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WORLD LEADING THERAPIST Answers Relationship Questions Most People Are Afraid to Ask | Lori Gottlieb

World leading relationship therapist, Lori Gottlieb, is back to answer the top relationship questions most people are afraid to ask.

Lori GottliebguestJay Shettyhost

Nov 18, 20241h 22mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

85 min read · 17,079 words

0:00 – 1:40
Intro
1. LGLori Gottlieb
  We have this saying, we marry our unfinished business. We date our unfinished business, too. If you're not doing the work, you're going to be behind.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Therapist, bestselling author- Lori Gottlieb What would you say to someone who's saying, "I have to kind of compromise a- and make sure this is the one because I have to get to that point because I wanna be in a relationship. I'm gonna get the worst pick of the bunch because I'm 35 years old and I haven't found someone."
3. LGLori Gottlieb
  If you are not in a place where you want to be with a relationship, you have to understand why.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Am I behind for being single at 28? [instrumental music] The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty. [laughs] Lori, it's great to have you back.
5. LGLori Gottlieb
  It's so great to be here, Jay.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Honestly, every time you come in here and we have these conversations, they just go crazy viral online. People love your advice. They love your insight. They always want you back, and I'm so thankful to you that you always choose to come back. So I- it means a lot to me that you're back here with me.
7. LGLori Gottlieb
  Well, thank you so much for having me back.
8. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs] We've done what we did last time because people loved it so much. We've gone out to our audience.
9. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
10. JSJay Shetty
  Gone out to our community. I've even reached out to some friends, and I've crowdsourced all of their challenges, all of their issues, all of their real-life experiences that they're going through, and some of these people don't have access to therapists. Some of these people maybe can't afford it. Some of these people maybe even have therapists, but are still struggling and trying to figure it out. And so I love the fact that we can use you as our community therapist, uh, and learn from you. So I wanna dive straight in.
11. LGLori Gottlieb
  Sure.
12. JSJay Shetty
  One of the biggest questions I'm hearing and getting from people in my community and audience is,
1:40 – 5:02
Are You Behind In Love?
1. JSJay Shetty
  "Am I behind for being single at 28?"
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Hmm. You know, it's so interesting because I think that we tend to compare ourselves so much to other people, especially with social media. You know, we look at, you know, what is everybody else doing at my age? What is, what is the right thing? And you are exactly where you need to be if you are doing the work. If you're not doing the work, you're going to be behind. And what I mean by doing the work is if you are not in a place where you want to be with a relationship, you have to understand why. So are you examining what has not worked yet? Why, uh, if I, if I am single and I don't want to be single, what can I be doing differently? And so I think that's the important work. So you're not behind at all. In fact, you're probably ahead of people who are in relationships who have not done the work and maybe aren't in the right relationship or i- are in a relationship that's not gonna last or isn't going well.
3. JSJay Shetty
  I feel like that's such a hard thing to face, right? Because we think the problem is external to us, and what you're saying is, well, actually, the work needs to be done internally. And so often we're trying to solve and shift and construct what's happening around of us rather than looking inward. Why do you think that is? Why is it that we struggle to actually do the work? What does that look like?
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  I think it's so much easier when we talk to our friends, and you know, I've talked about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion before. Idiot compassion is you say to your friend, "Look what happened on this date," or, "Look what happened with this person." And they say, "Yeah, you're right. They're wrong." And we never learn or grow from that, right? Because, yes, there might be something that the other person did, but also what was your role in that interaction? A relationship is all about relating. So what was your role in the dance that you're doing with this person? And what you get in therapy is you get wise compassion, where we hold up a mirror to you, and we help you to see something about, you know, what your role is. Maybe something you haven't been willing or able to see, but that's so important so you don't repeat these situations where you're in this pattern, and then you wonder, "Why do I keep ending up with a person who doesn't listen to me or a person where I don't feel seen or where I can't be myself or where we have a lot of volatility or where this person's really avoidant? Why am I always with people who avoid, or what makes me avoid? And I don't talk to the person about what I want or what I need." So that's the work that's really important. So you're not behind if you're single at 28. It's part of the process. If you're doing the work, you're much closer than you've ever been to finding the person that you want to be with.
5. JSJay Shetty
  I'm so glad you said that. I remember talking about it in my book that I wrote called Eight Rules of Love, and it was this idea of relationship karma. And I was using the concept of karma from the Eastern traditions to understand that karma is every action has a reaction. And it was, can you pinpoint what action you've taken in order to end up in the same experience with a different person? So as you were saying that whether you keep attracting an avoidant person, you keep attracting someone who doesn't listen to you, you keep attracting someone who is interested for a month, but then disconnects or whatever it may be. And it's like, where, what action have you taken in your choice, in your curation of this individual, in your approach to this individual that has potentially led to that?
5:02 – 11:51
We Date Our Unfinished Business
1. LGLori Gottlieb
  Absolutely. That's, that's so spot on. You know, we have this saying, we marry our unfinished business. We date our unfinished business, too. So if you, let's say, earlier in your life, you were around someone who, you know, was neglectful, somebody who drank too much, somebody who lost their temper, um, somebody who wasn't honest, somebody who wasn't reliable. We think when we're dating as adults, like, I want the opposite of that. I want someone where I feel safe, secure, there's trust. But what happens is unconsciously, again, if we haven't done the work, our unfinished business, we actually, our unconscious says, "Oh, you look familiar. Come closer." So on the surface, they don't look like that person. But then when you get to know them, you're a month in, you're three months in, you're six months in, you think, "Wow, that person reminds me of someone. This person feels so familiar, and that's why I was drawn to this person. It turns out this person is very much like what I grew up with, is very much like the person who hurt me growing up."
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
3. LGLori Gottlieb
  So if you do the work, you're able to see, oh, that person, I see why I'm drawn to them, but I'm not drawn to them in a healthy way. And then if you do even more work, you're not even drawn to those people anymore. Now you're drawn to healthy people, stable people, flexible people, emotionally generous people, people whose values align with yours. That's who you're drawn to. So you have to do the work.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad that you've made that- ... the reminder because I think often we validate and make people feel like it's okay that they're single, and I think you are doing that. But I think this is a step further, which is, like, you are behind if you're not actually learning from the experiences that got you here and you're not actually refining it. Another pressure that I feel that mounts on people as time goes on, it's so fascinating to me that we're in 2024. We hope that we're living in a society that is letting go of timelines, that's letting go of gender roles, that's letting go of these boundaries and limits that are placed on us because of what age we are and what gender we are and, and everything else. But I find that internally we all actually still carry a lot of those pressures. And another big question for our community was, if I do get into a relationship in my early 30s, do I now have to rush things? Like, do I... Often what I heard was people were saying, "I feel like I have to feel like this person is the one because I'm running out of time, and I have this fear that the pool is getting so much smaller as I get into my early 30s that I'm gonna have the worst pick because no good people are gonna be left." Now, we know that all of these things are not factually true. They're not data-backed. Like, these are ideas, but these are the kind of thoughts that I'm hearing from people who are entering that space. What would you say to someone who's saying, "Lori, I feel r- I have to rush things. I have to kind of compromise and make sure this is the one because I have to get to that point because I wanna be in a relationship. And actually, I fear that I'm gonna get the worst pick of the bunch because I'm 35 years old and I haven't found someone"?
5. LGLori Gottlieb
  We literally just had someone like this on the podcast, and she felt like, "I have to decide right away if this is the person. And if there's any issues here, I have to leave right away," as opposed to understanding that if she doesn't understand what these issues are about, she will just repeat that in the next relationship. I mean, these were not... You know, there are certain kinds of issues that are red flags. These were not red flag issues. These were normal relational types of things, communication types of things. And what we told her was, "You need to slow down in order to save time." And it sounds counterintuitive because people think, "Wait a minute, I need to hurry up in order to save time. I don't wanna waste time." But you need to slow down so that you can say, "What is right in front of me right now? If I put that kind of pressure on myself, I'm gonna make decisions for all kinds of the wrong reasons. So I'm gonna make them because..." You know, we talk about the difference between sort of the head and the heart. You're gonna make head decisions instead of heart decisions. You need both. Uh, my son taught me this actually. He was saying, "I've been making too many head decisions, and I need to make more heart decisions." And it's about how do you find the balance between those two things? So what we told her, this woman on the podcast, was we said, "Why don't the two of you go to therapy for... Let's say you put a time limit on it. We're gonna go for six months." And she said, "Six months? I don't have six months to waste." And I said, "It's not gonna be a waste. No matter whether you stay in this relationship or you go to a different relationship, you're gonna learn so much about yourself in relationship that you can't learn if you're not in a relationship because you need to be able to have these interactions to understand what they trigger in you, what they bring up in you, and you can't do that in isolation." So many people say, "I need to completely understand myself before I can go and date." And I say, "You're gonna learn so much about yourself. You want the best tutorial on who you are and your operating instructions and what makes you tick? Get in a relationship with somebody."
6. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
7. LGLori Gottlieb
  You will be pushed and challenged in ways that you aren't challenged when it's just you sitting there thinking.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
9. LGLori Gottlieb
  So we said to her, "Go to couples therapy for six months, and then you will learn so much about yourself, and you will know so much more about whether you two are the right combination or the right couple." And so we do follow-ups. We do year follow-ups. And she came back a year later and she said, "I was going to leave this person, and I am so glad that I didn't because I learned that some of this was me, and I didn't have the maturity. I didn't understand a lot of things, and I grew so much, and I am so in love with this person, and I would have left because I was panicked."
10. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
11. LGLori Gottlieb
  Now, it could have ended up the other way, too, that she left, which would have also been good if it wasn't the right person, and then she would have found the right person because of the work that she did.
12. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
13. LGLori Gottlieb
  So I would say to these people who feel like, "I have to hurry, I have to know right away," relax, slow down. Give yourself a timeline. Don't stay in that relationship for five years and, and be ambivalent about what you wanna do. But slow down. Give yourself a year of doing the work with this person, and then you will know so much more about yourself. You want someone who's real. You want someone who's authentic, who's genuine.
14. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
15. LGLori Gottlieb
  And maybe the person who's a great first dater is not a great partner. We forget that love is not some kind of airy feeling, right? But love in the day-to-day is a verb. How can I be loving to another person? How is someone being loving, as a verb, to me? It's a very performative action going on a first date, but when people feel more comfortable and they can be more themselves, you feel like you can be more yourself. They feel like they can, and you see the real person, and they can become very attractive to
11:51 – 16:48
Attachment Styles
1. LGLori Gottlieb
  you.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Some people are good for you now-
3. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
4. JSJay Shetty
  ... and some people may become good for you forever. But this idea that if someone's good for me now and they're not forever, then I don't want them now isn't the healthiest idea because the growth you might make with this person, who may not be your forever person, could be so powerful and useful in your forever relationship, and you won't know that until you're actually getting to know them. I had a friend recently who went through that scenario where they felt that this individual they were with was helping them grow, helping them understand themselves. They were doing the same back. And they realized during the course of that relationship that this wasn't the one that was going to be ... the, the marriage and the, the long-term commitment, but they feel like they both grew so much as individuals. And you constantly, in this conversation so far, you've talked about doing the deep work on your own. You've talked about working with that person. What's really interesting is that after all this time, and no matter how many books we read, and no matter how many podcasts we listen to, there's still this belief that when we meet the person, it will be easy-
5. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm. [laughs]
6. JSJay Shetty
  ... it'll be simple, and everything will just make sense. I feel like a lot of people also who found love in a magical way will say things like, "When you know, you know, and you just feel it." And then people feel like they have to find that feeling and that love should be easy, and simple, and flow. I'm assuming from what you're saying so far that it's not really o- the only way. It can require work. It, it does require work. I've been with my wife for 11 years now, and I can honestly say that some parts have been really easy, and some parts have required work, and I believe we work on it consistently, and that's why it becomes easier than it would become harder. But I feel like there's this Disney magic belief we still all carry so deep-rooted in us that love should be easy. What would you say to someone who f- is carrying that experience or that vision of love in their heart and mind?
7. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right. Well, first of all, you know, when we look at attachment styles, if you have a secure attachment, sometimes it is easier for you to know whether this person is going to be someone you want to pursue long term. Um, but even then, things will come up. But also, many of us are not securely attached, meaning that we had inconsistent caregivers, or we had... You know, parents do their best, but parents are also imperfect. Parents have their own parents, and they have their own histories, which makes them parent in a certain way. So there are certain ways in which we didn't get parented the way we wanted to get parented, and we still, we come into relationships maybe we don't trust, and then we think, "Oh, I can't trust that person." But it's really not about the other person. They're completely trustworthy, but you just don't trust the world. You don't trust the universe. You don't even maybe trust yourself. So those people maybe feel like, "Well, this is really hard because I don't really trust this person," but they're not looking at maybe it's hard because you are bringing something into this.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
9. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right? So the magic might come, might be there, but you have to be able to learn how to trust. And maybe at the beginning of that relationship, it's gonna be a little bit hard for you. So it's not gonna look like the Disney, the romantic comedies that we all see.
10. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
11. LGLori Gottlieb
  But I think the other thing is there's a study that I love, that I think more people should know about, which is that they did this longitudinal study, so that means they followed people over 20 years, and they checked in every five years, and they started with the first date. When you met this person, you write down your impressions, and some people said, you know, "Oh, this person, there's so much magic. There's so much chemistry." And some people said, "It was fine. Yeah, I'd probably see this person again, but n- nothing great." Right? And then they followed them every five years, and what they found after 20 years was that the people who were happily married to each other d- changed their story. So at the time, they had said like, "Yeah, I'm not really sure. Nice person. No butterflies, no spark." They said, "Oh, I knew right away." They changed the story because now the story is, is filtered-
12. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
13. LGLori Gottlieb
  ... through the way their marriage is now. People who were unhappy, who, who, like, got divorced, or were in, uh, still married but were unhappy, you know, said things like, "Oh, there was no chemistry. There was never any chemistry."
14. JSJay Shetty
  Even though-
15. LGLori Gottlieb
  "I knew right away," even though at the time they said, "Magic." Right?
16. JSJay Shetty
  That's so good.
17. LGLori Gottlieb
  So I think it's so important for people to realize that don't listen to what your friends say about how they met because it's going to be filtered through how they feel about each other right now.
18. JSJay Shetty
  That is, I'm so glad you raised that. That is such, uh, that's such a great insight, and I, I wish if, if everyone's listening right now, please, please, please, like, let that deeply connect with your heart and head because I think that's one of the reasons we all make mistakes. We're either forcing ourselves to look for the perfection in the moment.
19. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
20. JSJay Shetty
  And like you said, some of the best relationships start by, "It's fine. It's okay. I'm not sure." And also to not overamplify that first meeting. I think we
16:48 – 22:02
You're Doing First Dates WRONG
1. JSJay Shetty
  put so much pressure on the first date, the first kiss, the f- you know, the first time of being intimate with someone, the first. The first of everything is, like, such a-
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  So weighted
3. JSJay Shetty
  ... so weighted, right?
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Unfairly.
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes, yes, and what happens is people will go on a date, and so I see this in therapy all the time. People will come in, and they'll say, "I went on the date with this person. Nice person. I don't know, I just didn't feel that intensity. I just didn't, I don't know, I didn't feel this romantic connection with this person." And I'll say, "How did you feel about yourself on this date?"
7. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  "I felt good. I felt really comfortable. I felt like myself."
9. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right? "Did you have a good time?" "Yeah." "Did you feel like this was a fun person to be around?" "Yeah." "Well, why not go on a second date? Why not spend another hour with this person just to see what it feels like to sit with this person again?" And what happens is sometimes, not always, sometimes you, you sit with this person enough, and then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, they're really cute. I didn't see that before," or, "They're really funny. They were kind of nervous on the first date," because it's a first date. It's like a job interview.
11. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right? So people are performing. It's a very performative action, going on a first date, but when people feel more comfortable, and they can be more themselves, you feel like you can be more yourself. They feel like they can, and you see the real person, and they can become very attractive to you. So this doesn't always happen, but it happens enough that I think that what happens is we, we feel like there's this abundance, that because of dating apps, we feel like, "If I don't feel like this person is fabulous, a 10, everything that I've imagined on that first 45 minutes or an hour that I'm meeting them in this weird coffee place, in this weird environment," 'cause we're strangers. We're both nervous. We're both trying to impress each other. We both have these fantasies that we're bringing, and the other person's letting down my fantasy. You know, what a weird way to meet someone.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  And then they think, "Okay, well, there's 10 other people on this app that I can swipe on, and they'll meet my fantasy." Except they probably won't either, or they might. Here's the danger. They might on that first date, but then they're locking into some fantasy that you have, but then when you really get to know them, you find out, "Oh, I don't really connect with this person," or, "This person's kind of superficial," or, "This person's great at first dates." 'Cause people who are great at first dates can be really charming, but that doesn't mean that that's what you want in a partner.
15. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  You want someone who's real. You want someone who's authentic, who's genuine.
17. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
18. LGLori Gottlieb
  And maybe the person who's a great first dater is not a great partner.
19. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I mean, Lori, you just did this genius therapy question thing there that I want people to notice. I think you're so right that after a first date, the number one thing we focus on is, how did I feel about them?
20. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
21. JSJay Shetty
  And our friends will ask us, "What did you think of them?" And you just shifted that question that you asked one of your patients, the question being, how did you feel about yourself?
22. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes.
