0:00 I'm not an empathic therapist. You want empathy? Oh, I'm sorry. You cracked. Patriarchy cracked. It doesn't mean there was something wrong with you. It means there was something wrong with what you were both trying to live up to. Terry Real is one of the most sought-after couples therapists in the world. His private clients pay $7,000 for a single session. It's going to explain exactly why none of your relationships in the past have worked. Listen, we've never wanted more from relationships than we do right now. We want to be lifelong lovers, but we're trying to do that in the context of a culture that is not a relationship-cherishing culture. There is a relationship technology. There's a set of skills that work better. It works better
0:49 to ask your partner for what you want than to criticize them for what they're doing wrong. All relationships are an endless dance of harmony, disharmony, and repair. Most couples are in harmony and disharmony. Harmony and disharmony, but no repair. No repair, because that's where the skills come in. Getting the love you want literally means being a pioneer. We are interconnected. We are interdependent. Healthy self-esteem comes from the inside out. You have worth, you have dignity because you're here on this planet, you're a human being, no better or worse than anybody else. Remember that and have that give you courage. Please help me welcome Terry Reel to
1:40 the Mel Robbins podcast. Oh my gosh, it's a thrill to be here and bless you and thank you for the good work you're doing for the world. Terry, right back at you. Bless you and thank you for the good work you're doing in the world and for the good work you're about to help us do in our conversation today. And here's where I want to start. How could my life be different if I take everything that you are about to teach me today after 40 years of wisdom and work and the things that you have learned and the truths that you know, how could my life be different if I take it all to heart and I apply it to relationships and to my day-to-day life. I'm going to tell you and listeners, viewers, the same
2:28 thing I say to every single couple. I am inviting you on a rarefied path. It's demanding, it's sophisticated, it's skilled, and it leaves the norms of this culture in the dust. Listen, We've never wanted more from relationships than we do right now. Gone. Our grandparents, even our parents, companion, side by side, pay the bills, raise the kids, no passion, no communication, fine, stable, good enough. That's gone. We want to walk hand in hand on the beach. We want great sex in 70s and 80s. We want to be lifelong lovers. But we're trying to do
3:14 that in the context of a culture that is not a relationship-cherishing culture. We live in a patriarchal, and I'll go into that, individualistic culture that does not cherish relationships. I would like basic relationship skills taught in elementary school, junior high, high. We need to know how to pull off this new ambition of being lifelong lovers. Getting the love you wand literally means being a pioneer. If you're a hetero man, it means moving into vulnerability, which means deconstructing masculinity itself.
4:01 Masculinity means being invulnerable. You open your heart, you are redoing what it means to be a man. As we were speaking, standing up for yourself, not with shrillness, but with love and power, is brand new work for women in this culture. As a people, we all need in our lives to be pioneers. We don't live relationally in this culture. We are individualistic and we are patriarchal, meaning the basic model is dominance. We control. We need to trade the dominance model in for the reality of
4:49 our biospheres. We are interconnected. We are interdependent. If we stay on the dominance model, we will fry this planet. What you're doing in your living room is exactly the same work we need to do across this globe. in order to render it a place our grandchildren will want to live in. It's a great ambition. I like to say we have like a filet mignon ambition and hamburger skills. We need to catch up to ourselves. I love that you said skills. So there are skills that we can build to have better relationships.
5:35 And you did though say they were demanding. They are demanding. One of the great lies is that a long-term relationship is supposed to be spontaneous. There's lip service about having to work on it. But let me ask you a question. Yeah. How many times have you heard that relationships take work? My whole life. Yeah. Anybody ever tell you what it was? Actually, no. Of course not. And that's where I come in. There is a relationship technology, there's a set of skills that work better. For example, and we'll go over it, but just one example. It works better to ask your partner for what you want than to criticize them for what they're doing wrong.
6:24 Listen, in our culture, the way we try and get more of what we want in our relationships is we share our feelings about how miserable we are that you just blew it. That's how we try and get... That's the worst behavioral... You don't treat a dog like... How about just punishing a dog every time they get it wrong? No. I talk about three steps of getting what you want. One, this is the important one. Dare to rock the boat. We're going to talk about that. Dare to tell the truth. But you have to do it skillfully. Two, Once your partner's listening, help them out. Teach them what you want. I would rather you do it this way than that way, honey. Honey with love.
7:12 And then three, when they start to give it to you, reward them. Don't criticize them. Well, you did a half-assed job. Hey, you did a half-assed job. Isn't that great? Let's get the other cheek on board while we're at it. It seems so simple. Tell the truth, teach your partner what you want, and reward them when they do it, even if it's a half-assed job. Yeah, that's the best way of getting them to do more. Criticizing them for what they're doing wrong is about the worst way of trying to get them motivated to give you more. But we don't know these basics in this culture. You know, I'm a family therapist for 40 years. The father of family therapy was Gregory Bateson, the husband of
7:57 Margaret Mead. And Bateson's whole work, the birth of family therapy, is what he called correcting humankind's philosophical mistake, which is that we stand apart from nature and we can control it. Both wrong. And by the way, apropos of the let them theory, control can be one-up. That tends to be more traditionally male. Sit down, shut up, and do what I tell you. Control can also be upregulating from the one down. That's codependent. That's enabling. That's trying getting your partner to dot, dot, dot. That's traditionally more feminine under patriarchy. Intimacy, here's one of the first things I want to say.
