The 3 KEY SIGNS That Relationship Will Last! (How To Find Love) | Lewis Howes & Jay Shetty

Jay Shetty 0:00 You don't get to have an amazing relationship with someone because of a promise or a commitment. You get to do it because you renew that promise and commitment on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, not because you wanna extend the years you've been together, but because you wanna extend the growth. [upbeat music] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Awkward Therapy, taboo topics, uncomfortable conversations. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 0:27 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 0:27 We don't, we don't even have a name yet-

Lewis Howes 0:28 Yeah

Jay Shetty 0:28 ... but we just know that we're doing something that's uncomfortable, awkward, and difficult, but I'm doing it with my dear friend, Lewis Howes, who I admire, I learn so much from, who we have these fascinating conversations with every month for hours and hours and hours, and we find it really useful to go back and forth and just dissect a topic. So today's topic is something that I think's gonna interest a lot of people because we're trying to ask questions that we all have in our heads, but no one ever says out loud because it's kind of-

Lewis Howes 0:59 It's scary

Jay Shetty 0:59 ... it's scary. It's-

Lewis Howes 1:00 It's hard to talk about.

Jay Shetty 1:01 It's-

Lewis Howes 1:01 It's controversial.

Jay Shetty 1:03 Especially if you're in a relationship, today's one-

Lewis Howes 1:05 Ooh

Jay Shetty 1:05 ... is a scary one to ask.

Lewis Howes 1:06 Ooh.

Jay Shetty 1:07 And these are two men in relationships. I've been married and, and with my wife for nearly 10 years now, so-

Lewis Howes 1:13 Uh-huh

Jay Shetty 1:13 ... that's a long time. You're in a relationship that you're very happy in-

Lewis Howes 1:16 Yes

Jay Shetty 1:16 ... with your girlfriend, Marta, and I'm so happy to see you both happy. But we're also both reflecting on these things. So the question is, or the question we're starting with and then we'll kind of get lost in it, is, is it possible to be exclusive with and love one person for your-

Lewis Howes 1:33 For [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:33 ... entire life? [laughs] For the rest of your life, right? Like, that's-

Lewis Howes 1:37 Oh, we put it out there.

Jay Shetty 1:39 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:39 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:39 And we wanna encourage you to have this conversation, so-

Lewis Howes 1:42 Yes

Jay Shetty 1:42 ... you know, with people at work, with people at home. Maybe not with your partner. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:46 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:46 Maybe. Maybe with your partner. Maybe that's a good thing to talk with.

Lewis Howes 1:48 I think it's important to talk, yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:50 Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:50 We, we wanna encourage you to-

Jay Shetty 1:51 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:52 ... share this with one person that you think it would be interesting to have this conversation with.

Jay Shetty 1:56 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:56 Maybe that is your partner or friend or whatever.

Jay Shetty 1:58 Maybe your parents.

Lewis Howes 1:59 Maybe your parents.

Jay Shetty 2:00 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 2:00 And listen to this, share this conversation with one person, and set a time to have a discussion about what you heard, what you liked, maybe what you didn't like from this conversation, and, and share with us in the comments below in this channel what was the most interesting thing or what you'd add to this.

Jay Shetty 2:19 Yes.

Lewis Howes 2:19 I think that'd be useful for people.

Jay Shetty 2:20 Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And, and by the way, the reason why this is called Awkward Therapy is both me and Lewis, not therapists. We're not.

Lewis Howes 2:27 No.

Jay Shetty 2:27 We're trying to figure life out, and we believe that having open and honest conversations help us do that because you get to hear things from another perspective, and you get to just think about something for a lot longer than, like, the second you make decisions. So anyway, I mean, let's dive in. I think-

Lewis Howes 2:42 So what's the answer? Can you do it? [laughs]

Jay Shetty 2:44 [laughs] I mean-

Lewis Howes 2:45 Well, I,

Lewis Howes 2:46 I first-

Jay Shetty 2:46 Yeah, go on

Lewis Howes 2:46 ... think of when we grew up-

Jay Shetty 2:48 Yeah

Lewis Howes 2:48 ... we watched a lot of movies that would portray this fantasy or this ideal, let's call it, that you, you find the prince or the princess, you marry, and it's happily ever after. And then in the real world, things happen. People move town. You get an opportunity for work somewhere. You have to do long distance, and there's challenges. There was a breakup that someone had, and they're still lingering in the new conversation, or they're talking to their ex, or things just happen in life. Or you're just on Instagram, and you get distracted by, and you think that everyone else is better than the relationship you have. There's all these shiny opportunities, right? Or these different people that could bring you more joy or love than in the current relationship. And you and I both have friends that are in, let's call it open relationships. I guess you'd call it polyamory, right? Where they have multiple partners, where you have one main partner and you have multiple relationships. And we both know people that have been married for a long time, decades, who are happily married. We both know people that have been married for decades and are unhappily married. And so I guess, where do we start? [laughs]

Jay Shetty 4:01 [laughs] I mean, I, I think what you said, uh, sparked something for me. Like, I grew up as a hopeless romantic-

Lewis Howes 4:08 Yeah

Jay Shetty 4:08 ... based on movies-

Lewis Howes 4:09 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 4:10 ... and music. So I always believed that there's the one, and I wanted this big romantic relationship, and I loved, like, flowers-

Lewis Howes 4:18 Mm

Jay Shetty 4:18 ... and, like, poetry and, like-

Lewis Howes 4:20 Surprises

Jay Shetty 4:21 ... long walks and surprises and gifts because I bought into what Hollywood showed me. So for me, I think for a long period of my life, I believed that love was what I saw in the movies, and I know that sounds ridiculous. But in my teens, I would say that was massively what I saw, and I would watch American movies, so people getting asked out to prom or, like, was, like, a big deal in American movies. Or whether it was, like, finding that one person who's gonna solve everything, right?

Lewis Howes 4:50 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 4:51 And then you start recognizing that, oh, wait a minute, I had a few relationships that looked like that on the outside, but then they didn't feel that way.

Lewis Howes 4:58 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 4:58 Or wait a minute, I've had a few breakups now. Or wait a minute, like, I thought this person was the one, but they weren't. And then you start recognizing, now that I've been in a long relationship, long-term relationship, you start realizing love looks completely different.

Lewis Howes 5:11 Mm.

Jay Shetty 5:12 And so I think

Jay Shetty 5:13 for me, the way I address this or the way I think about this is that, first of all, you have to define what love means to you and what you want love to be. For some people, they just want love to feel like attraction-

Lewis Howes 5:27 Desire

Jay Shetty 5:28 ... infatuation, desire. And if that's how you define love, chances are you're gonna want a new person every month-

Lewis Howes 5:37 Mm

Jay Shetty 5:37 ... or every year.

Lewis Howes 5:38 Because desire or that type of chemical desire, explosiveness, fades eventually.

Jay Shetty 5:45 The studies show that, too, and I'm not saying that you can't have desire for someone. I know, I know one couple that's been married for, like, 30 years, and they would still say they have that, and I love that.

Lewis Howes 5:53 I think the desi- yeah.

Jay Shetty 5:54 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 5:54 There's different levels of desire. There's, like, a conscious, healthy desire where you admire, respect, you're inspired by, and that creates that chemistry and that, whether you wanna call it sexual desire or whatever desire you create in your intimacy in a relationship. But the explosive, like, unhealthy desire I feel like only comes when you're- ... kind of trauma bonding each other [laughs] like early on, right? You see something and you're like, "I want that." But then there was never like a foundation of values, what you really want in your life together, agreements, you know, this conscious conversation around being a couple.

Jay Shetty 6:29 Yes. Yes, and I would say one thing you said, which was really interesting to me, 'cause I think it's another societal narrative, is that the desire fades, and really what we both know is that desire deepens.

Lewis Howes 6:40 Mm.

Jay Shetty 6:40 Like it becomes about deeper things.

Lewis Howes 6:42 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 6:42 And so it's not that it goes away, it's just that it evolves.

Lewis Howes 6:45 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 6:45 But if you are only into that initial desire, and I, I remember

Jay Shetty 6:50 for a long time, I mean, my greatest joy came from the pursuit and the chase and the conquest.

