Why Do We Treat The People We Love The Worst? | Relationship Expert Terry Real

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 Why is it, do you think, that people who are interested in their health should care about the quality of their relationships?

Terry Real 0:09 Ah. Because their quality of relationships will determine, first of all, their happiness, uh, second of all, their emotional

Terry Real 0:20 mental health, third of all, their physical health, and fourth of all, their kids' health. But hey, other than that, who cares? But let me just do the body for a moment. Uh, Vivek Murthy, the, uh, Obama's Surgeon General for the United States, has, uh, cited, uh, research. Not being in intimate connection is as bad for your physical health as smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. This is hard research. The, the devastation that... Look, we're pack animals. W- what I... I've been saying this for 40 years, and the research has finally caught up with me. We are designed to be relational. That is what the human species is designed for. We don't self-regulate, for example. Our nervous systems are not closed. We co-regulate all day long. If you take a... Y- you know, I start off my newest book, Us, arguing against the idea of a freestanding individual. The... Yes, individual, but always in context. Our nervous systems are not geared to be alone. Uh, so the state of deep connection, uh, to ourselves and others, uh, has become more and more a public health issue. Loneliness kills people. A- and conversely, intimate connection, uh, cures people and keeps them healthy. But there are a million stud- Here's my favorite study of the eight million studies. Right? This is Dartmouth, uh, in, in the States. There's a direct correlation between how quickly someone s- uh, gets out of the hospital and recovers from surgery and how many visitors they have. The more visitors, the shorter the hospital stay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:09 Wow.

Terry Real 2:09 The fewer visitors, the longer the hospital stay. I mean, how black and white is that? If someone's going in for a pain- a painful medical procedure, the pain is exponentially less if they have a loved one sitting holding their hand while they have it, and it's even less if they have a perfect stranger sitting holding their

Terry Real 2:30 hand if they have it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:31 Yeah.

Terry Real 2:31 We are not born to be freestanding. That is a bullshit myth that hurts people.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:38 So if relationships are so fundamental to who we are as human beings, why do we find them so hard?

Terry Real 2:47 Oh. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:48 [laughs]

Terry Real 2:50 "Oh, you find your relationship hard? Mine's a very..." You know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:53 [laughs]

Terry Real 2:53 I heard... Uh, God bless you, I love him as an artist a- and I like his politics, uh, but George Clooney got on, you know, one of those, uh, shows and said he and Amal have not had one fight. Uh, to which I say, first of all, I'm sorry. L- let me have a conversation with the two of you. It'll be juicier if you do fight from time to time. And second of all, please don't go on air and say that to people. That's the last thing. Look, relationships are hard. Uh, uh, forgive me, I should do my, uh, homework, but are, are you single? Are you in a relationship? What's your story?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:28 Uh, I've been married for, I think, 18 years now.

Terry Real 3:34 Oh, wow. Congratulations.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:35 Happily married for 18 years, and, and two wonderful children.

Terry Real 3:39 Oh, great. How old? Can I ask?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:40 Yeah, sure. 15 and 13. 15-year-old boy-

Terry Real 3:43 Oh, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:43 ... 13-year-old girl.

Terry Real 3:45 Oh, yeah. They're giving you a run for your money. Okay, I gotta... Uh, my kids are in their 30s, and, uh, I just did a family therapy session with one of my kids. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:53 Oh, wow.

Terry Real 3:53 As he's heading toward middle age, and we're still talking about it. But anyway, look, A, relationships are hard. But let's think about that. Why? We've never wanted more from our intimate relationships than we do right now. This is historically new. Uh, we really want to be lifelong lovers. We wanna, uh, have heart-to-heart talks, hold hands on the beach, have great sex in 70s and beyond. My parents and grandparents, uh, they didn't want all that. I mean, it'd be nice. There was lip service. But, uh, shoulder-to-shoulder, companionable marriage, not particularly sexy, not particularly intimate, steady, good enough. Not anymore. Now, we really want connection, particularly hetero women really want connection. Part of the reason why relationships are hard is because they're hard. Part of the reason why relationships are hard is because we're trying to be lovers in a context, in a culture which does not cherish relationships. It's actually anti-relationships in subtle ways. We live in a selfish, individualistic, patriarchal culture, and I'll go back on all three of those, and it does not cherish relationships. It gives lip service to it. You know, I, I, I've said this all over the world. Listeners, I want relationship skills taught to our children in elementary school, junior high, high, and beyond. Let's equip our kids to handle themselves. Over... I deal with couples on the brink of divorce. That's my beat. And over and over again, "You are..." I say to somebody, "You are just doing what you learned in your family, what you learned in this culture." Those skills are not good enough to deliver on this new ambition of love that we all have. I say to people, "You have a filet mignon vision and hamburger skills."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:56 [laughs]

Terry Real 5:56 And, uh, uh, the result of that is the two of you. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:01 Yeah. There's so much to get into there, Terry. You start off talking about George Clooney and what he was saying, okay, when he was on-

Terry Real 6:11 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:11 ... television, and, uh, why you felt that that's possibly not the best message to put out to the public. And then you also mentioned that there's something quite unique about modern relationships. What we're looking for today is probably not what our ancestors were looking for. Yeah, sure, our parents, our grandparents, but even go further back than that, the role of a partner, an intimate partner, a romantic partner, was possibly different in the past than it is today. So therefore, in that context, I need to ask you, are our expectations of romantic relationships reasonable or are they unreasonable?

Terry Real 6:56 Both. And it depends on who you're talking to.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:00 Yeah.

Terry Real 7:00 And it depends on what- which part of that person you're talking to, and it depends on the day you're asking them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:05 [laughs]

Terry Real 7:05 But asking your romantic relationship to take the place of the whole village that we used to have, uh, to fulfill all of our needs, no, that's not realistic. That's true. We, we need friends. We need to spread it around. We need community. On the other hand, asking for that ongoing heart-to-heart connection and passion and closeness, all of which is new for a long-term relationship, no, I don't believe that's unrealistic. I believe it's a wonderful goal. But honey, you gotta roll up your sleeves and put the work into making that real because you're not equipped for it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:51 Yeah.

Terry Real 7:52 The family you grew up with didn't probably have what you want. This culture not only doesn't equip you, but puts crap in your head that mitigates against it. So you have to come to someone like me or Esther and learn how to do this, and also for most of us, go back and do a little psychological work on your childhoods and the wounds that you're bringing into your current relationship. So you have to do some work.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:21 Yeah. Clearly, if you ask most people on a good day, "How would you like to treat your romantic partner?" They would probably say, "Yeah, I'd love to treat them, you know, with respect, with love, with compassion, with reverence." Yet despite our best intentions, it's often our romantic partner that gets the worst of us.

Terry Real 8:47 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:47 Why do you think that is?

Terry Real 8:50 Well, it, it, it's layered. Uh, uh, uh, on the external layer, we have this myth of familiarity, uh, like, uh, I... And it's really male, and now that women have entered the workforce, it's gotten broader, but it starts with men. I go out and fight dragons all day. I come home. Where's my pipe? Where's my slippers? Where's my m- my martini? Where's my doting wife? And that was the setup for a long time, hundreds of years. The man goes off. The socioeconomic status of the family is determined by where the man is, and so the woman tends to the man, uh, because the whole family depends on his performance. Now, both partners are working, by and large. I like to say everybody should have a wife and no one should be one. [laughs] Or maybe humanoid, uh, uh, robots down the pike, but... Uh, and so this old idea of I go out there and I'm on my toes, I come home and I get to relax, be myself, uh, be spontaneous. Oh, that's romantic claptrap. Re- relationships shouldn't have to be work. They should just be spontaneous. We should just know what to do and please each other, and if I have to work at it, that's artificial. That's just bullshit. Uh, I, I work with high-powered people, and what I say to them is, "If you're gonna go out there 80 hours a week and burn it up, when you come home, you don't get to relax. You have to make up for the 40 hours that you weren't home. You have to be more on your toes at home than at the workplace, not less." But that's a, a age-old entitlement that we bring. You know, "Well, we're family. I don't have to be polite to you." Uh, actually, you're wrong. So A, there's an entitlement to just be who we are. [laughs] Forgive me, but, uh, you may not... H- here in the States, there's a, a great, um, a cartoon called the Family Guy. It's a takeoff on-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:55 Yeah

Terry Real 10:55 ... the old Jackie Gleason, Honeymoon. And, and so the husband, father... I love this. I actually played this for people. Husband, father unit throws open the front... You know, it's like the saloon shot from... You know, he's towering. H- he's towering. He looks at his family and he goes, "I just spent eight hours on a boat with the guys drinking and fishing. Uh, I need a little me time." [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:20 [laughs]

Terry Real 11:22 A- and w- and since I'm on men, I teach the men I work with to become what I call family men. You're a family man. I can smell it. Uh, it's the smell of fresh-baked bread. A family man, uh, stretch, grow. The old setup where you go off and fight dragons, you come home and your partner waits on you, is gone. Now, I come home. "Oh, okay, honey. Yeah, let me see. This kid needs this. This... Let me... You sit down. Uh, let me take o-" That is a family man, and we have to learn how to do that. It's not what we're used to.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:02 Yeah.

Terry Real 12:02 That's A. B, if I may, and then I'll let you speak. [laughs] At a sort of deeper psychological level- Relationships are hard because of the discrepancy of what we want and deserve and what we got. We all long for the divine. We all want gods and goddesses. You look at Hollywood, you look at the advertisement, they're all gods and goddesses. We all want people who are gonna complete us and understand us, and little AI girlfriends and boyfriends. Y- you don't get that. You get a real flesh and blood person with their imperfection, and their imperfection sticks in the crawl. We don't acknowledge that in this culture. It is the clash of my imperfection and yours and how we handle that clash of imperfections that is the guts of our, it's the character of our intimacy. But we don't think like that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:57 Mm-hmm.

Terry Real 12:57 We think a real, a good relationship would not have that clash. Uh, I call it relational shame. You go to a party and you assume that the couple to the left and the right of you are fighting less and having better sex than you are, but you're wrong. They're thinking [laughs] the same thing of you. So, uh, uh, the grappling with one another's, uh, i- imperfections, how to get more of what you want in the relationship, how to cherish what you have, how to grieve what you don't have. These are all... These all fall under the heading of what I call essential relationship skills that nobody teaches you how to do.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:33 Yeah. The idea that we're all imperfect, and of course, if we partner up with someone, they're also going to be an imperfect human. In many ways, it's at odds with one of the prevailing narratives in culture, which is that of perfectionism. Um, th- this podcast has been going for maybe eight and a half years now, and the topic of perfectionism has come up quite

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:00 a lot over the last few years, and this idea that perfectionism has been on the rise since the 1980s.

