Relationship Expert: The Biggest Signs of Emotional Immaturity

What makes someone actually ready for a healthy relationship? In this episode, I sit down with relationship expert Quinlan Walther to talk about the communication habits that create connection—and the ones that quietly destroy it. We get into vulnerability, emotional maturity, asking for what you need instead of expecting someone to read your mind, and why curiosity may be one of the most attractive qualities you can bring into a relationship. We also talk about what happens when you're the only person trying to fix the relationship, and how to recognize when you're sacrificing your self-respect just to keep someone around. Join me on Supercast for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and AMAs: https://jefferson.supercast.com/ Leave me a voicemail to be featured on the show! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/ask-jefferson Order The Next Conversation Workbook: https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/workbook Thank you to our sponsors: Masa Chips. Get 25% off at https://www.masachips.com/pages/jefferson Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 20% off at cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. OneSkin. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code JEFFERSON at https://www.oneskin.co/JEFFERSON BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Order my book, The Next Conversation, or listen to the full audiobook today. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show! Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter. Join My School of Communication Watch my podcast on YouTube Follow me on Instagram Follow me on TikTok Follow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

  How do you know when you yourself are ready to be in a relationship?

• 0:37Speaker 02

  I like to frame this in a funny way. Have you ever heard of the saying, "You shouldn't go grocery shopping when you're starving"? Are you familiar with that?

• 0:46Speaker 01

  I am familiar with it, and I intimately.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  Intimately, yes.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  I've ordered some bad grocery store sushi. You know, I'm just like, and I'm starving.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  It's always a bad call.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  So this also applies to dating.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  It's not a great idea to go grocery shopping when you're starving because you choose the first thing that you see. You choose the thing that will be immediately gratifying. It looks the most exciting. Maybe it's just sometimes the closest thing to you, right? The same thing applies to dating and relationships as well. When you go out and you start dating, you want to have a pretty decent understanding of how you keep yourself figuratively fed or emotionally fed.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  So who are you? What do you like about yourself? How do you support yourself? How do you show up for yourself when you're managing a difficult situation, big emotions?

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  How do you show up and care for yourself? These are important questions. Do you like the relationship that you have with yourself? Are you a person of character? Like, can you rely on yourself to be honest, to be kind, to be supportive? These all play into how we show up and care for ourselves and keep ourselves metaphorically emotionally fed so that we don't jump at someone else's breadcrumbs when we get into the dating scene.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Do you find that when you have like this early onset moment, which I hear you saying, okay, don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry?

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  A pushback or thought is, well, Quinlan, I'm hungry. Like, what am I supposed to? How I have a need that is to be filled, and that is I don't want to be alone.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  And that's my deep, it's not only my fear. It's my, it could be my insecurity. It could be whatever that is. How do you begin to take care of that inner self need without seeking that in somebody else?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Hmm. Well, first is just honor the fact that you, that's what you want. That's a normal, very normal human thing to want. We're wired to create connection with people around us.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  It's primal. So honor that and really care for yourself. Like, I really want a relationship and I don't have one right now. And that's kind of tough. So I'm not going to pretend that I don't feel that way. Allow it to be there and accept it.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  And understand that you don't want just any relationship. You want a fulfilling, aligned relationship.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  That I like. Yeah, well, I think everybody would, yeah.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Some people are like, no.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  I really want a super misaligned.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Just give me the closest thing. Where is the closest thing?

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that, now that I like of there are things that you could say worth waiting for. And also, what's ultimately, like if we put it to the grocery store analogy, I am most likely going to make the worst decisions when I'm hungry. And in fact, the research showed that the later it gets in the day, the worse decisions that we actually make because we're using up all of that energy. The same energy we use to exercise is the same energy we use to make decisions. Like, they did a study on judges in the courtrooms. They make better, softer, kinder rulings in the morning than they do in the evening.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  No kidding.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they're tired and they're just, they don't, they don't care. When do we eat junk food usually? When do we make some of the worst? Like, I'm gonna pick, think of somebody eating, you know, digging out of a gallon of ice cream. When do we typically do that?

• 4:12Speaker 02

  It's typically at night.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  At night, when we're alone and we're tired. And so it's, in the same way, I'd say, don't get in bad conflicts and arguments at night. You also don't want to get into a relationship when you yourself are not regulated as a, as a human, not from just a conversation standpoint, but also as a, as a life standpoint. Does that resonate with you?

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And you think about that, that breadcrumb comment is actually a little bit more loaded than it is just a joke. Because if you aren't, if you don't have a relationship with yourself that has sustenance, that is nourishing, you are going to jump at someone else's breadcrumbs thinking that that's going to fuel you and feed you. It's the closest thing. You're metaphorically starving, right? So being able to understand that the most consistent relationship you'll ever have is the one that you have with yourself, you're always there. And that can be an incredible, incredible, powerful thing if you pour into it.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  And then from there, you can make better, more aligned decisions. Maybe not at night.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, or any other time.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  Jefferson's Pro Dating in the morning.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Morning afternoon dates.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Only breakfast dates.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  Only breakfast dates. But it does, it helps you actually choose rather than chase

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  a relationship or a specific person.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  What do you need to know about yourself before you get into a relationship?

• 5:41Speaker 02

  I think it's a good idea to have a, an understanding of what you're looking for. What are some of your values? Your vision of the future? Do you want to live in the small town that you grew up in forever and ever? Do you want to move out to the big city and live the city life? Do you want to, what does life look like for you when you think of 10 years from now, 15 years from now? Just have a general idea. It can change, but that's important because when you go into a relationship, when you're building a long-term relationship with someone, you want to be able to say, hey, here's the life that I'm trying to build. Here are my values. If family is a value for you, if work is a top value for you, you know, what's important to you? And this is what I'm building.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  And you find someone that says, oh, my vision's pretty similar to that, too. Or my vision is not similar to that at all.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  And it doesn't seem like we'd be working towards the same thing. Having that in mind is important.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  To me, there's this, hmm, if I say, before I do anything with you, I gotta fix me. And that right there is a lot of knowing. I guess the question is, how do you, somebody who's listening right now, how do they know when they're not ready to be in a relationship?