8:43 To really move into the intimacy we want. means nothing less than moving beyond traditional gender roles for all of us. Women have to move out of resentful accommodation, control, enabling. That's what your book is all about. And my generation's early feminists shifted from the one-down traditionally feminine role to the one-up traditionally masculine. I call that individual empowerment. I was weak, now I'm strong, go screw yourself. No, I was weak, now I'm strong, let's work together, we're a team, I love you. I call that relational
9:30 empowerment. And in our culture at MEN, that is new news. And therapy, 12-step sponsors, women's groups, men's groups, all individual empowerment. I wouldn't put up with that if I was you. Well, that's easy to say. How about roll up your sleeves, You love each other. How are you going to make this work together? So there were so many things you just said that I want to dig into. I love this idea of relationship technology and skills that we can build. I also love that you're starting from a place of this larger container that we're all in, which is culture. I also appreciate the fact that the traditional gender roles that a quote man is supposed to act this way, a woman's
10:19 supposed to act that way, that those are leading to a lot of dissatisfaction in relationships on both sides. And there was something that you said that I want to make sure we unpack, and that was the term resentful accommodation. What does that mean? Ask any woman on this street. Well, I know what it means, but I... Well, what did it mean in your life? So resentful accommodation was the biggest example that I can think of is that when we were in a massive financial crisis, Chris cratered and his confidence in
11:05 himself, his ability to believe in himself, the sense that he had failed as a husband, as a father to provide, that he had lost people money. As he was collapsing, I became more and more resentful because I felt like it was my job to then step up and save us and do what I thought should have been his job. Again, traditional gender roles, that he's supposed to be the one that's the breadwinner, I'm supposed to make some money that's our fund money. And when that didn't work. You both cratered. We both cratered. The whole marriage cratered. Yes. And so it,
11:51 it, the resentfulness is kind of comes from that thing of, I thought it was going to be this way. And I think you owe me something and now I'm pissed. So now I'm going to go do this thing, you know, and go like make the money and get three jobs and do what I need to do. And now I'm mad because when I come home, like, The laundry's still there and all this stuff is still there. Like you can, I'm probably, is a lot of the tone that you hear when you're sitting with couples. Yeah. And the interesting thing is, is that if I look at your three things, tell the truth about what you need, listen and teach somebody what you want and then reward them. And it seems so simple, but when you're caught in that cycle of the emotion
12:37 of all of it and you start to pull away from each other, and that distance comes in, I think this is the heart of what you help people do. Well, you know, I mean, I don't mean to be heartless, but I would look at the two of you and I go, what a great opportunity. Which is not, I'm not an empathic therapist. You want empathy? Oh, I'm sorry. No, look at how you both grew. And you cracked. Patriarchy cracked. One of the first things I have to teach people, and I'd love people to listen to this, is healthy self-esteem, which is rare in our culture. Healthy self-esteem comes from the inside out. You have worth, you have dignity, because
13:24 you're here on this planet, you're a human being, no better or worse than anybody else. And unhealthy self-esteem comes from the outside in. For many men, it's performance-based. I have worth because of what I can do. I have worth because of how much I earn. And for many women, it's other-based. I have worth because you think I do. And that cracked for both of you. You were going to be taken care of by Prince Charming, but Prince Charming was drinking himself down the toilet and depressed as hell because his performance-based esteem had cracked. So, you know what? It doesn't mean there was something wrong with you. It means there was something wrong with what you were both trying to live up
14:10 to, and it didn't work. Yeah. The problem is, okay, so what was going on? This is one of the great things nobody gets. All relationships are an endless dance of harmony, disharmony, and repair. That's what you and Chris lived through, big time. All relationships are an endless dance of harmony, disharmony. and repair. That's correct. And here's what I'm going to guess. Cause as you're listening right now to Terry, as you're watching this on YouTube, first of all, I want you wherever you are, whether you're single, whether you're heartbroken, whether you're in a marriage that feels like roommates, whether you're recognizing the resentment that is coming
15:00 up in your relationship, Terry is asking us all to look at where you're at one giant opportunity and when you say all relationships are either are an endless dance of harmony disharmony and repair I'm willing to guess based on my own experience Terry being married 29 years that most couples are in harmony and disharmony. Harmony and disharmony, but no repair. No repair, because that's where the skills come in and we don't know them. But also, two things. First of all, our culture doesn't even acknowledge the disharmony to begin with. A good relationship is
15:45 all harmony. That's what you thought when you were young. That's true. And you were bitterly disappointed. Yes, and aimed it right at him. Well, of course, he failed you. But you picked him. I like to say, we all marry our unfinished business. Whoa. Hold on. We all marry our unfinished business? You got it. You know what? Young Mal could have had a guy that would have done everything she wanted him to do. I guarantee you there are guys you dated who you would not have gone through this crisis with. They did not blip on your screen. I call this the mysticism of marriage. The mysticism of marriage? Yes, we have the opportunity to heal our
16:35 deepest wounds. Not falling in love means, oh yeah, this person's going to give it to me. I'm going to be healed. They're going to give me everything I didn't get. Good luck. A real relationship comes, I like to say, when you realize your partner is, here's my quote, exquisitely designed, to stick the burning spear right into your eyeball. That's the crisis. That's not a bad relationship. That's a real relationship. The question is, now what? Are you just going to repeat the same old, same old? That's hell. Or are you going to wake up and do something different? The crisis can wake you up if you allow it, but you have to do it. And so, there's a lot that
17:23 goes into why we don't wake up, how to wake up, and if we do stay awake, what the hell do we do then? What does unfinished business mean? That what does, because it's true, the person that you're in a relationship with has an uncanny way to get under your skin, piss you off, frustrate the hell out of you. You love them, but you want to kill them at times, right? Yeah. Definitely want to change them. Yeah. But, What does unfinished business mean exactly for us? It means that you are now exactly in the childhood wound that that son of a gun that you picked was supposed to never put you in. You have been fundamentally
18:13 betrayed. You are back, you're four, you're with your crazy family and you're partner is just as chaotic, it turns out, as your dad was. Your partner is just as betraying as your mom was. Whatever the wound is, all of a sudden it's in your face, and that's not what you signed up for. And you hate that son of a gun. You are talking to the guy, my favorite quote is, normal marital hatred. Normal marital hatred? Normal marital hatred. Fight! I gotta tell you, I've been around the world talking about normal marital hatred for four days. Not once has
18:59 anyone come backstage and said, what do you mean by that? You just don't say it next to the spouse you're sitting next to, right? But you feel it. We do. There is a part of me, nice to say a part of me, there's a part of me that hates you right now. Yes. Okay. Here's why. But more important, here's what we can do to get the hell out of this thing to go let's hold on so if we just take these take i'm just going to keep building here so wherever it is that you are yeah in that never-ending dance in the relationship yeah that the partner that you're with or the relationship that just ended offers you the opportunity
19:45 to deal with unfinished business Right. And the opportunity and the unfinished business is that in every single relationship that you're in your childhood crap comes up and their childhood crap comes up, comes up. And so is it safe to say that when you look at the person that you're in a relationship with as an adult, that you really are looking at not the adult version, but really I should be thinking about Chris as here's the little eight-year-old version of Chris, and now he's my husband. It depends on who's there. Who's who? Who's there. As a therapist, my most critical question is not what are the stressors. It's not even what's the pattern. The most critical question,
20:35 which part of you am I speaking to? We're talking right now, my wise adult, brain is talking to your wise adult brain. Prefrontal cortex. Doesn't develop until 26 years old. When you get trauma triggered, when Chris betrays you, when Belinda betrays me in exactly the way I hired him to never do, goddammit, I get flooded. I get trauma flooded. And then what comes up is what we call the wounded child part of you. Very young. Just, ugh. You know, cry, cry, cry, rage, rage, rage. Between this very immature part of the brain, and it's subcarnical, it's a different part of your brain, and this very immature part of the brain is what I call
21:24 the adaptive child part of you. And that's what I work with. The adaptive child part of you is the you that you learned to be growing up in that crazy family. Fight, you know that knee-jerk survival. Yes. Fight. flight or fawn, which as an adult means fix. Fight, screw me, screw you. Flight, I'm shutting this down. And fix, oh my God, oh my God, you're upset. It's not working on things from mature places and anxious over-functioning is what you write about. So fight, flight, or fix, it's a knee jerk, it's automatic. We think it's an adult. It does okay out in the world often.