Lewis Howes 6:57 Pre-monk life.

Jay Shetty 6:58 Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a lot... Yeah, pre-monk life. So I got a lot of joy out of wanting to see if I could get someone. Like that was-

Lewis Howes 7:07 Get the girl, yeah

Jay Shetty 7:07 ... the mindset. Yeah, because that was the mindset that I was brought up in. Now, of course, when I look back at this, I don't believe in that as a value. I don't think, I don't think women or anyone are something to get. But I think growing up as a teenager who wasn't exposed to any form of wisdom or insight, you grow up with that mentality of like you're only trying to prove it to yourself. That's the craziest-

Lewis Howes 7:28 Or your, or your like buddies or something to be like, "Oh, this person's into me," or look what, you know.

Jay Shetty 7:32 Which ultimately is you trying to prove to yourself that you are worthy so that your friends respect you.

Lewis Howes 7:37 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 7:37 And so now you're going out to obtain this thing, so.

Lewis Howes 7:40 How long were you doing that up until, like and h- how old were you when you stopped the chase?

Jay Shetty 7:46 21. Like 20, 21.

Lewis Howes 7:48 Better man than me. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 7:49 [laughs] Yeah.

Lewis Howes 7:51 Better man than me. What I realized, um, was that there was a lot of fun to the chase, right? There's-

Jay Shetty 7:58 So fun

Lewis Howes 7:59 ... it's like this addictive drug. It's like there is someone out there that I'm attracted to or has something that I want or I want to be in, in contact with them, whether that's a relationship or a hookup or whatever it might be, right?

Jay Shetty 8:16 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 8:16 And then the, the attempt to go after, I guess, accomplishing this feat is, uh, like a drug.

Jay Shetty 8:25 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 8:25 It is like this chemical drug that makes you kind of obsessive about it, right? Until you get it. And then it... When you get it from a place that is unconscious, it never was fulfilling or rewarding for me, right? And it was creating a foundation from something that wasn't based on values, vision, lifestyle, things like that, that never worked out for me. It was never healthy. It might have been fun for six months or might have been some good intentions here and there, but it never long-term worked out because there wasn't a foundation of a conscious relationship being developed.

Jay Shetty 8:56 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 8:56 And I think that's what you did with Radhi, like when you got out of the, the monk life and you started the relationship with Radhi. You guys started from the beginning. What you've told me is about, "Here are my values. Here's my mission. I'm on a mission to be impactful and serve humanity. This is the type of marriage I want to create. This is the type of life I want to have." This is the, some of the stuff I remember you telling me. And I think going into a relationship with conscious conversations is probably one of the only ways to set yourself up to win for a lifetime together, right?

Jay Shetty 9:27 Yeah, if you want that.

Lewis Howes 9:28 If you want to be a one-

Jay Shetty 9:29 And I, and I think-

Lewis Howes 9:29 Yeah

Jay Shetty 9:29 ... and I know a lot of g- I know a lot of people who say to me, "Well, I enjoy the chase and the pursuit like I did," and you pretty much want a new person every month-

Lewis Howes 9:38 Yeah

Jay Shetty 9:38 ... right? For, for men at least or, or men that I know, where you kind of can get bored quickly. Someone entertains you for a few months, and then after that you need something new. And you-

Lewis Howes 9:48 You need the chase again, the drug

Jay Shetty 9:48 ... and you need the chase again and the drug again, which is a great definition, and you keep moving and moving and moving. And then the individual has to decide, I think

Jay Shetty 9:56 the choice is, do I want a long-term relationship or do I not? And there are gifts and pain points in both.

Lewis Howes 10:05 Yes.

Jay Shetty 10:06 Like there are really exciting, amazing things about dating someone new every few months, and there are really painful parts about it.

Lewis Howes 10:12 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 10:13 And then there's loads of amazing things about being with someone for a long amount of time, or at least long for me is 10 years, because that's the longest I've ever done with someone. But then there are loads of challenging parts about that. And I think everyone just has to know what type of life they're signing up for.

Lewis Howes 10:27 Wow.

Jay Shetty 10:28 And that's why we're having this conversation-

Lewis Howes 10:30 Yeah

Jay Shetty 10:30 ... because I don't think that you have to love one person for the rest of your life.

Lewis Howes 10:36 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 10:36 I don't think someone should be forced to believe that's the only way life works, especially because some people dedicate their life to someone, then that person leaves them, uh, whether naturally or unnaturally. Someone leaves them because there's infidelity or whatever there may be, and the point is that you can't force someone to say there is only one person. And I think often the institutions of the world, marriage and, and religion often kind of enforced people to believe that, well, you got married at 21, you've got to be with this person for the rest of your life.

Lewis Howes 11:08 Or you're a failure.

Jay Shetty 11:09 Correct. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 11:09 Or you made mistakes, or you, something, something's wrong with you.

Jay Shetty 11:13 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 11:14 And I think that's one of the things why people stay in a relationship for way too long, because they don't want it to be something, uh, made a mistake or something wrong with them, so they try and try and try to make it work. And maybe they could have made it work, but they just weren't in alignment or something. But a lot of people I think are in shame when they get a divorce, or they're in guilt, or they're in sadness for this loss because it didn't work out. They weren't who they thought they were. Something happened, right?

Jay Shetty 11:41 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 11:42 It's a lot. I've seen people who have been through divorce. It's not fun. Any, just a breakup is not fun. Even if you got married or not, people go through breakups and struggle for a long time it seems like. So relationships can be messy, for sure.

Jay Shetty 11:55 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 11:55 But what

Lewis Howes 11:56 I have discovered in one year of, of, of a relation-

Jay Shetty 12:00 Of intense therapy [laughs]

Lewis Howes 12:01 Yeah. Uh, well, one y- one and a half years of intense therapy starting a relationship. This has been something that I've never done, but for the last 10 years, I've wanted to start a relationship in therapy. And me and Martha started that. When we first started kind of hanging out, we weren't really dating for the first few months. We just kind of were like hanging out and- She was dating other people, I was dating other people and, or just kind of out in the world. When we started getting more serious about it, I was like, "Listen, I've always wanted to do this, and I think it's a deal breaker if we don't do this. Because I just wanna make sure that we are setting ourselves up for success in terms of peace, joy." And for me, success in a relationship is two individuals independently living their lives and sharing their lives together.

Jay Shetty 12:48 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 12:49 Like, she's gone for a couple weeks working on a project in a movie right now, and I'm in Los Angeles doing my thing. I know with you and your wife, she might be gone or you might be traveling, and sometimes you're doing it together and sometimes apart, and having the freedom and flexibility to be yourself and also be in the relationship. I think that's, for me, what is success at this season of my life.

Jay Shetty 13:11 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 13:12 Maybe in 10 years, uh, it'll look like something different.

Jay Shetty 13:15 Yeah, and

Jay Shetty 13:16 I think that's the point, right? Like, seeing life as seasons because you have to ask the question, like, why do we think or why have you in this season decided to be exclusive to one person?

Lewis Howes 13:27 Ah.

Jay Shetty 13:28 And I think often we do that subconsciously. I don't think everyone intentionally thinks, "I feel I'm ready for a long-term relationship now." I don't think we do that. I think we assume that at one point you're meant to kind of get into one and settle down, rather than the conscious choice.

Lewis Howes 13:46 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 13:46 Or you're consciously avoiding that-

Lewis Howes 13:48 Yes

Jay Shetty 13:48 ... and you're going, "No, no, no, no, no, the last thing I want to do is get married or settle down or be in a long-term relationship." And so for me it's like everyone has to sit there and look in the mirror and go, "Why do I want either right now? What serves me, and what serves my vision, and what serves what I'm trying to do?"

Lewis Howes 14:05 That's what it is. And I think when you go back to what is my vision for my life and what do I really want, what will support that vision at the highest level? If you're a single guy and your vision is to, you know, be really focused on your mission and your business and growth and your health, and if you're spreading your energy around 10 different women you're dating at once over a year or something, or however many you want to date, there is a lot of excitement to that lifestyle, but then you have to unwind and essentially re- you know, reject every person that you're not gonna be with.

