A Bit of Optimism - Love Is Not Enough with couples therapist Shawn McBride

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Relationships are hard. No matter how much we like, respect, or love someone, conflict seems inevitable.But even as we fight and disagree, we can also learn the skills we need to resolve our problems. For over two decades, Shawn McBride has helped thousands of couples do the work to strengthen their relationships. And he has tons of practical advice.Shawn sat down with me to discuss the three biggest problems couples face, why I'm a huge fan of his Instagram, and how love can keep relationships afloat, but it's often not enough.This...is A Bit of Optimism.For more on Shawn and his work, check out:@couples_counseling_center@shawnmcbridespeaksand couplescounselingcenter.org  

relationships any kind of relationship is hard no matter how much we like someone respect someone or love someone it seems that disagreements and fighting are inevitable and when conflict gets to a breaking point many of us feel the urge to simply throw in the towel that's where sean mcbride comes in sean is a couples, and he runs a practice called the Couples Counseling Center. I actually found him on Instagram and have become a huge fan of his videos. He's helped thousands of couples learn the skills to do the work that makes relationships succeed. And he's got tons of practical advice. Even if you're not in a romantic relationship, I think you'll learn a lot from what Sean has to say.

Because in all of our relationships, be they friends, family, or our colleagues, we could always do a little more. This is a bit of optimism. I am so glad that you joined me today. I found you on Instagram. Yes, sir. And you were, I mean, there's no better way to put it. You were preaching. I'm a former pastor. Well, it definitely shows up. You were preaching the most brilliant metaphor to explain why some couples cannot communicate well. And your metaphor was that somebody is drowning. Yes. And you're throwing facts at them. Yes. Yes. You know, I'm drowning. Well, there's a sign that says no swimming out the door. It says no lifeguard. Yeah. And the amount of times that we are in relationships where somebody says, I'm in pain, I'm hurt, I'm sad, and we throw facts at them.

That's it. And it doesn't work. And the way you captured this dynamic made so much sense. Good. made so much sense. I've watched many of your videos since. Count me as a huge fan. Your ability to capture the discomfort and speed bumps of a relationship in a way that the rest of us can understand, in my opinion, is better than anyone I've ever heard. Oh, wow. I'm honored. The check's in the mail. What's the address? The check's in the mail. Thank you. Thank you, Simon. So let's take a

step back, right? Yes. You're not like the average counselor. No, sir. No, sir. Let's be honest. The average counselor will be like, so what do you think? Would you like to respond to what your partner just said? You are unabashedly opinionated. That's it. Let's get to it. Let's get to it. Let's fix this right now. So obviously couples come to you because things aren't working.

I have a few questions. What are the more common things that people come to you for that it's just recurring? I'll give you one, two, and three. Sean, how do we communicate better? Number two, Sean, how do we resolve conflict? Number three, Sean, how do we recover from infidelity, from cheating? Those are the top three issues that I deal with every single week in my private counseling office, whether in person or virtually online. Okay, so let's unpackage it.

Are there some basic steps on how we can learn to communicate better? So number one, it starts with listening, okay? I often tell people, our creator gave us two ears in one mouth for a reason, right? Why do we have two ears in one mouth? Because we should listen more than we speak. So effective communication starts with listening, but it doesn't stop with listening. Once you listen with your ears, you have to be sure that you're hearing what your partner's communicating. My wife and I have raised five children. They're all adults now. And when they were little, we used to say, hey, clean your room.

Hey, son, go clean your room. Hey, daughter, clean your room. They listened because they have ears. But when you go check the room, you see that it's not clean. That means that you didn't hear me. Okay? You listened with your ears, that you didn't hear me. Okay. You listened with your ears, but you didn't hear me. So part of effective communication is being sure that you're not

just listening to your partner, but do you hear what they're saying? Hearing leads to understanding and understanding leads to resolving the conflict. But most people, especially men, think they are great listeners because they heard the words spoken. They are pretty sure they heard. They can recite back what they heard. So where are people failing to listen? What is the gap there? Yeah. So here's the gap, Simon.

