Love Lives - Why we all need to stop people-pleasing in relationships, with Emma Reed Turrell and Michelle Elman

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

Support Millennial Love with a donation today: https://supporter.acast.com/millennialloveThis week, Olivia speaks to psychotherapist Emma Reed Turrell and life coach Michelle Elman about the importance of setting boundaries in relationships, and why people-pleasing can hinder our success at finding love.They also discuss how people-pleasing can harm our sex lives, too, and why it’s necessary to set boundaries with a partner in bed. Michelle offers her tips on boundary setting at the start of a relationship, while Emma explains why it’s important to strike the right balance between learning how to put yourself first while still considering your partner’s needs. Follow the show on Instagram at @millennial_loveSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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years of age or older to wager Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity, and more. This week, I'm thrilled to be joined by psychotherapist Emma Reid-Torrell and life coach Michelle Ellman to discuss the importance of setting boundaries in relationships and why people-pleasing can hinder our success at finding love. We talk about how people-pleasing can harm our sex lives and why it's necessary to set boundaries with a partner in bed. We discuss how to set boundaries at the start of a relationship too, in a way that makes you feel comfortable, and why it's important to strike the right balance between learning how to put yourself

first while also still considering your partner's needs. Enjoy the show! Hi guys, how are you doing? Great, good. Hi, how are you? Really good, thank you. It's very, very sunny while we're recording this. I'm enjoying the sunny weather. Are you guys having a nice time in the sun? I mean, obviously not right now because we're recording a podcast, but have you? I feel I'm on that kind of day two of the sun where I haven't quite changed. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm really excited to talk to you both today about people pleasing and boundary setting in relationships, which I think are two subjects that sit very closely alongside one another. So Emma, let's start with you. I know you've published a book all about people pleasing and trying to encourage others to learn how they can stop doing this so how do you think our innate

need to please others I suppose particularly as women can affect the way we behave in romantic relationships yeah I mean that's that's a great angle to go in at because you're absolutely right there is a kind of innate need to people please and the reason I wrote the book was because as a psychotherapist I was noticing it more and more in my clinical therapy practice that people were arriving with this kind of need they think to please other people but actually as you kind of start to unpack it really the need was about to maybe organize how other people react towards them so that they got the kind of the validation or the affirmations or the acceptance or the approval that they were kind of seeking and certainly in romantic relationships one of the things I was noticing is that a people pleaser could quite typically kind of begin a relationship with their best

foot forward if you like so they're sort of marketing themselves at that early that early stage of the relationship and then maybe finding out that actually, they were over promising and doomed to under deliver. And so you you work with couples in your practice, right? Yeah. And I do. So what kind of things have you picked up from in terms of, you know, are they aware of how their need to people please can hinder their relationship? Or is it you know, is it both they aware of how their need to people please can hinder their relationship or is it you know is it both partners aware of that I would say typically not actually I think that's that's the thing so quite often people come to therapy with what they think is a presenting issue maybe it's kind of arguing or rejection or fear of abandonment or kind of maybe some

over control in a relationship. And actually what they haven't understood yet is that it's about people pleasing or, you know, to put it the way I do in the book about organizing the other person's reaction to make it something that feels safe to them. So what I noticed and some of the kind of the hope that really comes from a couples counseling is when you can start to understand that the thing that brought you together is more often than not the thing that will break you up, then you really get to unpack that and thing that brought you together is more often than not the thing that will break you up then you really get to unpack that and understand actually aha so really I was

drawn to you because say person a fell in love with the fact that person b could do what they wanted could follow their dreams could be independent could be someone who was congruent and authentic really that person was representing something that person A wanted to be. But actually, until they had the permission to stop people pleasing, they couldn't do it. And suddenly what started off as being someone being spontaneous and independent became someone being avoidant or unavailable, or selfish. But actually, if you can pivot on that and take the kind of permission, suddenly you end up with kind of two wins, if you like like and a sum that's

greater than your parts and I guess what's interesting about that I know Michelle you talk about setting boundaries early on in the stages of your relationship and how important that can be and I want to get to that but just hearing Emma talking about that it's kind of making me think about these roles that people adopt in the early stages of a relationship you know we kind of I know I certainly have done this, and we talk about this on the podcast a lot, how we kind of craft our personalities to suit the person that we're with because we want to seem the most desirable to them.

