Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 61 Karl Pillemer, Ph.D.

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

We are so excited to have our first solo episode! Today, we talk to Karl A. Pillemer, Ph.D. Karl is a professor of human development at Cornell University and a professor of gerontology in medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College. An internationally renowned gerontologist, his research examines how people develop and change throughout their lives. He has authored five books and over 100 scientific publications and speaks throughout the world on aging-related issues. He has interviewed hundreds of couples to learn why they fall in love and why they stay in love. We have read all of his books and have learned so much. This episode was so fun! Here are few things we cover: Karl Pillemer’s mission and passion behind his books Dealing with difficult political conversations Honesty within marriage Communication in marriage Three buckets of family estrangements How to deal with differing values in marriage Is finding your spouse: luck or choice? How people change within marriage How money can cause estrangements Hardest conflicts in marriage Can there be a perfect marriage? Qualities to develop for healthy conflicts You can learn more about Karl here ▶ https://www.karlpillemer.com/ You can check out his books here ▶ https://www.karlpillemer.com/books/ If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. Follow us on Instagram to keep the conversation going at https://www.instagram.com/couplething...​ And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. We're supported by the following companies that we love! Check them out below: Betterhelp ▶ Visit betterhelp.com/EASTFAM to get 10% off of your first month. Athletic Greens ▶ Visit athleticgreens.com/EASTFAM and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today. FAN MAIL ADDRESS: Shawn and Andrew East 750 N San Vicente Blvd., East Tower, 11th Floor, Los Angles, CA 90069 Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson...​ Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson​​​​​ Follow My Twitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/ShawnJohnson​​​​​ Snapchat! ▶ @ShawneyJ Follow AndrewsTwitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/AndrewDEast​​​​​ Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast​​​​​ Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast​​​​​ Snapchat! ▶ @AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Rona Week, now until Wednesday. Rain or shine, you can always be building yourself a better summer. So head on over to Rona and save 35% on cans of 3.78 liter Rona interior paint. Give that room you keep saying needs a fresh coat of paint, a fresh coat of paint. Build it right, build it Rona. Conditions apply, details in store, and more offers at rona.ca. We sell buckets too. extra props in the family that i was going to be on this so it's really exciting these uh estrangements

and issues with the extended family cause untold problems for couples and Andrew. A podcast all about couples. And the things they go through. Today we have our first solo interview. Okay. We have mentioned his books. Yes. More than any other reference we've made on the show. We actually gift them to a lot of our couples. Yes. I'm very excited about this. I'm honored that he took the time to join us today. We're talking about Dr. Carl Pilamer. He has authored 30 lessons on living. 30 lessons on loving. And his newest book, Fault Lines. Andrew and I have had more relationship in depth, like philosophical conversations regarding his books or stemming from his books, then I think anything else we've talked about in a relationship. So Dr. Pilmer is a professor

at Cornell University and he is a gerontologist. Yes. Which means that he works and studies with old people. Yeah. And so that's the inspiration for these books. It's to sit down with people who have lived a full life and get their lessons on living, loving. And then also his newest book dissects how family estrangements occur. So any rifts that have happened, any breaks in family ties that have happened, he wanted to understand why those happen and then also give words of wisdom

as to how to repair these rifts. So you might be asking yourself, this is a couple things. Why are we not listening to a couple? Well, we thought he had so much wisdom from talking to thousands and thousands of couples around the world that he could talk about

and give such great advice. and great wisdom about couples relationships and all of the drama that comes with it. Yes. And he doesn't just interview any couples. He interviews couples that have been married for decades. And we talk about this all the time on our show. We don't necessarily want to give advice. The inspiration for the show is to share our life experiences as they happen and the things that we're learning through them. By no means are we experts. By no means, are we family counselors? But that's why we're excited to sit down with Dr. Pilemer because he is an expert. And he's spoken with so many different experts. He's an author. Anyway, we're very excited. Again, if you want to find

out more about Dr. Pilmer and the books that he's written, I would legitimately recommend every single one of these books. These are staple books in my mind, and they make my top 15 list for sure. We're going to link those down below and also more information about Dr. Pilmer, if you're curious. And before we jump into an interview, please subscribe to this show and give it a rating on whatever platform you're listening on. It really helps us out. And let's just go ahead. Wendy's Most Important Deal of the Day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two. breakfast items for $4. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap, biscuit or English muffin sandwiches,

small hot coffee, and more. Limited time only at participating Wendy's Taxes Extra. Rolling this one with Dr. Carl Pillimer. Let's do it. Well, Dr. Carl Pillimer, I got to say it is a true honor to have you here with this. And I want to start with two things. One, this is the first ever solo interview we've done. Usually we sit down with a couple.

and so I'm excited and anxious to see how this goes. The second issue I want to bring up is more of maybe like a bone I have to pick with you. I am just dying to know why you haven't written more books. Everything you've written so far has been so life-changing, perspective-changing for me that I need you to write more books, Doc. Well, maybe we can talk about that. I'm kind of trying to think out, you know, the next one. I also could go get my wife out of the other room.

