Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - How To Have More Meaningful & Intimate Relationships: A Fresh Approach That Really Works with Terry Real #679

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

If there were a health marker guaranteed to shape your happiness, your health and your children’s wellbeing, wouldn’t you want to optimise it? According to today’s guest there is: your relationships. And in this episode, the world-renowned couples’ therapist Terry Real reveals the one skill he believes matters more than any other for lasting love – while showing you exactly how to use it. Nicknamed ‘the turnaround guy’, Terry has spent decades helping couples who’ve tried it all find their way back to connection. His latest bestseller Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship, features a foreword from one-such happy customer, Bruce Springsteen. Terry’s unconventional yet hugely successful approach, Relational Life Therapy (RLT), has trained thousands of therapists worldwide. He believes a good therapist should take sides, and that lasting change often means helping someone come down from grandiosity, not just raising them up from shame. This is one of those conversations that blends big, new ideas with nuggets of advice you’ll be itching to put into practice. We discuss how expectations of love and romance have changed over the generations – and why so many of us are trying to build modern, intimate partnerships using skills we were never actually taught. And Terry explains why the real measure of a strong relationship isn’t how rarely you argue, but which of your ‘three selves’ you use to do it. He introduces the idea of the adaptive child, an old survival pattern that hijacks our behaviour the moment we feel threatened, and explains how learning to recognise it can transform the way we handle conflict. We also discuss the patriarchy and the need to move beyond it for humankind – but this is not about blaming men or women, rather showing how both can and must shift to help each other and the world. So, what is that one skill we need for lasting love? Terry calls it repair, and his bold idea is that it’s not a two-way conversation. When someone we love is hurt or upset with us, our job is not to explain ourselves, but to help them feel heard first. The ability to repair, more than the ability to swerve an argument altogether, is what determines relationship success – and, crucially, he reveals how to do it. It’s a simple reframe, and one that could change how you handle your very next disagreement.   Whether you are single, married, co-parenting, or navigating a difficult patch with someone you care about, this conversation is full of practical strategies you can start using today. I have a feeling you’ll want to share this episode, so everyone you love can do the same. The Thrive Tour: Transform Your Health and Happiness, a live show: Book Your Tickets https://drchatterjee.com/live   Thanks to our sponsors: https://drinkag1.com/livemore https://hellolingo.com/livemore https://dohealth.co/livemore   Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/679   DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get into this week's episode, I am really excited to share that I am bringing my Thrive Tour, transform your health and happiness to Canada and Europe this September and November. It's a live, interactive, uplifting show that over 20,000 people came to last year across the UK and Australia. I'll be sharing powerful stories, life-changing insights, and simple tools that will inspire you to feel, better, think clearer, and live with more intention and joy. To get your tickets right now and see all of the dates and venues, go to Dr.chatterjee.com forward slash live. I really hope that you can join me. Every couple that I see on the brink of divorce has one thing in common. They do not have a working mechanism of correction. Your partner's upset with you. You have one job.

help them come back into connection with you. Your excuses and feelings and your issues can come later. But in this moment, you're at the service of the person who's unhappy with you. Hey guys, how you doing? I hope you having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Ronggan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast. Feel Better, Live More. Did you know that there is something you can work on

that is guaranteed to improve your happiness, your health, and your children's well-being. Any guesses as to what this mystery thing might be? Well, of course, it is the quality of your relationships. This week's guest is the world-renowned couples therapist, Terry Real. Terry has earned the nickname the turnaround guy and has spent decades helping couples who've tried it all, find their way back to connection.

His latest best-selling book is The Quite Wonderful Us, getting past you and me to build a more loving relationship. And it features a foreword from none other than Bruce Springsteen one of the tens of thousands of people Terry has helped over the course of his career. Terry's unconventional, yet hugely successful approach, relational life therapy, has trained thousands of therapists worldwide. And he believes, unconventionally and perhaps a little controversially, that a good therapist should take sides,

and that lasting change often means helping someone come down from grandiosity, not just raising them up from shame. This is one of those conversations that blends big, new ideas, with nuggets of advice you'll be itching to put into practice. We discuss how expectations of love and romance have changed over the generations,

and why so many of us are trying to build modern, intimate partnerships using skills we were never actually taught. And Terry explains why the real measure of a strong relationship isn't how rarely you argue, but which of your three selves you use to do it. He also introduces the idea of the adaptive child, an old survival pattern that hijacks our behaviour the moment we feel threatened,

and explains how learning to recognize it can transform the way we handle conflict. We also discuss the patriarchy and the need to move beyond it for humankind, but this is not about blaming men or women, rather showing how both can and must shift to help each other and the world. So what is the one skill we need for lasting love?

Terry calls it repair, And his bold idea is that it's not a two-way conversation. When someone we love is hurt or upset with us, our job is not to explain ourselves, but to help them feel hurt first. The ability to repair more than the ability to swerve in arguments altogether is ultimately what determines our relationship success. Whether you are single, married, co-parenting,

or navigating a difficult patch with someone you care about. This really is a thought-provoking conversation for the fresh ideas that I'm certain will start to improve the relationships in your life immediately. Why is it, do you think that people who are interested in their health should care about the quality of their relationships? Ah, because the quality of relationships. relationships will determine, first of all, their happiness, second of all, their emotional mental health,

third of all, their physical health, and fourth of all, their kids' health. But, hey, other than that, who cares? But let me just do the body for a moment. Vivek Murthy, the Obama Surgeon General for the United States, has cited research. not being an intimate connection is as bed for your physical health as smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day this is a hard research the devastation that look we're pack animals what i i've been saying this for 40 years and the research is finally caught up with me we are designed to be relational that is what the human species is designed for we don't self-regulate

for example, our nervous systems are not closed. We co-regulate all day long. If you take, you know, I start off my newest book, Us, arguing against the idea of a freestanding individual. Yes, individual, but always in context. Our nervous systems are not geared to be alone. So the state of deep connection to ourselves and others has become more and more a public health.

health issue, loneliness kills people. And conversely, intimate connection cures people and keeps them health. There are millions of studies, here's my favorite study of the eight million studies, right, this is Dartmouth in the States. There's a direct correlation between how quickly someone gets out of the hospital and recovers from surgery and how many visitors they have. The more visitors, the shorter the hospital say. The fewer visitors, the longer the hospitals say. I mean, how black and white is that if someone's going in for a painful medical procedure, the pain is exponentially less if they have a loved one sitting holding their hand while they have it.

And it's even less than they have a perfect stranger sitting holding their hand if they have it. We are not born to be freestanding. That is a bullshit myth that hurts people. So if relationships are so fundamental to who we are as human beings, why do we find them so hard? Oh, you find your relationship? Mine's a brilliant. You know, I heard, God bless you, I love him as an artist, and I like his politics. But George Clooney got on one of those shows and said, he and Amal have not had one of the

fight. To which I say, first of all, I'm sorry, let me have a conversation with the two of you. It'll be juicier if you do fight from time to time. And second of all, please don't go on air and say that to people. That's the last thing. Look, relationships are hard. Forgive me, I should do my homework. But are you single? Are you in a relationship? What's your story? I've been married for, I think, 18 years now. Oh, wow. Happily married for 18 years and two wonderful children. Oh, great.

How old can I ask? Yeah, sure. 15 and 13. 15 year old boy, 13 year old girl. Oh, yeah. They give me a run for your mind. Okay, I got it. My kids are in the 30s, and I just did a family therapy session with one of my kids.

Oh, wow. He's heading toward middle age, and we're still talking about it. But anyway, look, A, relationships are hard. But let's think about that. Why? We've never wanted more from our intimate relationships than we do right now. This is historically new. We really want to be lifelong lovers.

We want to have hard-to-heart talks, hold hands on the beach, have great sex and 70s and beyond. My parents and grandparents, they didn't want all that. It would be nice. There was lip service. But shoulder-to-shoulder, companionable marriage, not particularly sexy, not particularly intimate, steady. good enough, not anymore. Now we really want connection, particularly heterow women, really want connection. Part of the reason why relationships are hard is because they're hard. Part of the reason why relationships are hard is because we're trying to be lovers in a context, in a culture,

which does not cherish relationships. It's actually anti-relationships in subtle ways. We live in a selfish, individualistic, patriarchal culture, and I'll go back on all three of those. And it does not cherish relationships. It gives lip service to it. You know, I've said this all over the world. Listeners, I want relationship skills taught to our children in elementary school, junior high, high, and beyond. Let's equip our kids to handle themselves. over I deal with couples on the break of divorce.

That's my beat. And over and over again, you are, I say to somebody, you are just doing what you learned in your family, what you learned in this culture. Those skills are not good enough to deliver on this new ambition of love that we all have. I say to people, you have a filet mignon vision and hamburger skills.

And the result of that is the two of you. Yeah. There's so much to get into that, Terry. You start off talking about George Clooney and what he was saying, okay, when he was on television. And while you felt that that's possibly not the best message to put out to the public, and then you also mentioned that there's something quite unique

about modern relationships. What we're looking for today is probably not, what our ancestors were looking for. Yeah, sure, our parents, our grandparents, but even go further back than that, the role of a partner, an intimate partner, a romantic partner, was possibly different in the past than it is today. So, therefore, in that context, I need to ask you,

are our expectations of romantic relationships reasonable, or are they unreasonable? Both. And it depends on who you're talking to. And it depends on which part of that person you're talking to. And it depends on the day you're asking them. But asking your romantic relationship to take the place of the whole village that we used to have to fulfill all of our needs. No, that's not realistic.

