Modern Wisdom - #090 - Dr Taylor Burrowes - A PhD In Relationship Advice

Episode Date: August 1, 2019

Dr Taylor Burrowes is a Doctor of Marriage, Couples and Family Counselling. After working for 14 years as a mental health counsellor and marriage and family therapist, Dr Burrowes has seen a huge sample of relationships going through turmoil. Today we get to hear about her best advice to make a partnership work. Can you get over cheating? How should men & women play different roles in a relationship? What makes an effective partnership? Why do some couples grow apart? How can you tell your partner your sexual desires without getting awkward? And what role does masturbation have to play in all this? Extra Stuff: Follow Dr Burrowes on Twitter - https://twitter.com/taylorburrowes Dr Burrows & Andrew Tate's Twitter Thread - https://twitter.com/taylorburrowes/status/1153277543258165249 Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the podcast at no extra cost to you by shopping through this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi friends, welcome back to Modern Wisdom. Today we are talking all things relationships. My guest is Dr. Taylor Burrows. She was a mental health counselor and a marriage and family therapist for 14 years in Florida, which I can imagine probably has quite a lot of interesting families. I wanted to get Dr. Burrows' professional opinion, I suppose, on the current state of the relationship market. I have my own opinions, and you'll get to hear them, but it was nice to hear someone who has clinical experience dealing with the extremes of relationships distilled those

14 years down into a list of things to do and not to do in a partnership. So expect to learn how routine incompatibility could be the first stumbling block, what she thinks are the primary causes of lack of trust, whether you can get over in fidelity in relationship, the relative roles of men and women, and how they should be reflected, and masturbation. Yep, just going to leave that there. Please welcome Dr. Taylor Burrows. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I am joined by Dr Taylor Burrows today. Miss Burrows, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. I'm very excited to have you on as well. I'm writing thinking that you've got essentially

a PhD in relationships. Yeah, you could say that. It's a PhD in marriage, couples and family therapy, so that almost covers them all. That's a, you could say that. It's a PhD in marriage couples and family therapy. So that almost covers them all. That's a, you're a doctor of relationships. Yeah. And you know, I, I like to include the relationship with oneself as well. So that's included in there too. Fantastic. How is your relationship with yourself today? It's going very well yesterday. I, uh, I, I did a really good workout. I'm saying it was beautiful condo and I just had a lovely afternoon and then I topped it up with

like a full home cooked meal and then did like an evening stroll on South Beach which I bumped into a lot of characters and it was lots of fun. Did you take yourself out for a date? Yeah basically. That sounds like the ultimate date night but just with yourself. That's actually my part of the evening. I like to do that quite often, actually. So that's the norm in my world. Amazing.

So we're just going to riff on relationships today, I guess. We've had a lot of interesting characters on recently. We did a full series, a four episode series on our advice, on relationships, and I've recently had Caleb Jones on, who's a non-monogamy advocate talking about his sort of views. I guess to start off, what does 14 years of clinical mental health and marriage and family counseling look like when you come out the other side of that, what are the sort of experiences that you have in that? Well, it evolved in stages, basically.

When you're a green intern, they say, you have a supervisor, you're kind of half licensed, so you're more of a student, and you're kind of just learning the ropes, doing a lot of observations, and probably scared shitless to actually be in control, you know, one day when you're, you know, your front and center basically, and have to kind of cover the whole hour by yourself. So you go through this process of confidence building, really, and empathy development.

And so most programs, the best ones, will mandate that you have to go through your own psychotherapy and group therapy and stuff like that. So you learn what it's like and you also process whatever maybe stuff you have from your own life experiences. Because notoriously a lot of therapists have been through a lot of adverse events and if they haven't sort of threw their own stuff, then it's dangerous because then they can kind of project that onto clients. So, definitely important to do that, yeah. Yeah, but it is.

Yeah, can you imagine if you had a medical doctor that had a contagious disease and then operated on you? It's kind of like that. That's exactly what it's like. You're totally right. You said that a lot of counselors tend to bring in their own problems. Is that a disproportionate amount or a lot of people potentially taking on this role or this job, are they searching that in an effort to kind of fix themselves? Yeah, well, I won't say that all therapists are damaged. What I'll say is that

it is quite common that when people experience trauma, they either go one or two directions, right? If they don't deal with it, they don't recover properly, then they can sort of in effect go through life as if they're damaged or handicapped emotionally, right? But it also has an opposite effect. If you do recover properly, if you do access the internal external resources in order to heal, you can actually become an even better person than you were before this thing happened to you. Whether it was like a singular event

or whether it was just your parent sucked or you grew up in a poor neighborhood and witnessed some bad things. I mean, it could be anything that you experienced. But from the other side of it, interestingly enough, I've had so many clients, usually like the young teenagers that develop this desire to want to be psychologists because of the experience we've had in therapy.

And they're like, well, I want to help people, or I want to learn about what's going on with me more. So that's kind of what you see a lot. That's really interesting. Do you think that perhaps some of the people that suffer a little bit more, whether it be with personal or relationship issues, are they more susceptible to suffering

because they've got higher empathy? And then that empathy leads them towards potentially thinking I could help other people with that. Is that one of the traits or is it something else? Well, sensitivity is I guess related to empathy, right? So people who are highly emotional in that sense would be sensitive to emotional in that sense would be sensitive to extremes and positive or negative emotions. And so they can be susceptible. And if they don't learn how to guard themselves from that and they don't develop those coping mechanisms that are healthy and proactive to prevent those types of influences in their lives, then they can go through stages where they're emotionally

stressed or distressed or even dysfunctional and disordered. And so yeah, a lot of times people will gravitate to those types to sort of unleash whatever's on their mind or whatever's on their chest. And some of them just have a natural tendency of enjoying that process. And so they may then be attracted to this profession. I understand. Yeah. So moving on to the neatly gritty of marriage and couples and family counseling and stuff like that, what were some of the trends that you saw potentially? Why were people coming in in terms of couples and marriages? Why were people coming in in terms of couples and marriages, why were people coming in 14 years ago and then you only left this year, right? You stopped,

you stopped being a full-time therapist this year, is that correct? It was last year, last year May, and yeah, it was definitely, I wouldn't say it was a big decision because it kind of happened gradually and just really naturally for me as I evolved as a therapist, but also personally too. And I've talked about it a little bit as well. What I can't sort of summarize it to say is that part of my process in being a marriage therapist was dealing with the pressure when I was single of how that looked or how that impacted my work, not having had that experience. And so part of me, not consciously, but it kind of pressured me to get married.

