Good Life Project - The Relationship Rules Keeping You Stuck (and how to fix them) | Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

What if the secret to a stronger relationship is breaking the "rules" everyone says you should follow?In this paradigm-shifting conversation, renowned therapist Stephanie Yates-Anyabwile reveals why sleeping apart, living separately, and other unconventional choices might actually deepen your connection. Learn why preventative relationship work matters more than crisis management, how to navigate family resistance to unconventional choices, and why giving your partner "the benefit of the doubt" could transform your relationship.If you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the conversations we had with Julie and John Gottman about the science of lasting love and what makes relationships truly thrive.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So have you ever wondered what would happen if it completely threw out the relationship rulebook? I mean, not just the small stuff, but literally everything. Picture a world where things like sleeping in a separate bedroom isn't actually a sign of trouble, but of deep respect, where maybe even living apart might bring you closer together, where the very things that we had been taught spell relationship doom could be the secret to lasting love. These possibilities are not just theoretical musings. They represent real. choices that couples are making right now, often in secret, afraid of judgment, but finding extraordinary connection through these unconventional paths. And they're exactly what we explore in today's conversation, where we challenge everything you think you know about what makes relationships work. My guest today is Stephanie Yates, Anya Buele, or Steph Anya, as she often goes by online. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist whose insights have been featured in time, GQ, Manity Fair, and on the TED stage, with over 17 million views.

on her YouTube channel. She's bringing fresh perspectives to how we think about relationships, challenging conventional wisdom, and offering practical wisdom for creating stronger connections. One thing that really struck me in this conversation was how often couples struggle not because they're incompatible, but because they're trying to force themselves into relationship models that simply don't fit who they are. We talk about why some couples thrive, living apart, and how to handle family resistance to unconventional choices. And also what happens when we start giving our partners the benefit of a doubt and so much more. And we didn't hear what she has to say about the real reason most communication breaks down

between couples. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. We've been having a lot of fun starting these conversations off with a quick round of five, two or false questions. So I'm going to share five statements and ask you to the best of your ability to see if you can stick to a true or false answer for these. And don't worry, we'll unpack them in different ways during the conversation if you want to go deeper. You game?

Yeah, let's go. Okay. So, number one, open relationships are inherently more prone to failure than monogamous ones. Hmm, false. Okay. Two, there are a basic set of relationship rules that make pretty much every relationship work better. False. Living in different homes can sometimes strengthen relationships. True. Never fighting is a sign of a healthy relationship. False. And the last one, relationship check-ins are most important when relationships are struggling. I'll say true. So, we're going to unpack these along the way as we dive into all different aspects of how we relate to other people, how we build relationships and how sometimes things come up in those relationships that we struggle with, whether it's weeks long, monks long, years long,

or decades long. I'd love to zoom the lens out a little bit, you know, as we dive in. And I'm curious, without even me focusing you in, do you have a sense for what you see as sort of like the single biggest or most common challenge that couples are struggling with these days? I think the number one thing that every couple comes in and says their challenge is communication. And I think that's definitely correct, but we normally do need to zoom in to what the communication issue is, let's talk about which topics we're having a hard time discussing.

How are we cooling off? Are we respecting when one person needs a little space before we talk? It's usually about understanding what's the issue with communication and also specifically why certain topics or certain environments create a more triggering situation where it's hard for us to talk. I'm guessing that that comes up also. You know, people aren't showing up with you and saying, hey, listen, we decided to come in and explore some therapy together because things are going awesome and we just think we could communicate a little bit better. I'm guessing they'd probably show up at your doorstep because stuff is going sideways. Well, sometimes, you know, you do have that unicorn, especially for people who are in a premarital phase. That's where I'll see it

most often. They're like, hey, neither one of us saw a healthy relationship growing up. We feel like we have a very healthy relationship, but we want to understand some of the pitfalls of marriage. What can we expect? And also, we're willing to dig deep to see if maybe there are some things that we've been ignoring. So every now and then, I do get the couple who's actually in a good place, but more often you have people who come in and say, we really don't have any issues. And, you know, within the first session, we've uncovered all of these issues that they actually are experiencing. And those are usually my couples that are a little bit more conflict avoidant, where nobody really wants to say that they're having a problem. But therapy is now presenting them with an opportunity

to be honest and authentic about their experience and their relationship. Yeah, so it's like they're feeling it, but nobody really wants to own that there's something real going on here. But maybe there's some voice inside one or both of them that says, maybe we should at least get somebody else's opinion who's not us. Yeah, definitely. I'm curious also, even before we dive into that, those unicorn couples that you just described where, and it sounds like maybe oftentimes you're coming out of a relationship, prior

relationship where it was really hard, and they're trying to look to not repeat those same experiences. Why do you think it is that so few people or so few couples invest in almost like preventative or proactive skill building and relationship building and kind of wait until there's a problem before saying this actually matters. We want to spend time really investing in it. I think even goes beyond just relationships, even with individual therapy. How many people come to therapy when they're in a good place and they're feeling happy? How many people continue with therapy once they get to a stable place? I think that there is a negative connotation when it comes to getting help in general.