That's true. We need friends. We need to spread it around. We need community. on the other hand asking for that ongoing heart-to-heart connection and passion and closeness all of which is new for a long-term relationship no i don't believe that's unrealistic i believe it's a wonderful goal but honey you got to roll up your sleeves and put the work into making that real because you're not equipped for it

The family you grew up with didn't probably have what you want. This culture not only doesn't equip you, but puts crap in your head that mitigates against it. So you have to come to someone like me or Esther and learn how to do this. And also for most of us, go back and do a little psychological work on your childhoods and the wounds that you're bringing into your current relationship. So you have to do some work. Clearly, if you ask most people on a good day, how would you like to treat your romantic partner? They would probably say, yeah, I'd love to treat them with respect, with love, with compassion, with reverence. Yet, despite our best intentions, it's often our romantic partner that gets the worst of us.

Why do you think that is? Well, it's layered. On the external layer, we have this myth of familiarity. And it's really male. And now that women have entered the workforce, it's gotten broader. But it starts with men. I go out and fight dragons all day. I come home.

Where's my pipe? Where's my slippers? Where's my matini? Where's my doting wife? and that was the setup for a long time, hundreds of years. The man goes off, the socioeconomic status of the family is determined by where the man is, and so the woman tends to the man because the whole family depends on his performance. Now both partners are working, by and large.

I like to say everybody should have a wife and no one should be one, or maybe humanoid robots down the pike. And so this old idea of I go out there and I'm on my toes, I come home and I get to relax, be myself, be spontaneous. Oh, that's romantic clap. Relationships shouldn't have to be work. They should just be spontaneous. We should just know what to do and please each other.

And if I have to work at it, that's artificial. That's just bullshit. I work with high-powered people, and what I say to them is, if you're going to go out there 80 hours a week and burn it up, when you come home, you don't get to relax. You have to make up for the 40 hours that you weren't home. You have to be more on your toes at home at the workplace, not less, but that's an age-old entitlement that we bring. You know, well, we're family. I don't have to be polite to you. Actually, you're wrong.

So, A, there's an entitlement to just be who we are. Forgive me, but you may not, here in the States, there's a great cartoon called The Family Guy. It's a takeoff on the old Jackie Gleason, Honeyman. So the husband, father, I love this. I actually played this for people. Husband Father Unit throws open the front, it's like the saloon shot from, you know, he's towering.

He's towering, and he looks at his family, he goes, I just spent eight hours on a boat with the guys drinking and fishing I need a little me time and since I'm on men I teach the men I work with to become what I call family men

you're a family man I can smell it it's the smell of fresh baked bread family man stretch grow the old setup where you go off and fight dragons you come home and your partner waits on you is gone now i come home oh okay honey let me see this kid needs this just let me sit down let me take a that is a family man and we have to learn how to do that it's not what we're used to that's a b if i may and then i'll let you speak a sort of deeper psychological level

level, relationships are hard because of the discrepancy of what we want and deserve and what we got. We all long for the divine. We all want gods and goddesses. You look at Hollywood, you look at the advertisement, they're all gods and goddesses. We all want people who are going to complete us and understand us, and little AI girlfriends and boyfriends. You don't get that.

You get a real flesh and blood person with their imperfection. And their imperfections sticks in the crawl. We don't acknowledge that in this culture. It's the clash of my imperfection and yours and how we handle that clash of imperfections. It is the guts of our, it's the character of our intimacy. But we don't think like that. We think a good relationship would not have that clash. I call it relational shame.

You go to a party and you assume that the couple to the left and the right of you are fighting less than how. having better sex than you are. But you're wrong. They're thinking the same thing of you. So the grappling with one another's imperfections, how to get more of what you want in the relationship, how to cherish what you have, how to grieve what you don't have. These are all, these all fall under the heading of what I call essential relationship skills that nobody teaches you how to do. Yeah. The idea they were all imperfect. And of course, if we partner up with someone,

they're also going to be an imperfect human. In many ways, it's at odds with one of the prevailing narratives and culture, which is that of perfectionism. This podcast has been going for maybe eight and a half years now, and the topic of perfectionism has come up quite a lot over the last few years, and this idea that perfectionism has been on the rise

since the 1980s, it's probably got even worse in the age of social media, but it was on the rise way before that, but that kind of plays into problems with our intimate relationships. You know, the picture perfect Hollywood romance that we see in films. You know, we go on social media. We think we're seeing perfect relationships. We may cognitively understand that we're just getting a snapshot,

but our subconscious mind is picking up this idea constantly that actually everyone's got a better relationship than me. everyone's closer with their partner than I am. And of course, if you're comparing your reality with this mythical idea of perfection, well, of course, there's going to be a problem in your relationships. Well, that's how we live. We live with all these bullshit ideas.

Look, the intimacy that we want with each other, all genders need to move beyond traditional gender roles because they're not built for it. And all of us need to move beyond patriarchy. because it's not built for it. So what do I mean? Well, let's look at men. The essence of traditional masculinity to this day is invulnerability.

The more invulnerable you are, the more manly you are, the more vulnerable you are, the more girl you are, and that is not a good thing. You know, look at boys' superheroes, Wolverine, The Terminator, not one ounce of softness. Like literally, no softness on their bodies. Hard. Men are raised, whether they want to be or not, to be stoic, deny vulnerability, deny emotion, deny feelings, deny fear, be alone, be self-sufficient. And then we wind these guys up and say, here, have an intimate relationship with your wife. Well, good luck with that. women across the West have been empowered. The great story of the 20th century is going to be the change in women.

They've entered the workforce. They have money. They're doing well in college. They don't need us anymore. Jane Austen's day, they needed us. You didn't get married. You wound up in your uncle's cabin in the back, you know? You had nothing.

Nowadays, if I'm going to marry you, why? It's not just about your paycheck. it's about the quality of our relationship. Our grandparents didn't give a shit about the quality. If you were stable, didn't drink or cheat or beat it, that was good enough. Nowadays, well, my husband demeans me in public, but we haven't had sex in two years. Well, I just don't feel close. These lead to divorce.

This is new. We've raised the bar, particularly women. But, for example, women across the West are insisting on levels of a moment. emotional vulnerability, sharing, connection with their guys that were often literally beaten out of them as boys, literally beaten out of them. Don't cry. Don't be weak. Don't be a girl.

And what I say, and I think we need compassion in our hearts for this, I work with tough guys, and I get them to soften up. But let's also have a sense of how big, I am asking that man in my office to literally reconvening reconfigure masculinity itself in order to open his heart and be with his wife. That's how big it is. And same for women. I'll get into that. But you have to lead women out of their traditional role as well,

because what we want is more than those roles allow. You said that the culture is selfish, individualistic, and patriarchal. Patriarchal, I think. Okay. So I think where we are at the moment is that relationships are really important to humans. We want different things from our intimate relationships, at least in the 21st century. And there is a skill to getting those things if we're taught those skills, which, of course, you've been teaching for years, your new book, Us.

It's just phenomenal. So many case studies, so many practical tips on how we can actually develop those skills in ourselves. you have a phenomenal reputation for helping couples who are on the brink. They've been to other therapists. No one can help them, yet you seemingly are still able to help them. Why is it, Terry, do you think that you have been able to help some marriages when other therapists were not able to? Toronto, I'm so excited to be finally coming your way.

this September. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, Dr. Author and host of Europe's biggest held podcast, Feel Better Live More. I'm bringing my Thrive tour to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for a live evening all about health, happiness, and what it means to truly thrive in the modern world. 20,000 people came across the UK and Australia to the show last year. And when I asked people where they'd like me to visit next, Canada was top of the list. I haven't been to Canada since I was a kid, so I'm genuinely thrilled to be coming back. Health and happiness are skills we can all learn. Throughout the evening, I'll be sharing powerful stories, practical tools and life-changing insights that will give you everything you need to thrive. Last year's shows

were incredibly special, and I hope to see you in Toronto this September. Tickets are on sale now. at Dr.chatterjee.com forward slash live. Today's episode is sponsored by Lingo by Abbott. When glucose is relatively stable, you feel better day-to-day with steadier energy, mood, and focus. But over time, unstable and elevated glucose can impair your metabolic health and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Globally, more than 760 million adults are estimated to have

pre-diabetes, many without symptoms or a diagnosis. Now, the problem is that our healthcare system often waits until you get sick before taking action, when we should take a proactive approach. Now, most of us don't have access to our own glucose data and therefore don't have clear feedback on how our everyday choices impact our glucose. That's where Lingo by Abbott comes in. Lingo is a biosensor and app that helps you see how food movements, and lifestyle choices affect your glucose in real time,

so you can notice patterns and build healthier habits in the moment. With Lingo, you can get to know your glucose to build healthier habits for today and tomorrow. For listeners in the US and UK, Lingot by Abbott is offering an exclusive 10% off a four-week plan. Just visit hallowlingo.com forward slash live more for more information. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that's hellolingo.com forward slash live more. Why is it, Terry, do you think that you have been able to help some marriages

when other therapists were not able to? I created a whole school of doing therapy called relational life therapy. We have a vibrant school. We teach people all over the world in the UK. And it's a very different way of doing therapy than the normal. So in terms of couples that we do individual therapy as well, but in terms of couples therapy, we take sides. Let me say that again.