And I think that was, that was in 2012, I got married. And then I ended up, you know, leaving the marriage. So it was a difficult time because it's obviously something that carries a lot of stigma, especially if you're a marriage therapist and why are people going to come to you and talk about how to have like a happy, successful marriage. You see, you understand what I'm saying now. Absolutely. But it comes from both angles.

And so now I've had a lot of time since then to process what mistakes I made, what was it that I needed to apply myself and how did I come to understand the actual profession of marriage therapy. And so I applied what marriage therapy said the whole time. So it kind of aligned with all of this stuff that I've been learning and adding to my repertoire over the years. So getting back to your original question,

the number one thing is that people are choosing the wrong partners. So that's why I've developed my approach about vetting in the coaching work that I do with clients, because you can't really fix something that's fundamentally flawed. And especially if it's only one person that maybe is motivated to make the changes, you can't do it. So it's really frustrating.

It's a waste of time, a waste of money, and it just brings up all this conflict in marital therapy, which is used as like a last case resort anyway for the most part. So I've gotten away from all that. And now I'm looking at helping people at the dating stage, find the right partner and then do things the right way. So starting from a point where you've got a good foundation, I mean, it is anyone that's listening, surprised to hear that if you

have someone you're incompatible with your relationships, probably not going to go well. I don't think so. I think people expect that if they feel strongly enough, if they love, if they lust, if they're, you know, excitable and whatnot, that they can make it work. There's some sort of magic wand that will erase all the problems. But that's not the case. No, it doesn't quite work that way. Fundamentally, you've mentioned number one, one of the first thing that people need to get right when they're looking for a partner is that they need to find someone they're compatible with. What does that look like?

Well, people ask me all the time, I talk about finding or attracting your ideal partner really. And that really stems from you, and you developing your ideal self. People really want that sort of cheat sheet of like, what are the things that you look for to find that ideal partner? And first of all, it's not just one person,

but there's probably a limited supply of ideal matches for you in the universe, and not everyone is an ideal partner, not 50% of people are going to be an ideal partner. So yes, it's going to be a smaller percentage. So, because I know people talk about the whole soulmate myth. So there's something in between one person for you and everyone's for you, right? There's going to be like maybe a thousand people out there

or maybe a 10,000 people who knows. But it's definitely a limited supply. And so you have to learn what to look for and it's based on you developing yourself according to your personality, what fits best for you, the lifestyle that you choose to lead, your values, belief systems, and generally seeking that fluctuate over your lifespan.

But usually, in your 30s, maybe late 20s, you'll sort of solidify a lot of that. And so the more work that you do, rather than spending that sort of decade of escapism and whatever you wanna call it it, juvenile immature exploration. We've all been. Experimentation. Yeah, we've all been.

Like if we actually didn't work in the self-development part, then we would probably do a much better job of attracting the right type of people to us. Yeah, so I did a podcast with Daniel Sloss, who's Scottish comedian. Have you heard of him? No, I don't think so. So he's got a Netflix special called Jigsaw and his Twitter bio has the stats of how many breakups and divorces his Netflix special has caused. It's not a hatred

of relationships. He calls it a love letter to single people. And he says that people get pushed into relationships because they don't feel whole without them. He says that there's this meta narrative that runs across all of society saying that you on your own are essentially not a whole person and that you need to find this person that is going to make you whole.

Like look at any TV show, he says, he talks about pitching TV shows to networks and it's like a comedy or something normal and they'll say we love it, but what's the love interest? And he's like, why does that need to be a fucking love interest? It's not about love, but there's, it is so ubiquitous, right? This search for the partner,

that in every, even a show which is unrelated to love, there's gotta be the love interest, right? This search for the partner that in every, even a show which is unrelated to love, there's gotta be, there's gotta be the love interest, right? That's one of the things that keeps it going. And yeah, he agrees with you on what you say. You need to be able to love yourself before you can allow someone else to love you and before you can really let someone in properly. Because if you don't understand who you are,

like how the fuck you expect someone else to? Exactly. No, I definitely agree with that approach. Yeah. So you've mentioned finding someone that you think is compatible. That doesn't always mean I'm going to guess, that doesn't always mean finding someone that's the same as you, right? Because sometimes I opposites can work together and stuff like that. Yeah, there's going to be issues that you need commonalities and issues that you need polarities. All right So you you you have to know what those things are and I usually find that the lifestyle Elements are the ones that you need commonalities on so if it's like you have a healthy diet. You're an active person Maybe you you like to spend some time just have developing a routine and being more productive versus finding any excuse to get out of

the house and busy yourself with socializing or whatever. Although introverts and extroverts can be a very, very effective polarity, it depends. It depends on a lot of factors, usually the maturity of the person, because we fluctuate through our lifespan, depending on that characteristic. But yeah, I mean, the sexual polarity is obviously the most important one when you're talking about chemistry and sexual attraction,

desire. That needs to be really pronounced so that you sort of magnetize towards each other and no matter what conflict is happening in the relationship, that can always be like, I mean, people call it the glue, but I like to call it the life vest. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, glue when you're talking about sexual polarity is a little bit more of a sort of disgusting image, isn't it? You don't want to be talking, no one wants to be talking about glue in that situation, it's too much, it's too much for an evening time. You're a visual person, I'm guessing.