But I feel really excited to be the one solo interviewee. This is great, you know. I think it's, I feel like it's a privilege. I will say your book, 30 Lessons on Loving, well, and on Living and Fault Lines, honestly, has been more, like, has been brought up more within our marriage and our, like, serious conversations than anything else. He's like, well, I don't know. The book says this, though.

And I'm like, okay, okay. No, well, so I have these, um, go ahead, sorry. I do need to give credit to my, my friend, uh, Boone me who recommended your books first, but I, I have referenced multiple times in the show your books. And for those that don't know, uh, these books are all based off of Dr. Carl's experience as a gerontologist, where he sits down with elderly people and really gets their advice. And we'd love to hear what, what was your mission and passion behind that? I know there's a story there.

You know, it's so interesting. I mean, one thing which unites all these books, even though the most recent one is a different topic, I'm in general a real evidence-based guy, so I believe that if science has an answer, we should use it. But there are very complicated human problems that science doesn't have good answers for. And in that case, I felt that the next best thing was to go to actual living, breathing people who've experienced a problem and overcome it. and distill their wisdom for overcoming the problem or their lessons for living with it and make those available to other people. So that that's kind of been the idea.

And I don't like to just do small groups. So you'll know from the books, each of them involves large-scale surveys, lots of in-depth interviews, because I want to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds, not just a few interviews, but really get to the heart of it. And as you said, each book kind of led this. the other. I'd been a gerontologist for 25 years or so, and I realized all I was studying was old people as problems and the problems of old people. So I was studying things like

chronic pain, Alzheimer's disease, elder abuse. It's like I was rewriting the book of Job for old people, basically. And I just decided that was too narrow. So I had this sense, what if we go to the oldest people among us and ask them for their advice for living. And not just Yoda like wisdom or like the character that Morgan Freeman plays in every movie now, but the, but they're practical advice for how to overcome life's major problems. And the one chapter in that first book, which was on how to get and stay married, people were the most interested in it. I learned that couples were buying the book and leaving that chapter open and encouraging wedding guests at their wedding to write their

lessons. So I got a lot of encouragement to go back and find really long married people. So people married 30, 40 or 50 or more years and asked them about their lessons for love relationships and marriage. And at the risk of going on too long, one of the things I learned from those two books and from interviewing old people is I asked them about their regrets in life. And over and over, I heard that a major regret was a family estrangement, that when you're 70 or 80 or 90, it nags at people that their parent died before they had time to reconcile, that they got into later life or with a brother estranged or with their kids not seeing them. So each book formed its own progression and each one has this theme of let's go ask people

who've been through something and done something how they did it and make that advice available for other people. So there's a link sort of between them. Yeah, I found the timing of the release of this book actually very appropriate with, you know, one of the most, I feel like polarizing elections happening. We're obviously in a unique time with the pandemic and there's a lot of varying views on how to approach that. And so when I first read this, you know, and Sean knows I'm a big fan of years. I have been using the advice in this book to kind of deal with with our own family, people who have impassioned beliefs, to kind of, you know, help people maintain a broader perspective of, hey, love the differing opinions and the different perspectives here, but let's not

forget that family unity at the end of the day is the most important thing. But on that note, I'm curious with something like politics, which your book discusses in fault lines. The idea is not to just withhold any and all opinions, right? It's how to have more or less healthy conflict or deal with, deal with poorly dealt conflict and how to move past that. Am I correct in saying that? You know, I think it's, I think the way you've summed it up is great. It's a little bit of both and.

I'll start with your first thought, which is about, you know, this extremely, one can even say poisonous kind of political debates that are now taking place in the country, but also in families. I said long before this election, I gave the elders advice about how to deal with these difficult political conversations, oddly enough, you know, 10 or more years ago, they give you a simple rule in your family. And by the way, sometimes these simple rules are really difficult to do, but at least it's a simple rule. And that, ask yourself, do I have any possibility of changing this person's mind? So is there any possibility that this person is going to shift their viewpoint?

If the answer is no, then create a demilitarized zone. It's like a compulsion to repeat the same arguments over and over in families. And from researching this a little bit, I've learned something. Most of us hang around with people who share our political opinions and values. So a Trump supporter or a Biden supporter don't have much contact with those people. So when they get their family, it's the one place they found someone they can unload to for all of the past political misdemeanors. So one of the most astonishing things is how families grind through these same arguments over and over and over again.

