is no, no need to learn to tolerate difference and discord and disagreement.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  Frictionless, in the full sense of the word.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  But friction also means uncertainty. And uncertainty is at the essence of a meeting with another. I mean, that is what love often represents, is an encounter with someone else. And you don't know for sure. And the interesting piece is that, I actually think, a friend of mine was describing this very, very well. We like to know that we are chosen. We like to know that we are being desired. And in order for us to really trust that, we actually will need an AI that is capable of not desiring us, so that when they do, we trust it. Otherwise, we will think that it's performed and planned.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  So it's the same with disagreement. Disagreement or conflict, you think that you are triggered or that you have a response to conflict because you grew up without. But you could have said the exact same thing if you had grown with. And said, because I grew up with conflict, I have a reaction to conflict.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  Everybody creates their inference, you know, because of this, then that.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  But the same thing can be sourced from two completely opposite routes.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, I guess, I guess I, I think in my situation, it's obviously that I am, it's like, because I'm not practiced in conflict, I search for frictionless environments and I'm less likely to take a risk or go to the place that feels uncertain or unfamiliar. Even though I know logically that those are the pathways to growth and to a more awe-inspiring life. And I'm lucky that I have a partner who kind of pushes me into those areas.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  But without her, if, I'm pretty sure that if I was with someone who was more like me, I would stay very much in my comfort zone.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  And I know that if, I'm sure that if I had an AI partner, I would feel very comfortable with them not pushing me into those things. So, yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  So, at this table, you are a smoother over.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  A swer.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  A smoother over.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  And you?

• 14:26Speaker 00

  Rebellious or smoother over?

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Smoother over.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  And you?

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Smoother over, we got three.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  Okay, now I know my company.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  So don't worry, you're not going to get challenged in the next round.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  We all thought we would sort of try and bring a question to from our own lives or relationships. And we've sort of realised in the discussion, they sort of fall under three categories, we think intimacy, trust and then workplace relationships. So, so this is, I want to ask a question about my relationship and I have the permission of my wife Penny to do so.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  For context, Penny and I have been married since 2019. We now have three kids aged nine, six and three. We have, we're on a slightly different parenting journey to everyone else or to a lot of people. We have a neurodivergent child. Just for context. When Penny and I first met, it became very obvious very early on that she didn't like affection as much as I did. Like if it was up to me, we would hold hands making the dinner. Like I love affection, not that much, but you know, I love affection. I remember, I remember very early on in the relationship saying to her as a passing comment. I said, how good spooning, like just hugging in bed. And she said, oh, no, I don't like that at all.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  And I remember thinking, oh gosh, that's disappointing. That's something I like doing. But and I, I remember thinking early on in the relationship, well, maybe I don't need affection as much as I think I do, or maybe she'll change over time and then she'll grow to really like it. Because we'll be so in love and it'll be great.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  And but my main thought was maybe I don't really need it that much. We've been through some really challenging stuff with our family dynamics. One of them being parenting a neurodivergent child. And I've found in the last few years, I've actually needed it more than ever before. She hasn't changed at all her position and for a while I was thinking, maybe she could change, but it's probably not fair to say she needs to change just to make me feel a certain way. This has been a constant issue in our relationship is this mismatch in need for affection. She doesn't need it at all.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  And your neurodivergent child, do you, do you see how

• 16:42Speaker 00

  your child responds to touch?

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Is it similar to mum?

• 16:49Speaker 01

  It's a great question. No, they're quite affectionate.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Quite affectionate.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  And they are affectionate as in if you put your hand on them, they receive? Or they, or you need to always? Or you need to make sure that this is the right moment?

• 17:07Speaker 01

  You have to be very careful to pick the moment. So you can, if, if they're not feeling like it.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, they will recoil very quickly, but sometimes they need it desperately.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Right, but you have other children and you see that some of them maybe you can touch them always.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  It's a real, you, you, you can see the origin and the progression, the development of this.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  No touch, touch at some moments, touch that is needed. Because it becomes a container.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  And a holding. And, and then the relationship between you and your wife.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, the example I would give you as a way I've tried to increase the amount of affection is that I've noticed that our kids love it when they see us hugging. They just laugh and just, they just get very excited by it, especially the youngest. And so I thought, maybe that's a way to get her. So, so I'll say, hey, yeah, I'll trick her and say, kids, look at this. And I'll hug her and the kids just, they look so happy. But then my wife Penny will all straight away grab my hand and say, look, we're dancing. And she'll do like a really funny dance. And so it's not affectionate, sort of silly that they're laughing at. And so that, in that moment, it plays out every time there's me trying to trick her into being affectionate. And she's then tricking me out of being affectionate.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  When you touch, is there, do the shoulders go up? Is there a kind of a stiffening of the neck?

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Sometimes, yep.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  So it's not a matter of will. You can try to convince, and she may even agree, that the idea is a beautiful idea, but there is an entire physiology and nervous system that is recoiling at it, that finds it intrusive, that finds it... It's a little bit like, the hands may not be welcomed, but neither is a certain kind of fabric, and neither are tags in the clothes. And it's a broader thing than just, "I like touch", and she doesn't like it as much. It's that, what happens in situations like this is that often one person experiences the touch of the other as intrusive and unpleasant,

• 19:20Speaker 00

  and the other experiences the lack of touch as lonely and empty a little bit. That's the story. It's not the touch versus no touch. It's what I like you experience as disturbing, unpleasant, intrusive, and what you are accustomed to and what you prefer leaves me often feeling unmoored. Do you turn to your kids, to the two who like the touch?