• 7:02Speaker 02

  If you can take a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror and accept that accountability is a foreign concept to you, then you probably shouldn't be in a relationship. And the catch 22 is that most people that lack accountability won't be able to look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge that. But relationships thrive when you're able to meet someone who is looking to meet someone and share a life together, build a relationship together. And that means that you're going to have to take accountability for your side of the street. So am I equally contributing to the connection of this relationship? Let's, let's go, let's play small here. So if I come home from work and my husband is there and I'm saying, oh, I had such a bad day. I just need 15 minutes.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  I'm going to go upstairs, take a shower, and then we can eat dinner. Just really working through a lot right now. And he can say, okay, she's not upset with me. There's not something that I did that I don't know about, right? There's no passive aggressive huffing or puffing. I'm able to say, hey, this is how I'm feeling. I can take accountability for how I'm feeling. I can communicate in the relationship. And he's grateful for it in the long run. That creates connection. Versus, I come home from work, I've had a bad day. I'm huffing and puffing, maybe slamming a door or two. He's like, hey, how you doing? I'm like, fine. And he doesn't know if he did something wrong or if something bad happened that he doesn't know about, if it was just an average day that was difficult. So point being, there's accountability in being able to say,

• 8:32Speaker 02

  I'm accountable for my feelings. I'm accountable for the relationship that I want to create, the dynamic of that relationship. And you're responsible all in all for how you want to show up and communicate with the person that you're in a relationship with.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  I want to make sure that, I, I feel like this conversation is something to the person who not only is single, but also is in any type of relationship. And also those that have been married for, forever long, even to the people who've been married for 30 plus years. Because I, I, I believe there's something for each one of them in this conversation. When I think of, how do I know? What can we tell somebody to know if they're ready to be in a conversation is, the first thing that kind of passes through my mind is if you're wondering, you're probably not. Like, if you are asking that, that inner question

• 9:31Speaker 01

  of, I don't think I'm, I'm ready, I would much rather you know that answer than go into a relationship always wondering. Like, if you were in it and knowing that I'm not the person that the relationship requires me to be. Is that, when you think of somebody saying, I don't know if I'm ready. Quinlan, is there a, a marker or a line that you feel like you need to cross this before you know that you're ready to enter to a relationship? And maybe it is that accountability. And I'm curious if there's something else.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  There's, there has to be a real willingness.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Long-term love specifically, and this is familial, platonic, romantic, just relationships in general, love that exists in relationships. It's really willingness to look outside of yourself. Willingness to see that your friend of 20 years is really changing their tune. They're withdrawing, you weren't hearing from them as much. She usually talks three times a week and they've been like nowhere to be found, getting kind of distant. Can you inconvenience yourself to show up to their house or make a phone call or whatever? And be like, hey, I really love you and something seems off. You know, I don't, I, I'm noticing it. If you want to talk about it, I'd love to talk about it. If it's nothing, it's nothing, but I love you and I care.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  So I'm willing to check in on you and show that. Same thing with your family, same thing with your romantic partner. There is a willingness to look outside of yourself and to care. Love is consideration.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  And really embodying that in all of your relationships and the relationship with yourself is a pretty good, pretty good place to check in.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  Probably the first place you need to check in.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Probably the first place.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  Probably first place.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  And I do, I do want to say, I don't necessarily agree that people who are asking themselves whether or not they're ready are the ones who aren't ready. So I, I've worked with a lot of people who come in to my sessions and say, I'm ready for a relationship, I just can't find the right person. And I'm saying, well, tell me more. And they have a list of standards. It's miles and miles long. They have little to no relationships outside of work relationships or little to no time outside of whatever their responsibilities are. They, they haven't really built themselves to be a person that is ready to receive a relationship, but they're convinced that they are ready for a relationship.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Problem is they're looking everywhere except their side of the street.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Oh, you flipped it. You're saying, in other words, there are people who say that they're ready, but they're not.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Yes, and then there are those who think, well, maybe I'm not ready.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  And they are.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  And they are.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  I do though feel that there is, um, if there's one like kind of key word for me is you are not ready for a relationship if you are not ready to be vulnerable. Like if you don't know, the worst thing you can do is, well, certainly you create a lot of problems when you go into a relationship and you don't know yourself. And when in fact, you've just given them a version of you or given you some, you've given them a facade. And so they fell in love with some other version of you that you don't know if that's really you or not. And so I think it can be very crippling later in a relationship

• 12:56Speaker 03

  if that element of vulnerability is not there from the start.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Completely agree. And vulnerability, I think is often misconstrued where we think vulnerability is just tears. It's just sadness, just sharing a super emotional moment with someone. And sometimes it is.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  And other times it's just saying, hey, I'm scared. It's saying, hey, I'm feeling kind of insecure. Hey, I'm struggling with this thing.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Hey, this hurts and I don't really know why, but I want to share it with you because you love me. And that's what people who love each other do. There's vulnerability, I think, gets misunderstood.

• 13:33Speaker 03

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• 14:17Speaker 03

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• 15:01Speaker 03

  And now let's keep going. Can you have a good relationship without vulnerability?

• 15:06Speaker 02

  No. In fact, all of the ways that we try to protect ourselves from vulnerability end up leading to the very disconnection that tends to ruin relationships. The Gottmans study this for decades.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Shout out to the Gottmans.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Shout out to the Gottmans. We love the Gottmans. Bits for connection, turning towards each other. Being able to say, hey, I want to share a story with you. Hey, I want to share how I'm feeling. Hey, there's this happy moment that happened or hey, there's this difficult thing that's on my mind. And your partner goes, tell me about it. Yes, I want to hear. All right, bids for connection, you meet each other. When we're avoiding vulnerability, we don't do that. We're too busy protecting ourselves.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  We're too busy putting walls up. We're too busy, I say, hey, I have something to, to tell you. You know, can, can we talk a little bit? Bid for connection is, oh, I don't have any time. You know, I, I, I have so much to do, too busy, can't, can't make it happen. If well, you, you're over here trying to protect yourself, not being vulnerable, not leaning into the relationship. And it ends up causing the very disconnection that, um, will end up being the end of the relationship.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  You think you can put too much pressure on a relationship?

• 16:22Speaker 02

  Do I ever? Yes, yes. I think there's a real difficulty. There's difficulty when we expect our partner to meet all of our needs, all the time. We expect them to be our primary source of fulfillment, self-worth, happiness, enthusiasm. And that creates a pressure cooker on, on a person who has finite capacity. They have the same 24 hours in a day that we do, and then they have a whole other life to tend to. So part of the issue with putting too much pressure on a relationship is that you end up leading with more criticism because you weren't getting exactly what you want when you want it.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  You end up leading with more disappointment and more resentment because the person naturally cannot meet you in all the ways that you want to be met. And as we were talking about with the bids of connection and turning towards each other, you can't be playful and fun and appreciative when you're surrounded by criticism and defensiveness and disappointment. So you really have to look outside of yourself again and consider what someone's capacity is. Because if they can't meet you in every which way that you want to be met, that doesn't mean that they don't love you. It just means that they have a limited amount of capacity and you need to take accountability for some of the needs that you're looking to fill.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  There are phrases that you'll hear often in, whether it's relationship advice or therapy. They'll use phrases like meet them or lean in to the, to the people who don't hear those words. What do those words practically mean?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Hmm. Okay, so let's play out a scenario.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  And I have, I have my point of view on it. I want to hear, I want to hear your point of view on it.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Okay, I love this. So let's say that you have had a wonderful week. You had a big promotion and you were super excited about it. And you come home to your family or your romantic partner, whoever it is. And you're like jumping up and down, this is so great. And they aren't meeting you in the ways that you want to be. They're not jumping up and down with you. They actually seem kind of quiet. Oh, that's, that's really great. Yeah, always kind of humdrumming around. And you're thinking, they don't, what is this? How could they disappoint me this way? They're not happy for me? How could they not be happy for me? I've been working so hard for this. Do they not even notice how hard I've been working? Do they see me at all? We start to make a lot of assumptions about what someone else's behavior means.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  So when we say lean in, what we do there is we take our context, our situation, and we allow that to be separate from what's going on with the other person. And we can lean in and say, hey, what I'm seeing is that you, you don't seem as excited as I thought you'd be right now. What's going on there? Can you, can you tell me what I'm missing? The story in my head is X, Y, or Z. You don't love me, you're not excited, you don't see me. And I want to lean in and create space for you to share your experience without me assuming that I know what's going on.