So in general, although discussion is good, if it's not an open and enjoyable and interesting political discussion, If it's a repetitive airing of grievances and there's no possibility of changing the other person's mind, my respondents argued for a demilitarized zone. You know, to set boundaries say, I won't do it if we're going to, you know, if you're going to criticize my political views, I'll talk about anything else. If not, I'm going to vote with my feet. And it's amazing how quickly families then do move over to what they're binge watching. You know, it's just a, you know, there's, I've come to a. a conclusion, having interviewed many, many people now, these particular value-laden, left-and-right political discussions are almost unresolvable in families and probably should be avoided, given the kind of upset they're causing, because they really are. I mean, as you've probably

seen, it's tremendously difficult for families and people won't let it go, and I think they have to. on that note i am curious in having conversations with the thousands of people that you have and couples something that we talk about a lot with couples who come on the show is transparency and honesty so trying not to push anything under the rug trying to be very open trying to make sure that nothing goes unturned in that you you sort through your issues before they become an issue. However, do you, did you find, have you found that there are those topics and there are those things that are better left unsaid? And how do you draw that line? Or how did they draw that line? You know, the elders who I interviewed, these very long married elders, had some very

clear advice on that. They really do emphasize honesty. And people, when you ask them at the end of a very long relationship, what they regretted the most. It often was acts of dishonesty, not both active dishonestly like an affair or something, but also not expressing their feelings enough. I had many older men who had lost their wives whose major regret that was not having expressed love more, not, you know, allowing their partner to be taken for granted. So I totally agree with you with that kind of honesty and opening. Now, they do make little exceptions. Like, you know, for the question, do these pants make me look fatter? You know, for example, they argue that you don't have to be brutally honest about everything and you can be selective.

I think with them, it's honesty in what really matters. And absolutely, they found a dishonesty, a lie, something early in a marriage. When you look back on it from the end of the marriage journey, it does create a, like a real source of insecurity. So, yeah, I think that people who remain in very long marriages happily develop a way to communicate honestly. And let me say, I was interviewing people in their 70s and 80s and beyond. Men in that age range always told me they weren't great communicators.

Some had been in the army where either they yelled at other people or were yelled at for four years or whatever. All of them had to learn. some kind of basic communication strategies where they could talk about things openly. I mean, the strong silent type may be attractive, but it's not good for a long-term marriage. Somebody has to be able to learn how to talk. And if people in your age range think they can't, I'll tell you, these were hardened, older people who learned how to do it. So I couldn't agree more.

It's one of the two or three top things. you know this level of kind of radical honesty in a relationship is really critical except where you might bend it on some small things where it doesn't make any difference I don't know your thoughts on marriage but I get geeked about the whole structure of marriage and the contractual side of it and kind of people's it's it's different than any other relationship that we're familiar with in our culture or society but the cool thing about it I think is in part that it provides this practice ground where you can actually, hey, I'm not a good communicator. And we might have, you know, 40 years together for me to maybe practice it and get

better at communicating. So that idea is exciting because, yeah, I feel like I've hopefully improved my communication over our years. But yes? Yes. Okay. There we go. You know, you raise an incredibly important point. And I'm interested to talk about it specifically with you folks, because in your careers, you've had to, you know, engage now what in business or sports or the arts would call a discipline. And in all the books, and especially the marriage book, the idea of marriage as a discipline, not, of course, in a punishment kind of discipline, but a discipline in the sense of there's no ultimate success or failure. You're always trying to continually improve. There are clear ups and downs, and so there's no perfection.

You expect, you know, a setback, like you do in athletics. You have losses, you have injuries or whatever. And those kinds of setbacks and losses are used to strengthen whatever you're doing. So I argued in the marriage book that that's basically what very long married people are talking about. That it's not easy, as you found out. I mean, the marriage can be difficult. It can be challenging. but a really long marriage is really worth it.

So if you talk to people who've gotten there, they'll say, I mean, every long married person has had one or two years where they thought that they might get divorced. So everyone has these valleys where they're despondent about the relationship. And it's by practicing that kind of discipline of accepting that you're in it for the long term really makes a huge difference. I found the same thing, too, with people who had reconciled after estrangement. So, you know, you estranged from your brother, estranged from your mother for 10 or 15 years. It's not instantaneous when you get back. It's, again, a discipline where

you learn about yourself, you get stronger, you muster your social support, and you get help. And if it doesn't work out right away, you try again and again and again. So I think you hit on it exactly that it's a people want this like instant gratification and if the relationship goes poorly for a short period of time they feel like they should be out yeah rather than seeing those challenges as opportunities to get stronger personally as well as you know as a um a relationship yeah and we've learned a lot of things on the show one couple i think phrased it very appropriately and said that anytime they get in a big argument, they always remind themselves, hey, we know how this argument ends. And that's with us still married. And I think like, you know, I'm not big on rah-rah