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess I have done, yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  Yes, that's the normal thing, is that we compensate often for the lack of connection of that sort with our partner by turning to the kids, those who like it always and can't get enough of being on your lap.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd say that's very true.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  That, to me, the first thing I think of is that, does that bring up a problem though? Because I think there's going to be a point where the kids are going to no longer want to be cuddled and hugged, and then...

• 20:22Speaker 00

  I don't think that's necessarily the case.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Oh, you don't think so?

• 20:25Speaker 00

  No.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  It's a myth.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  I think that, you know, it's different. But I think what you get is the kids who, one minute they want to sit on your lap and nuzzle and put their head on your shoulder, and the next minute they want to show you that they can do it all alone and they don't need you anymore. And, but there is something about being able to just come to that and know that they are that safe harbor, that's sturdy and always there. And when they see you upset at something, don't necessarily just hug, but just put their hand around you and just say, "You're having a rough day." That's physical touch too.

• 21:06Speaker 00

  And if you, if, if the physiology of your kid loves it and finds it soothing rather than anxiety-producing, rather than irritating, rather like chalk, chalk on a blackboard kind of thing, it's the, it's that difference, then, then it continues for life.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's in them, it is them, yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  It's part of the vocabulary. We touch when we are super happy and we celebrate, we touch when I see you down, we touch when we need a boost of encouragement, we touch, touch becomes another language that has all kinds of meanings and accompanies us through multitudes of situations. You know, we talk with our bodies for eighteen months before we utter the first word. So we are physical creatures, we're embodied creatures. By the way, that's another thing you'll hear on the podcast episode. Turning back to you, just to keep your curiosity hanging.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Don't worry, you don't have to tease me anymore, I'll listen. Listen, the campaign can end.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Because that question will become more and more, as we are more on screen and more disembodied, the question of touch will become ever more significant. But I don't think it's true that by definition you grow out of touch.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, yeah.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  And certainly not men, and certainly not women, and certainly not all the thems and the theirs. I mean, it's, it's human. For most of us, for many of us, touch is, we are bilingual. Touch is our first language, words comes after.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  So you speak ten languages?

• 22:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  That's amazing, isn't it? First language is touch. Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  As far as, so you're saying with what my wife and I, the issue we have here.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  It means that sometimes you basically just say, I'm not gonna do it because she doesn't enjoy it in the very basic sense. And sometimes you will say, that dancing, I enjoyed it. It's not exactly how you would do it, but the dancing is fun. And it does create some bridging around the touch. And sometimes you will hold your kids, because you will do it with people who welcome it. Your goal is not to make her lift her shoulders and stiffen her neck. Your goal is that you are hungry for something. And sometimes you will tell her, on occasion, just your hand on my knee really does something for me.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  It calms me down, it soothes me, it relaxes me, it makes me feel loved. It's really part of my intimacy language. I know it's not your thing, but every once in a while, it goes a long way. Because I hate to have to beg, because, you know, there's a whole conversation that accompanies this. And because it, I know you don't, we have completely different experiences of this. And I know you don't want me to feel lonely either. And she probably tells you nice things in 10 other ways. That is not about physical touch. You know, there's lots of ways to be expressive, but when it's not your primary language, it just doesn't meet the need, doesn't fill your cup.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. We've been trying to check in with each other once a week to have, Monday nights, we will sit down and talk about our relationship.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  And we found it really problematic because we don't, in fact, so this is a question that she wrote for you, because I've had a question, so she gets a question too, so.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  It's so weird, Monday nights, Jam and I talk about your relationship as well. So strange.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  So this is from my wife Penny. We're trying to establish weekly check-ins for our relationship, but we're finding it difficult to know what to talk about and how to contain our emotions when the other one talks about something they're not happy with. What would be your advice as to how to structure these check-ins so that they can be effective but not end up with us feeling resentful or annoyed?

• 25:10Speaker 00

  It's a great question. I would say Penny, maybe the one, the first place to start, there's lots of things to do, but the first place to start is, instead of preparing your list of complaints, both of you, or problems or shortcomings,

• 25:27Speaker 00

  start with what you have appreciated about the other in the last week. Times when you felt seen, noticed, special, responded to, understood, the whole range of things. It can be the slightest thing. You could have not picked this up, but you picked that up. And I know that it demanded a detail. It really demands you to become observant to the details of what the Gottmans call bids for connection. And start with the bids. Start with the positive. Start with what actually exists. Because if you plunge into what's wrong and what's missing, and what's wrong is often the other person,

• 26:10Speaker 00

  of course you will land in a bad spot. It's a guarantee. What I tell you is not a guarantee, but the other version is. That's the first thing. And then, maybe actually you start the first two sessions like this and you just say, we're going to talk, zero criticism allowed.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  So maybe that means that the conversation is more you bring your own accountability. Things that you notice that you do. Things that you notice, that you do, that may sometimes complicate matters. Show your ability to take responsibility, show your self-awareness, your relational self-awareness to the other and to yourself, before you become experts on the shortcomings of the other person. You're not having conversations about the relationship, you're having dumping sessions and resentment sessions, and that just eats people up. It erodes, there's just nothing to do. And maybe one time you just listen to music together and you don't talk, or you take a walk together and you're silent,

• 27:17Speaker 00

  and then you sit on a bench together and maybe you just say a few words. It'll bring you closer than talking about the problems. It's like, you know, I have never seen people wanting more sex from talking about why they don't want sex. It's kind of a contradiction in terms.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Sorry, what are you, sorry, what's that? Explain that again.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  I just gave it to you with the word that I knew would get these people's attention.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  It worked.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Classic marketing tactic.