Great question. Typically, when a couple's trying to communicate and resolve something, number one, there is minimization. One or the other will minimize how a person feels or what that person is saying. Oh, well, it's not that big of a deal. Or how could you be upset about that? Or that really doesn't make sense. So they minimize their partner's feelings. And feelings are important. Emotions are very important. And so you can't just minimize what a person says or how a person feels. The second thing that happens is there's a lot of dismissing

that's going on. When you're talking to me and I dismiss it as, oh, you're just being overly sensitive or, oh, you just had a bad day. No, what I feel is what I feel. My feelings matter. So if there's minimization, if there's dismissiveness, and here's the big one, If there's dismissiveness, and here's the big one, in conversation, sometimes your partner's not being validated. Their feelings are not being validated. Validation is very simple. You're making valid what feeling your partner has. If they're angry, you're validating that anger.

If they're sad, you're validating the sadness. Validation is not agreement. It doesn't mean, okay, I agree with everything you're saying, but I can make valid in this moment, how you feel your anger, your sadness, your fear, your shame, whatever you're feeling. So dismissiveness, minimizing your partner and not validating your partner leads to more chaos and confusion. Oh, I'm feeling guilty as you're saying it. I'm literally thinking of conversations I've had where, you know, my partner has told me their feelings and I'm proud I wasn't dismissive. I absolutely validated.

Yes. And unfortunately, I did not pass the first test where I absolutely have said, that's so not a big deal. To you, it's not a big deal. But that's like saying to your partner who's drowning in the pool, it's no big deal. People drown all the time. People fall in the pool all the time as they're drowning. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's go to number two, conflict. There's typically four responses to conflict in a relationship. Fight, flight, freeze, fall.

So in conflict, someone is the fighter. They're going to scream. They're going to yell. They're going to argue. They're going to fuss. They're going to cuss because they want to solve the conflict. So we call that a fighter. Then there's a flighter, someone that flees.

Conflict arises. They flee. They run. There's a flighter, someone that flees. Conflict arises. They flee. They run. There's a song on the radio. I forget the musician, but it says she's a runner. She's a track star. She's going to run away when it gets hard, right? So you got your fighter.

You got the flighter. Then you have the freezer. This person completely shuts down. And the shutdown may be for an hour. It may be for a day. It may be for a day. It may be for multiple days. So they completely freeze and it takes them a while to untall. And then there's the fourth person that's a fawn. A fawn is typically a people pleaser. They go along to get along. Typically people who fawn have some kind of abuse in their childhood. And so to not get

beat, to not get whipped, to not get cussed out, they just fawn. And so we bring some in that baggage into relationships. So we never learn how to deal with fight, flight, freeze, fawn. And we bring it into relationship. And now you got two people that don't have any skills in communication and resolving conflict, two people that don't have any tools. Okay. They get married, they start dating, they get engaged, and they just don't know what to do to resolve the conflict. And that's where I come in.

I've experienced all of those. And I've been at least a couple of them. Now walk me through when in the heat of an argument where anger and irrational thoughts are running through me, how do I assess and what skills do I call upon to at least take the first step for resolution? So I use this little analogy called smart love, S-M-A-R-T. In resolving conflict, in having better communication, the S in smart love stands for self-awareness. It is up to you. It is up to me. It is up to your partner. You have to be self-aware of what you are feeling. be self-aware of what you are feeling. You have to be self-aware of your emotions. In this moment, am I angry? In this moment, am I sad? People go into conflict and people try to communicate and they are clueless into what they are really feeling. And I find this with a lot of men,

that men a lot of times can't describe and can't break down. A guy will come to me for counseling. Hey, man, what are you feeling? I don't know. I just feel, you know, describe it like break it down. I just I just feel something. And so I have to help particularly men work through feelings of anger, feelings of sadness or disappointment. And there are many ways you can describe these feelings or feelings of shame or feelings of fear.