motivation, but having that in the back of your mind of like not just being in the moment and be like, oh, I feel all these feelings of frustration and anger. But knowing deep down that this ends with us still married, we just have to get to the other side of this is really good. And it certainly applies to family situations as well. I would love without maybe, you, you know, spoiling the book so people can still go out and purchase it and learn all of the things. But what have you found in your research were maybe three buckets of family estrangements? Yeah, there are, there actually are sort of three big areas. One are ones which are caused by what I would call the long arm of the past. So that really life is so adverse in

childhood, harsh parenting, child abuse, horrible sibling rivalry, et cetera, that even if things have gotten better later, people just can't get over it. Divorce when children are young, both on my research and others, can lead to an estrangement from the non-custodial parent. So that's one bucket. A second bucket or what I might call a sociocultural views, namely values and expectations, that values drive a lot of our relationships, every one. and we gravitate towards people who share our values and move away from those who don't. So strong value differences, violated expectations can help lead to an estrangement. And then there were strong situational factors, and one of which really relates to your

folks' interests. I'll do the other one first. Money may not be the root of all evil, but it certainly is the root of a lot of family estrangements. So issues around inheritance, business affairs, et cetera. And most relevant here is what I call in the book, the problematic in-law, that, you know, their estrangements are surprising, or maybe not that surprising, number of estrangements emerge when a person has, in the family's viewpoint, married the wrong person. And that can take a range of possibilities. Either the person deliberately tries to pull the person away from their family, the family

doesn't get along with him or her. so that in-law issues wind up being a pretty strong factor in family estrangements. More so than I would have thought they would have been. That's been brought up within our conversations with other people many times, whether it's with dating or engagement, people are constantly asking us, how do we know if the person is the one? What if their family doesn't approve?

What if we're of a different religion? What if it's all these buckets of things that cause issue within that family and an extended family, have you seen or heard from people that there are ways to get around it, or are those just boundaries that unfortunately don't work within long-term marriages? So if you ask very long-married people what some of their secrets are in terms of getting into a relationship, they say some things that might be difficult for people to hear. But one of the things they do say is opposites may attract, but when it comes to a long-term marriage, it's much more birds of the feather. Small differences work out, but especially

core value differences, you know, how you want to spend money or how you want to spend your career time, those often push couples apart. So one of the things which very long married people will tell you, and there's some research on this too, marrying someone who's broadly similar to you make sense. Now, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't, you know, if you're in love in a Romeo and Juliet kind of situation, it just means you should anticipate that it's going to be challenging. Very similarly, long-married elders will tell you, take your partners, your future partners' family into consideration as you make the decision. Again, they say, don't reject him or her because their family is difficult. But understand that the family of origin doesn't go away,

and you may be embroiled in controversy with them for as long as you're married. So their key point, you know, older people will tell you, choose carefully. Don't ever the do, gee, it's time for me to get married or afraid I'm running out of options or whatever. They want people to, you know, enter it with their head. If I could add one thing, though, which you mentioned, people forget that marriage is a contract. It's not just your head over heels and love. It means your finances are going to be enmeshed with somebody else. If you're looking at somebody who can't handle money and it's important to you,

you've got to act with your head as well as your heart, they would say. And think, you know, like in the old days, that, you know, the elders would use an expression like good marriage material, you know. And they encourage people to think in that way at least a little. Is this person going to hold down a job, contribute to the house, be a decent parent? And I think you've probably seen it too. In the early stages, especially of falling in love with somebody, you know, you aren't sitting down having conversations like do our core child rearing values align. You know, in fact, it's probably the way to end the first date, you know, right after that.

But they argue that, you know, eventually, can I tell you, one other thing they said, that just given your backgrounds. Please. So, you know, they give little tips as well as big tips. And many elders from different cultures, completely surprisingly, gave me the advice. Watch how your prospective partner plays games. So I interviewed Dominicans who have a domino's table in their house. I went to Chinese senior centers where everyone's playing mahjong.

You know, I had one Chinese American woman said, I watched how we played mahjong. You know, I saw how he could accept defeat. I saw that he could be competitive, but not angry. It was surprising how many people said, you know, I fell in love when I saw, you know, we were on a soccer team together and I saw how he dealt with it. So I thought that was an interesting piece of advice. Watch how your partner is involved in something where he or she's not aware that you're watching and see, you know, the person who throws the chessboard at the wall when he or she loses,

not make good marriage material. So anyway, I thought that was a couple of things. The modern adaptation of is she marriage material is kind of could she be wifey? Is that wifey material? Second thing is Sean and I, Sean is very competitive and I find it attractive just as long as it's not us competing against each other. So that's that's my two cents there. I do want to further on that though because I feel like we've talked a lot about. this within other episodes. I feel like we live in a culture of people almost being brainwashed that there is the one person for them. And it's this belief that if as long as they find them, marriage will be easy and everything will be butterflies and rainbows and it will be the perfect

