Office Hours with Arthur Brooks - How to Stay in Love with Your Soul Mate, with Special Guest Ester Brooks

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

Thirty-five years ago, I somehow convinced an extraordinary woman to marry me. Our relationship began like any other—attraction, a leap of faith, and eventually the decision to embark on the unknown journey ahead of us together. In this episode of Office Hours, my wife, Ester Munt-Brooks, and I reflect on what we’ve learned over 35 years of choosing each other—from the risks we took early on, to why love is much more than a feeling. Drawing on the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas, we explore what it truly means to love—and how that understanding can transform every relationship.—Brought to you by:• Noble Mobile—With Noble, there is only one plan: The No-Bull Plan. It’s simple. It’s transparent. And if you use less data, you get cash back. Get an exclusive offer at: https://noblemobile.com/arthurbrooks—Where to find Ester Munt-Brooks: • Website: https://www.fevaloryalegria.org/ • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/estermunt • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/FAITHWITHJOYTALKS/ Where to find Arthur Brooks: • Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://arthurbrooks.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• In-person Retreats: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://retreats.arthurbrooks.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/arthurbrooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/arthurcbrooks/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/ArthurBrooks/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGuyFRjJQFGCKzfHTBvWM6A⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-c-brooks/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠—Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(08:55) Arthur and Ester’s love story(14:02) The risks they took to give it a shot (19:30) How Ester came to embrace marriage (24:36) The next stage: Marriage and children(28:05) St. Thomas Aquinas’s definition of love (45:20) What’s coming up in future episodes on love(46:04) The three big love lessons (49:26) Q&A: Personalizing a morning routine for your needs (55:06) Q&A: How to think about faith while dating(57:54) Q&A: How having children impacts happiness (1:02:30) Q&A: How to meet people in person —Referenced: • The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/the-meaning-of-your-life • Meaning Membership: https://hub.arthurbrooks.com/the-meaning-membership • Arthur’s newsletter: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter • The Happiness Scale: https://learn.arthurbrooks.com/the-happiness-scale • The Pursuit of Happiness with Arthur Brooks: https://www.thefp.com/s/the-pursuit-of-happiness-with-arthur• The Meaning of Your Life Retreats: https://retreats.arthurbrooks.com• ...References continued at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.arthurbrooks.com/office-hours⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠—Production and marketing by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://penname.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

I went home after one week together. I said, Dad, I think I met the girl. I'm going to marry. And he said, great. I said, well, there's some difficulty. She doesn't speak English. She doesn't live in the United States. And she made it known to me that she doesn't believe in marriage.

I met you and I had that strong intuition that you were trustworthy. And I fell in love with you. I sold my trumpet. I sold my old car that I had and I bought a ticket to go to New York. And I lied to everybody because I didn't want. when I admit the reason I was going to New York was to see a boy. To see a boy. Esther and I've been married for 35 years come November.

And it's been an amazing adventure in love and in life. And we want to talk about that today. But not only that, we want to talk about how to stay in love. Me from a more scientific aspect. And her, Esther, from her background, which is in theology. Hi, friends. Welcome to Office Hours. I'm Arthur Brooks.

This is a show about love and happiness, about lifting people up in ideas of happiness using science. I want you to take these ideas and share them with other people. That's why I have been doing this show over the past year, and I hope you've been enjoying it. Thank you so very much for following this show in all of us different formats and all of its different ideas. Thank you for feeding back and giving me criticism and ideas. And so many of the episodes that we're doing these days are actually on the basis of your comments and questions, including today's, as a matter of fact, that I'll get into that in a second.

As always, if you like this, please do recommend it to a million or two of your closest personal friends. That's what actually makes this show spread. And that's how, by word of mouth, we're actually getting around with office hours, bringing more happiness to other people. This is one of the ways that you can be a happiness

teacher, just like me, giving people the ideas that they can use. As always, please feedback. The website for this and all other areas of happiness in our domain is arthurbrooks.com. can write to the email address, office hours at arthur brooks.com. Don't forget to leave a review on Spotify or Apple and subscribe on your platform of choice. If you want to go deeper on any of the, on this material, you can get it through my newsletter, which comes to your inbox every Friday.

It's completely free. It's three to 500 words. It includes the deepest science with references on happiness and also a bunch of stupid jokes. Why would you want to miss any of that? Also, if you want to get together in person with other people who are in this field and interested in improving their lives and other people's lives as well, you can go to a retreat. We're actually offering a lot of retreats these days. Go to retreats.com and find out ways that you can actually get together with people who share this kind of interest. Okay, today's show, what are we going to be talking about? Well, in, you know, pursuing a theme that a lot of you have asked about, a lot of you want to know more about love. And I talk about love a lot. As a matter of fact, I have a book in the works called Falling in Love and Staying in Love. And most of you know that I've done several episodes on the amazing neuroscience and behavioral science of falling and staying in love. But today I want to talk about it in a slightly different way, in a more personal way, maybe a more practical way as well, by bringing in my teacher on love.

And you can see her right here. But this is, for those of you who follow my newsletter, this is the famous Mrs. B, which stands for Brooks, as you might have known. Actually, her last name is Moon Brooks hyphenated, where Moon is her ancestral and family name. Esther and I've been married for 35 years come November. And it's been an amazing adventure in love and in life. And we want to talk about that today. But not only that, we want to talk about how we are moving in our own lives, our adult lives, into a space of teaching about how to stay in love, me from a more scientific aspect. And her, Esther, from her background, which is what she's done her graduate training in, which is in theology of all things.

Very different than what I've done. And that, as the proverbs say, iron sharpen iron, when we have discussions about all manner of family life, marriage. I'm always talking about what the brain does and she always talks about what Holy Scripture says, which is also very, very much based in modern philosophy. And that's been a good guide for us and it's been really helpful for we found other people as well. We are taping this episode from New Mexico with the Modern Elder Academy. Great shout out to Chip Conley and his team where we're doing a retreat. Esther and I are leading a retreat on how couples can stay in love it. We have a big number of couples

who are actually here to talk about that, to learn the science, to learn the philosophy behind it. And we want to share some of that with you today. So welcome. Welcome to Office Hours. Your first time on the show. Wow, you said a lot of things. I'm like, whew! Really fast. Well, thank you. It's great to be here in your podcast. Are you a fan of the podcast? I'm a fan

of the podcast, and I tell all my friends. All my million friends. Do you ever miss episodes? I do sometimes, but sorry. I mean, yeah, my plan is to listen to all of them. But I hear you at home, so I know what you're going to say. I'm a walking podcast. Yeah, so you're a walking podcast.