Jay Shetty 14:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 14:36 So there's like this unwinding, there's this hurt phase, there's this phase where you're, you know, having challenging conversations and detaching from that intimacy of those connections, and that's a lot of energy.

Jay Shetty 14:48 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 14:48 It's a lot of effort that's pulling you from your health or your other relationships or building something deeper and more meaningful. When you have 10 surface level relationships as opposed to one deeper. I have different friends who have tried the whole polyamory thing-

Jay Shetty 15:02 Mm

Lewis Howes 15:02 ... who have had multiple partners at the same time, who've had one person and then other people on the side, and I've never met one man who has successfully, I mean, had peace in their life, let's say, consistently over years doing that. There might be a year or two where-

Jay Shetty 15:20 Yeah

Lewis Howes 15:20 ... it seems manageable-

Jay Shetty 15:21 Yeah

Lewis Howes 15:22 ... but then it's like there's always a breakdown.

Jay Shetty 15:24 Yeah. I've, I've, I've coached people and worked with people in that space, and I've just found that it's hard enough-

Lewis Howes 15:31 With one person [laughs]

Jay Shetty 15:31 ... dealing with one person's emotions-

Lewis Howes 15:33 Yes

Jay Shetty 15:34 ... than to deal with two. And this is what we do as humans, which I find really interesting, is that we make everything extreme, so we're so scared of codependency-

Lewis Howes 15:43 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 15:43 ... so therefore we go to polyamory.

Lewis Howes 15:45 Yes.

Jay Shetty 15:46 'Cause we're like, "I don't want to be dependent on one person, so instead of figuring out the trauma as to why I become codependent, and instead of purifying and figuring out what it is that makes me codependent, I just believe that an external shell of being in a polyamorous relationship will solve that." That's often the mindset of people that I've met.

Lewis Howes 16:06 Yes.

Jay Shetty 16:06 I'm not saying that that's the only reason.

Lewis Howes 16:09 Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 16:09 I'm not saying that... Please, haters in the comments and the trolls, like, I'm not saying this is the only reason and this- I'm just saying that the people I've spoken to, they've said to me that they were scared of being codependent, so they believed if they had more partners then they wouldn't be codependent.

Lewis Howes 16:21 Yeah. Or they'd get the excitement that they were missing in their relationship. They wanted the relationship that would give them support and peace and structure, but if they were missing the excitement, "Okay, let me go find the excitement somewhere else."

Jay Shetty 16:34 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 16:34 And for me, that made a lot of sense in my 20s thinking that way, because I was just like, "Oh, I don't know if you could do this with one person-

Jay Shetty 16:42 Yeah

Lewis Howes 16:42 ... for a long time." That was probably one of my biggest fears, that I would be in love with someone, or love someone consciously, but that sexual desire, that exciting feeling that happens in the first, whatever, three to six, nine months I wouldn't have with a person once I was married with them, when I'd feel trapped.

Jay Shetty 17:01 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 17:02 And I had to really h- heal a lot of things from childhood that built that script or narrative to, to realize that it's possible with conscious effort to create connection, chemistry, desire with one person if they're the right person in alignment also doing the conscious work.

Jay Shetty 17:24 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 17:24 And that's where I said, like, I need to start therapy so that we have agreements so I can feel peaceful to be myself, my full expression, and dive into the relationship with curiosity and fun and excitement and desire in the relationship.

Jay Shetty 17:39 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 17:40 And so far it's been extraordinary in the process of therapy before problems.

Jay Shetty 17:47 Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Lewis Howes 17:48 I don't know if this is something that you guys did or if you did something like that where you had conscious conversations about kids or what happens with money and all these different things before marriage. Was that something you guys did?

Jay Shetty 17:57 Yeah, and, and I don't think they have a stop, but there's important-

Lewis Howes 17:59 Right

Jay Shetty 17:59 ... ones to have before. And, and before I get there, I think there was one thing about the, um... that I wanted to mention about polyamory is that it's, it's not that... Basically, there's no external shell that's going to solve your internal trauma and pain. So whether you're with one person or whether you're with three or two or four people, neither of those are the cure.

Lewis Howes 18:23 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 18:23 Like, you can't say to someone, like, "Being with one person and being married to them is the cure for your pain and trauma." Or that if you have two people, then you won't be codependent. Like, that doesn't solve it.

Lewis Howes 18:34 Sure.

Jay Shetty 18:34 And so you've got to figure out what is it, again, that I really want.

Jay Shetty 18:37 And so for me and Radhi, like, I've- all I can ever do is be honest about where I'm at and what I want at that time

Lewis Howes 18:47 In this moment.

Jay Shetty 18:47 In this moment, because that's gonna change too.

Lewis Howes 18:49 What, what if you made a promise on your wedding day about 10 years, 20 years-

Jay Shetty 18:52 And that's why I don't think it's a promise. I think it's an ongoing conversation-

Lewis Howes 18:57 Yes

Jay Shetty 18:57 ... that is always changing and evolving. It's not a commitment or a promise. It's not saying, "I am definitely up for this." It's saying, "I am open to this."

Lewis Howes 19:06 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 19:07 "I'm considering this," or, "I'm close to this. This is not what I want."

Lewis Howes 19:10 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 19:10 So, so if someone knows they don't want to have children, but they never talk about that with someone who they know wants to have children because you're scared of raising that, that's unhealthy because that is gonna come up one day.

Lewis Howes 19:22 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 19:23 Or if your desire long term is to live in another city or country, but you've not made someone aware that that's what you're considering. And so I don't think this is about this is what I want, and this is my promise. It's more just saying, "This is kind of how I imagine my life."

Lewis Howes 19:38 Right.

Jay Shetty 19:39 Like, this is kind of how I think about it.

Lewis Howes 19:41 Things change. Things evolve.

Jay Shetty 19:42 Things 100%

Lewis Howes 19:42 People change and all these different things. I, I think Patrick Bet-David said this.

Jay Shetty 19:46 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 19:46 I can't remember where he said this, but I believe he said, like, every year around New Year's or Christmas, I think this was him, where he says he and his wife get together and say, "Do we want to do this for one more year?"

Jay Shetty 19:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 19:56 And, "What worked this year? What didn't work? How can we make it better? And do we want to do this for one more year?"

Jay Shetty 20:02 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 20:02 As opposed to for the rest of our lives, like thinking all the way 50 years away-

Jay Shetty 20:07 Yeah

Lewis Howes 20:07 ... can seem kind of daunting-

Jay Shetty 20:09 Yeah

Lewis Howes 20:09 ... for some people. And I think that's an interesting approach. And I think it could be like, you know, every day, what are we grateful for? Was there something that was off today that we can address? So that it always is improving and growing and in a conversation of, of growth every day, once a week, once a month, every year, like be having the conversation is the key.

Jay Shetty 20:30 I think making a lifelong decision is a recipe for failure.

Lewis Howes 20:34 [laughs] Oh, yeah.

Jay Shetty 20:35 What is it, anything, forget loving another person, what could you say that you're going to do every day for the rest of your life apart from shower and brush your teeth?

Lewis Howes 20:45 And breathe.

Jay Shetty 20:45 And breathe.

Lewis Howes 20:46 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 20:46 Like, what is there that you could truly say, hand on your heart, that you know you'll be able to maintain? I don't think there's anything. So to create that promise really starts, and, and I do something similar more regularly with Radhi, where I always check in with Radhi and be like, "Is this the relationship you want? Is this going in the direction you want?"

Lewis Howes 21:06 That's a great question.

Jay Shetty 21:06 Is it going in the way I want? Because if it isn't, are we willing to change? And if we're not willing to change, then where does this go?

Lewis Howes 21:15 Mm.

Jay Shetty 21:15 And I think doing that regularly every couple of weeks, every month, every three months, every quarter, turn it into a thoughtful process, to me, that's really healthy because it gives you the incremental, intricate moments to say, "Okay, well, I don't like how this is going." And there were days in our relationship, certain years, where I'd said to Radhi, like, I'm like, "This is not the relationship I want."

Lewis Howes 21:38 Really?

Jay Shetty 21:38 "And this is what I'm willing to do for it to change. Are you willing to do something for it to change?"