The cardinal rule, a couple, thou shalt not take side, particularly not with a woman against a man, forget it. Can I ask your wife's name? Do you mind, first name? No, no, not at all. Ved. So I'm perfectly capable, any RLT therapist, we have thousands of us all over the world now, but RLT therapists would be perfectly happy to say that you're crazy and Rangan, you're even

crazier and here's why. This is what you're doing, but Rangan, you're doing five times worse. So it's not even Steven. We call it like we see it. And that breaks the rules. And we often, when there's a power imbalance, which is not always the case, but often, when there's one who's one up, superior, entitled. irresponsible, aggressive, selfish, not relational,

and then one who's one down, more codependent, enabling, walk around on eggshells. When we have that couple, we throw our weight alongside the one down one to come up and take on the spouse, and then we use that as leverage to bring the one up, one down. You know, we're told in my field that you can't treat narcissists, but we treat narcissist breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but not in one-on-one individual therapy.

I'll tell you I love to tell stories please please yeah so George Valiant great psychiatrist here in Boston used to say this is way back in the day when people were still smoking in public he said there are two kinds of people in the world there's a guy who

walks into an elevator gets claustophobic and turns green there's a guy who walks in an elevator lights up a big fat Stogey and everybody else turns green that's the difference between shame and grandiosity, one down, one up. And when I'm dealing with a couple, there's often one down and one one up. And normal couple's therapy, just like, well, you're both even. You know, this obviously isn't at all true. So, did, what's your problem with Rangan?

Well, he drinks three martinis a night. He screams at the kids. He's threatened me with physicality, and I never know when I'm walking around on a all day long. Okay, great. What's your story with Vid? Oh, well, she's off in 15 minutes late. Well, okay, you both have issues. Are you kidding me?

But that's the way we're trained to do it. It's 50-fif. No. Vid, I'm sorry you've been putting up with it. Ronan, you've got to clean up. We take sides, and it works. That's one. Two, as I've been implying,

all therapy for 50 years has been focused on helping people come up from shame. Feel better about yourself. You're not defective. You're not unlovable. That's all shame. We've done a terrible job of helping people come down from superiority, grandiosity, entitlement,

irresponsibility, addiction, self-medication, acting out. We have to do both. And as a field, I just did a paper on this. We give a pass to perpetrators. We say that people on the grandiose petition are entreaters. predation are treatable. And that is not psychology. That's patriarchy.

Patriarchy protects perpetrators. And so does a field of psychotherapy. They throw up their hands and say, we don't know how to do it. You can't do it in traditional one-on-one talk therapy. Bring the other people in the elevator into the room with you. And then you can talk to the guy who's got the cigar in his face. So, and then the last thing I want to say, is what we're focused on, relational life therapy.

We spoon our clients into what I call the jet stream of connection and relationality. We move them from disconnection into connection to themselves, what they're feeling, their hearts, and with others. And once they're in that jet stream of connection, it's what we're born for. And it feels so much better than the state of disconnection

that once somebody tastes it, the stream of connection itself moves them along, we are known for dramatic, profound change quickly because we move you into connection and then you want more and more. But we don't do it on one-on-one talk therapy. We're much more active than that. Yeah.

It's kind of really interesting to hear what some of those key differences are. I imagine there will be some therapist listing who perhaps might be pushing back, going, well, hold in a minute, you can't do that, but we're going to explore that throughout this conversation, you know why it is you think you can do that. And of course, many of your results speak for themselves.

One of the things, Terry, that I love the most about your approach that was so clear as I was reading through us today is that compassion sits at the heart of everything in that book. Everything. That's beautiful. I love that because compassion is probably, the quality that's most important to me as a human being and the one I try and teach and model in front of my children the most. I've always said to my kids, you know, sure, it's great

to do well at school and then study hard, etc., etc., but the most important thing to me is how you treat other people. Oh, that's beautiful. And when you were just talking there about grandiosity and shame, I remember reading it in your book, it was so beautiful how you said that psychology has done a really good job for many years of raising people up from the inferiority of shame, but not perhaps put enough focus on bringing people down from grandiosity. I really like that because what you're essentially asking us all to do as individuals,

yes, in the context of romantic relationships, but frankly, beyond that, just in terms of how we interact with people in life, is to treat people as equals, not lower than you, not above you, equal. We are all equal, and we should try and treat each other as equal as well. Yeah, and here's what's great about that, ready? We should try and do that for our own sake.

For me, I'm a very practical guy. It's not even about morality. That's not because it's doing good. My beautiful DEI consultant, Duran Young, is full of these ones. She's African-American. She has these wonderful things. And whatever is saying, her language for self-esteem is getting yourself right-sized. I love that.

Getting right-sized. You're not small, you're not big. You're just like everybody else. You're right-sized. And we teach self-esteem. That's part of what we teach. And compassion. And listen to this.

Okay, so here's what I say. My work, relational life therapy, offers a vision, a map that's radically different than what the culture teaches you, and then a toolbox, how to achieve that, how to live that map. We have skills, I call it a relational technology. We have a repertoire of skills that work a lot better than what you were taught. So we teach you, for example, how to apologize. Most people make a mess of apologies. Yes, but, yeah, I did that, but you got to understand.

Yeah, I did that, but you. No, no, no, buddy, just I did it. Then shut up, just land on it. Don't mess up your own apology. So one of the essential skills we teach is what you're talking about, compassion. Under patriarchy, which is the water we're all swimming in, you can either be strong, powerful, truthful, assertive, or you can be accommodating, connected, facilitative, nurturing, quote, unquote, masculine, quote, quote, feminine.

But you can't be both at the same time. Because under patriarchy, power is power over. It's dominance. It's not what Riannaisler calls power with. So when you step into power, you break the connection. And for example, you talk about compassion. Under patriarchy, almost all of us, no matter what the body, male, female, trans, whatever, when we step into power, we break connection.

And I call that individual impact. which this culture is saturated in. Individual therapists, 12 staff sponsors. I was weak, now I'm strong, go screw yourself. I found my power. I found my voice. Oh, you go get them. No, that's not, no. Relational empowerment, which I have to teach,

it's brand new. I was weak, now I'm strong. I'm gonna stand toe to toe with you, bid. I'm gonna tell you what it is I want. But we're a team, I love you, you love me. You love me. How about it? Can we work on this together? We're a team. I love you. And listen to this one. Your partner says, okay, I'm going to work on, let's say, being less critical. Here's your next line. I really appreciate that. Is there anything I can say or do that would help support you in that?

Who the hell sounds like that in this culture? We're a team. Let's work together. So there's a ton of disempowerment in this culture. I'm walking around on eggshells. Don't set daddy off. There's a ton of individual empowerment, which I really think is grandiose. I am warm and hear me roar. My therapist says I should speak up, so you're an asshole. No, honey, no. Relational empowerment. Let's work together with a team.

This is what I want. How can I help to give it to me? Whole new world. Loving, I have a name for this. I have a name for everything. Loving power. soft power, how to stand up for yourself and cherish your partner at the same time. Hey, Ryan, I love you, you love me, here's the deal.

I think that you can speak harshly to the kids. I know you don't think so, but I do, and I get bothered by it. Look, hon, as a favor to me, could you, this isn't the real you, obviously, could you please tone it down? And if I am bothered by the way you're speaking to the kids, can I just say like, hey, honey, let's have a signal. And you hear that, you don't argue with me. You either take yourself offline and let me do it or calm down and say it's softer. Can we have a deal on that, okay, can I give you something or help you actually follow through with that?

That's working like a team. We have very little idea of how to do that in this culture. There's just so many places to go, right? Because the first thing that came to mind was that if we are, as you're saying, living in a patriarchal culture, I'm not saying we're not. I mean, just for the point of this conversation, right? I imagine then the consequences that if, let's say, a heterosexual couple who'd been married for 20, 30 years, they come into your office for health.

And I imagine if there is a super masculine man, at least, well, traditional masculine man, I should say, coming in, right? And you say to display this kind of softness and this kind of... Vulnerability. Yeah. Vulnerability. I imagine that it's not just a straightforward conversation where they go, oh yeah, okay, Terry, that sounds great.

Let me go ahead and do that. I imagine there's a bit of pushback, right? So how do you persuade or inspire that person to actually go there? Because that may be quite a foreign thing for them. And they may be in their 50s or 60s, and this may be the first time anyone's ever said stuff like this to them. Yeah. So I'm going to do big picture and then I'll zero in.

Big picture, my friend, is in your interest to come down off your high perch and join the human race and open your heart and learn how to be loved and love. It's in your interest. You'll live longer, your body will live 10 years longer, your partner will be happier, perhaps will shoot for it even sexier,

and you won't damage your children. Stay up there, you're going to have a miserable partner, you're going to have a cold relationship, and you're going to damage your kids, the way you were damaged. You know, one of the ways I hook these grandiose guys is I teach my students as a simple sequence of questions. Ready?

What kind of father did you have? What's your relationship like with them? What kind of father do you want to be? What do you want to pass on to your children? Are you doing that? And if you're not, will you let me help you? Do it better. A lot of these men who won't, it's a hard work, what I call it, relational recovery, recovering

that state of connection. And it's not easy. They won't do it for themselves. I'm okay. I'm fine. They won't do it for their partners. Ah, she's a bitch. Because they will do it for their children.

Do you realize that you've become your father in this marriage? What do you think that's like for your children? I can help you stop this. Please, this is not the best of you. Let me help. you. Who says no to that? No one. They don't say no. They say, okay, what I can do? It's so interesting hearing that because I would say one of the drives for me to, how can I put it, excavate my inner world and make peace with certain things internally,

one of the drives to me was having children when I realized that, oh, Rangan, if, you know, you can either tell them not to do something, but if they're just repeating what they see you doing, maybe I should just sort it out myself so they no longer have that as a model, right? Blessing to you, my friend. Hold, hold the phone. I want everybody to hear that.