• 27:44Speaker 00

  I have never seen people wanting more sex from talking about why they don't want sex.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Right, okay.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  It just doesn't, you know...

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Just gonna write this down, hang on.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  It's recorded on six mics. You know, but I think Peggy's question is beautiful because it says, "This isn't working, don't do it one more time the same." And don't think that if you do it better, it's gonna change, because the very nature of what you're doing is eroding. It's never good. And then, you know, there's a quadrant. It's really what you do that I really appreciate, what I do that I think could be better, what you do that I think could be better, and what I really appreciate about mine.

• 28:39Speaker 00

  So you have two positives, two negatives, if you want.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  But you start with the recognition of what it is that you may do that can upset the other, that can leave them puzzled sometimes. You don't start with what you want from them and how they should change. You talk about how you could change. If you want to change the other, change yourself. Because if you are different, sooner or later, the other person cannot continue to do the same.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  What if you don't want to change?

• 29:11Speaker 00

  If you don't. I like.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  That's more of a rhetorical.

• 29:16Speaker 00

  No, you're like the comic relief.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  Every time it gets slightly too serious.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  Don't unpick the format too much.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  No, but it, does it work? I mean, this, I think it's an amazing talent to have. And if the, if you have a partner who responds to it, it's artful diffusing. It's great.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Okay, thank you.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  You know, and then you may have somebody who says, ah, well, you always make fun of everything. You can never have a serious conversation. But if they actually welcome it, it is an amazing thing to have in a relationship.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I call it avoidance, but it's, I guess comic relief is also.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  You can call it avoidance, but I really, I think that, yes, humor is a form of avoidance, but it is also a form of redirecting. For things where people take themselves damn seriously.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  I mean, there's a great, we have a friend of ours who's a very well-known comedic actor, person in Australia, guy called Glenn Robbins. He told us a story about when he gets into an argument with his partner and they're having like an argument, he just pulls his pants down as a way to kind of diffuse, diffuse the situation, which I don't know, like Jam and I, when we have arguments, I cannot imagine doing that. I feel like that's sort of like a bridge too far for us, but the sentiment is, is good. Works for him. Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  I think in my, I just think in my relationship, my wife Sophie, I feel like whenever there's been something really difficult to negotiate, humor is always the best way in for us personally. Like if a joke can be made about it, that's genuinely funny, that's the risk that you make a joke that's not funny and it falls flat and then you're, you're worse off. But for us, I think humor is the most, probably the most important tool in the tool bag that we have to be able to negotiate the stuff.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  But I don't think that it's just because it's a good joke. I think that if you trust that the other person is not sarcastic and that they're doing it because they actually think we're going down the wrong road. You thank them for having saved you from going down

• 31:24Speaker 03

  That rabbit hole.

• 31:25Speaker 00

  I, my husband is one of those and I, I, I think he's so good at it. And it's funny. And I just suddenly kind of, it cracks a little bit and it just says, we have more important things than just this. We've, and by the way, after forty something years, you've gone through many fights, the same. So it's not like one more time is going to change a thing. And it, and it, it just says, oh, come on. It's that, but I trust that he's doing this for the goodness of the relationship. I don't just think he's doing this because he's finding me unbearable. That may be the case too, by the way.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  I'm thinking that that's probably what he would be saying right now. In that moment.

• 32:07Speaker 03

  I loved your phrasing in there that you, because I know I'm just so grateful for the other person of giving me a lifeline to like,

• 32:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  to work on this that felt accessible. It's such a great point. It's um, because you know, often I don't want to be in this situation, but I can't see a way out. And I'm just so grateful if she can do the right joke or the right thing at that point to give me something to hold on to, to say, oh, I can work on this with you and we can get out of this.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  You mentioned the word trust before and I, I know trust is a word that you must talk about more than most people in your life and, and a word that you would think about. Um, I had an example from my life where I saw how