Right. So you have to have, first of all, a self-awareness. What am I feeling in this moment? If you don't know what you're feeling in this moment, it's going to be hard to communicate to your partner. Remember, we're going to be hard to communicate to your partner. Remember, we're trying to get understanding. The M in smart love, Simon, is managing whatever that emotion is. So if I'm angry, I got to manage that. That is not the responsibility of my wife or my partner. If I'm sad, I got to own that. I have to manage that and not blame my partner for my sadness. If I'm afraid, that belongs to me. That fear is mine. I got to be able to manage that. And I think if people can get just those first two,

let me be self-aware of what I'm feeling, and then let me manage that. Typically, we can cool things down a little bit in the midst of that conflict. So I'm allowed to be angry, but I'm not allowed to yell and lash out. Absolutely not. That's managing anger. Right. That's managing anger. Because, and I even, in my own marriage, my wife was verbally abused up to the age of 17.

We've been married, Simon, 30 years. And so early on in my marriage, I was making the big mistake of yelling and raising my voice and saying this and saying that. And my wife couldn't handle that. Now, I learned that behavior from my own mother. Because as a little boy in my home, I watched how my mother handled conflict. My mother was a yeller. My mother was a screamer. So she was the fighter. And my mother was also the fighter. So she would fight and then she would run. My father was the freezer and the foreigner. And so we all learn how to communicate somewhere for better or for worse.

And typically it's in our childhood. Okay. So we have the self-awareness, we have the management. What are the ART? So you got to acknowledge your partner's feelings, awareness of what your partner is feeling. That's the A. I often talk about connecting before correcting. Okay. Connect with your partner on an emotional level before you try to correct your partner on a rational level. Having an awareness, what is my partner feeling? Yeah. And then the R is reading your partner's emotions with sympathy and empathy, which is two totally different things. So back to the pool analogy. Sympathy says, when I read my partner's emotions with sympathy, what that says is I care.

You're in a pool. You're drowning. Sympathy says, you know what is I care. You're in a pool, you're drowning, sympathy says, you know what, I care. Here's a life vest. Here's a life preserver. But Simon, empathy goes to a deeper level because empathy doesn't just say like sympathy, I care. Empathy says, I feel what you feel and I'm going to prove it by diving in the pool. I'm going to risk my own safety so that I can understand you at a level that I can connect with you. And you can't do that standing on the edge. You can't do that unless you get in the pool with the person.

What does that look like practically in the middle of a conflict, to be able to jump in the pool with somebody? Oh yeah. To be able to validate that anger and say, boy, if I were in your shoes, now that I understand your anger, I would feel the same way. Oh my goodness. You're disappointed. You're down. Oh down oh my let me empathize with you if the tables were turned that's it simon i would feel the same way that's it so you're not gaslighting them making them feel crazy for feeling like they're drowning you're saying if i were in your shoes i would feel like i was drowning too absolutely because simon think about. If you dive in the pool, now you can see things from their vantage point. You can't see that on the edge, spitting facts, although the facts are true. You can't really understand it until you get into the pool and surround yourself with all the fear and the water in your lungs and all of that.

So good. And T? Together, we journey in the land of emotions. Together, we journey in the land of emotions. We make a big deal about emotions. We make a big deal about understanding emotions. We celebrate emotions. See, Simon Simon intimacy is

not just sex intimacy where I come from is into me I see and the way that you can really see into a person is when you understand their emotions Simon we've made emotions to be this bad thing that as a little boy growing up, I was taught stop being angry or stop crying or, you know, so I was taught to suppress my emotions. But as, so I became a grown man and I started to still suppress things like this is not working. So through counseling and therapy, I had to realize and to learn it's okay to have emotion. It's okay to express emotion. It's okay to work through emotion. That's how you get closer with your partner. Brilliant. So in your first, the first example, you know, I realized I'd done some of those things in this particular example.

I'm very proud that I'm thinking of a successful situation where my partner and I were fighting. Yes. And the fight looked like this. I told her everything I was doing right. And then I told her everything she was doing wrong. And she responded by saying everything she was doing right and everything I was doing wrong. And this went backwards and forwards as if it were a tennis match. And I was aware, I had awareness.

I had self-awareness. I started with the S. And what went through my mind was, I see what's going on here. And this is not working. This is not working. Like this tennis match is going to go on forever. And it's one of us,

we're going to get to the point where one of us is going to say something really mean. We weren't there yet, but I could see how this movie plays out. And I remember literally interrupting. I said, babe, this is clearly not going to resolve. And neither of us is going to win this. I would like to propose new rules for our argument. Because we're going to argue.