Lewis Howes 21:43 Was that hard for her to hear that?

Jay Shetty 21:45 I think-

Lewis Howes 21:45 This is after you were married.

Jay Shetty 21:46 This is after we're married. I, I think that we established those awkward conversations and uncomfortable conversations early, and so it's continued to be easy to have them. But what I found is just the realness of a human, often her response will be, "Well, I need to think about that."

Lewis Howes 22:05 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 22:05 Like, "I don't know. I'm unaware. I'm not sure." And that requires patience-

Lewis Howes 22:10 Yes

Jay Shetty 22:10 ... and that requires waiting and so many other uncomfortable feelings. But you have... My point is, if you don't do that, you're basically living a lie for, for years and

Jay Shetty 22:20 years and years. And I always find this fascinating that when someone gets divorced or when someone breaks up, everyone's surprised, apart from those two people.

Lewis Howes 22:29 'Cause they're like, "Oh, this has been two years in the making."

Jay Shetty 22:30 Because they know what's going on, right?

Lewis Howes 22:32 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 22:32 And people may be shocked, and they may not be happy with it, but really deep down, you know you've just been going along with the default. And so I find that having that conversation more regularly allows you to pivot or, for some people, part.

Lewis Howes 22:47 Yes. Mm.

Jay Shetty 22:47 But I don't think, if you don't have that conversation, then the pivot or the part is less likely.

Lewis Howes 22:52 My therapist, but also Martha and I, are doing individual and then together at certain times-

Jay Shetty 22:58 Amazing

Lewis Howes 22:58 ... right, which has been extremely helpful to have separation as well, where I can just continue to heal on my healing journey from my own stuff. She can do her own work, and then we can do relationship work together. It's really beautiful experiences. What our therapist and coach says is relationships should be about high engagement, low attachment. You know, high engagement and low attachment.

Jay Shetty 23:19 That's such a hard balance.

Lewis Howes 23:20 And she's like, "That's the hardest thing to do." That's, like, the ultimate challenge is high engagement, low attachment. And a lot of times in my past, speaking for myself, it was high engagement, high attachment, or low engagement, high attachment-

Jay Shetty 23:33 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 23:33 ... to the result, to it working out, and kind of giving in and abandoning myself just to, like, try to make it work. And when I learned how to heal from a lot of different stuff from previous relationships and just learn how to heal my own childhood wounds, it was easier for me to make decisions and be less attached to the result and just say, "This is my vision. This is the type of relationship I want." And so with Martha and me early on, I was like, "Here is my vision. Here are my values. Here's the lifestyle I want to have."

Jay Shetty 24:06 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 24:06 For at least the foreseeable next few years and-

Jay Shetty 24:09 Yeah

Lewis Howes 24:09 ... the next five to 10 years, what I, my intention is. By coming from that space, I was completely cle- clear, and I was like, "There's a lot of things you may not like what I'm about to say, but I'm gonna tell you 100% the truth. I'm not gonna give in on my truth, and I'm not gonna sacrifice. If you want me to change a bunch of things 'cause it doesn't make you happy, then we're just not in alignment."

Jay Shetty 24:30 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 24:31 Thankfully, she loved all the things about my values, vision, and lifestyle moving forward. It's also kind of revealing all the things I'm not proud of from the past. It's like, oh, this is how I was in this relationship and this relationship, and I had to learn a lot and, and reveal that as well to not act like I'm the perfect one. It allowed for more of a conscious foundation to be started in our, you know, year of experience where yous had 10 years, right? 10

Lewis Howes 24:58 years you've been together?

Jay Shetty 24:58 Next year will be 10 years.

Lewis Howes 24:59 So I've had, I don't know, 10 failed relationships in my, my lifetime. You've had 10 years of a, a beautiful relationship. Uh, a- and, [laughs] and you've had different things that you said in the first few years where you said, "This isn't the type of relationship where I wanted to be. Like, it needs to... That's not what I'm, was into, and it's going in a different direction than what I wanted." What would you say... For me, the biggest thing that I've learned was going into a new relationship healing the wounds of the past or being on the healing journey, and having conscious conversations early-

Jay Shetty 25:35 Yeah

Lewis Howes 25:35 ... and starting in therapy when there were no problems has been extremely helpful for me-

Jay Shetty 25:42 Yeah

Lewis Howes 25:42 ... in one year.

Jay Shetty 25:43 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 25:44 What would you say a 10 year has been extremely helpful for you that you also wish you did-

Jay Shetty 25:50 Yeah

Lewis Howes 25:50 ... in the first year? Or maybe you did do it, and you're still doing it.

Jay Shetty 25:52 Yeah, I, I think it's the continuation. It's like when you plant a seed, you water it, and you make sure it has sunlight, and you make sure the soil is good, when it becomes a tree, you still do all of those things. Like-

Lewis Howes 26:05 You don't, you don't stop watering it

Jay Shetty 26:06 ... you don't just stop, right? Like, you don't stop, like, just caring for it. The care might evolve and change. Like, you don't need to water a tree in the same way 'cause its, its roots are there, but you can't be completely negligent. I think the challenge we've created in society is that we believe that a long relationship is a successful one, and really my definition of a relationship is are we growing together, are we thriving together, and are we learning from each other?

Lewis Howes 26:33 Yes.

Jay Shetty 26:33 And if we're not-

Lewis Howes 26:34 Say it one more time. Are we-

Jay Shetty 26:35 Are we growing together, are we thriving together, and are we learning from each other? If I'm not doing that with you anymore, then if we're not... And then the question is, are you willing to change something in order to do that? And if you're not, and I think you have to be... I think the challenge is, and I've heard you talk about this, I think the challenge is no matter how long a relationship gets, you have to be open to the fact that you could get to a point with someone where there's no more growth, no more learning, and no more thriving.

Lewis Howes 27:04 Mm.

Jay Shetty 27:04 And that's that low attachment-

Lewis Howes 27:06 Yes

Jay Shetty 27:07 ... is recognizing that just as in a business relationship, you wouldn't stay in business with someone if you weren't growing together, you weren't thriving together, and you weren't learning together.

Lewis Howes 27:17 Yeah, and you wouldn't keep your business open if you were in the negative year after year. You weren't having fun. It, you didn't see opportunities for growth. You were in an industry that was eliminating, uh, year after year. You'd be like, "Okay, maybe this had its season-

Jay Shetty 27:32 Correct

Lewis Howes 27:33 ... and it's time to find a new business to work in."

Jay Shetty 27:36 Correct.

Lewis Howes 27:36 Now, I'm, I'm just not saying you need to say, "Well, maybe this person's had its season," or this and this.

Jay Shetty 27:40 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 27:40 But going back to the original conversation, can you be with one person for the rest of your life? Can you love one person for the rest of your life? And it be a healthy, overall healthy, enriching relationship. And again, I think about a successful relationship where each individual is putting 100% into their own personal development, and growth, and mission, and putting 100% into making the relationship healthy, conscious, joyful, and that takes a lot of individual work.

Jay Shetty 28:12 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 28:12 100% on each individual to wanna grow and develop.

Jay Shetty 28:16 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 28:16 And if not, then it's gonna be, there's gonna be challenges.

Jay Shetty 28:19 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 28:19 And I

Lewis Howes 28:20 think there's something that Esther Perel said, uh, probably on both of our shows, which is there's a love story and there's a life story. And there's a lot of people you can have a love story with, right? Where you could fall in love with or date and have these romantic nights and these adventures, but they may not be a part of your life story.

Jay Shetty 28:39 So powerful.

Lewis Howes 28:39 They may not have your values, your vision, the lifestyle you wanna have in your life. If a lot of those things don't line up, then maybe you're, they're just a seasonal love story, not a longer season life story.

Jay Shetty 28:52 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 28:52 And there's probably lesser people that could be a life story.

Jay Shetty 28:56 Yes. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 28:57 And so I, I, I don't think that there's one person that you could be with for the rest of your life because, you know, again, something could happen in a partnership where, uh, if someone leaves this world, then you're just gonna say, "For the rest of my life, I'm not gonna be in another relationship"? Like, there's, there might be a situation, or if the relationship has just had its season-

Jay Shetty 29:16 I agree

Lewis Howes 29:17 ... and the person's not willing to keep working and investing in it, it's like, that's tough. And I just think that's okay, and you're in therapy, and they're just like, "No, I just don't care about the relationship anymore." So the other person's supposed to stay attached and give 100% when the other person's giving 0% for year and year and year? I don't think that's the type of life that we were designed to live.