So, you know, we might pretend that we like certain music that we don't like, or, you know, we might kind of pretend to be someone that we're not to a degree um do you think that kind of feeds into this people pleasing idea ama yeah massively i think what's really interesting about that is that we start out by trying to to meet the needs that we either think the other person's got or we're trying to mind read what those needs are or we're trying to meet needs actually we would like to be met in ourselves or we're trying to meet the needs in the only way we know how to meet them and so we do kind of this love the idea of crafting we do try and kind of craft a persona to start that

relationship and it's only as time goes on that we start to notice oh hang on a minute I'm not sure this is quite who I am or maybe who I want to be. And then of course, we're slightly stuck because, well, we've committed. And that person who is easy breezy and relaxed and, you know, loved, I don't know, mountain biking, suddenly has to own up that maybe he or she isn't quite how they first seemed. The irony being that actually, the other person's probably doing something quite similar. And so if you can have that conversation, you can enter kind of the next level of relationship and get so much more of what you need but often we're scared to do that yeah so Michelle talk to me a bit about that because I know you write about how we have to kind of get over that fear of uh being up front with the person we're dating and being honest about our needs and like you write setting those boundaries so how do we go about doing that and

and why is it important to do that so early on? Yeah, absolutely. Both of the subjects are really related. In fact, in my book, I talk about one of the barriers of boundary setting being that people pleasing effect, that fear of being disliked. And essentially what it comes down to is that boundaries are how you teach the world to treat you. They are what's acceptable and what isn't acceptable about your own treatment. And if you don't set your boundaries, then the line

between who the world wants you to be and who you actually are becomes really blurry. So when you have those boundaries in place, not only are you able to dictate how you want to be treated in your life, but your identity actually gets stronger because you get to decide who you are before trying to control the response or the reaction. And that's essentially what I believe people pleasing comes down to. And within the book, there is even a part where I talk about how it's actually a form of manipulation in trying to, for example, if you're pretending to like a type of music or pretending to like mountain biking, it's because you're trying to, for example, if you're pretending to like a type of music or pretending to like mountain biking, it's because you're trying to control their reaction when actually, if you are yourself and that person doesn't like you, you should use that information to inform your

decisions as opposed to changing yourself to try to get that reaction or response that you want. In that, in most romantic relationships, that would be someone liking you or being attracted to you or being interested in you. Oh, God, that's so interesting how it's a form of manipulation. I've never thought about it like that. Do you think, I mean, Emma, would you agree? Do you think people pleasing can get to that point where it is about manipulating the other person and the other person's perception of you? And I guess, I guess there are degrees and there's a scale of that, right? So I suppose, you know, there are minor things, but then if you, if you keep it up for a long period of time, or if you kind of try and change parts of like integral parts of who you are and what you believe in, you know, that is

obviously very manipulative. And that doesn't set a good precedent for a relationship. No, far from it. I mean, I couldn't agree more with what you said there Michelle because that that angle of manipulation is something that I I deal with as well and I I think what we need to be really mindful of is that of course we're not saying that it's manipulation this is a conscious tactic of one person looking to kind of optimize their situation and get what they want you know this isn't selfish this isn't saying this isn't actually saying me first but this is a survival script that's saying me too you know and this piece that actually oh would that we could get to the point in our security that we were able to show up as ourselves in relationships that's the kind of the holy grail but for many of

us who are running this kind of survival script where actually any kind of attachment feels safer than none at all we'll pull out any stop we'll use any tactic we have to to be included and be part of the pack because i guess the way i see this is this is this is kind of human behavior based on being socially acceptable and we need to feel really secure you know so it comes down to attachment we need to feel really secure before we can really start showing up as ourselves and taking the risk that someone's going to reject us but it's it's absolutely possible and once we start getting some evidence that we can not only survive rejection but we can actually start to thrive in its wake then it becomes a kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy and we can start to seek out those really really supportive positive relationships I also think just to clarify I think that sometimes when we use the word manipulation it comes across quite

extreme but actually if you go back to the definition of the word manipulation it's actually just to control someone or to influence them in a way that you want a certain reaction so as much as when you use manipulation everyday conversation it's seen as like this really extreme thing it's sometimes not even that and sometimes it's not as you said intentional um it's funny that you use the word selfish because that's literally why the book's called the joy of being selfish because i think only women get really painted with that brush of if we prioritize ourselves or put ourselves first then we are being selfish it's that cliche of if you go after your dreams and don't care take everyone around you