Terry Real 14:06 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:06 It's probably got even worse in the age of social media, but, you know, it was on the rise way before that. But that kind of plays into problems with our intimate relationships. It, you know, the picture perfect Hollywood romance that we see in films. You know, we go on social media, we, we think we're seeing perfect relationships. We may cognitively understand that we're just getting a snapshot, but our subconscious mind is picking up this idea constantly that actually everyone's got a better relationship than me. Everyone's closer with their partner than I am. And of course, if, if you're comparing your reality with this mythical idea of perfection, well, of course there's gonna be a problem in your relationships.

Terry Real 14:50 Well, that's how we live. We live with all these bullshit ideas. Uh, look, the intimacy that we want with each other, all genders need to move beyond traditional gender roles because they're not built for it, and all of us need

Terry Real 15:05 to move beyond patriarchy because it's not built for it. So what do I mean? Well, let's look at men. Uh, the essence of traditional masculinity to this day is invulnerability. The more invulnerable you are, the more manly you are. The more vulnerable you are, the more girly you are, and that is not a good thing. You know, look at boy superheroes, uh, Wolverine, uh, uh, the Terminator. Super- Not one ounce of softness. Like, literally no softness on their bodies. Hard. Uh, men are raised, whether they wanna be or not, to be stoic, deny vulnerability, deny emotion, deny feelings, deny fear, uh, be alone, be self-sufficient. And then we wind these guys up and say, "Here, have an intimate relationship with your wife." Well, good luck with that. Women across the West have been empowered. The great story of the 20th century is gonna be the change in women. They've entered the workforce. They have money. They're doing well in college. They don't need us anymore. Jane Austen's day, they needed us. You didn't get married, you wound up in your uncle's cabin in the back, you know? You had nothing. Nowadays, if I'm gonna marry you, why? Uh, it's not just about your paycheck. It's about the quality of our relationship. Our grandparents didn't give a shit about the quality. If, if you were stable, didn't drink or cheat or beat, that was good enough. Nowadays, "Well, my husband demeans me in public." "Well, we haven't had sex in two years." "Well, I just don't feel close." Uh, these lead to divorce. This is new. We've raised the bar, particularly women. But for example, women across the West are insisting on levels of emotional vulnerability, sharing, connection with their guys that were often literally beaten out of them as boys, literally beaten out of them. "Don't cry. Don't be weak. Don't be a girl." And when I say... And I think we need compassion in our hearts for this. I work with tough

Terry Real 17:15 guys, and I get them to soften up. But let's also have a sense of how big. I am asking that man in my office to literally reconfigure masculinity itself in order to open his heart and be with his wife. That's how big it is. And same for women. I'll get into that. But you have to lead women out of their traditional role as well or... Because what we want is more than those roles allow.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:46 You said that the culture is selfish, individualistic, and patriarchal-

Terry Real 17:53 Patriarchal, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:54 ... I think. Okay. So I think what, where we are at the moment is that relationships are really important to humans. We, uh, want different things from our intimate relationships, at least in the 21st century, and there is a skill to getting those things if we're taught those skills, which of course you've been teaching for years. Your new book, Us- It's just phenomenal. So many case studies, so many practical tips on how we can actually develop those skills in, in ourselves. You have a phenomenal reputation for-

Terry Real 18:28 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:28 ... helping couples who are on the brink. They've been to other therapists. No one can help them, yet you s- seemingly are still able to help them. Why is it, Terry, do you think that you have been able to help some marriages when other therapists were not able to?

Terry Real 18:51 I created a whole school of doing therapy called Relational Life Therapy. We have a vibrant school. We teach people all over the world, in the UK. Uh, and it's a very different way of doing therapy than the norm. So, uh, in terms of couples therapy, we do individual therapy as well, but in terms of couples therapy, we take sides. Let me say that again. Uh, I... The cardinal rule in a couple, thou shalt not take sides, particularly not with a woman against a man. Forget it. Can I ask your wife's name? Do you mind? First name?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:25 No, no. Not at all. Vid.

Terry Real 19:27 Vid. So I, I, I'm perfectly capable... Any RLT therapist, and we have thousands of us all over the world now, but any RLT therapist would be perfectly happy to say, "Vid, you're crazy, and Rangan, you're even crazier, and here's why. Vid, this is what you're doing, but Rangan, y- you're doing five times, uh, worse, and here..." So it's not even Steven. We call it like we see it, and that breaks the rules, and we often... When there's a power imbalance, which is not always the case, but often, uh, when there's one who's one up, superior, entitled, irresponsible, aggressive, selfish, not relational, and then one who's one down, more codependent, enabling, walk around on eggshells. When we have that couple, we throw our weight alongside the one down one to come up and take on the spouse, and then we use that as leverage to bring the one up one down. You know, we're, we're told in my field that you can't treat narcissists, but we treat narcissists breakfast, lunch and dinner, but not in one-on-one individual therapy. Uh, I, I'll tell you, I love to tell stories. Do, do you-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:37 Please. Please.

Terry Real 20:39 Yeah. So George Valliant, a great psychiatrist here in Boston, he, he used to say, this is way back in the day when people were still smoking in public. He said, "There are two kinds of people in the world. Uh, there's a guy who, uh, walks into an elevator, gets claustrophobic, and turns green. There's a guy who walks into an elevator, lights up a big fat stogie, and everybody else turns green." That's the difference between shame and grandiosity. One down, one up. And when I'm dealing with a couple, there's often one one down and one one up, and normal couples therapy just like, "Well, you're both even." You know? I, I, this obviously isn't at all true, but let... So, uh, "Vid, what's your problem with Rangan?" "Uh, well, um, he drinks three martinis a night. He screams at the kids. He's threatened me with physicality, and I never know what I'm... I'm walking around on eggshells all day long." "Okay, great. Rangan, what's, what's your story with Vid?" "Oh, well, she's often 15 minutes late." "Well, okay, you both have issues." Are you kidding me? But that's the way we're trained to do it, the 50/50. "No, uh, Vid, I'm sorry you've been putting up with it. Rangan, you gotta clean up." We take sides, and it works. That's one. Two, as I've been implying, all therapy for 50 years has been focused on helping people come up from shame. Feel better about yourself. You're not defective. You're not unlovable. You... That's all shame. We've done a terrible job of helping people come down from superiority, grandiosity, entitlement, irresponsibility, uh, addiction, self-medication, acting out. We have to do both, and as a field, I just did, did a paper on this. We give a pass to perpetrators. We say that people in the grandiose tradition are untreatable, and that is not psychology. That's patriarchy. Patriarchy protects perpetrators, and so does the field of psychotherapy. They throw up their hands and say, "We don't know how to do it." You can't do it on trad- in traditional one-on-one talk therapy. Bring the other people in the elevator into the room with you, and then you can talk to the guy who's got the cigar in his face. So, uh, and then the last thing I want to say is what we're focused on, Relational Life therapy. We spoon our clients into what I call the jet stream of connection and relationality. We move them from disconnection into connection, to themselves, what they're feeling, their hearts, and with others. And once they're in that jet stream of connection, it's what we're born for, and it feels so much better than the state of disconnection-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:30 Mm-hmm

Terry Real 23:30 ... that once somebody tastes it, the stream of connection itself moves them along. We are known for dramatic, profound change quickly because we move you into connection, and then you want more and more, but we don't do it on one-on-one talk therapy. We- we're much more active than that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:49 Yeah. It's kind of, a, really interesting to hear what some of those key differences are. I, I imagine there will be some therapists listening who perhaps might be pushing back going, "Well, hold on a minute, you can't do that," but we're gonna explore that throughout this conversation, you know, why, why it is you think you can do that, and of course, many of your results speak for themselves. One of the things, Terry, that I love the most about your approach that was so clear as I was reading through Us Today, is that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:22 Compassion sits at the heart of everything in that book. Everything. And-

Terry Real 24:28 That's beautiful

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:29 ... I love that because compassion is probably the quality that's most important to me as a human being, and the one I try and teach and, uh, model in front of my children the most. You know, I've always said to my kids, you know, "Sure, it's great to do well at school and then study hard, et cetera, et cetera, but the most important thing to me is how you treat other people." Um-

Terry Real 24:53 That's beautiful

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:54 ... and when you were just talking there about grandiosity and shame, I remember reading it, it in your book, and you, you... it was so beautiful how you said that psychology has done a really good job for many years of raising people up from the inferiority of shame, but not perhaps put enough focus on bringing people down from grandiosity. I really like that because what you're essentially asking us all to do as individuals, yes, in the context of romantic relationships, but frankly, beyond that, just in terms of how we interact-

Terry Real 25:30 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:30 ... with people in life, is to treat people as equals, not lower than you, not above you. Equal. We are all equal, and we should try and treat each other as equal as well.

Terry Real 25:44 Yeah. A- and here's what's great about that. Ready? We should try and do that for our own sake. For me, I'm a very practical guy. It's not even about morality. It's not because it's doing good. My beautiful DEI, uh, consultant, Duran Young, is full of these won- you know, she's African American. She has these wonderful sayings. And, uh, one of her sayings, uh, her language for self-esteem is getting yourself right-sized. I love that. Getting right-sized. You're not small. You're not big. You're, you're just like everybody else. You're right-sized. And we teach self-esteem. That's part of what we teach. And compassion. And listen to this. Okay, so here's what I say. My work, Relational Life Therapy, offers a vision, a map that's radically different than what the culture teaches you, and then a toolbox how to achieve that, how to live that map. We have skills. There's a, I call it a relational technology. We have a, a s- a repertoire of skills that work a lot better than what you were taught. So we teach you, for example, how to apologize. Most people make a mess of apologies. Uh, "Yes, but... Yeah, I did that, but you gotta understand. Yeah, I did that, but you..." No, no, no, buddy. Just, "I did it," then shut up. Just land on it. Don't mess up your own apology. Uh, the, so one of the essential skills we teach i, is what you're talking about, compassion. Under patriarchy, which is the water we're all swimming in, you can either be strong, powerful, truthful, assertive, or you can be accommodating, connected, uh, uh, facilitative, nurturing. Quote unquote masculine, quote unquote feminine. But you can't be both at the same time. Because under patriarchy, power is power over. It's dominance. It's not what Ria and I refer, calls power with. So when you step into power, you break the connection. And for example, y- you talk about compassion. Under patriarchy, almost all of us, no matter what the body, uh, male, female, trans, whatever, when we step into power, we break connection. Uh, and I call that individual empowerment, which this culture is saturated in. Individual therapists, 12-step sponsors. "I was weak. Now I'm strong. Go screw yourself. I found my power. I found my voi- oh, you go get 'em." No, that's, that's not... No. Relational empowerment, which I have to teach, it's brand new. "I was weak. Now I'm strong. I'm gonna stand toe-to-toe with you, babe. I'm gonna tell you what it is I want. Uh, uh, but we're a team. I love you. You love me. How about it? Can we work on this together? We're a team. I love you." And listen to this one. Your partner says, "Oh, okay, I'm gonna work on," let's say, "being less critical." Here's your next line, "I really appreciate that. Is there anything I can say or do that would help support you in that?" Who the hell sounds like that in this culture?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:05 Mm.