22:10 but it makes a mess of your relationships. So what makes life difficult is you're in harmony, you're in a wise adult. You get into disharmony, that prefrontal cortex, out the window. And now it's automatic knee-jerk survival. And you do what you did as a kid and it doesn't work. And the more you do it, the more it doesn't work, the more frustrated you get, not with you, but with your partner. You have to take a breath. Take a breath. The first skill we teach people now is what I call relational mindfulness. When you're flooded, when you're triggered, take a break. Walk
22:56 around the block. Take 10 breaths. Because what happens is when you move from harmony into disharmony, you get wounded. And then most of us have about 10 seconds worth of tolerance for that. We don't stay in that world. And we move into our automatic habitual response. And it doesn't work. Remember I said, you're married, that's healing? The healing comes when you can pull yourself out of that automatic subcortical part of the brain and wake up. I call it relational mindfulness. Okay. I also call it remembering love. Okay. He's not the enemy. He's my guy. I don't hate him. I love
23:44 him. We're struggling. What the hell do we do? I don't know, but let's talk about it. When you're there, then you can use the skills. But the first skill is getting into the part of you. I like to say other therapies teach you skills. What I've created, I call it relational life therapy, deals with the part of you that won't use them. Oh my God. Well, I once heard somebody say that One of the reasons why oftentimes therapy can help you really be aware of things and help you understand what's happening. But when you're talking to a therapist or a doctor, or even a friend, or you and I have a conversation right now, you are using your prefrontal cortex. I'm present. I'm not stressed out right now. I'm not in fight or flight. You're not pissing me
24:31 off. So I'm in the wise adult part of my brain. And so you and I may talk, okay, next time, I come home from traveling for 10 days and I walk in the house and there are dead flowers in dirty water sitting in the middle of the island in the kitchen. There you go again. Which floods me. That's right. And I think, how many times did I? And nobody knows that I'm coming back. Does nobody know that I care? I go right into that, which I'm sure if Chris is in the next room, And he hears the volcano erupting that is the wounded Mel Robbins. He probably shuts down. It's not the wounded Mel Robbins. Cause you don't go to Chris and go, you know, I feel my feelings
25:19 are hurt that I come home and those flowers are dead. I don't feel like, I don't feel cared about. No. Why would I do that when I can take a photo and send a passive aggressive text message? Why would I do that, Terry? When I can dump the flowers out in the sink loudly and then throw the things in the trash as if I'm sending anger signal waves. Yeah. Like this was an old dynamic between us. Well, and a lot of other people, my marriage too. So pull apart that. Well, when you're in the hurt, you know, I feel abandoned, I feel uncared about. And we could go into your childhood, but I'm sure that that has resonance. But like all of us, you have about
26:08 two seconds worth of tolerance for that helplessness and vulnerability. And you go from the one down to the one up. You go from shame, helplessness, not cared about, to anger, indignation, what kind of person does that? And what's devilish about that is that you feel better. It works. Because I think, why does it work? Because grandiosity feels good. Shame feels bad. The wound feels bad. The adaptation feels good. It works. We're not so, look, we move into these defensive moves, self-medication, rage, affairs. They make a mess of our lives. But we're not so stupid that we move
26:57 into stuff that feels bad. It feels good. Grandiosity feels good. That's one of my great contributions of my work. Grandiosity feels good. It just makes a hash of things. So you have to take a breath. You're a fighter. I'm a fighter. Brenda's a fighter. This is a shutter downer. Okay, well, there you go. He goes right into... Don't talk. Bye. Goodbye. Yeah. The more you rage, the more I shut down. And then that makes you so frustrated. Well, then you rage more. Yes. And then they shut down more. And then you, or same thing if you're a fixer. Now I'm trying to fix this and now you're getting more angry at me or now I'm just trying to solve this and now you won't even talk to me. And so I can see how you get stuck in a loop
27:42 with somebody. Yeah. Everybody comes to me in a loop. The more, the more. Wait, hold on. Everybody that comes to you, Terry. Is in a loop. Well, And it's this loop of your adaptation of what you did as a kid. That's right. Mates his adaptation. Mates his adaptation as a kid. I want to read to you from your New York Times bestseller, Us. This is page nine, and it's the chapter that is entitled, Which Version of You Shows Up to Your Relationship? There's no redeeming value in harshness. Oh, yeah. I'm the harsh one. I'll own it. I have a tone. I'm a fighter. I, yes. Let's take a look at just one of the immature qualities that are prevalent in
28:31 our adaptive child. Yes. Harshness. I tell my clients that if they walk away from their sessions with me, with just this one concept, they will have spent their therapy money well. Here it is. There is no redeeming value whatsoever in harshness harshness does nothing that loving firmness doesn't do better that's a revolution that's life-changing and by the way harshness between you being harsh to somebody no value allowing them to be harsh to you no value and watch this you being harsh you no value