• 19:33Speaker 03

  I want to, I want to push on that more. So, but I don't, what I don't hear you saying is you need to match. Like whatever energy that somebody's coming in, you have to match that energy. You're not saying that.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  I don't like match their energy.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Okay. So when somebody is super excited and maybe you can't meet them and being super excited, right? So we're not going to say match their energy. What's, what are some other words you use?

• 19:57Speaker 02

  How someone, are you saying as the person who's excited or as the person who isn't quite able to meet them in that moment?

• 20:05Speaker 01

  I'm trying to help the person who's going two ways. I'm trying to help the person who says, Jefferson, Quinlan, I don't feel like my partner meets me or leans in. Okay, so how do I explain to them what I need? Is there people who are not able to voice or define exactly what they need? And so help me teach them. There's also those people on the other side who are listening and go, I hear that. I want to do that. I have no clue what that means. Because I grew up in a, in a life, in a world that anything but leaning in. It was, I grew up in the family that was running from everything, closed doors and everything. There was no leaning in, right?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  So I'm trying to find language, like really just workshop with me of rather than the meet me and lean in, which I totally agree with, and I, and I get all of the, the uses of it. It's fun to me, I'm probably in my weird brain, of trying to find ways that I can explain things differently to somebody. So if we're going, hey, if somebody's really upset, that doesn't mean you have to be upset in terms of matching, if they're sad, you're sad. You don't have to be that way. What you don't want, and you tell me how you feel about this, is you're not leaving them alone in it. Like that to me is the difference of if they're crying, that doesn't mean they're expecting

• 21:35Speaker 01

  tears from you. They just want to feel like they're not in their room alone crying. Big difference. Same if they're happy, they're not alone and they're wins. And so when you meet them or lean in, is it really the different, like, is there another more practical way of thinking about it of not letting them be alone in it?

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Well, it's empathizing.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  How does this person feel in, in the moment? And if you're, if you're lost, if you're thinking, I don't, I don't know what they want for me. I don't know how to lean in and show up. Like, I don't even know where, where that begins. You can ask.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Tell me.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  You can say, hey, you're super excited. I, I, do you want me to jump up and down with you? Like next time that something great happens, do you want me to cheer with you? Do you want me to just be there and ask you questions and, and talk about it with you?

• 22:30Speaker 01

  So let's come up with a question that, or statement that we can give that person. To me, what comes to mind is how can I best show up for you right now? What's some others that we like?

• 22:40Speaker 02

  How can, how can I support you? How can I show you that I care? How can, what am I missing here? What, what, what am I not understanding about how you feel, about your experience? I'm, I really want to show up. Can you tell me more? Can you help me fill in the blank here?

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Like I, to me, it gets me excited at the idea of somebody right now texting their, the person they're in a relationship with, just the question, how can I be a better partner for you? And like seeing even where that kind of conversation goes. And I think what you're saying is a beautiful thing. When we talk about leaning in or meeting them there, that doesn't mean you have to go to a destination. It is simply saying you are not too much and you're also more than enough. And so how, how can I simply support who you already are?

• 23:36Speaker 01

  How's that feel?

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Completely agree.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Is that Quinlan approved? Okay.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Completely. And, and as the, if you're on the other side of that, if you are the one excited and the other person isn't meeting you there.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  You can ask the same questions, but you should also communicate what it is that you want more of. So you can say, came home super excited. You didn't seem stoked. I felt kind of sad. I was looking for a bit of support there. I was looking for a bit of enthusiasm.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, yeah.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Actually stating how you're feeling and requesting more of what you want, rather than expecting the other person to read your mind.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  I, I think that is a thousand percent right. What I've learned, because we've been married 15 years now.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Congratulations.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Is it is far more productive to talk about the process of our conversations in those moments than the actual content of them. In other words, it's like, if you, if anybody knows sports or football or anything, a lot of people watch film to know how to do things better. And I have found that, we've found that it's so helpful in, after you have some type of rupture, obviously some didn't go well.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  And we're still kind of, we're still kind of messed up.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  We're squabbling.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're squabbling, we're tizzian, whatever. I've heard it, I've heard all kinds of words.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  If you don't go back and say, look at the film and say, okay, here is, when that happened, this is what I think I really needed. And, and, and sometimes you have to do some searching of, you know, I don't know what really bothered me about that. I need to spend some time thinking about what really hit me there.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  That right way. And, or wrong way, to be able to look at, go back to the tape, look at your technique and say, this is what I need, because it is maddening when, for both people, when they don't either identify what they need or what could have done better, because the other person wants to do it, or at the same time, you don't know what to give them.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  And what you just explained is exactly how you build a relationship with yourself that directly benefits the relationship you have with other people.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Tell me, okay, let me ask this. How, how do you, how do you build a better relationship with yourself?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Well, that question right there, why am I feeling the way that I'm feeling? What is important to me here? What am I trying to get? What do, what am I afraid of losing? What, what is the hurt? Like what's, what's going on inside of me? To stop and ask yourself that question, 70% of the battle, 70% of the work right there.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  In, in part to build a relationship with yourself, but also if you don't have the patience and the practice of meeting yourself in that way, you're far less likely to be able to extend it to someone else, someone that you love.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  So if you're used to suppressing your feelings, pushing them away, busying yourself away from whatever emotions are under the surface, you're likely to treat people that you love the same way.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  What's a question that you can ask yourself in the moment to

• 26:47Speaker 01

  position yourself to show up better in the relationship?

• 26:52Speaker 02

  What is the story I'm, what, what is the story I'm telling myself right now?

• 26:58Speaker 01

  That's wild. That was, that was, that was my exact question.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Were you thinking that too?

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  It's so good.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  It's so good. If we, if we take a step back, we are making meaning.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Of everything. We are making assumptions about everything. We are assuming what someone else's behavior means about us, what someone else's behavior means about the state of our relationship, the future of our relationship. We are making assumptions, assumptions, assumptions. So to be able to stop yourself, to pause and think, what am I assuming right now? What is the story that I'm telling myself? It's black and white thinking. Where can I find the color in this very black and white story? Where's the context that I'm missing? And you can feel it in your body as you start to consider, well, maybe it's not that they don't care, don't see me, don't love me. Maybe it's that they also have a lot going on too. Maybe it's that I haven't actually asked for what it is that I want.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  And so the fact that they're not meeting me in the ways that I want to be met is actually just something that needs to be communicated. Then you can feel it in your body. You start to relax rather than holding all this tension because we're so certain that our assumptions are correct.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Can you ask the, ask the question one more time?

• 28:08Speaker 02

  What is the story that I'm telling myself right now?