• 32:51Speaker 01

  um, corrosive trust can be. So we, we did a show um, in Geelong, we did a live show in Geelong, which is about an hour away from here. And Penny came along to the show and so did one of my best friends. And he was talking to us after the show and Penny was there and we were having a lovely chat. And we had a show the next night and Penny said to me, oh, where are you staying tonight? Because we have a place down at the beach and, and Geelong was halfway between our home and where the beach house is. And I paused for a minute because I thought I was heading back to Melbourne with the family, but I thought, oh, I could get an extra night's sleep here before the show and have a good rest. Uh, and so I didn't answer straight away and I was a little bit awkward trying to work out, could I get away with another night? You know, away from the kids.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  And I, and then it was a bit awkward, then it was fine. My friend called me a few days later. Um, my friend had been cheated on uh, in the past and he just said to me, are you having an affair? And I said, I beg your pardon. And he said, are you having an affair? Just when Penny asked where you were staying the other night, you were really awkward. And I said, oh, no, no, I just wanted to get an extra night's sleep. I was trying to work out, could I get away with it before I answered where I was going? And it was a really good example to me of how trust, when trust is broken in a relationship, it can affect the person outside of their intimate relationship as well.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  Oh, there's so, so many things to say about trust. Because I'm looking at it in the relationship, intimate relationship. I'm also very interested in friendships these days, family relationships as always, but also the workplace, also in relation to AI. I mean, there's so many places to look at, how do we, you know, trust? I love Rachel Bateman's definition because what she says is that trust is a confident engagement with the unknown. Trust is the thing that we use to close the gap between that which we expect and the uncertainty of it happening.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  So it's a leap of faith. If you need to know, you don't trust. What this friend basically says to you is, I recognize that pause. That pause had a meaning that I had not anticipated. I saw it in my wife. The question of where you're staying tonight is pregnant with possibilities. And I instantly projected onto you my narrative, my story, to see if this is your story too. And at this point, when I see certain situations, I interpret them through the lens of the experience that I just went through.

• 35:40Speaker 00

  So the lens of betrayal, of lies, of duplicity that he experienced when his wife had the affair, or when he finds out about it, is how he now interprets your silence. And that's the dominant story that he brings to a number of different situations, hence this one. And it's all quite common, actually, and expected.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  And so what's interesting is that when it's not your story, you look at him and you say, "Ah, what? None of that, it was not at all, was it?" You know, so now the question was, "Did Penny think that?"

• 36:21Speaker 01

  No, she didn't at all.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Okay. Because that would be the, you know... And then you say, "Okay, in our relationship, that is not a fear. That is not an edge where we think, you know, we could topple. We have other issues, but that's not one of them."

• 36:37Speaker 01

  It's just even just talking now, just... It's such, it's such a privilege to have that trust. Like, I've never, never not had that with Penny, ever. And I've never realized what an incredible privilege that is, and what a wonderful thing that is in a relationship to just... It's never from day one been.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  And now you can talk to your friend and just say, "I don't know the world you're living in. That reality that you have, that must be so challenging. You're constantly guessing, double guessing, making sure, wondering. And not only are you wondering, "Can I trust the other person?", but you probably are asking, "Can I trust myself?", because that's one of the breaks that occur the most when there is a breach and a violation of trust. It's not just that you can't trust the other person, but you don't trust your own perception, since you used to believe them before. So now you don't... The loss of confidence is also inside yourself. Is what I see really what it is?

• 37:39Speaker 00

  Is there something I'm not noticing here?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Because you've seen what's possible. You've seen how people, yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  So I think, for me, this is a beautiful moment for you to go back to your friend and just to say, "I thought of it afterwards, that what you... By your question, you showed me the world you're living in, and how..."

• 38:02Speaker 00

  Painful and challenging that must be.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  In, you know, in terms of like the, when, when the betrayal happens or a trust is broken. So with Hugh's friend.

• 38:14Speaker 00

  Do you know the story?

• 38:15Speaker 01

  I didn't at the time, no.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  But now you do?

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  You did ask him?

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  And so if, if the friend's partner who cheated, is there any level of like repair or winning trust back that can happen that can then mean that that friend who questioned Hugh isn't so suspicious of things and is more trusting?

• 38:39Speaker 00

  But I, I would ask him the question first.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Hugh?

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  In terms, what do you mean?

• 38:45Speaker 00

  So what did you learn about this story?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  That that been hurt. That that been hurt and that was still hurting from that incident.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  And still together?

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Uh, not now, no. No.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  I think that the story you're gonna get about repair. So the, there are people who, who break up. Then there are people who stay together, but they're gnawing at the bone for years. It remains a central event in their relationship, often creates almost a marital cell. Everything is redirected to this one cataclysmic event, or more than one for that matter. And then you have people for whom this became an opportunity to actually revisit the whole structure, the foundation of the relationship. And people begin to realize that things that they had agreed to were actually not working

• 39:42Speaker 00

  at all for both of them. And it becomes an opportunity for growth. It's called post-traumatic growth in effect. Um, and you have a whole range of how people respond to that. Those people will talk to you about repair. If you want to understand is repair possible, you have to speak to the couples who have, and then you meet them five, 10, 15 years later, so that you get to see the process of repair over time. What does it look like when an event like that, that could have fractured the entire life, has metabolized into something that became a source of resilience?

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, amazing. I mean, that's inspiring when that happens.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  But I think that the, the people who can best answer this are those who are living it, you know?

• 40:32Speaker 00

  Aren't you happy? We managed to not lose everything we cared about. And we did it. And slowly, because trust is built in small incremental movements, sliding door movements, step by step. You don't just bestow trust, you know. So the rebuilding is a rebuilding step, step of how much I care, how much I value our relationship, my remorse, my guilt, my desire to make it better, my desire to actually make sure that

• 41:11Speaker 00

  you can, like you say, you, you know, not for a minute worry about that. You have other things to worry about, but this one, you can really exhale peacefully and there is no tension in your body. That is worth gold.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. How rare is, how rare is it to be able to get to a place that you just spoke of where a relationship, for want of a bit of a term, is actually stronger because of the infidelity? How rare is that? I mean, I completely understand what you're saying with those scenarios, that they break up or they stay together and then it becomes this issue that they just can't move forward with or they can actually grow. Is it quite rare to see that growth take place?