29:21 how many of us think well i have to be firm with myself in order to whip myself and uh think about the way we deal with kids on a good day you don't have to be harsh to be firm be firm you know i'm 75. i like to tell my clients at 75 i have a deal with the universe if it's not kind i'm not interested And that's whether it's me talking to you or me listening to you or me talking to me. You know, that adaptive child part of me is very harsh. I grew up with a violent father and I was very violent between my ears for decades. Nowadays, that harsh critic, I know it's just my little
30:10 teenage fighter, kept me alive. Okay, little 17-year-old, kicker don't let nobody take advantage okay got it pal you may have something to say to me and i'll listen but you gotta say it like you're on my side take that in say it like you're on my side then i'll listen when you start to have this awakening that oh i do that i'm doing this or they do that or do the other thing what's the next step take a break take a break Stop it. Take a break. Duck in. You know, I deal with all these tough-ass guys, I mean, NFL players. They're ducking into the bathroom, putting their little five-year-old boys on their laps
30:59 and talking to them five, six times, literally five, six times a day. Take a break. Relational mindfulness. Come out of that reactivity. Remember the person is not 14 feet tall with five arms. They're your friend. They're your lover. They're an idiot, just like you are. No better or worse. Calm down. Okay. Now go back in the fray and use a skill, but don't try it until you're centered. First step is getting centered. And, you know, how do you bring up difficult topics? With love. Who does that? like and how do I do that like let's say that that you know somebody's
31:45 let their health go or that they're not motivated or they are not getting help for for their depression or they seem to have started isolating and they're not seeing their friends anymore how do you bring that up and it's a difficult topic and it's something that has kind of led to to standoffs or arguments and you just don't know how to even bring it up without the other person feeling attacked or shutting down? Well, you do your best. And you know, you could be taking a page from Mother Teresa and they still feel attacked because they're in their adaptive child and they feel attacked if you say goddamn
32:34 anything to them. And that's not your responsibility, it's theirs. you do your best so tenderness works better than harshness honey sit down let me take your hand these are the things i'm noticing i'm worried about you you know this this and this give them the data this isn't this i make up not you are i make um that you're depressed these days and I think it would be good for all of us if you did something about it. Look, I wrote a book on male depression back in the 90s. It was the first book ever written. And what I said, NIH did a public service campaign about male depression. I said, if you want to help
33:21 depressed men, aim your data at the women. This is not a moment. And this is our individualistic culture. Oh, he needs to call the doctor. Yeah. Well, good luck with that. How about I'll try calling the doctor, I'll get him in my car and we'll drive together. And if that doesn't work, how about this? We're going to go to a couples therapist because I'm concerned about your drinking or your anger or whatever it is I'm concerned about. We've tried to talk about it. I haven't found a way to talk to you about it. We need help. So even if you think it's their problem, go to a couples therapist and put it in front of them. Well, as I'm really listening to you, there
34:09 are no problems that are their problems. Because every problem is our problem. Your relationship is your biosphere. We're not above it. We're not below it. We're in it, baby. And it's in our interest to keep that biosphere healthy. How do you shift from me versus you? to us versus the problem, especially in situations where the problem is you're drinking or the problem is you're not motivated or the problem is you've let yourself go. Or at least that's what you think. You think the problem is with them. Well, first have some humility is what I think. Or even
34:58 more to the point, this is what I'm not happy about. This is what's not comfortable for me. Look, I'm working, you're not. I come home, you're on the couch drinking a beer. The place is a mess. I gotta tell you, Bill, I don't mind being the woman going out and being the breadwinner, but could you at least be a good wife when I get home? I mean, this sucks. Keep it personal. That sounds a little judgmental. Well, but keep it personal. Okay. Keep it humble. Keep it real. This is hard for me. You may not be uncomfortable with dot, dot, dot, but I'm uncomfortable with it. We live together. Can we talk about what needs to happen here? Is there a way to fight
35:46 constructively? Sure. How do you do it? This is what happened. This is what I told myself. This is how I felt. And this is what I want. But listen to this. Okay. That third step, this is what I felt. Yeah. Here's a tip. Tell me. Take the feeling that comes to you first and put it last. Okay. Anger. So like if anger is the thing that comes up for me first. Yeah. Last. If you lead with big, strong... check in your vulnerability. What's underneath that? Lead with that. Don't,
36:34 I come home to dead flowers, you son of a bitch, what kind of person? No. I come home to dead flowers, I don't feel cared about. It's kind of lonely. I felt lonely, I felt helpless, I felt... uncared about, and I felt angry. Last, not first. And Chris will have a lot easier time hearing you. And conversely, if you're like codependent. And how do you know if you're codependent? Because I think that's one of those words that I feel like it's out there and I don't even know that I really understand what codependent is. Well, you call it over-functioning. Over-functioning?