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Awesome. I want to make sure I got that clean, because I, I think, you know, I think that is, I think that's spot on. Another that I like is what could also be true. You know, but what, what do I know to be true? That one right there. What do I know to be true is one of my favorites. Because I think it hits to the same thing.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Something you'll realize too, is a lot of the assumptions that you're making, repeat over and over and over again. Constantly. I'm not enough. I'm too much. People don't care enough to pay attention. I, whatever. You will notice that they repeat because they were likely conditioned at a much earlier point in your life, and you've kept with the same assumptions throughout each of your relationships.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Right. And where the mistake happens is where you are battling that story out loud. Meaning you know the story that you're telling yourself right now, and you're voicing that, and maybe somebody's more of an external processor, and they're talking out loud, hoping the other person's going to solve the answer to that story. And really, they're throwing gasoline on the fire because it's not like the other person's, they're now going to be defending against your story, which is the opposite of what you want. And, and when in reality, all they're doing is making you confirm the story rather than deny the story.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  And if you have a friend, a partner, someone who you trust.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  In these conversations, you can bring them the story and say, hey, the story I'm telling myself is this, is this true? Is it true that you don't value me? That you don't care for me? That you're, you're, and someone who loves you will look at you and say, oh my God, I had no idea. No, that wasn't my intention.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Tell me more. And talk about a vulnerable moment that builds emotional safety, builds connection, brings people closer together. It's an incredible practice if you have someone that you trust to do that with.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  I often say one of the things that can really add a lot of, I like the word color to the relationship that you just said, is asking that, those kinds of questions where you're narrating out your thoughts. And that's a really great example of one. I think anybody listening right now, if you find it yourself in some kind of hard conversation is beginning, you have to say it out loud, which like you said, it's the vulnerable thing. Listen, the story I'm telling myself is you don't think I'm a good mom, or you don't, you don't think I'm a good partner, or I'm not being what you need, or you find me unattractive, or I'm not, you know, whatever this is, or I'm not being a big enough man for you, whatever that is.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  And I find that the most vulnerable statements often flip to be one of the most strongest, strongest signals of confidence when you're able to step into that.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  What's an example for you?

• 30:58Speaker 01

  You know, for me, the, if I think of, for example, in, in my, let's say, in some of my relationships or friendships, and when I, let me rephrase that. When I say, you know, in my marriage, if I were to say that I am.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  I'm really worried. I'm worried that I'm making a mistake in this decision in opening and inviting her into that conversation. I find that that brings her in, creates trust, creates connection, and in fact grows the relationship more so than if I acted like I had it all together.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  And the fact that I act like I have it all together is actually more anxiety inducing for her than if I let her in and show my struggles.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Well, it's like if you can't trust someone's yes, you can't trust someone's no. Or is it vice versa? If you can't trust someone's?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  It can be both.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  It can be both. But there is being able to trust someone to communicate a difficult truth to you.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  There's, there are few things that build trust quicker and stronger than that. Being able to trust that someone will be honest with you because they value your connection. They value you as a person, that they're willing to bring a difficult truth to you. So you, so the two of you can work on it together. That builds foundational trust.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  How important is honesty in a relationship?

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Incredibly important and transparency is right there next to it.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  How do you communicate those things?

• 32:33Speaker 02

  So honesty is telling the truth. Transparency is bringing the truth forward, even if it isn't prompted. So instead of saying, you come home after a long Tuesday and your wife's like, hey, what's up? It's nine o'clock. And you're like, oh, well, I went out with the guys, got some food, grabbed a beer, you know, no big deal. She's thinking, okay, well, you were honest about where you were, but it would have been nice to know that earlier versus Tuesday morning on your way out the door. Hey babe, I think I'm going to grab some food with the guys after work tonight. Are you okay with that? Is that, does that work with our schedule? Whatever. She's like, yeah, great. Thanks. Appreciate it. You're being transparent. You're being forward with your communication. And both things are necessary.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. When you, when you're able to do what you say you're going to do, which is also like very affirming and decreases that, that anxiety and builds that level of trust of knowing you could have said it, but if they have to ask you for it, there's something about when they have to ask you for it, it kind of takes away from that moment where you could have actually built upon trust. Like you missed that, that trust opportunity.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is a difficult thing and it's, it's difficult when you are trying so desperately to bring that honesty and reliability out of someone who isn't being reliable and trustworthy unprompted, where you are begging someone to change, when you're begging them to be someone that they naturally aren't, it can be quite frustrating. There's a real, there's a real sense of honesty you have to have with yourself where you look at your relationships and say, am I trying harder to change this person than I am able to just accept them?

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  And if I just accept them exactly as they are, allowing them to show up how they want to show up, do I like the person that they are and the relationship that that creates? That's a difficult situation.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  How do you know if the person you're with is emotionally immature?

• 34:35Speaker 02

  If all of the problems in their life are someone else's fault? If they can't be honest or forthright in their communication? If they're passive aggressive or lash out? If they struggle to handle big emotions, so emotionally regulate? In a lot of ways, emotional immaturity means someone's insecurities are going to take up all the space in a relationship. There isn't room for anything other than their wants, their needs, their desires, their feelings, their reactions. And it creates very little space for anyone else who wants to meet them there. So if you realize that someone you have a relationship with is really centered around

• 35:16Speaker 02

  just them and their feelings, there's likely a sense of emotional immaturity at play.

• 35:21Speaker 03

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• 36:04Speaker 03

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• 36:49Speaker 03

  And now let's keep going.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  I want to break it down a little bit more simple. Like what, what would be, what would be some red flags that the person they're dating, someone who's emotionally immature?

• 37:02Speaker 02

  If they buy into all of their assumptions. So if something happens and they're immediately coming at you with, you did that because you don't love me, because you don't find me attractive, because you don't value me. They're assigning meaning, absolutely. If they can't take a look at that and think that's black and white thinking, maybe I'm missing some of the color, that's a sign. If they expect you to read their mind, if they expect you to anticipate all of their needs and then get upset with you when you don't, that's also a sign. There's a, it's really a sense of volatility. There, there's a sense of, I don't know what I'm going to get.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  That's, there's emotional immaturity because someone who cares for you and is emotionally mature, wants you to feel safe, wants you to feel at ease in relationship with them. Someone who's emotionally immature is too caught up in themselves to be able to consider the person that they're in a relationship with.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  And I think they're, they're also the person who expects somebody else to solve their problems.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Completely agree.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Like I also try to think of, when I typically get questions about emotional immaturity, it's the person who has no problem making an absolute scene at the dinner table. Like it doesn't matter if they're in public, it doesn't matter where it is, that it's actually the attention that they're wanting by trying to show the fluctuations. So the word volatile, I think is the absolute right word they use of, they're so reactionary

• 38:37Speaker 01

  that you, you never have steady footing.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Well, and in a lot of ways, to be frank, we all have some emotionally immature tendencies.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Most of us, I won't, I won't say all of us, but it's a, it's a, it's a great point of reflection.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Thinking, huh, where am I demanding? Where am I too self-centered? Where am I avoiding vulnerability? Cause that works both ways, right? Sometimes they shut down and they withdraw. They aren't always yelling and screaming at the dinner table.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it could be the opposite.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Sometimes they're sitting there silently, hoping that someone will come and say, hey, how are you? What's going on? It's a protest behavior.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Like silent treatment.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Silent treatment. Yes. Stonewalling. So take stock of where it is that you aren't really taking accountability for your feelings, your wants, your needs, et cetera. And that's a place you can work on your emotional maturity.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So don't, don't expect somebody else to have to name your feelings.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Being able to name it, name it yourself.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  I, I am curious, Ms. Quinlan, on, I've been out of the dating scene for, yeah, for a long time. I mean, but yeah. And I am curious of your thoughts here. What would you say is the most attractive communication trait?