Say that again. Say your process again, because this is the inner workings of a good man. I need to sort myself out because what I'm going to get to, give to my kids is not what comes out of my mouth. It's going to be what they see me do. That is blessed. I'm sorry, but I have to underline this. I say the best gift you can give your kids is your own recovery. The best gift you can give your kids is your own health.

I don't give a shit what you say, what you say. They live with you. They learn what they live. So your realization, I've got to clean myself out so I can be the best father I can be to these kids. That's blessed, right? The sacred work. What's it like to hear me say that, may I ask? It's made me quite emotional actually hearing that. I can feel that.

Listen, this is where Terry says, take a minute and let yourself feel that. Breathe. Let the feelings come. It's stuff that I cognitively know, and this work has been going off for many years. You know, I think for me, the whole process of stopping, looking outwards and starting to look inward started when my father died in 2013. You know, I used to, for the first half of my life, I would say probably until I started that

journey onwards, I was very much driven by external validation. That has most mostly gone. I would say over the last few years, I'm just not. Like external validation just doesn't do it for me. The most important thing that matters, to me at least, is that I can look in the mirror before I go to bed and go, yeah, I'm happy with how you behave today. You know, you lived in alignment with your values today. Because actually, the thing is, if I can do that, my relationships in many ways or many aspects of my relationship kind of take care of themselves. Right. So if we take it back to intimate relationships that people struggle with,

I guess the principle there is that to a certain degree you have to know yourself and know your triggers if you're going to be able to show up in the way that you want to in your relationship, right? Well, so I have eight million sayings, and here's one of them. We all marry our unfinished business. So we all mystically wind up with partners who were exquisitely designed to trigger us. Falling in love is, oh, this person is going to heal all my childhood wounds and complete me, and at least we're going to avoid all that bullshit.

Yeah. Well, real marriage is the day you realize. Not only is this person going to avoid it or make up for it, but they're re-injuring me in that theme. I'm back in the soup that I was in when I was a kid. And when we get trauma triggered that way, which is virtually inevitable in intimate romantic relationships, my friend Gaboramate says, in relationships, you don't see the wound, you see the scar. So for the people witnessing this podcast, in RLT, we talk about three parts of you.

The first question I asked myself when I'm sitting with a couple is not what are the stressors, a good couple can handle stress. That's not even what's the dynamic, you know, she pursues, he distances, he distances. It's not even the loop. Important.

Most important questions, which part of you am I speaking to? Am I, may I ask how old you are? 48s. Okay, am I speaking to the 48-year-old rang him? Or are we witnessing the tantrum of the 4-year-old rangon? Who's up right now? And there are three parts.

It is, in some ways, analogous to IFS. There's the wounded child part, limbic system, very, very young, just all feeling, the part of you that received the abuse or neglect. There's what I call the wise adult, pre-futnel cortex, the thinking observing part of you that can stop and choose. And then there's the part that almost all of my clients have lived most of their lives in, thinking that it's a wise adult and they're wrong. I call it the adaptive child part. Fight, flight, fawn. This is knee-jerk survival.

Fight, flight, fawn, which as an adult becomes fond. Fawn is, you know, oh, lion, let me lick your paw, so you don't eat me. This is the codependent enabler. I'm going to fix it and make it all better. That is what we call your adapter. That's what you learned at three, four, five years old. That's your coping strategy, which you needed to do back then, but you don't need it now. And you bring that adaptive child into your relationship, and it makes a mess of thing.

May I tell you a story? Of course. Okay. So, you know, a couple on the brink of divorce. Why? He's a liar. It lies about everything. The wife says, tell him he's got nice shoes on.

I'll tell you there's sneakers. I mean, and you walk in and you go, the sky's blue. He goes, well, it's kind of gray. So I teach my students, listen to the report. He lies about everything. Watch what he does in front of you. He evades me. Okay, I got him.

He's got a black belt and evasion. Okay, that's his adaptive child. Next question, who was he evading? Right? There's always somebody on the... Adaptative child is adapting to someone. It's done in a relationship. So I say to him, who tried to control you growing up?

Brilliant, if you don't... But we teach people to think like this. You're on this side of the sea soul. Who's on the other side? Who tried to control you? Sure enough, my dad. It's a true story. Military, how I ate, how I sat,

what courses I took, what friends are. I had, how did you deal with this controlling father? He smiled. That's resistance. That's health. That's smiles. And he says, you ready? I lied.

Brilliant. Dad said, don't play with Henry. I played with Henry, and I came home and told him I played with John. Brilliant little boy. Well done. But I have a saying, adaptive then, maladaptive now. you're not that five-year-old, your wife is not your father, time for this old dog to learn some new tricks.

I was it. They came back two weeks later, hand in hand, all smiles. They said, we're done, we're cured. And they were. The cures are the ones I tell you about. They were. Okay, there's a story here, I say. Yes.

Over the weekend, wife sends them to the grocery store to get 12 things. True to form, he comes back with 11. The wife says, where's the pumpernickel? I want you to feel this. This is what my wife, Belinda, calls a moment of relational heroism. He said, every muscle and nerve in my body was screaming to cover my ass and say to her they were out of the pumpernickel, which is not true.

He forgot it. I wanted to say that. And in this one moment, I took a breath. I thought of you, Terry, we can lend each other our prefrontal cortex. I thought of you, I looked my wife in the eye, and I said, I forgot the damn pumpernickel. True story. She burst into tears, and she said, I've been waiting for this moment for 25 years. That's recovery.

Moving beyond your automatic adaptive child's response into something thoughtful, observant, choiceful. You know, you mentioned meditation. I have a great friend, Tom. Ubel, wonderful spiritual teacher, he says to observe is to have choice. Because the part of our brain that can observe is the same part that can choose. That's the first skill, coming out of the automatic knee-jerk into something thoughtful. It's just so simple when you get it, right?

It's not when you're in it and you don't realize that this adaptive child inside of you is running the show. And then it makes me think of what you said earlier on, Terry, that, you know, man or woman, whoever, you've been out working all day, right? And then you just want to come home and chill. But actually, if you do have a romantic partner or someone you live with or children there, well, you've got to be careful because if you've given the best to your work and you are spent and have nothing left, it's not going to be the wise out. who walks into the house, it's likely to be the adaptive child so that when a trivial request

comes in, you fly off the handle. But then that also then speaks to the problems in culture, right? Because we do have a capitalist culture. I agree, one of the great things of the 20th century has been the empowerment of women. And because of the way economics work at the moment, for many people, two parents are often having to work. They've often moved away from their family structures and their tribe. And so it's quite a big ask, isn't it, to go out, work all day, feel tired, and then also bring your best self to your house in the evening. I think for many people, that's going to sound like quite a tough ask.

Yeah, I have two words to respond to that. You ready? Tough shit. I hope that's not too technical. Listen, I work with people, particularly men, men have a harder time because we've had that centuries of entitlement. We were the breadwinners, so we go home and get taken care of. I work with a lot of men about what I call learning to become a family man.

And it's good for us. This is what I mean when I say, I get these guys who are one up to come down by helping them realize that it's good for them to come down. It's good for them to open their hearts and let themselves be loved. It's good for you to stretch and learn to be a family man. Now, this is what I mean. I start this way. And I'm talking to you exactly the way I would talk to a client. Research is clear. I think it's so great. If you get a gift, you will be happier than before you got it and it will last a certain amount of time. If you give a gift, you'll be happier than you are if you get one, and the happiness lasts longer.

Giving actually creates more happiness than getting. But we may have lost this. So I talk about the joy of going beyond your comfort zone, shaking yourself out of your gratification and showing up for your family. I always tell this story, if I may. So Belinda's got a full-time practice. brilliant therapist. She doesn't write books, but she's not sitting around eating bonbons. It's 3 o'clock in the morning. My now 30-year-old, my kids in their 30s were babies. And I get this, bum, bum, bum, bum, you know, at 3 a.m. Hey, one of the kids is cry and go

feed them. And I go, I know you were up with them three days running, but honey, I'm at the I got to talk at the Harvard couples conference tomorrow. I got a thousand therapists in that room. You do it tonight and I'll do it for the rest of the weekend, but I got to be in shape. And my wife, 30 years ago, said one phrase that changed my life. You ready? Here's what she said. She looked at me with a smile and she said, give the lecture tired. Go be the kids. and that rousing myself out of my, I'm a performer, I don't know, okay, stretch a little, go give. That's learning to be a family man, and it's good for your soul, it's good for you. And it's a good thing to teach your children.

I love how direct you were there when you said initially, you know, well, you know, tough luck. You just got to get on with it. that. If you want a good quality home life, that's what you've got to do. If you don't, fine. But if you actually want that, you just got to find a way. I mean, I know there are little tips and traits. One of my really good friends who's a GP, he's realized that actually a transition between being at the practice and home is very useful. So he doesn't live far away from his house, but when he gets to his house in his drive, he'll just sit there for two or three minutes.

I can't remember exactly what it is he does, but there's some form of just transitional practice so that he's in a different state when he walks through that door. And I kind of feel that working from home for many people has caused an issue here because, you know, if you used to have that commutes between the office and home, you might have wound down a little bit,

switched off from work, got yourself in the right state. So I think that's something that I observed there listening to that. But also, the theme of directness, right? You were direct with me when I ask the question. You know, many people are going to find that hard. Your wife, Belinda, was direct with you when she wanted you to feed the kids in the middle of the night. And it reminds me of something in this new book of yours, right?