37:20 Yeah. It's that anxious. It's the fixer. anxious so so codependent means that you only feel okay when everybody around you is okay that's right oh and you're afraid to rock the boat oh oh yeah that's what that means okay and so look your relationship is your biosphere if you're a one-up fighter like you and me belinda come your biosphere needs you to come down off your high horse uh my feelings were hurt. Oh, the biosphere is happy with that. If you're a one down fixer, don't set daddy off. Your biosphere needs you to stand up and find some spine. How do you
38:06 do that? Like what, what is your advice to the person that's listening? It goes, well, that is me. I need to make sure that everybody's okay. I'm always walking on eggshells. Everybody else comes first, but then of course I'm exhausted and resentful because nobody's taking care of me. How do I stand up? How do I start to change that adaptive fixing little kid in me? Yeah, well, turn to that kid. Because you learn to run around and fix everything as a little girl, a little boy. What would have happened if you hadn't done that in that family you grew up with? Odds are all hell would have broken. We always respect the intelligence of the
38:53 adaptive child. You did what you had to do. Good for you. It's time to retire. You're not that little girl. Chris is not the family you grew up with. You can do something. Can I tell you a story? Yeah, please. This is my classic adaptive child story. It's an absolute true story. Okay. A couple comes to me on the brink of divorce. He's a liar. Lies about everything. She says to him, if you ask him what color shoes he has on, he'll lie and say he has sneakers. I mean, he'll lie. And therapist will. I walk in the office and I go, hi, Bill, the sky's blue. He goes, well, he's not going to tell me it's blue. He won't give it to me. So I get right away what his deal is, the adaptive child. He's an evader. Nobody's going
39:41 to get him. All right. Then I think, okay, the adaptive child is adapting to someone. There's someone on the other end of that seesaw. So I go, who tried to control you growing up? His father, true story. Military man, how he sat, how he ate, his friend. What did you do with this controlling father? He looks at me and he smiles. That's resistance, that's why. He says, I lied. Dad said, don't play with Henry. I played with Henry. I told him I played with John. Smart boy. Good for you. Always respect the strategy that you learned as a kid, but retire them. You're in the backseat. Wise adult is here today. I can take
40:32 care of this better than you can. Literally, when Belinda and I are having a fight, honest to God, and she's coming at me with anger, because that's what we do. It could be me. I have little Terry. I've worked with an eight-year-old. I put him behind me. Between her anger and you, little Terry, is me. My big adult body. We have a deal. You're protected back there. Her rage stops with me. Doesn't hit you. Here's your part of the deal. I deal with my wife, not you. You'll make a mess of it. So, okay, so here's my liar. So, smart boy. By the way, You're not five anymore, and your
41:22 wife isn't your dad. See ya. True story. Two weeks later, they come back, hand in hand, we're cured. And they were, Mel. I said, okay, there's a story you tell me. Over the weekend, she sends him to the grocery store to get 12 things. True to form, he comes back with 11. She says, where's the pumpernickel? And he's gonna lie. Of course he's gonna lie. He doesn't want to get chewed out by his father. And he said, every muscle and nerve in my body was screaming to say they were out of the pumpernickel, which was not true. This moment, I took a breath. I thought of you, Terry. I was lending him my prefrontal cortex. We can do that for each other. I thought of you. I
42:10 looked my wife in the eye and I said, I forgot the goddamn pumpernickel. It's absolutely true, Mel. She burst into tears. And she said, I've been waiting for this moment for 25 years. That's recovery. Come out of that adaptive child into the prefrontal cortex. Tell the truth. Use a skill. Wow. I can see how this relates to, um, that something you said in the very beginning, where, when you fall in love with somebody, you think you're going to be rescued. from the behavior in yourself that you feel stuck with the
42:57 rage or the sh you know shutting down or the lying or the you know walking on eggshells yeah whatever you learn to do as a kid you learn to do whatever you needed to do as a kid yeah and so i can see how in the absolute bliss of a new relationship and you're just falling, falling, falling, you believe that it's always going to be like this. And sure enough, what comes up is the opportunity to do the work, to become the wise adult and not have the adaptive child and all of the default behaviors that happen when you get flooded emotionally or when you get triggered. And when you really think about the person,
43:48 as it's their adaptive child in the room with your adaptive child when you guys are emotionally flooded you got it and any single thing whether it's i forgot the pumpernickel bread or it's the and now she's going to be a so i'm going to lie which is what i did as a kid or it's the tiptoe walking or the raging or the venting or the being right or whatever, like every single one of those things, whether it's triggered by Amazon boxes or it's triggered by pumpernickel or it's triggered by their drinking or it's triggered by absolutely anything. Anything. It's the same cycle. It's the same wound. It's the same emotions. And you're going
44:37 to be trapped there forever. And here's where your work is genius. What we do when we're back in the old womb is we redouble our efforts to get that son of a gun to give us what they were supposed to give us. That's why we married them. Or we react out of that adaptation when they don't give it to us. We fight, we flight, we do whatever we do. Here's the new news. Take a breath. They ain't going to give it to you. Watch this. How about if you give it to you? You were abandoned as a kid. You come home, dead flowers, abandonment comes up. Not 50-year-old Mel, 4-year-old Mel. You turn to that 4-year-old girl.
45:24 Chris may be abandoning you right now, but I'm not. I'm here. I got you, kid. I like to say maturity comes when we deal with our inner children. and don't force them off on our partners to deal with. Oh, I love that. Maturity comes when we deal with that inner child, that adaptive self that needed to do whatever it does, whether it's the anger, whether it's the righteousness, whether it's the shutting down, whether it's whatever it is, when we deal with that person. Love you, kid. When the inner child, which means you just, when you're reactive. Yeah. So talk about emotional... flooding and emotional over-functioning? Is that the same thing as the adaptive child? Well, yeah. First you
46:12 get flooded. That's the wounded child. Okay. And then you get yourself out of that flooding by moving into your adaptive child. Gotcha. So, like, let's just take it as fact. Well, you walk in and the flowers are dead. Yes. There's a little male that was not taken care of. And that's what gets triggered. Yeah. And you're not your adult self feeling let down in a moderate way. You're that four or five year old little girl who has never dealt with the way she should have been. And it's, you're flooded, but you don't like that feeling of helplessness. So you move from helplessness to attack from one down to one
46:59 up. These are the roots of violence for all of us. And the one up feels better. It gets you out of that helplessness, but it makes a mess of your marriage. So you have to think your way down from the one up. Well, recognizing that you're just emotionally flooded is important. Recognizing that you're now in react, react, react mode, which is why taking that breath and consciously pulling yourself back into the wise adult. Yes, which may mean did you take a 20-minute walk around the block? You have a contract with your partner. Look, hey, I'm flooded. See you in 20 minutes. And man, your partner says it. Let them go. Don't corner an animal. Okay, bye, Ann. Don't corner an animal. No, you don't want
47:46 to do that. That's incredible. Why does emotional over-functioning and shutting down, why do these patterns tend to attract people into a partnership. Because it's your unfinished business. So may I? Yes, please. All right, here we go, Mel. Ready? Yeah. All right. So fight or Mel, your adaptive child is what I would call one-up and boundaryless. You're one-up, you're grandiose, you're attacking, you're righteous. He's a dick. Yes, 100%. But underneath that are the feelings of abandonment, aloneness, which is your childhood wound. Yeah. my friend and colleague, Gabor Mate says,