• 40:03Speaker 02

  What would I say is the most attractive communication trait?

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Or behavior.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Humor. Humor signals intelligence in an interesting way. Where if someone can be warm and charismatic, that signals intelligence and it's enjoyable. Right? We are drawn to enjoyable experiences. So if you can have a joyful charismatic conversation with someone, they're more likely to like you. Being kind is another way to communicate. That is incredibly attractive. Kindness signals the fact that you'd likely be kind to the person you're speaking with in the future. If you're in a relationship with them somewhere down the line and they've been kind from the get, you can think, that would probably be a good relationship. I'd like to have them around more.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  So there's, it's really coming down to. Here's a question I would ask yourself. Would you want to have 10,000 conversations with you? With the way that you communicate? Would you want to have 10,000 dinner conversations, breakfast conversations, late night pillow talk conversations? And if the answer is no, then think to yourself, okay, why? Do I need to be a little bit kinder in the way that I speak? Do I need to be a bit more open? Do I want to be a bit more humorous in the way that I communicate? Take a good look at your norms, if you will, because the person that you choose, if you want a long-term relationship, you're likely to have thousands and thousands of conversations with them.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  When you're in conversation with somebody, let's say you're dating. What do you think would be one of the most attractive things that that person can say that you're looking for in a partner?

• 41:45Speaker 02

  Well, it depends on what each person is looking for individually. What I value may not be the same thing that the next person values, that the next person values. But I think someone who is able to stand in their boundaries and say, here's the kind of relationship that I want. This is what I'm willing to give and this is what I'm not. So you can say, hey, I really value my work. Work is really important to me and I really want a relationship. So what that looks like to me is I work this many hours throughout the week and I'd really like to see you on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Being able to communicate that relatively early in the relationship, like this is the time that I have. I'm prioritizing work in this way and I'm prioritizing a relationship in this way. It offers clarity and clarity is really kind and it's trustworthy. If someone is clear and consistent, the clearer and more consistent you can be, the better.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  You want to know what I, I haven't been in the world.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  But what I think would be, is probably one of the more attractive things you can communicate in a relationship is, tell me more. Like being able to talk to somebody, especially when you're dating and have them share something. And you say, tell me more. Like that would, that signals confidence, it signals patience. In many ways, it signals generosity.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Because I'm being generous with my, my time and how I treat people. And I find that the tell me more is a statement that somebody goes, holy smokes. They actually took the time. They want to take the time to do this or like they didn't, they didn't bring their phone to dinner.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I think curiosity is one of the most attractive characteristics you can bring to a relationship. So asking questions and not just questions to fill silence, but questions that allow you to really get to know a person. Tell me what's important to you. How do you like to spend your time? Who are the important people in your life? Why are they important in your life? Really asking questions to understand someone signals the very thing that we were talking about earlier with the willingness to look outside of yourself. Understanding that when you enter a relationship, it's two people looking to come together and share their lives, not two people looking to be completed by someone else.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Another phrase I kind of entomb you with is when you're able to say, I want to see you again. Like you're telling people what you want. How valuable is being forward with your communication in a relationship?

• 44:38Speaker 02

  I think it comes back to the clarity as kindness bit that we were speaking on earlier. Being able to communicate where you, where you're at, what you want, how you would prefer to date or move along in a relationship. And to be able to lean into the vulnerability of saying, hey, I don't know where this is going. What are your thoughts?

• 45:01Speaker 01

  Do you find that to be an attractive quality when somebody's forward?

• 45:04Speaker 02

  I do, because it builds trust. It builds reliability and it shows kindness, which shows generosity. There's a lot, there's a lot that mixes in there.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  I think it always, it helps let somebody know where you are. I think oftentimes in early dating relationships, there's kind of this, like trying to peek over what kind of cards are you holding? Cause we're kind of keeping them close, right?

• 45:34Speaker 01

  True vulnerability is putting them all down and that's, that takes some time to get to people. Some people show their cards way too early, right? When it's not, not really the right time. But I do think that being forward with what you want from the other person, where you want to go with the other person, what you see with the other person. And like you said, being very direct with that is, I think it's a good recipe. What, how do you think, in your, specifically in your field of relationships, how can we communicate more directly?

• 46:09Speaker 02

  I have two takes on this.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Number one is by owning the fact that you haven't been communicating as directly as you'd like. And if you are in a relationship with someone, share that with them. Hey, I'm really trying to take a look at how clearly and directly I communicate because I value you and I value this relationship. Is there anything I've been unclear about that you'd like me to be more direct with? Start there. Because sometimes, again, if you're in a relationship, that person likely sees some of the blind spots in you that you don't see. You're asking them, their take is a really good place to start. And again, it shows that you care. It shows that you value the relationship. And it shows them that even though you may not have been showing up in all of the best ways,

• 46:57Speaker 02

  you're accountable, you're reliable.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  The other, the other approach here that I would take is to write down what it is that you've been afraid to say. Cause we likely have a deep knowing what the things are that we don't want other people to see, that we don't want to communicate about, that we're afraid to share. There's likely a deep knowing. And if you can start by writing it out, start by writing out those fears, the things that you don't want other people to hear come out of your mouth. That's a good place to start because now you have your list of the very things that you're likely being indirect about.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  So when we say, how do we communicate more directly in relationships? One of the ways is to voice that you're trying to improve your communication, how direct it is. And that's certainly one version and tells people you're trying to improve. And that alone is, I think, a very admirable, wonderful quality. That's talking about the process of, I mean, I want to improve myself. Two is write them out or some things you're afraid of saying out loud. Is there a certain way or mindset you want to approach? How do I be more direct with this person that I'm considering adding to my life?

• 48:14Speaker 02

  Well, it's a good practice that pays off beyond just your romantic relationships. Being able to be honest with yourself, be honest with people that you care about. And you're taking responsibility for how you show up as a part of other people's lives. So whether that's again, family, friends or romantic partners, to be able to look at

• 48:37Speaker 02

  who you are to someone else and take that relationship seriously? To say, I haven't been communicating all that well. I've probably left people confused or put off, maybe even directly hurt. And I take my role as a friend, as a partner, as a parent, I take that seriously enough to work on that. And so I want to show up as an intentional friend, as an intentional partner, as an intentional parent, which means I'm going to work on these things. Understanding that in your own mind, that working on these things makes you a better person at your core, build your character. It allows you to take the value off of just yourself and on to the people that you love and care about

• 49:21Speaker 02

  in a beautiful way that allows for your relationships to improve.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  I like that. Do you have any advice for people who, let's say they're, we're still in the dating phase right now? And how to improve their communication, whether it's small talk? I'm, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or go-tos on how to make sure that you, you keep conversation and communication interesting, even when it can get kind of boring?