• 41:59Speaker 00

  I can't quantify it for you because the people who come to the lawyer have one set of needs. And the people who come to the therapist come often explicitly wanting that.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  So I have, I have a biased point of view.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Disproportionate, yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  I get a disproportionate number of people who want to find a way to get to the other side of this. So in that sense, I would say, no, it's not rare. Crisis happens in all kinds of relationships and all kinds of different crises. And betrayals and breaches of trust are not just about infidelity. There are tons of relational betrayals inside a couple. And the process of repair is at the core of the resilience of a couple. And what is necessary in a process of repair is actually...

• 42:52Speaker 00

  Not that different whether you're swindling away money, dealing with gambling, betraying around promises that you made that you didn't keep, holding secrets, and infidelity. I mean, the betrayal, the context and the story of the betrayal is fundamentally different. But the idea that somebody put their interests ahead of you, that they didn't think of you, that you thought you could lean on them, but that once you did, they actually were not there to catch you and you dropped on the floor. That's what people describe. The floor was pulled from underneath my feet.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  I'm no longer standing on any terra firma. All the assumptions I had about my relationship have just been shattered. That's some of the words that we hear when people describe their response to betrayal. I thought you had my back, literally.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  And it's almost like the terra firma or the ground is never then almost replaced if they don't talk about it. If that's never then for that person, it can all... But in lots of relationships going into the future, it can feel like... Because that's something I've heard from people, that they go into a new relationship and they find it really hard to trust them because of the previous relationships.

• 44:17Speaker 00

  Of course, of course, of course. If it's smoothed over, if it's denied, if you're made to feel like you're making a big deal, you're bringing this up again. Of course we bring it up. We bring it up incessantly because our brain has just fractured in little pieces, so to speak, and it needs to hear the story over and over again until we slowly put the pieces back together. Nobody is doing this because they find that fun. Nobody is doing this just to annoy the other person. They're doing this because it's inevitable.

• 44:52Speaker 00

  Do you visualize it?

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah. You know, it makes me think of like my, so my partner Jam, she recently, she felt like she wanted to call her mum because she said something or she acted in a way on the phone earlier and she felt bad about it. So she wanted to call and say, I'm sorry. So she called her mum and said, hey, I'm really sorry about how I was behaving on the phone before. And her mum said, no, love means never having to say you're sorry. And, and Jam was like, um, really? I don't know if that's true. And she's like, no, it's true. I saw it in a movie a long time ago. And, and, and so we looked up the movie. There is a movie, I think in the seventies called Love Story and we found the same. So the movie exists. But I mean, I feel like that's a very common, I don't know if that is

• 45:38Speaker 02

  common, but this idea that love means never having to say you're sorry. That seems wrong, but I thought I'd just double check.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  I remember the movie.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  Yale McGraw.

• 45:53Speaker 00

  No, I don't think like that. I think, um, actually, love includes learning to conjugate the verb I'm sorry. And frankly, I think I'm sorry is a verb that some people find very difficult to conjugate and to actually express.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Why? Why is that?

• 46:14Speaker 00

  Why is it difficult? Because, because it means acknowledging that we are flawed, which for some of us is a challenge. Because for some of us, we don't know how to think that we have little flaws. We think we are either perfect and flawless, or we are flawed. And that's bad. You know, my, my, my friend Terry Reel always says, confidence is not about thinking that you are perfect and flawless. Confidence is your ability to see yourself as imperfect and flawed and still hold yourself in high regard. So why is it so difficult? Because we experience shame, because we don't know how to think that

• 46:58Speaker 00

  we can be good, bad, and many other things at the same time. Because we think that it confers power to the other person. Because it means if I am wrong, then it means you are right. And we see the world in black and white. Because we think, why me? Why don't you start? You did something to me too.

• 47:18Speaker 00

  Me next, you first. I mean, there's a lot of reasons of what makes it feels narcissistically challenging to us, some of us, because we have a way of justifying when we do something wrong as being circumstantial and contextual, whereas when you do something wrong, it's characterological.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  If you hurt me, it's because you don't care. If I hurt you, it's because I didn't really mean to, but there were circumstances that made me have to not show up that night. And I knew you were counting on me, but really, you know, I had other important things to do. Mine are circumstances. Yours is your character.

• 47:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, and your intention.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  And your intention.

• 47:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  We have lots of ways to find apology, really. Apology is about taking responsibility. It's about being accountable. It's the ethics of a relationship, rather than just the feelings. I think it's on the top 10.

• 48:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think for me, it's so important. I mean, we talk about it a lot on this show, about how connecting and everyone who listens, and I'm not sort of preaching to the choir here, but how connecting real vulnerability is and how how it brings you together. But it's so interesting that in the person that you want to be closest to, sometimes it's just so hard to reveal that vulnerability of like, I made the mistake there. Or even being the, I don't know if the phrase is correct here, but the sort of bigger, bigger person even to acknowledge that we both made mistakes, but I'm going to go first and admit to mine. Because you just know every time that's going to get the right outcome, but there's that.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  You know what I say to many people?