then you are being selfish and it's why I put it in the title because it's something that actually stops people from setting their boundaries is that fear of being called selfish or being called mean rude aggressive all the words that are often used in a response when a woman sets a boundary what would you say Michelle are some good boundaries that you know most women could benefit from setting themselves and their partner in the early stages of a relationship I for me personally my important but most important boundary that I set from the outset is around time. So especially when it comes to dating apps, there's a lot of cancelling, there's a lot of last minute arrangements, and that just doesn't work for my schedule. You either make me a priority

or not. And so if someone texts me at 10 o'clock at night being like, hey, can I come over? I'm like, no, sorry sorry you're gonna have to book me in advance if you want my time and I think it's okay to say that and a lot of the time especially in early relationships because of this people-pleasing element and because you want them to like you so much you often drop your standards or you drop your boundaries but that's the point to start setting those boundaries, because actually, it's a lot harder to do it a month into relationship when you already have a precedent for being this easygoing and carefree person. And if you even just swipe on Hinge or Bumble or any of the dating apps, you'll see all these apps and profiles from guys looking for a carefree and easy person. And it just honestly became a mindset shift for me being like, my goal isn't to be easygoing and as low maintenance as possible. I think it's okay to want to have needs to have. If you want to label it high maintenance, I don't label it as high

maintenance, but I have needs and I want them to be met. So no, I'm not the most easygoing person. But that doesn't mean I'm not worthy of love or dateable or lovable in any way that's so interesting the high maintenance thing I um have you guys both seen when Harry met Sally I'm presuming you have yeah yes absolutely yeah so there's that scene um so there's that scene when um Harry calls her high maintenance but he says that she's the worst kind of high maintenance because she thinks she's low maintenance. And I think women really fear that label. You know, myself included.

People tell me I'm high maintenance all the time. And I'm like, oh, God, that sounds so bad. But actually, it's so, so much better and healthier to turn it on its head like you just did, Michelle, and say, actually, no, I'm just someone who wants what they want and knows it but I guess my next question because I suppose it fits into what you were saying as well Emma about about not being a people pleaser and putting yourself first but then at what point you know we know how important compromise is in a relationship so at what point do you draw that line between putting yourself first and not people pleasing but also taking into consideration your partner's wants and needs and, you know, factoring that into your own behavior. And that might mean having to change, you know, not change things, but like compromise, like I said.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it does mean having to change things. It's just if you change things willingly, or if you change things reluctantly or resistantly. And so many of the problems in relationships come from where we try to be more accommodating or more flexible or, you know, to use that phrase, easygoing, than we are or than we want to be. But changes that we're willing to make are easily made. And I suppose part of it for me is about kind of tuning into this idea of a tug of war and picturing that rope and noticing that you know if one person's on one end of it saying they want to do x and the other person's the other end of

it saying they want to do y that the first thing we need to do is put down the rope and and start kind of a different dialogue and i really love this conversation where we have what we start to actually own the significance behind what it is we're asking for you know this is where we kind of could talk about sex for instance because that piece about not necessarily attaching to the idea that one person's want is better or more valid than the other person's but actually just owning the fact that that is your want and owning the significance that you've placed on it so it's not necessarily about trying to do kind of either or it's about trying to do both and and I I'm a huge fan of conflict in relationships. I think that sparks a really important process of negotiation. And it contracts for a relationship of equals and a partnership. But so many people arrive in relationships, particularly people pleasers with a fear of conflict. And I think that's really where things start to unravel because they'll do anything to avoid it. I love that mentality. And I often talk about how it's not you versus them when coming up with a compromise.