Jay Shetty 29:39 Yes.

Lewis Howes 29:40 Just to show up 'cause we made this a commitment to an attachment, I guess. But-

Jay Shetty 29:44 Yeah

Lewis Howes 29:45 ... but that's controversial to say 'cause when you make a commitment to marriage, we should try... The intention should be to stay married.

Jay Shetty 29:52 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 29:53 That should be the intention. But if one person is unwilling to, and they keep breaking their commitment, and they're not willing to get back on track, or they do things over and over that are hurtful, and they don't apologize and take responsibility, they don't take accountability, I don't think over a period of time someone needs to abandon themselves-

Jay Shetty 30:11 Totally

Lewis Howes 30:11 ... to be taken advantage of, and abused, and used, and someone breaking their promise and their commitments.

Jay Shetty 30:16 Of course not. And, and that's

Jay Shetty 30:18 one of the biggest issues with setting a commitment at an early stage in life when we're immature-

Lewis Howes 30:25 When we're like 18, 21

Jay Shetty 30:26 ... when you don't even know yourself-

Lewis Howes 30:27 Yeah

Jay Shetty 30:27 ... and you make these massive promises. And I just, again, I go back to that, like, where else in your life do you make a decision-

Lewis Howes 30:34 For the rest of your life

Jay Shetty 30:35 ... and have to stick to it for 50, 60, 70 years? And so if you do want that with someone, make sure that you are checking in regularly, that you're renewing that. Like, you're reconnecting with each other regularly because you don't get to have an amazing relationship with someone because of a promise or a commitment You get to do it because you renew that promise and commitment on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, not because you wanna extend the years you've been together-

Lewis Howes 31:01 Yeah

Jay Shetty 31:01 ... but because you wanna extend the growth. And so for me, I think I, I agree with you that no one should feel forced. And really, what marriage is or what exclusivity is or what commitment is, is we're going to try to grow together-

Lewis Howes 31:18 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 31:18 ... continuously, and I would rather choose to grow with you than to grow in many different ways.

Lewis Howes 31:24 Yeah, it's a conscious choice. And I think, listen,

Lewis Howes 31:26 neither of us have kids yet.

Jay Shetty 31:27 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 31:28 And so I can already see all the comments of people saying, "Well, wait till you have kids, and you don't know what it's like when you have kids. You have to sacrifice and give up so much." And I, and I think that's a great excuse for people, and I think it's a valid excuse, but I think it's an excuse that holds people back as well. And I know a lot of married people with kids who are thriving, who are having fun every day or consistently, who are enjoying their lives, who live independently in the marriage as well and have their own time and flexibility, trust, all those things. And year after year, they thrive with kids. So again, there are gonna be more and more challenges, and that's why it's important for each individual to do the work consistently independent of the relationship-

Jay Shetty 32:10 Yeah

Lewis Howes 32:11 ... to just become better humans-

Jay Shetty 32:12 Yeah

Lewis Howes 32:12 ... more emotionally evolved, emotionally intelligent. Work on healing. Whatever is triggering you, work on that healing journey so that you're not as reactive with your partner or life.

Jay Shetty 32:22 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 32:22 You're not bringing baggage to the relationship. You're more having a conscious conversation-

Jay Shetty 32:27 Yeah

Lewis Howes 32:27 ... in the relationship.

Jay Shetty 32:28 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 32:29 Like you said, when we make those decisions at 21-

Jay Shetty 32:32 Or whenever

Lewis Howes 32:33 ... or just early-

Jay Shetty 32:34 Even at 30 or even at 40, like...

Lewis Howes 32:36 I hon- I was telling Martha this the other day. I was like, "I don't know if I would've gotten mar- There's no way I'd be in a relationship if I got married at 25, 27, 29." There's just no way, 'cause I've had to go through so much inner challenges to overcome in the last decade alone, that just now at 39 do I feel like I've finally figured out how to have peace inside-

Jay Shetty 32:59 Yeah

Lewis Howes 32:59 ... consistently.

Jay Shetty 33:00 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 33:00 I would've messed up any relationship-

Jay Shetty 33:02 Totally

Lewis Howes 33:03 ... without knowing the tools-

Jay Shetty 33:04 Totally

Lewis Howes 33:05 ... on, on how to just navigate. And it doesn't mean I'm gonna be perfect in this relationship for the rest of my life or whatever, but I'm probably gonna make mistakes, but I feel like I have a better awareness of self.

Jay Shetty 33:15 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 33:15 At 25, 27, 30, it's like, that's hard. I don't know how you did it 10 years ago.

Jay Shetty 33:21 Yeah, I mean, nearly 10 years. We was... Yeah, it was, next year, it will be 10 years, but-

Lewis Howes 33:24 But you had four years of monk training where you were just [laughs]

Jay Shetty 33:26 Yeah. Well, there's, I mean, there's a bit of everything, right? Like, there's the... There was some maturity, but now when I look back, I go, I, there was also parts of it that were luck. And when I say luck, I mean universal-

Lewis Howes 33:38 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 33:39 ... divine intervention, and, like, I was fortunate that it was Radhi.

Lewis Howes 33:43 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 33:43 There were lots of parts of it where it was like, oh, like, actually, I wasn't as mature as I thought, but it somehow happened that we were compatible, too.

Lewis Howes 33:52 Right.

Jay Shetty 33:53 And, you know, there's, there's-

Lewis Howes 33:54 Or she was healthy in a certain way-

Jay Shetty 33:55 Correct

Lewis Howes 33:55 ... that supported it, yeah.

Jay Shetty 33:56 Correct. And that's, there's a lot of fortune in that too.

Lewis Howes 33:59 Of course.

Jay Shetty 33:59 Like, I don't think it's... It's not fair for me to say that it was all didactic and perfectly, like, masterminded-

Lewis Howes 34:05 Oh

Jay Shetty 34:05 ... because I was so advanced. That's, that's not true. I think there was some maturity, but there was also a lot of immaturity.

Lewis Howes 34:12 Oh.

Jay Shetty 34:12 But that got balanced out by some of her gifts. And, and I think the point is that you just can't ever be scared to look in the mirror. You can't be scared to ask those questions.

Lewis Howes 34:22 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 34:22 You can't ever stop doing that because that's where it all goes wrong. I think that I have grown more significantly being committed to one woman than I would have if I wasn't.

Lewis Howes 34:36 Mm.

Jay Shetty 34:36 So that's my perception.

Lewis Howes 34:37 If you had, if you'd been single for the last 10 years-

Jay Shetty 34:40 Correct

Lewis Howes 34:41 ... and s- say single or having different surface-level relationships, not being committed to one person, for 10 years, where would you be in your life right now, if you could just hypothetically-

Jay Shetty 34:52 Yeah, and I don't think it's an external success or metric of some sort of financial or, you know, physical situation. It's more that I believe that being in a committed relationship has taught me skills and qualities that I wouldn't have-

Lewis Howes 35:13 Mm

Jay Shetty 35:13 ... if I wasn't. So I'll give you an example.

Lewis Howes 35:15 Tell me one or two. Yeah.

Jay Shetty 35:15 Yeah. One of my favorite ones is the ability to self-validate.

Lewis Howes 35:22 As opposed to the other person giving you validation.

Jay Shetty 35:24 So, correct.

Lewis Howes 35:25 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 35:25 So I believe that if I was single for the past 10 years, I would have used other people to validate myself, because I would've been able to go to different people for different forms of validation, someone telling me, "Jay, you're this, you're that," whatever it is. When you're committed to one person, chances are they don't validate you sometimes, well, at least in my case, and that trained me in the ability to go inward and validate myself for what I care about myself.

Lewis Howes 35:52 Yeah, and I'm assuming Radhi's not, intentionally not validating you, but you're just in life, in conversation, and, you know, you, you wanted something, but maybe she wasn't being aware of it or whatever, right?