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Ask more questions. Ask questions. Be curious. Listen and think, oh, they just went on a trip. Maybe I should ask what they did. Maybe I should ask where they went. Oh, they mentioned that they have a job. Tell me about the job. Tell me a story. Tell me something interesting that's happened to you in, in the last few weeks. Ask questions. Be intentional, lean in and ask more questions. And then be open to the amusement that can come from asking more questions.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  I had this lady once say, I went on a date and he really only talked about himself. I don't think he asked me one question, you know, what should I do? I was the, make sure there's not a second date?

• 50:33Speaker 01

  There's nothing that just, that you, you should never be in a position to be asking somebody to ask more about you.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Well, emotional immaturity.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  If you're having a conversation with someone and they aren't asking you any questions, there's likely a bit of emotional immaturity at play because they're stuck in their own world. It's just them.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  They can't think of, outside of themselves.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Yes. Bingo.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  I think one, when we're talking about attractive qualities in communication, I, I agree on what I call more of these values of curiosity, generosity, kindness. I also like some of the phrases that are inviting more questions. I also think that we're saying, ask, ask more questions with someone. How do you invite more of this? An attractive quality is somebody who can step outside of themselves and, and.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Talk about perspective more than they can about arguing their point.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Do you find that?

• 51:39Speaker 01

  How much of a role? Does affirmation? Play in relationships?

• 51:44Speaker 02

  I think of affirmations. In terms of reassurance. Verbal communication. Even physical communication, you know, physical affection can be really. Reassuring and affirming. So. I would almost. My answer to your question is asking. How can I love this person the way that they want to be loved? Is paramount. It is absolutely necessary to get into a relationship and love the person that you're with in the ways that they want to be loved. Is it physical touch? Is it words of affirmation? Is it acts of service? And it goes beyond just the standard five love languages. It could be a lot of things. They could want you to make their coffee in the morning, every morning specifically. Leave little notes.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Just ask them about their day. You want to lean in and ask the person that you're with, how you can best care for them and take that responsibility seriously.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Quinlan, what are some things? That you you?

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Your subject is relationships.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  And I I'm curious of personal Quinlan for a moment. Is? What have you had to? Unlearn? About? Expectations? That you've placed in relationships?

• 53:05Speaker 02

  Uncommunicated expectations are premeditated resentments. It's one of my favorite quotes.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Tell me more.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Favorite all time quotes.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Walking around with a scoreboard in your head with a list of all the things that the person you're with isn't changing, but you want them to change. A list of expectations of how someone's going to show up. How they should care, what they should know. That doesn't do anything. But sends you straight into a wormhole of disappointment and resentment. The kindest thing you can be is clear, clear about what you want, clear about what you're missing, clear about how you're feeling. So there is. Next to no redeeming quality in expectations unless they're communicated, unless there can be a conversation with the person that you love. And it's caring to be explicitly clear about what it is that you want.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  I agree with that. I wanna. This, the unvoice expectations. There are people who are listening and go, I don't, I don't know how to put it into words. That sounds nice, Quinlan. It does. I don't know how to put it into words. So I want to. If we can workshop for a moment. A even a sentence starter. Or a phrase starter to help give people.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  A fill in the blank of what to finish. Is it as simple of just beginning with the phrase, I need? Or is it something? Deeper than that?

• 54:31Speaker 02

  You could use our favorite line. Which is the story that I'm telling myself is. The expectation that I had was I would come home for my big promotion and you'd be there jumping up and down with balloons and a cake. That was my expectation. And it wasn't.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  That's one thing to say. Being able to. Show that what you're expressing is yours. That doesn't. Doesn't accuse the other person of intentionally hurting you. Really? Creates an environment that allows the other person to listen and to hear you. If you come in with criticism, if you come in with a belittling or superior tone, attitude, the other person really isn't going to listen. If you come in with your list of expectations accusing them of doing something wrong. They're gonna be upset versus. I'm feeling sad, angry, resentful, frustrated, lonely. Tell them how you're feeling because the story in my head was this.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  That's a great way to lay it out.

• 55:35Speaker 01

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• 56:12Speaker 01

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• 56:52Speaker 01

  Like when you leave this out, I feel that's passive aggressive towards whatever, or I feel offended by whatever. To at least help. Like sometimes I feel like we're just. We need to put some, some training wheels on some things. And that's totally okay.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  You can't, nobody expects you to ride a bike the first time and be awesome at it. I was terrible at it, right? It's. You, you have to be able to get some momentum before you can take them off and keep riding. So do you, do you follow any kind of framework? When you are sharing these? Come on, be forward with what you need, be clear with what you need. That breaks it down to the nitty gritty for them.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  Make a request.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Ask yourself how you feel. Ask yourself what you'd like more of. And then make the request to your partner. Or to the person. So that is, again, back with the, the promotion example. That is. Hey, I would really love a little bit more support for you in these big happy moments. I feel like I have these big happy moments and it makes me sad that I don't feel like you're really there with me and I'd like you there with me more. That would look like X, Y, and Z.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  That would look like. You just being able to sit there and listen to me talk about how great it was to get this promotion. This would look like you offering to take us out to dinner. That might look like any number of things.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 58:22Speaker 02

  But you being able to make the request, not a demand, but hey, I would love to feel more supported. And here are the ways that that can happen. I like that recipe.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  What I hear you saying is. That I, I find most interesting is telling them what it looks like.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Cause it's easier, it's easy to say, I wish that you would just, you know, meet me in it. That's, that's gonna draw a lot more questions and that's gonna get people frustrated and lead to. Not good things. But if you were to. What you're proposing and recommending is tell them what that looks like. Like visualize it, what that could have sounded like, what that could have looked like or felt like.

• 59:06Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Add it to the senses. So use your, use your five senses there. You try and put them in of like, this is what I mean when I say this. Otherwise that ambiguity creates animosity.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Completely agree. Yes, well said.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Do you?

• 59:23Speaker 01

  When, when people are coming to you with relation of, relationship advice, what's like one of the number one things? Some of the top things that you typically hear of problems that they're having?

• 59:35Speaker 02

  Well, the most common dynamic is the pursuer and the withdrawer.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Like avoid and anxious kind of thing?

• 59:43Speaker 02

  Yes, but no, it's, it's often this, it's often a dynamic of one person who is pursuing, pouring in energy, trying to read the books, find the therapists, start the conversations. Be creative about how to create connection, get more of what they want. And the other person takes all of that effort and feels criticized or looks down upon or inadequate and they'll withdraw. So from, from a client's standpoint, I see both of that. I hear from the pursuers and from the people who are withdrawing and shutting down.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  That to me is, can we go there for a minute?