I'm okay with that. I would like to propose new rules for our argument because we're going to argue. I'm okay with that. Yes. I would like to propose new rules for this argument, for this game. My rule is I will now, instead of telling you everything I did right and you did wrong, I will now say what you did right and what I did wrong, and then it's going to be your turn, and I'll go first. And I said, babe, you nailed this. You got this right, and here's where I screwed it up. And she said, well, here's what I got wrong. And here's what you got right. And now we were

practicing your T, togetherness, where we were celebrating what the other person got right. And for the first time, we could see that the other person wasn't wrong, but that they were trying. And that we weren't necessarily helping the situation. So we saw each other as complicit in the tension. Yes. We saw ourselves as complicit in the tension, and we saw them as attempting to alleviate the tension. And I got to tell you very quickly. Yes.

The tension subsided. It subsided. We sat closer together. We started smiling. And we could actually get to the point of being rational and then like trying to figure out how did we get in the fight in the first place. Yes. Simon, that is such a powerful principle. That is such great rules of engagement. I love it because it expresses humility.

It expresses humility. But more importantly, it expresses, here it is, appreciation for your partner's perspective. Simon, every counseling session, I end every couple's counseling session, the last five to seven minutes, having that couple look at each other and share a couple of appreciations. Yeah. Because, Simon, just think about it. When you first started dating, there was a great sense of appreciation for your partner's perspective. And this is new. And you value that perspective. And you validate the perspective.

And you love the perspective. And come on, give me some more perspectives. And you love the perspective and come on, give me some more perspectives. But once you've been dating a year or two years or three years, you stop appreciating the perspective. You stop appreciating the difference. So I encourage couples every single day, make a deposit into your relationship by telling your partner one thing you appreciate about him, one thing you appreciate about her. And watch what happens. In most relationships, couples are making more, if the relationship is a bank account,

they are making more withdrawals than they are deposits. When you are making deposits, you're intentionally looking for things to be grateful for. You are intentionally looking for things to appreciate your partner for. So now you're on this quest to say, you know what? First of all, I accept you for who you are. Yeah. Not for who I want you to become. See, a lot of couples get into relationship in the back of their mind. I'm going to change him. I'm going to change her.

No, no, you don't go into relationship to change people. In a relationship, if you go into it to be served, that's not going to work because that's a lot of selfishness. But if you go into it to serve, to give of yourself, one of the greatest quotes of all time, it is better to give than it is to receive. And so oftentimes in relationships, we're looking to get and we're looking to take. And I'm saying, no, we have to go into it. How can I serve my partner? How can I love my partner better? How can I give to my partner?

One of the best things I ever learned, and thank goodness I learned it early in the relationship, was that both partners, or at least I, show up every day with the fantasy that my partner can read my mind. How did you not know that I dot, dot, dot? Yeah. You should have known that I dot, dot, dot. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I just, and I just love that, that we show up with the fantasy that our partners can read our minds and instantaneously like.

Our partners cannot. So in communication, in a relationship, what do you want? What do you mean? Break it down. We are students in our own relationships. Yes, we are. And for years, like, like these little nuances, like I grew up in a different country. And so sometimes the language I use or the points of view that I have are different than where I live now. And my partner is on an education and I can't be frustrated if my student doesn't

understand something. I have to be, I have to be a good teacher and be like, ah, here's what I meant. But likewise, I am the student as well. Yes. And if our teacher gets mad at us for not understanding, we can say, hey, I'm the idiot. I didn't understand. You need to teach me your point of view so that I can learn it so this doesn't happen again. So the next time you say it, you can say it in the shorthand next time and I'll understand. Yes. Yes. And doing that with patience, doing that with grace, doing that in calmness. Hey,

teach me. I don't understand. Hey, rather than fighting, rather than I don't understand, so I'm out of here. I don't understand. So I'm out of here, or I don't understand, so I'm going to freeze up on you for a week, right? Yeah. So being able to communicate in a kind way. So we have one more to get to, which is infidelity. But before we do that- Oh, yeah.

