S1E6: Let's talk about commitment issues

Welcome back to episode six of the Art of Dating podcast. Today we have two friends with us. We have Mason. And we have Hannah. Mason introduce yourself and then we'll have Hannah introduce yourself. Yeah, my name's Mason. I'm uh I graduated from BYU about a year ago this time. Uh I work full time at Utah Valley Ice Center for an ophthalmologist who focuses on glaucoma. Um I was planning on going to med school in the near future, but as of a few months ago it kinda changed my mind.

So cool. Here we are. And did you grow up here, um, in the Provo Orm area? Yeah, so I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. Cool, cool. Great, great. I did. I served a mission in Brazil. Cool. Which mission? Cuiaba. Cuiaba. I went to Fortaleza. This weekend my son was called to Terezina, which was part of my mission. So yeah. Part of speaking to Portuguese at home. Cool. Okay, and Hannah, introduce yourself.

Yeah, my name's Hannah. I like long walks on the beach. This is an e harmony. Farmersonly dot com. I don't know if we can say that on the podcast. Okay, keep going. Only looking for farmers. No, yeah, I'm a student at UVU, I'm graduating this semester. Getting there. Um I am studying anthropology and I'm hoping to be an archaeologist after I've been on a couple digs, so hopefully

Dang, that's super cool. And remind remind us where okay, so tell us where you're from. I'm from Syracuse, Utah. So it's like an hour. Not too far. Cool. That's exciting. And did you serve a mission? Yeah, I served in Wisconsin. Okay. Cool. That's super cool. Well thank you guys for being with us. We're super excited um to have you on the episode with us. All right. Ryan, what do you got for us today?

You know, so I've almost listened to a podcast because I listened to the first half of our laugh. So um I thought, man, I do a lot of introductory material and I'm gonna hopefully cut a little bit of that a little bit of that out today. But with that said, let me just do a little introductory material. Um you know, I was quite anxious last time to talk about uh the three ways that relationships often start, which were physical appearance, proximity, and similarities.

And, you know, just even re-listening to it thinking, you know, part of the secret there is just continuing to increase, right? Continuing to to grow, saying, Oh, there's always something I can do. in terms of I can get myself out there a little bit more, I can work on my dateability a little bit more. I can, you know, I can be on the search for someone a little bit more.

And I really, I really appreciate that idea. Today we're going to make a turn away from what makes us dateable and into let's talk about relationships. Let's talk about creating a relationship, choosing a relationship and then creating one. and figuring out if really, okay, this is a good relationship for me or this isn't maybe a marriage potential for me. And that's okay. Uh so y I love this from Elder Faust. Uh He said

And our relationship with our eternal companion should not be merely physical, but mental and spiritual as well. That really goes along with what we've been talking about so far, right? That we're we're trying to create this relationship between the two of us that that we're attracted to each other in many aspects, that we're attracted to each other not only physically, but we're also spiritually attracted to each other.

Or we find each other spiritually attractive, or that we're socially attractive to each other, that we're mentally and emotionally attractive to each other. And I like that President Faust follows that up by saying so it shouldn't just be a physical relationship, but it should also be a mental.

uh relationship between the two of you, where you ha you know you have a stimulating uh conversation, there's an intellectual basis for it. And also that there should be a spiritual basis to your relationship. President Kimball, who we've I think we've quoted him twice every one of these episodes so far, he you know, he had so much to say about marriage.

Uh let me just quote him. This is from the teachings of uh Spencer W. Kimball, nineteen eighty two, page two hundred forty eight. He says the love of which the Lord speaks is not only physical attraction, right? But not only, but it is part part of it. But also faith, confidence, understanding, and partnership. It is devotion and companionship, parenthood, common ideals and standards.

It is cleanliness of life and sacrifice and unselfishness. I'm a list maker. By the time I you know, at this point I'm like, I got so many things. I'll never find a spouse. You know, I'm like, do they have this and that and the other? But but I like that he's bringing all these out. He continues. For this kind of love never tires nor wanes, it lives on through sickness and sorrow, through prosperity and privation, through accomplishment and disappointment, through time and eternity.

That's a lot to absorb. When I listen to President Kimball, I often feel this way about his quotes. I listened to the quote initially. I think we talked about this one time already, right? Where I I shared a quote and I went, Oh, I could never share that in class because there's so much packed into one of his quotes. But I look at this and I go, Okay, there's fourteen things I've got to find in a spouse. Uh that already seems like quite a daunting.

After reviewing this quote, because I really wanted to use it because it maps out a very nice way to say, is this a relationship that I want to go uh you know, th that can go on through time and that can continue to get better.