Well, look, I can't help it when you're using the word glue. So, when you're talking about sexual polarity, a couple of people who are listening, I know, have read David Dada's The Way of the Superior Man, and in that he talks about masculine essence and feminine essence. Is that what we're talking about with sexual polarity or is it more nuanced than that? Well, we can expand on that, but it's important for, and obviously, we're talking about, by default, heterosexual people, right? I don't really talk about the spectrum of sexual orientation. Every different iteration of sexual orientation.

Exactly. Yeah. Especially when we're talking about masculine and female energies or elements. It applies to any orientation, but let's just stick to the stereotype. So it's easy to discuss that. I agree. Just to interject there, one of the things that David says is he believes and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this that even in same-sex relationships or even in non-monogamous relationships he is pretty certain that the masculine energy and the feminine energy still manifests itself to women, to men, a man and a woman or two men and two women or however it works. There's every different version of stuff that's going on now, but he's still pretty certain that in terms of sexual attraction, you have a masculine essence and a feminine essence. And sometimes they switch, but he's pretty certain that's the basis of sexual attraction.

Is that true in your opinion? I agree, and it just gets a little bit more complicated to talk about it when it's, and then you use the word fluid. And it gets you more complicated. But yes, with same sex, that is a lot more fluid, although it's still fluid with heterosexuals, because depending on the roles that you play and the different strengths and weaknesses that each partner holds, one, like the woman might actually lead in the domestic area. And so, you know, it might be a feminine household, obviously, like with, if she likes, you know, girly things, but she's in more control. So that's more of a masculine energy. So there's lots of layers to it. It gets quite complex. But in a simplified way, if you're talking about a heterosexual female, bringing the feminine energy in, it's going to be predominantly feminine, not only feminine. So each of us has both. And then the masculine having more, the man having more the masculine

energy. And so the more that a man is comfortable and confident, bringing forward and living through that element of masculinity and same in reverse with the female in her feminine, then that's going to be literally attractive to each other. I understand. So we've got choosing someone that is compatible with you and you mentioned lifestyle. I think that's, it's so overlooked right because it doesn't sound romantic. Let to talk about the fact that I like to go to the gym and you like to go to the cinema is like the least romantic thing that people believe should impact on a relationship. But the bottom line is it's a practical consideration. Like if I'm going to spend 15 hours a week in the gym and you're going to spend 15 hours a week in the gym, and you're going to spend 15 hours a week cooking or with your friends or doing whatever it might be.

There's just less time to spend together. There's less stuff going on. So it's like a practical consideration, right? The routines and the compatibility in terms of what you're into. Yeah, and you don't have to share interests in like all commonalities. You can have differences so that you have time alone in a part, which is healthy, but you don't want it to be predominantly separated. And so I think that's what you're talking about.

And it reminds me of when I was, I think I was probably like 17 or something. I went on a trip to Switzerland with my boyfriend at the time. And we were together for like five years. And he's Swiss, or he, yeah, he's still Swiss. But he's still Swiss. He's recounting being Swiss after he's bloated with me. But I went and he was very, very active. And I'm active now, but at the time, I wasn't that active.

And so we would leave the house for the day and he would go climb mountains and hang out with goats. And I would go to the most beautiful picturesque tree and sit underneath the shade and write in my journal and take pictures. I'm not. Well, it's just a, I mean, for some people, maybe if they live there alone time, that might work,

but it makes for a bit of a wasted holiday together, right? Apart from the fact that you're sharing the cost of the hotel room, like, you're not really making the most of the trip. Right, I mean, it's okay if you do that, like I said, in small amounts, but if you really don't have a way to create that compromise with each other and you don't have a general lifestyle that is shared, then it's going to create a lot of problems, a lot of resentment, a lot of power struggling. But again, it's all kind of coming back to that complementarity between the two people. So when you compliment each other, you're not going to be stuck in a power struggle because

you're going to basically have a default mode of decision-making and problem solving where the man would take the lead if he's more of the masculine and dominant role and the woman is more feminine. So when you have that, it's almost like whatever your differences are should be no big deal. So there are sort of layers where you start with the real fundamental one when you're vetting, like can you fit together at least on this basic premise well, and then you escalate up and add all the other layers to see if you work well together. Cool. So we've got finding someone that's compatible in terms of our interests and the way

that we're going to spend time together. Then we're talking about sexual polarity, making sure that there's some sexual chemistry there. What's next on the list? Where would you look at next to ensure that we have a healthy relationship? The values are so important. You know, you've got to know the politics, you've got to know various things about morality, if you're conservative, if you're traditional, if you're family oriented, or you're more like an individualist. A lot of things too, like some people just want, it's almost like you're, it's kind of a blend between values and lifestyle, but your vision for the future.