But it's great to be here to talk about relationships, to talk about how to make them better, deeper. It's a very important thing, not just selfishly for the couple, but also as a way to be an example for the world of love and knowing each other and understanding. each other, I think that's what should be modeled more. And the best way to model that is in couples, in marriages, because marriage is not an easy thing. There's a lot of conflict. What? No, okay. Well, no, no, no, just kidding. We have a love conflict, a lot of... We have a high conflict, but high honesty. Yeah. And like I said, there's a lot of talking about things and ideas, and there's a lot of arguing about things and ideas and, and, and, and, and disagreeing about things.

So, but that is part of going deeper into loving better because whenever it's harder to love, that love becomes deeper and sacrificial in a way. And so better. It's not the easy love. It's just the love that is difficult. Most people who are in a couple or who want to be in a couple,

they want to make it a permanent thing. there are very few people who are on their wedding day. They're like, yeah, no, tell death to us part. Not really. I mean, they really think that. They really, really want that. So one of the things we'll be talking about today is, you know, what are the aspects of a marriage that kind of make it permanent?

And that's how we feel about it. I mean, 35 years is a long time. We've basically grew up together. You know, I was, what's your joke? You know, I was going to say the joke. I saw the look on your way. Well, no, I mean, 35 years, but it really felt like 10 minutes. isn't it, right?

Underwater, though. It's like living with a cat-skills stand-up comedian from the 50s, but with the Spanish accent. It's usually mess up the joke. No, you can say the expression correctly. No, it's fantastic. Fantastic. Are you kidding?

They're all cracking up out there in podcast land. I want to get into a little bit about, you know, how we met. But the first point that I want to make is that for us, you know, 35 years is the first 35 years and we're right or die. I mean, we're, this is it. This is it. We're like wood storks. You know, these species where if they lose a mate, the other one's alone, and they mate for life. And that's how we really feel about it. Now, I realize that not everybody has been able to experience this. And I'm not making a moral statement about people whose relationships have failed or whose marriages have failed. Because in point of fact, that happens. That's over the ordinary course of life. What I want to talk about is the fact that I feel that we're very, very fortunate and that most people in a relationship would like that more. And so we want to talk about scientifically and philosophically and the principles behind that. And this is the first of a series, I think, on what we're actually going to do.

And that you touch on a subject that we're going to talk about in the retreat about the subject of trust. Yeah. And how trust requires that you don't know 100% that that thing's going to work. Yeah. So in order to trust, there's a risk. Right. And that's what we did. We took a risk.

and we trusted each other. Boy, did we. Tell the story. I mean, how did we meet? Oh, how we met? Well, okay, so let's go back. I grew up in a family where there was not a lot of trust. When I was six years old, my dad left us, and so my mom had to raise us by herself.

And so there's like that idea that I grew up with, that you cannot trust men. Men are kind of like a little flaky. And a lot of the relationships of my friends and the people around me were like that. Oh, don't trust 100%. And so what I was so amazing about meeting you was that you and I both together decided

we're going to trust each other. How could you have possibly known that, given the fact that we met when I was 24 and you were 25? Well, I don't know that. And you didn't speak a single word of English and I didn't speak a single word of Spanish and you lived in Barcelona and I lived in New York. I mean, how in the heck?

That's the beauty of it. I didn't know. I just wanted to do it. So was this just wishful thinking and foolhardiness and bad judgment and being imprudent? Or was there more to it? At the beginning, probably that was it, right? I don't know.

I would you say that? Like a strong attraction. And again, I don't like to talk about feelings very much because they have misguided me many times in my life. But there was that God feeling, a passing, that I had to trust you, right? That I wanted you to be my man and to take care of me. and that I wanted you to be.

And you wanted to take care of me. And I wanted to take care of you and I wanted you to trust me. I want to desire that so much. But I had to risk. You know, it was not like 100% sure that you were going to be good to me. But I had to take that risk. Which, by the way, it was a big risk given the fact that you'd never met really a good man. Yeah, because I have an experience.

But men are not honest. Men are... Men and women were not very honest. And it was not about honesty. It was about it's okay to follow your feelings. It's okay to follow your emotions and your passions. And if you really have this attraction for this other person, why shouldn't you go with that person and have religion?

Even if you're already in relationship with that other. You're already married. So I grew up in this environment that's like feeling is like that's it. You know, if it feels good, it has to be right. But I always knew deep down that that was not right, that there was something more important. than those body desires. Animal impulses.

And thank you, scientist. You're putting the right words in my mouth. So I knew there was something more important. There was something of the heart. And if we talk about love, we can talk about what I mean by the heart. Not just passing emotions, but something deeper.

And that includes making decisions, even though you don't have all the reasons why you should make that decision. Our audience is going to be noticing a little tension here, which is the tension between two things that you've talked about. Number one is not trusting your feelings and the other is actually trusting your feelings. No, I said a god feeling. That's deeper than the passions of the body, that deeper thing that has a little bit of reason, by the way. It's not just completely 100% blind. I knew you a little bit, even though I didn't speak.

English and you didn't speak Spanish, there was some evidence that you were trustworthy. Is that the correct? That's the word. Okay. So there was a little bit of evidence. Yeah. So it's not completely like a feeling. But the reason I bring out that tension is because I've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of

business school professor. I mean, I'm a business school professor. I've interviewed a lot of startup people in my time. And they always talk about a business venture the way you just talked about our marriage, the way that you talked about a relationship, which is like, you don't just go after every crazy thing because you're not a sentimentalist, but on the other hand, you've got a big gut feeling about this thing and you're willing to take risk in return for an explosive return. See, this is the thing.

That's this belief that something down the road is going to have these big returns, as opposed to the feelings that will give you a nice sentiment right now. And is that tension that you can't quite sort out that is in the right hemisphere of your brain, a complex question that's understood without being solved that is the essence of entrepreneurship. And this is lesson number one that I want everybody to get.

Falling in love is an entrepreneurial act. You have to find that balance between the gut feeling of an explosive return with adequate risk and not falling prey to chasing every shiny lure. And that's kind of what it came down to. Is that fair?

Right. All right. Yeah, you're up. Absolutely. I never say that, but now I'll say it. Well, that's because I teach you to business school and you do something else. Absolutely. And you teach other stuff.

Okay. So now, we took some time to actually get to know each other. And we didn't get married immediately. It took us a couple of years, which was more about you than it was about me. You know, it's funny because a lot of people watching, they have these caricatures of men and women and gender differences where women that's like, put a ring on it. And dudes are like, no, man, no man. Well, for us, I knew I wanted to marry you a week after. where I met you. I told my dad. I went home to the United States. We met for purposes of

background. We met at a music festival in France. We were both professional musicians, classical musicians in those days. And I went home after one week together. Our first date was on Bastille Day in 1988, July 14th, in Dijon, France, of all places. How romantic. I went home and I said, Dad, I think I met the girl I'm going to marry. And he said, great. I said, well, there's some difficulty. She doesn't speak English. She doesn't live in the United States. And she made it known to me that she doesn't believe in marriage. Isn't that sophisticated? Isn't that fancy? Very European of you. And so I set about with a pretty entrepreneurial plan is what it came down to. And I, you know, you came and visited me in New York over the next few months, which was a very,

very risky thing to do. You know, you sold all your possessions by it because you had no money. I had no money. I was a musician. Very little work and very little money, you know, as a musician in in Barcelona, in Spain. But I met you and I had that strong intuition that you were trustworthy and I fell in love with you. And I decided to sell my, I used to be a trumpet player. I sold my trumpet. I sold my old car that I had and I bought a ticket to go to New York.