It's you and them as a team versus the problem. And so it's also really important to say that boundaries without communication is just walls. And so when you're setting a wall and you're doing it almost as a, am I allowed to swear? But as a fuck you like this is how yeah these are my needs um you meet my needs otherwise get lost like that's not a boundary

that's a wall because it doesn't involve any communication and so a boundary has to come with you actually telling them what you need and it might turn into a conversation where they in return tell you an example I might use is like in the texting stages especially in the early stages of dating one person might not be a texting person another person might want to text every day so then you have a conversation about it and go right well my need is communication so however you want to communicate with me I need a certain level of communication every day if that person's not a texting person, fine, pick up the phone, leave me a voice note, like one of my Instagram photos, whatever it is,

I just need to touch base. And so you have that conversation and the compromise comes from a place of empathy and compassion because you both know that you're having this conversation because the person actually wants to talk to you. It's not because they're demanding of you or because they don't think you're good enough or um communicative enough but actually because you're in the early stages of dating you want to talk to each other and that's a good thing yeah I completely agree I think texting compatibility is so important you need to if you're if you're you know if your texting habits don't match up say like you said one person is prefer like prefers phone phone calls, one person prefers texting. But even if like, if you both text, one person likes to reply immediately, really quickly.

The other person likes to leave hours between messages and send really long messages at a time rather than loads of little small ones. I think those things really matter. little small ones like I think those things really matter and if you don't talk about it you will have all of these insecurities and think oh they haven't replied for ages this means they don't like me or this means something else and actually it could just mean that is how that person behaves on their phone one of the things that I might kind of just get curious about that point is is also you know encouraging people to do the work themselves around why they want what it is they think they want you know so if I as a texting person, and someone who wants someone, I want contact with someone every day, it would also be my responsibility, in my opinion, to

understand why do I want contact from that person every day? What is it that I will feel if I don't get that contact from that person every day? And is that feeling fit for purpose to this situation? Or is that a feeling that I want to avoid because it brings up some insecurities in me because of course that person can never take responsibility for that so I get really curious as well about why do I want the thing I think I want so that when I am negotiating I'm going for the stuff that actually is going to help me grow as a person into whoever I want to be as opposed to soothe me as a person I currently am. I also think it's really important to look under the actual problem so it's not actually about the texting what is the texting fulfilling and can it fulfill it in another way so if it's attention

for example okay well then can we meet up more often so that it's not about the texting relationship or is it the fact that it isn't insecurity and if you look under it and you make the um conflict or difficult conversation not about the actual texting but what it's fulfilling or what it's serving then often that can be where the resolution comes from within the conflict because you're not actually talking about the main issue sometimes texting becomes this um like this excuse to talk about an underlying issue I'm just thinking about how a lot of people who focus on the texting element of it actually it's because there's so little reassurance in the relationship as a whole and so they hyper focus on the texting when it's actually not really about the texting at all

I think that's it isn't it because some of it's even about the kind of if we were going to go further than that is it the role of the relationship to reassure us at all or is that the bit that actually we take responsibility for ourselves so if I want attention is it right for me to want it from the other person whether that's by meeting up or texting or whatever it might be rather than the medium it's kind of if I want attention does that show me that maybe I also want to give myself a bit more attention or I want to have more intimate relationship with my friends or my family I haven't spoken to for some time, whatever it is, so that we don't end up looking to one person to meet our younger baby needs, our attachment needs. And we can just meet them in our adult relational needs, which is, I think, a cleaner way to interact. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data,

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I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no.

That's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Shrink is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com. I think it's about trying to remind yourself of that though, because it's so easy to get caught up in a relationship and like you said really just think that this person has to give you everything you need and as opposed to looking inwards and asking yourself well why do I need this and is it something that I'm not giving myself it's it's kind of more of our gut reaction to be like no my partner isn't giving me

what I want this relationship isn't right when actually the relationship could be right it's just there's something that you haven't addressed in yourself Emma I wanted to ask you for people listening who maybe are feeling like what we've said is resonating with them but they're not necessarily sure whether they are a people pleaser in their relationships what would you say from your experience with clients are some of the most common examples of how people do people please in relationships and how it impacts them? Well, I think one way to look at it, if I can, if I can talk about the pleasing profiles, that's quite often a helpful way to understand. So in the book, I've broken people pleasing into these four different areas. And it helps us understand what type of people pleaser we are,

and therefore what need we're kind of potentially bringing to the relationship and i talk about for the classic these are the people pleasers who who are always looking to get it right for everybody else so whether that's in a relationship or a friendship or a work whatever it is they want to be the the icing on the cake for people they want to have the perfect party or nail the birthday present that's going to really hit the spot they're the classics but if you ask them what they want they'll draw a blank and these people often show up in relationships because these are the ones who they want to they want everything to be perfect for the other person and actually makes it really hard to have a relationship with them because very little of their identity is present in that interaction then I talk about the shadow so this is the person who potentially grew