Well, it's not that new anymore, but it's your latest book. In it, you talk about a third. three steps to getting what you want. Number one, dare to rock the boat. Number two, once your partner is listening, help them out. Three, when they start to give you what you want, reward them, right? But it sounds as though what you're just talking about there, what Belinda said to you was kind of, in many ways, dare to rock the boat, right? Don't just passively accept it. This is that theme, isn't there, of equalness, right? It's not about rolling over. It's, You know, it's that beautiful term you write about fierce intimacy, isn't it?

It's kind of like it's not caring and loving necessarily to suppress your needs and actually say what you want to say, right? The beauty is, look, yes, I wrote the audio book, Piers Intimacy. And what I say is we need to take each other on. We stop taking each other on. We say we're accepting, but we're really settling and resenting, and then things go to rot. We don't take each other on in our marriages. We do in the beginning, but we stop.

On the other hand, the reason why we don't take each other on is because when we do, it doesn't go very well. So we back off to keep the peace. But instead of that, I would like you to master skills. so that when you do take each other on, you do it more skillfully and you have a chance at actually doing it. If Belinda had said, you're son of a bitch,

you're so selfish, all you care about is yourself. I don't know that I would have gotten up. But for Belinda to say, give the lecture tired, I'm tired, sweetheart, go be with the kids, with firmness,

but cherishing in the same breath. That's brand new for our culture. And yes, that I responded to. It's what I call loving power, soft power. And it goes beyond patriarchy. Under patriarchy, when you step in the power, you're harsh. But you don't have to be.

I teach people how to be cherishing of their partner and assertive in the same breath. You love me. I don't like this. As a favor to me, could you do it this way instead of that way? Let me help you do that. Yeah. That is a whole new world.

Yeah. let's just park getting into the skill of repair for just a moment. I just want to finish off for this conversation at least on the adapted child. So this idea that usually when we fall out with our partner or things don't go so well, it's because the adapted child is in charge, right? It's not the wise adults, okay? Right. And your adaptive child invites their adaptive child,

and then the two of you are off. I like to say, your adaptive children are fighting. The two of you can sit down and have a beer. You're not even there anymore. Your adaptive children are running the show and fighting the fight without you. Is it not true, therefore, that all it takes is one of you

to stay in wise adult mode, even if your partner has lost it and gone into adaptive child mode and perhaps is not talking to you the way that you might want to be spoken to, you actually, can still help influence that situation by not reacting and recognizing that at the moment,

my wife is actually eight years old. That's who's talking to me. Would you, would you, is that fair to say? Today's episode is sponsored by Do Health, the preventative health app that I have helped to create to transform the way we think about health. Now, as you've probably heard me say before, there are specific blood markers

that can show you you're its elevators, cardiovascular risk years before you ever feel a symptom. In fact, 46% of due health members had hidden cardiovascular risk they potentially had no idea about. Over 25% of members had suboptimal homocysteine levels, which is linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's. And this is exactly why I decided to build due health. To help people understand when things are starting to move in the wrong direction inside their bodies, instead of waiting until they get sick. Do Health takes everything I know about health,

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I'm Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, Dr. Author, and host of Europe's biggest held podcast, Feel Better Live More. I'm bringing my Thrive tour to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for a live evening all about health, happiness, and what it means to truly thrive in the modern world. 20,000 people came across the UK and Australia to the show last year. And when I asked people where they'd like me to visit next,

Canada was top of the list. I haven't been to Canada since I was a kid, so I'm genuinely thrilled to be coming back. Health and happiness are skills we can all learn. And throughout the evening, I'll be sharing powerful stories, practical tools, and life-changing insights that will give you everything you need to thrive. Last year's shows were incredibly special, and I hope to see you in Toronto this September. Take us to on sale now at Dr.chatterjee.com forward slash life. The way it normally works is wannabe gets triggered, moves in your adapter child, fight, flight or fawn.

that triggers the other one, they move into their adaptive child and fight back or distance or whatever the knee jerk is. And then those two moves feed off of each other. It's a vicious circle. The more, the more. The classic is, the more she pursues, the more he distances,

the more he distances, the more she persists. So it feeds on itself. How to intervene. One person changing the dance step breaks the pattern. Do they get what they want? Depends on the day. And I talk about detachment from outcome, that's from 12th step, and relational integrity. Relational integrity is this.

One of my eight million sayings is this. In intimate relationships, everybody gets to go crazy, but you have to take turns. So your partner's in their adaptive child. You're not. Good day for you. Try a couple, three times to help get them. Honey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you felt like that.

I didn't really intend that that way. But what can I? Try a couple, three times, make peace. If they come into their wise adult and they meet you there, great day for everybody. If they're stuck in their adaptive child and they're not listening, you try a couple three times, and I have this miraculous thing to do.

Ready? If they're still stuck in their adaptive child after a couple, three times, go away. Stop trying. You're beating your head against the wall. You're about to move into your adaptive child in 10 seconds. Don't do it. Take a break. And the brakes are contracted, not in the heat of the moment, but I'm going to come. I'm going to go make some tea. I don't feel like we're getting much of anywhere. I'll come back in an hour and try you again. are in your wise adult, your partner's in their adapter child, you try and get them out of it, they won't go.

And you don't jump in the mud pit with them and get into your adapter child and go into the vicious circle. If you stay steady, even when they're not, that's not a good day for your partner. It's a mixed day for your relationship. It's a great day for you. That is a strong muscle.

Keep it up. And the focus of the people working with us, is not on what they do on their side of the net. You do your best. It's on what you do on your side of the net. So if I behave with skill and integrity, even when the heat is on, I'm lonely. I wish my partner were joining me.

This isn't the most pleasant moment of my life, but I held steady. Good work. So it's not always about getting what you want in the response from the other. It's your best shot. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. If you don't get it, I teach people, here's another skill, micro-disappointment.

Vid was in her adaptive child this Thursday at 3 o'clock. That's disappointing. It's a little lonely. Stay there. Don't jump from there to, oh, here she goes again. Oh, she never. Oh, I always. Just stay put in the disappointment of this Thursday at 3 o'clock.

And get off your high horse. isn't her adaptive child, you're not talking to a mature adult. Big deal. You're liable to be in your adaptive child five minutes from now. You don't go down into shame. It's not your problem with hers. You don't go up into judgment. You're liable to do the same thing five minutes from now. Stay humble and you let go. Okay, sorry. I'll get some tea. I'll see you later. Yeah. That's a lot of work for somebody to master. Yeah. There's two things that come up from with there. Number one, in that example, when you have tried two or three times to, you know, calm things down, the first thing is, yeah, don't get into the mud pit with them, right?

I love that. That's a great phrase. Don't get in the mud pit with them. But if you're not being successful there, you're saying, okay, maybe now's not the time to continue. You don't want to just storm off, right? You don't want to withdraw, right? You have to communicate that actually, hey, listen, I don't think now's the right time. I don't like what's happening in me right now. Don't even talk about them at all. Okay, this is useful. No, we, I.

You know what, this isn't working for me. I love you, honey, I'm going to take a break. I need a break. I need a break. Here's the beauty. I teach everybody to speak from the eye. If you speak subjectively, nobody can argue with you. You say, we need a break.

No, we don't. You're always running away. I want to sit here and deal with. this okay well you're in trouble you say i need a break what's you're going to say well you don't well honey actually i do what can i tell you call me crazy but i need a break i'm gonna buy i'm gonna lose i'll see you later so that's another skill is learning to speak from the i and not tell your partner what they're doing yeah it also makes you think of the the major theme in the book which is we not me right this idea that, you know, I think chapter three, my favorite chapter in the book is when us gets

lost and you and me takes over, right? So what I take from that in this context is it's not about being right or wrong here. If you're in this situation, what is the best thing for the relationship? Not what is the best thing for me in this moment or necessarily the best thing for your partner, it's what is the best thing for the relationship? Is the best thing to both get into adaptive child, to start shouting, you know, to scare the kids, to do whatever, right? Is that the best thing? Well, probably not. Easy to say that when you're in wise adult mode, of course.

People don't want to get into adaptive child mode, right? So they can hear this and go, oh yeah, that's what I do regularly. Okay. How would you advise someone who has recognized that throughout this conversation? How would you help them go, okay, next time that happens, don't get into a that's a child mode. It's a lot easier said than done, isn't it? Well, it's not don't because you will, is what are you going to do when it happens? And here's three words for everybody.

Take a break. If you go to my website, there's a one-pageer on how to take a formal timeout. There are softer versions of, I'm going to make some tea, I'll be back in an hour. But I have instructions on how you take a break. called, you take a break in a way that takes care of your partner. Honey, I'm leaving, here's why, here's when I'm coming back. That's responsible distance taking. There's an explanation.

I'm going to lose my shit. I'm taking a break. And there's a promise of return. I'll check in with you in about 40 minutes. And you have to do it. Can't lie. That's a skill. I have to teach people.

People normally go, I'm thinking a break, let alone storm out and a huff. That's going to get you chased. you want distance take care of your partner deal with their anxiety make it clear it's a break not a rupture help them be less anxious

and they won't pursue you don't take care of your partner just throw your weight around and you're going to get chased so a skill is something that gets you what you want you want distance okay be nice to your partner

while you take it and the odds are they'll give you distance throw them off and I'll and the odds are they'll pursue you. So I want to, if I may, I want to fade back to the big picture. Yeah, please. Okay. Remember I said there was a map

and we've been talking toolbox. Let me say something about the map. Our relationships are our biospheres. We're in them. The father of family therapy, Gregory Basin, the great anthropologist, said, and he created family therapy. He said, he devoted his life to correcting humankind's philosophical mistake.