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  Please, yeah.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  So. The reason I love that topic is because I hear from so many people go, hey, I'm reading all the books and my, my. Significant other cares nothing about it.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  And I'm the only one. Rowing the boat. In fact, I'm only having one of the oars and so we're just going in a circle. You know, and we're not really getting anywhere because I'm trying to do all this stuff. I'm listening to this podcast, trying to fix my relationship and the other person is, does not care. So there's the, the chaser. And somebody who's avoiding is. To me, the first step is. It also might be some of just your internal wiring. Right? What, what do you tell, what do you tell them?

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  Well, it depends on who we're speaking to.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  Let's speak to the person who's a chaser.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  One of the questions is, how are you communicating the things that you want? Are you being kind and soft? Are you communicating effectively? Are you communicating in a way that the other person can actually hear you? Or are you being quite harsh, demanding, critical? Is all that they hear from you what they're doing wrong? Versus making a request? Balancing that with appreciation for the ways that they are trying? Or just for the nuance of the situation?

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Let's assume they're doing it all right.

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  So if they're being kind, if they're being soft, if they're being clear and appreciative and all of the things, then we need to have a conversation about how you're feeling and if the other person cares to improve the relationship. Because they're trying their best. They're saying, I'm being kind, I'm being soft. I'm fuming inside and I'm trying to regulate so that you can hear me. And you're, and, and in a lot of ways, I'm exhausted.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Because I've been trying so hard to get you to meet me and I just feel like you don't care.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  I'm gonna read you a, I'm just, can we go off script?

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  I mean, not that we have a script for any of this, but I don't, I don't think Grant even knows I'm doing this. So I have, I got an email yesterday. And I'm not gonna share this lady's name. And so in my newsletter and stuff, people are able to email and DMs. I assume you get the same kind of thing. And so this lady emailed me yesterday evening. Hey, Jefferson, this is a situation that I really don't know how to react with my, to with my husband of 18 years. There is no communication at all that has any respect to please help. And she had a screenshot, right? Of, between her and her husband of 18 years. And here I can see her text of saying, hey, I've tried to strike a few conversations with you.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  I'm not really sure how you're currently feeling about me, to be honest. It's starting to concern me that you don't really care for me much at this point. I feel like that's, that's good.

• 1:03:09Speaker 02

  That's really good.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Extremely good.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Now, her husband of 18 years, again, nobody knows I'm, I'm reading this. I just got this yesterday. He sends several messages all in a row. If that's how you feel, that's just fine. I don't have time for your petty crying BS. He didn't say BS. Always got some problem going on in your life, don't you? And finally, I'm perfectly happy you're the miserable one.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  End of message. That to me, Quinlan, is, I feel like there are countless people in relationships that feel that right there. Where they're saying, hey, I'm really trying to meet you. I'm really been reading this book. I've been listening to this podcast. I have been watching Quinlan's or Jefferson's stuff. I've been really doing this and I'm gonna use this technique and I'm gonna try this a certain way. And I'm gonna be clear and kind. And all they get back is just defensiveness, viciousness, that is disrespectful. And, and uncalled for.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  What do you tell?

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  This person? Whether she's, it doesn't matter married or not. What, what do you tell this kind of person? Of how to?

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  Let me rephrase that.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  What do you say to this person? Of what to, to do?

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  That's so tough.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  It is tough.

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  Outside of being able to have a full conversation with this woman and really understand the greater context of, of her life and her situation.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  It comes down to the question of, why do you continue to tolerate this kind of disrespect? Are you trading your self-respect for the familiarity of this 18-year marriage? How long are you willing? To tolerate this? What do you want, truly? Do you want to share a home, to share a bed with someone who speaks to you this way?

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Do you want to continue building a life with someone who thinks it's okay to talk to someone that they claim to love like that? There's, there's a lot of avenues there, but the reality is, if it were me, I would say you need to choose your self-respect over the desire to be chosen or the fear of being alone. That's tough.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  I want to take this situation with the text I just read. And because I know you're not trying to give marriage advice. We, you talk about relationships generally. And so I want to make sure that I'm in your appropriate lane.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  For, and I'm gonna offer what's in my head to help maybe spur some other thoughts that you have. For me, the immediate question or thing that I want to give her is, first thing you have to decide is, what's your limit? Like every, every material has a, a breaking point. And the question is, do you know what that is? Like, is there a boundary that you've had in place that says, if this continues, this is what I'm going to do? And knowing what your tolerance level is. And if you don't have a, a limit to that,

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  then you're gonna put yourself in a position where this kind of, I would almost say abuse, is going to be littered throughout the rest of your story.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  To me, it's a question of defining your limit of what you're gonna do next.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  I completely agree. And asking what it is that she wants. I mean, she can pull back her energy. She can pull back her efforts, not match his vitriol and critically, not match that, but not invest the same amount of time, attention and energy. If she can acknowledge, if she says, well, honestly, I really can't, I can't leave. I can't do that for any number of reasons. There is the option to pull your energy back. And it's as sad as it is, as disappointing as it is, you build a life outside of this marriage that you're in. I don't love that, but there is an option and there are circumstances where that happens and that needs to happen for someone.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  I want to speak to, and of course, we could be talking about, you know, tips or phrases or whatever else on the communication side of that. What I want to move into is more of what I understand your, some of your best,

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  where you tend to resonate the most is,

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  and what I, what I like about your content so much is that you say, hey, I'm going to focus on who I am more than what they need from me first. Or I'm going to focus on deciding who I am before I'm trying to find somebody to complete me. I'm going to find out who I am before I figure out what this relationship requires of me. But there has to be this self-work first. So tell, tell me about, what, what are these kind of things? I know I'm hovering around it. Of,

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  what comes to mind for you when we talk about this fixing yourself first?

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  Well, first, there's nothing to fix about you or anyone else. There are only parts of yourself that need more love and support, more compassion. Even the most rigid, cruel, cold parts of ourselves are really parts of ourselves that need more understanding and more softness. So if you're thinking, I need to fix myself before I get into a relationship, I want to rewire that to what are the parts of myself that I actually need to learn to love more? That's step one. Step two is having that framework of care for yourself. The relationship you build with yourself doesn't need to be perfectly crafted before you get into a relationship.

• 1:09:56Speaker 02

  Absolutely not. But being able to bring that practice into a relationship is really important. You can have a, you can have a perfectly calm, regulated life as a single person, all by yourself, your family, your friends, this great life that you love. And then the minute you get into a relationship, you're, you're someone you don't recognize. And that's because when we're in relationship with, with other people, it triggers the parts of us that have been hurt in relationships previously. It shows us the parts of us that we wouldn't have been able to see unless we were in relationship with someone. And that's a beautiful opportunity to grow in relationship. So understand that there's nothing to fix about yourself. There's only parts of you that need more love and acceptance.

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  Work on building the foundation of the relationship with yourself. And then be open to learning and growing in a relationship that is loving and safe.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  That I, I absolutely agree with of learning to grow in the relationship. Because I feel like when you, when you are all in on a relationship, you're choosing to be replotted, like repotted, to where you're having to, to really go into something else.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Entirely. So I hear the, the three-part framework and I like it. Where my brain goes, there's some things that we gotta fix. Like, in other words, I hear you saying, not fixed, love more. But there are people who might say,

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  This is not a good quality of mine.