And I lied to everybody because I didn't want to admit the reason I was going to New York was to see a boy, to see a boy, that I had just. just met in the summer. So I told everybody I was going to New York to buy a new trumpet, a jardinelli trumpet. That's the lamest thing I've ever heard. And that's the lamest thing have you ever heard, but people believe that, I think. Your mother probably didn't. My mother probably didn't. Anyway, so then I did that. I sold everything. I didn't have any money. And the little, I just sold the things that were more valuable. And I came to New York to see you. And I remember that I landed in New York City, First time in America, for me, I was, what, 25 years old.

And I remember lending in New York and thinking, I hope he is picking me up. Because if he's not picking me up, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Where am I going to go in New York? Like a girl that doesn't really speak a lot of English. By the time I came to New York, I had studied a little bit of English. You had kind of a feral intelligence about you growing up in your working-class neighborhood and a broken family in poverty. Anyway.

You would have taken care of you, so you would have been fine. Yeah, I just had a phone number of a friend of a friend of a friend who lived in New York in case this didn't work. But he was there waiting for me at the airport. Not that, not the friend. You were there waiting for me. And that was one more clue that I was doing the right thing. Yeah. I mean, amazing to me that you would have wondered.

I mean, it was like it. You had a lot of hair. Oh, yeah. No, I could have had like. Yeah, a lot of hair had that thingy, that scar. Yeah. A scarf and the whole thing. I mean, it's like, it was shocking.

You saw pictures of me when I was 24. Love is blind. No, I mean, yeah, but anyway, you would look at handsome now. So anyway, so that was it. That was like, yeah, entrepreneurial and exciting. We were apart for most of a year with some visits in between. I came to Barcelona after that to visit you. And I didn't tell you, but I had been figuring out a way that I could move to Barcelona.

by taking a job in the Barcelona City Orchestra in the Symphony Orchestra in Barcelona and I auditioned for it and got it and you said what and so you're coming to Barcelona but great great let's make a life together let's absolutely make a life together even though I didn't accept

I didn't admit it but that's what I want I got rid of my stuff and we had two boxes two cardboard boxes I had $50 to my name which just shows you know what good financial planning I had made by the age of that time I was was 25 years old and I moved to Barcelona and I was setting about a greater plan,

which was not just to be with a woman I was in love with, but to make the rest of my life. And I didn't know because you still were of the belief that we wouldn't get married at that time, right? I didn't believe it. What were we going to do in your building? I was going to move to Barcelona and your boyfriend is going to be there. We're going to live day to day, man. Is that what it was?

Just like all my friends, just like I saw everybody around me, just day by day. No commitment, nothing. And if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out? It doesn't work out. doesn't work out. And the more I could understand your words, the more I learned English and use Spanish, and we were able to communicate deeper, the more I saw that what you valued is exactly what I wanted. And so little by little I understood, I was understanding that that thing that I couldn't express well in me, that was you. That was that commitment, that

relationship, that trust. And even though I would not admit it, I didn't want to get married, remember? You said you didn't believe in marriage. It was a philosophical belief. Just a contract and all these things. Hey, we don't need a piece of paper. I don't need a piece of paper to love you. But one day you came and... By the time I thought I could really close a deal.

Yeah, we have been living together for a couple of years. And you came and you got on one knee in front of me. You were shaking. I remember... I was still a little scared. And you asked me to marry you. and I had no doubt, I thought clearly. You know, like the scales fell off my eyes,

and I saw truth and beauty and goodness. Oh. And I saw that. I saw that. And of course, I said, yes. I didn't say, okay, let me think about it. I just up immediately. You updated your philosophy?

That's what I have been wanting my whole life. I just didn't know that that's what I. But did you change your view about whether marriage per se was important? I mean, because marriage really is. at that point, a piece of paper. What was it about the piece of paper? What was it about the public commitment per se? By the way, we believe it's a sacrament

because we're Catholic people. Years later, we have a different view of, yeah. But at that time, I think young people, we let our brain be washed by something because we don't have the maturity to have our own ideas, our all analysis, our own thinking about things. And so whatever we hear that kind of sounds good, we go, we adhere to that.

Whatever it is, it can be feminism, which is, that was me. It can be religion. It can be meditation, yoga. I don't know. It can be like business, like make a lot of money. Whatever sounds good to you, you go there and say, that's who I am. But there is no reflection, not bringing down, right? But truth is in our heart.

We just need to dig into our hearts and just little by little get there. With the information that we have, our experiences, and the truth that is in our heart, we get to the real truth. So at that time, my brainwash was all about feminism and be a strong woman, independent. I didn't want to need anybody. And you don't believe there's anything wrong with being a strong woman and independent, do you? No, but I saw. I see now the beauty of some, of letting somebody take care of me. And I didn't understand that.

While you take care of that person. Well, I take care. Yes, but that comes later. I'm a selfish individuals. It's better for me that you take care of me. But I know I also have to take care of you. But, but, okay, I don't know where I was going with all that. But just the fact that when we are young, we don't have really our own thinking about things.

we just absorb what other people say and we go with one or the other one depending on what feels good, which that's a very superficial thing. That was me. And then when I saw truth, little by little, knowing you, and I saw the truth and the beauty of you

wanting to commit to me because you wanted to love me for the rest of your life in my life, whoever dies first. Then I saw truth. And that was it. you know, what did I see in you? I'm a 24-year-old boy, so I see the most beautiful one I've ever seen.

No, truly. I mean, it was as smiling at me, which, you know, this is great. And I've done shows on the neurobiological cascade of falling in love, which starts with attraction. And it really does, which is why we want to be attractive to each other. I mean, no matter how emancipated we are from these structures of society, we want to be attracted to each other. You're super, super attracted to me. But as soon as I knew you, I knew you're a serious person.

You were a person who was all about life who really wanted to do things right. You were a person of super high honesty and integrity. You didn't lie to me and you weren't silly. I noticed that you were never engaged in stupid conversations about trivialities. You went right to the core of it. And which was I just wanted that seriousness. I wanted it. Plus, you were super funny.

You were super funny. You had this great sense of humor. You really cracked me up. Which is very important. Yeah, I know. Beauty, honesty, humor. I mean, that was the whole, these were these incredible things that I actually wanted. And very quickly what I figured out by the time we could actually talk to each other

was that you completed me, that you made me more the person that I wanted to be. And by the way, there's a lot of things that I don't like about myself. I don't like about myself that I'm just, you know, hey, everybody, look at me. I don't like the fact that I'm so attracted to trying to find the admiration of other people. And you were never like that. Everybody cares what other people think of them. you care a lot less. You're the kind of person who walks past a shop window and doesn't look.

