On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Sadia Khan: Stop Ignoring Red Flags! (How to Train Your Brain to Know When To Walk Away)

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Does anything in your life feel a little “off” right now? Do you feel like you're settling for less than you deserve? Today, Jay sits down with Sadia Khan, psychotherapist and relationship expert, for a deep and unfiltered conversation on love, commitment, and emotional healing in the modern age. Known for her bold and counterintuitive insights, Sadia brings clarity to the often murky waters of dating, self-worth, and relationship dynamics. Sadia shares her powerful perspective on the importance of being able to walk away from disrespect, and how this one shift can transform who you attract and how you're treated. She challenges conventional dating advice by focusing not on what you attract—but what you entertain—highlighting the role of self-esteem in relationship choices. She explains why emotional unavailability feels attractive, how ghosting reflects poor communication habits, and why your dating app rejection might not be what you think it is. Jay and Sadia dive into the core issues many of her clients face, including infidelity, fear of commitment, and men struggling with masculinity. She unpacks how a lack of male role models, the ability to set boundaries, and people-pleasing behaviors can derail modern masculinity—and how both men and women can break these cycles to build healthier love. Sadia introduces the "Three A’s" women need to fall in love—Attraction, Admiration, and Adoration—and the "Three L’s" men need—Lust, Labor, and Loyalty—exploring how balance in these elements creates deep, lasting connection. She also breaks down why women might cheat on “nice” men and how misunderstanding emotional needs can lead to betrayal. In this episode, you’ll learn: How to Attract and Maintain Healthy Relationships. Why Self-Worth is the Foundation of Love. How to Avoid the Trap of Emotional Immaturity. What Makes Men and Women Truly Commit. The Real Reasons Behind Infidelity. How to Build Masculine Strength in a Healthy Way. Why Peace is Better than Constant Pleasure in Love. This conversation is a masterclass in emotional intelligence and healing. If you're navigating heartbreak, struggling with self-worth, or seeking a deep, lasting relationship—this episode is for you. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro  01:17 How to Stop Fearing Conflict and Start Choosing Yourself 02:24 Why We Fall for the Emotionally Unavailable 05:31 The Hidden Dangers of Dating Apps 07:01 Is Wanting Similarity the Same as Settling? 08:40 How to Stop Getting Ghosted in Modern Dating 09:31 The Early Signs of a Healthy Relationship 11:19 The Two Most Common Relationship Struggles: Infidelity and Commitment 12:19 What Happens When Men Lack Masculinity 15:25 Why Men Need Stronger Role Models 18:21 The Unspoken Contract Behind People-Pleasing 19:25 How to Show Love Without Seeking Approval 21:12 The Real Reason Women Cheat on Good Men 24:55 How to Teach Others How to Treat You 26:14 The Three A’s Every Woman Needs to Fall in Love 32:45 The Three L’s Every Man Needs to Stay in Love 36:10 How to Avoid Being Just a Temporary Fling 37:49 Why the Person You Date Isn’t Always the One You Marry 40:42 Sexual Discipline: Why It’s Essential for Self-Respect 42:29 What True Psychological Intimacy Really Looks Like 45:15 Lowering Your Standards May Cost You More Than You Think 46:10 Is Getting Cheated On Ever Partly Your Fault? 48:59 How to Recognize When You’re Being Disrespected 50:13 Are You Loyal to the Marriage or Just the Person? 52:45 The Most Honest Marriage Vow No One Talks About 56:50 Why Some Men Keep Choosing the Wrong Women 59:40 How to Know If You’re Afraid of Commitment 01:04:23 Can a Broken Relationship Be Fixed? 01:06:59 Why Knowing Your Deal Breakers Is Crucial 01:09:03 The Worst Thing to Say to Someone After a Breakup 01:09:56 Why So Many People Stay Stuck in Heartbreak 01:11:43 How to Find Closure Without an Apology 01:15:59 Not Everything You Want Is Good for You 01:66:54 Sadia on Final Five Episode Resources: Sadia Khan | Website Sadia Khan | Instagram Sadia Khan | TikTok Sadia Khan | YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart podcast. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Jay Shetty joins us. The people who need the most love often ask for it in the most unloving ways. So when I see someone's behavior, the first thing I try and think of is how is that a plea for love? Whatever behavior you see from someone, it's them asking for love in some way. And I think we see it in children the most where when a child's throwing a tantrum, they're simply asking for presence, love and connection. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the

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The moment you heal your self-esteem, you'll have a natural distaste towards things that are bad for you. People who don't love you, people who don't treat you right, how you know your self-esteem is improving is at the moment those people start treating you badly, you lose attraction to them.

The psychologist, teacher, and relationship expert. What would be your advice to someone who feels like they've got ghosted? Chances are they're hiding information. Ghosters, regardless of their reason, they're still poor communicators. The best predictor of future relationships is their past relationships. People are their patterns. My number one client is a man who's just been cheated on.

The women are cheating on the men. No! A lot more than I ever expected. What's the worst thing to say to someone who's just gone through a breakup? Well, you knew he was like that anyway, so what's the problem? What can a woman do to make sure a man doesn't cheat on her? Have a willingness to walk away when she's being disrespected. That's all it really takes. Wow. This is without a doubt my favorite relationship episode we've ever done.

The number one health and wellness podcast. J Shetty. J Shetty. The one, the only. J Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is going to help us do just that.

She is Sadia Khan, a renowned psychotherapist and former psychology teacher whose bold viral insights on modern relationships, masculinity and emotional healing have earned her a global following. Known for her no-nonsense approach, Sadia helps men and women navigate infidelity, identity and intimacy with clarity and strength. Sadia's mission is to empower people to reclaim their confidence, understand themselves and others and build real lasting love. Please welcome to On Purpose, Sadia Khan.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so unbelievably honoured to be sat opposite you and I know I've been gushing since I've arrived, but I can't express how grateful I am. Well, Saidi, the feeling's mutual. I've been loving following you for the past couple of years. And I can't wait to have this conversation with you because I think you present such a counterintuitive, refreshing, challenging view on love. And I appreciate it. So let's dive straight in.

Perfect. And I appreciate it. So let's dive straight in. Perfect. I want to ask you, if someone applied your teachings that you're about to share with us in the next couple of hours, what would they overcome? First thing that they would overcome is their fear of conflict. One of the things that keeps people stuck in relationships is that they have a fear of conflict because it boils down to the have a fear of walking away.

And if people understood that the quality of your relationships will vastly improve the moment you exercise the ability to walk away when you're being heartbroken, when you're being disrespected, and when you're being dehumanized, it actually brings out the best in your partner when they know that you have that strength. When you remove that strength from your relationships, what ends up happening is that you attract people who will use and abuse you and treat you terribly because they see that your kindness is going to be your downfall. So I think if you really apply my teachings, the only thing that will happen

is that you will have the self-esteem to simply attract people who are good for you and develop a disdain towards people who treat you badly. And because of that, you can select better and you can maintain your relationships in a healthier way. I love that. So people are going to select better, they're going to attract better, and they're going to stay in the right relationship. Exactly.

Let's start with the first one. Most people I speak to feel like they keep attracting people who are unavailable, people who don't want to commit, people who don't have the emotional capacity for connection. Why is it? It's not what we attract, it's what we entertain. Most people can attract pretty much everybody. Yeah, if we try hard enough, we can pretty much attract everybody. But when we have low self-esteem, we have these personal prophecies that people are supposed to be a bit unavailable, people are

supposed to pay a hard to get, or it's normal that he doesn't text back, or it's normal that he doesn't really ask me how my day is. It's normal that he only texts me at 12 a.m. on a Friday night. And because they believe that that's normalized to themselves, they start to accept what's actually not going to lead to a healthy relationship. The moment they figure out not what they're attracting, but what they're entertaining, they can take their power back and say, I'm actually attracting all types of men, but the ones I keep forming an attachment to are the ones that leave me a bit anxious

and the ones that leave me worrying about what this is and where this is going. Instead of being attracted to that, I start to learn that that is a signal that they've got commitment issues and all it's going to do is delay my time, delay my ability to get married, delay my ability to, you know, have a family and so on and so forth. So we can attract all types of men, but we only entertain the ones that will enable you to start a family and a relationship or whatever your goal is, they enable that. And if they don't enable that, try and lose attraction for them. Why do we feel more attracted to people who make us anxious and who are unavailable?

Why is it that we think that they're the ones worth chasing? Firstly, if we have low self-esteem, we kind of see as that this is supposed to happen. Nobody's supposed to just overly adore and love us. That's probably not going to happen. It's normal that we get treated like this, if that's your solo self-esteem. But the other thing is unavailable men, sometimes they demonstrate the idea of having options

and alternatives. Their mystery makes them seem more desirable. And because of that mystery, we assume that they've got something interesting going on. They've got alternatives. There's something about them that's making them busy and making them dismissive. When we really realize that it's actually they're just emotionally immature. They're not this special guy that's got a million things going and his work is taking over and he's so, so busy. Actually, he's just emotionally immature. He doesn't

know how to commit. He doesn't know how to ward off alternatives and just focus on one person at the time. When you realize that it's actually a signal of emotional immaturity and desirability, we actually won't be so attracted to that person who can't communicate in a healthy way. I think just spot on. When I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, if you want someone like anyone should, who texts back within a decent amount of time, that's not an abnormal request. And nobody is that busy.

I know like men like to say, I'm busy at work or I've got this going on, I'm that stressed. Completely understandable. But one text to let that person know will enable them to just relax the whole day. But you can't have the emotional maturity or the empathy to just send that quick text. Then that person doesn't understand what it takes to have a healthy relationship. And they're probably not worth your investment. Obviously, a lot of people these days aren't even getting that far because they're meeting people on dating apps. And so you're swiping away,

you might get into a conversation with two or three people. First of all, let's talk about this. You're not matching with anyone. Like no one, it doesn't feel like it's going that well. What do you say to men and women who feel like they've been rejected a few too many times and they're losing that faith and ability to feel that there is someone out there for them.

Just to be careful on, are you actually not matching or are you disliking who you're matching with? Sometimes what's happened is because of social media and because of dating apps, we enter relationships with almost like a double standard or a sense of comparison of comparing people to our algorithms. We're saying, well, if he's not the dream guy or if she's not the dream girl, if he's not a high value man

and she's not a high value woman, we start to look at our matches with a level of like distaste when sometimes a better thing to do is look at the people who are matching with you and try and see, are they actually that bad? Are they some, is there something wrong with them? Or am I just comparing them to a dream idea or a partner that I haven't actually been able to access?