23. JSJay Shetty
  And I think that's so powerful because you're so right that if you're only looking at the other person and making your assumptions and judgments on whether they're interesting, whether they're exciting, whether they're someone who can entertain you, rather than going, "How did I feel about myself?" And it was so interesting. I was just saying to one of my friends, I was saying that when do you feel peaceful around someone? And I was saying peaceful around someone usually isn't exciting. It's usually not exhilarating, but you feel a sense of calm when you're around them. They, they kind of relax your nervous system a little bit. And so when you ask the question, how did I feel about myself, and you're like, "I felt natural. I felt comfortable. I actually felt really good," all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, I didn't feel butterflies, and I wasn't constantly nervous, and I wasn't trying to impress them." So this is actually a much healthier space to live in. So I love that reframe of after a first date, not asking yourself, what did I think of them? Are they interesting? Are they the one? How did I feel about myself? I think that's a brilliant, brilliant note.
24. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah. And how we feel about ourselves often comes from the person on that date is really listening to you and is really interested. So the person who can entertain you on a first date might be really fun, but I don't think that you want an entertainer. I think what you want is you want someone you can actually have some kind of connection with, and someone who knows how to listen, and someone who's genuinely curious about you and not just trying to impress you is gonna make a much better long-term partner.
25. JSJay Shetty
  I think, Lori, we- we're uncovering something really interesting here. It's like I feel like we don't know what human connection is.
26. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right.
27. JSJay Shetty
  I feel like we don't know what human love is. Like, I f- like, what we're getting to here, it's like, because it is so hard to define, I guess. But there's a sense of we don't know what healthy connection, communication looks like because chances are we haven't seen it at home. We haven't seen it around us. We haven't seen it in the media. So there's a sense of not being able to mirror or not being able to reflect something that embodies that deep, profound experience of love. So when you're saying you're not looking at someone who's giving you the ability to feel listened, heard, seen, like, what, what is, from all of your experience and everything you've read, you've done this for decades now, like,
22:02 – 25:31
What Does Love Feel Like?
1. JSJay Shetty
  what have you seen are the core values of human connection that we should be aspiring for in a healthy relationship? Can we even define those?
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  We forget that love is not some kind of airy feeling, right? Love is at... You know, people say that people in love are actually like people on drugs. It's the same dopamine reaction, and so you're not really thinking straight. So that might feel like infatuation. That feels really good, and yes, that's a component of feeling really connected and feeling love. But love in the day to day is a verb. How can I be loving to another person? How is someone being loving, as a verb, to me? And so I remember this struck me so much when I had a couple, and the woman in the couple said to her husband, "You know what three words I really want to hear?" And he immediately said, "I love you. You want to hear I love you more." And she said, "No. I know you love me. I want to hear I understand you." And that to her was love, right? I know that you say you love me. I want you to show me you love me because I want to feel understood by you, and I want to understand you.
3. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  And I think so much what we don't do in a loving relationship is we don't take the time to either understand ourselves and communicate that or understand the other person.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  It really takes an act of love.
7. JSJay Shetty
  It's such a great point, and, and even hearing you say that, I'm like, it resonates so strongly with how I see love and how much I see the conflicts that exist in relationships being because people love each other but they don't understand each other.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  They don't, and they're not curious, right? So they feel like if you don't understand me, then, you know, you don't love me. If you... They do this. "If you loved me, you would x," as opposed to, "Let me tell you how I'm feeling right now. Let me explain this to you." Because the truth is if they understood you, they would do x.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  Probably.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  But it's not if they love you. It has nothing to do with if they love you, they would do x.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's so powerful. That, that's so true. It's resonating so strongly with me too, and that idea of we think that if I say I love you, that means I understand you.
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes.
15. JSJay Shetty
  But the person on the other side is saying, "No, I get that you love me, but you're not understanding me. You're not hearing me. You're not seeing me." And I often think that we think love makes up for a lack of understanding. But love can't. Love can't complete a lack of understanding. Love can't complete the fact that you haven't really listened to what the other person is saying because love can often be this overarching emotion, as opposed to what you're saying, this active verb that's being expressed. And so I think that's a great takeaway for people is, is someone actually trying to understand you? And I think we have this intuitive feeling that- If someone completes our sentences on the first date or they like the same things we like, then they must understand us, right? If we're talking about our favorite foods and we both agree that Italian in- cuisine is our favorite food, or we both agree that we love comedy movies and we lo- we almost, we feel understood.
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
17. JSJay Shetty
  And I feel like both people in that moment of feeling understood stop trying to understand and be understood. Does that make sense?
25:31 – 28:13
Do You Fully Understand Your Partner?
1. LGLori Gottlieb
  What you're talking about is having things in common.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
3. LGLori Gottlieb
  Which is very different from what you're coming into the relationship with. So you can have a lot of interests in common. You might both like sushi and rollerblading and these kinds of movies and these kinds of TV shows and this kind of cuisine, right? And you say, "We have so much in common. We love the same music. We, you know, we read the same things." That's what you have in common. That doesn't mean that you understand the person's operating instructions.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
5. LGLori Gottlieb
  And what I mean by that is when you get anything, a new car, um, you know, it comes with a manual, and it says like, "This is how this car operates, and it's different from your last car. So just because it's a car doesn't mean it operates in the same way. Like, this button is gonna be over here, and if you wanna control this, it's gonna be over here, and it doesn't like when you do this, and it likes when you do this," right?
6. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
7. LGLori Gottlieb
  That's what the manual says. We need that for our people. We need to know, what is their, what are their operating instructions? And we assume that because we have all this in common, that that person is going to know my operating instructions and I'm gonna know that person's operating instructions. But we have to share our operating instructions with the other person. Just because you like to be li- when you wanna come to me with something and you just wanna vent, right? I actually want feedback. That doesn't mean that we have the same way of wanting to be listened to. When you are feeling sad, you do this.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
9. LGLori Gottlieb
  When I'm feeling sad, I need this.
10. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
11. LGLori Gottlieb
  Those are different things. When I'm angry, I need to talk about it right away. When you're angry, you need to walk around the block. Oh, that's really good information. I didn't read your manual. Tell me more.
12. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
13. LGLori Gottlieb
  So we have to be really curious about, "Tell me your operating instructions." And we learn that just by experiencing the other person and seeing that while we have a lot in common and we connect, they're actually separate and apart from us. They're a different person.
14. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
15. LGLori Gottlieb
  And that's so important. So how is, how can we be loving? What is love? Love is saying, "I'm taking the time to understand your operating instructions."
16. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. Mm. That's so well put, and I think we struggle with that so much because we don't have enough self-awareness of our own operating instructions, and then we have this warped view that love means you should be able to understand and read the, be- in between the lines, and none of us read the operating instructions for our devices today, so-
17. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah
18. JSJay Shetty
  ... we're also not reading between the lines, and the other person's sitting there going, "Well, if you loved me, you'd know all of this. How can you not know after 10 years that I love celebrating my birthday?"
19. LGLori Gottlieb
  [laughs]
20. JSJay Shetty
  "Or anniversaries are really important to me." And, and it's fascinating to me that we don't want to help people help us.
21. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right.
28:13 – 37:43
The Secrets To Long-Lasting Relationships
1. LGLori Gottlieb
  So what we do, using the birthday example, is somebody will say, you know, to their partner, "What would you like to do for your birthday?" And they say, "Oh, it's no big deal."
2. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
3. LGLori Gottlieb
  But they really actually want something, and they think, "My partner should know that when I say, 'It's no big deal, don't worry about it,'" and then the partner says, "Oh, we're just gonna, like, do a quiet dinner," when they wanted a big party, that their partner doesn't get them at all.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
5. LGLori Gottlieb
  How did their partner know that no big deal actually meant, "I love big parties. How do you not notice after being together for three years that I love being at big parties, so you should have known that my no big deal meant I love big parties"?
6. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
7. LGLori Gottlieb
  But why can't we just communicate our desires? Why does that take away from the magic? We think, "If I have to explain it, there's no chemistry between us."
8. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
9. LGLori Gottlieb
  "You should just know." But we should be able to say, "Hey, I would love a big party. I love celebrating in the company of all of my people and all of my friends." What a relief for your partner to know, "I can please my partner and give my partner exactly what my partner wants because now I know."
10. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
11. LGLori Gottlieb
  That doesn't take away from the chemistry or the magic or the connection between you. That enhances the connection.
12. JSJay Shetty
  I agree. I agree. A few years ago, me and my wife, after never knowing what to do for each other's birthdays and always getting it wrong, we set that pact with each other where we're like, "We're just gonna tell each other three to four months in advance what we'd like to do for our birthdays." Her birthday's in July. It just actually went two days ago, and then my birthday's in September, and we're just like, "We're just gonna tell each other what we want, what kind of party we want, what we want." So this year she s- she was thinking about doing something. She was like, "I want that." And then she was like, "No, actually, I just wanna do nothing." And she's generally... I, I, over the years, I always did extravagant things because I like extravagant things, and realized I was giving her the birthday party I wanted.
13. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes.