marriage. We aren't personal believers of that. We feel like it's a choice that you truly make every single day to work for your marriage but what would be the perspective of the elders of how did they find their person was it the one was it this romeo and juliet situation or was it the choice that they made day in and day out there's so many points in there you're right because really there are like 2.5 billion people you know who you could get involved with so the idea that there's only one probably doesn't make sense you know there's a filtering process. For one thing, you have to be able to find them. So I agree with you. I think that expectation is unrealistic. And in the internet meme, you see expectations or disappointments waiting

to happen. I think you're absolutely right that the idea that marriage is going to solve your problems, that it's going to be the be all and end all is unrealistic. And I think that it absolutely gets people into problems. One of the things, you know, so the elders said two things would sound contradictory. One, I've already mentioned, that you should also approach this with your head, that you have to look objectively at whether the person is going to be able to be the kind of person that you want him or her to be. That was point one. Two, if there was one point they made where they literally or figuratively pounded their fists on the table, said if there's one thing you should tell people who are going to buy your book,

It's that abandon any idea of changing the person's going to change after you marry them. That many of them had done it. And they didn't speak usually strongly, but they use things like, if you believe that you're an idiot, you're foolish. It's just an absolutely idiotic idea that your partner's going to be a do-it-yourself project. That, you know, if they said again and again, if your partner's idea of humor is whoopee cushions and a handbuster, your hand buzzer, that's not going to be funnier 10 years from now.

You know, that, you know, the idea, so the notion that people will change because you want them to was one of their absolutely strongest. You have to ask yourself, can I live with all these characteristics of the person before getting married? Finally, I think they would, but they also said, that's logic for you, that you need what they referred to as this in love feeling, that the there was nobody, I would say, in a happy marriage who didn't have what they would call like an irrational sense, a feeling of certainty, a feeling maybe not even so much, you know, I can live with this person as I can't live without this person or it feels that way. And people who got married and didn't have that, and I give a long anecdote in the book

of someone who was being pushed into marriage and got out, you know, and got into a terrible marriage as a result, people who didn't have what they call this feeling, this sort of in love feeling is the way they put it, just didn't do well. So your listeners have to hold two different ideas in their minds right now. They would say you've got to have that instinctual push towards the person, but you can't park your reason at the door. Even if you have it, if you can identify obstacles that aren't going to change that you're not going to be able to tolerate. You've got to also have those in mind. So on a similar kind of mindset and speaking about the topic of change, it is interesting because how do you balance not having the expectation of changing the partner,

but fully realizing that the long-term effect will probably be some type of change. Do you know, am I wrong in saying that? I feel like I feel like I've changed so much. You grow and mature, but you're saying I shouldn't have the expectations that that's going to happen for her. That's a great nuance. You're absolutely right because people do change. And we can encourage our partners to change, but, you know, they do have to want to. It's the idea of imposing change on someone else. But it's true.

I mean, I've changed a lot in my relationship over the years, but there was a level of willingness and a realization that I should do it. And it couldn't have been expected in advance that I would. it turned out I did. So I think that's a great nuance. That's exactly right. People definitely change, grow, develop, and they do so as part of their relationship. I mean, you, I'm sure you know, you know, the famous reason why married men live longer than

unmarried men is typically their spouses and make them go to the doctor. You know? This is true. This is true. Yes, it's true. Yes. There's a longevity benefit, especially for men. And married men that generally have somewhat better health habits and especially wives or, you know, spouses are prone to noticing something's wrong with them.

And men have a definite, not as sex is a thing here, like a research-based one. Men are more reluctant to seek help for almost anything that's wrong with them. So, yeah, like that's one of the hypotheses, is why there's a marriage bonus in health for men. So you mentioned the maybe three buckets of estrangement are, or three causes are the past values and then expectations and in-laws, am I correct in saying that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the big events that have, you know, there's this sort of, you know, the pressures of society where in terms of expectations and values with family members where we have these

beliefs, blood is thicker than water, your sibling should always have your back. your parents should always support you, kids should support their parents. There's so much pressure placed on people. And very often, if people want to reconcile, they have to drop a lot of those expectations. And, yeah, one of the things I learned about reconciliation, almost everybody who'd been estranged from a close relative and then reconciled after 10 or 20 years, the question they had to ask themselves was, what's the least I can accept? So will I accept a less than perfect relationship?

Is it still worth it? So I'll give an example that's marriage related, one of the folks in the book that was estranged from her daughter that they'd had a very difficult relationship, couldn't see her grandkids, and her daughter offered her one more chance and said, look, you can come and visit once every couple of months. You can't stay with us.