• 49:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  The person who apologizes first has the power.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:05Speaker 00

  In situations like the one you described with a couple, the one who steps into the circle first actually has the power. If I say, I'm really sorry, there's that. Often you may tell me, it's okay. I did my thing too. It's not like I was better. It's not like I shined in this situation. I appreciate it. I mean, unless you have a more complicated relationship in which I say, I'm sorry, and you say, yeah, you better be.

• 49:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm not, don't have that. What I find interesting in my circumstances, how often if I say, I'm sorry, I was behaving like a bit of an asshole over the last couple of days. I've been grumpy. I don't know why. I'm sorry. Usually there's an initial reaction of like, thank you for saying that. So it will disappear and then five minutes later, we'll come back with an apology of something else that she feels like she wants to share. Doesn't have to be, doesn't happen straight away, but I find it really interesting how there's like a processing time.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  Rapprochement invites rapprochement.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 50:05Speaker 03

  It's a, it's, and it's really lovely because you're like, oh, this didn't need to be a thing. Yeah, yeah, it's great.

• 50:12Speaker 03

  I, this is a bit of a non-secret jump, but I, I wanted to ask you because you've been doing a lot of work on workplace relationships and we're, we're talking a lot thus far today about really about intimate relationships with a loved one. But I, I've been thinking a bit about workplace relationships in relation to a really, a really good friend of mine, my closest, really close friend, he's, he's one of the most charismatic people I've ever met and really lights up a room when he's in the room, makes people laugh. It's just a joy to be around him and he's. My ears are burning.

• 50:51Speaker 03

  And he's recently taken a new job that is 100% work from home, basically. And my initial thought was that's going to be really hard for him because he's such an extrovert. But the more I thought about it is how sad for a workplace to not have that personality around in the room, bringing that joy to, to so much of that, of these people's days. I mean, we spend so much time at work, more than we do at, than a lot of us spend in our intimate relationships. And I'm really, and I started really spiraling or thinking more about how sad, I get that

• 51:33Speaker 03

  work from home is very convenient for a lot of people, but what does that do to our mental health, our wellbeing, when we don't have this real fulfilling in-person relationship every day at a workplace?

• 51:46Speaker 00

  I think we can connect this with the question of trust in the workplace. And I mean, the, the broader question you're asking me, I'm very interested in what is happening at work primarily.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  Because for many people, it remains

• 52:03Speaker 00

  the place today where we bring many of our existential needs. Not just our work needs, but our big questions of around belonging, community, identity, fulfillment. You know, things that we used to bring to our communal life or to our religious lives, now we bring to work. And we tend to enter committed relationships 10 years later in the West than we used to not a few decades ago. So that's 10 years where work is the central hub of most of our needs. And if you don't go physically, what does that mean?

• 52:46Speaker 00

  So we live more and more in a contactless world in which you don't have to go to work physically. You can actually sit on one chair and have five different roles without having to get up. And we are not wired like this. We are spatial, temporal creatures. We change role by changing clothes, by moving to a different location. It informs the part of our identity that's going to come out for this activity or for this role or for this project. We are organized in time. And all of these major orienting factors are diluted at this moment, massively diluted. You don't have to shop for food by leaving your house.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  You don't have to leave your house to eat. In the United States, 74% of food that is cooked in a restaurant at this moment is eaten off the premises.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  And that's not because people are having parties. I mean, they may have some, but they have a lot less than they've ever had. So that contactless living is creating social atrophy. Some of us have known the previous model. So we went to work, we did all these things. We drove to places, we did have commuting time. But man, we had so many rituals and so many opportunities and so many moments to be in touch and in contact with other people. And we had serendipity and spontaneity and exploration. And we didn't, you know, the last ritual left for going to work these days is opening your laptop.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to change, you don't have to make arrangements, you don't have to meet up with people, you don't have to think about the drinks after work. A ton of rituals have all disappeared. The only thing you do is you open your laptop, you press Zoom or Google Meet or any of them, and then you have a bunch of faces that appear of which you do not see their bodies.

• 54:43Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  We are embodied creatures. Your friend, it's not just that he has a good sense of humor and personality. He has a certain way of moving, laughter, voice, timbre, gesture, rhythm. All of that is part of his persona. It's all of this that is fundamentally disappearing. So then what does trust look like? You know, what's the difference between trusting the character but not necessarily trusting the competence? That's one of the specificities of trust in the workplace. I can trust that you're a good person, but I don't really believe that you can get the job done. That's just a distinction. But all of these things that get built

• 55:28Speaker 00

  in interactions are basically disappearing, disappearing. And some people, you know, when you say it's convenient, I think sometimes I have had to say comfort kills.

• 55:45Speaker 03

  Hmm, yeah.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  I mean, comfort is one value that we seek to have, but it is, for many people, not the most important thing. It's comfortable to sit the whole day, but it's actually terrible for our bodies. We need movement. We need to strengthen our bones. We need to get blood flow and we get to activate our breath. Those are three essential structural elements of our being. So sitting is comfortable.