I always just think the more you like the person you are, the higher your self-esteem, the more you like people who like you. The fact that the person that are matching you, automatically you start to like them more because they've matched you, because you like you and they like you as well. When you've got low self-esteem, you chase after people that you can't access. So my advice to people is always start with who likes you. Always start with that pool, and then home in on that pool and see if you've got similar demographics, values,

so on and so forth. But where people go wrong is they glorify the people that they're not matching with and wanting a love that they've never been able to access, and then comparing who they do get matched with with these alternatives that aren't really real. So the better thing is to focus on who does and maybe adapt your standards to those people who are actually invested in you.

It's so true. And I feel like what I'm thinking people are going to say is, well, why do I have to settle? If similarity feels like settling, then maybe your standards are too high. And what I mean by that is I sometimes will meet men who are in their, maybe in their forties on their second divorce and saying, I don't want a woman with baggage, so I need somebody 25 years old. I don't want women with baggage.

Or sometimes I'll meet women who are, you know, not working and they say, I want a man that's an entrepreneur and got six figures. But I always just say, shouldn't you be looking for someone similar to you? And if similar to you starts to feel like you're settling, then maybe your standards are a bit inflated. If what you're bringing to the table and what you're receiving, if you're asking for that, you're not asking for too much, but if you're asking for people to fill the gaps in your self-worth, maybe you do need to adapt your standards a little bit.

So ask yourself, does similarity feel like settling? If it does, then maybe we need to work on ourselves to be able to access people that we're actually craving. Yeah. It's so much of what you're talking about. It's just having awareness and honesty. I know. Like there's such a need to be honest with ourselves.

And it's harder, it's getting harder to become honest with ourselves because we are bombarded with advice from TikToks and advice from, you know, people that are giving advice about never settle, you're somebody's dream girl, or this is a high value woman. So we think that if we get anything less than what our algorithm is suggesting, we're settling. When really, as long as we're matched in terms of values and maturity and where we see ourselves in the future,

we're not truly settling. We're just finding somebody who's compatible. I mean, so many people on dating apps these days, their common experience has been ghosted. And I'm sure you've heard from a million people about feeling like, hey, we were having a good chat and this person just disappeared. What would be your advice to someone who feels like they've got ghosted? I would say try and have the reasonable expectations.

Unfortunately, in the digital world, people see each other as disposable. And there's very minimal investment. So they don't always feel like they owe somebody an explanation. And usually when they're ghosting, it's either they've met alternatives or they might have just been on the app to buy some time to heal from a heartbreak. They're not truly looking for a partner. They're just looking to kind of heal some or kind of recover from some kind of stress that they're going through as a coping mechanism.

So if they're ghosting, you try not to take it too personal. But if you've been dating that person and then they ghost you, chances are they're hiding information. Ghosters, regardless of their reason, they're still poor communicators. And whatever the reason that they have for ghosting you, the bigger reason is they're not great at communicating. So try and reduce your attraction to people who can't communicate well. What are the signs when you are dating someone or you're starting to have those early conversations with people, do you think people miss but should be looking out for

that shows signs of a healthy, positive relationship? I would say that sometimes the best predictor of future relationships is their past relationships. And one thing I think people kind of forget is that their patterns don't truly lie. And if you meet a man or a woman even in their late 30s, early 40s, and never been a committed relationship, and you think everything's going well, and for some reason they ghost you or they're no longer in a committed relationship, sometimes that's just their patterns. Maybe they struggle with commitment. Or if you find that these people in previous relationships were always unfaithful or in

previous relationships it never really went past three months, chances are people are their patterns. So just try and pay. It doesn't mean you judge them completely, but pay attention to if they do fall off and they don't want to commit, it might not be personal. It might just be their pattern in previous relationships where they're just not used to settling down. They don't know how to.

They don't have the skills and tools to. So they will find it difficult. Other people, because they've always been in four or five-year-long relationships, they only have the habits for long-lasting relationships. So even when you've just started dating, they'll kind of treat you like a girlfriend and it can accelerate into a relationship a bit faster. So their previous patterns is something to pay attention to.

And that second pattern can also be negative. Yeah. Because you could just get into a relationship too quickly with someone. Because they're just in those habits. Exactly. They're not actually compatible. They're just in those habits. Particularly if they've just come out of a relationship,

they might just be in the habit of calling everywhere every day, arranging to see you on the weekends, doing all those things, which feels great. But if they're not actually healed, it will turn into love bombing because they're accelerating the residual feelings from their previous relationship onto you. And it kind of accelerates the relationship faster than what the psychological compatibility is. So you might find yourself catapulted into a relationship by somebody who is just in that habit of doing that. And that can also be a problem.

What are the top three things that people you guide and coach and follow you in social media come to you for and say their number one issue is? Oh, for men, they do suffer from a lot of infidelity with the women that are cheating on the men. A lot more than I ever expected. Really? That's blowing my mind right now. My number one client is a man who's just been cheated on by a woman.

And because there's not much talk about this on social media, and there's not much talk about this in general, we're almost programmed to think men cheat. 100%. It's rare that you find the idea of women cheating. And men don't actually talk to each other when they've been cheated on. They kind of keep it to themselves because they're almost embarrassed or ashamed. Whereas women, we can confide in each other a bit more. So my number one client tends to be the man that's been cheated on. They kind of keep it to themselves because they're almost embarrassed or ashamed. Whereas women, we can confide in each other a bit more.

So my number one client tends to be the man that's been cheated on or the woman that can't get the man to commit. That tends to be the two fields I kind of have that seem to attract in terms of clients. But men getting cheated on or men not being masculine enough tends to be the common theme of my clients that keep coming back in. Let's talk about both of those things because they're both fascinating. So let's start with men not being masculine enough. What does that mean? Because I think for a long time we were hearing men are not feminine enough or men don't show their emotions or men can't have emotional connection.

That's the issue. But you're actually saying it's the opposite. It's actually the opposite. And the genuine, because look, we're living in a time, particularly in a city like LA, where men are almost divided into being too nice and not masculine enough or toxic masculinity. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground. And men who have masculinity, they have these three traits

in common that I noticed. Firstly, they grew up without a male role model. So what may have happened is they grew up in a single parent home and they saw their mom making all the decisions, doing all the hard work, doing the emotional and physical labor. And they think that's what women want. They think that's okay. So when they go into relationships, they think that woman wants to make all the decisions. She wants to do everything around the house. She wants to be in

control. And really they're looking for a man whose decision-making they trust enough for them to finally be able to relax. But instead they think that that's what women want. So when they get into relationships, they're not decisive, they're not problem solving, they allow her to take complete lead, and they almost follow her too much. And at first that might be fine. Women might find that a bit attractive, like, okay, perfect, he's very docile and passive. But later on they find that man exhausting, particularly

when they have children and they can't rely on him to make any decisions because he almost doesn't trust his own judgment and he doesn't have that protective or provider instinct. So she kind of has to end up doing a dual role. But the biggest thing I find with men that lack masculinities is they have a problem setting boundaries. And the effective way to set a boundary is to find the perfect balance between being stern and sensitive. What some men will be is too stern and they'll want to set a boundary and they get abusive

at the same time. They're like, you can't do this. You're so... And they've got a name call and they get too much, too stern. Other men are too sensitive. They get too soft with it. So they don't know how to set it. They allow any kind of behavior and then they kind of suppress what they're truly feeling.

To get the right balance, you have to be stern with what you want from that person, but be really sensitive to her needs and understand what she wants and remind her how much you love her and you want to save this relationship, and that's why you're setting the boundary. So it might be something like if she's talking to an ex or something like that. You might be stern and saying, I don't feel comfortable that you're talking to an ex, but the sensitive part is because I love you and I really want this relationship to work and I really want us to have a healthy pattern. I don't want comfortable that you're talking to an ex, but the sensitive part is because I love you and I really want this relationship to work. And I really want us to have a healthy pattern. I don't want any outside interference.

So getting that balance is something that guys that suffer with masculinity don't get right. And if they could just get that perfect balance of sternness and sensitivity, they'll be able to set boundaries a lot better. Yeah, you are right. I've seen the abusive for sure. Yeah. I've seen a lot of men who feel like they just want a submissive partner who does what they want, when they want. And... There's no love in there.

There's no love there. There's no actual love there. They're setting all these boundaries, but they're aggressive with it. They're not reminding her that they love her. They don't even show her that they love her, but they want her to obey him. That's no way to set a boundary. And other men are just too on the soft side and then she forgets what he actually truly wants because he's kind of people pleasing. So finding that balance is something that's become difficult.

Yeah. It's so interesting you said that because I was thinking about, so my mom was the breadwinner in my house and she did everything for me and my sister. And my dad was aloof. He was kind of checked out. And it's so interesting, you said, the male role model piece, because two things happened for me. One thing was my male role models were monks who were really good men.

And then on the other side, I saw my mom's strain and struggle and pain. And that made me want to be a better man. But that's because she was vulnerable with me about it. So because I could see that my mum didn't have an easy life, I was convinced that when I got married, if I ever got married, that I would never let my wife work that hard. But that's a really common trait that the other type of men experience. Some men, because they saw their mum really struggle,

they just want to relieve their partner of all struggles. So the other way that they can go is that they want to save a lot of women. And what ends up happening is that they really want to make sure that she has no troubles and she lives a life of complete comfort. The problem is when you remove or struggle from anybody's life, they lose purpose. And they actually resent you for not allowing them to problem solve themselves. So some men in that position, what they'll end up doing, I'm not saying this is you, but generally sometimes those men, they want to protect their partner from any kind of pain and stress.

And in the process of doing that, they can either become a bit people pleasing or just solve every problem that she could potentially have. Either or, she doesn't actually get to fulfill her own potential and it can lead to resentment. So either way, unfortunately, the lack of male role model has a significant impact on how they behave with women. Yeah, I love that perspective and it's such a fine line. And I would argue that probably while I was dating, I was that kind of guy. It was only when I got married to Radhi did I upgrade to actually realising that I needed my partner to also pursue her purpose, discover what it was, understand it. And that took a while.

Yeah. And did you find that? Do you have that habit? Because a lot of men in that position, sometimes they'll choose women that are heavily, heavily traumatized or they choose women that have never had any work and no work. Or they might choose somebody who is just really struggling with some addictions. And they like that because then they're like, I can just show you and help you and help you recover. But the problem is sometimes when those women do recover, they want a man with higher self-esteem, somebody who wouldn't tolerate so much

of that negative behavior. So they actually- Wow. Yeah, so sometimes I'll meet men who like, she had this addiction, she was an alcoholic, she was traumatized from sexual abuse. I helped her get through all of it. But when she's recovered, she's actually looking at him like,

why did you tolerate all of that? Why did you select this? There must be something wrong with you. I actually want somebody who's got a higher selection process now. Sometimes they can lose that woman that they have. And women suffer from this as well. They think that if I just show him I'm consistent, caring and love him, I'll get in through the addictions.