Terry Real 29:06 We're a team. Let's work together. So there's a ton of disempowerment in this culture. I'm walking around on eggshells. Don't set Daddy off. There's a ton of individual empowerment, which I really think is grandiose. Uh, uh, I, uh, I am woman, hear me roar. Uh, uh, my therapist says I should get, speak up, so you're an asshole. Uh, no, no, honey, no. Relational empowerment. Let's work together. We're a team. This is what I want. How can I help you give it to me? Whole new world. Um, loving... I don't have a name for this. I have a name for everything. Loving power. Soft power. How to stand up for yourself and cherish your partner at the same time. "Hey, Rangan, I love you. You love me. Here's the deal. I think that you can speak harshly to the kids. I know you don't think so, but I do, and I get bothered by it. Look, hon, as a favor to me, could you..." Uh, this isn't the real you, obviously. "Could, could you please tone it down? And if you, if I'm, am bothered by the way you're speaking to the kids, can I just say like, 'Hey, honey, let's have a signal,' and you hear that, you don't argue with me. You either take yourself offline and let me do it or calm down and say it softer. Can we have a deal on that, hon?" And okay, can I give you something or help you actually follow through with that? That's working like a team. We have very little idea of how to do that in this culture.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:39 As many of you know, when glucose is relatively stable, you feel better day to day with steadier energy, mood, and focus. But over time, unstable and elevated glucose can also impair your metabolic health and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Now, globally, more than 760 million adults are thought to have pre-diabetes, many without symptoms or a diagnosis. And the problem is that our healthcare system often waits until you get sick before taking action, when we should take a proactive approach to prevent problems before they start. Now, many of us don't have access to our own glucose data and therefore don't have clear feedback on how our everyday choices impact our glucose. That's where Lingo by Abbott comes in. Lingo is a biosensor and app that helps you see how food, movement, and lifestyle choices affect your glucose in real time, so you can notice patterns and build healthier habits in the moment. With Lingo, you can get to know your glucose to build healthy habits for today and tomorrow. For listeners in the US and the UK, Lingo by Abbott is offering an exclusive 10% off a 4-week plan. Just scan the QR code on screen or visit hellolingo.com/livemore for more information. Terms and conditions do apply. If you're feeling stressed or as if life is a bit overwhelming, I've put

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:20 together a free guide to help. It contains three practical tools I've seen help the most when stress starts to build. Now, it's important to recognize that a little bit of stress is normal, but when it accumulates, it can start to have negative consequences for our health and happiness. That's when these simple techniques can make a real difference. I explain all of them in my guide, Break Free from Stress, and it's yours for free today. Simply scan the QR code on screen or tap the first link in the description box below, and I'll send it immediately to your inbox. With a few small changes, you can feel a little calmer right away. There's just so many places to go, right? Because, uh, the, the first thing that came to mind was that if we are, as you're saying, living in a patriarchal culture, I'm not saying we're not, I mean, just for the, for the, for the point of this conversation, right? I imagine then the consequences that if, let's say, a heterosexual couple who've been married for 20, 30 years, they come into your office for help-

Terry Real 33:33 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:34 ... and I imagine if there is a super masculine man at least, well, traditional masculine man, I should say, coming in, right?

Terry Real 33:44 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:44 And you say to display this kind of softness and th- this kind of-

Terry Real 33:50 Vulnerability.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:51 Yeah

Terry Real 33:51 ... vulnerability.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:52 I imagine that it's not just a straightforward conversation where they go, "Oh, yeah, okay, Terry, that sounds great. Let me-

Terry Real 33:58 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:58 "... let me, let me go ahead and do that." I imagine there's a bit of-

Terry Real 34:01 Yeah, right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:02 ... bit of pushback, right? So how do you-

Terry Real 34:04 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:04 ... how do you persuade or inspire that person to actually go there? Because that may be quite a foreign thing for them, and they may be in their 50s or 60s, and this may be the first time anyone's ever said stuff like this to them.

Terry Real 34:18 Yeah. So I, I'm gonna do big picture, and then I'll zero in. Big picture, my friend, it's in your interest to come down off your high perch and join the human race and open your heart and learn how to be loved and love. It's in your interest. You'll live longer. Your body will live 10 years longer. Your, your partner will be happier, uh, perhaps, we'll shoot for it, even sexier, and you won't damage your children. Stay up there, you're gonna have a miserable partner, you're gonna have a cold relationship, and you're gonna damage your kids the way you were damaged. You know, one of the, uh, uh, ways I hook these grandiose guys is, uh, uh, I teach my students is this, a simple sequence of questions. Ready? What kind of father did you have? What's your relationship like with him? What kind of father do you wanna be? What do you wanna pass on to your children? Are you doing that? And if you're not, will you let me help you do it better? A lot of these men who won't, it's the hard work with what I call relational recovery, recovering that state of connection, and it's not easy. They won't do it for themselves. "I'm okay. I'm fine." They won't do it for their partners. "Ah, she's a bitch." But they will do it for their children. Do you realize that you've become your father in this marriage? What do you think that's like for your children? I can help you stop this. Please, this is not the best of you. Let me help you. Who says no to that? No one. They don't say no.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:06 Yeah.

Terry Real 36:06 They say, "Okay. What do I gotta do?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:08 It, it's so interesting hearing that because I would say one of the drives for me to, how can I put it, excavate my inner world and make peace with certain things internally, one of the drives for me was having children, when I realized that, oh, Rangan, if [laughs] you know, you can either tell them not to do something, but- if they're just repeating what they see you doing, maybe I should just sort it out myself so they no longer have that as a model, right? And

Terry Real 36:40 Blessings to you, my friend. Hold, hold, hold, hold the phone. I want everybody to hear that. Say that again. Say your process again, because this is the inner workings of a good man. I need to sort myself out because what I'm gonna give to my kids is not what comes out of my mouth, it's gonna be what they see me do. Uh, that is blessed. I- I'm sorry, but I have to underline this. I say the best gift you can give your kids is your own recovery. The best gift you can give your kids is your own health. They don't give a shit what they say, what you say. They live with you. They learn what they live.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:23 Mm.

Terry Real 37:24 So your realization, I've gotta clean myself out so I can be the best father I can be-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:30 Yeah

Terry Real 37:30 ... to these kids, that's blessed, Rangan.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:34 Yeah.

Terry Real 37:34 It's sacred work. W- what's it like to hear me say that, may I ask?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:42 It's made me quite emotional actually hearing that because-

Terry Real 37:46 I can feel that

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:47 ... um-

Terry Real 37:47 Listen, uh, this is where Terry says, "Take a minute and let yourself feel that. Breathe. Let the feelings come."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:54 You know, it's, it's stuff that I cognitively know, and this, this work has been going on for many years. You know, I, I think for me, the whole process of stopping looking outwards and starting to look inwards started when my father died in 2013. You know, I used to,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:16 for the first half of my life, I would say probably until I started that journey inwards, I was very much driven by external validation. That has mostly gone. I would say over the last few years, I'm, I'm just not. Like, external validation just doesn't do it for me. The most important thing that matters, to me at least, is that I can look in the mirror before I go to bed and go, "Yeah, I'm, I'm happy with how you behaved today. You know, you, you lived in alignment-

Terry Real 38:49 Oof

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:49 ... with your values today." Because actually the thing is if I can do that, my relationships in many ways or, or many aspects of my relationship kind of take care of themselves.

Terry Real 39:00 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:00 So if we take it back to intimate relationships that, that people struggle with, I guess the principle there is that to a certain degree you have to know yourself and know your triggers if you're gonna be able to show up in the way that you want to in your relationship, right?

Terry Real 39:23 Well, so, uh, I, I have 8 million sayings and here's one of them. Uh, we all marry our unfinished business. Uh, so, uh, we all m- mystically wind up with partners who are exquisitely designed to trigger us. Uh, falling in love is, "Oh, this person's gonna heal all my childhood wounds and complete me," and at least we're gonna avoid all that bullshit. Yeah, well, real marriage is the day you realize not only is this person gonna avoid it or make up for it, but they're re-injuring me in that same... I'm back in the soup that I was in when I was a kid. And when we get trauma triggered that way, which is virtually inevitable in intimate romantic relationships... My friend Gabor Mate, uh, says, "In relationships you don't see the wound, you see the scar." So for, uh, the people, uh, witnessing this podcast, in RLT we talk about three parts of you. The first question I ask myself when I'm sitting with a couple is not what are the stressors. A good couple can handle stress. That's not even what's the dynamic. You know, she pursues, he distances, he distances. It's not even the loop. Important. Most important question, which part of you am I speaking to? Uh, am I s- how, may I ask how old you are?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:49 Uh, 48.

Terry Real 40:51 Okay. Am I speaking to the 48-year-old Rangan, or are we witnessing the tantrum of the four-year-old Rangan? Uh, who's up right now?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:00 [laughs]

Terry Real 41:00 I mean, there are three parts. It, it is in some ways analogous to IFS. There's the wounded child part, limbic system, very, very young. Just all feeling. The, the part of you that was, that received the abuse or neglect. There's the what I call the wise adult, prefrontal cortex. The thinking, observing part of you that can stop and choose. And then there's the part that almost all of my clients have lived most of their lives in, thinking that it's a wise adult, and they're wrong. I call it the adaptive child part. Fight, flight, fawn. This is, uh, knee-jerk survival. Fight, flight, fawn, which as an adult becomes fixed. Fawn is, uh, you know, "Oh, lion, let me lick your paw so you don't eat me," you know? [laughs] Uh, th- this is the codependent enabler. Uh, I'm gonna fix it and make it all better. Uh, that is what we call your adaptive... That's what you learned at three, four, five years old. That's your coping strategy. It's what you needed to do back then. But you don't need it now, and you bring that adaptive child into your relationship, and it makes a mess of things. May I tell you a story?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:16 Of course.