You have to have that shared vision for the future. So if you want to have a white picket fence with six kids, then you better both want that. And if you don't, then don't escalate the relationship. Yeah, if one of you wants to go traveling around the world. Exactly. So you have to establish those things. And unless you're, you know, hooking up on match.com or something, you're not going to be filling out some inventory. You actually have to, you have to talk to the person over time and have discussions about various topics. And you don't really want to give them the sense

that you're interrogating them, but you don't. There may be certain bullet points that you're looking for, but you do it skillfully and in an appropriate way that you can at least enjoy the time and it doesn't feel like a job interview. I get you. Interestingly, something that's just come to mind there, I was listening to Jordan Peterson on Dr. Oz the other day. And first off, for anyone who hasn't listened to it, it will be linked in the show notes below. And it is an epic podcast. Jordan, I don't know whether it's that the stress of him being on the road, I know his wife as well, Tammy is really ill at the moment, but he breaks down

crying a couple of times on the episode. And I'm like, wow, I would have thought they might have cut this or done something else, but they fully leave it in. And he's talking empathetically, he's caring about other people, and that's what's causing him to be emotional. But he definitely seems like his emotions have been raised. So if you're listening and you like JBP, go and give it a watch and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

It was surprising to me, quite moving to me as well. And then Dr. Oz starts welling up as well. And I'm like, oh my God, what's going on here? One of the stats that they dropped on there, I totally didn't know this. I wonder if you do. Apparently, living together before marriage increases the likelihood of divorce. Have you seen this statistic? I've heard about it. I don't know how I feel about that. Is that true in your experience? Well, I haven't really had a lot of people that didn't cohabitate before they married, so

it's hard for me to compare. But when we talk about getting to know someone and compatibility and all those kinds of things, it is really important to have novel experiences together. If you want to travel, you want to endure some kind of stress so that you can see how do they handle those crises and how do you work together as a team. So if you're not going to live together, then you better be manufacturing some opportunities to have that sort of context where you have to come together as a team and manage the situation. That's a really good point.

I couldn't believe it when I heard it. I was like, no of course. Of course, you go live together. You go like, no, of course. Of course, you got to live together. You got, like, it's part of the course, right? You get, you move it together, then you get a dog, try the dog out, the dog's like a miniature version of a human, and then if the dog works, if the dog's okay, then that, right, well, we might try for like a proper one, we'll get a kid, and then you get, maybe, another kid.

Like, that's the linear progression, right? The progressive overload of a relationship. But yeah, that seemed to be pretty robust. And the justification, I think, that Jordan and Dr. Oshad was the implication for the rest of the relationship is that I'm going to try you on before I commit. And it, apparently according to them allowed a overarching narrative of disposability and the fact that it's going to be, I'm going to see how you get on and

if this doesn't work, then I'm going to go somewhere else. I naturally, it doesn't, that's not how it seems to me, but then I also haven't looked at the stats. So it's an interesting one. I bet you it's measuring a lot of other things simultaneously that we're not getting at. And that's basically the whole premise of how I approach working with people in order to create healthy and successful relationships is make sure that you're not, you know, with someone who's basically withholding stuff. It's like a conditional love or commitment. A lot of people in modern times, especially in North America and whatever, they're really trying to look out for themselves.

And they aren't committed. And if something goes wrong, they are willing to get a better model or a version of a lifestyle that maybe will work better for them rather than doing all the hard work before. And then once you actually escalate to the point where you're willing to commit to that person, that's it. Like you've done all of your homework, you've vetted, you've compared your options, you've established

who you are and how you're going to manage any kind of critical sort of juncture that you would reach with that person. And then you know you're gonna come through it on the other side, whereas most people just sort of jump first and then figure it out. Yeah, I wonder how many people that are listening

can see in themselves in previous relationships that they've got into, that they've entered it with one foot already out of the door, just in case. And I know that, and it's the same for me, right? Like it's a, it's a protectionist strategy against being hurt, like opening yourself up and making yourself vulnerable is a, it's a scary thing to do. And by having one foot out of the door, you've always got in the back of your mind, oh well, I wasn't that bothered anyway. And that, well, if you continue to roll that model forward for long enough, it's always not going to work. And you're always going to say,

oh, I just can't find the right person for me. And you're like, well, hang on a second. If you actually ended up committing, you might have had three relationships, five relationships, or one relationship, which was perfect. But because you're there with one foot out the door, and that, well, what chance are you giving it? And trust, I think, is one of those factors that gets sort of misused or ignored and neglected.

And I find it's really important to develop that trust from the start very gradually and over time. People rush relationships a lot. And so, you know, if you start dating, whether it's, I don't know, people refer to dating and with different definitions. And I did it a little poll the other day on what it was. But it seems like the majority of people agree that dating means one person exclusively, but there are about

30% or the people that I pulled, who like a thousand people said 30% said it's multiple people, 60% said it's one person. So we do need to make sure we're using the same definition. That's 60% are really angry at the 30% and that's exactly where this no man's land. So we said it before in the UK, I don't know if it's the same in the US, it's called seeing someone. So seeing someone is after casual sex, but before an official relationship. So it's whatever that that bit in the middle is and it no one knows what the fuck that means. I don't know what it means. We spent, we spent four episodes trying to work out what the fuck it means and we have no idea at all. It's just this no man's land of...

Why are you not committed? If you're just having sex with that one person, but you maybe you're not ready for a relationship, to me, it's like... It's hedging your bets in the worst way possible. But you're not gaining. You've got all of the loss. You don't have the security of knowing that that person really cares about you. You don't have the ability to fully commit emotionally. You've got sex on top, but you could have had that anyway. I just think it's a dangerous, dangerous

waltz to swim in. If you're seeing someone and you're listening, beware. The shark in those waltz is okay. So just watch out. And I encourage women when when it doesn't mean that there's multiple people involved from the man side, but maybe there's ambiguity. They're not sure what quite they're dealing with, but their values are to be exclusive, to be monogamous. I encourage women to stick to that as long as you're you're vetting the man and you're feeling like you still you you're feeling like you're still curious, you're still interested, you still want to more time with them. Give trust, give exclusivity, do not hedge your bets because that is sabotaging the relationship. No matter how you look at

it, it's always going to sabotage the relationship. So men and women are a little bit different. I think they have a little bit more leeway, the men to sort of hedge their bets, I guess. But I don't think that it's the best solution in the long term. I think that if you keep that to a very short period, just to make sure the basic foundation exists between the two people, like you make your choice, and then you go into an exclusive sexual relationship with that person.