When he finally recovers, he actually looks for somebody with higher self-esteem. And they end up, all that investment can sometimes go to waste. But isn't that so heartbreaking? It is. Because that was love in its best form. If someone was patient while you healed and they supported you, like aren't we moving away from love if we leave someone who is there for us in our darkest times? They are, but sometimes they don't know if you are there

because you love them or you're seeking their approval. Right. And a lot of people, sometimes they are approval seeking and mask that through helping. They will help that person financially, help that person with every single problem that they have, but there's an unconscious contract that the more I help you, the more you will love me in return.

And sometimes we can see through it when it's not genuine. And when that person can see through that this was all done with a contract assigned to it, that one day you will then be loyal, loving and committed to me, they didn't agree to sign that contract. So when they're healed, they can become ungrateful to the person that helped them. Yeah, that makes so much sense. So it just depends what the unconscious contract is when you're helping people. I love that unconscious contract.

Yeah, you're so right that if you're doing it just to say, look, I was there for you. Yeah. I was there the whole time. You should love me more now. People sense that. People sense that. How do you communicate to someone that you're there for the right reasons?

That you have those boundaries. So how you communicate, because I suffer from that as well. I like to be super, super helpful because then I'm like, I'm so irreplaceable. If I do all of these things, I'm so irreplaceable. And there's unconscious ego attached to that. It's like, look how wonderful I am because I saw you through all your financial woes and all this stuff. But really the best way to communicate that you're there for love and not for approval is that you still have deal breakers.

Where people go wrong is that they are literally a doormat. There's nothing you can do that will make them ever leave. Whereas where you're still loving, but you're not approval seeking is there's a limit to how much you can take. And if there's not at least gratitude, respect, honor and loyalty, you will leave. Whereas if you have no deal breakers whatsoever

and you're just consistently loving this person who is just taking from you, it signals low self-esteem to that person and it signals an incorrect attachment. You know what, I love talking to you because this, just everything you're talking about is like getting into the real like nuance. Like there's this gray layer of in between

of all these ideas and that's really what makes all the difference. But first, here's a quick word from the brands that support the show. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Jay Shetty joins us. The people who need the most love often ask for it in the most unloving ways. So when I see someone's behaviour, the first thing I try and think of is how is that a plea for love? Whatever behaviour you see from someone, it's them asking for love in some way. And I think we see it in children the most

where when a child's throwing a tantrum, they're simply asking for presence, love and connection. And I think we're all just big children who are still asking for love, still seeking that approval, still wanting that connection and that embrace. And also to meet everything with love, right? When you can come from a place of love, even when you're dealing with anger or frustration

or any of the things that don't make you feel good to just return it with love is a beautiful lesson. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. With the LPGA underway, you can be closer than a caddy with Mel Reed and Kira Dixon, hosts of Quiet Please. We're so honored to have Michelle Wee West on the show, five time winner on the LPGA tour. Listen in as they hit the driver off the deck in an up close and personal conversation with this professional badass. Most anathletic, incredible athlete I've ever met.

Tea time is now, so open your free iHeart app, search Quiet Please and listen now. My husband has a secret son from a past partner. Hold up Sam, how do we know how we done the DNA test? Well John, luckily it's mother may have a DNA test week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. And this wife writes, my husband received a Facebook message from a woman saying

that he is the father of a five-year-old. Whoa! At first he didn't remember her, but then he realized they had a one-night stand right before we started dating. Wait, but do we have proof he's a dad? Well, the author says there's no confirmation the kid is even his son,

but the woman from Facebook has a meeting with her lawyer soon. I think she's going after our money. If the kid is actually my husband's, she would be entitled to it too. So what's a husband gotta say about this? This could be his kid. Well, apparently he broke down

in the middle of the living room apologizing, but this is what scared me. His first instinct, if the kid is his son, is to pay the child support, but not be an active father in the kid's life because he only wants a family with me, his wife. Oh, this is a mess. To hear the explosive finale,

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I've gotten in a lot of trouble for saying this in the past, and I'll say it again, usually in my experience of when women cheat on men, it's not so much that, you know, he's done something toxic. I've met women who are in toxic relationships and stayed loyal the whole time. It's simply when he lacks masculinity, they are most likely to cheat. I don't actually see women often cheating on a toxic man. They are actually quite loyal to him. They're more likely to cheat on the man that is too passive, too naive, and too people-pleasing.

And the reason for that is because there's something about that man that is so soft, so naive, that makes her lose sexual attraction. Something about the fact that he can't spot red flags, something about the fact that he believes everything, he doesn't question anything, he's afraid to assert his boundaries, makes a woman crave somebody with a bit more masculinity. So it's not so much that they're cheating on him because he's so bad to her, because I've met so many women saying, he's a wonderful man, he treats me really, really well.

I'm just not in love with him. And usually the reason why she's not in love with him is because he's not protective enough. And some men will provide, but what we mean by protective is she might be out all day with her ex-boyfriend and he won't get protective and say, hey, babe, no, I don't feel comfortable.

Or she might be doing disrespect to him or anything like that, and he doesn't stand up for himself. And in those moments when a man doesn't stand up for himself, she loses that respect and then she crosses new boundaries because mainly she believes he will stay regardless. And when we give our partners the belief that regardless of how you behave, I will forgive and maintain consistent, I'll love you regardless, we think we're showing them unconditional love, but what they'll end up doing is thinking that we are going to tolerate unconditional

disrespect and they end up just pushing our boundaries more and more. So what does he do? So what he does is make sure he's aware of when he's being disrespected and we naturally, human beings in general, and I think this is men and women, if you ever want to prevent yourself from getting cheated on, it's not so much that you have to spot the red flags in the other person. Sometimes you can become a person who never gets cheated on. No matter what relationship you go in, you can become immunized to it. And the way to become immunized to being cheated on is number one, understanding

your partner's true needs, understanding what they actually need in a relationship and asking yourself, can I commit to that? So some people will be in a relationship with somebody who's got a really high sex drive. They just can't meet that need. If you know you can't, at some point that relationship is going to suffer. Or sometimes you might meet a partner who really needs financial support and you can't meet that need. At some point that relationship will break down. So understand your partner's true needs. The second thing is knowing that if they did cheat on you, you would leave.

If you give the signals to your partner that you wouldn't leave no matter what they do, and you don't meet the needs of each other, chances are that relationship will end in infidelity. But if you meet each other's needs and you have a rule, both of you have a particular rule, like if it did happen, I'm going to leave, there's no two ways about it. Chances are your partner won't take that risk.

They only take that risk when they believe unconsciously you're going to accept their behavior regardless of what they do. And the signals of that come earlier on. So it might be early signals that you catch that they're still on Tinder, you forgive them. You go through their phone, you find that they're still talking to other people, you forgive them. You forgive the footsteps too many times. I'm not saying you become toxic and don't forgive anything, but you let them know that this behavior is not something I tolerate. You can do it. No problem.

But I'm not going to stick around for it. When they learn that you mean what you say, they'll naturally improve. But if they see that you make a big hoo-ha, you scream and shout, but you actually tolerate more and more disrespect, you give them the signal that you'll accept any behavior and they start taking more risks if it's the wrong person. What happens when someone is not in an abusive way, but they are disrespecting you. You make them aware that they're disrespecting you in a assertive way,

but they keep doing it. What do you do? When you can't change others, you have to change yourself. And the only thing you can do is withdraw and remove access. Unfortunately, that's the only way to teach people how to treat you correctly, is you remove the perks of being with you. And if they don't, if they, and some people are scared to do that because they worry, then I'll lose them.

But you'll lose a person who's going to continuously get more disrespectful. We're so scared of being alone. Yeah. And we're so scared of not being with someone that I think we continue to accept that disrespect. I know, but sometimes it's more lonely staying with the wrong person. And this is why I think having a good social network is as important as having a good healthy relationship.

A healthy relationship without a social network will lead to codependency, but your social network is so, so important because what it does is as the relationship starts to fall apart, that fear of walking away when you need to is lessened. But when you don't have a social network, as that relationship starts to fall apart, you will tolerate more and more abuse because you're just so afraid of being alone, which we all are. We all are, but having a good social network acts as a buffer for that. Yeah.

I mean, when I'm listening to you talk about the type of man that women won and the fact that if he's too much of a pushover, too sensitive, too much of a, you know, walk over, they lose respect. They may cheat. They may cheat. And from my work, what I've noticed is women fall in love in three stages. And if any of those stages are missing, the relationship will either And from my work, what I've noticed is women fall in love in three stages. And if any of those stages are missing, the relationship will either break down very quickly

or it will break down very slowly, but it will break down. And I call it the three A's and I have like a program on it. The first thing is women have to be truly attracted to their man in order for the relationship to actually turn into love at some stage. There has to be physical attraction. Because naturally that fades with time and you know, with so much familiarity, if we don't have that to begin with, it can become very difficult to start a romantic relationship. This is why we have so many friends, so many male friends, because if we're not truly attracted

to him, even if he's wonderful, we can't start a romantic relationship. So I always say it starts with attraction. The second stage for a woman to truly fall in love with a man, she has to admire who he is. And what that means is, with or without her influence, he's just a man that she admires. He's got a great job, he's got a good network of friends, he's got lots of self-control. He's not an addict and he's not addicted. He's got good level of self-control in terms of money, his body, his sexual behavior, he's not all over the place. So she truly

admires him. And then once she's attracted and admires him, then she needs adoration from him. He needs to show is attracted and admires Him, then she needs adoration from Him. He needs to show her, adore her, reassure her, all of those things. If she gets all three of those, chances are that our relationship won't break down. But if any of those are missing, maybe He adores her, absolutely adores her, but she's not truly attracted to Him,

at some stage the relationship will break down because that adoration will feel like neediness. Or let's say, for example, she's truly attracted to him and he's giving her lots of reassurance, but he's not an admirable man. He's not working, he's not achieving, he's not doing a lot. Even though she might love him and it might be a slow breakdown, but at some stage she'll need someone she can admire, particularly when she has children. So without those three ingredients, I don't think women realize this,

but if any of those are missing, they will at some stage lose interest. That's a great three-step formula. And I think so much of the time we get so hooked on the attraction part. Yes. That we overvalue it compared to the other two. So if he's not six foot four and he's not got, you know, a particular colored hair or whatever it is, right? Like the physical appearance becomes so much more overvalued than the other two.