14. JSJay Shetty
  And, and she was giving me the birthday party [laughs] she wanted. And so that's when we just started telling each other. And so she said to me, she was like, "I just wanna do something really small." That's what we did. It was beautiful. And then she was telling me, "What do you want?" I was like, "I just want to som- do something with just me and you." I was like, "I, whatever it is, as long as it's just me and you, I'm, I'm open to it." And I think it's become so much more fun being able to not have to live in this anxiety and anticipation of, "Do they understand me? Have I dropped enough hints? Uh, do they get the magic?" And then feeling disappointed, or even feeling like they got it all, but, "Oh, it's because I gave them all the notes anyway." And so you're so right that we've, we've removed the magic because we've shared what we want.
15. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right. And, and it's so funny what you said, this whole thing about if I give them the notes, that somehow it's not special anymore.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
17. LGLori Gottlieb
  As opposed to, this person took the time to understand exactly what I want and to make my day the magical day that I want it to be. That's the magic. This person cares enough to give you exactly what you want.
18. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
19. LGLori Gottlieb
  But we don't give them credit for that. We actually give them demerits for that.
20. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs] Yeah, yeah. And we give ourselves credit for that.
21. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah. [laughs] Exactly.
22. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. No, and, and, and you're so right. Like, I think it comes with so many things that we think asking for help or telling people what we actually need- Or having a request is a weakness. We see it as a sign of a weak relationship, when actually it's the sign of strong self-awareness and a strong relationship that you have the ability to share your desires, your needs, your interests, and the other person has the ability to comprehend and take action on them.
23. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
24. JSJay Shetty
  That is actually a healthy long-term relationship. And yeah, I ho- I hope that this conversation can encourage people, if you're in a relationship, even if you're starting out in one, these are great habits to set early on, rather than wasting three to five years making mistakes, trying to figure it out, carrying that baggage, and then figuring it out.
25. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right. And the setting the early on is the really important part, because relationships are like cement. If you... You know, p- in the beginning, everyone's trying to be the ambassador of themselves. So they think, "Oh, I don't wanna ask for too much," or, "I didn't really like that the person's always late, but I'll deal with that later." But it really frustrates you. And so then, you know, six months, a year into the relationship, you just blow up, and you say, "How come you're always late? I don't like that you're always late." And the person's like, "This never bothered you before. I don't understand. Okay, thank you for telling me." But you're so upset about it at that point, or the person doesn't call when they say they will, or whatever it is. It's really important, because now the cement has dried, and now you have to, you know, get a, get a jackhammer out there and break up the cement. If you do it when the cement is wet and you say, you know, after the first couple times, "You know what? When you're late, I feel like you don't prioritize us getting together at this time, or you don't prioritize me. I would really appreciate it if you could come on time." And now you get to see, as the cement is drying, can this person respond to that?
26. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
27. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right? And that's really important to know, because why do you want to spend a long time with this person if they're never gonna be able to respond to it? Or why do you want to be frustrated for all this time when you could have just told them early on? And now this person is used to being late. They don't know it's a problem. It's gonna take a while for them to reverse their pattern. Whereas if they know in the beginning this is really important, they're gonna reverse their pattern or they're not, and that's good information for you. The fact that people don't talk about whether they want to get married before a proposal happens-
28. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
29. LGLori Gottlieb
  ... is insane to me. A boundary is something you set with yourself. Cut them off, they're terrible, because they didn't respect your boundary. They can't respect your boundaries. Did you give them an opportunity to respect your boundaries, and did you respect your own boundary? All of our behavior, by the way, is motivated by we want to be loved. We really do. And sometimes we do it in a way that makes people not want to love us-
30. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
37:43 – 46:13
Be Consistent With Your Boundaries
1. JSJay Shetty
  of therapy speak, on social media ex- especially, has made it feel like we're always the victim and everyone else is the problem.
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  [laughs] Yeah.
3. JSJay Shetty
  And so when we use words like gaslighting, and, uh, you know, boundary setting, and, and whatever else it may be, a lot of that language starts to make you feel like, "Well, I'm perfect, and the other person was the issue." But you're actually, you know, and, and I'm, I'm totally with you on that, we're flipping that and going, "Well, no, let's really look at how we can look at things differently, and how we can change how we behave." Walk me through that balance, and, and how you encourage people to make sense of both, because it's, the, uh, saying is as old as it goes, like, you know, it takes two to tango. It takes two, like, you know, it's always gonna take two, and so, but, but we, we try and make it that it has to be one or the other. So how do we, how do we balance that, reconcile that in a healthy way?
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah. You know, I think it's great that people are talking more about mental health on social media. What drives me absolutely bananas is how people use words like you were saying, boundaries, gaslighting, narcissism. If you looked at social media, you'd think, like, 80% of the population are narcissists.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Yes.
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  80% of the population is being gaslit. Um, 80% of the population has no one who will respect their boundaries. And so these terms are being misused, and what happens is you lose the fact of what you're talking about, which is that we're all doing a dance in a relationship. There's a dance going on, and if you change your dance steps, the other person either has to change their dance steps, too, because y- they can't dance with you otherwise, or they'll just get off the dance floor. That's really good to know. So we don't think about, "What dance steps can I change?" We think, "Oh, they did this. That's it." And they're mislabeling people. Someone is not a narcissist if they didn't see what your need was, or they talk a lot about themselves. There's a reason that that's happening. You need to be curious about that. Narcissistic personality disorder is very rare, so [laughs] not everybody is a narcissist. Gaslighting. Gaslighting is not, "I have a different opinion from you." Gaslighting is making someone feel like they're crazy for feeling how they're feeling. Those are very different things. So someone can feel differently about the same experience. This happens with couples all the time. They're not gaslighting each other. They have different feelings about the same experience. They're not... This is not gaslighting. But people on social media will say, "Well, I said that I felt this about this experience. I'm being gaslit, 'cause my partner doesn't agree with my feelings." You don't have to agree. You don't have to have the same feelings. You can just notice that the person has those feelings, and that you might have different feelings. That's okay. So what I think is important about this is that, you know, the, boundaries is a really great example of this. People say, "Well, this person doesn't, you know... We have to set these very rigid boundaries." Well, a boundary is something you set with yourself. So a boundary is a request that you make to somebody else, and this is why we see so many people say on social media, "I'm gonna cut this person off." And everyone says, "Great. Cut them off. They're terrible. Because they didn't respect your boundary. They can't respect your boundaries." Did you give them an opportunity to respect your boundaries, and did you respect your own boundary? So an example might be, let's say that your mother is always asking about when you're going to be in a relationship, right? And, "Are you dating anyone? What's happening?" And that just ruins your time together. You can say, "You know what, Mom? I will let you know if there's someone important in my life. But in the meantime, it really makes it hard to be around you when you're asking about something that you know is very stressful for me. So if you ask about that, I'm gonna end the visit, or I'm gonna end the phone call." Very calm. Okay. So then next time you get together with your mom, she's really good for the first half hour, and then she's like, "Oh, and is there anyone that you're dating?" "Mom, remember, I don't have a good time with you when that comes up. I'm gonna leave, but I really look forward to getting together with you another time when we can talk about something else." "Oh, no, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." "No, Mom, I'm gonna leave, but next time." Right? Next time, your mom, maybe she remembers, and it's like an hour later. And she's like, "Oh, but are you? Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry." "Oh, Mom, great, I'm gonna go now." Right? And so you realize, like, is this person able to respect your boundary? But the main thing is you respected yours. You said, "I'm going to leave if you ask that question." And then over time, and you have to be consistent. If sometimes you say, "Oh, it's okay, Mom, I understand," no. Because she's just gonna keep doing it.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  So if you're consistent with yourself, you have to keep your own boundary. This isn't her fault. This is about you, and if you are not going to value your boundary enough to keep it every time, that's on you.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  And so if you keep doing that, and your mom eventually probably will stop, 'cause she knows that she wants to have a conversation with you or have an outing with you, she'll probably stop asking you about it. But if she doesn't, you've learned that she cannot do that, so I'm gonna keep with my boundary, and maybe I'm gonna get together with her less, or I'm still gonna leave every time she brings that up, right? So it's about what you're going to do. So it's not that, you know, nobody can keep your boundaries. It's about, I've said something that I think is reasonable, and I'm gonna see what the other person is capable of. And so when people say, "I'm going to be- cut, I'm gonna cut this person off," well, are you really?
11. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  Like, you know, or can you set a boundary that works for you so that you can have the good parts of the relationship and not the parts that are problematic?
13. JSJay Shetty
  The way we have to think about it is that people are probably going to keep breaking your boundaries. Are you going to keep them in that situation, right? That's what's happening there. It's like a boundary set for you to protect you from yourself-
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes
15. JSJay Shetty
  ... from giving in to a scenario and a situation which you can't control. But we think a boundary is almost an order or a law that other people have to follow, and the truth is- You can't control them. Like, they're gonna act how they're gonna act, and you've gotta set a boundary where you know how to behave-
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
17. JSJay Shetty
  ... and you know how to act. One of... I'm so glad that you talked about your feelings around how therapy speak is, is healthy. It's important for people to have these conversations about how certain words are being misused and bent online, because I, I do think that it creates exactly what you said, a culture where we think that everyone we meet is a narcissist, because everyone has 1% [laughs] of a, of a narcissist in them, or everyone we meet is a gaslighter. And it starts to create a really unhealthy belief system around who we're around. I, I watched this movie recently. It didn't get great re- great ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, but I saw it on a plane and I watched it out of intrigue. It's called Cat Person, uh, and it's based on this element of catfishing.
18. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
19. JSJay Shetty
  It's a kind of like a satire, parody, thriller of the challenges of modern dating, but how so much of those challenges are in our head, but how they can transform into reality. And if anyone hasn't watched it, it's a fun one-time watch on a plane or, you know, one night with a friend or whatever it may be. But what I appreciated about it is it talked about this idea of how we kind of start viewing people as more crazy or psychotic than they might be because of these little clues that we've been trained to look out for, if that makes sense.
20. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes. And, and we do. We look at other people as they're doing things that are very human, and we label that crazy. When we do it, we, we say, "Oh, but there's a reason, and here's why. I'm not crazy. I had context," like you said.
21. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
22. LGLori Gottlieb
  We don't give them the context. Now, I'm not talking about abusive behavior.
23. JSJay Shetty
  Of course, yeah.
24. LGLori Gottlieb
  But I'm talking about the things that we will literally say, "Oh, that's unacceptable," without saying, "Wait a minute. Why, why is this happening right now?" All of our behavior, by the way, is motivated by we want to be loved. We really do, and sometimes we do it in a way that makes people not want to love us.
25. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
26. LGLori Gottlieb
  And we don't realize that. We're pushing people away with our behavior. But at the core, we are doing it because we want to be liked. We want to be loved. So is this person doing this very strange thing because they're a horrible person or because they're human like me, and at their core they're very vulnerable, and they don't... their behavior doesn't reflect the wish?
27. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
28. LGLori Gottlieb
  The wish is, "I want you to like me," or, "I want to protect myself from being hurt." The behavior is not okay. It's kind of like when you say to little kids, "It's okay to be angry. It's not okay to hit someone."
29. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
30. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right? So what is that equivalent as an adult? It's okay to feel the feeling, but what do we do with it? And can we understand why that person is acting that way? Can we understand the context?
46:13 – 50:12
You’re Not Ready For Marriage
1. JSJay Shetty
  was, what's the right amount of pressure for someone to get married or propose to you?
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  [laughs]
3. JSJay Shetty
  Because I think people get to this point where they feel like, "We've invested so much time. We're together. We're here, but this person is just not proposing. They're not getting... They don't, you know, they don't want to get married," whatever it may be. And then it gets to this point of this ultimatum of like, and now there's even a TV show called The Ultimatum, which is all about people dealing with that period in their life. So what does someone do in that scenario where they feel there's good commitment, we're getting somewhere, but the other person isn't showing this excitement, enthusiasm, or even taking action on taking this relationship to the next level?
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  This is like that birthday party thing, where you feel like, you know, the other person should just know. Um, but we're not communicating about it. The fact that people don't talk about whether they want to get married before a proposal happens-
5. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  ... is insane to me. It just-
7. JSJay Shetty
  I'm glad you said it. Yeah
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  ... it, it makes, it makes no sense, that it shouldn't be a total surprise. [laughs]
9. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. [laughs]
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  You should know that you are both on the same page.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, yeah.
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  And you should know that the other person is definitely gonna say yes.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  That you've talked about this. So many people come to me for premarital therapy, where they can talk about... Because they know they want to get married, and maybe they wanna... They're not even having any problems. They just wanna talk about their families and how they're gonna blend their families and the in-laws and the siblings and, you know, this person and this personality. Or they wanna talk about money, or they wanna talk about whether they wanna have kids and how many and how that might work. Or they wanna talk about balancing their careers. Or they wanna talk about sex and all the different things that might be hard to talk about before you get married that are so important. And they might not have the answers right now, but they're learning how to talk about these challenging topics.
15. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  And people say, "Oh, you're in therapy and you're not even married yet. Something must be terribly wrong." It's like, "No, something's terribly right."
17. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs] Yeah.
18. LGLori Gottlieb
  And so the fact that, that people s- are saying, like, "I really want this person to propose, but I don't understand why they're not," and they don't feel like they can ask the person means you are not m- ready to marry that person. If you don't feel like you can bring this up and say, "Where are we? We've been together for this amount of time. I'm feeling this. I'm wondering where you are with this." And the person, you'll get so much information from, "I do want to marry you. I don't feel ready yet because of this, but I think I will feel ready in six months." Right? And then you have a choice. Do you wanna wait for that or do you not wanna wait for that?
19. JSJay Shetty
  Or never. They might say, "I don't"
20. LGLori Gottlieb
  Um, right. Or they might say, "Actually, I don't know how I feel about getting married. I don't know if I'm going to come around to that." You have a choice about what you wanna do with that. "I, you know, oh, I didn't realize that... I, I thought I did wanna get married, but now I'm not so sure." Well, that's really important to know. Why? What's happening between us? So that conversation is so important. Or do you just wanna sit there scheming with your friends about how you can drop hints or how you can, like, analyze the behavior because the person did this, and what does that mean? That Doesn't sound like the kind of marriage you wanna be in. Don't you wanna be in the kind of marriage where you can say to the person, "Hey, this is what I'm desiring. This is what I'm wanting. Where are you with this?"
21. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
22. LGLori Gottlieb
  But that's such a basic conversation.
23. JSJay Shetty
  But that's so much healthier than an ultimatum too, because I think we also get... Again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. You haven't given that regular check-in.
24. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right.
25. JSJay Shetty
  You haven't touched base. You don't really know what that person's belief system is around marriage or whatever else it may be, and all of a sudden it's built up for you as this big thing.
26. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
27. JSJay Shetty
  And now you're like, "Okay, well, either you marry me or we're over." And then that's not comfortable for that person either because now they feel they're forced into a choice as opposed to a sense of, how do you feel about this, and what are your thoughts about this? Again, it comes back to we're so scared of appearing to be naggy.
28. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes.
29. JSJay Shetty
  We're so scared of appearing to be high maintenance. We're so scared of appearing to be the one who's needy or desperate or whatever it may be, but we are feeling all of those things because we're not checking, how do we get over
50:12 – 52:56
Communicate Your Needs
1. JSJay Shetty
  this hurdle? And by the way, I, I... You experience it in both. Like, a lot of people don't break up with people for years-
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
3. JSJay Shetty
  ... because they don't wanna be seen as the bad person. The amount of people I've spoken to who are like, "Oh, if I break up with her, if I break up with them, if I break up with him, oh my God, he's just gonna hate me, and I'm gonna be the worst, and I just don't wanna do that to them, and they're a nice person." But really all we're saying is, "I just don't wanna... I wanna be liked."
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah.
5. JSJay Shetty
  In both scenarios, whether it's I don't wanna nag them to marry me and propose, I don't wanna break up with them because I don't want them to see me negatively. How do we get over that-
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
7. JSJay Shetty
  ... hurdle of recognizing that we're putting off the best decision for us, or conversation, because we wanna be liked in a space that w- we can't... Do you know? Does that make sense? You know what I'm trying to say, yeah.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right. Right, right. Well, it's like a parent. Like, if you, if you've set a boundary with your child, they might not like you in that moment, but you're doing something loving. And so if you break up with someone that you know you don't want to be with, you're doing something loving. So I, I think that we need to reframe what we're actually doing. What you're doing by staying in a relationship and, and stringing someone along is actually cruel, and it's wasting their time. So you're not being nice. You're not going to be liked. But I think the other thing we were talking about, about bringing things up, it's not just about a proposal. It's even about... Lots of people will say, "Oh, you know, I know... I think my... the person that I'm dating is also dating other people. I would like to not date other people, but I'm afraid that I'll appear too needy too early." Right? As opposed to just being honest about what you want. They can say yes or no. But to be clear about, "Look, we're, we're dating. I don't feel comfortable with... I, I can't really feel like I can get close to you if I know that you're dating other people at this point, 'cause we're spending a lot of time together. So how do you feel about this? Are you ready to be in an exclusive relationship? Is that of interest to you?" If they say no, wow, great. You've learned a lot.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  Um, you can make a choice, like, I'm comfortable doing this for another month, or I'm not, or, you know, whatever it is. Um, or they can say, "Oh, I didn't know that that was important to you, and I would like that too. Let's do that," or, "I'm not ready to do that."
11. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  So people do this in all kinds of situations. It's not just about marriage. They're so afraid to just bring their true selves into the kind of relationship where the, the whole game here is bringing your true self to it. So if you can't practice that at, at any point in the relationship, you're not ready to be together for the long term. You can't just say, "Oh, now that we're engaged, now I can bring my true self."
13. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. [laughs]
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  Well, that's a recipe for disaster, because now it's like you've misrepresented what you actually want and need in a relationship, and maybe the other person has misinterpreted what you want and need because you haven't expressed it.