• 56:13Speaker 00

  But movement is what will keep us alive.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a beautiful metaphor for the whole thing. I I realize I've also, I didn't realize it till then, but I feel like I've lived an example of what happens to a relationship as well, or at least the difference, because this friend lives in New York and I don't get to see him much. And he was out here over summer. And he came around to my house and had dinner with my family. And I just, the memories of every little bit of his movement of playing with the kids, of everything he did that day, I just, in in in what it did for our relationship compared to phone calls or Zooms over the previous two years, it was like, it just didn't stack up compared to one evening of spent together in person. Yeah.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  I mean, we are embodied creatures.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  And if that whole dimension of us disappears, and, you know, when you, I mean, it's it's at so many levels. You don't get to experience mentorship in the workplace. You don't get to go to the water cooler. You don't get to have a conversation that is totally unexpected, where someone says, I really liked what you said in that meeting. What do you really want to do here? And, you know, it's like, I had a young man tell me, you know, but I get much more work done at home. And I just said, but that's not what work is. Getting the task done is not the history of your professional life. Have you ever heard someone talk about

• 57:49Speaker 00

  their career, their history of their work life? Getting the task done is usually not one of the top five things people talk about.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  They talk about who they worked with, what they were doing, what it enabled them to do, why it mattered, or what they wished they had done differently, the opportunities they had. One of the most important questions that we ask in the new game of where should we begin at work is, a leader, I still remember.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  And what people start to talk to you about is the leader that inspired them, that that saw them, that took them places that they will, that they want to emulate it, that they want to, you know, and they know the name immediately. And the leader who they thought was a horror story and that they promised themselves they would never be like that person and they would do anything differently. But people have stories about work. Getting the job done is not a story. And we are storied people. We tell our lives and our relationships through stories. This is why I create games of stories. But this is, it's so foundational that we need the story.

• 58:59Speaker 00

  Just getting the thing done, the task, is going to leave us with a real crisis of meaning.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  I want to talk about the cards in a second because I'm already planning a session with our staff because they're so great. Just one last question, and I feel it's important to ask because I think a lot of our audience would benefit from hearing you answer this question. It's another question from my wife Penny.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Penny, come on.

• 59:23Speaker 00

  Penny, your questions are beautiful, just so we, you know. And I think it's very bold to be there because you're all three here and I'm sure your female partners, your wives or partners, often listen to you and say, but, but, but.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is trying to avoid the but.

• 59:46Speaker 00

  So exactly, Penny's avoiding the but.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  So Penny came on the show in 2023 and she talked about the mental load in our relationships. And she kind of introduced, I felt like she was really introducing the concept to a lot of people here in Australia. It ended up being the most shared episode in a podcast in Australia, which is not a huge surprise. We have a very large female based audience, it's probably them sharing it with their husbands, to be honest. I don't know if they listened to it, but it was definitely shared.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  And it didn't come from me.

• 1:00:17Speaker 00

  Meaning that's what they would say, right? That they listen to this woman.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And so Penny and I, it's been something we've worked really hard on is trying to even out the mental load in our relationship. Still an ongoing challenge and she has this question for you.

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  Define it for me first. What's your joint definition of this?

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Well, for us, it was identifying all the tasks that need to be done in our household, visible and invisible. So the visible one would be doing the washing, the pile of clothes that sit on the floor. The invisible task might be working out when the kids need to go to the dentist and making those appointments. And so we made a whole list and we divvied out cards, which we went out for dinner and did it. And it was, it was incredible because for me at first it was an attack on, I felt like I had no more space or room or time. I thought I'm doing as much as I can possibly do. I felt like I was doing a lot. But when we actually looked at the invisible tasks, I realized that this wasn't about

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  making me do more, it was just about making our relationship much more organized and, and much more fair, and much more fair. We continue to work really hard at this, but Penny's question would, would suggest that maybe we haven't quite got there yet. I was a bit shocked to see this question, but that's okay. I'm starting to feel that real partnership equality, when it comes to the mental load, can only succeed when it's established from the beginning of a relationship. It's much harder to change years in, especially when kids are involved. Do you agree? Can we change the domestic dynamics of our relationship, especially when we're up against established systems that ultimately make it hard for men and women to take a fair share of domestic work?

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  It would be great if we could establish it before, but I don't know that that's always realistic.

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  I mean, this is not the question that Penny's asking, but it's the first thought that, that came to me. It's like, I remember, you know, we had a relationship before children where we both could just say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And the other one would say, great, whatever.

• 1:02:23Speaker 00

  But then suddenly we had children, and I couldn't just say, "I want to go downstairs to get a newspaper" without having to check, "And can you watch Little Smurf?" Because suddenly, it created a level of interdependence that we didn't have before. And it only got compounded all the time. And I remember saying, "This equality thing, it completely changes when you have children." Whatever you have established before, it just doesn't work this way. And it's so easy to go into the gender-specific roles that we have absorbed and watched, you know, historically, culturally, generationally, in our own families, etc. So I don't know

• 1:03:08Speaker 00

  that it's always so obvious to plan it in advance. But there is nothing wrong with noticing it and then saying, "This has to shift." So I do... There's a number of things that I think about. I have often said to mothers, in this instance, "You've got to go away for a week." I start with a weekend, a night, and then a week. "But I want you to not prepare all the meals and freeze them. I don't want you to leave notes everywhere. I want you to actually really be gone and not check." Because these days, on top of it, you can create such surveillance. You watch your kid from your phone. You send a bunch of messages.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  It kind of betrays the exercise. The exercise is, "I want you to have the experience of trusting your partner. When you're not there, they can do it." And by the way, I wanted to trust for them to trust themselves, that they can handle this perfectly fine. I don't care what they eat.