Or the admiration piece becomes so overvalued. So, if he's not making enough money, he's not... How do you kind of look at them as... Are they equal? Are they overvalued? They're actually equal. They're actually equal. If you have lots of physical attraction, you admire him lots, but he's not showing you any admiration that will literally turn into a toxic relationship.

You'll be begging for hugs and kisses and he won't give it to you. You'll be begging for him to give you compliments. He won't give it to you, but you won't. You'll be stuck because you're like, I know he's a good man. So many women come to me and say, I know he's a good man. He's got a great job. He's such a good, he's so good at his work. All his friends love him.

She admires him and she's attracted to him, but he doesn't adore her. She suffers a lot. He will start rejecting her sexually. He doesn't remind her she's beautiful. She feels so invisible around him, but she's stuck because she's like, on paper, he's a great man. So she's got two of those ingredients. Other times, and this is where the nice guy suffers, she's got so much adoration, so much reassurance. He loves her. He adores her. He's a good man, but she's just not attracted to him. And she's pushing herself to really love him. But she just simply can't find the physical attraction.

And then she kind of thinks, gaslights herself, and be like, am I an evil person? How can I not love him? There's nothing wrong with you. It's just those three ingredients, if they're not there. And I know it sounds like we're being super fussy, but it doesn't have to be super fussy. My husband's no oil painting. It's just those three ingredients, if they're not there. And I know it sounds like we're being super fussy, but it doesn't have to be super fussy. My husband's no oil painting.

It's not that. It's just the fact that I am attracted. It's as simple as that. And it doesn't mean he's cured cancer. I just admire the person he is. That's all it is. It doesn't have to be extreme. It's just that I've got attraction and admiration and the adoration.

You just need your level of that. Missing those ingredients is either a quick end because it will be toxic, it's just not giving you the love you need, or it will be a slow one because you're not truly attracted. But either way, it will break down. I think the key part of that is though, what you just said in regards to your own husband,

is it's about how you feel. That's all. And I think the challenge going back to what we were talking about earlier, is so many of our expectations of our partner are based on like, do my friends like them? Do they have a good online presence? Are they successful at their job compared to... And it's like, you can only look at it through your angle

because you could compare forever and no matter how successful your partner is, they'd always be second to someone else out there in the world. Especially in this day and age. They always like, not everybody's going to have a husband that is great at writing poems and singing songs about them. But he still adores you in his way. And that works for you. You don't know.

And you know, sometimes some girls will be like, oh my God, you go 50-50 with your husband? I could never. But if that works in your marriage and you're both doing the best you can, that's perfect. Like, it's totally fine. You don't have to compare yourself to the standards that have been hijacked by TikTok

memes. Just as long as it works for you, no problem. But if you miss those ingredients, unfortunately at some stage you'll realize that the relationship is not quite working. And it doesn't mean you become extra fussy. It just means you pay attention to this and you figure out which of those is missing and try and work on that. Maybe the adoration is missing.

Try and work on that. Maybe the attraction is missing. There's nothing wrong with telling your partner, babe, I would love it if we start working out together. There's nothing wrong with doing that. But if we miss those things and then we ignore the resolution, unfortunately our relationships will suffer. I think that's my favorite checklist I've ever had.

It's just, it's simple, but it works. No, no, no, but it's simple, but it's really powerful. Because it's not just a random checklist, it's things you could actually observe in how you feel. And you're right, it's all three. It's just all three. Because often the admiration piece just over clouds the other stuff. And I always say to someone, you're not marrying someone's resume. Yeah.

You're not dating someone's bank balance. And I, because I live in Dubai, I see this a lot. They'll meet a CEO, he's an entrepreneur and he pays all the bills. He's fantastic. He really is fantastic at that. But either she's not attracted to him or he's too busy to give her any adoration. At some stage you'll crave it. If we could just do one and just live a relationship on one,

I would tell women to just focus on one. Some men are better at doing one. They're just physically attracted and they're kind of happy with that. But it's an empty lie. But I think for women, we really crave all three of them. Outside of that, honestly, it doesn't matter. If he buys you flowers every day, if he writes you poems, if he makes TikToks with you or not, they really don't matter.

Just have those three, you'll be fine, God willing. So those are the three A's for women. What about for men? It's the three L's I call it for men. The first one is they do need some lust. I know it sounds really shallow, but if they're not sexually attracted to you, no matter how wonderful you are,

no matter what the relationship is like, especially in this day and age where they're saturated with porn, they will shift their attention elsewhere. So there has to be some level of lust. And what I mean by lust is they're attracted to you, but there's sexual connection between you, there's synergy in that area.

The second thing, and I think men don't realize this, is that we actually need, they need some labor invested in their partner. And what I mean by that is emotional and financial labor invested in their partner. Some men will think, oh, she's successful. She doesn't need any financial investment, or she doesn't need any emotional, she's strong.

They just need it. The moment they invest in a woman, they're more likely to see that relationship go through. If he's not taking her anywhere, not doing anything for her, if the relationship ends, he's not bothered. Basically, if he's invested in her, he's taken her to places, he's bought a few things, he's done it, he's invested emotionally and financially to her, he's more likely to want to see that relationship work out. And the final thing is the loyalty. If they don't become loyal and there's no loyalty in that relationship and they've got their options open, they're not truly in love. They need those three things in order for them to truly be in love.

They need to firstly lust, have some lust, put some labour into that relationship, and then they need to be loyal. If they say that, I'm in love with you but I'm not loyal, truly they're missing something. And they need to feel loyal to that. They need it reciprocated. If you're not loyal to them and they still love you, that's actually, they're stuck in the lust stage. They need reciprocated loyalty in order for it to be truly a healthy relationship. And then they're fine after that.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they're fine. We don't care about them. They'll be fine. Yeah. No, no, it makes a lot of sense. I'm thinking about just, I feel like you've totally reframed what people should be looking for. Can I ask you though, because I might be wrong. From a man's perspective, is that correct or not really? Is there something that you would say that you need a little bit more or less of? Let me think on that, it's a great question.

Because what I'm trying to say is that, because sometimes I meet men and they meet a wonderful woman. They've put a lot of energy, invested a lot into her, they're very loyal to each other, but because there's no attraction left, they turn to pornography too much. And that is a very slippery slope. And that's why a little bit, they need some lust in there first and foremost, before those other properties can be valued in a woman.

Well, I mean, it goes back to what we were saying earlier. You told us why women cheat. This is why men cheat. Yeah, unfortunately. It's a big factor. And I know we like to think that people cheat simply because they're narcissists and simply because they're like that. There are some men that come that way.

There are some men that genuinely, no matter who they're with, no matter what the relationship is, they're too broken to be faithful. They feel uncomfortable being faithful. They're going to cheat on everyone. But a lot of the time, they are deprived of intimacy. Either because they just didn't choose a woman that was attracted to them to begin with, or they ruin the intimacy by inviting too much pornography

or alternatives into the relationship, and now they've got no intimacy left with their partner. But when they do lose the intimacy, they lose the motivation to be loyal. They think they're more likely to be loyal to a woman that gives them good intimacy than a woman that gives them a good life. Because they think why their motivation to be loyal decreases as their sexual intimacy dies in their relationship.

So they're more likely to be open to it. So I always tell people try and guard your marriage by embedding the intimacy in it as regularly as you can. No, I think you've hit the core root things that people are looking for and how they show up is always different. Yes. And I think that's why I was saying earlier, it feels like you've hit the core at the root of what's needed.

Trying to. I don't think you've missed anything. I'm just sitting with it. But I think anything that I would say are only things that are part of those. Part of those, yeah. Like for example, you know, the loyalty piece includes respect. Yeah. Like both people are looking of those. Part of those, yeah. Like for example, you know, the loyalty piece includes respect. Yeah. Like both people are looking for respect.

I think that the loyalty piece includes like, they believe in your goals and you believe in theirs. Like there's root causes you found. And I think sometimes as women, we can remove the labour part, hoping that he will think that we're so low maintenance, he won't put any investment in us, it won't be so easy. We become the hookup girl.

So what I mean by that is if we remove his ability to put labor into us, we don't say to him, like, let's go on dates. We don't say like, look, when are we getting married? There's no emotion. We don't burden him with any problems. And we say, no, no, let's just be cool. We think that being cool,

eventually he'll lead to us commitment and he'll become loyal to us. Actually, he has to put the labor in, in order for us to see it as something worth being loyal to. So, if we deprive them of that, we actually are enhancing the chances of us just being a hookup short-term fling. Yeah, that's how you avoid being the fling. Avoid being the fling. It's making it so easy for them. And I know it's so tempting because sometimes you're thinking,

he's such a lovely guy, really attracted to him. And if I insist on a few dates or if I insist on like maybe going away together, maybe I'll lose him. But you'll only lose people who are not willing to invest in you anyway. So, unfortunately, being too easy can work. I'm not saying it never works. But at the same time, it doesn't motivate them in any way, shape or form to actually make this serious because they've got it so easy.

What's the difference between the woman a man dates and the woman a man marries? I would say the key difference is the element of stability and responsibility. And what I mean by that is being with a man who is super social, who's a big drinker and has got all these friends and busy all day, every day, and got this amazing life is great for dates. You get to go on great vacations with them. You get to go to nice restaurants and so on and so forth. But when we get, when it comes to getting married, if you don't look for a man with a lot of self-control,

you will really suffer. And what I mean by this is that he needs to have self-control in terms of his sexual discipline, he needs self-control in terms of what he puts into his body, even the food he eats, everything, and he needs self-control when it comes to his money. If in those areas he's got no self-control for dating, no problem. It doesn't matter. Yeah, he can be sexually wild, he can spend all for dating, no problem. It doesn't matter. He can be sexually wild. He can spend all his money.

No problem. You can enjoy a great life. When you marry a man like that, every day is anxiety. Every single day is anxiety because his lack of self-control will lead to a lack of self-respect and as a result, he'll have such low self-esteem that you can't trust him to make decisions. But men with lots of self-control, you can trust that they make great decisions. You can trust their judgment. and you can finally start a family or start your goals. But you can't do that with men who have got no

self-control. Do you know what the amazing thing is that I was listening to you, I was thinking about like men don't learn that anywhere. No, they don't. It's so hard. Like if I never lived as a monk, I wouldn't have any sense control. What was your biggest lesson of living with monks? I mean, a big part of it is sense control. Like you don't, you eat what you're given,

you're celibate while you're there. There's complete focus and determination on the path. And so there were so many amazing mental mastery tools that I gained in terms of discipline and organization that I don't know where else I would have learned them. Can you excel as a man without self-control, do you think? I don't think so. It's an impossibility, isn't it?