Terry Real 42:17 Okay. So you know, a, a couple on the brink of divorce. Why? Uh, he's a liar. Uh, lies about everything. Uh, the wife says, "Tell him he's got nice shoes on. He'll tell you they're sneakers." I mean... And he, you walk in and you go, "The sky's blue." He goes, "Well, it's kind of gray." So I teach my students, y- listen to the report. He lies about everything. Watch what he does in front of you. He evades me. Okay, I got him. He's got a black belt in evasion. Okay, that's his adaptive child. Next question, who was he evading? Right? There's always somebody on the... We're, uh- the adaptive child's adapting to someone. It's done in a relationship. So I say to him, "Who tried to control you growing up?" Brilliant if you know, but we teach people [laughs] to think like this. You're on this side of the seesaw. Who's on the other side? Who tried to control you? Sure enough, "My dad." It's a true story. Military, how I ate, how I sat, what courses I took, what friends I had. How did you deal with this controlling father? He smiles. And that's resistance. That's health, that smile. And he says, you ready? "I lied." Brilliant. Dad said, "Don't play with Henry." I played with Henry and I came home and told him I played with John. Brilliant little boy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:38 Mm-hmm.

Terry Real 43:38 Well done. But I have a saying, adaptive then, maladaptive now. You're not that five-year-old. Your wife is not your father. Time for this old dog to learn some new tricks. That was it. They came back two weeks later, hand in hand, all smiles. They said, "We're done. We're cured." And they were. They're all... The, the cures are the ones [laughs] I tell you about. They, they were. Uh, okay, there's a story here, I say. Yes. Over the weekend, wife sends him to the grocery store to get 12 things. Uh, true to form, he comes back with 11. The wife says, "Where's the pumpernickel?" I want you to feel this. This is what my wife Belinda calls a moment of relational heroism. He said, "Every muscle and nerve in my body was screaming to cover my ass and say to her they were out of the pumpernickel," which is not true. Uh, he forgot it. "I wanted to say that, and in this one moment, I took a breath. I thought of you, Terry. We can lend each other our prefrontal cortex. I thought of you. I looked my wife in the eye and I said, 'I forgot the damn pumpernickel.'" True story. She burst into tears, and she said, "I've been waiting for this moment for 25 years."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:58 Wow.

Terry Real 44:59 That's recovery. Moving beyond your automatic adaptive child's, uh, response into something thoughtful, observant, choiceful. You know, you mentioned meditation. I, I have a great friend, Thomas Hubl, a wonderful spiritual teacher, who says to observe is to have choice. Because the part of our brain that can observe is the same part that can choose.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:24 Yeah.

Terry Real 45:25 That's the first skill, coming out of the automatic knee-jerk into something thoughtful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:30 It's just so simple when you get it, right? It's not when you're in it, and you don't realize [laughs] that this adaptive child inside of you is running the show. And then it makes me think of what you said earlier on, Terry, that, you know, man or woman, whoever, you've been out working all day, right? And then you just wanna come home and chill. But actually, if you do have a romantic partner or someone you live with or children there, well, you gotta be careful because if you've given the best to your work and you are spent and have nothing left, it's not gonna be the wise adult who walks into the house. It's likely-

Terry Real 46:16 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:16 ... to be the adaptive child, so that when a trivial request comes in, you fly off the handle. But then that also then speaks to the c- the problems in culture, right? Because we, we, we do have a capitalist culture. We, you know, I agree, one of the great things of the 20th century has been the empowerment of women, and because of the way economics work at the moment for many people, two parents are often having to work. They've often moved away from their family structures and their tribe. And so-

Terry Real 46:53 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:54 ... it's quite a big ask, isn't it, to go out, work all day [laughs] , be, feel tired, and then also bring your best self to your house in the evening. I think for many people, that's gonna sound like quite a tough ask.

Terry Real 47:08 Yeah. Yeah. I, I have two words to respond to that. You ready? Tough shit. [laughs] I hope that's not too technical. Listen, I work with people, particularly men. Men, men have a harder time because we've had that centuries of, of entitlement. We were the breadwinner, so we go home and get taken care of. Uh, I work with a lot of men about what I call learning to become a family man, and it's good for us. This is what I mean when I say I get these guys who are one up to come down by helping them realize that it's good for them to come down. It's good for them to open their hearts and let themselves be loved. It's good for you to stretch and learn to be a family man. Now, this is what I mean. I start this way, and I'm talking to you exactly the way I would talk to a client. Uh, research is clear. I, I think this is so great. If you get a gift, you will be happier than before you got it, and it will last a certain amount of time. If you give a gift, you'll be happier than you are if you get one, and the happiness lasts longer. Giving actually creates more happiness than getting.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:23 Yeah.

Terry Real 48:24 But we may have lost this. So I talk about the joy of going beyond your comfort zone. Uh, uh, shaking yourself out of your gratification and showing up for your family. I always tell this story, if I may. It's great.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:39 Please.

Terry Real 48:39 So Belinda's got a full-time practice. She's a brilliant therapist. She doesn't write books, but she's not sitting around eating bonbons. It's 3:00 in the morning, my now 30-year-old, my kids in their 30s were babies, and I get this, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, at 3:00 AM, "Hey, one of the kids is crying. Go feed them." And I go, "I know you were up with them three days running, but honey, I'm at the Har- I, I got to talk at the Harvard Couples Conference tomorrow. I got 1,000 therapists in that room. The... Y- you do it tonight, and I'll do it for the rest of the weekend, but, but I got to be in shape." And my wife, h- 30 years ago, said one phrase that changed my life. You ready? Here's what she said. She looked

Terry Real 49:25 at me with a smile, and she said, "Give the lecture tired. Go feed the kids." And that, rousing myself, uh, out of my, "I'm a performer. I gotta..." Okay, stretch a little. Go give.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:45 Yeah.

Terry Real 49:45 That's learning to be a family man, and it's good for your soul. It's good for you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:50 Yeah.

Terry Real 49:50 And it's a good thing to teach your children.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:53 I love how direct you were there when you said initially, you know, "Well, you know, tough luck. You just got to get on with it." That if, if you want a good quality home life, that's what you got to do. If, if you don't, fine. But if you actually want that-

Terry Real 50:10 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:10 ... you just got to find a way. I mean, I know there are little tips and tricks. One of my really good friends who's a GP, he's realized that actually a transition between being at the practice and home is very useful. So he doesn't live far away from his house, but when he gets to his house, in his drive, he'll just sit there for two or three minutes. He... I can't remember exactly what it is he does, but there's some form of just transitional practice so that he's a, in a different state when he walks through that door. And I kind of feel that working from home for many people has caused an issue here because, you know, if you used to have that commute between the office and home, you might have wound down a little bit, switched off from work, got yourself in the right state. So I think that's something that, uh, I observed there listening to that. But also the theme of directness, right? You were direct with me when I asked the question. You know, many people are gonna find that hard. Your wife, Belinda, was direct with you when you, she wanted you to feed the kids in the middle of the night, and it reminds me of something in, in this new book of yours, right? Well, it's not that new anymore, but it's your latest book. In it, you, you talk about three steps to getting what you want. Number one-

Terry Real 51:26 Oh, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:27 ... dare to rock the boat. Number two, um, once your partner is listening, help them out. Three, when they start to give you what you want, reward them, right? But it sounds as though what you're just talking about there, what Belinda said to you, was kind of, in many ways, dare to rock the boat, right? Don't just passively-

Terry Real 51:46 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:46 ... accept it. This is that theme, isn't there, of equalness, right? It's not about rolling over. It's, you know, it's that beautiful term y- you, you write about, fierce intimacy, isn't it? It's kind of like it's not caring and loving necessarily to suppress your needs and actually say what you want to say, right?

Terry Real 52:08 The beauty is, look, yes, I, I, I wrote, it's an audiobook, Fierce Intimacy. And w- and what I say is we need to take each other on. We stop taking each other on. We say we're accepting, but we're really settling and resenting, and then, uh, things go to rot. Uh, the, we don't take each other on in our marriages. We do in the beginning, but we stop. On the other hand, the reason why we don't take each other on is because when we do, it doesn't go very well. Uh, so we back off to keep the peace. But instead of that, I would like you to master skills so that when you do take each other on, you do it more skillfully, and you have a chance at actually doing it. If Belinda had said, "You, you son of a bitch, you're so selfish. All you care about is yourself. I've been a..." Uh, uh, I don't know that I would've gotten up. But for Belinda to say, "Give the lecture tired. I'm tired, sweetheart. Go be with the kids," with firmness but cherishing in the same breath, that's brand new for our culture. And yes-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:19 Mm-hmm

Terry Real 53:19 ... that I responded to.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:21 Yeah.

Terry Real 53:22 It's what I call loving power, soft power, and it goes beyond patriarchy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:27 Yeah.

Terry Real 53:27 Under patriarchy, when you step into power, you're harsh, but you don't have to be. I teach people how to be cherishing of their partner and assertive in the same breath. "You love me. I don't like this. As a favor to me, could you do it this way instead of that way? Let me help you do that."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:44 Yeah.

Terry Real 53:45 That is a whole new world.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:46 Yeah. L- let's just park getting into the skill of repairing in, in for just a moment. I just want to finish off, for this conversation at least, on the adaptive child, okay? So this idea that usually when we fall out with our partner or things don't go so well, it's because the adaptive child is in charge, right? It's not the wise adult, okay?

Terry Real 54:11 Right. And, and your adaptive child invites their adaptive child, and then the two of you are off. I like to say, your adaptive children are fight- the two of you could sit down and have a beer. You're not even there anymore. Your adaptive children are running the show and fighting the fight wi- without you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:28 Is it not true, therefore, that all it takes is one of you to stay in wise adult mode, even if your partner has lost it and gone into adaptive child mode and perhaps is not talking to you the way that you might want to be spoken to-

Terry Real 54:45 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:45 ... you actually can still help influence that situation by not reacting and recognizing that- At the moment, my wife is actually eight years old. That's who's talking to me. It... Would you, would you-

Terry Real 54:59 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:59 ... is that, is that fair to say?

Terry Real 55:01 Yeah. Here's how it goes. The way it normally works is one of you gets triggered, moves into your adaptive child, fight, flight, or fawn. That triggers the other one. They move into their adaptive child-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:13 [laughs]

Terry Real 55:13 ... and fight back or distance or whatever they d- whatever their knee-jerk is. And then the, those two moods feed off of each other. It's a vicious

Terry Real 55:21 circle. The more, the more. The classic is the more she pursues, the more he distances, the more he distances, the more she pursues. So it feeds on itself. How to intervene? One person changing the dance step breaks the pattern. Do they get what they want? Depends on the day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:38 Hmm.