up around someone with some narcissistic energy or someone who learned to deflate themselves, to inflate the other person. So they become the world's best cheerleader, you know, the perfect wing woman, the number one, number two, and they want to help their partner in a relationship, meet their goals, reach their objectives. But actually they end up being kind of someone who, again, isn't really present as themselves, they're present in the service they offer others. Then there's a third type, which is the pacifier. This isn't quite people pleasing, this is people not displeasing. So this is the person who doesn't want conflict, they hate to rock the boat. For them, love equals

the absence of anger. So in a way, they're looking to create harmony, as opposed to authenticity. So sometimes I kind of notice these people in relationships, because they let all sorts of infractions go unchallenged, until potentially the point that they can't anymore. But often, you know, as we've talked about before, they've actually set themselves up by then. And then the fourth one, which I think is really interesting relationships is the resistor. These are the kind of underground people pleasers that wouldn't identify as people pleasers at all the ones who think that they are immune to the pressures to please other people so much so that they've actually worked out a way to defend themselves against rejection by not caring so often these are the ones in relationships who

won't text who won't reply who won't respond who won't respect your time but part of their process is actually to get themselves rejected by by whatever but by just not playing because if i don't play i can't i can't lose right these are the ones who often show up and they hook on to another type of people pleaser because one person will do all the work and the resistor gets to just keep them at arm's length so they show up in relationships in really different ways but they all have a very similar journey to go on, which is about reclaiming their own feelings and needs and taking responsibility for that, which is why I really labour this point about accountability, not looking for reassurance from the other person, looking for reassurance from yourself so that you can be in a relationship with the other person. God, that's so fascinating. I

can recognise so many of those different traits in myself and in my friends did that yeah I I want to I wonder Michelle because I you know what kind of set you on this on I can't speak what kind of set you on this path of really examining boundaries and focusing on the joy of being selfish as is the title of your book, you know, were you recognising some of these traits that Emma just described in yourself? Oh, absolutely. I often say I'm a recovered slash recovering pushover. I wasn't even a people pleaser, I was just a pushover. And it was, it came from a moment where I kind of realized that everyone in my life um treated me for lack of a better term badly um my it was a moment where a boyfriend said I was at his beck and call and

then I went back to my housemates and my housemate said do you know how much we have to tolerate being around you and I just kind of looked around my life and I was like how did I fill my life full of people who make me feel so unlovable and it was kind of that wake-up call and anytime I would go to my friends saying like why can't I get in a decent relationship they would always say the same thing which was like you are too nice and I was like what what do I do with that like too nice is not a helpful thing because I thought being nice was a good thing. But actually what I've realized since then, that was maybe seven years ago, and I've probably had boundaries in my life for about five years. I've been working on boundaries at least. What I realized was too nice was a code for you have no boundaries.

And it was that people pleasing element. It was that I was the friend who would pick up the phone after one ring. it was that I was the I was the friend who would pick up the phone after one ring I was the person who'd get on a train just because you started crying and I wanted to make sure I'd be there for you my whole life revolved around being a good friend a good partner a good uh daughter all the relationships I had that's what I prided myself on the most the problem is a lot of the time I was being that good friend it was at the detriment of myself and it was those two moments both with the housemate and with the boyfriend that was kind of the wake-up call for me and I did have to start caring more about myself actually saying no um

saying no was probably the first thing I had to learn saying no and also not justifying why and the first time you do it what you realize is a lot of the time people pleasers don't set boundaries is because you actually don't believe you deserve to set boundaries because it actually requires a level of self-esteem or self-worth to believe you have the right to have needs but also get them met yeah I think I think getting them met is the important part isn't it because it's, it's one thing to actually tell someone this is what you need, but you have to actually make sure that they can give you that. Otherwise, you know, you should probably reconsider your relationship. Let's talk a bit about sex. Because I think this is, again, something that will factor massively into our need to people please and also with setting boundaries so I mean Emma how do you think our need to people please can affect our sex lives for women in particular I suppose yeah I mean there's there's a couple of things I would kind of say to that one is first

of all you know coming at the point about women and there is a piece you know and this is a complete generalization but I notice it so I share it there is a piece you know and this is a complete generalization but I notice it so I share it there is a piece where kind of women are conditioned for some belief that they shouldn't inconvenience anyone or to change your mind is somehow kind of giddy or capricious or that changing your mind is making a fuss or there is this kind of belief that I see among some women and some men to to feel some sort of sense of duty to receive love in a way that's offered and sidestep bad behavior so if it's the thought that counts but if someone treats you badly or they let you down