Yeah, no, that's why I love what you're saying. I just feel bad because I can't think of... It's the opposite that actually we're told, men are being told that be with as many women as you can. Be have zero sexual discipline and you know, you can kind of eat whatever and there's always an ozempic, so don't worry about it. We're actually being told to reduce our self-control and replace it with hedonism. Follow your impulses and you only live once, just do it.

That kind of mentality when it comes to drinking, when it comes to food, when it comes to money, just spend, spend, spend, all these things. Unfortunately, we're pushing men into a slow and steady depression because we're reducing the importance of self-control and replacing it with self-indulgence. And that is a slow suicide for a man. He will only start to respect himself when he can control himself. And only when he can control himself, he can then excel. And if you pick a man who can't control himself, you'll spend the rest of your life trying to control him and it will bring out the worst side of you. You'll become a mother to a child you'd never wanted to adopt. Wow. That mic drop.

That was so powerful. It's, as I'm listening to you, I'm just sitting here thinking how much there is a need in helping men realize that mental mastery, sense control, discipline, are what's going to find the right person. But I think the problem is men also believe that if they're the life of the party, if they're the big spender, if they're the big guy at the party, that's what's going to

attract the right person. It will attract a chaotic person. There are women, lots of women that were like that. There are lots and lots of women that were like that. You're a big spender, you're spending on bottles, you're going drinking all night, and you're the life and soul of the party, but it will attract women who want a fast life,

don't probably don't want to invest in you. They're probably not going to be there when you're suffering and you're on a downward spiral. My reason I'm so strict on men when it comes to self-discipline and sexual discipline in particular is we live in a time where men don't really get a say in, when a baby is born, it's not really up to them if that child stays or not. Women have the right, I don't know what it's like in America, but usually we get to control if we want to keep the baby or don't want to keep the baby.

And as a result, we get some autonomy. If it's the wrong man, perfect, we don't have to suffer the consequences. But with men, if you get the wrong person and you don't have a good relationship and then you bring children into that mix, you create a generation of broken children. And you are more responsible for that, yeah? Because you have to be more careful than women do because we still have autonomy. We can get rid of a child if we need to.

You can't really have that much say in it. So you have to be so disciplined with who you are laying down with. And if you're rude, I know men who have ruined their families just because they couldn't control themselves sexually or just because they couldn't have that right conversation with their wife and say, look, I'm missing the intimacy. Maybe we should just part. Instead, they just light a flame into their own home and

then suffer the consequences. So sexual discipline is a really, really important one for men followed by financial discipline. And then of course, in terms of your food and your health and stuff like that, I think is really important. What's your take on women sleeping with men too early? I think it's really difficult for women because a lot of women do want to preserve themselves. They don't want to jump into sleeping with men so early.

But what they're finding in this day and age is if they don't lead with that, then men don't even want to know them anymore. Men have no longer wanted to invest in getting to know them psychologically or anything like that. So they're almost stuck between, am I just going to stay lonely forever? Or do I end up just sleeping with men who I'm not even that keen on, but I have to stay in the game? So they are almost stuck between am I just going to stay lonely forever or do I end up just sleeping with men I'm not even that keen on but I have to stay in the game So they are really stuck But what I would say is try not to accelerate your physical intimacy above the psychological intimacy You can sleep with them that same day, but if you've really had strongest psychological intimacy

You know where you two are going. You are in a good place with each other do whatever you want But if you don't have that all the sex will do is enhance your own insecurities, enhance your own anxieties about the relationship. And then it will leave you dampened into the dating market when you go back into it and negativity with a new man and the new man. So it just lowers your own self-esteem. So try and accelerate the psychological intimacy first. How would you define psychological intimacy versus like like we're just excited by being together?

Chemistry. Yeah. It's difficult. Chemistry is how much you're enjoying the person's company. You can have great chemistry with everybody. Psychological intimacy is how much you're similar in your goals and values. So how similar... I can enjoy the company of somebody really easily. No, it's not a problem. But you might realize that they're still, you know, they're still partying a lot. Maybe they're still on drugs.

Maybe they're doing that. But psychological intimacy is, do we have the same vision of where we see ourselves in five, six, ten years time? And are we both aligned in the values that will take us there? And if we've got an alignment, you're probably quite intimate. If you haven't got an alignment, you can enjoy them, but chances are it won't be a long lasting relationship.

Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our sponsors. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Jay Shetty joins us. The people who need the most love often ask for it in the most unloving ways. So when I see someone's behavior, the first thing I try and think of is how is that a plea for love? Whatever behavior you see from someone, it's them asking for love in some way. And I think we see it in children the most where when a child's throwing a tantrum, they're simply asking for presence, love and connection. And I think we're

all just big children who are still asking for love, still seeking that approval, still wanting that connection and that embrace. And also to meet everything with love, right seeking that approval, still wanting that connection and that embrace. And also to meet everything with love, right? When you can come from a place of love, even when you're dealing with anger or frustration or any of the things that don't make you feel good, to just return it with love is a beautiful lesson.

Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. September 1979. Virginia's top prison band, Edge of Daybreak, is about to record their debut album Behind Bars in just five hours. I'm Jamie Petrus, music and culture writer. For the past five years, I've been talking to the band's three surviving members. They're out of prison now and in their 70s. Their past behind them. But they also have some unfinished business.

The end of their break, eyes of love, was supposed to have been followed up by another album. It's a story about the liberating power of music, the American justice system, and ultimately, second chances. Listen to Soul Incarcerated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My husband has a secret son from a past partner. Hold up Sam, how do we know, have we done the DNA test?

Well, John, luckily it's mother may have a DNA test week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. And this wife writes, my husband received a Facebook message from a woman saying that he is the father of a five-year-old. Whoa! At first, he didn't remember her,

but then he realized they had a one night stand right before we started dating. Wait, but do we have proof he's a dad? Well the author says there's no confirmation the kid is even his son, but the woman from Facebook has a meeting with her lawyer soon. I think she's going after our money. If the kid is actually my husband's, she would be entitled to it too. So what's a husband got to say about this?

This could be his kid. Well apparently he broke down in the middle of the living room apologising, but this is what scared me. His first instinct, if the kid is his son, is to pay the child support but not be an active father in the kid's life because he only wants a family with me, his wife. Oh, this is a mess. To hear the explosive finale, follow OK Storytime on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now, let's get back to the episode.

I like the idea that physical intimacy should follow the pace of psychological intimacy. Because then there's actual closeness. Yeah. And you're not using physical closeness as a substitute for actually having a deeper, meaningful connection. And a lot of people do that. Sometimes they've got with somebody, they're so physically intimate, and then they're discovering things that they have nothing in common with each other. But because they've now slept together, they're kind of prolonging this relationship

longer than it needs to. It's almost like dragging a dead horse. So if they can accelerate, and I know it's difficult because it's hard competing with men that push for it, or we're living in a world where men will ask for pictures straight away and stuff like that. So it's hard for the woman that is, and I always say this, it's really difficult for the woman with good intentions to find a man in this day and age. The woman that's not prepared to lead sexually and lead with that, she finds herself being overlooked by the women that are. And so, and a bit like some men, then maybe they don't want to lead with finances, but they find themselves being overlooked.

So the people who are actually going into relationships with the correct intentions are finding it the most difficult. Yeah, it's hard, isn't it? It's so hard for them. And you shouldn't lower your standards. You shouldn't. And I can see why people do.

I don't want to be judgmental because I can completely understand. I don't know what it's like to be single in this day and age. And I can imagine at some point you're just like, if I keep having these high standards, I'm never going to meet somebody. What I would say is keep your intrinsic standards high and your extrinsic ones low.

And what I mean by that is keep your standards of how you like to be treated emotionally really high. Do you like to expect? Do you like labels? Do you like regular dates? Keep that high. Or regular time together doesn't even have to be dates. Keep that high, but keep your extrinsic values,

like does he take me on holidays? Is he going to buy me this? Is he going to buy me this? Is he got me sent me flowers? Keep those low. They're not relevant in the long run. Everything you're saying is in my opinion is spot on. It's, it's such great advice. And I really hope everyone who's listening is taking notes because there's so much

that you're sharing that I think you're so clear in your approach. I think it's really practical. I think it will connect. But I've heard you say before that if someone cheats on you, it's partly your fault. I do say that. And I wanted to hear your take on that to understand that. Yeah, I know that sounds terrible.

And I say this particularly with, you know, men especially. I'm like, it's always your own fault. And the reason I say that is most cheaters come with smoking guns on the first date. There's always some signal that their behavior was not transparent. And whenever you catch them cheating, usually they say, I always knew because from day one they were like this. And I always say people usually don't lie. They might say lies, but they show you their red flags pretty much from day one.

And it might have been that they were in a relationship when you met them. Or it might have been that you caught them in a few lies when you first got with them. You would have caught some signs that this person is capable of deeper lies. And when we, I'm not saying you should always look for the bad, but when we keep ignoring poor behavior, what ends up happening is we are becoming distant from the truth. We are going into denial. I actually don't have a problem. Even if your partner is cheating, no problem. You have to have a radical, radical relationship with the truth. And there are some women out there that are mistresses.

They're so happy in that role because they know the truth. They know that he goes there, spends time with his wife, I'll see him when I see him. Truth is really important. So the more you align yourself with truth, the more you won't actually get blindsided. But when you start missing red flags again and again, you haven't been intimate in months,

somebody's not coming home on time, nothing's adding up, and you keep making excuses. Unfortunately, we create the environment for these types of people to flourish. It's almost better that you protect your own home and protect your own sanity. It doesn't mean you become accusatory, but you know that your treatment is not what you appreciate.

And if they continue like that, they don't have to cheat. The behavior is enough for you to start setting a boundary and the behaviors, you don't need, because some cheaters will say, well, you can't prove anything. Cheaters will always want you to catch them red-handed. You, as the person should say, I don't need red-handed evidence. I can see your behavior is not treating me rightly. Stop them there before they get to the point where they're disrespecting you more and more.

That's where the gaslighting comes in. Yeah. That's where the gaslighting comes in. Yeah, that's where the gaslighting is. People get gaslit. They do get gaslighted really heavily. And this is, even as a psychologist and you know, as a therapist, and this is where I have to be a lot more empathetic because I've had clients there that were like, she keeps accusing me and they're so like convincing that I'm like,

you need to stop accusing him. And then she'll say to me afterwards, I found out he was having an affair the whole time. So the gaslighting is very, very real, but the feeling they give you is always true. So they'll lie to you, but their words, their lips will be low. But your feeling, that gut instinct,

that something's not right or they're lying to you, try and pay attention to that. And even if you never get evidence, that feeling is partly your partner's responsibility to help soothe those anxieties, not make them worse. So if you have that feeling and they're just like, baby, like whatever you need, like to make you feel better, no problem. I've got nothing to hide. But if they get less and less transparent, try and pay attention to that.