That's a big one. Before we do that, I want to interrupt with an observation, which is one of the main reasons I wanted you on here. One of the reasons I love you is because all relationships are the same, whether it's a romantic relationship or a work relationship. And in work relationships, we have communication breakdowns, we have conflict, we have power dynamics, we have misunderstandings, we have misuse of language, everything that you and I have said, everything you and I have talked about is transferable to a work environment because all relationships are emotional even at work. The reason I'm interrupting now to bring that up is because as we get into the third one,

which is infidelity, you don't really have infidelity in a work environment. I guess you could go give something to your competitor, but that doesn't really happen much. But it's what we're talking about is the complete break of trust. And so I wanted to share that we're about to talk about an infidelity has application to any relationship where there's a complete break in trust. Yes. Yes. Sean McBride. Infidelity. How do you help couples overcome the trauma of trusting someone who just at every core of what a relationship is supposed to be, they violate that trust and how do they repair it? It's very hard, Simon. It's one of the most painful, difficult, arduous conversations that I have during the course of the week when couples are trying to recover. Simon, I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses for anybody. But before we talk about the relationship, sometimes we have to go back. I never say to

a man who's cheated or a woman who's cheated, what's wrong with you? I have a better question that Dr. Bruce Perry talks about in his book with Oprah Winfrey is, what happened to you? Because Simon, sometimes what is happening is connected to what happened, whether it's a man or a woman. And sometimes men and women go into these relationships with unresolved childhood trauma. What happens to a man or a woman in the first two decades of their life will influence them as adults for better or for worse. So when you talk about a child who's been abandoned, a child who's been neglected,

a child who's been abused verbally, sexually, emotionally, and if that person who's now an adult, if that stuff is not unresolved, I'm not saying it's the reason they cheated. What I am saying is you have to include that in the conversation because some people in infidelity are trying to heal core wounds outside of their primary relationship. They're trying to get very basic needs met outside of their relationship because the relationship is not working. The relationship in their mind is not fixable. But I still have these needs.

For a woman, she still wants conversation. She still wants affection. And so if she can't get that in her primary relationship, she's human. I'm not saying it's right, but she'll seek it elsewhere. If you look at statistics, the number one reason that men cheat is not because of sex. What they're really seeking is admiration. What they're really seeking is respect. Sex becomes this secondary thing that happens.

But they get connected to the woman because she admires him. She honors him. She makes him feel a certain way. Same thing with a woman. When a woman cheats, when you break it down, okay, what happened? It started with the conversation. Because most women want two hours of conversation every day with their man, 14 hours of conversation a week. If they're starving for

conversation, if that man is freezing, if he's flighting and not giving her conversation, she finds it elsewhere. Again, I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying here's what I've discovered with thousands of people while some people make that choice. Recovering from it is very hard. I think what you're also saying is you're not offering an excuse for the behavior. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. What you're saying is the person is still accountable for their behavior, but we want to understand the root of the behavior because if we don't understand the root, the behavior will probably continue.

It's accountability and. Accountability and. But Simon, what's interesting is I would say 90% of the couples I work with through the process of recovering from infidelity, from infidelity, either one of them acknowledges that while they are not responsible for the behavior, they contributed to the behavior. They contributed by doing something, pushing the person away, or not doing something that pushed the person away. And so this is what men and women are telling me. This is something I've learned in my own relationships as well, both professional and personal, which is we both like to accuse the other person of having started the fight. And what I have learned is, yes, absolutely. And there is usually one person who started the fight and almost always the other person poured gas on the fire.

That's what I'm saying. Almost always somebody started the fire, but invariably the other person poured gas on the fire. That's what I'm saying. Almost always somebody started the fire, but invariably the other person poured gas on the fire. We both fight about who started it, but the reality is I either started it or I made it worse. I bear some accountability for the fire that exists right now. And as you're speaking about the difficulties of resolving infidelity, it does go directly to work relationships as well, which is people who are secretive, people who hide information, maybe lie at work, is because they have been taken advantage of. They've had their ideas stolen. They don't feel safe to share.