No, I looked at it. Not always. I mean, it's a lot less than people that I know. And you're not thinking all the time. What does that person actually think of me? And the result of it is that you're a truly independent thinker. You're the first person I ever met that was a completely independent thinker. And that was amazing.

Now, that didn't mean that I agreed with you. I don't believe in marriage. I disagreed. I had a counter hypothesis, which is the most of the, I could actually change that. Thank God it worked. Okay, so we get married. It's 1991 by this time and we get married. And for all of you younger folks, that's, 1991 was, I think it was the same year that the cotton gin was invented. And fast forward. I mean, yada, yada, yada, as they say in Seinfeld, we have 20 moves. I'm changing careers a lot worse. We lived in 20 houses. Yeah. I mean, it's like

the witness protection program is a heck of a thing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. That's all because of you. Yeah, because I was... Because you are like... I can't hold a job. You can't stop moving. You can't stop doing new things. And that's one of the things that it's a pain, but that's one of the things that attracted me about you,

your focus, your ambition about things, which sometimes is hard and obsessive, but that's very attractive to me. Well, I mean, it was, it created a lot of conflict too. I mean, we were living in Barcelona, and at the time my ambition was to be, be the world's greatest French horn player. And we would go up to the Pyrenees camping.

And I would have to go away and find the field someplace for nobody's those things so I could practice while we were camping on summer vacation. And it drove you crazy. It was like, take a day off. Yeah. And I couldn't. And I couldn't. And I can't.

Yeah, you can. And so over the next decades, I've changed career a whole bunch of times. And that required stability on the home front that you actually provided, which was a sacrifice. So we had two biological kids and adopted a third. They gradually grew up. We moved a whole bunch of times for my own career. And you, you're the primary caretaker for our children.

While I was gone a lot, I have some, you know, regrets, actually, about my performance as a father. I mean, not like I neglected my kids or was a jerk about it, but I was gone a lot because I was working on that. And then later, by the time our kids moved out, you started to do your own professional thing. This is when you went back to school, got your graduate degree in theology from the Augustine Institute in St. Louis, which is a fancy place, and learning all this stuff, it was amazing because you had gone from somebody who's super hyper, progressive, secular. I mean, you grew up in a Catholic country, and you weren't Catholic. You'd never darkened the doorstep of a church. And I grew up in a Christian family, and I was serious about my Christian faith more and more so as I got through my 20s. And by this time

we were married and in my 30s, and I was determined that we were going to have a Catholic family. This was a real prayer of mine that we could actually bring that home. I had this conversation. with God at one point in my 30s when, you know, I'm kind of going to church and you're not, you're sleeping. And God's for Iran. Yeah. And I read who was it who said to some great saint. Oh, St. Monica, the father of St. Augustine. Yeah. Yeah, the mother. And her mother was a super serious Christian and wanted her son to become a Christian. And so, and God said to her, stop talking to your son about me and start talking more to me about him. And so I said, mask advice. So that's what I did. Anyway, long story short, you became a lot more serious about

your faith and have become a real spiritual guru to me. And so a lot of what I talk about in the show and in my writing about religion in general, not just my Catholic faith, because my path is not the path that everybody is following, but everybody needs some sort of a metaphysical path or some philosophical path so they can transcend themselves. A great deal of that has actually come from you is the way that that works. And now we've been together. for 37 years and we've been married for 35 which is an incredible thing

how time passes right? Yeah. So here's my question. You now write and talk about love from a philosophical standpoint. I write about it from a neurobiological standpoint.

What is love? Very easy question. I love this subject. I love. The heart is your special thing. I'm using the word love which in English we use for everything.

I love pizza. Well, this is important. We got one word for it. You have two in Spanish. Yeah. They have between 7 and 11, depending on how I counted it in Greek. Yeah.

But to begin with, just like happiness, you always talk about happiness. It's not a feeling. Love else is not a feeling. That to begin with, that's it. It has feelings in it,

but it's not just a feeling. So is it like happiness in so far is that feelings of happiness are evidence of happiness? Like the smell of your turkey is evidence of Thanksgiving? dinner, are feelings of love, evidence of love? I think that feelings are evidence, but sometimes they also help us in our process to love.

So let me go to the definition of love so that we understand better. Everybody understands better. Because another thing that I want to talk about, our fulfillment as human beings can only be found in love. That's another idea that is very important to understand. That's a very heavy assertion. You talk a lot about happiness and you talk a lot about research done on happiness by Harvard professors, et cetera, and you have a list of things that you can do to growing happiness in your life.

And then at the end, it's the most important one of all, which is to love. But are you saying that you can't be a happy person unless you fall in love and stay in love and have a perfect or close to perfect marriage? You're not saying that, right? No, I'm not saying that. That's good because not everybody gets that. No, because love is not just attain or found. in a marriage. Love can be found in many.

You have contact with a lot of different people in your life, not just your husband or your wife or your partner. So first of all, that our fulfillment as human means can only be found in love. Not just marriage or not just a partner, but a friendship, your parents, your siblings, your coworkers is the people because love needs at least two people, right? And all of us, we are creatures of God. So we are being part, part of God, right? Because we are creatures of God.

So there is God there in love, of course, because God is love. So another thing important that I want to go to is we need to define what is love. Yeah. We can start. Yeah. And one of the best definitions of love is the one by Thomas Aquinas, a great theologian philosopher of the 13th century, who said that to love is to wield the good of the other. So pause on that just for us. second because I want to point out that a lot of people who are not Catholic and who are not religious

don't be put off by this. And part of the reason is because Thomas Aquinas, who is a great Catholic figure and theologian to be sure, is one of the most important philosophical figures of the Middle Ages insofar as he introduced modern audiences to Aristotle. If you like Aristotle, it's because of Aquinas. Aristotle was not typically taught, only Plato was. And he was the one who brought these Aristotelian ideas, which are not Christian ideas to modern audiences. So this is philosophy, not just theology. Right now, you're like Neo in the Matrix. You can keep scrolling, experiencing a simulation of life.

Or you can wake up to how your attention is being harvested for profit. It's happening to people all over the world right now. You don't want to be productized like this anymore, but it's hard. Tech addiction is so potent because it's been designed to tap into your dopamine system. Just like heroin, porn, gambling, you've got the cravings, you're addicted. You don't like it, and I don't either. But I can't just tell you to stop doing it, that's hard. If you want to break free from the system, you need an incentive.