What I'm hearing from you is, if you pay attention to the signs that you're seeing, you don't let yourself be in a position where you're taking advantage of it. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying know your partner better than they know themselves. At the moment they start changing, you spot it quicker than they can. And I'm sure you have this with Rali where you probably know her so, so well. It would be difficult for her to have a double life without you. You'd know her behaviors, the way she moves, how she talks, how she kisses you, everything.

You pay close attention. You pay so much attention to your partner, it's quite difficult for them to live a whole double life without you catching on. So try and stay attuned as much as you can. Yeah. Every relationship has a rhythm, it has a pattern. Yeah. And when the pattern's off, you check in.

I think one of the things I see in relationships struggling, especially as they get longer term, is we don't recommit. So life changes, right? Me and Rathi had a dating life. When we got married, we had to recommit. So life changes, right? Me and Radhi had a dating life. When we got married, we had to recommit to a different way of living. When we got married, then we lived in New York, we had to recommit to a different way of living. We moved to LA.

Different way of living. It's almost like I've dated so many different people in Radhi. As in she's evolved, she's changed. And same back at me probably to some degree. But I think we don't like it when our partner changes. Yeah. And we almost want them to stay the same or I've heard maybe you say before that we almost want our...

The guy wants the woman to never change. Yeah. And the woman wants the man to change. Yeah, that's the problem. I... One thing I say is that some men are committed to their marriage. And what that means is they're committed to that woman. As she changes, as they change, they commit to each other.

They're loyal to the person that they married, and they will stay loyal forever. Some men are just loyal to the woman they fell in love with. As long as she stays exactly like the person they met, they'll stay loyal. When she starts to change, they'll get more and more disloyal because they don't accept change. You just have to decide what type of person are you. Are you deciding to commit to the marriage? And actually what that means is following them through their evolution, getting to know them at every stage, and staying loyal throughout it.

But if you're somebody who's just committing to the person you fell in love with, the moment that person starts to change, which they inevitably will, your eyes will start to wonder. So it might be good to have that conversation with each other. Which one are we? And can we try and shift to being loyal to the marriage rather than just each other so that we can help each other evolve and remain consistent while we do change. What can a woman do to make sure a man doesn't cheat on her? Have a willingness to walk away when she's being disrespected. That's all it really takes.

When men know that you will always be there for them, you'll they ride or die, you accept any kind of disrespect, they've been abusive, you accept it, they've been coming home late, you accept it, they are talking to other people, you accept it, and you always make excuses for them. I know you love him, and I know your love is unconditional, but respect shouldn't be unconditional. Yeah, you shouldn't be treated disrespectfully regardless of that behavior. And when, and I know human behavior, we should appreciate the person that is loyal to us. We should appreciate the person who loves us regardless.

We just don't. Unfortunately, we just don't. So when they see that your love is totally unconditional, they will start abusing that love that you have for them. But when they learn that you love them, you're very loyal to them, you care about them, but that doesn't give them a license to abuse you or hurt you, then they are more likely to stay in line.

So I think the thing that prevents them from truly cheating is knowing that you have a willingness to walk away and you don't tolerate this level of disrespect. They start to show you a bit more respect. And I've noticed so many men who have cheated on their wives and they felt no guilt, zero guilt. The moment she filed for divorce, they were besides themselves. So for the year that they were cheating, they were having the time of their life. The day she filed for divorce, they were besides themselves, crying hysterically.

Because at some point, unconscious level, they thought she would never actually do that. The day she did that is when the realization all sunk in. So when the person knows that you're not too afraid to take that rule, they're more likely to be respectful. Yeah, and it's not threatening people with it. It's actually doing it for real just once. Cause I find like, like me and Radhi made a rule early in our relationship that we would never throw around the word divorce.

We'd never throw around the word breakup. We'd never throw around any of these words that if you were to say it, you'd have to actually back it up and you'd actually have to be there because I didn't want to be in a relationship where these things were used as levers. Yeah. Or used as kind of ammunition to get a reaction out of someone. It's only used when you actually, God forbid, need it. But I always say that one of the vows that I recommend to my clients, I know it sounds negative,

is we can sit there and say, I'm going to love you forever, I'm going to be loyal forever. Probably the more realistic vow to say to each other, not even just marriage as a couple, is if and when my feelings start to change, I will communicate it with you. And that way we can work on the relationship. Where people go wrong is as and when their feelings change, they avoid communication and they outsource their happiness from somewhere else.

Or they numb their pain through a coping mechanism. The better vow to take is, if and when my feelings ever change, instead of hurting you and disrespect you, I will come straight to you and we can try and fix it. And if we can't fix it, we will separate on to respectful terms. But doing things that cause permanent damage is just not acceptable. Yeah. It's such a fine line. Because yeah, we sometimes like to, in an argument in the heat of it, you'll

pretend to say, and that person knows, that person still knows that you don't mean it. You're just making it up to get a reaction and it doesn't have any value. It's more of a cry for help. And we've all done it. But it's a seriousness of like, if you go to... I'm not saying to have that divorce word ever, but have deal breakers. What I mean by deal breakers is just one or two things that if this happened in my relationship, there's just no negotiation.

It might be hitting, it might be cheating, there's a deal breaker. If you sense that our partner has no deal breakers, they're more likely to attract narcissistic partners, they're more likely to attract abusers, they're more likely to attract takers. But if you come with a clear deal breaker, people can sense that confidence in you and usually you don't attract people who are going to do your deal breakers anyway. If a man cheats on a woman, can they recover? I think it depends on the reason. I still think it's difficult.

The reason I say it's difficult is that it becomes a point of contention pretty much permanently. I would say you can only forgive a person if the cause of the cheating is somewhat understandable. So I famously said, like, if a woman cheats on a man, you can never forgive her. She's going to cheat on you forever and she's just using you for free accommodation. And I do stand by that. Usually when a woman cheats on a man, there's usually very little recovery. But then I would have clients and the woman would say to me, he deprived me of sex for six years, four years he He wasn't sleeping with me.

I didn't know what to do. I was so lost. And my culture, we don't get divorced. I didn't know what to do. In those circumstances, it's like, did they really cheat or did you push them to that point? Are they actually an inherent cheat or did the circumstances of that relationship bring out the worst in them?

I think if they're an inherent cheat and they do it from day one, they did it even while you're good to them, even while you were consistent and caring, all of these things, I don't think there's any point recovering that relationship. But if it was something that happened in the relationship that brought out the worst in them and you can repair what happened in that relationship, then perhaps you can give it a chance.

Particularly if you've deprived each other of intimacy, because that's usually the main cause. If you've deprived each other of intimacy, it's almost a bit unfair to expect your partner to be loyal for five, six, seven years if you've never given them any intimacy. And they're still a little human. They've got needs. So I can understand in those circumstances that they might do things that are out of character. It's always hard because when people look at it from their own perspective,

they're always like, but I was loving to you the whole time, right? That's generally our reaction. It's almost like, but I was good to you. And the other person is like, well, I didn't see it that way. Well, you might have been good to me, but the needs weren't met. Yeah. So you might be, and I know couples I've never fought, no fights or nothing, but they just didn't have any intimacy for years.

Or there might have been a couple that actually don't fight, no issues in that time. But there might be some emotional needs that they just weren't kissing or hugging or saying nice things to each other. So it's the needs rather than just the surface of the relationship that matters more. Yeah. What have you seen when you're, as you said, we started with this idea that men who've been cheated on by women, what have you seen the success rates of healing growth for that individual, even if they don't stay with the same person?

I find that men that get cheated on once tend to get cheated on in every relationship. And I know that sounds terrible, but there's something about them getting cheated on in one relationship, they tend to get it a lot. And the reason why is because firstly, there's something broken in their selection. They're selecting women that need a lot of repair and have a lot of trauma and have a lot of issues. So they're selecting women who aren't truly attracted to them, but they're super attracted to that partner and they're trying to be useful to get that woman's attachment.

The second thing is when they do meet a woman that has a few red flags, they are so, so passive with those red flags. They don't have the ability to set boundaries. They don't know when to say no. They feel like they're being toxic if they have any kind of needs or wants. So they just become too placid. And in those cases, what ends up happening is they attract women with a lot of red flags because they don't have the strength to stand up for women that do.

So what ends up happening is they tend to be in a cycle of attracting that, unfortunately. So they're usually selecting women with a lot of trauma and a lot of issues and a lot of unhealed behavior. And then when they see that unhealed behavior, they don't know how to set that boundary. And they usually forgive cheating. I think one thing that is underspoken about is men forgive female cheating far more than we realize. I would say the majority of men forgive it, but they just don't talk about it. The problem is, the more you forgive it, there's something about women that

too lose a bit of respect when a man is super forgiving. I know that sounds terrible. It's not that we want someone toxic, but we want somebody that has some boundaries. And when we learn that he has zero, she might at first be really grateful. Yeah. She at first, she might thank you for forgiving me or whatever it is. But later on, what he hasn't understood is for her to actually cheat on you. Something's missing in those three A's.

They haven't been addressed. Yeah. Either the attraction, admiration, or the adoration, something's been missing. And usually when you forgive too many misdemeanors, the admiration for the man starts to go down and therefore there's an inevitable end. I could be wrong. I, but as, and my experience, I've always seen that men that forgive cheating, they end up getting cheated again by the woman that they forgave.

And in the future they tend to find it again and again. And women, how's it? It's slightly different. It's like, the chances of him cheating again do go up, but usually I do find if the intimacy is consistent, they tend to be relatively faithful. As the intimacy drops, the chances of infidelity increases. And when women realize that, okay, maybe we didn't have so much intimacy. She's not as angry.

It's only when she realized she did do her job and he still did it, then she gets furious and then she finds it really difficult to forgive. So it depends more on the intimacy than the actual respect when men cheat. I want to shift to talking about the female client. Yeah. The one who says, I want a man to commit, but he's not. Yeah. I think that's super common.

Yeah. I think people are feeling like, hey, we're 30, we're mid-30s, we're 40. Why does he not want to commit, but he's not. Yeah. I think that's super common. Yeah. I think people are feeling like, Hey, we're 30, we're mid thirties, we're 40. Why does he not want to commit? Well, firstly, unfortunately, there's a lot of men that are raised in homes with divorce nowadays. Yeah. So they, what happens is they, they see a divorce in their family. And whenever you're raised with a divorce, you either really, really

cherish commitment and just never want to get a divorce and want to stay with one person forever. But the more common response, but particularly men, is to avoid intimacy and emotional intimacy as much as possible. You just don't want to get too vulnerable. So we're dealing with a market of men that have witnessed divorce and are a little bit anxious of getting committing.