And we think that that means we're saying something is wrong with us or something is wrong with our relationship. So a lot of times we wait until that's undeniable before we seek support. But I think that anyone can benefit, even if it's just monthly sessions, quarterly sessions, just from an opportunity to talk with someone who's only perspective or point of view is yours, maybe yours and your partners. And I think that's just healthy to have a space where you're removed from the real world, you're removed from your typical traditional triggers that you're dealing with in daily life. And you have an opportunity to just have this one segment of space. We're talking about how we actually feel, and we're trying to keep it safe and healthy as we discuss it. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. I feel like a generation ago, there was a lot of stigma around seeking the help of a professional, whether it's individually just for yourself or, you know, in a partnership, in a couple. Do you feel like that's changed in any meaningful way over the last 10, 20 years? Do you feel like it's still there?

Absolutely. I think it's changed a lot. I think that people talk about therapies so much more openly. We talk about men. mental health a lot more openly. Even in books, you know, novels, we're seeing a lot more mental illness representation. And I think that for the first time in a long time, people aren't necessarily as ashamed to be struggling with something with their mental health or even just psychologically. However, I think that there are still communities or aspects of our lives where that shame does still exist. I know that for a lot of minority communities, for example, that the topic of therapy, mental health support is still very taboo. And it's something that typically has not really been accessible historically to people who are impoverished,

right? Or low income. That's not something that has been very easily accessible. And now we have insurance that's recognizing the importance of mental health and supporting people as they need to work on their relationship, work with their family dynamics, work individually. So we're seeing a shift in that. But, you know, even with couples therapy, I think if you tell your friends, hey, we're in couples therapy, they're going to assume that something is wrong. So I think that we do still have that stigma that exist with certain types of therapy or, you know, within certain communities. But I absolutely think we've made a lot of progress with making the conversation more common. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. As you're describing that also, the question that popped

into my head, I'm so curious what your take is, it feels to me like for certain communities also, there can sometimes be this almost like oppositional or a tension between faith and therapy, where it's almost like this is the place that traditionally our family, our local community, our broader community has always turned it. Maybe it's whatever faith tradition resonates with you. This is when things are hard. We turn to. to this community, to these teachings, to this person to help guide us through. And that's where we should be turning. And if you turn there and things still aren't getting better, if you're not feeling better, then something's wrong, like something really wrong with you, or you're not

doing the thing hard enough. Like, if you finally feel like you have to go to therapy, then it's almost like you haven't shown up the way that you were supposed to with faith first. I'm curious whether you've seen that. I've had conversations around that before. I think, you know, you have this idea of praying things away. And I think that I know that faith is a major aspect for a lot of people for building hope and also for giving life meaning. So I don't mean to diminish faith in any way. Yeah, of course. Faith and therapy can go hand in hand. You have some people who are trained as Christian counselors, for example. So they've got that educational background where they can talk about the cyclone. of what's happening or they have those regular conversations where they can give you the worst to articulate the struggles you're experiencing in your family. But they also might be willing to pray with you or check in and hold you accountable on how things are going in your

faith. Have you been going to church? Are you, you said you wanted to be a part of this community at your church? Have you made any steps in that direction? So they can absolutely go hand in hand. But I think you're 100% right that for a lot of people, they look at, getting mental health support as a way of saying that a person can help you better than a God can or the spiritual support that you could get from maybe leaders in your church. And I think that isn't the case. And I've been seeing a shift in that as well over the last few years. You know, I have family members now where, you know, five years ago, they like raising, you know, rolling their eyes about therapy, rolling their eyes about me being a therapist. And now they're, you know, like everybody needs to be in therapy. And that just warms my heart. It's like my favorite conversation to have with people is to just see that people can see the benefits of being able to balance both because one does not negate the other. Yeah, I think it's more of a yes and than either or, right? Or it's not like you go to one because the other is a failure. It's like,

no, they often play complimentary yet different. Like they serve you in different ways, I think is kind of what it comes down to. Yeah. And we'll be right back. After we're from our sponsors. So let's kind of circle back to this notion of when people show up, and your practice has been focused really on relationships, and not just, you know, like romantic partner relationships, but all different levels, family relationships, friend. And so somebody shows up and we're in a place of conflict. We are not agreeing.