Terry Real 55:38 And I talk about detachment from outcome, that's from 12 step, and relational integrity. Relational integrity is this. One of my eight million things is this. I- in i- intimate relationships everybody gets to go crazy, but you have to take turns. So your partner's in their adaptive child. You're not. Good day for you. Try a couple, three times to help get them, "Honey, I'm sorry. I, I, I j- i, I'm sorry you felt like that. I didn't really intend that that way. What, what, what can I..." Try a couple, three times to make peace. If they come into their wise adult and they meet you there, great day for everybody. If they're stuck in their adaptive child and they're not listening, you try a couple, three times, and, and I have this m- miraculous thing to do. Ready? If they're still stuck in their adaptive child after a couple, three times, go away. Stop trying. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:37 Mm.

Terry Real 56:37 You're beating your head against the wall. You're about to move into your adaptive child in 10 seconds. Don't do it. Take a break. A- and the breaks are, uh, uh, contracted m- not in the heat of the moment, but in a calm, "I'm gonna go make some tea. Uh, I, I, I don't feel like we're getting much of anywhere. I, I'll t- come back in an hour and try you again." I- if you are in your wise adult, your partner's in their adaptive child, you try and get them out of it, they won't go, and you don't jump in the mud pit with them and get into your adaptive child-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:13 [laughs]

Terry Real 57:13 ... and go into the vicious circle, if you stay steady even when they're not, that's not a good day for your partner, it's a mixed day for your relationship, it's a great day for you. That is a strong muscle. Keep it up. And the focus of the people working with us is not on what they do on their side of the net. You do your best. It's on what you do on your side of the net. So if I behave with skill and integrity even when the heat is on, I'm lonely, I wish my partner were joining me, this isn't the most pleasant moment of my life, but I held steady. Good work. So it's not always about getting what you want in the response from the other. It's your best shot. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. If you don't get it, I teach people, here's another skill, micro-disappointment. The, uh, Vid was in her adaptive child this Thursday at 3:00. That's disappointing. You're... It's a little lonely. Stay there. Don't jump from there to, "Oh, here she goes again. Oh, she never. Oh, I always." Just stay put in the disappointment of this Thursday at 3:00, and get off your high horse. V- Vid's in her adaptive child. You're not talking to a mature adult. Big deal. You're liable to be in your adaptive child five minutes from now. You don't go down into shame. It's not your problem, it's hers. You don't go up into judgment. You're, you're liable to do the same thing five minutes from now. Stay humble. And you let go. "Okay, sorry. I'll get some tea. I'll see you later."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:52 Yeah.

Terry Real 58:53 That's a lot of work for somebody to master.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:55 Yeah. Do Health is a preventative health app I've created to help you understand when your health is starting to move in the wrong direction. 46% of our members have discovered they had an elevated cardiovascular risk they had no idea about, and over 25% have found out they had suboptimal homocysteine levels, which is really important because elevated homocysteine levels are linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's and heart attacks, and it's actually really simple to bring down. Do Health takes everything I've learnt about health over the past 25 years and makes it personal to you. An initial blood test screens you for over 50 biomarkers, but then we zero in on the 11 core markers that relate to your metabolic health. And as you may know, poor metabolic health sits at the heart of many of the chronic diseases that affect us, including heart attacks, strokes, and dementia. Every four months, you retest your blood to see what's changing and what's not, and in between, you have unlimited coaching with our in-app Coach Joy, and together, we help you build a plan that's personalized to you. If you want to start your own Do Health journey, you can do so right now. All you have to do is scan the QR code on screen or go to the link in the description box below. There's two things that come up for me there. Number one, in that example when you have tried two or three times to, you know, calm things down, first thing is-

Terry Real 1:00:36 Baby, baby, baby

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:37 ... yeah, don't get into the mud pit-

Terry Real 1:00:39 Oh, baby, baby

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:39 ... with them, right? [laughs] Which I, I love that. That's a great phrase. Don't get in the mud pit with them. Um, but if you're not being successful there, um, you're saying, "Okay, maybe now is not the time to continue," you don't wanna just storm off, right? You don't wanna withdraw-

Terry Real 1:00:55 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:55 ... right? You have to communicate that actually "Hey, listen, I don't think now is the

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:00 right time"

Terry Real 1:01:01 I, I, I don't like what's happening in me right now. Don't even talk about them at all.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:04 Okay, this is useful.

Terry Real 1:01:05 Don't... No we, I. You know what? Uh, this isn't working for me. I love you, honey. I'm gonna take a break. I, I need a break. I need a break. Here's the beauty. I teach everybody to speak from the I. If you speak subjectively, nobody can argue with you. You say, "We need a break," and they go, "No, we don't. You're always running away. I wanna sit here and deal with this." Okay, well, you're in trouble. You say, "I need a break," what's he gonna say? "Well, you don't." Well, honey, actually, I do. [laughs] What can I tell you? Call me crazy, but I need a break. I'm gonna... Bye. I, I'm gonna lose it. I'll see you later. Uh, so that's another skill, is learning to speak from the I and not tell your partner what they're doing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:44 Yeah. It also makes me think of the, the major theme in the book, which is we, not me, right? This idea-

Terry Real 1:01:55 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:55 ... that, um... You know, I think chapter three, my favorite chapter in the book, is when us gets lost and you and me takes over, right? So what I take from that in this context is it's not about being right or wrong here. If you're in this situation, what is the best thing for the relationship? Not what is the best thing for me-

Terry Real 1:02:15 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:15 ... in this moment, or the, necessarily the best thing for your partner. It's what is the best thing for the relationship. Is the best thing to both get into adaptive child, to start shouting, you know, to scare the kids, to do whatever, right?

Terry Real 1:02:29 Ugh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:29 I- is that the best thing? Well, probably not. Easy to say that when you're in wise adult mode, of course. People don't want to get into adaptive child mode, right? So they can hear this and go, "Oh yeah, that's what I do regularly." Okay. How would you advise someone who has recognized that throughout this conversation, h- how would you help them go, "Okay, next time that happens, don't get into adaptive child mode"? It's, it's a lot easier said than done, isn't it?

Terry Real 1:02:58 Well, it's not don't, because you will.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:00 Okay.

Terry Real 1:03:00 It's what are you gonna do when it happens. A- a- and h- here's three words for everybody. Take a break. Uh, if you go to my website, uh, there's a one-pager on how to take a formal time-out. Uh, there are softer versions of, "I'm gonna make some tea. I'll be back in an hour." But I have instructions on how you take a break. It's called w- you take a break in a way that takes care of your partner. "Honey, I'm leaving. Here's why. Here's when I'm coming back." Uh, that's responsible distance-taking. There's an explanation. "I'm gonna lose my shit. I, I'm taking a break." And there's a promise of return. "I'll, I'll check in with you in about 40 minutes." And you have to do it. Can't lie. It, it... No, that's a skill I have to teach people. People normally go, "I'm taking a break," uh, let alone storm out in a huff. That's gonna get you chased. You want distance? Take care of your partner. Deal with their anxiety. Make it clear it's a break, not a rupture.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:03 Mm-hmm.

Terry Real 1:04:04 Help them be less anxious, and they won't pursue you. Don't take care of your partner. Just throw your weight around, and they're gonna, you're gonna get chased.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:12 Mm-hmm.

Terry Real 1:04:13 So a skill is, is something that gets you what you want. You want distance? Okay. Be nice to your partner while you take it, and they'll, the odds are they'll give you distance.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:23 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:04:23 Storm off in a huff, and the odds are they'll pursue you. Uh, so I, I wanna f- i- if I may, I wanna fade back to the big picture.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:32 Yeah, please.

Terry Real 1:04:34 Okay. Remember I said there was a map, and, uh, we've been talking toolbox. Let me say something about the map. Our relationships are our biospheres. We're in them. The father of family therapy, Gregory Bateson, the great anthropologist, said, uh... And he created family therapy. He said he devoted his life to correcting humankind's philosophical mistake. What is that mistake? That I'm outside of nature, and I can control it. That's individualism and patriarchy. My power is to dominate. Dominion over all the things of this earth. Bad idea. I talk about ecological wisdom. I'm not above my system. I'm in it. I breathe it. My relationship is my biosphere. I breathe it. I can pollute my biosphere by being selfish over here, but I'm gonna breathe in that pollution in my partner's coldness, so we are ecologically linked. There's no escape. Once we stop thinking it, it, with sort of grandiose, control-based individualism and enter into the humility of understanding that I depend on my biosphere, then it becomes my enlightened self-interest to take care of it, whether I'm talking about Mother Earth, whether I'm talking about my country, whether I'm talking about my family. It's in my interest to take care of this biosphere because, hello, I'm in it. You know, I, I say this a lot. I get these big, burly... This is true. I get a big, burly, "Why should I have to work so hard to please my wife?" And I always, uh, "Knock, knock. You live with her." [laughs] I'm not outside of the system. I'm in the system, whether it's my body, my mind, my marriage, my family, the world. I need to be a good steward of the biosphere. So it's not about me, me, me. It's what the biosphere needs. Now, if I'm one down, there isn't enough me. My biosphere may need me to be more assertive and powerful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:52 Mm.

Terry Real 1:06:52 Come on up. If I'm one up, the biosphere needs me to open my heart and yield. Don't be so damn selfish. Um, give in and do what your partner asks of you. Uh, if- We

Terry Real 1:07:05 meet in the middle, as you were saying. We're not better or less. My beloved friend Carol Gilligan says, "You cannot love from the one up. You cannot love from the one down. Love demands democracy." So when I work with, uh, uh, couples, whatever, for those of us who are one down, grow a backbone, take some risks, lean in and deal. For those of us who are one up, get off your high horse, learn to be responsible, open your heart, be accountable. You won't die. You'll like it. And so leading men, women, non-binary folks into intimacy is correcting their self-esteem, you're n- you're not better, you're not worse, and teaching them how to be connected and stay connected.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:53 Yeah. I first came across your work, Terry, I would say maybe a year, year and a half ago, and the way in which I came across it was one of my really good mates phoned me, I think it was abroad, he said, "Mate, you've, you've gotta download this audiobook. This is killer. You're gonna absolutely love it. It's completely transformed the way I see certain things in my own marriage." And I thought, "Well, I really trust and respect this guy. If he's telling me that, I'm, I'm gonna get it." So I downloaded it straight away. And one thing I found incredibly helpful is this idea that in, let's say my relationship with Vid, for example, right? There's not just two entities. There's not just me and Vid. There's also a third entity, which is the relationship itself.