But a lot of times people are holding back, trust, or holding back the attachment or emotion until they know for sure, as if there's some kind of destination that they're trying to provide that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You must be this, this talk to ride the roller coaster,

you must have been together for this long for me to be exclusive with you. And the worst thing is that if you've had that basis, if you've created the relationship on the basis of you sleeping with other people, like what if it comes out at some point, like what if you get rumbled, and it's happened like lots of the guys that I work with have had this situation where they've done something

towards the beginning of a relationship and six months one year in their girlfriend's found out and it's like well you didn't tell me so well we won't go now. That situation you didn't tell me but we weren't going is never, ever going to be reconciled, ever in the history of ever. Like, it's just always gonna get brought, well, what else are you keeping from me? One person's gonna say, well, I didn't need to tell you because it wasn't time, we weren't exclusive.

And the other person's gonna say, well, I don't trust you. Fucked, fully fucked. Yeah, and I'm trying to hammer this point home a lot lately. Keep hammering away. I think it's so important to to stand by. It's really the easiest way to exist. So to not have anything to hide, to be direct, to be clear, to be straight forward from the beginning, even when it comes to even though I promote exclusivity, even if we're

talking about non exclusivity, just if we're talking about non-exclusivity, just be ethical about it, be upfront. It's you're still vetting your partner. It's the same process. It's just you're looking for someone who is comfortable and values non-exclusivity. And so the two of you can go about your business, doing whatever it is that works for you, and be open about it until you decide, I want to be explosive with you if that's where they're going, which developmentally,

you know, you're talking about sort of pressure and Hollywood and media to have like this love story. I do believe that naturally the progression of in humans is to be together. I don't think it's about being a singular individual for your entire lifespan, but it's not you're not incomplete as an individual. You're in process and there's a comes a point in time where you kind of reach a plateau of who you are, you know, even though you can kind of have novel experiences and kind of tweak this, a tweak that and always be striving to eat better and sleep and do all the exercise and all

of that stuff, you do kind of end up plateauing. And it isn't until you find that and attract that really great partner that challenges you and draws like good and bad and complexity out of you and then you develop a family and start to bring forward that legacy that you really get to that different type of love of service and commitment and loyalty and all that. That's a really good point. I can certainly see myself, I'm 31 and I'm single and I can certainly see myself what you're talking about there that you can continue to have your adventures in life and kind of keep yourself interested. I've just come back from America, I did a four week road trip with one of my

good mates in a five-lead, a soft top Camaro going across America. Like, oh wow. Awesome, cool way to do it. Yeah. But you're right. It is, that is a different flavor of all of the other adventures that I've had so far. It's still, I'm still on whatever level this level is, level one or level 10 or level 100, but to get to level 101, the challenge that you have from somebody else, how do we

start a family? How do I negotiate a serious relationship with someone that's going to be something that goes on for a long time? I think that's a really, really good point. So I wanted to get onto trust, we've touched on it a little bit so far. In your experience, what is the ability of people

to come back from trust being broken in a relationship? How does that work? It's extremely difficult. I mean, it depends on the injury. What if it's infidelity then gosh, I was having actually a little debate with Andrew Tate today on. Shout out, Andrew. It'll be, it'll be listening, which is always fun. But he was saying that he actually said, made a comment about all the relationship experts out there.

Go cheat on your woman and see what she does. If she leaves you, she never loved you. She stays and she loves you. Oh, wow. Andrew, you do not give a fuck, my friend. Well, you should read the thread. It's really good. I'll link it in the show notes below, yeah. Definitely, but we kind of came to a good sort of compromise. And we were talking about men being kings and how in the history of existence,

all the kings had, all the women they wanted and whatever. And I said, well, not all men are meant to be kings and that's okay. And women, not all women want to be with kings, right? Because if we have our certain values, so if a woman has a lot of ego or pride or whatever, she may want that king of kings.

But what I don't even, I mean, I guess I'm a regular woman, but I think I'm pretty cool. I'm like, what I'm looking for is a man that I can develop my own sort of empire with. It's not an actual kingdom that's going to be ruling people. I want my man to be my king and that is what matters to me. I don't want to be worried about infidelity and having to share things.

That's not my value. So that's why I'm about exclusivity and monogamy and creating a family that has honor and integrity and trust and all of that. So people have choice. So it's not just we're not just ruled by our biology. We have morals, we have all the sort of sociocultural implications that influence our behavior. So to just say and rationalize all of this hedonism based on biology is just,

you know, it's kind of an excuse. It really is. There's a lot of moving parts here, isn't there? So the Caleb Jones episode, a lot of people that are listening will have heard that, and it was super interesting. If you haven't heard that, I'd implore you to go back and listen. It's a challenging thing to listen to, to hear the argument for nonmenogamy. It was challenging for me, right? Like to think, okay, so I love this person, but in some of the version of the world, I'm gonna give this nonmenogamy stuff a crack, and I'm gonna try, but I have to let someone that I love sleep with whoever she wants. And I'm like, immediately it just gives this juvenile visceral response.

And I'm like, I'm only trying to do this rhetorically and I haven't got past the first fucking hurdles. So how people do it in the real world is beyond me. Also, some of the listeners may be thinking, I wonder what happened to Aubrey Marcus. You mentioned him a couple of times on the Caleb Jones episode. Well, let me tell you, unfortunately, Aubrey and his wife Whitney announced that they were transitioning their relationship on Instagram the other day. But in case you're interested, they did a full podcast about it, which shows everything that I mentioned on the Caleb Jones episode about why

I thought that relationship was doomed. And that's a, that's a call back to a couple of other points. But he's a point for you. Here's a piece of relationship advice that I'm sure that you can get on board with Dr. Boros. If you are breaking up with someone, do not do a podcast about it with them. That's, fuck me.