You have to stay in a hotel. Your second husband can't come at all, and I will never discuss him with you. You know, he can't even be mentioned. And the mother did the calculation and said, okay, that did open up later. But so that's the thing with expectations. You know, there was a, there were quite a few people where someone was caring for an older parent.

So say you're caring for your mother or father and your siblings don't step up. It's a very common situation. People, if they wanted to reconcile, if that had caused a rift, had to say, to themselves is not the kind of person he was and I can't expect this of him. So I think that that's where the expectations come in is, you know, in order to reconcile after a long rift, people had to ask themselves, can I live with a person who's not going to live up to my expectations? Wow. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue

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On top of this, you also mentioned the idea of money and inheritance. Is it true that the old saying, mo money, mo problems? It's one of my favorite talks, by the way. which isn't that biggie no it's uh i i thought money more problem i thought i was biggie yeah yeah i think it is they um uh money is a really complex issue and especially inheritance for a couple

of really interesting reasons one of those is that even if you give all your money equally to your kids you can't divide a family business or a house nor can you divide that grandfather clock that came over from the old country or the chip Thanksgiving platter that served Turkey for 50 years, you know, at Thanksgiving. So that's one problem. Two, there's a thing about a will. It's a person's statement into eternity, basically. I mean, it's this big zero-sum decision that carries a lot of emotional weight. And yeah, I was shocked at how many estrangements really did come from even loans gone bad. Now, I will say those were ones that were somewhat more prone to reconcile after years.

These really deep-seated childhood issues are harder to overcome. But the one thing also I was thinking, there's enormous collateral damage. And it is very, these estrangements proved to be very hard on couples. If one person is dealing with an estrangement, say, with a parent, and maybe considering reconciling. It's very emotionally stressful. You know, a spouse might see the other person's side, for example. I mean, I've seen that in my own family,

where, you know, the spouse might actually be advocating for the difficult brother. And, you know, you could say the husband can't see it. So there's what I call in the book, collateral damage of estrangement. It ripples down into families. And if, say, a wife is having a really difficult relationship, with her sister, you know, I had husbands say to me, because I interviewed some family members, I mean, all I hear about is what happened with her sister today. You know, there's no other emotional room. So, you know, we call the family a system for a reason. And there's definitely

this sort of ripple effect or collateral damage on couples if one is having these kind of intense conflicts with their own family. And you may have seen it with other folks you've, you know, you've talked to. Yeah. I found the money issue so interesting because it's almost like this glitch in priorities with our society where, you know, in the time of GameStop and Bitcoin and everybody's almost not to say the only purpose is to get rich quick, but that's definitely a motivation. It's like, well, okay, but if this is one of the causes of family rifts, you know, how are you prioritizing this and are you keeping in mind navigating this wisely? you know and not making an issue so you know it's so it was so cool because we got the interview

close to 50 college students so emerging adults who had estrangements in their families and they just couldn't get over it they would say again and again you know i loved my cousins my father and his brother have a horrible business deal now we can't see that whole side of the family just over money like i mean outside observers are really based on, I'm doing some work actually now with an institute that deals with this concern in family businesses. And again, you know, these rupturing of whole families because of the money, I mean, you're right. It seems like it should be more trivial, but I think it gets bound up with, you know, emotion. And it's also zero sum. You know, there's sometimes where there can't be

an equitable decision and that drives people crazy. But, you know, the one thing which people going through it say again and again act quick get mediation get help to deal with it and don't involve the whole rest of your family even if you and your brother are having troubles don't have the nieces and nephews not be in contact with one another keep the family together even if an estrangement is starting to occur between two people and that goes for any estrangement act quickly and take care of it as yeah and oh my gosh i just think that's such valuable advice i was as i read that in your book I was thinking through the effect of, you know, when Sean and I have a little beef, I'll go tell my friends about it. And then they're kind of yes men to my cause. They're like, yeah, dude,

I can't believe she freaking did that. And then, you know, you kind of solidify your, you cement in your mind. Like, yeah, I was right. And then you go back. And so anyway, time only increases the, I feel like the idea that I was right. And the sooner we can just nip that in the bud, the better. You know, that is a great point and it makes me think of something else. It's really helpful in a couple, and I haven't thought about it quite this way until, you know, you talked about them. These family patterns of cutting someone off, even if it isn't an estrangement, that if you disagree or you have difficulties, you emotionally cut them off, over and over people told me that was passed down in a family to them. So, and that they had seen it in their parents.

you know, this was how they operated if they were having trouble with one of the children, they would just sort of cut off all contact with them or really isolate them. And I think people do carry that over into their marriages and into their relationships. You know, the idea that if we can't get along, I'm going to withdraw or I'm going to be emotionally withholding. And I think that's another reason to work it out, you know, in your families because it becomes a model for future relationships for your kids. Wow.