I'm curious, are there a fairly common set? Are they like one or two or three sort of like big disagreements that you see showing up just over and over and over in relationships? That show up over and over and over again. I think the number one that I see is you have one partner who wants to talk about issues as they present. And then the other partner needs space so that they can process before they engage in that conversation. I see this all the time where you have the person who needs the space who's like, I know what I'm capable of saying if I don't get the space. Or I know I won't have much to contribute to this conversation if I don't get the time to think through it. Whereas you, you have the other person who feels abandoned when they're like, hey, I'm feeling a lot of emotional dysregulation, and I feel like you're walking away from me. You don't care about what I'm going through. So I think that is probably number one. And that also, by the way, that can be wrapped around any sort of like, quote, issue. So it's really, it's like a,

it's like a conflict engagement skill, a difference in approach to actually engaging around conflict without even getting to what the actual topic of the conflict. this. Exactly. That's why I always say when people come to me and they say they're struggling with communication, that's just like the surface. You know, the communication, I assume if you're not in a good place, that your communication is probably struggling. I can just assume that. Now let's go a little bit beneath that and see what other issues you're having. So we can talk about that. And then we can talk about how do we talk about this so we don't have to come to therapy in order to work through all of our issues. So let's talk about this one difference.

in sort of like styles, almost, like kind of like styles, when somebody shows up and you have people who will show up, and one's like, I just want to get into it now, and the other one's like, I need time and need to process this and all. How do you help somebody navigate those moments? I'm a huge advocate for if you have one person in the relationship, whether that's, you know, a parent and a kid or siblings, where most of the time it's romantic partners, if you have even one person who needs a little bit of time, give them that time, because usually that's a person who is saying, if I can get a little bit of space from this, I can be a lot better in our conversation. So either that I'll be less accusatory, I'll be less insecure, I'll be more vocal, more open. And so I'm always big on that. But the compromise there is you can't just walk away. You do have to work on communicating why you're walking away and when your partner can expect you to come back. and talk about this, right? And so I usually say in the moments where you're really frustrated and you have a tendency to draw into yourself and really become silent, challenge yourself to say, either you guys have a safe word where it's like pineapple. And that's my way of saying, I love you. I need a minute. I need a minute. I'm coming back. But even better is if you can just just yell out the amount of time that you're going to need. Give me 20. Give me 30. I need an

hour, which can be very hard for the person who wants to talk about it right now. But you have to ask yourself, is it more important in this moment for me to win this argument? Or is it more important for me to have a productive conversation with my partner so that at the end, we both win? And so I always say that if you walk away and you've learned nothing new about your partner's perspective, you've both lost. So trying to look at the problem as a problem, externalize it from your relationship is important. Sometimes we do need a little bit of space in order to do that, because in the moment, you feel like my problem. The problem is that the problem you are. And so this helps to make them, help them compartmentalize it a bit.

Yeah, I love that idea also of coming to an agreement before any conflict says and almost like talking about, hey, like, what's your pattering or what's your style around disagreement. So we kind of know in advance and having that signal or that safe word or like, kind of love the idea of making it a really goofy word also, so it injects like just a little bit of lightness into the moment. But also because especially if the person who wants to just have the conversation now also has experienced deep trauma around abandonment, which so many people have in so many different ways when they were younger, if you don't have this agreement, I would imagine you see like they would perceive the other person as abandoning them. Absolutely. So they're not even

reacting to the other person in the moment. They're reacting to this like potentially ages old the wound. Does that show up a lot? Absolutely. Even further, they're not even any longer responding to whatever the source of the conflict was, the original source. Now we're frustrated about what's happening in this moment, and now that's magnifying whatever the problem was before. And that's the other reason that taking that space is critical if you can have even one person who needs that because what I see is that by the time they get to me, they don't even remember what the original argument was about. It takes a second. They're like, what were we arguing about? Because now it's become so much bigger than the argument. And so recognizing I have a tendency to want to dive in,

my partner has a tendency to need a break so that we can talk. It's also a trust-building exercise because you learn to trust that your partner actually is going to come back to finish this conversation with you. And that's what I tell my couples when you have that person. I'm like, okay, listen, in this moment, you're getting your way, right? You're the person who wants the pause, the break. They are trying to give you that, even though they're dealing with a lot of uncomfortable emotions and providing you with that. Now, make sure you hold up your end of the deal and actually use that break to reflect and come back and have and engage in this conversation. I usually tell my partners who need the break. One way to really communicate to your partner that you care about

whatever is happening is to write down your thoughts. So you can say, I use that time to really think through what we should talk about. And I don't want to just go off the top of my head because this relationship is too important to me. Everything should come back to intention. Everything should come back to. How can I let my partner know that they matter so much to me that I don't want to mess this up by speaking before I'm ready? And making that clear, I think, can avoid some of those feelings of abandonment. I wonder if you see also, if let's say, you know, the person who wants to just have it out now. If part of their fear is almost like everything that I'm feeling now is top of mind right now. But if I wait an hour or a day, it's kind of kind of get watered down

or forget a whole bunch of stuff. And I want to, like, it's fresh in my mind now, so I want to have the conversation now. So maybe it's a good exercise for that person to also write it down and then feel like I can actually come back to this in a few hours. I can take a quick look at what I wrote down. It'll be fresh in my mind so they don't forget anything that's really important to me in the conversation. Absolutely. Because a lot of times what we're doing is we're venting. And so I fill all this steam. I want to pour it out while I'm still filling it. And I do challenge the partner that usually wants to talk about it right now. And I do hear that sometimes. They're like, well, if we come back in an hour, I'm going to forget everything that I need to say. And doesn't that