15. JSJay Shetty
  But we're so... It's... I, I'm, I'm fully with you. I just find that we're
52:56 – 56:56
The Blind Spots of Dating
1. JSJay Shetty
  so... it's so hardwired in us. Like, we're so scared of rejection.
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah.
3. JSJay Shetty
  We're so scared of being able to say, "This is how I feel," because we're like, "Oh, that person's just gonna walk away from me. Like, this is the thing that I'm gonna lose this person over if I really tell them." And I think often, Lori, you've probably seen that people don't know how to effectively weigh their emotions, so everything's a 10.
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
5. JSJay Shetty
  So, right? It's like, oh, they were late. That's a 10. Uh, they're seeing other people. That's a 10. Like, everything's a 10. And so I think we're all so bad at being like, "Okay, well, this doesn't need to be raised because it's a two, and yet this does need to be raised because it is a nine, and this is a minus five. Like, I'm just being ridiculous here." And so I think because we weigh everything as a 10, then we don't know how to... Does that make sense? Like-
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  It does.
7. JSJay Shetty
  I... Yeah.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  And I think that's because, again, we, we bring so much of the relationship outside where people don't have the context.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  So, and, and that's what I was talking about earlier, is like, you say, "Listen to what this person did," or, "Listen to what this person is doing," and your friend sees that you're upset about it, so they say, "Yeah, you should really bring that up." You don't have to bring up every thought that crosses your mind.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, what do you value? What makes you uncomfortable to the point that this is something that you want to address?
13. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  So I think people either undervalue it, which is what we were talking about, and they don't bring it up 'cause they're afraid, well, maybe it's not such a big deal even though it is a big deal to you that this person is seeing other people. You don't feel safe. You don't feel comfortable. But then there are things that they overvalue, you know? Like, well, this person does this or that, right? I hear this in therapy all the time, and I'm thinking, "Really?" [laughs] You know, like, this is... But I'm glad we're talking about it. I'm glad they brought it up in therapy because now they can understand it better. And now... And by the way, I think the other blind spot that people have in dating is they think these are things that make the other person not perfect. And they don't realize, oh, there are things that the other person has to compromise on to be with me.
15. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  That I am not perfect either. I'm sure there are so many things that I do that the other person is annoyed by or frustrated by, or maybe if they could create, you know, a la carte, the perfect person, they might not order that particular feature But I have it, and they are with me anyway.
17. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
18. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right?
19. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
20. LGLori Gottlieb
  And so we think we're gonna change all these things about them without thinking about the other person is being so chill about some of my maybe less than perfect features.
21. JSJay Shetty
  Absolutely.
22. LGLori Gottlieb
  So how can we see the other person as human in these ways so we don't have to kind of craft them, we don't have to shape them or mold them in a certain way? We just have to say, "Okay, these are the big things, and the other little things, remember, they're putting up with things about me too, and I'm very grateful for that."
23. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there's that, there's that famous statement that says, "We judge other people by their actions, not their intentions-
24. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes
25. JSJay Shetty
  ... and we judge ourselves by our intentions, not our actions." And when we're looking at someone else, we're blind to their intention. It's just what they said or what they did, whereas when we look at ourselves, we can justify why we said it-
26. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
27. JSJay Shetty
  ... and why we did that.
28. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yep.
29. JSJay Shetty
  And we have to start offering both sides that grace and compassion and empathy because otherwise, we're going to constantly feel that everything's against us and everyone's not for us.
30. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right. When I cancel on someone, I have a good, valid reason and I still care about them. When they cancel on me, they're disrespectful and they don't care about me.
56:56 – 1:00:33
The Truth About Future Tripping
1. JSJay Shetty
  And when I asked my community what was one of the things that they think trips them up, it was this idea that they have now coined future tripping, this idea of planning the future in their head, visioning a future with this person. When things are looking okay or good, in their head, they're, you know, in the most extreme cases, imagining their wedding day or what their kids might look like. But even in the immediate sense, like, this could be it. This is amazing. This is gonna last. And then all of a sudden they get a reality check where that person is not really mirroring that back.
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
3. JSJay Shetty
  How do we stop ourselves from future tripping, or is there a healthy way of future tripping with the person? Is there a collective, collaborative future tripping? Like, what, what does that look like?
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  I think the future tripping is being in the present, and what I mean is what's happening now is what it's gonna look like in the future. So instead of imagining, oh, this person will change in this way, or this, this, we're gonna have this kind of life, but you don't know if the other person wants that kind of life. If you're not talking about it now in the present, you don't know. How did the... How does this person treat me now? What is it like when we're together? The biggest indicator would be we had a disagreement, how did we get through it? That's what your future is going to look like. We didn't agree on this. We were frustrated with each other. We had a difference of opinion. How did we repair that rupture? We talk a lot about rupture and repair. Everybody's gonna have ruptures. You have it with your family members, with your friends, with your coworkers, with your parents, with your children, especially with your romantic partners, because we have this misguided notion that we shouldn't have a rupture with them because we're so in love and we see each other and we see eye to eye, but of course you're gonna have ruptures. It's not so much whether you're gonna have a rupture, it's what do you do with it and what does it look like? So if you have been dating for, let's say, six months and you haven't had a rupture, you guys are not going deep enough. You guys don't know each other well enough. You're still on your best behavior. You have to be able to be yourselves. That's gonna tell you what the future looks like. So stop the pretending, be yourself, be what you want your future to look like, act like you want your future to look like, see how the other person acts, and see what happens between the two of you.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  And a repair would look like something like, "Oh, I didn't... You know, we're having a disagreement right now. Why don't we take 15 minutes and let's come back when we're not so heated and let's talk about that." Or you know you made a mistake. Um, "You know what? I've been thinking about this." You know, say you have an argument. You say, "We're not gonna talk for a few minutes. Let's go cool off," whatever. Um, you call them back and you say, "You know what? I thought about it. I was wrong, and I'm so sorry. Here's what I did, and I wish I had done it this way."
7. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  And that's great if your partner can do that or if you can do that, right? And then if your partner then can accept that without shaming you, if your partner can say, "I really appreciate that, and I wish that I had reacted differently in this way. And how can I be more supportive in those moments?" That's beautiful. That's your future. But you have to see it in the present. You can't imagine what the future's gonna be. You have to actually live it in the present and say, "Oh, now I know it's gonna be just like it is right now."
9. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and like you're saying, like, if you are making plans in your head but you're uncomfortable to talk about those plans, then they only exist in your head.
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Like, they aren't real. They aren't, they aren't going there. I was gonna... I wanted to get your thoughts. I don't know if you watch any of these shows or, or whether you're exposed to them, and I know that your book's being turned into a, a scripted show, I believe.
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes. Yes.
13. JSJay Shetty
  But, but when you look at, like, unscripted shows, like you look at shows
1:00:33 – 1:01:58
The Truth About Dating Shows & Media
1. JSJay Shetty
  like Love Island or Love Is Blind, I mean, Love Island right now is culturally, like, one of the most talked about shows in... for, for young people for sure. How do you feel about those shows? And yes, they're entertaining, and yes, we love to get into all the gossip and what's going on and everything. How, how is that affecting our views and our own relationships?
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah. I haven't actually seen those shows, but many of my therapy clients talk about them. Um, I did just watch Bridgerton-
3. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  ... which is a scripted show, but very much like what I imagine those other shows to be. And I just think that, you know, people think that that's what it's supposed to be like. So many times people will come into therapy and they'll say, "Is this what it's supposed to feel like? Is this what it's supposed to be like?" And it's like, how does it feel to you? Oh, it feels really good. Well, then that's how it's supposed to be. How does it feel to you? I don't know. It just doesn't, doesn't feel right. Well, then that's not how it's supposed to be.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  And that's really, again, coming back to can you tap into how do I feel around this person? Does it feel, as you said, peaceful, calm? Do I feel safe? Do I feel comfortable?
7. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  And it's not just that. It's not just that-
9. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  ... 'cause you can have friends that you feel that way around.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  But if you don't have that and you have the other things, that's not enough.
13. JSJay Shetty
  That kind of brings me on to this, this next theme that I wanna dive into deeply around is
1:01:58 – 1:04:11
This Is When Most Relationships Fail Statistically
1. JSJay Shetty
  what is it about the five to seven-year mark that ends in a divorce or a breakup? Like, why is that the number that you see in the research? Why has that become such a prominent pivot point or end point?
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
3. JSJay Shetty
  What have, what have you seen over the years?
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  What I see happen around that time is several things are happening. There's a developmental change that happens throughout a marriage, and you both become different people, and the relationship becomes different, and you adapt together, and those are the strong marriages-
5. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  ... and the strong relationships.
7. JSJay Shetty
  So that's, that's what you're being called into.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  So-
9. JSJay Shetty
  Either you grow together or you grow apart.