What is that mistake? That I'm outside of nature and I can control it. That's individualism and patriarchy. My power is to dominate. Dominion over all the things of this earth. Bad idea. I talk about ecological wisdom. I'm not above my system.

I'm in it. I breathe it. My relationship is my biosphere. I breathe it. I can pollute my biosphere by being selfish over here, but I'm going to breathe in that pollution in my partner's coldness. We are ecologically linked.

There's no escape. Once we stop thinking with sort of grandiose, control-based individualism, and enter into the humility of understanding that I depend on my biosphere, then it becomes my enlightened self-interest to take care of it,

whether I'm talking about Mother Earth, whether I'm talking about my country, whether I'm talking about my family. It's in my interest to take care of this biosphere because, hello, I'm in it. You know, I say this a lot, I get these big burly, this is true, I get big girls,

Why should I have to work so hard to please my wife? And I always, knock, knock, you live with her. I'm not outside of the system. I'm in the system, whether it's my body, my mind, my marriage, my family, the world. I need to be a good steward of the biosphere. So it's not about me, me, me. It's what the biosphere needs. Now, if I'm one down, there isn't enough me.

My biosphere may need me to be more assertive and put out. Come on up. If I'm one up, the biosphere needs me to open my heart and to heal. Don't be so damn selfish. Give in and do what your partner asks of you. We meet in the middle, as you were saying. We're not better or less. My beloved friend, Carol Gilligan, says,

you cannot love from the one up. You cannot love from the one down. Love demands democracy. So when I work with couples, whatever, for those of us who are one down, grow a backbone, take some risks, lean in and deal. For those of us who are one up, get off your high horse, learn to be responsible, open your heart, be accountable. You won't die. You'll like it. And so leading men, women, non-binary folks into intimacy is correcting their self-esteem. you're not better or not worse,

and teaching them how to be connected and stay connected. Yeah. I first came across your work, Terry, I would say maybe a year, year and a half ago. And the way in which I came across, it was one of my really good mates. Phone me, I think I was a broadly said, mate, you've got to download this audiobook.

This is killer. You're going to absolutely love it. It's completely transformed. the way I see certain things in my own marriage. And I thought, well, I really trust and respect this guy. If he's telling me that, I'm going to get it. So I downloaded it straight away. And one thing I found incredibly helpful is this idea that in, let's say,

my relationship with Vid, for example, right? There's not just two entities. There's not just me and Vid. There's also a third entity, which is the relationship itself. Right. I've got to tell you, Terry, it's so simple now. Yeah, of course. But before that, I didn't quite get it in that way. And it's not only, I think, helped me see my marriage through a different lens. It goes beyond my marriage as well. So I've been doing,

you know, I've been trying to communicate positive health messages to the public for maybe 12 years now, 13 years, something like that. And, you know, for the last few years, I've released a lot of podcasts, written six books. I've been doing, right? And I very much enjoy what I do. But during that time, my team has grown. There's a good eight, nine people now who work with me to help do all this stuff, right? And I realized, oh, that's a separate entity, the business, the team, that needs tending to, right? Yes, I can do my job or the team members can do their job, but we weren't really tending to us as an organization as a team. So it's a separate entity, isn't it? Yeah. Yes. It's a different level. There's you, me, and then there's our context,

nature, the planet, our culture, our race. There's just, what are we situated in? And what does the context, is what I call waking up to you, ecological, wisdom, ecological humility. I'm not above it. I'm in it. And it's in my interest to take care of the it that I'm in. And I call this ecological wisdom. And once you wake up, it turns out, this is great. Being relational and being ecologically wise are synonyms. There are two words for the same consciousness. Let me take care of my biosphere. It's not one wins, the other one loses. But by the Anyway, when you have this map, the norms of our culture disappear. So for example, when you're thinking ecologically, relationally, the question, as you were

saying, who's right and who's wrong? The answer to the question who's right and who's wrong is who cares. It doesn't matter. Wrong question. Here's the question. How are you and I going to navigate this thing in a way that's going to work for both of us? That's the question.

When you're thinking relationally, if one of you wins and the other one loses, you both lose. Why? Not pious guy ideal. Real politic, brother. You will lose because the loser will make the winner pay for it. I guarantee it. And that's true whether it's your marriage or two countries that are living next to each other. You cannot gain security by controlling the person or the people or the country next to you. That's a myth. It won't work. It is in your interest to deal with the environment that you are dependent upon, be a good steward, wake up, it's not about win, lose, it's not about right, wrong, it's not about I give in, you don't. If you're one up, your biosphere will need you to open up and soften up. If you're one down, your biosphere may need you

to toughen up and get a little firmer and more truthful and more assertive, dare to rock the boat. It's not about the two of you. It's about what the biosphere requires of you in that. moment. It makes me think of one of your foundational principles, which is there's no such thing as objective reality in relationships. That's a bitter pill. Yeah, but I would say the biggest thing that I've learned, or one of the biggest things that has helped me and my own marriage over the last 18 years is letting go of the need to be right. A few years ago, I figured out, I thought, oh, This is, there's no, this, it doesn't matter. It actually doesn't matter.

No one cares. No one cares. Hey, I proven I'm right. Okay. What's for dinner? You know, this is what I like to say, look, both Berlin and I are fighters. Our adopt children are both fighters. Screw.

I'm from, I'm a blue collar Jew from New Jersey. I grew up in violence. She grew up in violence. It's like, don't fuck with us. So when we go off, it's like fight meets fight. You don't want to be there. So nowadays on a good day, we'll get rebed up, fight, fight, we'll take a break, one or the other I need 20 minutes.

And nine out of ten times, 20 minutes. We take turns, one of the other comes back, it sounds like this. I know you'll recognize it. Hey, B, I don't really want to fight. Do you want to fight? I don't want to fight. What do you need on? and then Belinda says, well, you really were an asshole about dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

Yeah, I was, actually. You're right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hear you. Okay, what do you need? Well, you could apologize about dot, dot, dot, dot. Well, I'm sorry about dot. By the way, five years ago would have been, well, what about the other three dots?

Now it's like, okay, I'll take the dot. And we make peace. Why do we make peace? This is what I call keeping your head on straight. Here's what I'm thinking when I make peace. Honest to God. Ready? How do I want to spend my evening?

That's what I'm thinking. Do I want to spend my evening fighting with this insane person who's fighting with this insane person? Or do we want to end this nonsense and go cuddle on the couch and watch a good show on TV? I'm in charge. How do I want to spend my evening? And that's the wise adult.

And the beauty is shifting out of that automatic knee jerk into the thoughtful wise adult we call it relational mindfulness that transition which you may need to physically take a break and go walk around the block whatever it takes

shifting out of that automatic knee jerk to thoughtful okay I wonder what skill I could use here that can be cultivated go to the gym and get muscles sit on your pillow and meditate meditation is a great boom to relational mindfulness. And Thomas and I did a couple of courses on intimacy and spirituality,

and I've been meditating for 60 years, but then I start off most every day meditating. And what I say is, yeah, great, it's great to be spiritual in your cushion in the morning. Why don't you remember to be spiritual when you're in the kitchen and your wife is screaming at you? Be spiritual in that moment. That's relational mindfulness. Woof! I call it Woosh.

Woof, Belinda gives me anger, I'm ready to bopper in the nose. Take a breath, bring it down, get centered. Okay. I wonder if there's anything I can do right now. It's my work. And the more work I do, meditation therapy, parts work, the easier it is for me to do that in the moment. But it can just be grown through doing it,

just like any other muscle. Yeah. I think something that people may find reassuring is this idea that you've been married for over 30 years. You have been... 40 years. 40 years.

Congratulations. I like to call them the best five years of my life. Well, it's this idea that with all your knowledge, your expertise, you've created this new therapy system, you clearly are able to help, you know, problematic marriages, find repair and the ability to move forwards. But I think what's reassuring for people is this idea that, despite all of that, it still happens, right?

And you write about this, don't you, that relationships are this constant cycle of harmony, disharmony, and repair. Again, I think that's one of the best concepts I've read in your book was this idea that this is the natural order of relationships. It just goes through that. And, you know, we're probably pretty good, I think, aren't we? Well, harmony, then disharmony. But it's that repair, right?

The ability to repair. Because you're kind of making the case that this is going to happen in all relationships, this cycle, right? So you better get good at repair. If you're not good at repair, the disharmony stays and it doesn't return back to harmony, does it? Now, every couple that I see on the brink of divorce has one thing in common. Their issues are all over the place. Their characters all over the place. They all share this.

They do not have a working mechanism of correction. Every couple on the brink for 40 years, that's what's going on. They don't have the capacity to say, hey, Rangan, don't scratch me here. That's not where I is. Scratch me here. Oh, okay, I mean, I will. No. Don't scratch me here, scratch.

Don't tell me what to do. Don't scratch me here. Excuse me, I feel really criticized. Don't scratch me here, scratch me. Well, I've got an age too. Every couple, the process of, I would like you to change your behavior this way for me to be more pleasing,

oh, okay, hon, I'll do that. It's broken. It does not work. And I have to restore that process of listening to your partner and actually changing your goddamn behavior a little bit to be more pleasing, to your partner because it's in your interest.

You're not being whipped. You're not being submissive. You're working to be a better partner to your partner. Great, do it. But it's almost an art that's been lost. That it's a good thing to change to make yourself more pleasing to your partner. That's not a bad thing.

That's not wimpy. that's loving. When you talk about the skills of repair, one of the things you write about is this idea that repair is not a two-way street. What does that mean? Everybody gets this wrong.