beg the question about how important it was? Right. If you don't remember in an hour what you were about to like curse your partner out about how significant was that issue if in an hour it's not as important again we've both won now we're in a position where we have one less thing that we're yelling about to me that's not a problem right again that's you being focused on wanting to win an argument and you've got all these points but if you get rid of that thought that this is my goal to win this argument and you think instead my goal is for us both to walk away and understand more about each other's perspectives, that totally changes your strategy. Because if I'm yelling at you while you're not ready to talk to me, we've both lost. I wanted to dip a little bit more into that. What you just

shared, I think, is really important. I want to explore more of this notion of wanting to win the argument, right? Because on the one hand, you zoom the lens out, we're like, well, that can't be all that constructive. Like, this is not a battle. We're engaged in. Like, we're trying to create a healthy, functional, loving, compatible relationship. And yet, we're going to have so many folks show up in a relationship. We all bring our baggage. We all bring our experiences and our patterning, right? Some of us are going to show up having so much of our lives where we feel disempowered. We feel like we don't have power. We don't have agency. We don't have autonomy. And we're just trying to get it anywhere we can. And we show up in those relationships. I wonder if we show up

in part wanting to win because it's a way for us to feel like, okay, we got what we needed. we have agency. On the one hand, I get how that can be important. But in the other hand, it's a really fine line between wanting to win and feeling like you're reclaiming or maintaining agency in a healthy and constructive way, right? Yeah. I think it boils down sometimes to power in this world that we're in, especially in the Western societies where we really do promote individualism.

It's easy to try to attain as much power as you can. And some people are able to attain power through their looks. Some people are able to attain power through their talent. Some people are able to attain power through their words, through their intellect, quick wit. And these are the people I typically find that like to jump right into the argument because they feel like this is where they shine. This is where they can thrive is by, you know, I have been able to quickly assess the situation and I'm going to tell you everything that you're doing wrong. and in a way it's like acing a paper because I just came up with 10 reasons why you're wrong and then we hit them with the give me one example of when I did that and they don't have

anything because they weren't prepared for the conversation so it gives us a sense of power but if what you're really wanting is to have a healthy relationship a long-term long-standing relationship then you have the power in that moment but your partner now has lost a little bit of safety in your relationship. And ultimately, you're losing because what you wanted, that long-term goal, right, the war that we're fighting for, you know, you won the battle, you're losing the war because now it's that much harder for your partner to open up to you and trust that you don't have the intention of hurting them. I feel like power is always going to matter to us in some way. We want to feel like we have agency in our lives. But what we're looking for in a relationship is

less power over and more power with. Like, we want to share this. We want to feel like we each have sense of agency and power in the relationship and that there's equity, there's equality there. I definitely think, you know, we're always going to want power. That's what makes us feel autonomous over our own lives and also makes us feel like we have more influence over our relationships as well. But romantic partnerships are fine balance because whereas, yes, I want to have autonomy over my own life. I am entering into something where I do need to consider another person's desires, wants feelings as well. And so it can be challenging to give up some of that power and acknowledge and respect another person's power so that both people can feel content

in the relationship. I don't know if we can always both be happy at the same time. There are definitely moments where both people can be happy in the relationship, but there are going to be times where one person might be thriving a little bit more than the other, but we don't want the relationship to be the source of the stress. That makes a lot of of sense. So we've talked about a couple of, let's call them guidelines for healthy conflicts, saying like, okay, so we have a disagreement, but here's some things to really think about. Are there one or two or three other sort of like general guidelines? Like, this is how we step into a disagreement in a way that makes it constructive rather than destructive.

The first thing, and this is very hard, but the first thing I always try to work with my clients on is metaccommunication. So let's focus on how we, we're talking about what we're talking about. And let's also talk about how we're feeling before we even talk about what we're talking about. And it's very hard because it's a very roundabout way of communicating. It's really slow and we're not getting to the point quick enough or as quickly as we're used to. But if I enter a conversation with you and I say I'm very nervous to have this conversation, so many times we just jump right in and our partner has no clue that this is vulnerable for us because we didn't make that clear.

Or if you say, okay, just so you know, this is taking me back to some of the conflict that I experienced with my mom growing up. And I want to be able to handle this right, but just know, like, I might get a bit triggered as we're talking about this. Okay, that says talking about how we're feeling as we're talking. And then when we talk about how we're talking, I might say, I know I'm speaking a little loudly. I'm very passionate about this. I'm not yelling at you. I just, I'm trying to get this out. and this is the volume that is coming out at, right?