Terry Real 1:08:42 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:43 I gotta tell you, Terry, it's so simple now thinking, "Yeah, of course," but before that, I w- I, I didn't quite get it in that way. And it's not only, I think, helped me see my marriage through a different lens, it's, it, it goes beyond my marriage as well. So I've been doing... You know, I've been, you know, trying to communicate, uh, positive health messages to the public for maybe 12 years now, 13 years, something like that, and, you know, for the last few years, I've released a lot of podcasts, uh, written six books. I, I've been doing, right? And I, I very much enjoy what I do. But during that time, my team has grown. There's a good eight, nine people now who work with me to help do all this stuff, right? And I realized, oh, that's a separate entity, the business, the team. That needs tending to, right?

Terry Real 1:09:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:37 Yes, I can do my job, or the team members can do their job, but we weren't really tending to us as an organization, as a team. So it's a separate entity, isn't it?

Terry Real 1:09:48 Yeah. Se- y- yes. It's, uh, it's a different level. There's you, me, and then there's our context, uh, uh, nature, the planet, our culture, our race. Uh, uh, there's just what are we situated in and what does the, the context... I- I- it's what I call waking up to y- e- ecological wisdom.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:13 Mm-hmm.

Terry Real 1:10:13 Ecological humility. I'm not above it. I'm in it, and it's in my interest to take care of the it that I'm in, and I call this ecological wisdom. And once you wake up, i- it turns out this is great. Being relational and being ecologically wise are synonyms. They're two words for the same consciousness. Uh, let me take care of my biosphere. It's not one wins, the other one loses. Oh, by the way, when you have this map, the norms of our culture disappear. So for example, when you're thinking ecologically, relationally, the question, as you were saying, who's right and who's wrong? To answer the question who's right and who's wrong is who cares? Doesn't matter. Wrong question. Here's the question. How are you and I gonna navigate this thing in a way that's gonna work for both of us? That's the question. When you're thinking relationally, if one of you wins and the other one loses, you both lose. Why? Not pie in the sky ideal. Real politic, brother. You will lose because the loser will make the winner pay for it. I guarantee it. And that's true whether it's your marriage or two countries that are living next to each other. You cannot gain security by controlling the person or the people or the country next to you. That's a myth. It won't work. You, it is in

Terry Real 1:11:37 your interest to deal with the environment that you are dependent upon. Be a good steward. Wake up. It's not about win, lose. It's not about right, wrong. It's not about I give in, you don't. Your bi- If you're one up, your biosphere will need you to open up and soften up. If you're one down, your biosphere may need you to toughen up and get a little firmer and more truthful and more assertive. Dare to rock the boat. It, it's not about the two of you. It's about what the biosphere requires of you in that moment.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:11 It makes me think of one of your foundational principles, which is there's no such thing as objective reality in relationships.

Terry Real 1:12:20 That's a bitter pill.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:22 Yeah, but I would say the biggest thing that I've learned, or one of the biggest things that has helped me in my own marriage over the last 18 years, is letting go of the need to be right.

Terry Real 1:12:34 Ah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:35 A few years ago, I figured out, I thought, "Oh, this is... Th- there's no... Th- this... It doesn't matter." It actually doesn't matter.

Terry Real 1:12:42 No one cares.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:43 No one cares. [laughs]

Terry Real 1:12:45 No one cares. [laughs] Hey, I proved I'm right. Okay, what's for dinner? Um, you know, uh, this is what I like to say. Look, both Lynn and I are fighters. Our adopted children are both fighters. Screw it, I'm from... I'm a blue collar Jew from New Jersey. I grew up in violence. She grew up in violence. It's like, "Don't fuck with us." So when we go off, it's like fight, meet, fight. You don't wanna be there. Um, and so nowadays, on a good day, we'll get revved up, fight, fight- W- uh, we'll take a break. One or the other will say, "I, I need 20 minutes." And nine out of 10 times, 20 min- one... Uh, we take turns. One or the other comes back and, uh, it sounds like this. I know you'll recognize it. "Um, hey, uh, B, uh, I don't really wanna fight. Do, do you wanna fight? I don't wanna fight. Uh, what, what do you need, hon?" And then Belinda says, "Well, you really were an asshole about dot, dot, dot, dot, dot." "Yeah, I was, actually. You're, you're right. I'm sorry. I, I, I didn't mean to hurt you. What, w-..." She goes, "Okay, what do you need?" "Well, you could apologize about dot, dot, dot." "Well, I'm sorry about dot. But by the way, five years ago would've been, 'Well, what about the other three dots?'" Uh, now it's like, "Okay, I'll take the dot. Thanks." And we make peace. Why do we make peace? This is what I call keeping your head on straight. Y- here's what I'm thinking when I make peace, honest to God. Ready? How do I wanna spend my evening? That's what I'm thinking. Do I wanna spend my evening fighting with this insane person who's fighting with this insane person? Or do we wanna end this nonsense and go cuddle on the couch and watch the good show on TV? H- I'm in charge. How do I wanna spend my evening? And that's the wise adult. And the beauty is shifting out of that automatic knee-jerk into the thoughtful, wise adult, we call it relational mindfulness. That transition, which you may need to physically take a break and go walk around the block, whatever it takes. Shifting out of that automatic knee-jerk to thoughtful, "Okay, I wonder what skill I could use here," that can be cultivated. Go to the gym and get muscles. Sit on your pillow and meditate. Meditation's a great boon to relational mindfulness. And Thomas and I did a couple of

Terry Real 1:15:05 courses on intimacy and spirituality, and I, I, I've been meditating for 60 years. Belinda and I start off most every day meditating. And what I say is, "Yeah, great, it's great to be spiritual when you're cushionin' in the morning. Why don't you remember to be spiritual when you're in the kitchen and your wife is screaming at you? Be spiritual in that moment."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:23 Hmm.

Terry Real 1:15:23 That's relational mindfulness. Woof. I call it whoosh. Woof. Belinda gives me anger, I'm ready to bop her in the nose. Take a breath, bring it down, get centered.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:37 Mm-hmm.

Terry Real 1:15:38 Okay, I wonder if there's anything I can do right now.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:42 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:15:42 That's my work. And the more work I do, meditation, therapy, parts work, the easier it is for me to do that in the moment. But it can just be grown through doing it, just like any other muscle.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:58 Yeah. I think something that people may find reassuring is this idea that you've been married for over 30 years. You have been-

Terry Real 1:16:10 40, 40 years.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:11 40 years. Congratulations.

Terry Real 1:16:13 I, I, I like to call them the best five years of my life. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:16 [laughs] Well, it, it's this idea that with all your knowledge, your expertise, you've created this new therapy system. You clearly are able to help, um, you know, problematic marriages find repair and the ability to move forwards. But I think what's reassuring for people is this idea that despite all of that, it still happens, right? And you write about this, don't you, that relationships are this constant cycle of harmony, disharmony, and repair. Again, I think that's one of the, the best concepts I've, I've, I, I read in your book, was this idea that this is the natural order of relationships. It just goes through that. And, you know, we're probably pretty good, I think, aren't we, at, well, harmony then disharmony, but it's that, that repair, right? The ability to repair.

Terry Real 1:17:07 Right, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:07 'Cause you're kind of making the case that this is gonna happen in all relationships, this cycle, right?

Terry Real 1:17:12 Absolutely.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:12 So you better get good at repair. If you're not good at repair, the disharmony stays and it doesn't return back to harmony, does it?

Terry Real 1:17:20 No. Every couple that I see on the brink of divorce has one thing in common. Uh, uh, their issues are all over the place, their character is all over the place. They all share this. They do not have a working mechanism of correction. Every couple on the brink for 40 years, that's what, that's what's going on. They don't have the capacity to say, "Hey, Rangan, don't scratch me here. That's not where I itch. Scratch me here." "Oh, okay, honey, I will." "No, don't scratch me here, scratch..." "Don't tell me what to do." "Don't scratch me here, don't..." "Excuse me, I feel really criticized." "Don't scratch me here, scratch me..." "Well, I've got an itch too." Every couple, the process of, "I would like you to change your behavior this way for me to be more pleasing." "Oh, okay, hon, I'll, I'll do that," is broken. It does not work. And I have to restore that process of listening to your partner and actually changing your goddamn behavior a little bit to be more pleasing to your partner because it's in your interest. You're not being whipped. You're not being submissive. You're working to be a better partner to your partner. Uh, uh, great, do it. Uh, but it, it's almost an art that's been lost, that it's a good thing to change to make yourself more pleasing to your partner. That's not a bad thing. That's not wimpy. That's loving.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:57 When you talk about the skills of repair, one of the things you write about is this idea that repair is not a two-way street. What does that mean?

Terry Real 1:19:07 Uh, everybody gets this wrong. So, okay, so why don't we move into repair? A, we don't know how. Nobody taught us the skills.

Terry Real 1:19:17 B, we don't really want to. If you're in your adaptive... The, the first step in repair is what I- is relational mindfulness. I call it remembering love. What am I about here? Somebody said, "Wait, why am I talking?" Uh, we have five losing strategies of the adaptive child. Being right, why am I talking? To prove that I'm right and she's wrong. Take a break. Why am I talking? To get her to dot, dot, dot, control. Take a break. Why am I talking? To vomit all of my bad feelings about her, uh, to her. Therapy says that's a good thing. It's crazy. I call that the vomit back approach to intimacy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:55 [laughs]

Terry Real 1:19:55 Uh, uh, unbridled venting. Why am I talking? To hurt her the way she hurt me as retaliation. Why am I talking? I'm not, I just turned off. I withdrew.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:06 Yeah. One thing I found incredibly helpful is this idea that, you know, when things aren't going well, remember that this is someone you love.

Terry Real 1:20:17 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:18 It's so bloody obvious, Terry, when you think about it [laughs] but, but it, it's not obvious to people in the moment, right? Remember, this is someone you love. This is someone you chose to marry. This is someone you are living with and are having children with, so surely you should be treating them with, you know, a degree of dignity and respect whenever you talk to them. But we don't. [laughs] Or, or I would say our adaptive child doesn't anyway. I think our wise adult does.