Jay Shetty 36:02 Yeah. The point is, you don't get to just solve it by going and finding it somewhere else.

Lewis Howes 36:06 No, of course.

Jay Shetty 36:06 And, and so I think that's what I mean, that a lot of the time when you don't get what you want from one person, you can just go find a fix somewhere else.

Lewis Howes 36:14 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 36:14 But that stops you from growing in doing it for yourself. So that's one of the big ones.

Lewis Howes 36:19 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 36:19 Uh, another one that I would say that I only got through being in a committed relationship was the recognition that effort and contribution to a relationship was not always visible. So what I mean by that is, often in a relationship, we think of the breadwinner or the person who pays the bills as being the way someone contributes.

Lewis Howes 36:44 Uh-huh.

Jay Shetty 36:44 Or if someone cleans and cooks, that's the way someone contributes. When you get into a relationship for a long time, you start to realize there are emotional contributions to a relationship.

Lewis Howes 36:54 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 36:54 There are spiritual contributions to a relationship which you don't get to see when your relationship is purely physical.

Lewis Howes 37:00 Right.

Jay Shetty 37:01 And so now when I look at relationships, I'm like, wow, like- Radhi is contributing to this relationship, of course, financially in that, but also in this spiritual and emotional way.

Lewis Howes 37:10 Yes.

Jay Shetty 37:11 And in my limited understanding, if I was just moving around, I wouldn't know if that was even possible. So I think, I mean, those are just a couple. There's-

Lewis Howes 37:19 Yeah

Jay Shetty 37:19 ... so many, but I believe that I have grown more and learned more about myself than I would have if I wasn't because I think I would have found a quick fix for most of my problems.

Lewis Howes 37:29 Oh, everything.

Jay Shetty 37:30 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 37:30 If, if it was like, you know, if I was just jumping from relationship to relationship or just dating and not actually being committed to anyone, when there was a moment of anything getting hard, you'd just be like, "Ah, I don't want to deal with this. I'm gonna go to the next person and have fun and just make it light and make it interesting and go after the chase and get that, that high again." When I started

Lewis Howes 37:52 the relationship with Martha, I made a conscious decision realizing that I was the problem for every previous relationship, that I was the common denominator for things not working out. I said, "Let me try something different. Let me not dive into what I've always done, which is the sexual chemistry first," because that clouded my mind from seeing the person fully or seeing more of the person, I should say. And that decision to remove that for the first, you know, months of us kind of seeing each other and getting to know each other was so powerful for me because I was like, "Do I want to be..." I remember asking some friends this in the past. I go, "If you guys didn't have sex, would you still be together?" And a lot of them were like, "No."

Jay Shetty 38:31 Mm.

Lewis Howes 38:31 Okay, so remove sex from the relationship or remove sexual chemistry from the relationship. Would you want to spend quality time with this person consistently? Are you adding value to their li- their life? Are they adding value to your life? Another person said, you know, "Could you spend 10,000 meals with this person?" Because that's what it's gonna be like if you're getting married and you're with them for a long time, 10,000 meals. It's interesting enough. And when we jump into, from my personal experience, when you jump into sexual chemistry first, the foundation is usually a little shakier. And also, if you're doing that with multiple people [laughs] it's hard to build a strong foundation with one, and you're never really getting that peace. It's kind of, there's always something shaky.

Jay Shetty 39:14 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 39:14 Right? You know, it's like-

Jay Shetty 39:14 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's, I mean, the studies show that, too, that when you engage in a physical relationship with someone, the chemicals that are released after sex make you feel closer to them when you're not actually closer to them.

Lewis Howes 39:27 100%.

Jay Shetty 39:28 So you haven't really done the work for deep value-based intimacy, but you're feeling the high-

Lewis Howes 39:35 Feel close

Jay Shetty 39:35 ... chemically, and you could feel that with people again and again and again, and that's why we get more attached to people that we have sex with in that way. And so for me, obviously, through the monk training, like, that was a big part of it. I mean, celibacy was a huge part of monk training, and it was all for mental clarity-

Lewis Howes 39:52 Mm

Jay Shetty 39:52 ... so you can make better decisions.

Lewis Howes 39:54 Right.

Jay Shetty 39:55 It's not about saying that you're never having sex. It's about the idea that can I make better decisions-

Lewis Howes 40:01 Without being clouded from the sexual chemicals

Jay Shetty 40:03 ... without being clouded by a chemical release-

Lewis Howes 40:05 Yeah

Jay Shetty 40:05 ... that is making me believe something, and I think that's what people don't, that's what people underestimate is that do you want to make a decision based on reality or do you want to make a decision based on chemicals that are being exposed to you in a particular moment which aren't reality? And I think everyone would hold their hand up. Anyone who's in the comment section right now, like, would say, "I have been in a relationship where we had a terrible relationship, but the sex was great." I think everyone would agree that they've been in a relationship like that.

Lewis Howes 40:33 And whenever there was an argument, we leaned on sex-

Jay Shetty 40:35 Sex to, to save it

Lewis Howes 40:35 ... and got back to, like, a, yeah, to a foundation.

Jay Shetty 40:38 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 40:38 Right?

Jay Shetty 40:38 Yeah, exactly, and, and they know that that was toxic and unhealthy because they dealt with pain, they dealt with abuse, they dealt with manipulation, they dealt with trauma because the sex was good.

Lewis Howes 40:49 Right.

Jay Shetty 40:50 And so-

Lewis Howes 40:50 That's why I think if you eliminate that, at least in the beginning of a new relationship-

Jay Shetty 40:54 To learn

Lewis Howes 40:55 ... to learn, you're gonna learn to make better decisions. Mental clarity, like you said. Is this person's behavior matching their words?

Jay Shetty 41:02 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 41:02 Do they have the same values that I have? Are we in alignment on a lot of these things that we want, or do they do certain things that I'll just never want to be around?

Jay Shetty 41:11 Correct.

Lewis Howes 41:11 You know, for me, it was very important. Like, I've, I've never been drunk in my life. It's not something I do, but I can be around it. It's just, like, it's, I don't want to be around it all the time.

Jay Shetty 41:21 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 41:22 You know what I mean?

Jay Shetty 41:22 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 41:22 Like, if you want to have wine once a month, like, I'm cool with that.

Jay Shetty 41:25 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 41:25 If you're drinking every night three glasses of wine-

Jay Shetty 41:27 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 41:28 ... it's just a deal bre- it's just not for me. And there might be something that, uh, you know, in the past, if I, if a person wanted to be with me, but I was like, "Well, I eat sugar all day," that'd be a deal breaker for them-

Jay Shetty 41:39 Yeah

Lewis Howes 41:39 ... or something, or whatever it is.

Jay Shetty 41:40 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 41:40 And it's figuring out, like, what are the things in alignment that you both want to see if you can be in a great relationship-

Jay Shetty 41:47 Yes

Lewis Howes 41:47 ... to see if you can be in a thriving relationship. Because human beings are just messed up.

Jay Shetty 41:53 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 41:53 You know, we're, we're just like-

Jay Shetty 41:54 Yeah, and, and if you're trying to be... Like, obviously, if you're just someone who's like, "I just wanna sleep around-

Lewis Howes 41:59 Yeah

Jay Shetty 42:00 ... you know, mess around, have fun," whatever, sure, that's fine. But if you're in the position in your life right now where you're like, "I want to be in a long-term relationship," then it's a healthy thing to consider-

Lewis Howes 42:10 Yes

Jay Shetty 42:10 ... because you want to have your best decision-making

Jay Shetty 42:12 capabilities.

Lewis Howes 42:12 And I also think a lot of people are getting into relationships when they feel lonely.

Jay Shetty 42:16 Yes.

Lewis Howes 42:16 And that is a scary thing to do-

Jay Shetty 42:18 Yeah

Lewis Howes 42:18 ... to be seeking out a relationship because you feel alone. One of the greatest gifts I gave myself was learning how to go take myself out on a date, go to dinner, go to lunch, go to a movie alone, and learn to enjoy my own company.