So, okay, so why don't we move in repair? A, we don't know how. Nobody taught us the skills. B, we don't really want to. If you're in your adaptive, the first step in repair is what is relational mindfulness. I call it remembering love.

What am I about here? Somebody said, wait, why am I talking? We have five losing strategies of the adaptive child. Being right, why am I talking? To prove that I'm right and she's wrong. Take a break. Why am I talking? To get her to dot, dot, dot, control.

Take a break. Why am I talking? To vomit all of my bad feelings about her to her. Therapy says that's a good thing. It's crazy. I call that the vomit bag approach to intercourse. to see, unbridled venting. Why am I talking to hurt her the way she hurt me, that's retaliation?

Why am I talking? I'm not, I just told him off I withdrew. Yeah. One thing I found incredibly helpful is this idea that, you know, when things aren't going well, remember that this is someone you love. Yes. It's so bloody obvious, Terry, when you think about it. But it's not obvious to people in the moments, right?

Remember, this is someone you love. This is someone you chose to marry. This is someone you are living with and having children with. So surely you should be treating them with a degree of dignity and respect whenever you talk to them. But we don't.

Or I would say our adapted child doesn't anyway. I think our wise adult does. That's exactly right. And remembering who you're talking to is a technique for getting out of the adaptive child into the wise adult, because it's only the wise adult that can remember. The adaptive child is not about intimacy. This is a bitter pill.

The adapter child is about survival. It's not about us. It's about me, God damn it. I'm going to survive. And it has its place, but not, it has no nuance. Yeah. You know, I must say this to couples at least twice a week. When Belinda comes at me, that one day a year,

When Belinda comes at me with anger, I immediately take Little Terry. I've got a composite. He's about eight. And I literally envision him behind me, holding onto my shirt. And I have a deal with him. I say, okay, listen, between Belinda's anger and you little vulnerable guy is me, my adult self, my big body, like Superman. I'll take the hit. You're protected back there.

You don't feel any of it. I got it. Now, here's your part of the deal. You let me deal with my wife. Don't you try to deal with her. You'll make a goddamn mess of it. So that's our deal. I'll protect you.

You let me have the wheel. And that is a practice over, I could do that. You know, I deal with tough guys. That's my beat. And I literally have like six foot five, two hundred and seventy pounds lying back, NFL linebackers, ducking into the bathroom and putting their little boys on their lap five, six times a day. Literally, they write to me and tell me they're doing that.

Wow. The trauma work happens in the therapy, but that's just the prologue. The real work happens outside in the heat of the moment. Take a break. Take that little boy, fight, fight or fun, put them on your lap, hear them, love them, and put him in the back seat. take his sticky hands off the steering wheel. You're driving the bus, not your adaptive trial. Yeah.

If we just go back to repair as not a two-way street for just a moment, Terry. Ah. I just want to, because I think it's such a great practical tip for all of us when we're thinking about repair. What is the thinking behind that? You know, where do we go wrong with that and how would you help us solve that?

Great. So the first skill is remembering love. The first skill in repair is getting into the wise adult, which wants to repair. The first thing you've got to ask yourself is, what am I about here? Wait, why am I talking? Am I really talking to repair or am I talking to control my partner, prove I'm right, get back at them some adapter child spread? Okay, be honest with yourself.

And if the answer is, I don't remember that I love this person. and they're evil, they hit their guts. Great. Thank you for being honest. Take a walk around the block. Don't try these skills from your adaptive time. They won't go well. We all do it.

I do it. Hey, Belinda, I have some feedback for you, and you want it? No, thanks. The words are there, but no. So the first order of business is getting into the... You know, we have workshops all over the world now, And my favorite slide in the workshop is, other workshops teach you skills, we deal with the part of you that won't use them. So first get out of that part into the part that actually wants to make repair.

That's your first book. Okay, now, repair. Everybody gets this wrong. Repair is not a dialogue. Repair is not a conversation. Repair is a one-way street. Your partner is upset with you or your colleague or someone at work or your kid. you have one job

get them out of disrepair back into repair with you out of this harmony back into harmony that's your job why do you want to do that you live with them it's in your interest

and also you love them so why not what everybody does is well you have this issue well I have that issue well yes I did that but you have to understand that nobody gives a shit

here's the metaphor all you people watching and listening. If your partner, kid, coworker comes to you and they're disgruntled, you have one job, help them feel better. Here's my metaphor.

You're at the customer service window. Somebody comes to you and says, my microwave doesn't work. They don't want to hear you say, well, my toaster doesn't work. They don't want to hear you say, well, the reason why your microwave doesn't work is because you're an idiot

and you're plugging it in a little. Fix the damn microwave. Deal with their ouch. help them come back into connection with you, then maybe hours later the next day, or maybe not at all, then maybe you can say a little bit about what was going on with you,

but somebody comes to you and they're unhappy with you and you start, yes, budding them. Well, yeah, I did it, but you have to understand, a flying saucer landed on my roof. Yeah, I did it, but look at the things you do to me. No, yeah, I did it. You're right. I'm sorry.

what was that like for you? What could I give you now? How can I help you feel better? Keep your eyes on the prize. And about you and your excuses and feelings and your issues, this is not the moment. Your moment can come later. But in this moment, you're at the service of the person

who's unhappy with you. Yeah. What I love about that is that it's like what we said before, as long as one of you can remain in the wise adult modes and apply some of this stuff, you can stop things escalating, right? But you also have to restrain yourself, don't you? You have to go, as you're just saying,

now's not the time, I don't need to get my side of this out right now, okay? Yeah. All I need to do is help my partner move out of adapted child into wise adult. So I need to give her or him what they need in this moment to do that. Everything else comes after that. Because the truth is, it's frankly pointless to try and have, have a rational discussion, adapted child to adapted child, or even why is that up to adapted child, right? You just, it's, it's the, you know, we're in stress state. We're not in thrive states.

So I have a thing about women in particular, an angry woman is a woman who doesn't feel heard. You want to de-escalate your angry partner, help them feel heard. Okay, I got it. You're right. I'm sorry you feel bad. What could I do to help you feel better? if anything. Be at their service and you will de-escalate them. You start coming in with your issues, your excuses, you're this, you're that, they're going to feel like you're deflecting and they don't feel hurt and they're going to escalate. Try it. Yeah. I don't take anything I say on faith. Try these techniques and see if they don't work better. Tara, I've got some questions from my audience to put to you, which I thought would be quite

illuminating to go through. But before we get that, I just want to touch on something that has sort of underpinned a lot of this conversation, which is this idea that the culture trains us a certain way, instills certain ideas within us,

which causes problems in our relationships. And one of the things I was thinking about was this idea that the kind of qualities we need for good, intimate relationships, for close intimate relationships, are perhaps not the qualities

that a capitalist society values and celebrates. And I feel the forward to your book, us, really illuminates this. Would you mind if I read a bit of the forward that none other than Bruce Springsteen wrote to your book? Okay. And again, you're from New Jersey. You said, obviously, you know,

the King of New Jersey. Bruce Springsteen. Would it be okay by just read a couple of bits from his forward? Sure. By my early 30s, I'd become aware enough to know as things stood, I'd never have the things I wanted. A full life, a home, a wholeness of being, a companion,

and a place in my community of neighbours and friends all seemed beyond my grasp. I didn't have the judgment, the courage, or the skills to bring a real life. life to fruition. Okay, that's how he starts. But then he goes on to say this. I was one of the most successful musicians on the planet, but work is work, life is life, and they are not the same. Even more frustrating, the things that made me good at my job, my easy tolerance, even hunger for the isolation of creativity, my ability to comfortably and deeply reside within myself and put all

my energy into my work for days, weeks, years at a time, doomed my personal life to failure. I lived a lonely but seemingly secure existence. I had to reread that forward over and over again. It was such a beautiful articulation of what Bruce has got from you. But there's that key point there in the last few sentences I read out, which is the things that made him the exceptional rock musician that he has been, were also the things that made him not so good at life. Yes. Our culture rewards adaptive children.

Our culture doesn't like wise adults. Our culture rewards performance. Our culture is nervous about real intimacy and maturity. Our culture doesn't know what to do it. We live in it patriarchal, which means masculine values writ large. power, dominance, performance, got that one.

Vulnerability, connection, cherishing, love. Yeah, well, that's all nice, but business is business. So, yeah, I deal with high rollers. And every single one of them

has been a roaring success out in the world and a mess in their personal lives and a mess between their ears. They're not happy. So I talk about the difference between gratification and relational joy. I'm glad this came up for the listeners.

Gratification is a short-term hit of pleasure. It's great in its place. You know, you smoke a joint, you have a martini, pretty girl flirt with you, your stock goes up, all great. In Boston, your kid gets in the harbor, that's ground zero. All great. In his place. Relational joy,

which I have to teach these often men, is a deeper down pleasure. You have it. A deeper down pleasure of the joy of being, the joy of just being there and being connected. Parents get this. Sometimes your kid is gratifying. Sometimes you want to throw them through the goddamn window.

If you were in that spot where you were hating their guts and I said, hey, I could go back in time and you would never have to even have this kid. You'd dick me. It's not about whether they're gratifying or not. It's deeper than that. That's relational joy, the joy of connectedness, to yourself, to the people you love, to your body, to the planet. Connection feels great.