Terry Real 1:20:45 That's right. That's exactly right. And remembering who you're talking to is a technique for getting out of the adaptive child into the wise adult, 'cause it's only the wise adult that can remember. The adaptive child is not about intimacy. This is a bitter pill. The adaptive child is about survival. It's not about us, it's about me, Goddammit, I'm gonna survive. And it has its place, but not... It has no nuance.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:15 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:21:15 You know, I, I must say this to couples at least twice a week. When Belinda comes at me, that one day a year, when Belinda comes at me with anger, I immediately take little Terry, I've got a composite, he's about eight, and I literally envision him behind me holding onto my shirt, and I have a deal with him. I say, "Okay, listen. Between Belinda's anger and you, little vulnerable guy, is me, my adult self, my big body, like Superman. I'll take the hit. You're protected back there. You don't feel any of it. I got it. Now, here's your part of the deal. You let me deal with my wife. Don't you try and deal with her. You'll make a goddamn mess of it."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:58 [laughs]

Terry Real 1:21:59 "So that's our deal."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:00 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:22:00 "I'll protect you. You let me have the wheel." And that is a practice over... I could do that... You know, I, I deal with tough guys. That's my beat, and I, I literally have, like, six foot five, 270 pound lineback- NFL linebackers ducking into the bathroom and putting their little boys on their lap five, six times a day. Literally, they, they write to me and tell me they're doing that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:28 Wow.

Terry Real 1:22:28 The, the, the trauma work happens in the therapy, but that's just the prologue. The real work happens outside-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:37 Mm

Terry Real 1:22:37 ... in the heat of the moment. Take a break. Take that little boy, fight, flight, or fawn, put him on your lap, hear him, love him, and put him in the backseat. Take his sticky hands off the steering wheel. You're driving the bus, not your adaptive child.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:54 Yeah. If we just go back to repair is not a two-way street for just a moment, Terry.

Terry Real 1:23:00 Ah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:01 Let... I, I just wanna... 'Cause I think it's such a great practical tip for all of us when we're thinking about repair. What, what, what is the thinking behind that? You know, what, what... where did we go wrong with that, and how would you help us solve that?

Terry Real 1:23:16 Great. So the first skill is remembering love. The first skill in repair is getting into the wise adult which wants to repair. The first thing you gotta ask yourself is, "What am I about here? W- w- wait, why am I talking? Am I really talking to repair, or am I talking to control my partner, prove I'm right, get back at them?" With some adaptive child strategy. Okay. Be honest with yourself. And if the answer is, "I don't remember that I love this person. They're, they're evil and I hate their guts," great. Thank you for being honest. Take a walk around the block. Don't try these skills from your adaptive child. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:55 Mm.

Terry Real 1:23:55 They, they won't go well. We all do it. I do it. "Hey, Belinda, I have some feedback for you. Do you want it?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:01 [laughs]

Terry Real 1:24:01 "Uh, no, thanks." [laughs] Uh, the, the words are there, but, um, no. So the first order of business is getting into the... You know, we, we have, uh, workshops all over the world now, and my favorite slide in the workshop is, "Other workshops teach you skills. We deal with the part of you that won't use them." [laughs] So first get out of that part into the part that actually wants to make repair. That's your first move.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:28 Mm.

Terry Real 1:24:29 Okay, now repair. Everybody gets this wrong. Repair is not a dialogue. Repair is not a conversation. Repair is a one-way street. Your partner's upset with you or your colleague or someone at work or your kid. You have one job. Get them out of disrepair, back into repair with you. Out of disharmony, back into harmony. That's your job. Why you wanna do that? You live with them, it's in your interest, and also, you love them, so why not? What everybody does is, "Well, you have this issue." "Well, I have that issue." [laughs] "Well, you... Yes, I did that, but you have to understand that." Nobody gives a shit. Here's the metaphor, uh, all you people watching and listening. If your partner, kid, coworker comes to you and they're disgruntled- You have one job, help them feel better. Here, here's my metaphor. You're at the customer service window. Somebody comes to you and says, "My microwave doesn't work." They don't wanna hear you say, "Well, my toaster doesn't work." [laughs] They don't wanna hear you say, "Well, the reason why your microwave doesn't work is 'cause you're an idiot and you're plugging it in wrong." Fix the damn microwave. Deal with their ouch. Help them come back into connection with you. Then maybe hours later or the next day, or maybe not at all, then maybe you can say a little bit about what was going on with you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:56 Mm-hmm.

Terry Real 1:25:56 But somebody comes to you and they're unhappy with you, and you start yes-butting them, "Well, yeah, I did it, but you have to understand a f- a flying saucer landed on my-"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:06 Mm.

Terry Real 1:26:06 "... damn roof. Yeah, I did it, but look at the things you do to me." Uh, no. "Yeah, I did it. You're right. I'm sorry. What was that like for you? What can I give you now? How can I help you feel better?" Keep your eyes on the prize. And about you and your excuses and feelings and your issues, this is not the moment. Your moment can come later. But in this moment, you're at the service of the person who's unhappy with you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:34 Yeah. Well, what I love about that is that it's like what we said before, as long as one of you can remain in the wise adult modes and apply some of this stuff, you can stop things escalating, right?

Terry Real 1:26:49 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:49 So, uh, but you also have to restrain yourself, don't you? You have to go, as you're just saying, "Now's not the time. I don't need to get my side of this out right now, okay?"

Terry Real 1:26:58 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:58 "All I need to do is help my partner move out of adaptive child into wise adult. So I need to give her or him what they need in this moment to do that. Everything else comes after that." Because the truth is, is it's, it's frankly pointless [laughs] to try and have a rational discussion adaptive child to adaptive child, or even wise adult to adaptive child, right? You, you just... It's, it's the str- you know, we're in stress state. We're not in thrive states.

Terry Real 1:27:24 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:24 So-

Terry Real 1:27:24 I, I, I, I, I have a saying, um, uh, a- a- about women in particular. An angry woman is a woman who doesn't feel heard. You wanna deescalate your angry partner, help them feel heard. "Okay, I got it. You're right. I'm sorry you feel bad. What could I do to help you feel better-"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:43 Mm.

Terry Real 1:27:43 "... if anything?" Be at their service and you will deescalate them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:48 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:27:48 You start coming in with your issues, your excuses, your this, your that, they're gonna feel like you're deflecting and they don't feel heard, and they're gonna escalate. Try it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:58 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:27:59 I, I, I, I... Don't take anything I say on faith. Try these techniques and see if they don't work better.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:06 Terry, I've got some questions, uh, from my audience to, to put to you which I thought would be quite illuminating to go through. But before we get there, I, I just want to touch on something that has sort of underpinned a lot of this conversation, which is this idea that the culture trains us a certain way. It instills certain ideas within us which causes problems in our relationships.

Terry Real 1:28:33 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:33 And one of the things

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:35 I was thinking about was this idea that the kind of qualities we need for good intimate relationships, for close intimate relationships, are perhaps not the qualities that a capitalist society values and celebrates. And I, I-

Terry Real 1:28:55 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:55 ... I feel the foreword to your book, Us, really illuminates this. Would you mind if I read a bit of the foreword that none other than Bruce Springsteen wrote to your book, okay? Um, would it be o- a- and again, you're from New Jersey. You said, obviously, you know, the king of New Jersey, uh, Bruce Springsteen. Um, would it be okay if I just read a couple of bits from his foreword?

Terry Real 1:29:16 Sure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:16 Okay. "By my early 30s, I'd become aware enough to know, as things stood, I'd never have the things I wanted. A full life, a home, a wholeness of being, a companion, and a place in my community of neighbors and friends all seemed beyond my grasp. I didn't have the judgment, the courage, or the skills to bring a real life to fruition." Okay, that's how he starts, but then he goes on to say this, "I was one of the most successful musicians on the planet, but work is work, life is life, and they are not the same. Even more frustrating, the things that made me good at my job, my easy tolerance, even hunger for the isolation of creativity, my ability to comfortably and deeply reside within myself and put all my energy into my work for days, weeks, years at a time doomed my personal life to failure. I lived a lonely but seemingly secure existence." I had to reread that foreword over and over again. It was such a beautiful articulation of what Bruce has got from you. But there's that key point there in the, the last few sentences I read out which is the things that made him the exceptional rock musician that he has been were also the things that made him not so good at life.

Terry Real 1:30:46 Yes. Our culture rewards adaptive children. Our culture doesn't like wise adults. Our culture rewards performance. Our culture, uh, is nervous about real intimacy and maturity. Uh, our culture doesn't know what to do. We live in a patriarchal, which means masculine values writ large. Power, dominance, performance. Got that one. Vulnerability, connection, cherishing, love. Yeah, well, that's all nice, but business is business. So yeah, uh, I deal with high rollers. And every single one of them has been a roaring success out in the world and a mess, uh, in their personal lives and a mess between their ears. They're not happy. So I talk about the difference between gratification and relational joy. I'm glad this came up for the listeners. Gratification is a short-term hit of pleasure. It's great in its place. You know, you smoke a joint, you have a martini, pretty girl flirts with you, your stock goes up, all great. Uh, in Boston, your kid gets into Mill Harbor, that's ground zero. All great in its place. Relational joy, which I have to teach to youse, often men, is a deeper down pleasure. You have it. A deeper down pleasure of the joy of being, the joy of just being there and being connected. Parents get this. Sometimes your kid is gratifying. Sometimes you want to throw them through the goddamn window. If you were in that spot where you were hating their guts and I said, "Hey, I could go back in time and you would never have to even have this kid," you'd deck me. It's not about whether they're gratifying or not. It's deeper than that. That's relational joy, the joy of connectedness to yourself, to the people you love, to your body, to the planet. Connection feels great. Many of the men that I work with have little to no idea of relational joy. It's all about performance and gratification, and the world has made them billionaires, stars, celebrities.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:58 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:32:59 But they don't know how to be close. They don't know how to sit still and be at peace inside their own bodies. So okay, when you're out in the gladiatorial arena, be a gladiator.

Terry Real 1:33:13 When you come home, put down the sword and shield and be a lover. Uh, a- you can be both.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:19 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:33:20 Uh, uh, I'm not-- I hate it when people critique me and say, "Terry Real is trying to feminize men." Get lost. That's not at all what I'm saying. I want whole men and women, whole people of all genders. And you know I love to tell stories. May I tell you?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:36 Please.