I had a teammate once years ago who would lie to me if she got anything wrong. She would just flat out lie. And we were going through a document that I could plainly see that the numbers didn't add up literally. And I basically pointed out and say, these don't add up. And she basically fought me and said, they do. I don't understand why she's telling me they do add up when clearly they don't. So I'm rational now. So I now start doing math on a piece of paper, pointing out to her how she's wrong. And she's getting angrier and angrier. And I keep trying to show her the math is wrong. I later learned that she had a completely screwed up childhood with a very overbearing father and judges her self worth on her work product. And by me criticizing her work product, she took it as I was criticizing her entire self-worth. She wasn't defending the math. She was defending herself. Herself. Yes.

And fortunately, we had a good enough relationship that that came out and I could learn that. And I could say, look, you telling me a mistake, I'll help you fix it. If you hide a mistake or you lie to me about a mistake, I can't help you. Yes. And Simon, every couple has a story. Every couple, they have a background. They typically have wounds. They typically have trauma. They typically have unresolved stuff in their life.

That doesn't just change because you turn 30 or 40 or 50. Simon, I work with a lot of, I do a lot of work with African-American men. I got guys coming to me in their 60s and 70s, Simon, who are trying to make sense of why they are, you know, making these mistakes at this particular stage in their lives. And what I try to help them to understand is because you've never connected the dots with your trauma from the past. I had a guy recently who committed infidelity and he's 65 years old. And when you spend time and you break it down, he's been trying to prove something ever since he was 15 years old. Again, I'm not making excuses for anybody, but I'm not the therapist that's just going to write people off. Hey, you made a mistake.

You're the worst person ever. You won't be the first person to commit adultery. You won't be the last person. Let's try to understand what happened therapeutically. Let's try to understand the dynamics so we can fix it, hold you accountable so you never make that mistake again. Okay. Now let's talk about the things that you have seen that actually make relationships work. Oh, good. I have to believe that there's more than just the opposite of what you're talking about. They're good at listening. They're good. Like, you know, like what are the things that we can learn that we can start a relationship and say, okay, here's what I know.

Sean's practice of decades and working with people here, the common threads that he has found of great relationships that are the models that we should admire. These are the common threads. Yes. So Simon, let me say, first of all, love is important, but it's not enough. Love can make the relationship work, but it's not enough. So in addition to, hey, we love each other. Yeah. If a relationship is not working, I try to take a couple back to the beginning of the relationship. Yeah. What were you doing at the very beginning? Because there's a reason you stayed this long. And typically when you go back to the beginning, number one, we spent a lot of time together.

We made the relationship a priority because couples that play together stay together. A lot of couples who date, if they get married, they're getting married because they're having so much fun. They don't want it to end. And they say, let's do this forever. They get married and guess what they stop doing? They stop dating. So dating each other. I know it's very basic and elementary, but you would be shocked at the amount of people who are now married that no longer date. Because listen, everything in their life is pulling away from the relationship. Now they have kids, now they have work, now they have in-laws, now they have responsibility. So everything is pulling away. And if they are not dating, if they are not investing and spending time, they grow apart.

So love is important. Dating is important. Spending time together. Simon, patience is a virtue. Listen, I've been married 30 years to the same woman. I'm not the guy I was 30 years ago. Simon, I don't even think I'm the guy was five years ago yeah patience is a virtue people should go into relationships not as a sprint yeah but as a marathon people are human

people mess up people don't know how to communicate people don't know how to resolve conflict. People say the wrong things. But you've got to be patient with your partner, right? Trust is important. Making sure that we don't do anything that's going to jeopardize the relationship. You know, as a former pastor, I've done a lot of weddings, to have, to hold, to love, to cherish, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, sickness and in health, forsaking all others, forsaking all others. In other words, we're not going to let anybody get between us. We're going to forsake them so we can be loyal to each other. We're going to forsake them so we can be loyal to each other. So that loyalty, Simon, that we are loyal and committed to each other.

I'll give you two more and I'm done. Being able to adjust. When you get into a relationship, your partner becomes a mirror. And if you love your partner, your partner loves you, you can learn from each other. Are you willing to make adjustments as your partner, your partner loves you, you can learn from each other. Are you willing to make adjustments as your partner suggests? Because we all have blind spots. As a therapist, I tell my clients, it's hard to see the picture when you're in the frame. I'm outside the frame, so I can point out things that y'all can't see because you're in the frame. Are you willing to adjust to the areas, the blind spots that your partner brings up? And the last one I'll give you, which is big.