I I came across Sternberg's Triangle, which you may or may not be familiar with. It's you know, it's it was really popular when I was going through uh some of my degrees. But for all of you in podcast land, I'm gonna kinda show it to you, right, in your brain, and then we'll we'll post it as well so that you can get on and see it. We'll have a link to it. So imagine a triangle.

And so I'm going to draw this on my paper for all of us here so that we go at about the right speed. In the bottom left corner, uh Sternberg says it's intimacy. And intimacy for Sternberg includes trust, caring, warmth, honesty, a deep level of understanding. On the right side, there's passion. And that's physical, sexual attraction for each other. On the top then he puts commitment.

So you've got these three things and he says for love to be really a a consummate love, you want to have all three of these. You've got to have a strong commitment, you've got to have strong intimacy, which is a caring, a trust. You've got to have strong passion. And and if you only have two of them, you can see how this gets a little mixed up. Well, I started looking at this and went, you know, for one, these aren't words we use, kind of you know, LDS young adults.

Don't often use these terms. If you say intimacy, it usually doesn't mean trust, caring, and warmth these days, right? These are some antiquated words, so I kind of went through and said, let's look at this again and say, what does this look like for young LDS, right? Young single adults that are members of the Church of Jesus Christ.

And I kind of had to re reframe this. So instead of calling it intimacy, I called it friendship development. So in the bottom left corner of your triangle, we're looking at friendship development. So that's learning about each other's character, their qualities, their desires, their possibilities. It's kind of checking to see how compatible you are in terms of personality. So bottom left corner, that's a friendship development and personality compatibility.

Move over to the bottom right corner of your triangle, and instead of passion, I put physical attraction, right? Or or kind of a sexual or physical attraction. So developing a physical chemistry, using physical affection to strengthen the relationship. So so there's those two on the bottom. And you can't see this, but uh everyone's nodding their heads and I'm moving my hands. We probably ought to somehow take a picture of this.

But but I I like to kind of spin my hand in a circle, kind of like uh Doctor Strange, right? For all of you Marvel all of you Marvel fans. I'm kind of creating yeah, or for you eighties Koran people or Cobra Kai fans, edited of course. Um you know, I'm spinning the little circle there

on one side and on the other side I'm spinning a little circle and I'll tell you why I'm doing that with my hands. And then at the top you have commitment. Now I'm gonna ask all three of us a question, all three of you a question. Uh which of these would you guess? is the deal breaker for most young LDS relationships. I uh would you say it's friendship development, like oh they just didn't you know, they didn't match up personality wise.

or they didn't match up in terms of physical attraction, or they didn't match up in terms of commitment, like, oh, they're just y you know, afraid of commitment or whatever. Uh what do you think? And I'm not it's not that there's a right or a wrong answer, but whatever you say I'll say it's wrong. So go ahead. That's good preparation. No, but I feel like before a relationship

Or like when you're first meeting the people, physical attractions might be number one. Where I don't I feel like every time I see, you know, my potential wife or my wife, I'm like, wow, that's my wife, you know like

Physicality isn't necessarily number one, but before you really get to know them, you're you wanna approach someone because they're cute. Oh or they're not gonna be able to do that. Well we kind of talked about that, yeah, in some of the last episodes. That that that could be one of the things. So So physical attraction, right, often often leads to relationships. Let me rephrase this. So what ends relationships?

Hmm. Oh, I feel like maybe the commitment where someone's not ready, one person's ready and then the other person isn't, and all of a sudden it's like, Yeah, I wanna get married and the person's like Well we're dating, you know, like I didn't even know it was So I think that the commitment is probably what I see as

Ending a lot of relationships. Interesting. Interesting. Hannah, do you have something to add to that? I was just having a conversation about this with someone today. I think in that realm, it's tough for people to be emotionally there, like you know, I think that a lot of people are kind of like wanting connection but like the actual committing to it is tougher, especially Yeah, yeah, and that that seems to be more prevalent today than ever before.

uh that we're we're starting to see young adults going I don't know that this is actually what I want, right? And that's really why kind of we had those first couple of episodes. Uh our first couple of episodes are why should I even get married? Right? Well what's the benefit of getting married? What does that have to do with not only God's plan of salvation, but my plan for my own life?