48:34 in relationships, you don't see the wound, you see the scar. You don't see the wounded child, you see the adaptive child. So you come home, dead flowers. Little girl Mel not cared about the way she should have been. And if you were to sit with her, she'd be crying. She'd be lonely. but you don't, because that's painful. So you go one up into grandiosity, self-righteousness, attack. Now you're powerful, but you're making a goddamn mess of things. Take a break. And then you feel bad about it, because you don't want to make a mess of things. Well, you feel bad. You don't want, well, at least I do. You feel bad about it five minutes later. Yes. You have a hangover. But in the moment, he deserves
49:19 it. You're right. Let's go. And that's what this is all about. Then you take a break. Hold it. I'm about to lose my shit. See ya. Or hold it. I'm going to shut down. Let me get myself adjusted and I'm going to come back and talk to you. Whatever the adaptation is, you got to sit with that little part of you. It's okay. He loves you. He's an idiot about the dead flowers, but he does love you. Come back. Don't Ream them a new one. That's not going to work. Come back and talk to them about what's going on. But you have to be in your right mind. And that's the opportunity. The healing doesn't come when you get the son of a gun
50:05 to give it to you. That's the dream. The healing comes when they don't. And you deal with it. Not the way you learned as a kid, but in a new way. That heals. Okay. That is the most important thing, in my opinion. that you have said because you are now pointing at the source of power and healing and one of the mistakes is that we are trying to get that from our partner and through our partner changing right and what you just said is that the healing comes not from them changing the healing that you need comes from you stopping yourself in that moment,
50:57 taking a breath, not allowing all of the patterns of the past and the adaptive child to come in and fix or freeze or rage. And make a mess. And make a mess. But to just see it happening and then bring the wise adult to the room and respond in a new way. That is the healing. That's the healing. That's the opportunity. You know, for somebody who tends to hold everything in, you know, the baller, you see the thing that hurts your feelings, you feel the emotion that is worry or hurt or abandonment or the thing that you said always take the first feeling, anger, resentment,
51:46 put it in the back. What's the feeling underneath it? For somebody that's like They're feeling fear. What are they afraid of? They're afraid that if they tell the truth and rock the boat, it ain't gonna go well. And odds are they grew up in a family where it wouldn't have gone well. Dude, after child is not stupid. You learn to do what you goddamn needed to do back then, but you're not back there anymore. That's the beauty. How do you... learn to communicate your feelings in these little moments instead of just putting it aside and putting it aside until you reach a breaking point. Well, you
52:32 have to dare to rock the boat. This goes back to the three steps, dare to rock the boat and tell the truth, listen, and then teach somebody what you want and reward them in a kind way when they do. And for those of you listening, it may be that your childhood trauma We said you can have little injuries and have an adaptive child that's screwing things up. That's true. But you can also have big injuries, big. You can have grown up in a family where you learn not to tell the truth because if you did tell the truth, it would not be a good idea. Okay, that was then. This is now. It really helps to separate the wise adult from the adaptive child. What does a healthy, connected relationship really look like in practice? Telling the
53:22 truth to each other with love and being human. You know, there are times Belinda and I are at each other and I really wouldn't want a video camera recording what we sound like. I like to say to my clients, look, the skills I'm teaching, here's what I say. Every skill I, I've been married for 40 years, every skill I teach has been clinically tested. She's the clinic. And on those days when either Belinda or God help us, if we both at the same time, lose our wise adults and just go with the adaptive child, we look just as ugly as you do. I say that to my page. They
54:08 love hearing adapters. I'm just like you. Use your skills as best you can. Expect the wheels to come off sometimes. Nobody's going to die. When they do, get back in your wise adult, make amends, apologize, own your shit, get back on track. We're a biosphere. We love each other. Let's work this out. I can say every single fight issue breakdown that I have had in my 29 years of marriage, I can now 1000% see that it's this feeling of being alone and that it's all on me. And it is like freaking clockwork.
54:57 Once you see it, you will see it everywhere. Everywhere. And you know what? What a blessing. Maybe after this conversation, I want you to email me and tell me, what a blessing it would be for you to come home, the goddamn flowers are dead, and instead of ripping his head off, which he then shuts you down, You say to him, you know what, honey, shoot me. I know you didn't mean it. I saw those dead flowers. I'm backing my little girl not being cared about. And it made me sad. You see what he does then? Yeah. Well, I can also not get mad at him. And I can also assume good intent. And I can also know that like a lot of times he does remember and
55:44 i can and this is like something we thought about 10 years ago so it sounds kind of funny to even be thinking about it now because it's not not it's one of the ones that but the point is the little things become the big things because the little things are the source of the little things the little things resonate with what happened to us so they take on bigger meaning but what you say is right you know i love talking to older couples And I asked them about their life. I saw it had to be late, a very 50. I said, you guys seem happy. We are. Tell me. Oh, the first 15 years were hell. Really? Yeah. Horrible. I kept trying to change Harry. And then one day, this is absolutely true. And then one day I looked at
56:30 him and I went, oh, that's Harry. Okay. Ever since then, we've been fine. There is a place for... I call it scanning for the positive instead of scanning for the negative. Be appreciative. Tell your partner what they're doing right instead of always harping on what they're doing wrong. So there are so many listener questions that we have, and I'd love to read one from a listener in Chicago. We've been together for 12 years. We love each other. There's no doubt about that. But if I'm being honest, it feels like the spark is gone. Same routine, same conversation, same habits, same everything. There's no fighting. There's no big drama, but there's no real excitement or passion either. I don't even know what desire would
57:20 look like for us anymore. It feels flat. And here's the part I'm struggling with. I want to bring that spark back, but I don't want it to be forced or fake. How do we actually reconnect with desire and intimacy after years together without pretending or going through the emotions? What makes you think they would be fake? Why don't you start off by saying to your partner what you just wrote to me? Why don't you tell the truth? Look, I did a whole book, audiobook, I called it Fierce Intimacy. Lean in and deal with each other. Most people don't. We stop. Because when we do, we're so unskilled, it doesn't go very well. So we back off, we say we're compromising, but we're not. We resent it. Distance grows. Sexuality
58:06 dies. If you want to keep your relationship juicy, tell the truth to each other. Take each other on. Start with this. We're flat. Maybe you're okay being, you know, watching TV every night, but I'm not. Let's go do both of them. And then like, okay, you're flat. What are you going to do about it? You show up with a mariachi band. You go to the sex store and get some velvet chains. I don't know. What are you going to do to mix it up? Why are you waiting for your partner to do it? But tell the truth to each other. We stop doing that
58:53 because we're very unskilled, and when we do, it doesn't go well. We have to learn how to do it. Here's another question. I've been married for 11 years, and I'm realizing I've become the critic in the relationship. I notice everything my husband does wrong. The socks on the floor, the way he loads the dishwasher, the tone when he talks to the kids. It's like I'm constantly scanning for what's off or annoying. And here's the thing, I don't wanna be that way. He's a good man, I love him, but I rarely notice the good stuff until he points it out. Like, why is it that you only mention what I'm doing wrong? And he's right. I don't wanna keep showing up this way. I just don't know how to switch out of this mindset. How do I stop scanning for what's wrong? and start seeing what's good again. What's going on in this dynamic? Because I think that's really relatable when you got somebody picking on somebody all the time. Yeah, it's a form of control.