It's so hard sometimes to just talk about why we're talking about what we're talking, the emotions we're coming into the conversation with, the tone that we're inherently using, those things can really, really help. I also, when you have control over it, I like us to think about the setting. Like, should I be having a really deep personal conversation or conflict with my partner in like a crowded restaurant? Probably not. Why? Because if it gets to a point where I'm being very vulnerable and I'm sharing something and I need to pull in, my partner's like, huh? What'd you say? That might trigger me. I might feel like, you don't even care. You're not listening. You're not comforting me. But they're like, oh, you know, we're in public. I don't really know what to do. So simple things like that can also help a conversation. But I also think that the thing I work with my clients about a lot is like giving your partner the benefit of the doubt. We often fill in the blanks for why somebody is doing something, right? Like in that first example,

our partner walks away from the conversation. We're like, you're abandoning me. Let's pull it back a little bit. Historically, has that been the case in this relationship? If so, that's a whole different thing we need to be talking about. But most of the time, it's like, you know, they want to be with you. You know that they love you. You know, they wouldn't purposely leave the coffee maker on. You know, they're not doing that intentionally. So why are we yelling? Why are we screaming, why are we going down a laundry list of everything that they do wrong? When if we gave them the benefit of the doubt, we just think that was an annoying accident, but I make mistakes too, right? So these are some of the things that I try to encourage my clients to think about, especially

if you're in a season of your relationship that's conflict-ridden. It's just, you know, let's be very cautious about how we're engaging in a conversation, be very slow and intentional in the communication that we're having. Yeah. I mean, those things all make so much sense that you're describing that. I'm literally like a scenario pops into my head where, you know, one person is really upset about something in their home. They're waiting for the conversation to happen. And it's the evening. The other person walks in the door. They've had a brutally hard day at work. They're stressed out of their minds. They see that their partner is sitting on, you know, at the kitchen table and like something's

wrong. They want to have a conversation. But that other person just feels like they're completely unresourced to have this conversation right now. You know, And they're like, listen, all they want to do is go and work out so they can kind of refill their tank, right? Because that for them, that's how they juice back up. That's how they get calm again. That's how they have more the energy. If you don't communicate, like, if one person just says, look, I'm out, I got to go work out. The person who wants a conversation, they're going to be like feeling they don't care. They're abandoning me. They'd rather go to do the thing that makes them feel good than actually have the conversation. But if you actually communicate and say, you know, listen, I see something's on your mind. I know it must be really important. I want to honor that. And how. have this conversation with you and I want to do it in a way where I felt like I'm really a resource that I can sit and listen and we can have a real conversation and I've just had a really brutal day. It would be so helpful if I could just take a little bit of time to go and do this thing to work out so I can come back and I will in an hour and we can sit down to have this from a better place. Is that the type of thing that you're talking about here?

Exactly. I think you just synthesized everything because that's the other thing I tell my clients as well, just like we're talking about not being in loud environment. For example, I always say, let's check in on the basics, right? Like, Maslow's hierarchy. Like, am I fed? Am I well rested? Because those things all affect you. It all affects you.

Like, if I'm hungry, the conversation could go totally left. And I have to come back and be like, I'm so sorry. I don't realize that I didn't even realize personally that I deal with anger until I got into the relationship with my now husband. And he was kind of like, yeah, I kind of noticed. Like, whenever we haven't eaten for a while, like, you get really short. And then we can plan around that, right? Now I always keep snacks in my car. If we're going to go somewhere, like even we're driving to a reservation, I make sure I have

snacks in my purse just in case, you know, if it's a long drive, I don't want to get snappy. If we deal with traffic, whatever the case may be, if we really tune into those things, we can also plan around them, you know, so if you know also on the other partner side, if you know your partner's just had a long day and they're coming in, and they're coming in, check in with them and say, hey, I wanted to talk with you about something, but I want to see how was your day first? This might be a little annoying, to be honest with you. So I don't want you to be in a bad place if I'm bringing it up. Then that makes it easier for you to go in and say, actually, yeah, thanks for checking in. This has been a hard day. Do you mind if I go to the gym

before we talk about it? So that's why I say goes both ways. You know, sometimes my couples come in. They're like, well, they never told me they were in a bad mood. And then the other person like, well, you never asked me how my day was. And it's like, see, we're trying to always trying to volunteer our partner to initiate the healthy conversation. And I say, we cannot control what our partner does, but we can work on what we're going to do to help better our relationship. It's not 50-50, it's 100, 100. So you just ask yourself, am I doing what I can to make my partner's life easier? And since there's only two people in this relationship, then if one of you is trying to be better, then more than likely the relationship is going to improve, or the drastic

differences in how you're treating your partner versus how they're treating you, it's going to be exposed. And if they don't care, you know what to do with that information. You can't control what they're doing. You can only focus on what you're bringing to the relationship. Yeah, then I'll make so much sense. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. I feel like this is a good moment also to maybe like widen our aperture a little bit. We've been talking about some of the rules and guidelines around, really around disagreement, around conflict. But more broadly, there are, there tend to be like this set of passed down rules of like, this is how you are in a relationship that are either, you know, like, passed down from