Terry Real 1:33:36 This is one of my favorite stories. See, traditional masc- traditional patriarchy, stoic, invulnerable man accommodating resentful women. That's the norm. Or now after feminism, women have two choices. They can be traditional, accommodating, resentful, or they can be liberated, which is individual empowerment. Now I'm strong, go screw yourself. Relational empowerment is the next step. All right. Um, what I want is wholeness. I want strong and sexy, wise and loving, selfish and giving, all of the qualities based on what's in front of you and what you have to be there. So I want wholeness and adaptability. Uh, Bruce talks about being w- wildly adaptable to the culture at large, and he's a star. Not so adaptable in his living room. It's very common. Here's a story. Um, I had the privilege of, of being with a Maasai, uh, community in Tanzania.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:55 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:34:56 And I had a men's group with the elders for four nights. We talked about everything, God, women, love, death. It went from English to Swahili to Maasai to Swahili to English. So h- here's a moment I'll always remember. I say to them, "In America, where I'm from, there's a debate about what makes a good Mora- Morani, warrior man." It's one word, Morani. "What makes a good Morani. Some people think a good Morani is tender, sensitive, responsible. Some people think a good Morani is ferocious, tough, hard as nails. What do you guys think? What makes a good Morani?" True story. So I went and, uh, and they're all talking, uh. And, and then this one little guy stands up. He stands up. He's about four foot two, maybe 300 years old. Course he's like, "Ah!" It sounds like he's totally pissed at me. And the tran- here's the translation. That's word for word true. He says, "I have no interest in talking about what makes a good Morani. I could care less. But I will talk to you about what makes a great Morani." Then, "Now listen, when the moment calls for fierceness, a good

Terry Real 1:36:14 Morani is a killer. Don't go-- They'll slit your-- Don't, don't cross them. They'll kill you. When the moment calls for tenderness, a good Morani lays down his sword and shield and is sweet like a little baby." He said, "A great Morani is the man who knows which moment is which."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:33 [sighs] So good. So good. It's, it's such a beautiful, j- it's such a beautiful idea, this one of wholeness that you talk about, right? So it's not about I'm either this or I'm that. It's like, no, no, no. There's room for all of it, right?

Terry Real 1:36:53 All of it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:53 You can express all those parts. Just express them in the correct situations like a great Morani. I really, really like that. Something I can take away and, and think about. Uh, Terry, I wonder if it would be okay to go to some questions that my audience have, um, written in-

Terry Real 1:37:08 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:08 ... and popped to you. I don't think we'll get through them all, but I think there's a couple there which I think would be quite interesting and take us into a slightly different place than the things we've already spoken about. Okay, so this one has come in. "Terry, how do you keep a healthy interest and fresh perspective on a marriage after almost 40 years? What can you do to create excitement?"

Terry Real 1:37:36 Well, this is interesting. I, I, um, the great, um, director, actor Olivia Wilde just came out with a new movie, and Esther Perel, my pal, uh, your guest, uh, consulted in, and they said I was very much present in the making. Uh, E- Esther and I are, are going a slightly different direction on this. It is kind of fun. Esther goes, "Well, you need mystery. Uh, you sh- shake it up. Uh, uh, have sex on the couch. Wear something. Uh, wear an outfit. Uh, tell each other some secret fantasy. Uh, juice... You know, just juice it up. More mystery, less brother/sisterly platonic-ness, and a little more lover-ness." And that's all... I like that. That's fine. Here's where I go. Tell the truth to each other. You wanna keep your relationship passionate? Take each other to the mats. Deal with each other. "Here's something about me that you don't know," after 40 years. Show more of yourself. Take more risks. Um, things get stale when we stop telling the truth to each other, and most couples stop telling the truth to each other. So Esther would say, "Get some fantasy. Get something going. You know, get a sex toy. Uh, uh, m- m- move out for a week. You know, do something, like, more affair-ish inside your marriage." I would say, "Be aggressive in a good way. Lean in and take each other on. Show each other parts of yourselves that you've held back from. Uh, that'll keep it alive."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:23 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:39:23 So I think we're both right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:26 Next question: How can I understand what my partner is going through when he is not ready to discuss or open up? What steps should I take to solve this?

Terry Real 1:39:38 You can only say, "This is important to me. Even if you don't wanna do it, for me, would you work on doing it?" And if they're not listening and the answer's no, then drag the son of a gun into therapy. W- uh, uh, I would recommend an RLT therapist, because they'll take your side and lean in and try and get through to the guy, assuming it's a guy. Uh, so try it yourself with skill. "You may not wanna open up, but I need you to open up. I'm lonely in here." Let me tell you what I mean by that. Remember the three steps. Dare to rock the boat. "Look, I need you to open up. I'm lonely." Teach them what you want. "This is what I mean by opening up. I want you to tell me about your day. I want you to tell me about your feelings." And, "How can I help you do that?" And then once your partner tries, this is huge, I'm so glad this came up, when partner B starts giving partner A what partner A is asking for, do you think partner A swoons in their arms and says, "Thank you, honey"? [laughs] No. They cut it off at the knees. They protect themselves and go back to their corner of skepticism. "Too little too late. Y- y- you did it, but you're not doing it right. You're doing it now, but you're gonna stop." Stop protecting yourself. You did... Uh, I say celebrate the glass 15% full. It was only 5% full last

Terry Real 1:41:07 week. Like, if your kid gets a D in school, you read them the riot act, they come back next week with a C, you don't say, "Where's the A?" You say, "Good progress. Let's keep going." Same thing with your spouse. If your spouse tries, encourage them. Don't discourage them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:25 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:41:25 I like to say, "Hey, honey, you just did a half-ass job. Congratulations. [laughs] That's great. How do we get the other cheek on board?" You know, work with them, but from a place of appreciation and positiveness, not criticalness. Encourage them and don't discourage them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:42 Yeah. Brilliant. Uh, two more, I think, which we will just try and quickly cover. Um, when do you know that the relationship is really over?

Terry Real 1:41:54 I mean, we could do a whole podcast on that, but here's the short version. And i- if you go to my website, there's an article called Rowing to Nowhere: When is Enough Enough? about this. I talk about what I call a relational reckoning. So you haven't gotten through. Okay, step one, learn a whole new set of skills to talk to your partner better that increase the odds that they'll be able to listen. Two, if they're still not listening and you're doing a great job, drag them to a therapist, and a therapist who will take your side and help you with them. Three, if nothing works, should I stay or go? Here's the tool. I call it a relational reckoning, and it's a question. Am I getting enough in this relationship? Am I getting enough in this relationship to make grieving what I'm not getting worth my while? Am I getting enough to make bearing the pain of what's missing here okay with me? Because you're with an imperfect person, and things will be missing, and they will hurt. So, you know, maybe you're a great lover, and your last 20 relationships were with partners who, you know, sprang from chandeliers in the ceiling.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:14 [laughs]

Terry Real 1:43:14 You're now with a, a person who's been sexually molested as a kid. They're quiet. They're contained. They need to be in control. You gotta go slow and gentle with this person. Do you miss the wild party nights? You do. And don't keep talking to your partner about that, but you can talk to me about that. Yes, you miss it. But, oh my God, she's a wonderful mother. She's a beautiful friend, and we love each other. Sex is okay. It's not stellar, but it's okay. Good enough. And what do you do with your grief? You feel it. Don't blame her. Don't go looking for somebody else. Just stand in it. Uh, you're walking down the street and you see a guy with some sexpot woman who's all over him. Oh, you feel a pain in your heart. "Oh, I remember the old wild days. Oh, well, that's not what I have here. It's okay. What I have here is beautiful." If the answer is it's not good enough to make grieving worthwhile, then fight or get out. If the answer is, "You know what? It is good enough, for now at least, I can let go of it"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:25 Hmm

Terry Real 1:44:26 ... then goddamn let go of it. Don't walk around like a big victim, and embrace what you are getting with joy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:33 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:44:34 So do your reckoning, and then own it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:36 Yeah. That's such great advice. Terry, one more question I think would take us into a different area again is, is this one: Is it okay to be friends with an ex-partner?

Terry Real 1:44:49 [laughs] That's a great question. You're asking the wrong person. Uh, don't ask me, ask your partner, "Is it okay with you, my dear spouse, if I remain friends with an ex-lover? And, uh, i- uh, is there anything you need in order

Terry Real 1:45:11 for me to have that privilege?" I, I like to say bring your exes home. Uh, i- introduce them to your family. Dissolve that membrane of the two of us, and open it up to the people you're living with now. It will be less frightening to your partner if you do that. But I don't know. It's between you and your partner.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:34 Yeah. Terry, I could talk to you for hours. Honestly, I think you've just done such phenomenal work for so many years. Uh, the book of yours I have read is Us: Reconnect with Your Partner and Build a Loving and Lasting Relationship. I think it's such a wonderful read and, and a beautiful guide for all of us who seek to improve our skills in relationships. So first of all, thank you for all the work. Thank you for writing it. And my final question, Terry, um, is, is really for that person who's listening or watching and has realized throughout this conversation that, you know what, they don't really have the skills that are needed to have an adult relationship, right? I think many people will be going, "Wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I didn't know that." So for that person who is in a relationship but feels like they're constantly arguing with their partner, that despite their best efforts, nothing seems to change. They're wondering, "Well, is it me? Is it them?" You know, for that person who's basically lost hope, what are your final words to them?

Terry Real 1:46:44 Well, I want everybody to come to my website at terryreal.com. I'm really pleased to say, along with a two-year training program we have for professionals, we're developing more and more offerings for the general public.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:57 Great.

Terry Real 1:46:57 So I have a beautiful class on what healthy self-esteem looks like, what, uh, boundaries look like, basic relationship skills, how to get more of what you want in your relationship, and parenting. Uh, they're all pretty affordable. They're all online. You take them. Uh, amazing if both you and your partner took them together. Start there, and if that's not enough to move things, go find an RLT therapist. They're, they're all over the world.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:47:25 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:47:25 So go to the website and find them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:47:27 Yeah, I love that. I guess that, that sort of really closes off this conversation beautifully, this idea that the culture around you doesn't teach you the things that you need for modern 21st-century relationships. So it's not your fault that you don't know how to do it, but now that you know that you don't have the skills, go out there and get the skills, right? The information is available out there now. This book, for example, has got a ton of information in it. But as you say, people can also go to your website. Is that terryreal.com?

Terry Real 1:47:59 That's it, just t-e-r-r-y-r-e-a-l.com.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:02 Yeah, brilliant. Terry, honestly, such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for everything, and, um, I'll, uh, hopefully get a chance to see you at some point in the future.

Terry Real 1:48:11 I would love that. Bring me back on the show. I'll do, I'll talk some more. And I gotta tell you, you are what we call a good man, and this world, it has a lot of bad examples out there right now, and you're a good one. So bless you and the work you're doing, and stay strong and healthy. We need you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:30 [upbeat music] If you enjoyed that conversation, then I think you are really going to enjoy this one.

Terry Real 1:48:34 If I were to choose to live my life over again, I wouldn't live it in this way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:39 Yeah.

Terry Real 1:48:39 I wish I hadn't worked so hard. When you're driven to work too hard, you actually ignore what matters. And where does that come from? Again, that comes from childhood trauma