or they abuse you it's my role to point out that the thought categorically does not count and only the actions do and I suppose I'm coming at this from quite a somber um a sinister end of this this wedge of the abuse of power against women which I do see happen within physical relationships and wanting women to kind of really notice early on that this is you know being put on a pedestal is not a place you want to be this is kind of restricted to a tiny platform of existence you have to control your movements and ration your responses for fear of a painful plummet and setting yourself up to be what someone else wants you to be sexually is not a fixed immovable contract so i notice women all the time who are performing a role for their partner in their sexual relationships they may

not even be in touch with their own needs let alone able to vocalize them and for me this is something you know to come back to to your point Michelle about self-worth it really comes down to self-worth and until we can flip the switch on self-worth we can't act that out in our physical relationships or our emotional relationships but the other thing I would say about sex which is really bringing sex back down to what it is in relationships which is a currency of communication. And as with all currencies of communication, there is no right or wrong. Different people value different things. And we've been talking a lot, haven't we, about the idea of being open

and honest about what you want and why you want it so that we don't have to fight over the content. We can kind of work as a team on the process I mean what you said about abuse I think is really important to touch on as well because I think as women we're kind of conditioned to just not be sexual beings really at all so I think that unfortunately lends itself to you know when you do come to having sex not feeling comfortable saying what you want and unfortunately you know being put in a position where people do take advantage of you um because just because that's the way that we've been socialized to a degree you know I I'm just thinking about the way I grew up

you know masturbation was shameful we didn't learn about female orgasms in school all of that stuff kind of plays a part in that. Michelle, how would you suggest we go about kind of setting boundaries in the bedroom, but also making ourselves feeling empowered enough to do that? I think the main thing with setting boundaries is you have to let go of trying to control the reaction. So I often say their response is not your responsibility. And that's because a lot of the time when people especially around sex ask me how to set boundaries they will often ask it in a way saying something like how do I have the consent conversation without putting them off or how do I tell them

they need to be on time or text me more politely like they'll always put that end disclaimer wanting to be polite without turning them off without without being unattractive, without being too needy. And any time you're obsessed with that politeness element, it's actually still trying to control how they react to your boundary. And if you are focusing on their reaction as opposed to your needs and how you feel, which is why you should be setting that boundary, then you aren't setting the boundary in the right place. You will likely set it a lot lower than when where you actually feel comfortable. And that's so important in the bedroom. So most recently, I had someone say, Oh, well, I have a really long list of hard limits in the bedroom. And I feel like if I actually tell them my true list my whole long list by the time we finish that conversation they won't want to sleep with me and I was like well if that's the

case then you shouldn't be sleeping with them anyway because your hard limits are your hard limits it doesn't matter why and you shouldn't have to give a reason for it but if you have a hard limit in the bedroom then that should be respected and it doesn't matter how long your list is because a person in a respectful relationship even if it's a casual relationship would respect the fact that that's a hard limit that's a strong note that's non-negotiable and I think that's essentially where you have to come from is you have to know and this is what Emma keeps saying is the the fact that you need to know how you feel. And when you've been so out of touch with that and disassociated from that, it's really hard to know what you want when the media especially prioritizes male pleasure in straight relationships. And there's also been a normalization of pain when it comes to the female pleasure.

normalization of pain when it comes to the female pleasure so like even it starts from the fact that um your first time should hurt and it comes from that messaging and so a lot of the time when women go to set their boundaries they don't set it where it should be because we're used to this idea that oh it tends to hurt when you first put it in or it tends to hurt when you've not had sex for a long time or it tends to hurt when um like all these reasons from the first time to any other reason and when you're thinking about the man in a straight situation um the man enjoying themselves then you can't think about yourself enjoying yourself and also that's a clumsy way of saying it but you get what I mean it's so so true we are it's it it's very much male pleasure is the uh is the thing that's prioritized and everything and you know we also we see it in porn as well and I think that actually also plays quite a big role