Many of the men that I work with have little to no idea of relational joy. It's all about performance and gratification. And the world has made them billionaires, stars, celebrities, but they don't know how to be close. They don't want to sit still and be a piece inside their own bodies. So, okay, when you're out in the gladiatorial arena, be a gladiator. When you come home, put down the sword and shield, then be a lover. You can be both. I hate it when people critique me and say,

Terry Real is trying to feminize men. Get lost. It's not at all what I'm saying. I want whole men and women, whole people of all genders. And, you know, I love to tell stories. May I tell you? This is one of my favorite stories. See, traditional patriarchy, stoic, invulnerable man accommodating resentful women.

That's the norm. Or now, after feminism, women have two choices. They can be traditional accommodating resentful, or they can be liberated, which is individual empowerment. Now I'm strong. Go screw yourself. relational empowerment is the next step. All right.

What I want is wholeness. I want strong and sexy, wise and loving, selfish and giving, all of the qualities. Based on what's in front of you and what you have to do that, so I want wholeness and adaptability.

Bruce talked about being, wildly adaptable to the culture as large, and he's a star. Not so adaptable in his living room. It's very common. Here's the story. I had the privilege of being with a Messiah community in Tanzania. And I had a man's group with the elders for four nights,

which I spent everything. God, women, love, death. It went from English to Swahili to Maasai to Swahili to English. So here's a moment I'll always remember. I say to them, in America where I'm from, there's a debate about what makes a good morani, warrior man. It's one word, morani.

What makes a good morani? Some people think a good morani is tender, sensitive, responsible. Some people think a good morani is throw. cautious, tough, hard as nails. What do you guys think? What makes a good Marani? True story.

So I went and they're all talking, and then this one little guy stands up. He stands up. He's about four foot two, maybe 300 years old. Chris is like, ah, it sounds like he's totally pissed at me. Here's the translation. That's word for word true. I have no interest in talking about it makes a good Marani. I could care less.

But I will talk to you about what makes a great morani. Now listen, when the Mormon calls for fierceness, a good morani is a killer. Don't cross them. They'll kill you. When the Mormon calls for tenderness, a good morani lays down his sword and shield and is sweet like a little baby.

He said, a great morani is the man who knows which moment is wit. So good. So good. It's such a beautiful idea this one of wholeness that you talk about right? It's not about I'm either this or I'm that it's like no no no there's room for all of it right you can express all those parts

just express them in the correct situations like a great Morani. I really really like that something I can take away and think about Terry I wonder if it would be okay to go to some questions that my audience have written in and pops to you I don't think we'll get through them all, but I think there's a couple there, which I think would be quite interesting and take us into a slightly different place than the things we've already spoken about.

Okay, so this one has come in. Terry, how do you keep a healthy interest and fresh perspective on a marriage after almost 40 years? What can you do to create excitement? Well, this is interesting. the great director, actor, Olivia Wilde just came out with a new movie and Esther Perel, my pal, your guest, consulted in, and they said I was very much present in the making. Esther and I go in a slightly different direction on this is kind of fun. Astera goes, well, you need mystery.

Shake it up. Have sex on the couch. Wear something. wear an outfit, tell each other some secret fantasy, juice it up. More mystery, less brother's sisterly platonicness and a little more loverness. And that's all, I like that, that's fine. Here's where I go. Tell the truth to each other.

You want to keep your relationship passionate? Take each other to the manse. Deal with each other. here's something about me that you don't know after 40 years show more of yourself take more risks things get stale when we stop telling the truth to each other and most couples stop telling the truth to each other so as stare would say get some fantasy get something going get a sex toy move out for a week. Do something like more affair-ish inside your marriage.

I would say, be aggressive in a good way. Lean in and take each other on. Show each other parts of yourselves that you've held back from. That'll keep it alive. Yeah. So I think we're both right. Next question. How can I understand what my partner is going through

when he is not ready to discuss or open up. What steps should I take to solve this? You can only say, this is important to me. Even if you don't want to do it, for me, would you work on doing it? And if they're not listening, the answer is no, then drag the son of a gun into therapy. I would recommend an RLT therapist because they'll take your side and lean in

and try and get through to the guy, assuming it's a guy. So try it yourself with skill You may not want to open up But I need you to open up I'm lonely in here Let me tell you what I mean by that Remember the three steps Dare to Rock the Boat

Look I need you to open up I'm lonely Teach them what you want This is what I mean by opening up I want you to tell me about your day I want you to tell me about your feelings And how can I help you do that And then once your partner tries This is huge.

I'm so glad this came up. When partner B starts giving Partner A what Partner A is asking for, do you think Partner A swoons in their arms and says, thank you money? No. They cut it off at the knees. They protect themselves and go back

to their corner of skepticism. Too little too late. You did it, but you're not doing it right. You're doing it now, but you're going to stop. Stop protecting yourself. You did, I say, celebrate the glass 15% full. It was only 5% full last week. Like if your kid gets a D in school, you read them the riot act,

they come back next week with a C, you don't say where's the A. You say, good progress, let's keep going. Same thing with your spouse. If your spouse tries, encourage them, don't discourage them. Yeah. I like to say, hey, honey, you just did a half-ass job. congratulations that's great how do we get the other cheek on board work with them but from a place of appreciation and positiveness not criticalness encourage them and don't discourage them yeah

brilliant uh two more i think which we will just try and quickly cover um when do you know that the relationship is really over i mean we could do a whole podcast on that but here's the shirt version. And if you go to my website, there's an article called Rowing to Nowhere, when is enough enough about this. I talk about what I call a relational reckoning. So you haven't gotten through. Okay, step one, learn a whole new set of skills to talk to your partner better that increase the odds that they'll be able to listen. Two, if they're still not listening and you're doing a great job, drag them to a therapist and a therapist who will take your side and help you with them. Three, if nothing works, should I stay or go? Here's the tool.

I call it a relational reckoning. And it's a question, am I getting enough in this relationship? Am I getting enough in this relationship to make grieving what I'm not getting worth my while? am I getting enough to make bearing the pain of what's missing here okay with me because you're with an imperfect person and things will be missing

and they will hurt. So, you know, maybe you're a great lover and your last 20 relationships were with partners who, you know, spraying from chandeliers in the ceiling. You're now with a person who's been sexually molested as a kid. They're quiet.

They're contained. they need to be in control. You've got to go slow and gentle with this person. Do you miss the wild party nights? You do. Don't keep talking to your partner about that, but you can talk to me about that. Yes, you miss it.

But, oh my God, she's a wonderful mother. She's a beautiful friend. We love each other. Sex is okay. It's not stellar, but it's okay. Good enough. And what do you do with your grief? You feel it.

Don't blame her. Don't go looking for somebody else. Just stand in it. You're walking down the street and you see a guy with some sex pot woman who's all over him. Oh, you feel a pang in your heart. Oh, I remember the old wild days. Oh, well, that's not what I have here. It's okay.

What I have here is beautiful. If the answer is it's not good enough to make grieving worthwhile, then fight or get out. If the answer is, you know what, it is good enough. For now, at least, I can let go of it. Then goddamn let go of it. Don't walk around like a big victim and embrace what you are getting with joy. So do your reckoning and then own it.

Yeah, that's such great advice. Terry, one more question I think would take us into a different area again is this one. Is it okay to be friends with an ex-partner? That's a great question you're asking the wrong person. Don't ask me, ask your partner. Is it okay with you, my dear spouse, if I remain friends with an ex-lover? And is there anything you need in order for me to have that privilege?

I like to say, bring your ex-s home, introduce them to your family. dissolve that membrane of the two of us and open it up to the people you're living with now, it will be less frightening to your partner if you do that. But I don't know, it's between you and your partner. Yeah. Tara, I could talk to you for hours. Honestly, I think you've just done such phenomenal work for so many years. The book of yours I've read is Us, Reconnect with your partner and Build a Loving and Lassing Relationship.

I think it's such a wonderful read and a beautiful guide for all of us who seek to improve our skills in relationships. So, first of all the work, thank you for all the work. Thank you for writing it. And my final question, Terry, is really for that person who's listening or watching and has realized throughout this conversation that, you know what, they don't really have the skills that are needed to have an adult relationship. I think many people will be going, wow, I didn't know that, I didn't know that, I didn't know that, I didn't know that.

So for that person who is in a relationship, but feels that they're constantly arguing with their partner, that despite their best efforts, nothing seems to change. They're wondering, is it me, is it them? You know, for that person who's basically lost hope, what are your final words to them? Well, I want everybody to come to my website at terryreal.com. I'm really pleased to say, along with a two-year training program we have for professionals, we're developing more and more offerings for the general public. Great. So I have a beautiful class on what healthy self-esteem looks like, what boundaries look like,

basic relationship skills, how to get more of what you want in your relationship, and parenting. They're all pretty affordable. They're all online. You take them amazing if both you and your partner took them together. start there, and if that's not enough to move things, go find an RLT therapist. They're all over the world. So go to the website and find them. Yeah, I love that. I guess that sort of really closes off this conversation beautifully, this idea that the culture around you doesn't teach you the things that you need for modern 21st century relationships. So it's not your fault that you don't

know how to do it, but now that you know that you don't have the skills, go out there and get the skills, right? The information is available out there now. This book, for example, has got a ton of information in it, but as you say, people can also go to your website. Is that Terrywheel.com? That's it, just by T-E-R-R-Y-R-E-A-L.com. Yeah, brilliant. Terry, honestly, such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for everything. And I'll hopefully get a chance to see you at some point in the future. I would love that. Bring me back on the show. I'll talk some more. And I got to tell you, You are what we call a good man. And this world has a lot of bad examples out there right now.

And you're a good one. So bless you and the work you're doing and stay strong and healthy. We need you. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember when you teach someone, It not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information.

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