the family or passed down from the culture or the community. Like, these are the basic rules, the Ten Commandments of All Relationships, Follow them and your, your relationship will be golden. You're somebody who's spoken very, very powerfully against that. I think that when we limit ourselves in our relationships, and it's so funny because most of the time people want like wacky, crazy examples, but it's usually the most mundane changes that are really so insignificant that can make a huge difference in our relational experiences because we are formatting our relationships based off what we've seen, what we've heard, what we've imagined. we're not always paying attention on what's actually happening in the relationship that I'm actually in. The person I actually ended up with, what do they like, what do I like, where do we differ, where are we the same, and how can we build a life around that? We're not introspective enough, I find, to be creative and how we approach our relationships. There's like a top three

shoulds that you see in relationships. People are like, oh, we should be doing this, we should be behaving this way. This should be the rules in our relationship because that's what everyone says makes for a healthy relationship. And you look at that and you're like, well, for some people, sure, but for you, maybe not. Yeah, I think, you know, some of the ones that come up the most in my work and some of the things I talked about at my TED Talk are even sharing the same bed. There's a lot of controversy around couples who sleep in separate beds. People call it a sleep divorce, which I really don't even like that phrasing, but people are quite judging. mental about that. I know there have been couples who've talked about it online and people are like,

oh, that's one step away from Splitsville or my parents did that when they were separated, you know, and people can't see past their own experiences. Another one is even just like living together full time. You know, sometimes it doesn't make sense. Sometimes you have couples who they're getting together at a different stage in life where living together 24-7 just doesn't make sense with the lifestyles they've already apart and their relationship functions really well when they're not expected to completely integrate their lives into living with one another. I think another one might be like even like I'm sharing a room. You know, with the bed thing, you can, I've had some couples who are comfortable with having maybe two separate beds in the same room, kind of like what you saw and I love Lucy growing up,

right? But right. But the idea of sleeping in separate rooms is very embarrassing to them. They don't want their kids to see that. Whereas, you know, it's kind of like, but one of you likes one likes a different temperature. The other one likes a different temperature. One of you is a morning person. The other person is a night owl. And you're making so many compromises that you're building resentment for simple things that really, you know, they really have no bearing in the relationship. They're just things that any roommates would have to deal with. If we were in college, you're in a dorm, we'd be having these same stressors, but we can make it work. I mean, that makes so much sense to me. And yet there is so much.

much baggage around it. This is where it's supposed to be. I mean, maybe one person is just a really loud snorer and the other person isn't. And that can be wildly disruptive to your sleep. Absolutely. Relationships go off the rails just because of sleep deprivation. I mean, that can be that alone. So it's like, okay, so maybe we have to give up that sort of, you know, traditional model of us being in the same room. And, you know, now we get the sleep that we need and everything's better. Or maybe one person's a night owl and one person's, you know, like a morning person. But I mean, that's interesting, right? Because Let's say one person really, their internal clocks are like, I get up later and I like to stay up until 3 a.m.

And the other person's like, I like, my clock says, go to bed at 9 o'clock at night and I'm going to be up at 4 a.m. Yeah. And that's kind of like a biological thing that's not the easiest to reset. I wonder if you see conflict around that at all ever. Absolutely. All the time. And that's where a lot. And I think that specific issue is where I really started seeing how many people,

were struggling to make what I would consider to be relatively simple decisions like sleeping apart. Like, you guys love each other. You love doing life together. You're raising a family successfully. This is the thing you keep coming back to. And neither one of you is really willing to compromise because sleep is so important to both of you. And one is like, you know, I make my money when I'm able to work. I'm not, I can't work in the morning. I work late into the night, you know, especially when I have creatives. A lot of my clients where they're creatives, they just, a lot of them just function a lot better at night. They can work until 3, 4 a.m. And that's when they really get going when nobody in the world is trying to reach them. Once you're able to, when I say what are the things that

attracted you to each other, a lot of them are those opposites, you know, like I love how creative they are or I love how organized and structured they are. And it's like, these are the very things that are causing you to to lead what feels like very separate lives or have separate wants or lifestyles. But it didn't prevent you from dating. You were able to still figure it out when you were dating and this was your routine then. The only difference is you weren't forced to live together and change that dynamic. So you are living together. It's working out well during the daytime. There's only this one facet of your life that you're struggling with. How hard would it be for you to just sleep separately? That was really the primary issue that was coming

into my sessions where I realized, you know, a lot of people don't even think about just doing things a little bit differently than how they saw their parents do it. Yeah, it's like this is just what's always been done around us. This is what we see on TV all the time, you know, or now online, TikTok and Instagram. Like, this is the way it is. And we don't really question it. That makes a lot of sense to me. One of my true false questions in the beginning also was about monogamous versus open relationships. I would imagine this is one of the things also. Like there's this very traditional family norm and this is how it works and you know like once you quote tie the knot or like you're in a committed partnership that like there's really only one way to do that and that is

two people monogamous to each other. But we're seeing more and more people just choosing variations, just defining the ways that feel right to them. I wonder if this is a topic that comes up in your practice also on any meaningful basis. Yeah, it definitely comes up, especially for some of my couples who are honest about being in a place where they're considering stepping outside of the relationship. And I feel like if those are thoughts that you're having, the fact that you're comfortable talking with your partner about them is actually a great sign of health during the relationship. And I know everybody doesn't see it that way, but it is. Because for a lot of people, I'm not saying everyone, but for a lot of people, it's more the deception

that destroys the relationship than it is the fact that a person was having thoughts or desires for another person. And I've seen many times in sessions where one person opens up about that. And the other person is like, I'm so glad you said that because I've been having X, Y, Z, thoughts, feelings, whatever. It doesn't happen all the time, and I think that we have this idea of, like, open relationships are the only way to break tradition with relationships. You know, almost whenever people see my talk, one of the top questions I get is like, you know, is this about open relationships?