If you were to look collectively at all of your books and all of the information that you've collected from all of these couples and people with estrangements in conflict, what seemed to be the worst case scenarios, if that may, like what was the hardest conflict for people to kind of work their way through within a marriage? You know, I think in a marriage, things that involve core betrayal, and the one thing I noticed in my book, in the book, 30 Lessons for Loving, a number of people had been able to reconcile with their partner after an affair. So there were some people who said that this was not the worst thing that it happened in their 50 or 60 year marriage. But it's when betrayals cut to the core of the other person. And this is true in estrangement as well, when the rejection is so powerful and calls your whole identity into question, you know, so where there's more of a complete rejection of the person, and that's what certainly happens in estrangement, where when people who are estranged, and I'm sure this happens in marriages too, say they want an apology. They don't want an apology for one thing. They want it for their entire childhood. or for who the whole other person is. So I'd say that's one of the worst. And the second thing that happens is when communication breaks down as a result of that, so strongly that it moves from arguments or disagreements into contempt, where, you know, there are truly contemptuous, hurtful discussions, aimed to hurt.

I think that's where problems in marriages and problems in estrangement come together. we've learned now from decades of psychological research that it takes an awful lot of positive events in a relationship to overcome a single really negative one. You know, there's a psychologist who calls it a factor of 10. Like if you've, you know, insulted your partner inadvertently, it takes 10 good things to overcome that. It has to do with these conflicts that move beyond any real disagreement

and where there's identity threat that, you know, It's making the person feel like they're a truly genuinely bad person. I think that cuts across marriage and the estrangements. And that's where I think outside help is really needed. It's hard for couples who've gotten to that point, I think. I'm curious as doing your work on it, if that rings a bell or not, and whether people sort of talk about that kind of thing. My first couple of thoughts are, one, on a similar note,

the worst question I've ever asked a married couple. So just in my own life, I love talking to older married couples. And one question I asked was, what's the biggest fight you've ever been in? And I realized, Doc, that that fight never gets, I feel like, resolved. It's more of a, hey, we've made this a demilitarized zone, as you said. You probably started them up again, right? I really did. So not going to ask that again.

But the second thing I thought of was, I'm not sure if you've read The Meaning of Marriage. It's a book by Tim Keller. and he talks about how marriage is, you know, such a unique thing because your partner sees you at your most vulnerable, at your truest core, you know, like most innocent version of yourself, I feel like, or the most raw form. And how, it makes me sad to think that someone could feel rejected or feel like a bad person because of their partner. It's like, gosh, how can we avoid that at all costs, you know?

I would say, though, to your question, we have had couples on both sides that were able to get through adversity affairs, whatever their challenge was. And we've had couples who were not able to. And it seems like on both of those sides, it's exactly what you talked about. You have the couples who were able to forgive and were willing to work through it. And then you had the ones that felt so betrayed that there wasn't a turning. point for them. They felt like they couldn't come back from it. And it just kind of seemed like it was yeah. Hopeless. Yeah. It was it was it was one or the other. And it's also even not so much the event about what it means, you know, like I think that that's absolutely right. And you know,

I think the one way which the very long married elders said, and I think you both actually alluded to this earlier, they really did have a mindset that marriage was forever, that you were in this for good. So they didn't think about a starter marriage. They had the idea that you were in it. Now, obviously, if there was abuse or something really dramatically awful, they would get out of it. But the idea that you're in it for good does make you, you know, try harder. I mean, it's a kind of thing. It's, I think, you know, when you were saying what you think, you know, I'm sort of in this and I have to deal with it. So I think that mentality is very helpful for couples and for family relationships that it's not just I can easily end this. It's that I am in this

for the long run. And I have to work through these things. So I think that helps people too. Asking the question, I think more so for our generation than anything and the generations to come, were there any marriages or couples you talked to that said they had a perfect marriage? Yeah. No. Answer, absolutely. No, there really, really was no perfect marriage for everybody at the end of the line of married life, felt there were ups and downs, that there were difficulties. Even if it hadn't been affecting them, you know, your kids get sick, you become unemployed. There are other issues which occur. So many people described very happy. marriages. And over the course of life, as being able to stay in a long marriage is one of their life's true accomplishments. But no, there was absolutely no such thing as a perfect marriage. And indeed, what would it be? I mean, you know, you'd be in some kind of a, you know, Stepford wife, husband. I mean, it's hard to envision what that kind of perfection would be.

I think it's this concept that, you know, the big picture I learned from talking to those folks, is if you can do it, staying married over 40 or 50 or 60 years is really sublime. I mean, it's an experience that you can only appreciate once you're there. For those people, it's really, really good. It's worth striving for. It's something that, you know, they almost can't describe how meaningful it is in their lives. So the one thing I'd recommend, too, as I know we're probably nearing the end of our time, is go talk to those people like you folks have. I mean, for folks who are thinking of getting married, one of the biggest problems in our society is we don't go talk to old people.