in the way that women feel compelled to behave in sex even if you don't watch porn I think the pornification of our culture um has a really big impact on that uh so I guess now it's time for our lessons in love segment so this is the part of the show where I ask the guests to share something that they've learned from their own relationship experiences so Emma do you want to start us off with your lesson in love as soon as you asked me that I actually had I had two two lessons that kind of came to mind really quickly one was when I was in a relationship with someone and um I was in therapy at that time and one of the phrases that stuck with me was you can't save them and I think that was actually coming from this position of

even if you you wish with everything you have that that person could feel better about themselves or be more okay with this situation or or be more trusting of of me in that scenario you can't save them and what I was doing was trying to rescue them out of the situation that that they were in but that was because I couldn't tolerate the pain that they had brought with them into that relationship it was me that couldn't tolerate that pain but it wasn't helping them by staying in that situation back to that word soothing it wasn't helping them by soothing their pain and allowing them to behave badly so I suppose I had that came to mind but also you know I'm looking at this now from a situation where um where I've been married for 13 years now and absolutely to someone who we

evolve our relationship every day and so it's this idea that relationships are not fixed and they have to be willing to change and evolve and grow because we will not be the same person that we are when we meet them you know after life and children or jobs or families or whatever happens to us. And I think a willingness to stay flexible and generous and bring goodwill to a relationship has been has been something that I've kind of absolutely found to be essential. I think that's so important. I actually said this to a friend of mine recently. I don't think it came from me. I think I got it from somewhere else. But it was talking about my own relationship and how I feel like I've had like three mini relationships

within my relationship and I think that really speaks to what you just said it's like you know obviously people change and if you're going to be with someone for a long period of time you know you will adapt to one another you will go through things that will change your living situation change your state of mind like that is just a part of life and obviously your relationship will change as a result and to be honest if you if it doesn't then that can be a problem can't it yeah absolutely um Michelle what is your lesson in love I think my first biggest lesson in love was um in my teenage years I used to fantasize a lot not even in my teenage years my early 20s I used to fantasize a lot when I first started dating like the first early stages

the talking stage and it was stopping that those fantasies happening in your head and it was this phrase that someone told me um I think it was my life coach who said it to me actually, saying that the only reason you fantasize about them is because they're not good enough. And a lot of the time, I really believe in the model of love addiction, which is by Pia Melody. She has a book called Facing Love Addiction, and it talks about love addiction versus love avoidance. And within love addiction, it's almost creating that story in your head of the person who you want to be dating rather than the person in front of you.

And when you do that, you miss so many red flags in front of you because you're like, you're seeing it through rose-tinted glasses. You're seeing it through, you want to see the best in someone, but actually the person in front of you is what's actually happening.

And you're creating this entire story in your head of a person in front of you is what's actually happening and you're creating this entire story in your head of a person who doesn't really exist and it's usually based on a quite romantic idea of the potential of the person but then that's not the person you're actually in a relationship with and it's it's hard on the person on yourself but it's also hard on the receiving party because you're not actually engaging with them because you're spending so much time in your head so a really big lesson for me was grounding myself especially in the early stages of a relationship and not running away with all these romantic stories in my head how do you how do you do that though because I mean

you know I do that too I I live out so many relationships in my head that never even really existed and I just think it's it's so hard to move away from that do you think part of it is just becoming more emotionally mature? I had to do it very practically so first of all I stopped telling friends about first dates second dates third dates I think after the fourth date I start talking to my friends about it. But actually a lot of the storytelling comes in where after a date, I tell all my friends about it. And that's where a lot of the building of a story happens,

but also writing things down. So I would actually come off dates and this sounds so formulaic, but maybe I was so extreme in my fantasies that I actually had to bring myself to a piece of paper and be like okay what were the red flags you spotted and a lot of the time when you use the term red flags it it's um being put in the mainstream so much that I think the definition again has been diluted but all a red flag is is it's a warning sign it doesn't mean you dump them there and then, but it's a warning sign of potential danger. And so if you notice a red flag,

I write it down now, especially in the early stages. And it doesn't mean I hold this against the person, but it means it's for myself. It's not to hurt them, but it's just for myself to notice the things. And if it's a recurring recurring pattern then to do something about it and that might just be setting a boundary around it but doing those practical things really helped me along the way um because sometimes it's really easy talking around it and as much as I'd recognized it as a problem to actually change it I need to put things on paper so that when I go into that fantasy I can go back to that piece of paper and remind myself of what actually happened on the date. That's it for today.

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