If you are a man that has commitment issues, if you're trying to work out, because a lot of men think that, oh, it's not commitment issues, I don't have commitment issues, it's just that she's like this, or she's too needy, or they try and blame the woman.

If it was truly something wrong with the woman, then why are you with her? Yeah, I always ask them, why are you with her? Why don't you just leave her and let her find somebody who's going to commit? So then they realize, actually, there's nothing wrong with her. There must be something in them. If you suffer from commitment issues, the best thing to do is make a... As a man, try and be a bit logical. Make a risk assessment.

What are the worst things that can happen if I commit to this woman? How bad can it be? If it's like, oh, she's really toxic, she's really abusive, she's gonna cheat on me, fine, no problem, then maybe just exit. But if you find that the risks are quite low and the behaviors are quite good, then you don't lose anything from committing.

Nothing is going to actually happen. Whatever your fear is, it's irrational. So try and work out the risks of that relationship. If there's not too many risks, try and just commit because only through commitment you'll realize if you're compatible. Without commitment, you can't actually get to compatibility. And the reason being is because when we're not committed,

we dilute the attachment. We're kind of talking to this person here, we're going there, we're not truly committed. The moment you commit, you realize if you're right or wrong for each other and then it speeds up your own time. You're not wasting your own time with the wrong person. So commitment is actually very useful for both parties to realize where it's going.

And what about for the woman who's waiting for him to commit? She's tried to have the conversation with him. He's not opening up. He can't really reflect on this idea that he wants to commit. What does she do? I would say, like in my experience of women who have had to push their partner into ultimatums, into getting commitment, the man you end up being married to is not a man you end up being married to

is not a man you'll actually be happy with. The men that are pushed into commitment tend to resent their partners for making them a married man. They get angry at small signs of intimacy. They get annoyed that they have to be loving to you. They get annoyed that they have to check in with you every day and tell you what time they're coming home and what time dinner's going to be ready.

They resent the patterns of being married. So the more you're pushing this man that doesn't want commitment into commitment, you're only going to access a relationship that won't really make you happy anyway. So when you're forcing them and putting that ultimatum, it's better to ask yourself, is this man who he truly is right now somebody I can actually be married to? If the answer is, you know, he's got potential, maybe if he committed it, then try not to. But if it's like, yes, he is, then he would naturally like commitment. So ask yourself, is it truly someone worth pushing into commitment?

Because usually they turn into a very negative person when you push them into commitment anyway. I'm glad you said that about ultimatums. I'm not a fan at all. I'm not a fan. Why don't you like them? Same reason. I think if anyone has to be forced, for example, if a guy doesn't want to have a wedding and you force him to have a wedding, he'll resent it forever.

Yeah, and he'll make you miserable. And that's just one day. That's one day. So let alone like having a marriage and being in a marriage and all the rest of it. I just think that you can't force... If you have to force people into love and commitment, then it's not love and commitment. Yeah. And are you sure you love them? Because if you have to force them to become a person,

then not in order to please you. Are you sure you love the real them? Because every time I meet a woman who's suffering in a marriage, I ask him, did he want to get married? Because the things you are, because usually a lot of these women are not asking for a lot. They'll say, I just ask him to spend some time with me after work. Or I just ask that maybe we can get a kiss when he walks in. And he makes it out like it's such a big deal. He's like, leave me alone. He gets so aggressive about it. And then I asked him, did you push him to get married? And she's like, yeah, well, I sold him. I'm turning 34 this year.

If you don't marry me, I'm gone. And, you know, he got nervous and did it. But unfortunately those ultimatums just bring out the resentment in the man or the woman all the other way around. It brings out their resentment and they're mean to you. And are you sure you want to marry somebody who's going to be mean? Yeah, because the, the opposite of commitment is actually comfort. The point is they're mean to you. And are you sure you want to marry somebody who's going to be mean? Yeah, because the opposite of commitment is actually comfort. The point is they're comfortable and that's what they want.

That's what they want. And so when you're forcing commitment, you're basically saying, I want you to be uncomfortable. And they don't want it. And they don't want it. And they blame. Or they do it and then they're uncomfortable. And they blame.

And then you get the blame. And they're truly uncomfortable. Just simple things. I'll have clients say, it's just a simple thing of just going to bed at the same time. He doesn't want to do it. He'll want to be like, I don't want to go out at the time I want to go. So the acts of marriage,

do the behaviors of marriage feel uncomfortable to that man? If they do, then you're going to create a husband that you actually aren't happy with and you're going to suffer. Let's take a short break to hear from our sponsors. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Jay Shetty joins us. The people who need the most love often ask for it in the most unloving ways. So when I see someone's behavior, the first thing I try and think of is how is that a plea for love?

Whatever behavior you see from someone, it's them asking for love in some way and I think we see it in children the most where when a child's throwing a tantrum, they're simply asking for presence, love and connection and I think we're all just big children who are still asking for love, still seeking that approval, still wanting that connection and that embrace. And also to meet everything with love, right? When you can come from a place of love, even when you're dealing with anger or frustration or any of the things that don't make you feel good, to just return it with love is a beautiful lesson. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your

podcasts. September 1979. Virginia's top prison band, Edge of Daybreak, is about to record their debut album, Behind Bars, in just five hours. I'm Jamie Petrus, music and culture writer. For the past five years, I've been talking to the band's three surviving members. They're out of prison now and in their 70s. Their past behind them.

But they also have some unfinished business. The end of daybreak, eyes of love, was supposed to have been followed up by another album. It's a story about the liberating power of music, the American justice system, and ultimately second chances. Listen to Soul Incarcerated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, we want to tell you about our podcast. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary. Hello, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites along with nature's other creepy crawlies and there's just endless things

about this universe that I find fascinating. All right, well basically we're both nerds. We love learning about this extraordinary universe and we love sharing what we've learned. So that's what we're going to do. And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary universe is all about the mind blowing discoveries we've made about this crazy, beautiful cosmos. From the tiniest particles to the biggest blue whales. Each Tuesday and Thursday, we take an hour long dive into some science topic during which time I try to suppress my biologist training and keep the poop jokes to a minimum.

Learn all about our amazing and beautiful universe on Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Thank you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in. Can you save a bad relationship? Yes, you really can save a bad relationship, but it's difficult if both people don't want to. The only way you can save a bad relationship

is if both people truly want to and they're just misunderstanding each other. The relationships that are difficult to save is when one of the person is far more attached than the other. When one person is really wanting the relationship to work and the other person is simply not attracted, not invested and not committed, then what ends up happening is the only way it can be saved

is the beggar in the relationship demands less and less and less. And that's usually the dynamic. When one person wants it more than the other, you get a beggar in the relationship. And just like beggars on the street, when they ask for a bit, you'll give them a bit, but when they ask for a lot, you're like,

go away, you're a beggar. Like, I'll give you bare minimum. That's how couples start to treat the person who begs to be with them. So when you enter that dynamic, it's very difficult to fix. But when you enter a dynamic where we don't know why we keep butting heads, we love each other, I don't know why it's not working. Then it's probably just something wrong in understanding each other's core needs. And it's very easy to fix those people. Yeah, I think it's natural for relationships to go through ups and downs.

It's pretty remarkable if a relationship is always hard. Because work comes up, I think having children is a huge one for people to stay connected during that time, travel, there's a million things that are going to happen. And all of it comes down to am I communicating with that person and are they communicating with me? And I think we just haven't been trained to say, hey, when you're going through a change, tell your partner and practice it when the changes are small. Like, hey, for the next three days, I've got a busy work period.

Hey, for the next week, I've got a big presentation at work I'm preparing for. Like, talk about those tiny things so that when you have big things like having kids or travel or parent issues, you're not as scared. Yeah, it's not so bad. But then I do find what relationships happen in relationships. There's relationships that have pains which are ups and downs. Maybe they miscarriage. Maybe things go wrong, busy with work. And there's relationships that are suffering, which is simply a consequences of poor decisions. When you've chosen the wrong person, pains will happen in every marriage. Every marriage will have ups and downs,

financial issues, babies will come, babies will go, God forbid. Parents get sick. Those are pains in marriages. These are to be expected and it can cause rough periods. Suffering is when even without those, there are emotional consequences of just choosing the wrong partner and daily, daily things, small things become big fights. You just want to hold hands. They get angry at that. You just want to spend more time. They get angry at that. Your life starts to feel like suffering.

And when it's more suffering than it is pain, then it's a bit harder to fix those marriages. I do think picking is such a big part of it. It's so hard when going back to your three A's and your three L's. If someone's been with someone for 10 years now and the attraction's faded naturally to some degree, they kind of admire them and they kind of get adoration to some degree and you already have kids together. You're not going to necessarily get divorced. No, but then that's fine.

That's actually not so end of the world. As long as it's not so toxic. If you've got to a stage where it's kind of okay, it's not so bad. I think in this day and age, that's a win. You know, I know it sounds terrible and it sounds like, oh, you're just floating by, but I think as long as you're avoiding suffering and you're not toxic, if you're after 10 years, you're kind of attracted, kind of admires some adoration, but it's not unstable. I actually think that's a win.

I know that sounds terrible, but I just think that's not a bad... I wouldn't be terrified if I had that. It's only when you never had those to begin with and then they just gets exaggerated, exaggerated, exaggerated. It usually turns into suffering. Yeah, so unless it's toxic, abusive, exploitative. I think if you don't have it so bad and you don't have any of the deal breakers, I think what happens is people focus so much on like having the highs in a relationship.

I just think as long as you don't have deep lows, even if it's not like poems and you don't have these holidays and you don't have these great experiences, but you don't have any of those toxic lows, having that sense of peace is actually okay. I actually think that's a win. I think it's toxic to assume that you should always be having those highs. I think actually just seek that peace and as long as they don't have deal breakers, the relationship will be, maybe it won't be the most exciting,

but as long as it's not got those deal breakers, you'll actually have relatively peaceful marriage. Yeah, it's interesting. You just said both are toxic, always wanting to be on the highest toxic. Yeah, right. And naturally someone who treats you low is toxic. Yeah. And so both of them can be toxic. So both of them. As opposed to accepting that peace is a great place to be.