Yeah, please make I'm part of this too, but I know tons of people that have small, you know, one week, two week flings, but the second it becomes, you know, more committal One person's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't know if I can do this anymore. The fling was fun with no commitment, but once there's a commitment it becomes a little bit scarier and a little bit added into

Marriage. Yeah. There's the word. So so let's talk about why that happens. And and maybe I should throw this out. So I told Kayla I came in today for this recording and said, okay, I've finally listened to half of one of our podcasts. That's all I could do'cause I can't stand to listen to myself talk. But

I'm glad that uh that we have this idea because it's not just me talking into a microphone. You know, Kayla titles each of our episodes Let's Talk About. And that's why we wanted to invite people to come in with us today and say, oh, let's have a conversation about.

Maybe as we go on with today's conversation, you may see your mind change a little bit. And I'm gonna maybe give you a little paradigm shift as we think about bic as we think about commitment. Because I often think that we we hold commitment as something totally separate. Like, oh, I just don't want to commit. Um, I I love you, I want to marry you, I just don't want to commit. I find that's actually the case very seldom.

that someone is saying, You're everything I always wanted. I'm extremely attracted to you. I just don't want to commit Um so so let's let's back up and let's just take these one corner at a time and see if maybe we can drive that and then then I'll I'll share something that I just really learned from a student in the last six months, which was very insightful.

So let's go to friendship development. Now I'm spending my hand in kind of a circle thing here. And I like it. It looks like kind of a pinwheel because friendship development or personality compatibility in the left corner of this triangle it it really starts small. You just you know, you go, Oh, would I even want to go out with this person?

Right. You know, like you said, maybe you were attracted across the room. You go over and you talk to him for two minutes and you're like, Nope, that is not happening. Right? I can tell you right now, we don't have similar personality. So when you first saw them, your commitment was going up, right? And you're like, oh, I want to I I'm I'm committed at least enough to talk to them.

And then all of a sudden you have this friendship development, which means you you realize we don't have much in common. This is not and all of a sudden your commitment goes down. Right? So imagine on either side of this triangle you've got an arrow and it's either going up or down. So the more friendship development you have, the more you're compatible, the more you see this commitment go up. And so l let's say that you approach somebody and you start to talk to them and you go, Whoa.

They're very cool. Man, we are, you know, within 10 minutes, you're like, it's like I've known you my whole life, right? And you just see that, right? That arrow going towards commitment increases and increases. And then you start dating. And and now we're gonna we're gonna take that little circle and we're gonna kinda start to expand it like a target, right? That's that is continually expanding.

And as you continue to date, you see that thing expand. And follow the link here and you'll see it. We've I've made a little uh a little PowerPoint that you can follow on this. But you'll see it kind of expand. And the more you become friends with them, the stronger that desire is to become committed to them, right? That the more friendship you develop, the more you go, wow, I I want to be with you all the time.

Uh I'm knowing your character, your personality. I'm seeing how compatible we are, and my desire to be with you, to commit to you is increasing. So like you said, these flings, what happens is what I often see happen is someone goes, Wow, you're really fun. Wow, you know, w you're fun to be around, you're f and then as you're developing this friendship, you find something that you go, Oh

Yeah, we're not compatible. Right? Either uh intellectually we're not compatible. We're gonna go back to the Luke two fifty-two close. Either intellectually you're not compatible or spiritually you're not compatible. I have that happen all the time where someone will come in and say, Ah, I was dating this boy or I was dating this girl. And they we just weren't on the same spiritual level. They they didn't care about the gospel of Jesus Christ like I did. So what happens to that commitment level?

Goes away down. That arrow just comes starts coming down, right? So is it an issue of commitment or is it an issue really of c incompatibility in terms of your personnel. So it's not that you have commitment issues, it's I have an issue committing to you. Right. And I as terrible as that sounds I know this terrible as that sounds I have an issue committing to you because we're not very compatible.

And it could be, you know, you you like this thing and I like that thing and you want to spend your money this way and I want to spend it this way. It doesn't make one of you good or bad. But as you grow and you grow this friendship and it gets bigger and bigger, you know, we often call these deal breakers. Well, we as in your generation, my generation, we didn't have any deal breakers. We just got married, right? Um But but someone goes, oh, that's a deal breaker for me.

What that usually means is I was measuring my compatibility as we went on these dates, and there are some things about you and about me that aren't very compatible. And so now my commitment level has gone way down. That arrow on the left side of the triangle has gone way down. And often someone will go, Oh, they just had commitment issues. And I'm like, No, it it really isn't. It's an incompatibility. It's commitment with you issues.

Go, Kayla. Um this is just interesting. It's bringing up a just a thought of Like you can't you know how we talked about the target in a couple of previous episodes? Um and when that middle target, the non negotiables, when that's all the way off like you ca it would be really hard to cultivate a really good long lasting relationship and marriage off of two people where they're non negotiables are not met at all. And so I think you have a really good point. Rather than like pinpointing

If someone has commitment issues, it's more of no really we just don't work well together. We're not compatible. Yeah, we're not compatible. So I think differentiating the two can help people I don't know, it helps me. now going on dates or when I go on i in a future relationship, like, it helps me

Realize that it's not just commitment issues. Yeah, it's not and you go, So what am I dating for? Well, I'm dating so I can see how compatible we are. And so I need to go on dates that reveal compatibility. And we're gonna have a whole episode where we talk about this, uh where we talk about how do you date to reveal how compatible you are.

So we look at that and you go, okay, I'm really seeing this compatibility between us as going up. Let's assume that you're going out with somebody and that circle is spinning and it's getting bigger and bigger until it's filling that whole corner of that triangle. So you see that that circle expanding on that side of the triangle and you go, My commitment is going up the more I get to know you.

N now think back on relations that relationships you've been in. I don't you know you Mason, but I know these two girls and I know the people that you've dated, you're right, or that you've been interested in. And you go, yeah, the compatibility either expands and that circle expands and you realize, wow, they have a lot of these things I want and my

Right, my commitment's going up or it decreases and my commitment's going down. Mason. So I guess my cr question for you is I've seen relationships from like two months or like a month to two months that they decide to get married and those that they you know, for years And they still are working on uh are we right for eternity for each other. Yeah. So how do you know when you're ready?

To make the full commitment of getting married versus dating. Okay. That's good. And and we're gonna we are going to spend a lot of time in the future talking about that, you know, as we go down the road. But I don't want to put you off, so let's let's talk a little bit about that.

So let's say it's like a little circle, right? And I and I keep drawing this boy, I really wish we were doing this one visually. But you know, you start off there with this little pinpoint and you just you continue to go around the circle and it gets bigger and bigger, right? Um uh too soon maybe where you go it went from a pin pinpoint to one giant stripe and you were all the way at commitment. What's the problem with that?

you don't really know how compatible you are. Right. Right? And so when people have asked me that question, I've said So you tell me, will dating anymore reveal any more to you about your compatibility? Because people have been dating for two years, I go, you're not going to learn anything new about how compatible you two are.

You you're looking at maybe some other issue in this. And that's where I go. Uh okay. And we're gonna I told you I learned this from a student, but sometimes in that under that commitment at the top. I have drawn a line. I've just been doing this the last three or four times I've taught because of this student who came in and she's like I totally this kid is just right for me.

And I'm like, oh good. So your friendship so we were actually out on, you know, we were we were out walking in the hall and I said, so I stopped and I'm drawing this triangle on the on the wall. And I said, so so I drew this big circle on this triangle with my finger and I said, so he's just right for you compatible. Yes.

Well, do you have a desire to kiss him? I do. And I said, okay, so we went over to the physical traction. I drew this big circle for her. And I said, and so why aren't you like pursuing this? I'm scared to death of getting in a relationship. And I'm like, but he's this and this. And she and and see, if those those things were keeping her in it, but I knew there was something else. Because normally if you go, I want to be your friend forever. And I want to kiss you forever.

Right, I want to be physical with you forever. Nothing can stop you from getting committed to that person. Because you you start going, whoa, if if I don't get you, somebody else is going to snatch you up, right? And so that's when you go, oh, hey, let's get married. Because I want to have this friendship and this physicality forever with you.

So I have no commitment issues. And so as I continued to talk to this girl, I said, So tell me Is there something that maybe in your past that immediately she's like, Yes, when I was a child and and there was this whole experience. You know, I I didn't have her tell me all the details, but it was like I'm like, okay, yeah.

And and for her, it was this thing had happened to me, a traumatic experience, and it really had drawn a line between a line right under her the top of her triangle where the word commitment. And I said, so why don't you just why are you still even in this if you're so afraid of being in a relationship? She's like, because I were such good friends. And I'm so attracted to him. She wouldn't give it up and I was I thought this is exactly

You know, you could see her arrows on both sides of this triangle just trying to bust through that line. And that's what she did. You know, I'm like, Okay, you gotta text me everything that's happening, you know, in this in this relationship. You've gotta text me all this and and let me know and come back and visit with me and

And and she just continued to press through it, you know, and I I said, I think you ought to see maybe a therapist and talk through this because you you've got a line here because of some trauma. And so there is the there is, but I have found that actually to be the unusual, not the usual. There will be the person who says, I have commitment issues because of some trauma that happened in my life. So now I'm gonna go back to your question.

When you get to the point where you say, I'm probably not gonna learn more about you in terms of I know everything I need to know to get married. You know, and and I'm not gonna say the number of months, but but when you go, I know your likes and your dislikes and your hopes and your dreams.

And I know if they're compatible with my likes, my dislikes, my hopes and my dreams and my standards, then I know enough. And then you find I mean some things you find out after you're married, right, with each other. That was a great question. Thank you. Great answer. Well, I've been doing this right. I've practiced that answer a few times. So let's go over to the other side of the triangle. Let's look at physical attractions.

Um now we've all had this happen, right? I'm sure all four of us at this table. If my wife was here, she would say, Oh yes, this is this is'cause we have four daughters who are all marriage age, whatever that is. Um and uh that that have you ever been friends with somebody and you're like, wow, my desire to be around them all the time, right? Because we're such great friends

I'm just not physically attracted to them. So the friendship thing is rocketing. And you go, if you were only like, if I only wanted to kiss you. And and it and often it doesn't have anything to do with their looks. It's just I'm just not they could be the best looking person in the world. You know, like I just am not physically attracted to you. And you know what we call that?

We call it the friend zone. Yeah, that's exactly right. And we say this in episode five a little bit, which I listened to at the start of today. Um that that i if you have all this friendship going But you're not physically attracted, that makes a really great, right? That makes a really great friendship. But on the flip side, have you ever had a physical attraction going where you go, wow, you and I just, you know, there is chemistry, there's sparks between us.

But I realize we're not and Compatible. And you wish you were compatible with your

And often this triangle gets skewed, right? Where like your physical attraction is climbing towards commitment, but your friendship is declining towards breaking up. Or your friendship is climbing and your physical attraction is declining and you go, so how do you ever get married? There's a long pause. This is not a break in the episode, right? Here we're where Kayla's editing. You get married to somebody that you have both of those, right? Where you go

I'm physically attracted to you. I there's that passion between us. And I'm stealing this from Bruce Armakonke again, where he said it there should be that attraction that should exist, does exist, and you should have this compatibility. But y you see the attraction going up, the friendship going up. And then you go, I want to be your friend forever and I want to be right in love with you, your lover, right? Your physical attractive forever.

Let's get married. Yeah, Mason. Yeah, and I've I've been told that the key to a successful marriage is that both people think that they're marrying up. And I like that a lot where You're always on the incline on both sides with the friendship and with the physical attraction. You're like, Wow this person's good too good for me. Yeah, yes, and that's yes. Uh and I know men especially feel that way. Every man I know feels that way.

Um that that's so true that you feel like, wow, you you're all this wonderful package. And so it it generates that friendship development and that physical development generates a desire to be committed to that person. So so this is kind of reframing. the way that young adults look at this. And I'm telling you, when I teach this triangle thing, Kayla, you've been in class with me.

When I teach this triangle thing in class, it's like light bulbs for a ton of a ton of the choir members. I remember Okay, so yeah, speaking of that, I remember the first time I was listening to this, I had this kid that I was just kind of chatting with, kind of liked him a little bit. But like the more I got to know him as a As a person I was like, man, we get along really well and still to this day we're really good friends.

But like I just was not physic he's an attractive guy, but I just wasn't attracted to him. And so like when you said that I was like, No way, that's what that is. That's what that is, right? That's what's happening to me. And you've you've I'm sure you've had the opposite too. You go, You're so attractive

But there's just not there. And so it's not a commitment issue so much as it is I'm waiting to commit to somebody that is a good friend and I'm attracted to. I think it's tough sometimes too because In both instances, right? Like if there's someone who's attractive to you but like you don't vibe super well and then there's someone that you're maybe not attracted to but you vibe really well, like sometimes people just it's just not your person, right? You know, and it's tough.

to know that, you know, you do get along in some sense, but like they are Kind of meant for someone else. Or or somebody else is gonna be more compatible. But that's also right. That's also a tough one here though, I feel like A lot of people in our age group kind of assume going into dating relationships, they'll figure it out right away. You know? That they'll know exactly like if they're gonna marry that person or not from like the first date. And I think that's kind of a tough

Like precedent for everyone in that respect? Yeah, I remember I had a a good friend who's who's uh was a student, now he's you know, a bishop and he's he's actually listening to these podcasts. Um because he's you know he's working with his young single adult.

And I remember him coming to me and saying, you know, he was he was getting approaching thirty or so and he's like, I just I can't figure this out. And then he said to me, How many dates should I go on before I know if it's right or not right? And I'm like Seven times seventy. No. No. I did actually say I think you could even approach if you went, I'm really physically attracted to you, or they're just great things and I'm still trying to work through it.

I said you could maybe go on four or five or six, even maybe seven dates before you go, Okay, we're just not compatible or the attraction's just not turning on. And and and Angie would tell you if she was here, that's my wife's name's Angie Mason, you don't know her but She was here with us for an episode and and she would tell you, yeah, that there have been with her, she was engaged before she got engaged to me and and when I first met her, I knew she was beautiful.

But there wasn't that I'm a I'm immediately like, oh, we should be together. And I knew she was wonderful. It took going out a few times to go, oh now it's becoming personal. Do you know what I mean? It was easy to identify those things, but it took going out a few times for it to become personal. I went, Wow, for me she's compatible both physically and friendship wise. So That's yeah, and that's difficult. So what I normally do at this point in class.

I will have the commitment thing there, I'll have the friendship thing in the left corner. the physical attraction in the right corner and the the commitment at the top and then I'll say, Now I want everyone to sit there and think about previous relationships you either were in or weren't in or wish you were in. But what happened? Because you're you're you'll be in way more relationships that don't work out than you will be that do work out. Hopefully

The do workouts are just one. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Or if it uh they should only be just one'cause if they d if they aren't, then they didn't, right? So so you've got one do workouts, but most people in the class are like, Well, I've had one or two or three boyfriends or girlfriends, or that I wish had been. And it's funny because once we look at this, they go, Oh, I suddenly can understand my relationships. Like you said, Kayla, I can understand my relationship looking at these three aspects.

He was he had all my compatibility, but no physical, you know, there was no physical attraction between us. And you go, Oh, so that's what happened to that relationship or, Wow, we were really great physically But there were just things, the way we w we wanted to spend our money, his goals, my goals, her goals, they didn't match up. And you go, Oh, so uh you can now look at your relationships and kind of say

I can understand this a little bit better. And going into dating with this little triangle in mind, I have found is very helpful.

Please. Um, so this just brings in a thought because I feel like there's a sometimes a tendency to build the physical attractiveness, like to get

intimate with someone too soon when you haven't built a friendship and it ends a relationship really quickly. So I think it's important to build a friendship and keep in check the physical um the physicalness between a relationship because if that grows too soon, then all of a sudden you've like ruined what could have been potentially the most incredible thing ever, but you were too

quick when you needed to build friendship still. Okay, so I had that that is so well said. I have had so many students describe that exact thing where they've said It was physical relationship destroyed our relationship. And I go, Oh, you weren't physically physically attracted. And they go, No, I was too attracted. And we were making out right away.

And all of a sudden, you know, that was like the next thing you do, you know, is you have to be married to do it, right? And so our, you know, imagine that arrow of a physical attractiveness is already at the top and you go, but we're not even friends. I don't even know you and we're making out. Right? And all of a sudden you go, we gotta remake up because

Uh my commitment on the physical attraction is all the way at the top and I have no friendship with you. And so do we either get married or what do we do? This is odd. And I think this is where members of Christ Church who are really willing to live their covenants of staying chaste, I think this is where they have an advantage. Because we don't believe in sex before marriage.

Right. And we don't believe in in even approaching too much that line. You know, we believe in some kissing and things, but you know, we don't believe in you know in touching the sacred body parts of the person you're dating. And you go, so we have to have some restraint.

And that gives us time to develop that physical or that that friendship. I had a student it's funny because we're we're recording here on campus. I had a student in that class that I talked about where I taught this uh on campus. And we were talking about this and and I don't know uh what her religion was or what her morals were, but she said, Oh I have an example of this. And she said, so I was engaged to this guy, and we were our passion was was red hot. We were so compatible physically.

And she said, and then he got called up to Iraq. He was in the in the garden, got called up to Iraq and went away for nine months. And she said, I wondered what that would do to our relationship. We're not going to be together. You know, we were we were physically together all the time and you know, and and our th our there was a a sexual side to our experience and And all of a sudden he was gone for nine months and she said, I couldn't touch him. He couldn't touch me. But we could talk.

And so he Skyped me every night, and we talked and we talked and she said those nine months we became the best friends. And we became when he came home, we were now best friends and lovers and ready for a real marriage. And she said, uh nothing could have been better for us than to get us out of our physical relationship for him not to be able to touch us.

And for us just to have to talk. And I think that's where young adults who want to live right, their covenants go, This is beneficial to me because we can do some things, we can hold hands, we can hug, we can do some, you know, some kissing. But we're gonna we're gonna grow that side slowly. You won't you know if you're physically attracted. You don't have to right? You don't have to have sexual relationships to know that.

We can grow that slowly while we're letting uh this whole side of the friendship develop. Right. So it's just interesting'cause like on one side if you have there's no physical attraction whatsoever, but you have this like really good friendship, that's called the friend zone. But then you have the o opposite side where it

you don't really have a r refr like a friendship, but like the passion. Like a lot of people refer that to like Nickmos if that's like um because like you you kiss somebody but then you're out because you don't really wanna

Take time to build a friendship because you've already kind of jumped ahead of Yeah. You've kind of ruined it. Actually. You've ruined your chance of really developing a friendship because you went too fast on the on the physical side. That's a really that's a really great point.

So what we're talking about then is committing to a person based on your friendship development. Right? Not like commitment is some totally different thing. You're committing to a person based on your friendship development. Like your character, your attributes, similarities, goals, standards, and your physical attraction. So I want to commit to that person because I have these two things.

where we're very compatible physically and every other aspect of us is also compatible. Then you continue to fortify that commitment by developing those relationships, right? The more you become friends, the more you get committed.

The more, right? The more you can develop your physical relationship over time, the more you get committed. The worst thing we ask, you you hear this all the time in the news. Like someone will say, Oh, you were married for 50 years. And they always say, how did you do it? You you can see f just from our little conversation, that's absolutely wrong. If that friendship is that spinning circle and it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

then the larger your friendship gets, the less likely you are to ever break it off. Fifty year marriages should be a piece of cake, right? The the hardest the easiest time to break it off is on day one and every day you're together It's harder to break it off because you've grown that physical or that that friendship relationship. Yeah. Yeah, recently on social media I saw a quote that said the first day of your marriage should be the worst day of your marriage. Which at first is like what?

Is that yours? That brother A guy That might have been us because it probably was Yeah I'm infamous for saying that. There are a lot of women at Education Week that hated me when I said that. I'm saying th the the first day of your marriage should be the worst because it should just get better. Yeah. Every day after that, right? Because you go the easiest time to break it up is just when that that circle is so small.

And you say we don't have much. Uh so so here's here's a great fifty-year marriage here by David B. Haight. Well, he's more than fifty years actually. He said, after we have been married seventy years, so you know, he was one of our oldest apostles. He said this in general conference in October 2000. I can say to all of you that it gets better. So he doesn't say, Oh, I don't know if we can make it through year seventy one.

Right, he's saying even our physical the way we feel about each other physically has grown over time and it's deepened and our friendship has grown over time and and it's reached the top of our triangle. There's no way you could get us to uncommit from each other. Uh it gets better that it gets better year after year with the pre uh preciousness and the tenderness and the realization of some of the eternal blessings that lie ahead of us.

And so to all of you I would say, and Ruby would join me with me if she could be standing here, that life can be wonderful and so meaningful, but we have to live it in a simple way.

That's awesome, right? That you go, let's just keep developing this friendship. So what happens when a 30-year marriage dissolves? Why did that why would a 30-if what I've just said is true, why would a 30-year marriage dissolve? What are your thoughts? I think it probably is because they're not developing and continuing.

Like I I think maybe a a per s you know, you get married, you have kids and you're so consumed in taking care of your kids and getting to work and all of a sudden they're out of the house and thirty years later you're like We have nothing in common. And the friendship has stopped developing and the physical intimacy has

is not there and so you're back at kind of where you were when you first met each other. Oh wow. And I love how you just described that. You're back to where you were when you first met and all of a sudden it's easy to break it off.

So if you haven't developed that friendship over 70 years, like the hates, and you haven't developed that physical relationship over 70 years, right, if you let the physical relationship go or the friendship go, what happens to those arrows on the sides of the triangle?

They decrease. Your commitment starts coming down. Even after thirty years, you can become less and less committed. Right? When you go, Well, we've been together thirty years, but I'm ready to break it off. Why? Because there's no friendship and there's no passion.

But if you develop those year after year, and we're gonna boy we're we're gonna talk about this towards right episode twenty five somewhere down the road, you're developing those year after year, wild horses couldn't drag you away from each other.

Yeah, making yeah, I was gonna say this is like a little personal, just my parents are divorced and I'm one out of six kids, so I feel like for them the the physical attraction was there. But from like what I've been told and what I've learned, it's like that friendship level just

So slowly dissolved until one day it just where did it go? Yeah, and all th and and that level of commitment and th and then you're willing to say, Let's get divorced. Right. Because why would we want to be if we're not friends And we're not attracted to each other, why are we still living together? Right? And and commitment sometimes will hold you on, right? Well like we've got covenants to each other.

That'll hold you on for a long time, but it's hard, right? It's hard to just hold on and say, I don't like you, but I'll stay married to you. That's you know, who who wants to be in that? And so I love this idea. I was in a and and maybe we ought to wrap this one up a little bit, but I was in a in a meeting with a bunch of older men. And this one guy told told the story. I immediately took out my laptop and started typing it down. He said, You know, when I was first married,

I was in a like that we were they were having this big party and they wanted someone that was first married and someone like, you know, twenty years and someone fifty years. We were all going to go out in a room and then they were going to ask us things about our wives.

And we were going to then, you know, it was like it was like the dating game or uh the newlywed game, I think they called it. And he said they were gonna ask us things and one of the things they said to me was Tell us the one thing you don't like, the thing you most don't like about your wife.

And he said, My answer was, Why would I say that? After all, I chose her. Why would there be something I don't like? I chose her and th you know, that stuck with me. That whole idea of saying Uh you can continue to grow that marriage because you chose that person. Th there was something you loved about them.

And you you go to those roots and you say, what was it that made me choose you? And let's work on that. Let's grow that. But you really do have to spend time every day, every week, every month, every year, growing your friendship. and growing your physical relationship. Which means you never stop bidding.

Yeah, and and and meaningful dates, right? Meaningful dates. And that you're physically intimate with each other. That you you may have to have schedule time. And we'll talk more about this, you know, we're gonna do a couple of episodes about once you're married. Um, but you have to even schedule meaningful time to be physically intimate because trust me when you got a bunch of kids running around the house that you know, and everyone's tired at the end of the day.

That's really difficult to say, oh man, you know, we we still want to be have that physical spark for each other. And so sometimes it takes going away for a weekend and getting a babysitter and making that a big priority in your life to to build the friendship, build the physical relationship. Yeah. So you're just continually choosing that person, you know, even if you are in a relationship with them, you're still

Yeah. Yeah, you're choosing them every day. I love that. That's it. That's a great thought. Well I hope this has been helpful. And I hope that anyone who's out there listening is saying to themselves, I now have a way to to kind of measure my relationships and look back at your past relationships, friends, and say Hey, why didn't that work?

And it's absolutely okay that it didn't. I I maybe I should stress that here for a second. It's absolutely okay. I I think of the people that I the girls that I dated before I found Angie. And I go with Hey, these were great girls. And they're all going to heaven and I know I know a bunch of them still. I've taught some of their kids, you know, and and I know their husbands and and I've I've my wife and I've been out to lunch with a girl I went out to with and her husband and

And I go, these are great people, but we realized that we weren't compatible in terms of dating. Yeah, we're not a we're not a dating relationship. We're a friendship. Or even if we're attracted, you know, we're just not a friendship. We're there's a little attraction there, but we are too. We are way uh you know, we're worlds apart. So so that doesn't make one good or one bad. That doesn't mean one's like, you're not good because we're not compatible.

You're just two different people and you're looking for someone that you can be the most compatible with. I think just a good way to wrap that up in short is just by saying like it's not always that you don't d like deserve one another, it's that you like Or one deserves better and one deserves worse. It's just that you deserve differently. Yeah. The a and I love that compatibility. And I'm stealing that word from from uh President Monson. October two thousand eleven priesthood session.

Uh and we're gonna really hit on this in the next couple of episodes, but he says, find someone with whom you can be compatible.

Right? Find someone. That's your job to go out and say, Hey, do we are we compatible on these friendship levels? Well let's spend some time here in the future then, Kayla, and and with our guests and saying, so what does that even look like? What is being compatible as a friend really look like? And what does it look like physically? What does compatibility look like in terms of physicality?

And and what do we do if what do you do if you find yourself really with commitment issues that you go, uh you know, I'm like this friend of mine that that says, I do we are great friends, we are compatible and I do want to be physical with them. But I I you know, I have some issue in my past that's keeping me.

Uh, you know, and one great way is to find a competent therapist that you trust or a parent or you know, uh ecclesiastical leader that can help walk you through some of that and help you break through that wall so that you can have a meaningful marital relationship. Thanks you guys for joining us. Great uh great comments. That that was fun. I like this idea of let's talk about, right? Where you can say, hey, I'm gonna jump in and and talk about this.

Thanks everyone. Kayla, did you want to add anything? Um listen with us next week, next Tuesday. Um, same time, same place. And if you have any questions, or comments or stories, please reach out to us by email at the Artofdating podcast at gmail.com. So let's repeat that one more time. This is like on a telephone here. The Art of Dating podcast.

at gmail dot com. Is that right? So yeah, if you want some if you want us to talk about something specific, feel free to send us an email. But uh feel free to send us an email and we'll uh we'll make sure we incorporate that into the podcast. Well