Jay Shetty 42:32 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 42:32 It was so hard to do because I didn't enjoy my company for so long. I had too many negative conversations with myself, and I had to learn how to love myself in a conscious way, in a healthy way, so that I could be happy alone first.

Jay Shetty 42:48 Yes.

Lewis Howes 42:48 And then not abandon myself in a relationship. And it's like when the point when I was like, "God, I don't want to be in a relationship," that's when Martha showed up.

Jay Shetty 42:57 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 42:57 I was like, "You know, I'm good. I'm, like, so happy alone. I love my life. I've got my business. I got my friends."

Jay Shetty 43:04 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 43:04 "I am good." That's when she came in. I was like, "Damn it. I don't want to be around you right now," but it's, but I can do it because I can- I'm gonna have low attachment-

Jay Shetty 43:13 Yeah

Lewis Howes 43:13 ... from the beginning, and I don't need this to make me happy.

Jay Shetty 43:17 Yes.

Lewis Howes 43:17 I think a lot of people get into relationships because they need that to make them feel complete, happy, and I think that's also a foundation of struggle when we come from that space.

Jay Shetty 43:28 Yeah. The reason why what you said is so important is that that doesn't stop when you move in with someone.

Lewis Howes 43:33 Uh-huh.

Jay Shetty 43:34 So I think we feel that, and, and I think this is a pressure that's created in relationships, especially in the early days, where people expect to spend all their time together.

Lewis Howes 43:43 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 43:44 And if you're spending all your time together, then where is the time to grow independently so that you can improve each other's lives?

Lewis Howes 43:51 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 43:51 And so if every night you go home, and you put a show on together, and you watch it, and that's your way of spending time together, you're not investing in or growing the relationship. And then three months down the line, you're wondering, "Why don't we feel any chemistry or any spark or any compatibility?" Because you both haven't grown independently, so you haven't been able to grow together, and so that's not something that stops, that going on a date-

Lewis Howes 44:14 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 44:14 ... on your own or-

Lewis Howes 44:15 Yes

Jay Shetty 44:15 ... treating yourself. That never stops, and it shouldn't stop. And I think one of the biggest challenges is, is that people say, "Oh, well, if you don't want to spend time with me if we're together, then that means there's something wrong."

Lewis Howes 44:25 Uh-huh.

Jay Shetty 44:25 And so there's this insecurity that if you don't want to spend every moment with me, then you don't think I'm good enough.

Lewis Howes 44:33 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 44:33 Or if you don't text me every single moment when we're not apo- when we're apart-

Lewis Howes 44:37 Oh, my gosh. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 44:38 ... that means that you don't love me.

Lewis Howes 44:39 Bringing me back flashbacks now. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 44:41 Yeah. [laughs] And it's, and it's like, and when you live in that, it's like, well, wait a minute, you've missed the point that if they're always with you, then they can't bring anything to you.

Lewis Howes 44:49 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 44:49 Right?

Jay Shetty 44:50 It's-

Lewis Howes 44:50 I've heard a couple different people talk about this concept. I think Esther Perel was one of them, and then Rob Bell-

Jay Shetty 44:55 Mm

Lewis Howes 44:55 ... talks about the space in between the time you're together-

Jay Shetty 44:58 Mm

Lewis Howes 44:58 ... is where you, the love deepens.

Jay Shetty 45:00 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 45:01 It's like you can deepen it when you have space apart from each other, and you can miss each other. You can think about the conversation you had. You can think about the activities, the games you were playing, the intimacy, those conversations, those moments. It's the space in between that creates more harmony. I think Yo-Yo Ma talks about, like, harmony is in between the notes.

Jay Shetty 45:22 Mm.

Lewis Howes 45:23 Right?

Jay Shetty 45:23 That's beautiful.

Lewis Howes 45:23 It's like there's... It's the same thing with connection and love. You know, if I spent every moment with you, I might be like, "Uh, I need some more time apart," but it's because I only see you once every couple weeks or once a month, I get so excited about that time together, right?

Jay Shetty 45:38 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 45:38 Not that I wouldn't want to see you every day, buddy.

Jay Shetty 45:40 No, no, no, I get...

Lewis Howes 45:40 You know what I mean?

Jay Shetty 45:40 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 45:40 It's like having time to, to be an independent human being, doing your activities, doing the things you love will, I think, support you in staying together longer.

Jay Shetty 45:50 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 45:50 And the couples that you know and that I know that have been together for 20, 30, 40 years, at least a lot of them, I feel like, have that one day a week where they're with their friends, have that time where they go on a trip alone or with other, other people in their life. They learn other activities. They go to workshops together but also alone-

Jay Shetty 46:09 Yeah

Lewis Howes 46:10 ... on things that they can add value to the relationship and to themselves. Feel independent but also be committed.

Jay Shetty 46:17 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 46:18 And I think that is a huge thing to set yourself up to be a healthy, conscious, thriving relationship long term-

Jay Shetty 46:26 Yeah

Lewis Howes 46:27 ... if you choose to be with one person.

Jay Shetty 46:29 If you choose to be with one person, there's a couple of things you have to think about. The first is, what do you actually enjoy to do together? So Radhi and I discovered that going out to dinner was okay. Watching a movie together was okay, but what we really loved was experiences. What we really loved was doing activities together. What we really loved was going to workshops together. So whether it was a cooking class, or whether it was pottery, or whether it was, uh, trekking with gorillas that we just did right now, or whether it was going on a hike together. Like, it was doing something active together. And, you know, even in our relationship as, as friends, like, we were talking about this. Like, when we set our values for this-

Lewis Howes 47:06 Fun and fitness, yeah. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 47:06 Fun, fitness, and friendship.

Lewis Howes 47:08 Yes.

Jay Shetty 47:08 And we've decided that we want to make sure that we are going out for dinner, but we also want to play some sports, and we've been playing pickleball together, or our version of pickleball that we invented.

Lewis Howes 47:16 Yeah, sure. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 47:16 Uh, yeah.

Lewis Howes 47:17 We're going on hikes. We're doing different things, activities together.

Jay Shetty 47:19 Yeah, and, like, that's what we've realized we like to do, and I think that's a really important thing, that if you want to be with someone long term, you have to figure out what you want to do together. And then going even a step further, if you're really gonna be with someone long term, your relationship has to have a purpose beyond each other.

Lewis Howes 47:38 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 47:38 The goal of your relationship can't be, how do we stay together? Like, the goal of the relationship is, how do we serve together?

Lewis Howes 47:46 Mm.

Jay Shetty 47:46 How do we give together? How do we help our community together? Like, couples who have that ability to expand their radius of care and compassion, that's what ultimately goes to that stage.

Lewis Howes 47:59 Cou- couples that stay together, serve together.

Jay Shetty 48:01 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 48:01 I think that's a great thing. You know, I think in the fitness community, they're like, "Families that work out together, stay together" type of thing.

Jay Shetty 48:07 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 48:07 But I think couples that stay together are the ones that are serving together. And I know

Lewis Howes 48:12 you talk about this, and I know this is gonna be in your next book as well, this kind of concept of the different levels of relationship, of, okay, you're in the, the getting to know dating stage, then you're in the commitment stage, then you're in marriage stage, and then it's like, what is the next stage? It's being in service. It's figuring out ways to serve your family, your friends, your community in the ways that make sense for you. That's what's gonna keep people together long term. And I think when we stop serving the relationship, and we stop serving others around the relationship, it's probably gonna have more challenges.

Jay Shetty 48:47 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 48:48 You know, maybe you can make it last, and maybe you have some good times, but I feel like you're gonna have more challenges to overcome, which is gonna make you say, "One person's not for me."

Jay Shetty 48:58 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 48:58 Like, "This, this relationship's not working. I need a different relationship."

Jay Shetty 49:01 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 49:02 And maybe that's true. Maybe that relationship wasn't supposed to last, but I think it's... And I, I'm so excited for your next book because I've been getting the behind the scenes from you on it, but I feel like you're gonna give people this foundation of How to set yourself up at the different stages of a committed relationship. And, and I don't think there's anything wrong with being single and dating-

Jay Shetty 49:23 Not at all. Not at all

Lewis Howes 49:24 ... dating lots of people. I know a guy right now, he's single, and he's going on dates every week with different people, taking people out to dinner, and having in-

Jay Shetty 49:31 Beautiful

Lewis Howes 49:31 ... interesting conversations. And what Matthew Hussey says, our friend, it's kind of like eliminating people that aren't the one for them right now.