59:42 I would say, who was the complainer in your family growing up on? Where'd you learn this from? There's an adaptive child in there that thinks that picking at him is gonna be a good thing. And then the other issue is, Man, intimacy is scary. Vulnerability is scary. Does it feel safer to be constantly nagging what's wrong than to open up and receive what's right? And that's so true for all of us. And the more damage you had as a kid, the more frightening it is. We fuss with each other. because being close to each other in itself can be trauma
1:00:32 triggering. It's scary to be vulnerable and close. You have to allow it. That's the piece I work with next. First, we deal with what you do wrong. We deal with where it came from. We give you the skills to do it different. Now, you have to receive that. And that's brand new for a lot of us. And it's frightening. I talk about miserable, comfortable, happy, uncomfortable. Let's talk about miserable, comfortable. What does that look like? It looks like the same old, same old. You could do it in your sleep. But you could do it in your sleep. You're
1:01:18 perfectly comfortable there. Chris, honey, when I came home and those flowers were dead, was back in my family and I didn't feel very cared about. How's that feel? Freaking scary. That's how that feels. It's a lot more comfortable to go after them. Adaptive children, you're safe. You're comfortable. You could do it in your sleep. Wise adult, new, courageous, scary. Good. Go there. With help, with support, 12-step group, women's group. But Support that will support your relationship not your individual power. What's so interesting is everybody wants
1:02:06 love and wants to feel loved and I'd never thought about it as a skill to allow yourself to be loved. Yeah, and it's hard. So when I'm working with a couple Partner A starts giving partner B what they want. Now we move into what I call transmission reception. Partner A is transmitting. How is partner B doing receiving? When your partner starts giving you what you want, do we fall in their arms and go, no, we're not. It's too little, too late. You did it, but I had to ask you. All these yes, buts. That's to protect ourselves from the
1:02:53 vulnerability of being loved. allowing our hearts to open, allowing the love in, that's scary. And the less love you had as a kid, the scarier it is to let yourself love and be loved as an adult. I have to tell you a story. Oh, tell me. About the nitpickers. Yeah, the nitpickers, please. I was doing a men's group and one guy floored everybody. This is a true story. He said, my wife walked in today told my admin, hold the phone, she had a picnic basket, laid out a picnic on the ground, champagne, a little smooching, packed up everything, and
1:03:39 left. All the other guys are like, oh my God, that's fantastic. He looks at us all, it's a true story. He goes, it almost makes up for the way she chews her potato chips. You want to fuss with your partner's imperfection, they will give you, it's like vision, endless opportunity to, no, be brave. Open your heart. Be vulnerable. If you're a one-down fixer, the vulnerability is standing up for yourself. That's what's scary. If you're a one-up fighter, the vulnerability is moving into the herd. Be a human. But either way, open your heart. take some risks.
1:04:28 Intimacy is what we're born for. And respect it. It's frightening. So is that story and the joke an example of how somebody blocks out the love and intimacy? Yeah. Yeah. I did work with the great feminist psychologist Carol Gilligan here. we would work together. And I called it Carol's invariant description. I'd be doing all this fancy, cool, and she said, sorry, Carol, she said the same damn thing every time. She'd look at a couple and she would go, you know, Bill and Julie, intimacy's really scary, isn't it? You guys were just close to each other, and then Bill, you brought up a fight from a week ago, and Julie, you took the, now you're back in your
1:05:16 corners, safe and miserable isn't it hard to just be in the naked vulnerability of loving each other and being close and every time of course it would be beautifully timed every time she would say they burst into tears and she was always right it's scary to be intimate it takes courage i'm 34 and i'm realizing i have no idea how to be in a healthy relationship I either give way too much, I over-function, people please twist myself into knots trying to keep everyone happy, or I do the opposite. I shut down, shut people out, convince myself I don't need anybody. I swing between the two. It's exhausting. It wasn't modeled healthy love growing up, and now that I'm older, I don't even
1:06:02 know what healthy is supposed to feel like. How do I start figuring that out? What does a healthy relationship look like, and how do I learn to trust myself enough to build one? Well, I brought up Carol Gilligan. Here's one of my great quotes from her. I love this. You cannot love from the one down. That's running around cleaning everybody's mess. You cannot love from the one up. Shut down. I don't care about anybody. Love demands democracy. So this person has to learn how to be in the biosphere. There's no relationship without voice. There's no voice without relationship. That's also Carol. Can you do this... yourself all day long like if work is pissing you off if work makes you
1:06:49 shut down if a friendship makes you get angry yeah although what's interesting is we tend to be more on our wise adults with everyone but our mates and sometimes our kids uh they just don't get at us in the same way uh but yeah you're adaptive child's all over the place but we do uh consulting to teams that aren't working? No, but I meant like if she's single and so she's not in a relationship. She is in a relationship. She has a relationship. She's got parents. She's got friends. She's got siblings. She's got a dog. We're all in relationships and it's the same skills and the same work. Got it. So... If the question is, I look at my track record and I
1:07:34 do not trust myself and I don't know how to do this and it wasn't modeled and you've already said, Terry, it hasn't been modeled for anybody and nobody teaches these skills. You can start applying absolutely everything. Now. Right now. Right now. Even if you're not in a romantic relationship. You're still in a relationship. Yeah, you're still in relationships. And so these are the tools that you can use for any relationship. This way of thinking, relationally, not individualistically, and these tools, telling the truth with love and non-harshness, but telling the truth, they're so different from the culture at large, and they're so potent, that doing them badly will