Everything in all-braised life at the moment is just used as content. It's so, it's madness. But yeah, I think the thing about the King's so, it's, it's madness. But yeah, I think the thing about the King's thing, there's two types of kings, right? There's multiple types. There's a tyrant and then there's the noble virtuous King. Like, both of them have the title, but they're two very different people and I think that you've identified day. You have one person who uses their power to get whatever they want and you have one person who uses their power to raise

everybody else up. And again, we're talking compatibility and stuff like that. You mentioned that infidelity in relationship is a difficult point to come back from. Yeah, so you might not know where you stand on that until it happens, right? And that can always be very difficult. So you might have a person who just wants to put their head in the sand and not really deal with it, just deny it, pretend

like they don't know and go about their business. It's just easier for them to, that's basically their co... Their psychological coping skill is denial. And so that might be one way for them to cope with it. And so they're okay sort of dealing with it. They don't have, we don't have too much of an issue in counseling or in the park coaching to heal the relationship on that issue, but I promise you that's going to bleed into other areas of their relationship that needs some work. So I would want to look at other things as well. And if they're willing to, but not everybody is willing to fix the things that inconsistencies,

that sort of lay at the foundation that make other problems surface. Now, you also might have the woman that freaks out and throws things and yells and talks to everyone about what a piece of crap your, and sort of punishes you. And then that woman may be just very angry and she never really comes out of the angry anger phase. And so working with her, I have to get her

to to look at taking responsibility and not only responsibility but some piece of it in order for them to find common ground to both make changes to heal the relationship. And that's very, very hard for a person who feels that they were the one that was injured, they were the one that's betrayed. How am I supposed to say, I need to do this differently because it wasn't my fault. But if you do get through that anger stage and that takes some time, then you look at, well, what led to this infidelity? What was the wedge that broke you guys apart that maybe caused it? What was the sex life between the two of you like before? What was the communication like? What was the general intimacy?

So, you know, you have to peel back the layers, but then I said this to you before in the beginning, if one person is willing to change and the other person is not for whatever reason, whatever soapbox they're standing on, pointing a finger at the other person saying they're the one that needs to change, it's not going to work. Do you find that there's people who are, I'm going to use Carol Dweck's words here in a fixed mindset and a growth mindset? Do people tend to stay like that throughout relationships? Well, if we're comparing it to that type of scenario, yeah, it's very hard for someone

who's in a fixed mindset to basically evolve. I like to call it the power struggle. And so a lot of times you'll see that from, whether, I mean, it can be the man too, but you do see it a lot with women who feel that they're entitled, and that the man should be doding on making them happy, and everything's offensive to that woman.

And she feels like she should have just as much rights and control, and wear the pants, and everything's equal. That is a very fixed mindset that does not really budge until something major happens. Some kind of rock snaps. Yeah. But for men, I don't know what you think might be the most fixed element of a fixed mindset in a man, but I mean, we're talking about the compliment to that a lot of times. It's the men who are more emotionalized and feminized. They're so indoctrinated into that mindset of being the sort of male feminist and trying to rescue women and play that role. But there's lots of different fixed mindsets, so it's not just that stereotype, but it can happen. People can develop a growth mindset after some kind of catalysts.

Yeah, I'd love to be able to see where the fixed and growth mindset comes in, typically a broad cross section of relationships because I'm sure the listeners at home will be able to think the same. I can come up with just as many people that are absolutely stuck in the mud as men as our women. I think it's a, a, a, a fliction that plagues both genders equally, but it manifests in different ways, right? You, I think you're right. Like the girl that's got the fixed mindset, perhaps, might, yeah, they might have the, I want to click my fingers, I want to be in control. The man might be the one that you should,

you should be attracted to me or love me the way that, like, whatever I do, no matter how I behave and tend to sort of push the boundaries a little bit more. So yeah, you are right. There's a lot of nuances here. I mean, just going through what we've gone through so far today, 14 years of clinical mental health and family experience, I can only imagine what it's like getting home from work after that day. After hearing hearing whatever you know six, eight, 10 hours of this, this animated by two people that I mean, do many people come to marriage counseling when they got stuff going right? I'm going to yes not. No, but I did have some people that after things got resolved, they would come as kind of a check in preventative semi-annual session, which I encourage.

And now it sort of leads into my working with people at the very front end of things. But yeah, I mean, I veered off that track for a reason because it was just so disease model oriented. And so now, working online with people and not being in that setting is much better because my quality of life is a lot better. And it's definitely more aligned with my values as well. Are you slowly regaining some sanity after the last decade, a bit?

Yeah, you know, I feel like I've definitely grown a lot as a person and applying this into my personal life has been really conducive to success and feeling like I'm in a healthy place and I'm dating and I'm feeling very optimistic and that these things are very helpful for people to implement and a lot of my clients are having results and they're seeing much better outcomes, much, much better outcomes in their relationship. So it's great to hear that feedback now. That's awesome. So we've touched on compatibility between people in terms of their routines. We've talked about sexual polarity and ensuring that you have some, some sort of polarity,

some sort of energy, which is drawing people together. We've spoken about values and virtues, like what's your life plan? Are you white-pick it fence? Are you adventures in Himalaya type thing? We've spoken about infidelity and trust and the issues with that as well. Are there any other sort of key themes that you think that the listeners should be aware of? Well, if we, we have to kind of talk directly

about sex for a minute. Let's talk directly about sex for a minute. Let's talk directly about sex for a minute. Dr. Rose, I'm here, I'm listening. It's really important for women, especially. Men, I mean, we work together, but men kind of, you know, they're comfortable talking about sex. They're comfortable having lots of sex, but women feel somewhat restrained in their sexuality.