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  Well, so, so different things happen. So first of all, I think that sometimes people don't know each other well before they get married, then they're married, and they're like a year in, and they think, "Oh, this isn't exactly what I wanted, but I'm in it. I'm married." And then they say, "Okay, let's, let's have a baby," [laughs] right? Um, because then that's the next step, and then now that's really hard. Parenting is really challenging, and if you and your partner are not already on solid ground, it's gonna be extra challenging.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  So then you think, oh, my partner's the problem, when actually the relationship is the problem.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  So many times people come into couples therapy and the first thing that they say is, "The problem is... And let me tell you everything that's wrong with my partner."
15. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  And so what I do with couples therapy is I say, "Before you come in, I want you each to come in and say, 'If you were to be your best selves in this relationship, what would you need to change of yourself?'" Each of you. And they say it out loud, and that's all they're working on is changing that. They're not working on changing the other person. And when they do that, they say, "Oh, wow," like that actually changes the relationship.
17. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
18. LGLori Gottlieb
  The relationship is an entity. It's not just, you know, there's two people. It's like there's three people happening. It's like there's you, there's you, and then there's the two of you.
19. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
20. LGLori Gottlieb
  And so I think around five years, either they realize, "I didn't know enough about this person," or, "I still have work to do," or other things have come into our lives. A parent got sick. It was really challenging. We didn't know how to deal with it. We had children. We didn't know how to deal with that. Um, you know, we've had, we've had difficulties. We've had loss. All kinds of things happen at, at that point.
21. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. I just wanna
1:04:11 – 1:07:05
Can Having Children Save a Marriage?
1. JSJay Shetty
  say to your point, I've had so many friends who were given the advice that if your relationship's not working out, have a baby and it will save it. And-
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Terrible advice
3. JSJay Shetty
  ... it's never made sense to me because if your relationship's not working, now you have another relationship to take care of, who is a new child-
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
5. JSJay Shetty
  ... a new human being in the, in the world, and so how are you g- you're gonna give less attention to each other. You've already been given no attention. Now you have less attention to, to share with each other and more attention on this another being. I'm, I'm shocked that that advice still gets passed around and people still see it as a viable solution to a bad relationship.
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah. Yeah. They think of it as like sunk cost. Like, "We've been married this long, so we can't, we can't start over. We can't... You know, what do we do to save this? Let's have a baby," because it's a distraction. They think like, "This will be great. It's exciting. It'll bring some vitality and energy and aliveness into the relationship," when if you don't already have that aliveness and that vitality between the two of you, the baby is not going to provide that for you.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  You're gonna get a lot of outside attention, like, "Oh, that's so great. Look at the baby."
9. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  But in reality, you guys are going to have to be more of a team than you've ever been and problem solve more than you've ever had to and figure out how to create connection under much more challenging circumstances.
11. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  So it's the most counterintuitive advice, and, and I, I always tell people, "If you are not solid, do not bring another person into this family."
13. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. It's almost like you already don't have problem-solving skills-
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
15. JSJay Shetty
  ... you don't have collaboration skills, and now you're having to make choices on behalf of an entirely new human being where the stakes are so high and everything feels like it's personal of whether things are going well for the child or not.
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  Well, what happens is the pain Olympics start.
17. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
18. LGLori Gottlieb
  And what I mean is that, you know, "I had the baby all day. I have it harder. You didn't do this. No, I had it harder 'cause I've been at work all day, and now I have to take over this, and you didn't have to work all day." Whatever it is, they vie for who has the most pain, and then they compete for it, and that becomes their relationship. You know, "You owe me because I won the pain Olympics today." "No, you owe me because yesterday I won the pain Olympics and I never got my reward." And that becomes their whole relationship.
19. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. Yeah, one of the questions I ask people when they say to me like, "Should we have kids now?" Or, "Is it the right time to have children?" I often say that I think we're asking the wrong question. Like, the question should be, do I know how my life is going to change, and am I ready for that, and am I aware of that, and are we aware of how our life is going to change to the point you're making of, well, who is gonna take the responsibility, and am I gonna feel like you're not helping out, and what does that look like? Again, having a conversation about it seems like the practical thing to do. Another relationship that seems to add more complexity since the beginning of time is in-laws.
20. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yes.
21. JSJay Shetty
  You mentioned it earlier that you have clients that come and see you-
22. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
23. JSJay Shetty
  ... for that.
1:07:05 – 1:12:21
The In-Law Issue
1. JSJay Shetty
  The amount of friends I've spoken to recently who have this challenge where they feel that their in-laws are too involved, their in-laws are not involved. When their in-laws are too involved, they're too controlling of either or one of the partners, or they have expectations. They have certain demands on time and holidays and where they're spent and all of these kinds of things. What I found to be the Core pain i- i- again, going back to our earlier conversation, is people feel their partner's parents are too involved, too demanding, too hands-on.
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
3. JSJay Shetty
  But they feel their partner can't stand up to their parents-
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
5. JSJay Shetty
  ... and their partner doesn't understand how it affects them. That's kind of where I've seen the main pressure that people are carrying. How does someone deal with the fact that they feel their partner doesn't defend them or stand up for them in front of their partner's parents, and therefore they feel their partner doesn't understand what they're going through?
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  I have gotten thousands of letters to my column and to my podcast about in-laws, and what I always say is in-law issues are couples issues. So people think it's about the mother-in-law, the father-in-law. It's about the two of you, and if your partner whose parent that is cannot talk to their parent on your behalf, that's a couples issue.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  So the person will say, "Oh, it's really not that bad." But if your partner is saying, "I am really struggling with this," and it's not your, you know, it, it's not their parent, you need to talk to your own parent about this. You need to have your partner's back. And if you don't, your partner is going to feel that y- you are treating them the same way that their parent is. You might not be doing the same thing, but the fact that they don't have your support is going to pull you apart in this marriage. Because your partner, it's not about taking sides, it's about prioritizing this couple's relationship and saying, "Listen, when you do this, it makes my wife feel like she's not a good parent or she's not a good wife. And you might have these values, Mom, and I understand that, but I don't want you saying those kinds of things. You can have whatever thoughts you have. Please don't say them to me or to my wife, because I'm very happy with our relationship." And what you're really standing up for is the relationship. It's not just standing up for your partner. It's standing up for we understand each other, we can talk about these things with each other, and we do not want that kind of interference.
9. JSJay Shetty
  What do you do when your partner doesn't have the guts to do that, when they don't have the authority or the, the relationship with their own parents, which has constantly been they've been babied, they've been-
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
11. JSJay Shetty
  ... you know, the mommy's boy or whatever it may be, and they don't really have the courage to stand up to their parents and say what you just said, which isn't rude. It's not-
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
13. JSJay Shetty
  ... mean, but in their head, they're like, "How could I ever defy my parents?" Like, what does that look like? Or, or they're guilt-tripped-
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
15. JSJay Shetty
  ... like by their parents where it's like, they're like, "I could never do that to my mom. Like, she's loved me since day one."
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
17. JSJay Shetty
  Like, "You just turned up in my life two years ago." Like, what do you do when your partner's feeling that way?
18. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah. Well, I think you help your partner to understand that this is a very loving thing for the relationship with the parent, too. So you're not telling the parent, "I don't want you in our lives." You're saying, "I want you in our lives. We both want you in our lives. But we want you in our lives in a way that makes us feel like we're enjoying our time with you. And if it becomes this thing where we're not enjoying our time with you and it becomes problematic, we're gonna be spending less time with you. And Mom, I don't want that, and my wife doesn't want that. We both want to spend time with you. We just want it to be enjoyable."
19. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
20. LGLori Gottlieb
  "So we're asking that you not talk about this," whatever the issue is, "or you not do this, or you not tell my wife to do this, or you not criticize, because that makes it not enjoyable, and then we're gonna see you less. And we love you so much that we feel comfortable saying this to you. If we didn't love you and we didn't care how much we saw you, we wouldn't be bringing this up. I'm bringing this up because I love you and I want to be able to see you."
21. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm. Yeah.
22. LGLori Gottlieb
  And I think when people, when you set boundaries in a loving way, when you say, "I want to see more of you. I want to be able to continue to see you. I'm not pushing you away, I'm pulling you close, but the way to pull you close is to make sure that we have a good time together."
23. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. Yeah, and I find that sometimes, and, and it can be different in every relationship, but often this, at least in the people I know, the pressure often falls on the man who feels like he's b- in between his mom-
24. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
25. JSJay Shetty
  ... and his wife-
26. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
27. JSJay Shetty
  ... in that, in that kind of a setup. Or at least those are the ones that I'm aware of, and I'm sure it has, it takes all sorts of forms. But it's often quite a heavy pressure that I know a lot of men feel, and they're like, "I don't wanna let my mom down, and I don't wanna let my wife down, and now I'm stuck in between-
28. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah
29. JSJay Shetty
  ... these two things." And it's almost like, who do I choose? And I feel like I have to choose a side.
30. LGLori Gottlieb
  Right, but you're not choosing.