I mean, it's only been in about the last hundred years or so that people have gone to anyone other than the oldest person they knew for advice about something like marriage. And look, older people may not be the ones, you know, to reprogram the smart TV or tell you who the latest reality TV star is, but they are the best sources we have on keeping a relationship together through hard times and getting over difficulties. So even though their lives, though, we're different, you know, you can get this kind of advice from actual living, breathing people in your orbit. And I think it's really worthwhile. It's so humbling to talk to you who have, you've had thousands of these conversations and the depth of wisdom that I can only imagine that you

have as a result is just, well, you could see it in your books. And part of me just wants to sit down and have a seven-hour conversation with you, but in lieu of that. When the world opens up, I'll get down there to Nashville at some point. I'm going to make you my new pin pal. If you don't mind, I like it. I like it. We're going to touch our, no, I find really great questions. Thanks so much. Really a fascinating spend with you. I really appreciate it. I would like if you don't mind answering one more question. So you talked about the causes of estrangement. You talked about how to mend those estrangements. But at the beginning of this episode, we talked about kind of the practice of communication. And do you have any qualities or habits that we can practice proactively

like communication or, yeah, any qualities that we can be focused on developing that help us have healthy conflicts so we avoid these estrangements altogether? It's a great question. And there's one that actually, there's one piece of advice that overlaps both marriages and and estrangements because there's been research done on both. So one of the best things that people can do, and there actually is there have been experiments of this. If couples, for example, when confronted by a difficulty, and it's going to sound simple, but it's really extraordinarily effective, either write or talk from the other person's perspective, or if that's too difficult, writing down, and people have done this experimentally,

if you're having a disagreement and you sit down and write from the perspective of an objective third party who has both people's interests in mind, that there have been a number of experiments in psychology that show that's a very powerful way to do it, is to sit and write or think what would an objective third party advise us? And I found that with people getting out of estrangements, they developed that ability to take on the role of the other person and to see the world from their side. When we're angry and feel rejected, that's extraordinarily difficult. So almost using artificial means of trying to understand the meaning behind the behavior, that was one critical thing. You know, beyond that, I loved some of the concrete

tips older people gave. If I have time, I'll just say one or two. They really believe in the not going to bed angry rule, which is if you ask almost any very old person, one of their rules. They'll say that. I delve deeply into it. And they really mean by that, you know, don't hold grudges. Don't, you know, for them symbolically carrying an argument over for two or three days, it's just more than needs to happen. On a smaller level, I'll tell you the one piece of advice that really helped my marriage. They say that when you're having a difficulty, when you're having a persistent disagreement, stop and ask, who is this more important to? So, for whom is the outcome going to be more important?

My story was, so we moved into this old Victorian house, and there was a rusty old cloth-foot tub in the downstairs bathroom. I wanted that taken out and a luxurious shower put in. And we aren't about it perseveratively. And I was actually doing, you know, the work on this book, and they kept on saying, so I said, okay, this matters more to her. So I'm just going to, like, leave the field. I don't care as much.

It looks unbelievably beautiful. It was totally the right decision. I was absolutely wrong. So I think that's a principle that it's a small principle that has bigger impact that, you know, decide who the issue is more important to and let that person have their way. So I think there are small tips like that that you learn over time that are pretty good. Gosh. Well, I think that's a really good place to end. and got there's so many thoughts that I have especially you know and I feel like marriage is a choice

and what you said about choosing to empathize with your spouse's point of view is so powerful because we do this all the time with our political views we empathize with the other people you know that we're around we empathize with our in-laws but making the choice to be like no this is the person then I'm going to actually grow to understand their point of view better is is a choice and it's tough. But honestly, Doc, this show is nothing more than a shadow of your work. And to save you the seven hours of in-person conversation for now, I'll take you up on it later. But I'm just going to continue to read your books. And for those listening that want to read Doc's books on 30 Lessons for Living, 30 Lessons for Loving, and Fault Lines, I would highly

recommend all of them. We're going to link them down below, as well as some articles he's written for the Huffington Post, including the marriage mistakes, almost everybody makes, and three questions everyone should ask before marriage. This guy is full of advice. Well, you know, thanks. And listen, I'll say to your listeners, if you can just include this, that, you know, my research team and I, you know, do these projects, and we all are thinking about what should the next book be about. So if people have ideas for what a great big interview study that looks for people's lessons for some domain of life, we'll happily take their suggestions too fantastic i love that well it was all right well thanks so

much true honor to meet you doctor thanks for the time truly an honor thanks so much