And so it's not only about open relationships, but that is an example of a rule that has been something that society has told us is, you know, monogamy. is what a healthy relationship looks like. And you can be in a monogamous relationship and be sexually open. You know, there are different things that people might pursue that make sense for their values. We base a lot of our choices off of what other people are doing or more specifically what we think other people will think of us if they knew we were making choices that were different from the societal expectation. And so I think your question at the beginning was open relationships, do they have a higher propensity for failure? I don't have the statistics on that,

but my gut reaction is no, just based off of my own clinical work. And for the couples who have made that decision, I don't see their relationship being more likely to fall into jeopardy than a couple who's chosen to be monogamous. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like the way you're describing it. It's more about the way you have the conversation around it and the way that you The openness that you, not the openness in terms of other people, but the openness you have with each other around what your needs and wants and desires are and how to navigate that, like, how to negotiate it in a way so that you both feel like you're getting like the respected dignity and also the freedom that makes you feel like you can show up and be the person you want to

be. And that's going to be different for everybody, right? But again, so often we're just told this is the way it is. I mean, what's interesting also, you use the word society. Like these ideas are often dictated by society. And these norms also, they're very, like, if we talk about this in a Western sort of like North American standard, very often other cultures and other communities and other countries, they have a very different lens on, on like, what is sort of like just acceptable and standard. Like, this is just how relationships are, you know? So it's very, we tend to be very sort of like compartmentalized into like whatever the local culture tells us, right, and believe the whole world is like that. But in fact, when you start to look at

around the world oftentimes are really different. Yeah. And culturally we shift, right? Because I think actually when you think about it, I think nowadays it might actually be in certain communities more taboo to be in a traditional set up with a relationship where you have, you know, the wife who's like a stay at home and, you know, she's preparing the meals and you have a husband who's a provider. That is something I think that a lot of people are very uncomfortable with today. And so I see online all of the time where you have people who are like my day in the life as a stay at home mom. And the comments are filled with people being like, okay, what happens if he cheats on you? What happens if he leaves you? You have nothing. You know, they don't even know what their

financial setup looks like or anything. But the whole point is making decisions based off what feels good for you and your partner and really quieting or silencing the noise, not allowing it to dictate like, okay, well, these people online are saying that my life is in jeopardy, so I should probably get a job. If that doesn't make sense for you and your family, it doesn't make sense, right? So there are so many different ways. And I think we're at a point now where even the traditional setup or trajectory in some ways that is almost going against culture. It's counterculture, almost, because we're in a very, depending on what community you're in, that could be frowned upon as well.

This also brings up another curiosity, which is, let's say you decide to make a decision about your relationship, like you have two people, three people, however many people in their relationship, right? And you have the conversation, you float your needs and your desires, and you come to really an agreement where each person feels good about this and you want to move forward with it, but that is not sort of like the acceptable norm within, let's see even like your broader family unit. Then you're going to have people within the family unit if you decide to share it with them, you know, which is, and if this, you know, if this becomes a really meaningful part of

your life and you want to be able to live, and eventually very likely, even if you don't overtly decide I'm going to share it, it'll become an observable thing. Yeah. Right. And then you're going to have people wanting to sort of like have their say in your decisions and your relationship choices and kind of say like, I have a right to have like a say in what's going on here, which brings up the issue of boundaries. I would imagine you see this happening too. Absolutely. And when I talk about societal expectations, I think for the most part, we're really talking about familial expectations. And this is why I say it boils down to your values. If you, you're, you, for example, feel like I have to choose between being a part of my family or being in this

relationship that makes me feel fulfilled. You know, unfortunately, sometimes we have to ask ourselves which value is more important to me. Is it more important to me to feel like I'm a part of my family or is it more important to me to feel like I have autonomy over my own life and maybe build my own family or have found family? There are unfortunately very tough conversations that we have to have with ourselves at times when we are making decisions that are counterculture. Because what is the risk of being counterculture? We can't ignore that. It's rejection. It's that feeling of isolation, not being able to have a feeling of community because the decisions we're making are so different from the decisions of the people around us. And so that's a very real

possibility. And I don't want to ignore that because it's so easy to just say, do whatever feels good to you, but a lot of times we do have to deal with consequences and it's a question of what aspect of your life is the most important to you. Let's say we're talking about family here and you make a choice about your relationship and close family members don't agree with that choice and they want to say their peace. They want to have a say in your decision and your life. And these aren't family members. Let's say it's a parent, right? And you're close to your parent and they just don't get it. They don't get why you're doing what you're doing. And you have a good relationship with them other than that. So you don't want to just write them off.