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  And I don't need to have this quality. And I'm not going to cure this quality by living it more. You know what I mean? Like, so is it, or are you saying the problem that's being created is as a consequence or result of an area that's not being loved enough? Tell me more.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  I'm saying it needs to be loved more. I'm saying, ask yourself what that behavior is protecting you from.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Oh, I hear what you're saying.

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  What is it that you're trying to defend, protect, keeping yourself from feeling? What are you trying to protect yourself from? Our bad habits always trace back to some kind of protective mechanism. We're coping with something that we can't feel. We don't have the capacity to feel it. So take a look at what that is. I mean, and it's not a, it's a, it's a felt sensation. It's a lot of, you know, introspection and feeling and curiosity about your own inner world. But I, I'd stand by that. I think it is a part of us that needs more love and understanding.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  No, now that I have the full context of it, that, that does make sense to me. In other words, the bad habits are a product of something that isn't been, hasn't been getting enough love.

• 1:12:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  So that's, that's how we fix that. That's how we.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  Which comes back to your question of how important vulnerability is.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  Because if we aren't comfortable with being vulnerable, we're going to do everything we can to avoid it, not feel it, push it away, distract ourselves, and it becomes harmful.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  How do we become fully known in relationships?

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  How would you describe being fully known?

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  To me, it's.

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  What does that mean to you?

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it means to be able to accept love and admire all parts of me that I have

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  made the intentional choice of sharing with this person. That doesn't mean for everybody. Usually this means of one.

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  And to me, it's a, to be fully loved and to be fully known is vulnerability is not the goal, it's the standard. Where I am now willing to every, there, there's no, how should I really word this around them? Cause I'm afraid of walking on eggshells or I'm afraid to say what I struggle with are my problems or my, my horrible, terrible traits and weird quirks that nobody else knows that I've struggled with ever since I was 11 years old and they can't possibly know, know what I have. Every insecurity of being able to give that as a gift to somebody and then to be able to accept that fully, that's to me fully known.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  Oh, I love that. I, I think we're, the idea of being fully known varies depending on the relationship. Like I bet that they're the 10 closest people to you would all describe you in a way that you recognize, but it might be slightly different from the next.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  No doubt, yeah.

• 1:14:40Speaker 02

  And I, and I think that's wonderful. I think that's the point of having many close relationships.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47Speaker 02

  Is that people know you and learn you and see you in a number of different ways. But in order to allow yourself to be fully seen by the people that you love, you have to understand that the vulnerability is your superpower. Anything other than vulnerability is actually going to keep people away from you. It's going to keep them at arm's distance because they can't see or know the real you. You haven't let them in. So it's understanding that the connection that you want requires vulnerability and vulnerability is your superpower in that way.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Let's come up with a statement, as I feel like there is one here.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Is like, you know, there could be, I, I like to say the conversation you're avoiding is the result you're choosing. There is this like line, I think here that there's something here of the connection you're craving is the vulnerability, you know, you're, you're keeping like the, the, there has, there's something there.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  The connection you're, the, the connection you're craving requires the very vulnerability that you're avoiding.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  Something like that.

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  We're so, we're such content creators.

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 1:15:56Speaker 02

  How to say it in a way that lands.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Really are, we really are. But when, when we find it, like, that's my mind constantly.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  I'll be too. Catch me laying in bed trying to fall asleep. Oh, man.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're just gonna be a connection.

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I, I do think that's a very, um, very powerful

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  dynamic of knowing

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  truly the connection you're wanting from somebody, it's, it's hidden behind the vulnerability that you have. Like you, you're just waiting, if you're wanting it, it's typically the, the thing that you're not willing to give up or share with that other person.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  Well, and the understanding that the benefit of vulnerability far outweighs the risk every single time, especially if you like yourself, especially if you're good with who you are, your, your quirks, your flaws, your strengths. If you're good with that, vulnerability can't hurt you very much.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  But I'd say that's the exception.

• 1:16:56Speaker 02

  Tell me more.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  I think most people don't like the insecurities and the fears and the things that they have. I think most people think that they are terminally unique. They feel like nobody else can relate to me. I am one of one. And it's actually, the more you share, the more you find, we're all pretty much the same.

• 1:17:21Speaker 02

  Especially when you're looking at yourself through the lens, through a lens of compassion.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  Through the lens of curiosity, why do I do that? Why do I feel that way? Where did that come from? What is it serving? What is it protecting? You're, that's an entirely different conversation from what's wrong with you? Why do you do this? Why are you so screwed up? Why have you been screwed up for so long? I mean, who the heck wants to have a conversation with someone who's going to talk to you?

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  In that way.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  Versus really building a relationship with yourself that you like, where you are a person you like, you like the way you speak to yourself, you like the way that you handle these things.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  How do you know that the person you're with is worth spending a lifetime with?

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  When you realize that they are helping you fall more in love with yourself.

• 1:18:10Speaker 02

  That's a really good sign. When you are able to be exactly who you are and you're encouraged to be even better, a better version of yourself in a way that allows you to love yourself more. That means there's likely a sense of trust with this person. You're trusting them to see the, see all the parts of you, to love all of the parts of you. There's likely a sense of care and real nurturing, real affection that you have with this person. And you respect them because you're allowing them to influence you in a way that could be quite vulnerable. So if you notice that you are falling more in love with yourself, that's a really good sign.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  Do you have like a, um, a metric that you like to use when it comes to being like, okay, can I really be with this person for a long time?

• 1:19:04Speaker 02

  I like to say, another way to phrase it, if you allow, if you allow the other person to be exactly who they want to be, without molding them, without controlling them, does that help you feel more or less like the person that you want to be? Does that create a relationship that you want to spend more time in?

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  How do you become the type of person that your partner actually wants? Or is that the wrong question to ask?

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  I think the better question is, are you becoming a version of yourself that you really like? Are you growing into a person that you really like, that you're proud to be? Do you like your character? Do you like the way you treat yourself? Do you like the way that you treat others? Do you like the way that you spend your time and attention? Do you like your interests, your hobbies? Those are really good questions to ask. Not to mold yourself into who you think the other person wants you to be more of, because ideally the right person is someone who wants you to be more of who you really are.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. When you are, when we're talking to people who are early on in the relationship and they're kind of in this lovey dovey phase, you know, is, is love really all you need early on in the relationship or forever?

• 1:20:28Speaker 02

  You need love as a verb. You need love that is consideration and willingness to look outside of yourself. You need to be able to pay attention. You need to be willing to pay attention, to be patient, to be curious instead of judgmental. You need to be willing to learn to love the person that you're with in the ways that they want to be loved. If you aren't willing to consider the person that you're with and take loving them as a real responsibility and a real honor,

• 1:21:01Speaker 02

  that's a good place to start.

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  Well, I'd love that answer. That was awesome. Clint, thank you so much for being on and, and sharing, um, some of yourself with, with our community. Thank you again.

• 1:21:16Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Thanks for coming.

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  So lovely.