1:08:20 transform your life. And here's the great news, Mel. You can start doing them badly right now. Go ahead. Because it's such a disruption to the way we run around and pretend and lie and please and shove our feelings down and rage that simply trying to do these things badly, telling the truth, using I statements, not venting, not trying to be right. Your partner will be blown away. Well, you'll also be blown away. You should be. By yourself. It's a happier way to live. Well, I often joke, Terry, that, you know, people... say that second marriages are really amazing. And I say, that's especially true if it's with the same person. Wow. And I feel like the tremendous amount
1:09:07 of work that I've done on myself and that Chris and I have done together, it feels like a completely different relationship because I feel way more peaceful. Yeah. And I was, I know you will say that's probably not true because we're all out of control and we don't understand that adaptive child. and the behaviors that come out on automatic when you're emotionally flooded. But I felt so out of control with my anger, with my frustration, with my feelings of being alone, even though I'm married, that I thought it would always feel that way. Yeah. And it's shocking how quickly you can start to apply these skills feel more peaceful and in control and in
1:09:57 harmony with yourself first that's the joy yes and you also get a better relationship it's both what happens can you speak a little bit about that feeling of your inner relationship and yet you're really lonely i call that um alone together alone together yeah being alone together and it's because you're not telling the truth and you're not getting through You know, that cliche of the couple at the restaurant that's sitting there with nothing to say. Oh my God, you see so many. Yeah. Well, here's what I say. It isn't that they have nothing to say. It's they have too much to say and no way of saying it. That's why they're sitting there in silence. If the person listening is feeling like,
1:10:44 okay, I'm together alone. What am I going to do? I'm going to start telling the truth and blow this whole thing up? Well, isn't it better to just be together alone instead of blowing up my life? I mean, first of all, learn. Because I think that's the fear. Well, of course it's the fear. And if you go off like a seven-year-old adaptive child, what I call individual empowerment, I was weak, now I'm strong, go screw yourself, the person may blow up. So... getting through to somebody is an art. You have to learn how to do it. But even that is just maximizing your possibility. At the end of the day, it goes like this. First, learn some skills.
1:11:35 Do it well. Beating the person over the head probably has something to do with why they're not listening to you. Two, once you learn the skills and you do your best, if you're still not getting through get help, get couples therapy, and get a couples therapist who really helps, which many don't. Three, ready? If you're still not fully there, I have a tool. Should I stay or should I go? And I call this tool a relational reckoning, and it's a question. You ready? Yes. Am I getting enough here to make grieving what I'm not getting worth my while? Am I getting enough
1:12:25 to make grieving what I'm not getting okay with me?" You know what? Bill was a real playboy, a real lover, and he had partner after partner who swung from chandeliers. He's now married to a woman, one out of four, who has a sexual abuse history. She ain't swinging from chandeliers. She needs it slow and gentle. Does Bill miss the wild old days? Yes. That's okay. Is he going to trade her in for one of those crazy sex dolls? No. He loves her. I'm getting so much that letting go of what
1:13:13 I'm not getting is okay with me. And if that's your answer, stop bitten and embrace what's good if your answer is it's not okay with me first stop is therapy and second stop is you're done but don't keep living like a resentful victim it's bad for everybody i'm just letting that sit because it's easy to get yourself in a situation where you stay with the wrong person and you're right about how resentful you are and what a victim you are. Yeah, why are you staying with the wrong person? First of all, your first shot is turning them into the right person, which I
1:14:02 know goes against a little of what you've been saying, but you turn them into the right person by using your skills. Well, they don't even have an opportunity to be the right person if you haven't done the work. Of asking for that. Well, and also... bringing the wise adult yourself to the relationship and then seeing who shows up yeah when you're safe and when you're wise and when you are in the moment and calm and kind and asking for what you totally got it what do you mean what does that mean they're the wrong person and maybe if you change your behavior guess what happens on the other side of the seesaw maybe but why don't you give that a shot You know, everybody who sees me as what I call an essentialist. What's wrong with my marriage? Them. What's wrong with them?
1:14:51 Them. That's who they are. Yeah, it's a true story. Harry, whatever his name was, comes. No sex in my marriage. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. How long? Decades. Why? She's frigid, you know? She's just a cold person. Whole family cold. Good. I bring in Mrs. Harry. No sex. No, of course not. Of course not. Yeah, you wouldn't have sex with him. He's a premature ejaculator, has been for decades. If I try and talk to him about it, he just flies into a rage. He has no interest in my needs. And anytime I try and address it, it just gets, forget it. I bring in Harry. It's a true story. Harry, I've got great news for you. That sexless marriage you're in,
1:15:39 you have something to do with it. Once you stop blaming the other person and start to see that it's a system, if it is, you change your behavior and then see what happens. But first, change your behavior. So did they stay together? Yeah. They started having sex. She taught him how to be a better lover. And he was with, I mean, this is where I come in. Harry, it's in your interest. Come down off your high horse. Let her teach you. You want her in bed with you? Make it worth her a while. That goes back to it. Make it worth her a while. Really? Okay. I will. Good. Do it. That's what most therapists don't do. Do you think
1:16:28 any relationship can be repaired? No. And I'm not in the business of repairing every relationship. So what are some of the circumstances or lines in the sand for you that are important to say? In terms of non-starters, it goes without saying, but if you're physically in danger, if you're talking, I don't ask people to tell truth to power when they're going to get hurt if they do it. And there are unfortunately some reality to that. So we don't do couples therapy if there's a threat of domestic violence. If you're the victim of honest to God physical threat, get some help, get some safety. That's not couples work. That's your work to get safe and your kids safe. And
1:17:19 that is absolutely intolerable, period, end of story. Some are obvious. Somebody's got an addiction they don't wanna deal with, alcoholism, sex addiction.
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