It's the goal. Yeah, the end goal is that peaceful state where it's not too high, not too low. The highs and lows comes because of circumstances, but not because our day-to-day interactions are so overstimulating or understimulating. It doesn't come from day-to-day. It comes from experiences or events in our marriage. Sadia, what's the worst thing to say to someone who's just gone through a breakup? The worst thing that you can say to somebody who's just gone through a breakup is that,

well, you knew he was like that anyway. So what's the problem? I know. Yeah. Sometimes we do know the person was already like that. We know, but right now dwelling on that person is probably the least important part of the healing process. To get over a heartbreak, it's not so much that we have to forget the person that we're

heartbroken about, but we just have to try and rediscover ourselves. And the best way to rediscover ourselves is not by focusing on the person, focusing on what he did wrong, how terrible he is. It's more just finding out what your patterns are, what your selection was, and then how you can improve your life so much so that the feelings for him become, they disappear. But dwelling on him and focusing on him and all his problems, I think that will just keep you invested in a relationship and make it harder for you to heal that heartbreak. What about when you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with someone

and they left you, they moved on, they didn't see it the same way, but you were convinced after a few years that this was going to be your person and you break up. What actually helps? I think the only thing that helps is just remembering that everything you wanted with this person, whether that vision was getting married, whether it was to have kids, whether it was to go on holidays, that vision is still attainable for you. You can still access that entire vision you had with them, with somebody new.

And if you feel like you really love that person, you probably just love certain traits that they had. Those traits that he has are available in other men that will actually still make your vision come true. And hopefully the new person will not have the traits that cause the relationship to break down. So remember, it's not about the person. This is where people get stuck in heartbreak. They think that their life that cause the relationship to break down. So remember, it's not about the person. This is where people get stuck in heartbreak.

They think that their life happiness and the relationship and their end goal in life is in the hands of that particular person in that relationship. That end goal is something that they can still attain and achieve by themselves. If they just remember that they can still achieve it with somebody else or they can achieve it by themselves, they can achieve it through friends,

that goal is more important than the person. And your vision is far more important than the relationship. So as long as you keep your vision in mind and remember that there's other people that can help you attain that vision, you will let go of that ego that's attached to that particular person that just broke your heart.

And I know it sounds hard to do, but when you find out that somebody's hurt you and they've moved on and they've got a relationship, we can't be hurt and happy for somebody at the same time. If you want to remove your hurt for people, you almost have to try and be happy for them, even if they don't deserve it. You don't do it for them. You do it for your own sake. So you can suppress that feeling of hurt and just be like, yeah, he treated me terribly, but I would never want somebody else to go through that.

So I hope he has a happy relationship. I hope he treats her way better than he treated me. And then hopefully you'll attract that positive energy back into your own life. How do we get closure when the person doesn't give it to us? We can get it through their actions, not their words. So if for example, I really love this person and they just left me out of nowhere and they gave me no explanation, sometimes the closure is in their behavior. The fact that they could let me go and leave me hanging in that moment is all the closure I need that maybe they didn't see me as important as I saw them.

Maybe they found someone else. Whatever it is, their closure comes in their behavior, not just their words. Whatever they were going to say to you probably wasn't true anyway. They're probably just trying to make you feel better or trying to hide what the real reasons is. Their words are not so important. Their actions are. We can always find closure in people's actions. Yeah.

And often their actions are so painful. Yeah. They break up with you over text. They don't want to talk to you. And as hard as it is, it's usually our ego that seeks another conversation with them. If you really look at their behavior, your soul will know they're bad for you. So try and pay attention to, your soul knows if someone's good or bad for you. Our ego will just want the last word.

They just want them to come crawling back to us so we can say, oh, we can reject them or we can have our last word. But try and remember that that's just your ego speaking. Your soul knows that this person probably wasn't right for you. If they were right for you, you wouldn't be suffering today. So try and let go of that need for validation and that need for conversation and replace it with their behavior spoke volumes. That difference between the soul and ego is so powerful.

The hard part is most of us are living through our ego daily and not our soul. So to suddenly flip into soul living, not ego living in a breakup is extremely hard. Yeah, because your ego is what looks right and your soul is what actually is right. And we always want to look right. We want to be the one that says, I don't want to be with them or we want to be the one that broke up with them. But that's just a temporary high of being the one that had the final say or being the one that got to say this. These are temporary highs.

The long-term high comes from not needing those conversations. It's almost like an emotional kind of neutrality towards that person. And the quicker you can get there, the quicker you actually heal. So the less you can pay attention to your ego, the closer you'll get to healing. How would you encourage people to think about that

through steps and stages? I think the ego, when it comes to your soul and ego, the key difference is ego is what makes you look good in front of people. Soul is actually what makes you feel right. So it might make you look better to him if you start posting pictures of you with another man or showing memes, it might make you get a stab at them. But do you actually feel any better when you do that? Ego might make you say, look, go move on to another guy,

go text your ex, go be with another person, make him jealous. But your soul will know it doesn't feel right. So the inner voice that you have, like does this actually feel right? And how you can assess this, you ask yourself, if I didn't meet this person, like say my ex, I just broke up with my husband and I was like, okay,

if I didn't meet this person ever, would I be going on this date with this random guy or would I be actually sitting at home and watching TV with my husband and I was like, okay, if I didn't meet this person ever, would I be going on this date with this random guy or would I be actually sitting at home and watching TV with my friends? If the answer is, I would still be going on the date with the guy, then chances are it's not your ego. You're probably just doing it because that's what you want to do.

But if it's like, I'm only going to the club because I know he's going to be there now and I want to hurt him, or I'm only going to go text this other guy because I know it will hurt him. If you're allowing that person to dictate your feelings and what you do, then it's probably your ego speaking to yourself.

Act like that person doesn't exist and ask yourself, what do you want to do with yourself? And if the answer is, I just want to heal. I just want to cry. I just want to feel good. Like I want a couple of days to myself, then do that rather than just trying to play that game and seeing who looks better and trying to win, because there's no winner when you follow your ego. I was really happy that we started with the two core issues you go through with your clients.

Because I think that even if it's not women cheating on men, it's men cheating on women, it's infidelity. And then this idea of commitment, which I think are two of the biggest things that everyone's struggling with. And then at the same time, talking about relationships at the top end of attracting the three A's, the three L's. It's been a paradox that the women that want commitment and the men that are committed,

they're not finding each other. There's men that are getting treated badly in relationships and the women that are getting treated badly and they seem to be attracting each other, unfortunately, which is a shame. Why is that? I think there's something about being too nice as a person, both women and men, they don't attract each other

because they don't feel useful with somebody else who's equally as nice as them. They almost feel better when they're with somebody a bit tougher and stronger so they can, you know, feel like the nice person in that relationship. If they simply met each other, it would be a great resolution to this problem that we're facing in modern dating at the moment. Yeah. I think a big part of it is also healing and retraining our own desires because not everything you want is good for you.

And sadly the things that are good for you don't want them. I know. And so the sad part is you're attracted to the things that are bad for you. Just like with food, just like with everything in life, unfortunately we were attracted to things that are bad for you. But the moment you heal your self-esteem, what will happen is you'll have a natural distaste towards things that are bad for you. People who don't love you, people who don't treat you right, how you know your self-esteem

is improving is at the moment those people start treating you badly, you lose attraction to them. And the moment people treat you well, you increase your attraction to them. And that is a real signal. I know sometimes you can get love-bombed and the person is just so, so nice to you and then you're attracted to that but it's that steady healthy pace of people treating you nicely that you are attracted to which will help heal your self-esteem. Sadia, you've been amazing. We end every On Purpose episode with a final five. These have to be answered in one word

to one sentence maximum. So Sadia Khan, these are your final five. Question number one, what is the best relationship advice you've ever heard or received? Pick peace over pleasure. Always choose somebody who will give you more peace than pleasure if you want a long lasting relationship. Question number two, what is the worst relationship advice you've ever heard or received?

You are somebody's dream girl or don't set up a list. I think anything that inflates your vision of what a real relationship looks like is going to make it difficult for you to find the right person. Great answer. Question number three, what's something that you think everyone believes to be true about love, but it's actually not true? It should be unconditional. I don't believe that it should be true.

You definitely need conditions for your love. Otherwise you will attract people who abuse your kindness. That's a great answer. Question number four. What is something you used to believe was true about love, but recently you've disconnected with? That just being with somebody who just loves you so, so much is all you need. When really without you being attracted to that person,

it will feel like neediness. Fifth and final question. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? You treat people behind their back as you do in front of them. So how you behave behind people's back is exactly how you are in front of their face.

And if you practice that in your relationships, what happens is you don't need your partner to regulate you in any way, shape or form. You act like the same person with or without their monitoring. And if you do that in life, I think you'll probably have more authentic relationships. Sadhya Khan, thank you so much. Thank you.

This is without a doubt my favourite relationship episode we've ever done. I don't believe you. I mean, I wouldn't say that. I don't believe you. We're going to leave it on the edit. I'm going to leave it on the edit. I honestly have never gone that deep into the nuances of why and who and where and just, I love the way you think about it. I really, really appreciate it.

And I want everyone who's listening and watching to tag me and Saadiyo on Instagram, on TikTok, with the moments that resonated with you, that connected with you, that things you're going to stop doing from now on, things you're going to start doing, signs you're watching out for because I want to see what you're putting into practice. If you don't follow Sadia across social media already, make sure you go and subscribe. I hope that it saves you from wasting time,

money and energy on the wrong person. And I really, really hope that it helps you connect with true, meaningful, lasting love. Saadi, I'm so grateful to you again. You have no idea how much you have honoured me today. So thank you so, so much for your time. I cannot believe I get to speak to you. Thank you.

If you love this episode, you. Thank you. Thank you. If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabor Mate on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past. Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft and green and vulnerable.

This week on Dear Chelsea with me Chelsea Handler Jay Shetty joins us The people who need the most love often ask for it in the most unloving ways. So when I see someone's behavior the first thing I try and think of is how is that a plea for love? Whatever behavior you see from someone it's them asking for love in some way. And I think we see it in children the most where when a child's throwing a tantrum, they're simply asking for presence, love and connection. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

We love learning about this extraordinary universe. And we love sharing what we've learned. And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe, that's what we're going to do. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary. I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites and there's just endless things about this universe that I find fascinating. Basically, we're both nerds.

Each Tuesday and Thursday, we take an hour long dive into some science topic. Learn all about our amazing and beautiful universe on Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 45 years ago, a Virginia soul band called The Edge of Daybreak recorded their debut album Behind Bars. Record collectors consider it a masterpiece. The band's surviving members are long out of prison,

but they say they have some unfinished business. The end of daybreak, eyes of love, were supposed to have been found another app. Listen to Soul Incarcerated on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.