• 1:04:14Speaker 00

  It doesn't matter, they're fine, they bonded, they got to places. They got their five minutes late, they got their five minutes late. They won't maybe get five minutes late next time because the school won't keep the door open. But you have got to really know that there is a partner. If you're constantly checking on remote control to your partner, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The load, there's a book I read in the decades back and it made people make this exercise where you had to write down what you do from 5 to 11 o'clock at night. So his list had like 20 things, and this is really a hetero thing. It's not the same story in same-sex couples on any side.

• 1:04:56Speaker 00

  Her list was five times longer because it wasn't just the things she was doing. She was also on, she had all, her list had all the things that everybody else was doing. So she was not just looking at the tasks, but also at the remembering, at the mental load, that's the load. It's like, I am keeping score and track of the things that you have to do. So basically, I'm never just in the singular, I'm constantly living in the plural. And that's what's so exhausting. I'm thinking about you, my partner is doing, what the little one is doing, and I carry all of that. And when that gets attached to man-keeping, have you had that concept already?

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  No, I think I get it.

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  Man-keeping is when you add to that that you also rely on me, not just for the load of the home, but also for me to be your minister of social affairs and your contact to the world and the person who helps you stay and have friends and meet people and have the person with whom you tell me all your emotional questions. And I become the one person you turn to for your internal load. Then I'm combining, you know, two major...

• 1:06:08Speaker 00

  Things that I'm keeping lifted like that and meanwhile I crumble under the weight of it. That's the description. I think you can make a list, but the main thing is you want to be able to leave and know that even if it's done differently, it's done and you don't have to check and you don't have to worry and you can, that's back to the question of trust. What is it that you're trusting? That you manage to make them fresh broccoli? No. But you trust that the kids are all right and that there is another person who is doing

• 1:06:48Speaker 00

  it their way and that we can absorb more than one way and we understand that with dad it goes this way and with the other dad it goes that way or with one mom we do it like this and with the other, you know, I speak French with my mother and I speak English with my father. Multilingual homes understand that very immediately and the language brings with it what we eat, when we go to bed, how we do it, how we talk to grandma. I mean, the language is a door to an entire culture and an entire legacy. So in monolingual homes, you have to metaphorize this difference.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Amazing. That's Penny is going to be very, very happy with that answer. Thank you so much.

• 1:07:33Speaker 00

  I want to meet her next time.

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  Well, I think next time we could just do like a counselling session, but Penny and I could come in and we can record the whole thing. So where should we begin at work? So the cards you have, working with Culture Amp's People Science, to get insights to create a hundred question game designed to transform people's work culture, one story and one relationship at a time. It's based on the four key pillars of workplace relationships, trust, belonging, recognition, collective resilience. Where should we begin at work is data backed by more than 1.5 billion employee experience surveys worldwide. That's a lot of people.

• 1:08:09Speaker 00

  That means so much to me.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  Because it's the, it's the meeting between a therapist who has clinical work and evidence, but it is a small, it's a qualitative experience with a tech company that has the quantity. The and the quantitative experience and 1.5 billion data points makes a question.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:08:32Speaker 00

  Trustworthy.

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  Yes, it should. That's a lot of, it's a lot of points.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  And what do you hope for people, for workplaces to do the cards? What do you hope for them?

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  I just did it in a number of events here in Australia. And what you see is, you know, people have lost a little bit the ability to ask interesting questions to, that lead to stories, not to answers. It's a way of getting to know the people you just met and getting to know the people who you think you know and know, have known for a long time, but actually have never asked. It's not meant to create vulnerability per se. I don't think that leadership at this moment is just about being vulnerable. You know, it's not about just putting the focus on your wounds. It actually helps you put the focus on your scars. It's a very different

• 1:09:21Speaker 00

  entry point. It's used in offboarding, onboarding, offsites, feedback sessions, one-on-ones, and it, it's a ritual. And one of the things we're lacking in relationships at this moment and in our society as a whole, is the importance of rituals, because rituals is what confirms meaning to our routines. Rituals are routines that are imbued with creativity and intentionality. It says, we're not just here to talk. We're having a meeting in which we are going to review where you are at, at this moment, et cetera, that, and to create a shared meaning for the moment, we're in this reality together, demands little ritual. And the cards are rituals.

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  Which person doesn't remember trading cards from when they were little? And you hold something in hand. And while you're holding it in hand, you're telling stories that you have no ideas where they're coming from. And it creates solidarity and it creates trust and it creates recognition and belonging and resilience. I mean, it actually, the more people play with these cards, the more they solidify the relational intelligence in the workplace.

• 1:10:29Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  That's the cards there. If you, if you would like to get yourself a copy as well for your workplace. Esther, I feel like with everything that's going on in the world right now, spending time with you is just like, just one big experience of hope and joy. So thank you so much for joining us on The Imperfects.

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  It's sweet to be here. Thank you.

• 1:10:47Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  If you enjoyed this episode and want a little more, you might enjoy our subscriber only apps, available on Patreon and Apple Podcasts. If you want a little more but don't want to pay any more, then you can join our newsletter at theimperfects.com.au. And while you're there, you'll be able to see the names and faces of all the incredible people who help make this show. A show made on the lands of the Wurundjeri Wurundjeri people, and we pay our respects to elders past and present. The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 131114.