And I've been trying to discuss this a lot, to separate this sort of negative, slutty, explicit sexuality from the very sensual, healthy, feminine sensuality, whether you call it sexy or essential, doesn't really matter, but just sort of distinguishing the two between that sort of corrupt, objectified version but just sort of distinguishing the two between that sort of corrupt,

objectified version that's sort of blatant and inappropriate. So women have been sort of inundated with this image. And even with men, they kind of do the same thing. They split their images of women into, you know, the virtuous, is it Madonna and the sort of slutty, right, like having the slet and then the pure version of a woman. And basically women have been doing that in a way

that they choose one or the other. They're not really integrating both archetypes. I mean, there's more than just the two, but if we just look at those two, women are sort of rejecting the explicit sexual element and trying to be very demeer or the opposite. And so trying to integrate those two is a very difficult process for women because there's so much stigma attached to it.

And we talk about promiscuity and sexual liberation and nobody really knows what to do. And then women are judged if they've had to any sexual partners, or if they're too seductive, or their dress is too exposing of themselves. So learning for women how to be selective with their sexual partners,

and yet be very open and free with their sexual partners is and yet be very open and free with their sexual partners is a very hard process. And I think it's important to address whether I work with women one-on-one or I work with couples for if you have that trust in a relationship, right, then you're gonna have a much better time exploring that complexity. Because you should feel that your woman is honorable and she's committed to you and you don't have to worry about her doing

anything inappropriate in a sexualized way with somebody else. But with you, she should be more open and adventurous and be able to be comfortable in her body and basically explicit. So you have to really accommodate that growth and be growth, have that growth mindset there, you know? Isn't it strange that when we're talking about the female sexual archetypes that being capable in bed is also lumbered with the same label of being promiscuous or being a slut or whatever the term is. And that weird.

Yeah, it's something that we don't really feel comfortable talking about. And so I mean, I'm not advocating I'm not like advocating for us to talk about sex with children, but I think it is important for women to be able to talk about it with their partners, if they're feeling shy or if they're feeling uncomfortable or unsure about things and why, and for the man to be able to have that intimacy with her to make her feel comfortable, to make her feel that it's okay. And you know, you have to be prepared because then you have to sort of still see her as a mother if you have children, but then she's your hot sexy lover behind closed doors or whatever. There's a lot of roles, a lot of masks that women have

got to play, haven't they? Like the man kind of, if we've got, again, typical masculine, feminine energies going from the ways that they mostly do, you've got the man, and the man's kind of always doing that, right? He's fixing the cars, picking the kids up off the ground, he's going to work, and then he's coming home and he's having sex. Whereas the mother needs to be a lot of different roles, right? I think that's maybe one of the issues where you've got that they need to be a lot of different roles. I think that's maybe one of the issues where you've got that they need to spin a lot of plates. And if they're not and they're repressing that, that's what happens to in the demise of a relationship is she will do that.

She'll sort of see her husband as the protector provider. And then she'll start fantasizing about the sexy gardener or whatever, right? So if you don't address these issues early on, starting from when you're dating, then they're gonna create these cracks in your relationship that are going to create the sort of risk for all those types of outcomes.

And being able to, it's almost like you have to have that rhythm and harmony and being synced with your partner so that you can kind of be really hyper sexual with them, but then also talk about day to day logistic. And the boring stuff. Yeah, but we've run out of milk and we've run out of bread. And if you're technically in the toilet, like, yeah. And come over here, SEXY, and eat some of that, you know?

Like, you have to be able to do it. Difficult discussion. It shouldn't be. And it's fun. It's playful. And that's what keeps the spark alive. And so you don't want to drag on all of that sort of boring life stuff for too long without injecting a little bit of that pizzeria and that sexiness in there. So, you know, women, we need to feel encouraged to do that.

And men have to learn how to sort of draw that out of us as well because it's there. It's just the matter of feeling that comfort and that trust in order to do that. How do you do that then? As a man encouraging a woman or as a woman wanting to broach the subjective sex or sexual preferences or the way that their sex life's going, how do you do that? How do you get the courage to do that and how do you start the discussion? Well, a man should feel confident in his sexuality. I do feel that it's important for a man to have a little bit more, you know, neither party has to have a whole bunch of experience,

but I do think that it's good for the man to be a little bit more sexually confident than the woman so to keep that balance. And then for him to be able to project that throughout the relationship, so that he's kind of, it doesn't matter if he sort of comes out of nowhere with something sexualized. And that maybe startles her a little bit, or she feels a little shy, or something, but that's going to create that sexual tension that's going to really help there in that department.

And so the man, if he doesn't feel confident in that element with his sexuality, he needs to work on that. So that would mean that he needs to do that individual work for us. Like go to the gym, get your fitness right, get your health checked, make sure your testosterone levels are healthy and you're eating well, you're sleeping well, and you know, once you get all those things, it should be revved up. And if you're also sort of encouraging your woman to be attractive and feminine and whatever it is, and hopefully you've already sort of established what you like

and she's that, not something completely different. It's doomed to fail if that way, yeah. Exactly, so the best thing to do is not to criticize a woman directly. And I was actually going to say this before, one of the differences between the fixed mindset, between the genders is women do not handle criticism well in general. Men can handle criticism a lot better.