1:12:21 – 1:17:09
When Couples Therapy Is The Right Choice
1. JSJay Shetty
  One of the things I imagine you see a lot in therapy is one partner has forced the other partner to come there. Maybe in couples therapy it's hard for two people to feel equally as excited. Maybe if they're premarital-
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah. Mm-hmm
3. JSJay Shetty
  ... that may be more equal. But when it's reactive, it's definitely one saying, "We need to go to therapy," and someone may feel forced. One thing I've found that a lot of people say to me is, "Jay, I just can't get my partner to open up." Like, whether it's in therapy, whether it's with me, I'm asking them, I'm talking to them. I'm just like, "I just wanna know what you feel." Like even with the question you said earlier of like, "Hey, I, I have a dream to get married. What's your take on it?" And they'll be like, "I don't know." Or they'll, they'll go quiet when it's like, "Hey, we need to go talk to your parents about this, because they're getting really involved," and they just go quiet. They don't know what to say. And they constantly feel that these, their partner doesn't have the capacity to open up, and I find this especially with young couples where they're just like, "My partner doesn't have an emotional vocabulary." Like, they don't have the abil- how have you encouraged people in those scenarios to be able to open up or help their partners open up or create a safe space when a lot of people don't have that skill and that ability to actually even know what they're feeling and thinking?
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah. You have to create the space for that person to feel comfortable opening up. So often people who can't open up or have a hard time with it, they were not given the space before. So when they opened up, someone would say, "Oh, no, you don't feel that way." [laughs] Right? So when they were growing up, they'd say, you know, "I'm upset about this," or, "I'm sad about this," and the parent would say, "No, don't be sad. Let's go get ice cream." Right? So there was no space for the sadness. Or, "I'm really angry about this." "Oh, you're overreacting. You're so sensitive." So they don't tell someone that they're angry about something. Or, "I'm really worried about this." "Oh, don't worry, it'll all work out." Or, "What do you mean you're worried about that? Why are you always so worried about everything?"
5. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  So they never felt like they had a space for their feelings to be received and held. We talk about in therapy the, the concept of feeling felt. What does it mean to feel felt? And I love that expression because I think that when you want someone to open up, they want to feel felt. They want to know that you're going to receive whatever they have to offer in a compassionate way and in a way that feels connected.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  So when you tell someone, "Tell me what you're feeling. Open up," that feels like so much pressure, as opposed to just, you know, being with them. So maybe you, you start with something like, "Hey, I'm feeling really this about this," you know. "What was that like for you?" And they might say, "It was fine," 'cause they don't know. "Did you have a good time?" You know. "Oh, did it make you sad when this happened? It made me sad, but maybe you didn't feel that way." You know, just, just helping them to have the vocabulary. There's this thing called a feelings wheel, and a lot of people only learned, like, with the colors, the primary colors, right? So red, yellow, blue, right? And then if you mix red and yellow, you get orange, and there's more nuance, and if you put more yellow, it becomes more yellowy orange, right? And so people only know, like, happy, sad, mad, but they don't know, like, I felt frustrated, I felt scared, I felt vulnerable, I felt anxious. But where did you feel the anxiety? Well, I felt it in my belly. I felt it in my chest, right? So there's so much nuance, and for people who don't open up, they often only have those three primary emotions, and then they don't really know how to describe what they're feeling. So you can mirror that for them and model that when you talk about your feelings. Like, "I was really afraid of that, and I was really angry, but actually underneath the an- anger with my friend, I was feeling hurt, and I realized I was feeling really hurt by her behavior, and it seemed like I was angry. But I'm feeling really neglected. And so, you know, did you ever feel that way? Have you ever felt..." You know, w- whatever it is. But it just, like, it just becomes part of the air. It's not like, "Sit down, face me, and tell me how you're feeling. Open up to me."
9. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  That feels like so much pressure. But it just, like, it's in the air, and they've never lived in that environment before, you have to remember. So it's just, this is a new planet that they've landed on, and here's... It's like a new, let's say it's a new city, and in this city, we speak a different language.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  And we speak in the language of emotion.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  And they're gonna start to pick up the language bit by bit, but they're not gonna be fluent right out the gate. So don't say, "Speak French to me." It's like, "Oh, here's this new language. You'll pick up a few words here and there."
15. JSJay Shetty
  That's so good. That's such a great visual and analogy. Like, if I turn up in a different city or a different country and someone just expected me to know how-
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm
17. JSJay Shetty
  ... to speak that language, I would feel so much pressure. And, and actually, we've all experienced that, where you're like, "I don't even wanna try and say a sentence-
18. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah
19. JSJay Shetty
  ... because I feel I'm gonna sound so stupid."
20. LGLori Gottlieb
  Mm-hmm.
21. JSJay Shetty
  It's that comfortability, and that can take a while. This is my last question I wanna ask you today,
1:17:09 – 1:22:07
How Long Can You Tolerate Disrespect From Your Partner?
1. JSJay Shetty
  Lori. What-- How long... Not abuse, not, um, something as extreme as that. How long can you tolerate disrespect, confusion, and distance from your partner before you feel this is enough, I, I can't do it anymore? I feel like every relationship goes through f- phases and periods of distance, of disconnect, of disagreements. It's normal. It's, it's going to happen across a long period of time. But when does an individual say, "You know what? I can't do this anymore. I can't keep tolerating this"? What have you found that makes people feel strongly about leaning in that direction versus I can-- I'm, I'm in it for some more?
2. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah. Well, first of all, there's a study that shows that if you think of your relationship like a bank account, and you want to have lots of goodwill in there, let's say it's an account of goodwill, and you don't want to take a lot of withdrawals, so when we talk about disrespect. So you need five positive interactions for every one negative interaction, or you're gonna be operating in deficit spending, and it won't work. But we're talking about maybe the confusion or somebody had a bad moment, but they repaired it, those kinds of things. Disrespect is so corrosive in a relationship. So if someone does it the first time, like the cement drying, you say, "Hey," that-- You don't tell them, "You were so disrespectful. That was so mean." You say, "I felt really disrespected by that. Can you tell me what you actually meant?" Right? And they may say, "Oh, I'm sorry I said it that way. I should not have said it that way. Here's what I meant, and it came off completely different, and I will make sure that doesn't happen anymore." That's the response you want, right? "And here's what I was thinking, and I need to work on that."
3. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
4. LGLori Gottlieb
  If someone says, "That wasn't..." I, I... You know, if you said, "I felt disrespected," and they said, "Well, it wasn't disrespectful," or, "I didn't intend for it to be," you can say, "Okay, you didn't intend for it to be, but it felt disrespectful to me, and let me explain more about why." And the person still is like, "Well, I didn't mean it." "Okay, but here's how it landed on me." That person doesn't seem like they have a lot of flexibility. The number one trait after emotional stability that predicts the success of two people having a good relationship is flexibility. You cannot have a good relationship with neuroticism, rigidity, um, lack of self-awareness. So if this person can't respond to you and they're still being disrespectful, I would not wait.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
6. LGLori Gottlieb
  Um, the question is, are you being clear about what disrespect is? Because again, then we get to, you know, someone said something that maybe was not disrespectful, but because of your history, you hear something as being disrespectful. You know, they might have said like, "Oh, I don't know if that, that job is worthy of you." And you hear that as, "Are you saying that, like, I have a bad job?" And you're saying, "No, I think your worth is higher-
7. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, yeah
8. LGLori Gottlieb
  ... than your job," right? So that person was actually being very respectful of you and saying the opposite of what you thought. So you have to really be clear about-
9. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
10. LGLori Gottlieb
  ... can I hear this person clearly? But if this person is critical of you, and sometimes the, the way they frame it is, "Oh, I was just kidding. You can't take a joke?" That is so abusive.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
12. LGLori Gottlieb
  Um, so it's, it's not funny. Criticism is not a funny way of making a joke, and if you have to put some- someone down to be funny, then that's probably not someone you want to be in a relationship with.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. Lori, thank you so much for coming and sharing your wealth of wisdom and depth of insight today with our community. I wanna thank everyone who's been listening and watching for your amazing questions. Please keep sending them through so that we can keep getting Lori back. I think you've, uh, helped identify so many root issues today. I feel like we really got to a place of talking about some of the deepest aspects of where we go wrong at the same time as talking about a lot of the day-to-day challenges that we seem to hear about, and I really hope that everyone who's listening and watching, I hope this helps you in your love life to find deeper connections, to find more meaningful relationships, and ultimately maintain a natural, healthy, truly nourishing relationship, uh, with a partner, and, uh, wishing you all the best in your love life. So thank you so much again, Lori, for being here.
14. LGLori Gottlieb
  Yeah, and thank you so much for having me, and thank you to your audience for submitting so many great questions.
15. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. Thanks, Lori. Hey, everyone. If you loved that conversation, go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist, Lori Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space right now, you won't wanna miss this conversation.
16. LGLori Gottlieb
  If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely