This is Pod Popular Podcast for the People, The Great Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate.
The Great Love Debate.
It's a great Love to bab Hi again.
Everyone, It's Brian how We welcome to the Great Love Debate, the world's number one dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I am back here in the very fine studios of Pod Popular Podcasts for the People. I am the one in Palm Beach Gardens, which is very lovely. I don't come to this one a month enough, but tis the season here and it's it's it's game on in Palm Beach Gardens. At the beginning of the show, every time I do the show, I say the words dating and relationship.
In some ways dating should rely to relationship. They do have their own sort of universes that they exist in. So one of the things that we hear, especially at our live shows, is that dating has gotten more difficult. And you could make that argument in some ways, there's some things that have made it difficult.
In a lot of ways, dating is easier, and.
A lot of ways dating is how it always was. Guy girl sniffing around each other, have a drink and hope to make out in the parking lot like. It really hasn't evolved a lot from that. The mechanism and how we get there was ever. Relationships, though, I believe, have gotten more difficult, and there's a lot of reasons for that, And because I am only semi competent at laying out those reasons, I brought in a couple of
pros here today. You're going to help us a little bit with the dating side, but a lot of the relationship side, what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, And a big part of this is about why things have changed to make relationships difficult. They are the hosts of the Slightly Saying podcast. I think they're mostly sane, and so the part that is not quite saying is the entertaining part. Here. They brought their own pillows to sit in the chair. It's very luxurious.
Doctor Christy and doctor Laura. How are you two doctors in the house.
Hello, Brian, how are you?
Good morning, Brian. It's so good to be here.
I've made this point before on this show, and I've heard you make this point before that this idea of trying to fall fall in love with somebody and make them your soulmate and spend fifty years happily ever after together is in the in the you know, sort of concept of time, like a blink of an eye. In terms of time, we're maybe two hundred, three hundred years into that.
Life expectancy used to.
Be, you know, thirty, you'd you'd meet, you'd farm, you'd breed, you'd die, and that was it. And then it I think it evolved into families. Swapping a guy or a girl for each other might have been a trade.
We'll call it matchmaking in a way, but a little bit it was like a a it was a legal thing.
And then somewhere on the line despite if you want to go back to you know, Anthony Klaypatrick and Romeo and Juliet and all those if you if you want to come into to now only in you know, the wedding vows were only written through or four hundred years ago. This idea of like we're going to meet, we're gonna fall in love, we're gonna and the world has changed tremendously.
Life expectancy has changed. You're around with your kids a lot longer, financial responsibilities In the last twenty years, obviously, gender roles have shifted and all of that leads to communication breakdown, confidence breakdown, but sometimes in a breakdown of a relationship that might not have happened in sixteen twenty two that reasonable setup.
Definitely, definitely yep.
So why do you Let's let's start with the premise.
The premise is, I think relationships are more difficult because life is more complicated than it used to be. You kind of knew what you had to do as the guy. You knew what you had to do as the girl. You're together for certain reasons, not that long, and it worked out very Rarely were two people together for sixty years, happy and monogamously.
And now you involve all of the things.
Even if we want to get into the last ten years, where you're talking about women working more outside of the house and then you have to deal with childcare and you have to do that, there's pressure and exhaustion and financial responsibilities and a lot of things that lead to fights, anger, resentment, lack of communication, all those things that I don't think bode well to making things last.
So I think, well, I know this is your job.
People coming to this all the time, and are you just like that's just the way it is, or're living in twenty twenty four and you don't like it, go back to the fifteen hundreds.
I don't know.
Oh, I think that's a complicated.
Well.
First, first of all, I can say full disclosure, I'm dating Christy is not.
Yes, I'm married. Yes.
So there's the first hand knowledge and then there's the intellectual book knowledge. I think the intellectual book knowledge says one thing. But being out there in the dating world, I will say it's a shit show. It is. It is, absolutely, it has changed, not necessarily for the better.
Is you were you were married, that was so you were out there in your when was your single time. I'm not gonna say how old you are now, but in your twenties were dating?
I was dating?
Yeah, I was dating in my twenties.
And now you're back out there post divorce. What is changed to you?
First of all, expectations have changed, apps have changed, there's have changed everything. There is more confusion about who does what, yes, for sure, yes, who initiates the first contact, who does the calling? Listen and snapchat and all of those things have made it so much more complicated. We read into everything he left me undelivered, he doesn't like me.
Well, maybe he's busy. We didn't used to have to. We didn't know even twenty years ago. That wasn't a thing that led.
To my score like a snap score. Well, listen, he didn't answer me, but his snapscore is going up, which means he's snapping somebody else besides me.
What the hell is a snap staying exactly stay married?
Yeah? Yeah, but that he left me on.
These were adding technology into this, adding an angst and worry over this.
I agree with you on that the who does what? And whatever?
I talk about this to death since the very first time we started this show. Is that the blurring of the traditional gender roles. Oh, is a wonderful thing in every aspect of society except for dating, because it has left two or three generations of people having to change the way they went about everything right in the middle of the ocean.
You know, I think it's got a better.
Chance to work if it's if it's still the way most people over thirty started doing this. He asked her out, he pays, he picks you up.
I can't pick you up anymore.
You might be a serial killer.
We were serial killers in the nineties, and you let us pick us up.
Yeah, we just you didn't watch as much, like we couldn't google it and.
You didn't watch Date Live. Right, But you bring that up. You know more now about anybody you go out with, if you do your homework, than you ever did thirty years ago.
So maybe I'm unsafe I don't google people.
Well maybe, but thirty years ago he had a pen and a napkin at two o'clock in the morning, you took your number and you're like, you have to pick me up.
You have to pick me up. It was like required. Now you're like, I don't.
Want him to see where I live. Well, if he's a psycho, he's gonna find out where you live. And if he's a psycho, he's probably gonna hide it for five dates or thirty days or whatever. It's fear based dating, which I talked about a lot of my last podcast and got a ton of feedback on that. But it's about communication, commerce breakdown and you take these things into the relationships. Once you get into the relationships, I think then it's like.
Who does this? Who does that?
Yes?
How do you split the ink? You know, two working people, we're gonna buy? How does this work? You know?
I wonder very successful people who are very wealthy and they get together, like like Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, how do they handle like just buying a piece of property, went to buy a house?
Like I got this one? Like how does that conversation even go?
Are they both donating into a third party trust which they probably are a bunch of lawyers and stuff. That's not the most romantic way to do things either.
Neither is a prenup. But all the time no.
But I think what you're talking about is we do well with My personal opinion is we do well with clean lines, meaning this is you, this is that, this is your role as housewife. I'm not trying to say clearly, I don't. I mean I was trained to be a professional and not be a house wife or a house mom. But I agree with you. It confused. It was the start of the confusion of Okay, if you work, and you work, who's now responsible for picking up the kids? Who takes the trash out? Do you pay for this?
Do you pay for the mortgage? Do you pay for the car?
And because say what you want And I'm not a dad, so I'm just guessing at this. It's always going to be way harder on the mom. It is, yes, the mom has a shoulders a big part of the logistical and emotional burden of the children they is. And sometimes then that negatively affects the wildly insecure husband man because he's not getting the attention that he needs from her, because she's just exhausted from chasing around four year old
all day long. And that is something that you're not prepared for because back when you were just dating, it was mostly about fun because the stakes were lower.
We laughed, and we went on this trip and we got.
Drunk, and we had looked at our look at our matching Halloween costumes and whatever. And then you morph into this different phase of life which really has nothing to do with what got you together in the first place.
I was just having this conversation with a couple yesterday. I think the danger to any relationship is complacency. You gotta if you started off as friends, right, you should be treating each other as friends throughout the course of the relationship. So it shouldn't be your job as garbage. My job is garbage. If you walk past the garbage, take the freaking garbage out. Just take it out.
But again, the expectations. The expectations are confusing to people, especially if you were raised in a household that was traditional and now your own household is not necessarily quote unquote traditional. You're really confused.
My mother was not allowed to work, and I think she and that too. I think she's like, I could have had a second act in life. My father was like, no, this is your role very traditional. I saw, you know the prose of that. As a son, you had your mother around, do whatever you wanted. But there's also part of her wasn't living her full life. And you get together at twenty thirty forty, And I've said this a million times, like I didn't know who I.
Was at thirty.
I'm supposed to know who you are, and I was supposed.
To commit that you're going to grow along with me.
I was at this event last night and this woman, she was in her fifties, and she was complaining about dating, and she's like, you need to accept me.
As I am. I'm like, why are you as you? Are? You just finished? Are you? Like locked? Nothing is going to change about you.
I'm sorry. That's bs when someone say when.
Somebody says that that's your excuse, they didn't appreciate me for who I am.
They wouldn't take me as I am.
You should every date encounter, neew relationship should change you, hopefully positively, that you're taking something forward and you're not so set in your ways because all you know is what did not work out.
This is like the angry female that is and the angry male, which is destroying dating. I have to just say it is destroying dating because you have people who are coming in with that attitude which I'm rigid. Take me as I am.
This is it.
You don't like me, screw off. Sorry, you're not getting any dates.
You're just not the Yeah, I agree, and this whole you know, the men are not perfect by handy means. Neither are the women, I agree, But there are I think more men out there trying to do the work, trying to be curious, trying to ask the questions, trying.
To learn her than ever before.
Out.
No, well, look, I think because our roles have changed a lot, the room for growth is more on that side. So yeah, there's a little bit more effort being seen.
You see couples, right.
Yeah, she does. I'm the individual side are men.
So you've been doing this you know, it's that's why the boyfriend girls and they come in. Are the men more amenable to coming in or they all seem like they're kicking and screaming like fifteen years ago, Like are they making the appointments?
Like no, you tell me no, No, I've done that. I'm an involved man. I've made an appointment.
Yeah, we've already said several things that show that you're evolved. I mean, even the fact that you recognize that children can put a big burden on.
Right, But I didn't always And it's hard, especially people now they get divorced and they try and date again, and you've got two sets of bull's eyes with two sets of families and two sets of ex's and all that. That is a lot more complicated now. But I think you know, the rise of the independent woman is complicated because if you want to be empowered and take ownership of that, you cannot blame the men for every single thing.
Not to date this podcast too much.
I always want to not bring any news, but everything's got to be evergreen. So as we record this, it's the day after the twenty twenty four Oscar nominations came out. Okay, Barbie which I did a whole episode about about how I loved Barbie's Grave.
It was very empowered.
Whatever got by any reasonable standard, lauded by the Academy. It got eight nominations. And all I see is that Ryan Gosling got nominated and Margot Robbie did not, and Greta Gerwig just not did not. First of all, Greta Gurry got three nominations, you just didn't get nominated in Director Director. Yeah, and Margot Robbie got nominated as producer for Best Picture. If I said to Margot Robbie, what do you want to be the business woman who put this billion dollar movie together?
Or you want to.
Acting nomination, which you've already got before. And Greta Gerwig also already gotten a nomination before as a director, she got for Lady Bird, like five years ago. You can't tell me that it was. It's suddenly more sexist now than two tenty seventeen. It's like, didn't we learn anything from Barbie? And so this ramps up a dialogue that is unnecessary. You know, it's unnecessary. There's a million real examples of the patriarchy and how women are at trade Fairwebber.
This is not one of them, but because it's low hanging fruit and it's pop culture, and it seems very aplus B equal C.
This dialogue is all over the internet.
Well, I think also you bring in the fact that media sometimes we can be sheeps. So we see something out that gets posted out there, and they're a business, let's post it out there because they're trying to get our attention.
Easy and they do.
And I noticed, yeah, and.
We buy into that, and we buy into that very easily. And I think that's also some of where it comes from, is the misunderstanding of we see it. You know again, I'm on the individual therapy side, she's on the family
and couple side of it. What's happening in reality is not what you're seeing in the media, And because people have constant access to whatever form of media they want, there's information that's being fed about dating and relationships and marriage that might not necessarily be true of what's happening in reality.
That's right, all right.
I want to dive deeper into the therapy side of this and the questions that the people are asking. I take a quick break, because we have to pay for things like therapy around here with.
Doctor Christy and doctor Laura.
They are from Slight saying they're a little more than that. But we will be back right after this, and I know you're gonna hate this question.
We are back.
What's the number one thing you deal with? Most of the women mostly men fifty to fifty both. If it's about a relationship thing, the number one issue.
Is what expectations and resentment, also lack of spontaneity. And I don't think it's necessarily their fault. I think it's about the fact that, like you're saying, we have more responsibilities, we're scheduled more, and it takes the fun out of stuff. We mentioned it in one of our shows, where you can't just throw the kids somewhere quickly and say, okay, let's go, let's book a flight, will be gone for a week. You could do that. You could stay up late and drink if you're allowed to do you know,
if that's okay. Now it's all gosh, I don't know. Maybe I should stop because I got to be up. The kids are going to be up at six. I don't want to feel that way. And it really does just put so much pressure on.
It kills the spark.
Yeah, fitting it in okay, so we can be spontaneous Saturday from a to that's not fun. No, So that's what I see on the individual side.
Really, he can't do this, and yeah, life kills the spark. Spark kills. No spark kills the spontaneity. And then spontaneity is about excitement. And if the excitement is out of your relationship and it becomes routine, that's when I think you have to fall back on more conversations that are sometimes difficult. But you know, I heard you say on one of your podcasts that you should over communicate, ask one too many questions versus one too few. Explain that.
Well, what I'm seeing with couples who have been together for a long time, especially is they make too many assumptions. They think they know the person, they think they know what the reaction is going to be.
What.
But but really, if you've been with someone for twenty years, you guys have grown right, Yeah, hopefully right, And so you can't make an assumption about Oh, I see that expression on his face means whatever, I don't know. Maybe he's thinking about something about work. Why don't you ask him like ask instead of making an assumption that you then text him something nasty and now we're often running.
And you're right, But the challenge is asking in a way that isn't accusatory or does not make him feel accused us.
And never use the word why. That is my rule. Never use the word why.
What's the Oh that's good on the king of why? What is this substitute?
If I'm how, I'm curious about how come I'm wondering? I notice like why a trigger word for couples. Why is a trigger word for everybody. If I set to you, Brian, why'd you do that? It almost sounds like it's mom getting ready to scold.
I do that as a boss.
I do that all the time. I don't want to know what happened. I want to know why it happened. People don't react well to why. I've tried to eliminate it, but that's everything. But if you do it in a couple that it's a cue story because a lot of times people don't speak up at all until it's too serious. If you're constantly trying to learn your partner and I drive my partner's crazy by you know, what was your favorite subject in school in fourth grade? And they're like,
what do you care? And I'm like, I just feel I love that I do. I want to know where you were in different aspects of life. I want to how you change. I want to like, I don't think you ever stopped learning your partner. Some people just feel either that's a part of me that I don't think about, it is gone, or it's too intrusive and I don't really understand that.
I love that you said that because I just had someone bring that up. They're involved in a relationship with a person's like, let's just live in the present. I don't want to know anything about you. It may taint my opinion of you. And I'm thinking, really like that is like big red flag, Like I want to know everything about a person, know how you've grown, know where you're at now, Like how can you close off a whole wall of getting to know someone that shuts down your intimacy right there?
Yeah, I really am Like can we go see your high school or your hometown or where you grow up?
I'm just curious. I think a lot of it now. If you have some dark memories, it's bad.
That's He's pretty conversation, Like I would rather not but if their response is more like, why what do you care? And I'm like, because I it helps me understand everything about you and sometimes you know, a lot of big part of us is are locked in seven year old Brian or whatever, and be able to comprehend that a little might let me understand you more.
Yeah. And I also think too, we've become way more sensitive to things. We get offense, you know, offended by things too easily. Over correction, Yeah, yes, thank you. It went from here to there. I hope it goes to the middle sometime soon, because that's also where the like you brought up, the over communication, that's where I find people are hesitant to communicate because they don't want to
say anything that's going to piss off the partner. And I said it before, especially if you care about the relationship.
So you just are like, well, and I always say, like, be happy that they asked the question. Because they ask the question, they still care. If they don't ask the questions anymore, why did you do this?
Whatever?
Like they're checked out and they're gone, and then you're in no man's land. So if they're constantly asking questions again, not in an accusatory fashion, not like where were you last night? Who were you with? Like stuff like that. But if they're always trying to learn you your behavior, the relationship, what can I do? You know, how can I make your day better? That's that's something that I'd never said in my life to Like five years ago, I heard somebody say it one of our live shows,
like like, oh, that's good. That is what can I do to improve your What can I do for you?
Right now? I'm like, that's top notch. I need to use that.
You know, you don't think it, And most of the time you're gonna get nothing like I'm good, nothing but the act of asking and trying because a lot of times, and you guys know that once it gets to the point where they got to call you and I know you can, you're not gonna want This is not good for business, it's too late. But there's a lot of times when you got to call earlier, you a call before you hate them.
And it's not even hate, because with hate there's still passion. Agree with apathy.
Apathy?
Oh yeah, apathy. If someone doesn't even care, if they've totally checked out, that's how you know it's over.
Can you tell it's over before they can tell it's over, You're not. That's not your job.
No, I can tell it's over. I can tell it's over.
But then they won't come back if you say it.
But sometimes I've said to them, look, guys, I think it's over. Like you're both communicating that you don't even love each other. It's over.
Yeah, And that's one of the things. If there is a genuine fundamental foundation of love, I've seen people through the years go through some shit and evolve and come out stronger because they do genuinely love that person.
And a question that probably comes up with you, guys, is well, I don't understand how they could do or say that if they love me and they say they love me, and those aren't necessarily related things, right, not.
Equivalent, No, not at all. And I always say the opposite of love is hurt, you know, if you love someone that much. Unfortunately we do, like it or not, we hurt the people that are closest to us. We hurt our loved ones they see us raw, whether.
That's that vulnerability stuff which I.
Hate that you know me like, I'm no, you know, But that's the part where it's so hard for people to if you really really love that person to be vulnerable to them hurting you and they don't even meet. We're all human beings, we've been through shit. We're not perfect. We're not perfect, and so it's just a part of the process and you have to really forgive one another and work through it because it's just it's just a there. In my opinion, there's not going to be a relationship
at least from what I've seen, where it's easy. Sometimes people say, if the relationship is easy, that's the one that's meant to be. I don't believe that. I don't know what your opinion is on it. It's that easy. You're not communicating, and that's what I'm saying. So you're going to go through some shit and you're going to hurt each other, right.
And sometimes you know, I've been guilty of this too. We look to, you know, earlier generations and say like, oh, you guys been married eighty five years, what's the secret.
And why are you so happy?
It was a different time and maybe if they met now, she would be more career oriented. Social media might have anything could happen, and however they did things in nineteen fifty eight.
Might not be relevant sixty five years later, you know.
But eighty five years or however long they're marriage doesn't mean it's eighty five happy years. Some people are united in their misery, that true.
Or they know how to navigate, or they know how to put a face on for the world. I saw a couple He's dead. I'll say it one time. I'll say now, Regisphilbin and his wife. They were sitting at a brunch and they're sitting at the same side of the table, and they're each reading a newspaper. And I was trying to figure out, do they hate each other
so they're both married in their paper. Are they're married to their newspaper and not communicating, or are they so comfortable with each other that this was.
Their sharing time doing the same thing, you know. And I was like, I couldn't ask them.
And I was like, that's such a fascinating could go either way depending on how I was feeling to interpret that. My first instinct was bad, and then it was good, and then I'm like, huh, this is complicated.
And so that's what I'm saying.
We look at other people and other couples and other situations and you really have no idea versus what's going on beyond the snapshot.
And that's what I would say too. I think we have to throw away other people's expectations of how our relationships should be. Friends are great when you're growing through stuff in your relationship, but at the end of the day, they're not the one living in your house and away they're typically going to have your back. You have to decide for yourself you're willing to deal with because you love that person and what you're not. I don't even
think we can tell that that person. Once they give us that those parameters, we can say, well, here's what I recommend to be effective in that. Because we're seeing on also media the way other people are living their lives, we think that something is wrong with our relationship. I've seen it all. I've seen so many different variations of
what a relationship could be. And as long as it's according to the parameters that you and your partner or partners or whatever you know, are setting forth, okay, screw what everybody else says about your relationship.
Well, that's why I'm always against these people who make these checklists. People make these checklists of like I need these five or six things that I'm good. There's a list of a thousand things that might make it not good. You know, it's a very short list of this is what I want. Well, I'm like, okay, what about these thousand things? Oh, I'm thought about those those are very
specific or whatever. You have to just kind of ride a wave of a relationship and really trying to improve your confidence in what you're doing in this situation and your ability to communicate and your communication and your ability to stem it off before it gets too late, because once it gets to that whatever the word you want to use is no not anger. What was the word to use before epathy?
Apathy?
That I don't care anymore? And then you're just sharing space and you've gone not just from husband wife to mom and dad, you've gone from future divorces when the kids are out of the house. That's a tough way to spend two five, seven, ten years, you know.
M Yes, And I think even when couples fight or partners, whatever term you want to it's your life. Use whatever term you want to do with your life. I don't really care Matthew mcconnie, and I can't remember is his wife's name Camilla?
Right?
Camilla Elvis.
Yeah, they came out and they said, look, it's we love each other. That means we're going to get hurt by each other. Sometimes people fight, Okay, as long as you just remember the quiet niceties that show the person you're still in the relationship together, even if you're in a moment where you may not like each other that much. Like he she always makes I think it's she always makes his tea. So even if they've had a fight in the morning, they still make sure that that's the
thing and then they can go their own way. But that's at least the signal also for couples I find is okay, right, everybody sometimes has to go to their corners to stay effective. But still certain things you can say to show I'm still in this.
Yeah, and if you fundamentally. I did a whole episode about this last year. Me the five things that I need, they're all words from my partner I need, good morning, good night, I'm sorry, thank you, and I love you. And I talked about how what I needed on that list has changed over the last like ten years, like I love Houston, yoube first, because I didn't think I had enough of that in my life. And then a change. I need thank you, I need appreciation. Now I need
I'm sorry, because that one takes the most. That's the most meaningful thing to me if somebody recognizes in some way. And these are very simple concepts, so it's like, oh, if I can't get the bare minimum of those things like good morning and good night, seem reasonable. But some people are like, I shouldn't have to change.
My behavior because of your needs. Ouch yeah ouch.
But some people are like that, like I'm not I'm get up late and I'm tired. I don't like to say good morning like whatever you you know, so you have to sort of marry that too, like, okay, well, is there another way that I can get whatever that word symbolized, Because it's not about the word, it's about the recognition of you're a part of my day in my life, and I'm going to say something to acknowledge that.
Early on people will be like, well, that's wildly insecure of you, probably, but we're in a relationship, so you know, I got to look at it that way.
Does that makes sense?
And doctor, where do you think about differentiation of self in relationships?
Because sometimes what's the couple, what's the individual.
Exactly that you don't have to do everything together and if you don't, that doesn't mean something's wrong.
Well, I heard you guys talk about this on a prior concast.
But a lot of couples who are completely happy and madly in love just don't sleep in the same bed.
The sleep divorsa.
Yeah, I think you got to sleep in the same bed, tough it out. But some very happy people are like, listen, he's not a good sleeper, she's not a good sleeper, or a different pattern. She kicks me, he snores whatever, and the other. You know, sixteen hours in the day, we're not sleeping, we're madly in love.
I don't know.
It's got a good chance to work. As anything else. Prior generations, a lot of them slept in the same bed, in different beds, different rooms, different everything, right.
I mean, I have my own opinion about that. I think what makes what I talked to couples about is Look, the one thing that makes you guys different from friends on the street is at your intimate together.
Mm hmm.
You share a bed together, right, so, and never mind what's going on in the bed, do you share the bed together? Yeah? So, ending your day in starting your day with that person's already sets them apart. As you're my.
Special person too, I completely agree with you.
A lot of people are.
Like, well, it's not that important to us, Okay. They then have to find another way to match the intimacy of eight hours hopefully a night in a you know, forty eight inch space together. Whether even if you're not cuddling or touching or whatever like that matters to me. That matters, But I don't know.
Yeah, like if you put it. I think we also said too, if you make the priority throughout the rest of the day instead of putting all the weight on that time in the room because the kids are now asleep or whatever else is going on, you know, you finally put the work down and now can turn into personal life. It may or may not have less weight that sleeping concept, but again, it all goes for me, It all goes down to what weight that has on how much does that mean to their relationship?
Well, you know, I as we record this, we're pretty close to Valentine's Day and a lot of people ask my opinion on Valentine's Day, and I'm like, if you do the other three hundred and sixty four days pretty well, you probably don't need Valentine's Day, And then people say to me like, well, no, it's special to get something on Valentine's Say, I'm like, would you rather get flowers on February fourteenth or August second?
Just because? And I'm like, I just want to.
It's no reason here's the flowers or I'm supposed to do this.
You know a lot of people don't agree with that.
They're like, you don't understand and the way I could be wrong and everybody's different, but I'm like, I'd rather do it because I want to, not because I'm supposed to.
And that's where the communication piece comes in. But you know, what people forget and what I structure for people is that there's there's you, there's me, and then there's the relationship as its own entity. And so we have to care for that relationship as if it's like that third person in the relationship. If you're not coming up with ways to nurture that and grow that, your individual needs are to pull you guys apart.
And like you said, one of the coolest things you did say on that episode was the two of your co CEOs, and that helps to say you're both important, you both hold weight.
Right and you are you know, go head to the house. But being able to define the roles again. As we move into twenty four and beyond, things are a little more complicated, especially you have two working parents and as something as simple as like you know, who takes out the garbage should be him, but you.
Know who to use the dishwasher should be the kids.
You know, there's a lot of things, but these are discussions that you have to. You know, there are still a lot of women today and not to judge relationships, who get an allowance and then they're like, I don't have access to the money. How do I even get divorced? How do I even go seek help? How do I even do anything with my two hundred dollars a week? You know that's disturbing.
Yeah, but it's still a thing.
And I think if you established trust early on and communicate and then like this is important to me, you brought the prenup earlier, Like I would never make somebody easy for me to say I don't have one hundred million dollars, but sign up because I'm like, this is part of the gamble. I want to know that you to know that I'm all in and if this doesn't work, I crap out and this lose.
Is that important? Again, I don't know a hundred million dollars and a bunch of lawyers.
So No, it's true, like you're saying, there's financial stressors, kid stressors, work stressors, ime stressors, to time. There's not enough time, like we said actually in our recording earlier, and you're trying to manage all of that. In life, it's just hard. It's hard, and shit happens all the time, you know, Like I say, life is a four letter word and it's just hard.
So the number one piece of advice or the thing you say most commonly to people who come see you, is there one thing that you're like almost everybody I have to tell them to remember to do this.
Is there one thing? Or is that too vague?
No, I'm going to let doctor lor go first because she's the expert in this stuff.
Complacency, don't get complacent. Don't get complacent. As soon as you guys take advantage of each other, it's over.
And how do you identify complacency?
How do you Complacency is when you're not putting in the effort, when you are making the assumption that things are just going to roll along as they always do without making the effort to show your partner that they are special to you. They hold a different role than just the average Joe in Starbucks.
So you have to take a regular sort of temperature of yourself like this is.
Absolutely, absolutely, that's good. And stop with the tit for tat, stop keeping school.
Well you do that work.
I know it'll never work.
I would say, just throw out the expectations that other people put on your relationship. It's your life. Live it according to your and your partner's terms, because anything works these days. And that's the other thing I say too, is great, fantastic. We hopefully you do have friends that you can share all the trials and tribulation of your relationships with. At the same time, you're the one that,
again that's living in that house. You have to decide what's going to work for you and what's not going to work for you, because you're always going to find someone that's going to judge it. That's just the way the world is, where we can be very judgy about what we think. This couple's happy, that couple is married. I've also known people who live according to their own labels too, meaning you could use the term married and not legally be married. It's a mentality. It's not just
a legal thing. It's a mentality thing too. And if you and your partner are okay with that, go with it.
That's a good point.
All right, you're married, you are dating. So we play something called worst date or first date. So you have to either give us and this could go back to the old days. To go back to now, either the worst date you've ever had or the best first date you've ever had.
Your choice, Oh god, I have to do the worst person.
That was the funner one, probable because there's.
So many of them. There's a book coming out about it. My mother keeps saying, I need to write a book about this. Probably going out on a date with someone and him letting me know that he was using the date as a way to find out whether he was really bisexual or not.
Oh no, like he wanted professional help he knew what you did, or he wanted to know if he was attracted.
He wanted both a little bit of both.
Like, okay, pressure on a girl, it's a lot of pressure.
Yeah, look at Christy, she's like, holy hell, how would not handle that?
No, it didn't look.
Oh, I've never heard We've asked this hundreds of times. I've never heard that.
Wow, that's that's a show stopped.
And what was the and well, what was the outcome?
Uh?
The outcome was that he was bisexual, but not with me. Not with me?
Oh wow, you're the best?
Do you want to play? It's been too long since id It's the only.
Thing I'm going to share is a funny story that uh, one of a client said a long time ago about the fact that you know, went on a date, went back to the house. He came in. She immediately said, are you guys going to take care? Are you going to take care of us? Meeting me and the meeting her and the dogs. And he was just like, okay, time to go. Yep, time to go. So that might not have been a successful date. You don't Maybe everybody just take your time, get you know, all right, it's okay.
Breathe a little bit.
This was fun.
I feel saner and smarter. Tell everybody where they can find you and your podcast.
All right, so we are the slightly same podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you download your podcast. We are on YouTube. Get all the visual of doctor Christy cracking up.
I can't hold it together on sh it's really funny.
So we are on YouTube and please email us at Slightly Same Podcast at gmail dot com for questions, comments, and overall good wishes.
Yeah good, You guys are awesome as far as us as always, please like, share, follow, and review this podcast and review the Slightly Sane Podcast all this time later. Your reviews mean a lot in the podcasting ecosystem. Shoot us an email Great Loovedebate at gmail dot com for question thoughts, concerns, breakup stories, or things you want me to pass along to the good doctors because, as always at the Great Love Debate, we never stop making love.
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