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And you're going to like how it feels. So you just defined love as to will the good of the other. And to act on it and to do something about it. It's not just a wishful thinking, okay? No, just willing the good of the other person and then do something about that. So this is more than an emotion, right? This, you see that. An emotion is activity, the limbic system,

they would be horrible if there's nothing more than an emotion. The way I like to talk about this is so that it's not just a feeling, but it goes deeper. And I like to think of love as an experience of the heart. Okay, the heart, the heart. Today, when we talk about, oh, my heart, it's all about emotions. Oh, my heart, I love you, though. My heart is all by emotions. But no, the heart is more than that.

The heart is the whole person. The heart is the ultimate place. of who we are, the center of our person. Your friend of Dalai Lama says that the ultimate source of a happy life is warmheartedness. Is that correct? He says that. So that makes us think. So he talks about the heart to have a warm heart.

But this is a sentence that we can think about it a lot. What does that mean, right? Okay. So I just leave it there. That's something that we can use to think about what love is. When is our heart warm? But I like to go also to think about the word heart in Scripture. In the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament, the word heart in one way, in one form or another,

is used more than a thousand times. Okay. And so, and it usually reflects the unity of the human being. So it's not a feeling, again, only an emotion, but it's the unity of the whole human being. And it includes three things. It includes in the heart. Okay, I'm talking about the heart. In the heart, we include what we know, our knowledge, our understanding, our thoughts,

our reflections, our memory, our imagination. All of this is in our heart. We have in our heart, right? Our learning when we learn. In the heart, we also have what we desire, what we seek, what we feel also. but not what we feel temporarily, not like a short-term feeling, but what we call the affections. Our affections are in the heart.

And affection is a long-lasting disposition that remains solid even though the feelings pass away, but that affection stays there. And affections are always informed by reason. They are not just feelings like, like dumb feelings or or completely unformed feelings. Our affections are in front.

You're passing fancies. They're not passing. They are long lasting. Even though sometimes feelings come and go, the affections. Okay. So the affection is the underlying disposition. The disposition of the human heart.

Now for our audience. Sorry, no, just for our audience. It's always interrupting me. Okay, go. I talk an awful lot about the hemispheric lateralization of the right and left. hemispheres. Okay. The right hemisphere, which governs mystery and meaning, that's a lot about how you're describing the heart. One point that's very important to keep in mind. Let's do this later.

For sure. But the heart is left biased. And parts of the body that are on the left side of the body are more governed by the right hemisphere of the brain. That's why this big similarity comes around, right? So this is what, at that neurobiologically is probably not a coincidence that what I'm talking about, when you're talking about are very similar. Oh, yeah. Okay, I didn't mean to interrupt you. There's that connection. Okay, so let's go back. So we're talking about the heart. Right. What's in the heart? In the heart, we have what we know, which is the intellect, right? What we learn, understand, et cetera. What we desire, which is those affections that stay solid, even though the emotions, like those emotions come and go. And those desires are always informed, right, by reason and reflection. And then finally, the third thing that we do in our heart is we choose.

we decide, we say yes or no to something. We say we submit to something or we resist something. The heart is this complex interaction of the intellect, the affections, and the free will. That's who we are. So if we go back to the definition of love, to love is to will the good of the other. We see how that works, right? To love is first to know somebody, then to desire the good for that person, and then to do it, those three things. To do what?

To do the good for that person. But I want to go to another point. The super that is, I think, is key. And is, in that definition of St. Thomas, the important thing is this, that to love is always associated with the good according to that definition. It's not associated to possessing. It's not associated to doing what the other person wants. No, no, no. It's associated with doing the good for the other person.

You see the... Yeah, I do. Of course. But of course, that requires some judgment, doesn't it? Exactly. That's why it's not just the feeling going crazy. Right. It's an affection informed with our intelligence, our knowledge, memory, our imagination,

And all of that is part of it. So if I do something that's really annoying and not right, I want you to forgive me and not even mention it. But that's not doing my good. Exactly. So that's why, even with raising kids, if a kid is misbehaving in that moment, right? Raising a husband.

Yeah. Or yeah, or in a couple or something. So the first thing you say, oh, I love him so much. Oh, I let him do. do that. That's okay. That's not loving that child. That's not willing the good for that child. You're just letting him go because your feelings are telling you, oh, it's okay. Poor kid. You're feeling compassion. That's why, like, too much sentimentality, it's not love. It's just indulging your own emotions. But let's go back to the good. So it is very important to

understand that to love is always associated with the good. And that when we love, first we know the person, then we desire the good for that person, and then we choose to do the good for that person. It's always the good for that person. Those are the three steps. So for our audience, they know they truly love somebody in the right way, in a healthy way. If they want to know the person, they want the good for the person, and they want to do the good for the person. One more thing. Very important to know that sometimes when you love, you don't get warm, fuzzy feelings.

That's the example. When you punish your child for the child's good, you're loving that child. But it feels terrible. It doesn't feel good. All right? So that's very important to do. So do you see how in order to love, we use our whole heart? We use our intellect.

we use our affections, our that desire from the heart, and we use our actions, our free will. So part of loving is searching the good. So this is very important. Look at what Aristotle said in the Nicomachian ethics. He said that the good men not only wills the good, but also rejoices in doing the good. That's the whole thing.

That's why we say that to love, which is the will, to will the good of the good, the other makes us happy. Okay. That's what Aristotle said. The good man not only wills the good, but also rejoices in doing the good. So for me, that's the best explanation, like about reading different sources and reading different philosophies and mostly, theoretically speaking. That's how I can make sense of what love is. Because many times we over-sentimentalized love. And, oh, another thing, very important.

Remember that to love requires an object, and that object is always the good. Not the person. I don't understand. This is too... Layed on me. I don't get it. Okay, this is a little bit like my understanding,

but it makes so much sense. So above... So you don't love me. That's the problem with the word to love. So I am loving you when I want, I desire your good and I do the good for you. That's true love. So I marry you so I can love you.

But I'm not the object of your love. But the object of my love for you is your good. It's not you. Is your good. You understand? The difference. It's not you, only you, because. It's only the objective and the object.

I don't love you when I do what you want. I love you when I do what is good for you. Sometimes what you want is the good for you, but not always. So if a person... Can you just do what I want, please? But if a person, if you tell me, look, I want to drink three beers and I'm going to tell you, that's not your good, you know what I mean? Or I want to, I don't know, change my job and quit on my job because I cannot, I feel like doing it.

So if I really love you, I'm going to say, you know, doing what you want is not good for you. and I'm going to tell you what you should do. So it's very important that in order to love, the object is the good. Aristotle also talks about we're in a friendship, the object has always to be the good. Like have something in common that is good. In a relationship of friendship,

the love for each other is the good. Okay, so you have a project together and the project together, for example, in our marriage, is goodness, is to do the good to each other, which is to love. And by the way, you can make it even more tangible than that. The third thing, the object of mutual love that cements us together, where we walk shoulder to shoulder into the future together, is our kids. Well, that's just one thing.

That's a project. That's one project. Yeah. But we're going to talk about that on the retreat. We, as couples, we need to have more projects than just a family. Yeah. Because the project of raising kids is just raising them, giving them roots, but then letting them fly. Right.

We don't raise kids so that we overcrow them all their lives and we are kind of helicoptering parents, which all of us in our generation are doing with our kids. We're not much into our kids. And especially we moms, we've fallen in love with our kids. And I never remember the word, asphyxating them. No, there's another way you told me. Smothering. Smothering or like too much.

And then, and so that's not good for the kids because the whole reason of their kids is not because we want kids is because it's a fruit of our love. And then those kids need to fly and have their own lives. That's our role as parents. Yeah. So that should not be our own project.

Well, let's take it back to your definition of, not your definition of love, St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. It's like, Esther Amund Brooks' definition of love, folks. This is like, this is like, to will the good of the other. You will my good. And you will our kids good. And to will our kids good as them is very different than willing our kids good as you,

which is really important. So to will their good means notwithstanding the fact that you want them around more and you want them to behave in a particular way, you want their good even if it's not as fun for you. Or even if it means I'm not involved. Yeah. Which, by the way, that's the way. should be. Yeah. My involvement should be minimum. That's right. Okay. So we're going to run out

time because one of the things we need to do in this episode is we've got a bunch of questions about relationships that we're going to talk about. So folks, I'm going to do a couple of things here. This is the first of several episodes with Mrs. B. And as you can see, there's a lot of content here. And what are we going to do? In the next episode, we're going to talk about what are the elements, what are the macronutrients of a successful romantic? relationship that's right or die that lasts that goes the distance and we know because we've seen the data this is what I do for a living and we've talked about it an awful lot and we've got the theory behind it and we're going to lay it on you what are the elements that we should be looking

for after that we want to ask in an in an episode what's the meaning of a good marriage and that is why should you be together why should you actually be together the why of your marriage and we want to talk about the why of our marriage but we want to talk about the why of marriage in general. And what's the meaning of what a permanent relationship can actually be? Okay, before we get to the questions, I want to sum up the three big points that you made that I want to underline for our audience here. Our number one, the beginning of a relationship is like the beginning of a company. It's an entrepreneurial thing.

Falling in love is the single most entrepreneurial act that most people are going to engage in. And that means there's a risk of failure. and failure should lead to learning and it's really, really tough but that's the way it's actually supposed to be. It's this balance between the mysterious sense of long-term value and what feels right.

And so to be a true entrepreneur in life involves allowing yourself to give your heart away. That's lesson number one. Take a little risk. And by the way, that's really subversive. That's a really transgressive. Go take risk with your heart, right? Because it could go wrong

And it will But you don't need to be stupid about it I don't think I'm the first man You fell in love with by the way But I do know that you had other relationships And they didn't go right No, I made mistakes But that doesn't mean we need to make ourselves

So vulnerable and in such bad situations Right We really get hurt And we need to be smart about it It's not like we risk You know, like physically or no It just we risk a project It's like a project, like you said.

And so it could go wrong, but let's not put ourselves into harm's way into an abuse relationship, abusive relationship or something like that. In the same way that you wouldn't in any entrepreneurial endeavor. If I had seen a sign of something abusive about you, I would have left you in the spot. I said, bye-bye. Kennedy Airport, bye. No, yeah, I'm turning around. I don't have money to turn around. I don't care.

But I'll call my mother, mom, ma'amplice. even though she had no money at all. But anyway, so yeah. Lesson number two, even more transgressive. Love isn't a feeling. Love isn't a feeling. It's an act of will. It's a commitment.

It's a decision. And this is super important because love has feelings associated with it, but it's not a feeling per se. The love is to will the good of the other. And that's incredibly important because it leads to the third big point that you made, which is that there's three ingredients to true and enduring healthy love. do you want to know whether or not you truly love somebody? Number one, you want to know them.

You really want to know the person deeply. That's a big one. That's a big one. That's a big one for sure. But I tell you, is there a lot of people who talk about this sort of infatuation, but they're really not that interested in knowing the person. Yeah.

The second is that you desire the person's, you honestly desire the person's good. And that person's good has a lot to it. But fundamentally, that means you want the person you love to be virtuous. That's good. that's the good is what it comes down to. You want your partner to be a better person.

Yes. And the third part is you want to do the good for that person, which sometimes means making them better and they're not going to like it. Yeah. And by the way, sometimes you might be wrong in the way you're trying to improve the person.

It makes you better too when you do it. Yeah. It's not just about, it's like, it goes both ways. Yeah. When there is good in it, there's good in it for both. There's a lot more, more to come, for sure. But we've got a whole bunch of things. of questions that, you know, so these are questions for, you know, the old married couple. Okay.

So we'll trade off on them a little bit. Okay. Okay. The first question comes from Audrey Crozier and many other anonymous. So this is a question we've seen again and again and again and again. And it's a question for you. Okay. Okay. It's based on a very popular episode of the podcast on my morning protocol. And you've heard people ask me about my morning protocol. What time you get up and what you do, they do with you. Yeah. Crazy morning. Crazy morning protocol. Crazy person morning protocol. Okay. So Audrey writes, as have many others, are there any tweaks to this protocol for women? What about menopausal women? Does your wife, Mrs. B, have the same or a different morning routine? Is she getting up at 4.30 a.m. to lift heavy weights with no music? Is she paying precise attention

to a regimen of dietary supplements? The answer is no, no, no, no. No, I don't wake up at 4.30. I wake up at six usually, which is pretty early. For you, for me. For a Spaniard. For a Spaniard. And then, so what's my routine? Yeah, well, more or less, it's, you know, the truth is that you don't live an undisciplined lifestyle.

No, not undisciplined. You don't sleep in until 10 in the morning sometimes. Yeah. And you do, you are careful about your diet and you do exercise. Yeah, so what, yeah, so I woke up at 6, go to my at 6.30. With me. With you, if you are in town. And then I get back home and the best, one of the best moments.

of the day also is when I take my coffee with milk. But you delay your caffeine consumption until you've been up. Until I come back to a half, about 90 minutes. Yeah, well, I don't count. I come back home from us and I have my coffee. And then I work for a while, which at that, yes, I'm disciplined about work. I work for two, three hours. Creative work.

Creative work, like either writing, studying, learning something, preparing talks, etc. So that's my routine. I don't have any other routine because in the afternoon I just like to be with my grandkids I go visit my great kids or the great kids are home or whatever so I spend time there

and if I have time I exercise and Arthur always tells me you need to exercise more and I'm a little lazy I just... That's not laziness this is... I want to emphasize this for the audience I need very very regimented routine

and there's a reason for that The reason has to do with the fact that I have astronomically higher negative affect than you do. Right. I am much more prone to anxiety and depression than you are. I just am. And it's not clinical. You know, it's not some, you know, five alarm fire. And I don't want it to become a five alarm fire.

And so one of the best ways to manage high levels of negative affect is to run around and pick up heavy things and, you know, have a very, very strict protocol that's extremely science-based. but if you don't have that, then you can actually be more flexible. The truth is you're having super good health. You have exceptionally good health. You take really good care of yourself. And you can do that in the context of somebody who's not naturally extreme.

You're not trying to manage the high level of negative affect that I have. And the basic point is this. This is not about men and women. This is about who we are as people. We need to actually tailor the routines and protocols that we have. Who we are. To what our needs are. That's why science is useful.

I don't need exercise for my, emotional well-being or psychological well-being, and I just need it physically. Yeah. But I move a lot. I go places. I pick up kids. I run around.

I do things. So I guess that's part of... You're super active. And you don't count your steps. And I don't come. I bought a watch once and I just got sick of it. I don't like it when it controls my sleep. You didn't buy a watch.

You actually wear a watch like a normal human being. You bought a tracker. Yeah. That's what you mean. I got read it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a tracker.

And I don't anymore. I have a regular watch. So I'm very different than you. So I don't really have like an exercise routine. I don't take supplements. I try, you try to give me supplements. I forget to take them. You need to take more creatine monohydrate.

You need to take more. And I want more protein in your diet. So this is one of the ways that he takes care of me because he knows a lot about these things and he tells me what to do. So I need to be more obedient because. Obedient. No, not that way. I need to be, I need to let you take care of me.

The problem is I don't let you. You tell me something, say, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, and I don't do it. But we're different and we're different people. And this is the idea of complementarity of character, complementarity is how we complete each other. Exactly. Let's answer the question. No supplements, no exercise, a routine, like I do. Hardcore.

I do sometimes lift weights, right? But it's a little boring for me, so I don't do. But I feel really good when I do and my posture. stay strong and that's the answer. Was there any other question? No, that's good. Okay. That's good. And I think we made the big point, which is that never make the perfect the enemy of the good and do what you actually need

as opposed to what somebody else is telling you. This is completely subversive to internet culture which says if you don't follow the set protocols from this person, you're going to die. Exactly. And that's not right. You have to actually find your own way through knowledge and habits. Yeah. And like you said, important to know what you need. Right. And what you need,

your personality, your priorities and your health. If you're getting older, you need to exercise. Otherwise, you lose muscle and the whole thing. So, yes, you need to do more of that. But of course, you're also just a naturally unbelievable athlete. I mean, you've done triathlon. You're ranked and track and field as a teenager in Spain. Yeah, not me.

Younger. Okay. Okay, this one comes from Albert. People always call me Albert Brooks. I hate that. But Albert is not doing that, who writes, this is for me. How and why did you choose to marry your wife when you were a committed Catholic and she wasn't? But made you take such a risk in what is the most important decision in your life? Hoping one's partner, spouse will convert doesn't guarantee anything and it could have brought lots of suffering in your relationship. That's absolutely true. Now, to begin with, I wasn't as serious about my faith in my early 20s as I subsequently and very quickly became. So this was. But more than me. way more. I would never have described myself as, you know, not being a believer. And, and, and part of it was when I wasn't practicing very assiduously, a very spotty way, I wanted to practice more. Yeah. It was always this. I remember when I was a, you know, a starving musician living in New York City, I had this goal. There's a whole bunch of things I need to do. I need to quit smoking. I need to quit drinking. I need to get to the dentist and I need to get back into mass. This weird, you know, set of goals that I actually had had, had, uh, for myself. Thank God all of it done. Done, done, done, done. But it is true. And people really need to be prudent about this.

I mean, thank God. I mean, literally thank God. Because, you know, this was my path of righteousness. And you're the one who's going to, if I get into heaven, you're going to walk me there. But I couldn't have known. And so, Albert, this is a very hard one to answer with specificity. This is something you need to take your prayer. This is something that you need to have a lot of prudential judgment about. Yeah, because I think also if God allows you to be so attracted.

attracted to somebody, there has to be some truth. I mean, I try and get in a deep and healthy in a deep and healthy way. Not because she's so amazing, beautiful. Yeah, in a virtuous way. Always doing, thinking about the goodness, right? And the true. And I think if there is that, if that attraction exists, there's probably a reason for it. So it's a question of this sermon, prayer. Why is God bringing a person into my life? If you're a believer. Have a conversation, having conversations with that person, look, this faith is important for me. And, you know, that's something important. How, I mean, how likely or is there going to be that you can start practicing my face?

At least give it a try. That's important for me. You know, if there is, like, love starts growing like this. And if you had told me, faith is an important thing for me. Maybe I would have paid attention to it more. You never told me that. You told me with your actions later on. Right.

But like when we were knowing each other, if you had told me that, maybe it wouldn't have done different. So it's complicated. It's not an easy answer. Yes. No, it's life is complicated. And this is just. Here's one from Tao Lai writes into the website. I wonder if you can speak about the correlation between children and happiness.

Now, this is a research question, but it's also an important question from life experience. So we both get to do this one. Many married couples are not willing to have kids anymore. It's true. Fertility rates are falling, including fertility rates among married couples. So it's not just because people aren't getting married. They think they're happier that way and that children won't add to their happiness. What gives?

Okay. Now, Brad Wilcox at the University of Virginia, who's really the greatest on this, who started the Institute for Family Studies at Charlottesville, Virginia, talks an awful lot about this. And I can speak to that. But talk, you know, from the experience that you've had as a person and working with lots and lots and lots of young couples. How do you think about this about happiness and children? It's just in a very realistic way because, you know, there are people who say this. We're going to say, oh, they're just wrong.

You know, let's talk about this in a very real way. So children are a gift. They are also a project. In other words, they're difficult. Yep. And they bring a lot of meaning into your life. you don't have children to have fun to be happier. Yes, they bring a lot of moments of happiness,

but they also bring a lot of sacrifice and suffering and unhappiness, and, you know, all those things that come, which are not just the you don't sleep, but it is so good for you because, first of all, it is the best thing that can happen to you to bring you out of yourself and your own attachments and you're all selfishness. It makes you a generous person.

It makes you a person that would give and sacrifice for another human being. Unless you're a crummy parent. And guess you're a really bad parent. And only a child can do that really, really well. So I don't think they bring happiness like the day to day, maybe little moments of happiness in there, but it gives you so much meaning.

It gives you a reason to get up in the morning, and it gives you an opportunity to just love, to wield the good of the other for somebody who needs you so much. You feel needed. And that's so important in a human being to feel needed, right? You've talked about that. That's the essence of dignity is to be needed. To be needed. And so all these things are part of happiness, right? But not in the way of having fun and just having a great, like, happy life.

No, it's different. It's a deeper happiness, more meaning. And so I would say it's the best thing in the world. And you know what's best than having children? Having grandchildren. Yeah, yeah. That's just amazing. If we got straight to grandchildren?

Yes. Oh, my cow. What is that thing, that silly thing? Well, you know, it's an old Catholic saying that that grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your kids. Yes, exactly. So. And if you knew our kids, whoof.

Yeah. So, okay. So, well, no, this is good. And I'll translate it into the language that a lot of regular office hours will understand, which is starting with the definition of happiness. It has three macronutrients. Happiness is enjoyment plus satisfaction plus meaning. Kids, they trade off enjoyment with meaning.

And so one of the reasons that young parents, they actually have less enjoyment in their life than equally matched adults who don't have kids, equally matched, paired, married people or coupled people who don't have kids actually, in general, I mean, don't write angry emails in, or do, that's good too, the ones without kids have more enjoyment. Objectively, they enjoy their lives more. Down the line, the ones who have the kids have more meaning, more meaning in their marriage and more meaning in their lives. And so it's just a straight up tradeoff. Now, everybody's got to make the decision.

I'm way more libertarian than you in every way. I'm way more live and let live than you are because I'm an American. I'm an American. I know you are by choice as opposed to by birth, and I deeply love that. But you still have some Spanish roots. Yeah. Yes, you do. I do.

I mean, it's like, hey, you make fortility. But that's not. It's not. It's right. Anyway. So, so here, this is really the trade-off that people need to be considering. There is more enjoyment for most people early on, and there is less meaning. Later on, when people forego the decision to have children.

which is a deeply, deeply, deeply, personal decision that everyone's got to make. Okay. Andrew Cren writes in, I'm 41 single, and I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. I love the heads-up play that he's putting his name, first name, last name,

age, marital status, and where he lives, because this guy's in the market. That's entrepreneurship, Andrew. I like it. So, ladies, Andrew Cren. How old is he? 41, Raleigh, North Carolina,

which is a beautiful place. our beloved daughter-in-law Jessica went to college in Durham and for those of you who know the college is down there you know what I'm talking about big rivalry I'm 41 but single live in Raleigh, North Carolina Andrew says are there any practical ways you could advise on putting myself out there to meet women locally instead of on apps in the hopes of marriage is the ultimate goal and the answer to that I'll start it's around finding interest and commonality and values

that's what it comes down to. And that's what, you know, apps are getting better at. I'm, I'm a scientific advisor to a dating app that's really, really engaged in trying to get people together as quickly as possible as opposed to being online. So it's in real life, which is the most important thing. And apps are going to get better. I'm not anti-app because that's the way the world, you know, the technology is there. But one of the things that I strongly recommend is what you're interested in that reflects not just your interest, but also your values. Go there and meet people that share that. Because the common. the foundation of a relationship and then find somebody different than you who shares that. That's what it comes down to, right? So what's when you talk an awful lot to young Catholics, what do you tell them? No, I mean, same thing. Go find the parish. Yeah, go to a parish or go to a place where you're going to find people with same values. And I mean, I don't have a better advice than what you said. Just look for it. And that's not religious, by the way. If you're super into running, join the running club. It has to be a good thing. It has to be a virtuous thing. It's not. It's not, It doesn't have to be like, oh, we like go out and drinking every night.

Right. I mean, there's nothing wrong with going out and drinking, but that should not be the thing that brings you together. Well, that's one of the reasons that you find that there's a bunch of data that find that people who meet in book clubs, libraries, and churches, they tend to have more enduring marriages than people who meet in beaches and bars and online. Yeah. That's a reason for that for exactly what you're talking about.

There's nothing wrong with me and people in a bar. I mean, that could be, you know, I know people that met in a bar. are and they have good marriages. Right. But it's better if you put yourself in a place that you know that it's more likely that So Andrew, what do you care about? What do you really care about besides like, I know you care about falling in love and getting married? Great.

What are your other loves in life? Is it your faith? Is it your intellectual interests? Is it your physical fitness? Is it something that's actually virtuous and important? Find a place where people share those values and go there. And then when you're actually working in the apps, when you're trying to meet somebody in the apps, use the apps carefully so you can bond over shared interests and get in real life as quickly as possible. So I have a question.

Yeah. What's the difference about these things that in project or things that they have in common like values, etc. And the other commonalities that are usually in the apps? Like, I don't know, like I like surfing or would that be part of it or it would be different. Well, that's just that's that's interests in common for sure. And there's a range of those things with respect to how, how, how, how close they are to actual human values. So how about political ideas? Would that be a thing to look for the same?

Yeah. I think that's an exception, but basically the exception approves the rule. And one of the things that we find is that couples are more stable if they have an early moratorium in dating on political conversations. So they can actually fall in love with each other, notwithstanding, light differences or even strong differences in the way that they see the political realm. So again, people have to decide. That's not something that you have in common. Well, part of it is because these might reflect values, but they don't reflect loves, right?

They don't reflect loves, generally speaking. On the contrary, they can reflect hates is what it comes down to. So like, yeah. It's all about, it's all about love and goodness is really what it comes down to. So you need the positive aspect on it as well. That's a very good question. And again, you know, people have to decide. You know, maybe it's like, yeah, I would never.

date anybody who voted for so-and-so. I hear that all the time. But you have to decide whether not you're ruling out bonding over things that really matter much, much, much more and whether not you're being manipulated by people, baby boomers our age, that want to conscript more Gen Zers into our culture war. That's not good. All right. We've run out of time. We don't have time to keep doing. But we're going to do more. We've got more questions here. We've got more topics. I hope they like it. Yeah, for sure. And folks, if you do like this episode, give it a thumbs up, pass it around, and write in the comments. We want episodes two and three and whatever, right?

And if you don't want it, tell us that too. And we won't. I won't be offended. Yes, you will. No, I won't. Because you don't care about other people. No, no, I care. It's just one of the things that I admire the most about you.

So, folks, let us know your thoughts. I mean, I care, but a little. You care less than me. I care less than. And that's really how you will, my good is by helping me doing that. One of the many ways. Office hours at arthurbrooks.com. This is the email address.

Like and subscribe to Spotify, YouTube, an apple, leave a comment. I promise I'll read it. Even if it's negative, that helps too. Follow me on Instagram, on LinkedIn and all the socials. There's all kinds of interesting material that we put there that is not in this podcast. Get the newsletter. Order the meaning of your life, which is my newest book. And I have a YouTube too. You're YouTube. Exactly right. We have things together. Exactly right. That's a good point. What's your YouTube? What's your YouTube address? My name. Esther Moon Brooks. And if you want to know how to spell that, that's actually written. And the show notes here.

So you can actually see that. And you can also follow Esther on Instagram in all one word, Faith with Joy talks. And we'll put that in the show notes as well for you want to follow you on socials, which more and more people are doing. And we're linking our stuff together. I promise I want to obsess looking at how many followers I have, how many likes.

I mean, no, that's kind of addictive. So I'll be careful. So we're signing off now. Last word? I love you. I love you too. I will. You're good.

And I adore you. And I will the good of everybody who's listening because we are made to love.