Simon, we got to learn how to apologize. We have to learn in relationship to say, I'm sorry, will you forgive me? Not just I'm sorry, I own my mistake, I acknowledge my mistake, I said the wrong thing, I yelled, I shut, whatever. I'm sorry, will you forgive me? When couples get humble and are able to apologize. Simon, do you know how many times in 30 years of marriage I've had to apologize to my wife? How many times she had to apologize to me?

Isn't that the nature of relationships, whether in the workplace or in relationships, dating, engaged, married, to be able to say, I'm sorry? Saying you're sorry doesn't mean you're wrong. It just means you accept accountability for your role in the situation. You accept accountability. Yeah. in the situation. Accept accountability. Yeah. I really like the I'm sorry, I'm accountable.

And the ability to say, I'm sorry I yelled. I'm sorry I contributed. I'm sorry I poured gas on the fire. I'm sorry I started the fire. Whatever it is. Yes. Will you forgive me? Apologizing is a humbling thing.

And it creates a lopsided balance in that dynamic. Will you forgive me? Evens it out that both in the couple have to be humble in that moment. That's an addition that I hadn't thought about before, which is incredibly, incredibly magical and powerful. And that's what keeps people together for a long time. Forgiveness. My parents have been married 55 years. If you ask them, what's the secret? We've been forgiving each other for 55 years. My parents have been married 55 years. If you ask them, what's the secret? We've been forgiving each other for 55 years. My wife's parents were married 45 years before they passed. If you ask them forgiveness, we've been forgiving each other. If people can't forgive, they shouldn't be in relationship. Because if you're in a relationship, you're with another human being who's going to make mistakes along the way. But being able to forgive is grand. It's golden. Can you tell me an experience you've had

in your years of doing this? Or maybe it's one couple that you worked with that really stands out in your years of doing this, that if every couple was like this couple or every experience you had was like this one experience, you would be the most fulfilled person in the world. Boy, very specific. I'll give you a couple that came to me several years ago on their last leg, last thread, married 42 years. So I'll use an older couple, married 42 years,

and they are ready to call it quits. They're ready to give it up. Grown children, grandchildren. Simon, number one, they did the work of therapy and counseling as a couple. So much to unpack. But I worked with them for a year. So much to work. You don't do that in 55 minutes. You don't do that in 55 minutes.

You don't do that in two sessions. They committed themselves. Before we give up, before we throw in the towel, let's meet with a third party to get perspective. I worked with them for a year. Number two, they did individual work. Simon, when people get into relationship, it goes back to how we started this conversation. They come into the relationship with baggage, with issues, with pain, with trauma, that they're thinking the relationship, the marriage, the boyfriend-girlfriend is going to fix.

It doesn't. They did the individual work through individual therapy. So just think about it. A healthy me leads to a healthy we. We are better because I'm better, right? Because just showing up for couples counseling and therapy, just showing up for individual counseling and therapy doesn't solve the problem. You have to be intentional in doing the work. Simon, if I was a doctor and I wrote you a prescription for your bronchitis, okay, Simon, take this pill once a day for the next 14 days.

If you don't take the medicine, you're going to be stuck with bronchitis. It is not just showing up. It's doing the work, whether that work is reading, whether that work is dating, whether that work is daily appreciation, whether that work is having deeper conversations. Couples get better. Individuals get better when they choose to do the work. That couple I met with several years ago, married 42 years, there's 40 something now. This past Saturday night, the husband took me out for a steak dinner. He reached out to me and said, hey, I'm thinking about you. You saved our marriage. You saved our that relationship I want to take you to dinner and I took him to the most expensive restaurant that I could find I got the most expensive steak but he was just so appreciative and again even

to this day he is still doing the work so so of all of the couples you've held you've helped a lot of people not all of them were successful but you've helped a lot thousands of couples yes find solidity in their relationships what is it specifically about this one couple that's so amazing that you choose to talk about them and not any of the others right now? Oh, man, I don't know. They represent longevity. I think people give up on each other too soon. They just represent longevity to me. They represent a couple that's had every issue imaginable in their relationship. They've been through the fire. They've been through storms, ups and downs. They got married young, highs and lows.