Jay Shetty 49:38 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 49:38 It's like, "I gotta go meet a bunch of people, have experiences to see who I, you know, don't wanna be with as well." And I think there's a season for that, and I think when we get into a relationship, we just need to be conscious of, why am I getting in this relationship? You know, am I dependent on this to make me happy? If so, I just think that's gonna be a recipe for failure. But being conscious about entering a relationship, and conscious about growing a relationship.

Jay Shetty 50:03 Yeah. There's so much you learn when you're single, and there's so much you learn when you're in a relationship.

Lewis Howes 50:08 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 50:09 And that's actually the question: do I want, how do I want to learn right now? Like, how do I wanna learn right now? Do I wanna learn by meeting lots of people and learning in that way, and dealing with what comes with that, or do I wanna learn in this way? And I think everything in life is a, simply a learning experience.

Lewis Howes 50:25 And at

Lewis Howes 50:26 this season of my life-

Jay Shetty 50:27 Yeah

Lewis Howes 50:27 ... [laughs] the, one of the biggest values for me is peace.

Jay Shetty 50:31 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 50:31 Inner peace, right?

Jay Shetty 50:33 And you can't have peace if you're-

Lewis Howes 50:35 And I, for years, I would interview, on camera and off camera, older men who were successful in business or in their careers, or who had kind of reached the top of their, their industry. And I would ask them questions like about being single, or about having, you know, being married, about being with one person, or do they have open relationships? Just curious. And there was not one man who was, like, 50, 60, 70 years old who was peaceful and fulfilled with multiple women at the same time, or kind of trying to manage that, you know, that energy. The ones that had peace, which again, is a value of mine, is having peace, 'cause I feel like peace helps us create mental clarity, which I think is important for you as well, which helps us have more energy towards our mission.

Jay Shetty 51:23 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 51:24 And, uh, I haven't met one 60, 70-year-old man who was like, "I had five girlfriends the whole time, and I was peaceful."

Jay Shetty 51:31 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 51:31 And so I just think again, what's your value? What do you want? If you want adventure and fun, and you- you can't have all that and peace. It's, there's gonna be some-

Jay Shetty 51:40 Yeah

Lewis Howes 51:40 ... letting go. So.

Jay Shetty 51:41 Yeah. I really like, and this has been my biggest takeaway from today, is that you brought it back to values. If your value is experimentation and-

Lewis Howes 51:50 Freedom-

Jay Shetty 51:51 Freedom

Lewis Howes 51:52 ... from-

Jay Shetty 51:52 Freedom from commitment

Lewis Howes 51:53 ... commitment. Yeah. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 51:54 Then that's a beautiful life. And I'm not, and again, I'm not saying you should do either/or. I d- I, you know, it's, it's all based on your values.

Lewis Howes 52:01 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 52:01 And you just said your value is peace. My, my value is purpose. I wanna be s- committed to my purpose. And I had a really open and honest conversation with a friend recently. He asked me a question. He said, "Jay," like, you know, "how do you deal with, uh, temptation and desire-

Lewis Howes 52:17 Yeah

Jay Shetty 52:17 ... and, you know, everything else?" And we had a really honest, vulnerable conversation man to man, and I said to him that for me, one of my biggest values in life is history and loyalty.

Lewis Howes 52:29 Mm.

Jay Shetty 52:30 I like long-term friendships, because then you can look back and look at how far you've come.

Lewis Howes 52:35 That's cool.

Jay Shetty 52:36 I-

Lewis Howes 52:36 And you can't do that from short-term desire.

Jay Shetty 52:37 You can't do that.

Lewis Howes 52:38 Yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 52:38 I like loyalty. I love the idea of, like, you've been loyal to a friend, a person, a, a partner, and you can look back at h- what you've been through.

Lewis Howes 52:48 That's cool.

Jay Shetty 52:48 And so when I look at my life, I love that me and you have memories from being in New York together, being in LA together, doing a project together. And in my romantic relationship, it's the same thing. It's like I've been with this woman when I had nothing, when I was broke-

Lewis Howes 53:05 Pretty cool

Jay Shetty 53:05 ... when I was at the... Like, and I'm-

Lewis Howes 53:06 And now here. Yeah, that's cool

Jay Shetty 53:07 ... and I value that, right? And someone may say, "Jay, that's so soft." Like, I don't value that at all.

Lewis Howes 53:12 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 53:12 And that's cool. Like, I respect that. You may say you don't value history. You value a one-night stand, and that's great. Like, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think you've gotta know what you value.

Lewis Howes 53:21 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 53:22 And I love that you value peace, and I love that you equate a committed relationship to peace.

Lewis Howes 53:27 And some-

Jay Shetty 53:27 And that's beautiful.

Lewis Howes 53:28 Yeah. And some people might say, "Well, every relationship I've been in is stressful, so I'm gonna value being single-

Jay Shetty 53:33 Yeah

Lewis Howes 53:33 ... and having surface conversations or surface interactions of intimacy that aren't scary to go deeper, right?

Jay Shetty 53:40 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 53:40 Where there could be heartbreak or pain or frustration or whatever it is. And that's your season, you know? That's what-

Jay Shetty 53:47 Yeah

Lewis Howes 53:47 ... you value. But I, I do, I definitely value intimacy, connection. There's nothing worse than accomplishing, like, your greatest goals and then being in a hotel room by yourself and being like-

Jay Shetty 53:59 Yeah

Lewis Howes 54:00 ... "Uh, I'm gonna tr- you know, who am I gonna call, who am I gonna call-

Jay Shetty 54:03 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 54:03 ... to celebrate this with?"

Jay Shetty 54:04 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 54:04 There's no one, like, with you in the journey.

Jay Shetty 54:06 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 54:06 And you with them.

Jay Shetty 54:07 Exactly.

Lewis Howes 54:08 It's really cool to be there for each other. And, uh, something I value with, you know, Martha being inspired by what she's creating, and she's inspired what I'm creating, the mutual respect and inspiration, and I know you and Radhi are the same way. So powerful conversation.

Jay Shetty 54:22 Yeah, this is great. I mean-

Lewis Howes 54:23 Aw- awkward therapy part two.

Jay Shetty 54:25 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 54:25 If you guys enjoyed this, uh, leave a yes in the comments below. Make sure you subscribe to Jay Shetty's podcast on Apple, Spotify, on YouTube. Subscribe on YouTube, all of our social media. And, um, let us know which part of this you enjoyed the most, and leave a comment of what you'd like us to talk about on the next episode of this awkward therapy conversation.

Jay Shetty 54:49 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 54:50 Also, the call to action is to find someone to have this same conversation with. Ask them this question: "Can you be with one person for the rest of your life?" Send them this audio or this video, and have them watch or listen to this, and then have the discussion with them shortly after. And let us know your thoughts. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Jay Shetty 55:10 Thank you so much for watching, everyone. Uh, I wanna make sure that you think about what is your value right now in relationships. Like, think about it. Whether you're single, whether you're in a relationship, whether you've been married, whether you've just broken up, what is the current value in your life that you're looking for, and what does that require? Does that require you to be single? Does that require you to be in a relationship? And what type of relationship? Uh, leave your value in the comments below. Let us know what your values are. Let us know topics that you want us to dive into deeper. Maybe there was something that we didn't quite get into, and you're like, "Please, please, please talk a bit more about that," we will do that. I wanna make sure that you follow The School of Greatness and Lewis Howes across social media, YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast. Make sure you subscribe to know that you don't miss out on one of these episodes that we're doing together. Uh, we're so grateful to have you. Make sure that you go and find someone to share this conversation with, and have your awkward conversation of your own.

Lewis Howes 56:06 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 56:06 Like, we want you to get awkward.

Lewis Howes 56:07 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 56:07 So thank you for listening and watching us today, and we'll see you on the next one. If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here. I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book, Think Like a Monk, from thinklikeamonkbook.com. Check below in the description to make sure you order today.