Like you'll sometimes hear this advice, well, you need to just get them out of your life if they don't agree with like what you do. Most of the time, that's not realistic. Right. And that's not what you want. You want them in your life. Do you have any advice on how you might start that conversation with them or some just general ideas to maybe help increase the chances of you coming to a place where you're both, like even if you don't agree, you can kind of both find a way to be a little more at peace and staying in each other's lives. Yeah, I was actually just having a conversation

like this today with one of my clients. In their situation, they and their partner had to move. And they, you know, they had the choice of either staying where the family was or moving and they chose to move and their families dealing with some really serious stuff

where they could use their help, right? So they're feeling like, you know, I feel like a bad person. I'm not being supportive, I'm not being helpful. And there are some repercussions of that with the family dynamics. And I think that there are sometimes a lot of value in just allowing people to feel the way that they feel. Because that's what we're asking for as well. Like, okay, you don't agree with my decisions regarding my relationship.

I can accept that. Can we still manage a relationship outside of that? Is the type of relationship I'm in or the state, that I'm living in, is that more important to you than it is to maintain and work on our relationship outside of that? Because most of the time, it has absolutely zero bearing on that family. Even if they personalize it and they make it seem, you know, well, what about my grandkids? And that's fair because what they're saying is, I had a vision for my future. It included you. It included you being in this kind of relationship. It included you starting the sort of family.

and now I'm having to mourn the loss of that vision. I think that's important too. And I think that we can make space for that and separate it from our own experience. I can hold space for a parent who is grieving their new reality as a result of my decisions and still not change them. I can say, I love you.

I hate how you feel about choices I'm making for my life, but you raised a strong, independent thinker. And this is the decision I'm making, but I still want to pour into our relationship if you're willing to accept me and I will accept you. That is what I envision. Now, sometimes, you know, we just can't get to that point, but at least we can know we tried. We tried to have the conversation. We chose to keep that door open until it gets to a point where it's no longer emotionally safe for us or if we feel like our family just, you know, the family we've created can't thrive within the family that we were born into. Then you might have to make some hard

decisions, but I think you're right initially. We might want to hold on to both, and I think it's possible if we can just accept, okay, I can't convince you to be okay with this. I can accept that you're not okay with it? Can you still accept me into your life? Yeah, and what you just brought up about understanding that part of what their resistance often is, it's not going to be a direct judgment of you. It's a grieving of the loss of the life or the nature of the relationship, the way things were that they thought would always be. And what they're expressing is, in no small part, grief. But they might not have the language or the emotional reservoir to express it as grief

or sadness or loss, so it may come out as judgment or anger. But maybe if we can see that and then see past it or see underneath it and be like, I understand what's really happening here. And maybe without losing any of my power, standing in what is my truth, see if we can give them a little bit grace in that moment also. and maybe give them a little space to come around to it. Yeah. That feels so important.

And it's not something I feel like we talk about often in those moments. Especially let's talk about one of the things I talk about with some of my clients is, you know, being in a same-sex relationship. And having parents, maybe it's been 10, 15 years and their parents are still not welcoming, you know, and they're seeing these stories of other people whose families came around or who were, you know, accepting from the beginning. and they hold a lot of resentment for that, you know, and a lot of times they can understand where their family is coming from. They get that grief, but it still hurts. And I think also just accepting our own pain and grief too. This was not what I wanted for myself either. You're grieving and so am I. I think sometimes there's this expectation that whoever you're talking to has to be the bigger person, I always say do as much work as you're willing to do.

If you get to a point where you're working so much on these dynamics with your family that your work is getting impacted or your marriage is now impacted, you guys are fighting all the time because you're trying to make things work with your family, those are indications that we've reached our limit for right now. Maybe there'll be a time where you have more emotional bandwidth to go back. But if you're at a point where you are constantly sad or anxious, because of what's happening with your family, that's a time where maybe you have to take a break, focus on this thing that you sacrifice that relationship for, let that fuel you, fill you up a little

bit, and then come back to it if you want. It's not just about giving other people grace. It's about giving that same grace, self-compassion to ourselves along the way and probably just doing the dance and knowing that this is not a snapshot that just stays static. This is just, this is the movie of our lives, and we're going to be constantly navigating these different dynamics and energies. And the more skills we have, the better. Yeah.

Feels a good place for us to come full circle as well. So in this container of Good Life project, if I offer up the phrase, to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life, we have to be willing to foster not only the relationships with the people that we love,

but also foster that important relationship with ourself. Thank you. Hey, if you love this episode, say that you'll also love the conversation we have with Julie and John Gottman about the science of lasting love and what makes relationships truly thrive. You can find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, and Troy Young, Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still listening here, do me a personal favor, a seventh second favor. Share it with just one

person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even. Then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.