But 42 years later, when they're ready to walk away, they say, let's give it one more chance. Let's get help. And I don't know, Simon. I'm just an optimistic guy. I want every couple to win. I want every relationship to last forever. And I don't know. I just think if people can learn the skills and get the tools and be patient and keep working, that we'll have less breakups and

more love and more unconditional love. So. Tell me an early specific happy childhood memory, something I can relive with you. Boy, an early memory of childhood. I was three years old, moved out of a one bedroom apartment with four kids and two parents into our very first home in Maryland. My parents got their very first home, rent with the option to buy. And I remember that like it was yesterday being in this, back then what I thought was this mansion, you know, my parents getting that home was just, I'll never forget that. And growing up there and the experience is there. Christmas is there. Thanksgiving's there.

What was it about that memory of the leaving the one bedroom apartment and going to the home? What is it about that memory that brings you such joy when you talk about it now? memory that brings you such joy when you talk about it now? Yeah, security, growth, accomplishment for two poor, lower middle class African American parents who some way, somehow, through a rent with an option to buy, got favor, didn't have the credit, but got favor with an owner who let them do that. And by the way, they've been living in that house for 50 years now, that same house for 50 years. So what I find magical is the way that you describe that childhood memory is very similar to the way that you described that couple, which is they started in a place and they moved into a home and they decided to make a life together that had the growth and

the love and the family. And the reason after 41 years or 40 something years, they decided not to just go to a therapist or have a session or two, but to commit an entire year of couples and individual therapy is because we've moved into a home and we could abandon an apartment, but you can't abandon a home. That's it. That's it. Simon, you're so wise. Great connection. Great connection. And like dating is an apartment. Yes. You know, it's a little cramped. It's a little, you know, it's, it provides some security. It provides some comfort. And if the dating doesn't survive, so you move into another apartment, there's not that much stuff. It's not that difficult. But when you, when you find yourself in relationship, you have decided you have moved from dating into, we are going to

build a home. We're going to build a relationship. My couch becomes our couch. Me becomes we. Me becomes we. And we have children. And just the same as your parents, which is, you know, we didn't have a lot. Yeah. But we did the work.

We had a little help from the outside. Somebody believed in us. We believed in ourselves. And we built a home. And to throw that away is ignoring the work that has been done. And this is what I think your life's work sounds like it has, and it is in your therapy, which is you've done the work. Why would you let that work go in vain? If you've done no work, go ahead, date someone else. Move on. It's okay. But if you've done so much work to build a relationship, to learn how to fight, to learn how to listen, to learn the techniques, to learn the skills,

don't let that effort go in vain. And I find that just poetry, to be honest. Yes, it's poetry. It's poetry. And Simon, we learn to, if through counseling and therapy, if we can get the individual help, we can break patterns, negative patterns. We can break cycles. We can get healed. We can become whole. We can become better. We can have greater understanding rather than doing that with 20 different people over 10 years. Like, like, like there's, if you, if she keeps breaking up with you, maybe you're the common denominator,

right? Or if you keep breaking up with her. So how do we break those cycles? How do we learn to live in love and peace and get healthy? And so I'm just a huge fan of counseling and therapy, which I think works as people do the work. You're a big fan of work. You're a big fan of doing the work. Doing the work. Yes. Sean, are you free for the next four hours to keep talking? I wish, man. Because I absolutely love talking to you. You have taught me so much. You have challenged perspectives. You've given me tools. I leave after this time with you, I hope, a better leader, a better partner, a better friend, because you are out there in the world spreading your gospel. Thank you, thank you, thank you for inspiring us to continue to do the work. We've already come this far.

It's worth that we keep fighting. Yes, indeed. You're very welcome. It's been my honor. It's been my privilege. Thank you. So great to meet you, Simon. If you enjoyed this podcast

and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsenic.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.

A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbenius, David Jha, and Devin Johnson. Our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Rudershen.