I have like 80% percent men clients and not very many women because of that. It's really interesting to see, but you know, we need to get the women to be a little bit more open to criticism and self-improvement for sure, but anyway, getting back to the sex stuff. So, yeah, with men, as long as they're improving those elements and making sure that they have what they need in order to be there all and then They can encourage their woman always instead of instead of criticizing her Encourage her positively so reward and reinforce the positives like if she wears something and you think she's really hot Like give her that attention attention is is like that, that really powerful currency

with women. So be seductive with her. Fire flowers, take her out, say lovely things, whatever her love languages and her personality dictates, you want to reinforce those positives. And then on the flip side, if you do see negatives, instead of directly criticizing her, pull back. Right? So you're pulling back on the attention instead of punishing. You're just taking away the rewards and use external references to point out the negatives. So like if you see a woman wearing something really ugly or her hair is shorts and unattractive or whatever it is, say, oh gosh, I wish

she hadn't much longer hair. She would just be so sexy if she would do this. That's a way to externalize it from the woman and the woman's like competing and saying, oh, well, I do that. I better get a nice dress then. Okay. That's an interesting approach. You're using this conduit on the outside to somehow come and do it. So, if spoken about what men can do, how about if you're a woman, you could be demure or you could be totally sexually liberated, but you need to broach the subject of sex with your partner.

Where do you start? I think you just talk about it. One thing that came to mind though, that when you asked that, I have a very split opinion on masturbation because I know this whole no-fap thing is like a really popular controversial topic. Do you know that? Get me started. I'm no-fap. I'll tell you that we would be here for the rest of the evening. Well, this is my thing. Okay. I'm not against masturbation, but definitely one of the things that I think is distinct between men and women is that masturbation can be extremely helpful for women who have repressed sexuality. Why? Because you have to kind of scaffold

her level of comfort when it comes to any type of sexualized material, like even if it's just her, like it's almost like learning how to act on stage, like how to be a public speaker, being exposed in that vulnerable in a sexual way can be so anxiety provoking for women that she's got to desensitize herself in a good way, not in a bad way. So she can get used to it. So learning how to masturbate or what does she like, or even getting a little bit freaky with herself.

That will help get her used to the idea. Then if she gets into it a little bit more when she's actually in the act with her lover, and then the lover reinforces it. He's like, oh yeah, he's encouraging that. Then she can loosen up a little bit more during the act's letter guard down climax easier and then you talk about it afterwards and like, oh my gosh, that was really cool when he did that I just thought it was so sexy and you know, just sort of gets your little, you know, endorphins and your oxythosin is like all on fire Yeah, anyway

as like all on fire. And yeah, anyway. I understand. Where's my... Oh, there's going my batteries going low now. You'll be fine. Or you battery on your phone, you mean, though, right? Yeah. Lushing now, no.

Bad around the phone. Yeah, so I think that's interesting. Like the fact that not... Women are under sexualized, I think, is what you, on the whole, they're less sexualized than men, I think, is the point that you're making here, right? One thing that I think super interesting that I'd be interested to hear what you think about is, you know, like Cosmo magazine and all of these sort of middle of the road,

girly magazines, like every single one of those that I see when I walk past WH Smith's or some news agents like the seven best summer sex positions and things like that, is that, is that female journalists and magazine writers trying to sort of take control of this and help women to educate themselves? Because that's been going on for like as long as I can remember seeing those magazines, like 20 years, 30 years more. And that, has that not really helped? Is that not the right rhetoric? No. And as soon as I answered your question, I was like, well, the caveat is there's this whole other sort of sexual liberate, liberated feminism thing that has taken effect. And so you have the hypersexual women

that are super promiscuous and explicit, but then, you know what, it's not a healthy sexuality either, and it's not real. It's actually like a fake facade of sexuality, because they're doing it in a disconnected way. They're playing a part that isn't even, it isn't even something that is representative of intimacy, right?

It's just some sort of caricature of this explicitness. So, right, a lot of that cosmopolitan and I forget what there was a headline yesterday or maybe it was this morning talking about women, I don't know, women doing this or that sexual behavior and promoting it. And I think it's just one, it's causing us to then become more promiscuous as women. And having more casual sex is really going to infringe our ability to find a proper partner, to attach properly to a romantic partner long-term, and it also just desensitizes us to our own body. And emotionally, basically, if you, as I'm also like a sexual trauma is this, what happens is this disorientation and detachment between the body and your emotions. And then you sort of have this self-imposed objectification and then... Like finishing yourself. Exactly. And so I call it self exploitation,

but basically it's literally just you're separating disconnecting from your body so that you can like kind of use your body and objectify it however you like, but emotionally you feel really guilty and shameful about it. And so it's disjointed and it's dysfunctional. And so why are we even trying to do that voluntarily? What happens to a sexual trauma victim is not something we should be trying to replicate voluntarily to ourselves.

And so healing a woman's relationship to her body, to her sexuality is really my goal of helping women do that. And so learning how to be sexual with your partner is the key. And so as long as you have that healthy context, then yeah, you don't have to disconnect because you're attached to that person, you trust that person, you love that person. It's not someone that's random or, you know, just used for a thrill. That's a very superficial bodily response and to have that distinct from an emotional attachment is unhealthy. I couldn't agree more.

I think that's a really lovely note to finish it on. So Dr. Burrow's people that have listened, they might want to get in touch or find out a little bit more about you where can they go. My website is a great place to go, though I need to upgrade that a little bit. It's Dr. Burrows. Dr. Taylor Burrows.com, sorry, and Twitter is a great place as well. So at Taylor Burrows.

Fantastic. Well, all of this will be linked in the show notes below. If you want to go and check out Dr. Burrows running with Mr. Tate, make sure that's linked in the show notes below. But thank you so much for your time. I think we'll have really helped some people today. I hope so, but let me know.

I would like to follow up if there's more to add. of that