Sex, Love, and What Else Matters - Couples Therapy with Zach Brittle

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Episode 30. This week, co-host of Marriage Therapy Radio, Zach Brittle, joins Kristen and Luke for some couples therapy! Zach is a straight-talking therapist & author and gives Luke and Kristen no BS answers to some common issues most couples face. They discuss topics like red flags, listening vs. giving advice, love languages, intimacy, why keeping score is problematic, when divorce is the right choice, and so much more! This episode is for anyone and everyone who’s ever wanted to tackle the hardships in their romantic relationships. Sponsors: Thank you to our sponsor, Lume! If you're ready to upgrade your deodorant game with a product that's gentle, effective, and free of harsh chemicals, head to LumeDeodorant.com and use code DOUTE to save $5 on a Lume Starter Pack.  Thank you to our sponsor, Organifi! Head over to www.organifi.com/doute and use code DOUTE for 20% off your entire order. Don't wait - try Organifi today and take the first step towards a healthier you! Follow us: @kristendoute @luke__broderick Email us: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello beautiful magical listeners welcome back to another episode of sex love and what else matters. Hi guys. Hi Luke. And today we have a very special guest with us and very, very excited. We would like to welcome Zach Brittle to the podcast. How are you Zach? I'm okay. Yeah. I'm doing all right. Thanks. Zach is a couples therapist and author, which I cannot wait to talk about your book because I want

to hear all about this by selling author of the book The Relations Relationship, Alphabet, and the Marriage Therapy Journal. And you're based in Seattle. You're in Seattle, amazing. And we don't have your partner with us today, Laura, but next year. Yeah, Laura's in Bend, Oregon. We are teaching partners. We have a podcast called Marriage Therapy Radio that we do together. But my real partners, Rebecca, she's my wife, we've been married 20 20 almost 26 years. We like to say we've been happily married 24 out of 26 years. We have two that were kind of bumpy, but maybe a little bit more, but it's normalizes it for people I think a little bit. I love the way that you just worded that. Were those two like in the beginning and the middle of no one was like number eight and then was like 18 and it's always ups and downs, right?

But I think there were two years in particular, two specific years in particular that were definitely more challenging than others. I love how open you are to like talking about that. Yeah, I think you have to be. I mean, I don't think there's, I mean, to be honest, in my private practice, when people come and they talk about wanting to meet with me, it's the one sentence in my bio that they get the most excited about. That I'm not the guy who's sort of figured out marriage and made it amazing and then understand it perfectly,

but that I actually have also kind of muscle through it myself. So it's a clever little marketing sentence, but it's also true. Yeah. Yeah. So with those years being so far apart, was that a situation where things built up over time and then kind of came

to a head and then it just became this longer path back? A little bit. I mean, I think I can give you two kind of insights into that. One is there's a very popular statistic out there that about 50% of marriages end in divorce. We don't really think it's that high. When I would say we, I mean, kind of people in my business, we think it's closer to 40. Research sort of tends to suggest that. But what we do know is that most marriages that end in divorce end inside of seven years, it's usually around year four, and there's usually a toddler in the mix.

So for us, that was about statistically correct. It was year eight, there was a toddler in the mix, and we just had kind of run into a bus saw that we weren't expecting in that, created a whole bunch of other dynamics that led to us drifting apart. The second one was more, I think, just more connected to life events, and we kind of got on cruise control and forgot to take care of each other, and a lot of stuff cropped up, and it distracted us from the relationship. So in both cases, we did a

lot of really good work on the back end to look at it, examine it, repair it, and make it work because I think that's ultimately what it's about is doing the work. I have a lot of friends who say, you know, like, well, it shouldn't be this hard, it shouldn't be this hard. And I agree to that, I agree with that to a point, but I think that a lot of people's relationships should just be so effortless. And I think the opposite, I think it's effortful. Like you have to put it in the work because things, you know, it shouldn't be a struggle 24, seven. I mean, then you really have to step back

and look at it in my experience. But it's not magic, you know? No, not at all. And I think that's part of the big myth is that, you know, certainly early on in a relationship, there is a magical thing. It's called Limerance. And it lasts about two years

where the relationship is run on adrenaline and novelty and newness and sort of trying things out. But you know, you get, you crest about, you crest that and you sort of learned all the stuff and you know all the things and the patterns aren't going away and that annoying thing that you used to do isn't as cute anymore. Now you really have to decide like, okay, who are we going to be here? Like, what do we do with this new reality? So I think there is something at the front end that feels as it should, new and good and that kind of makes you, it's used to spend a little bit of judgment early on because it's so exciting. And when that's the one, that wears off yet, becomes a real piece of work. And I don't want to rely too heavily on that word, but what I tell clients

all the time is that I don't think therapy works, couples work, and sometimes they use therapy, sometimes they use a podcast, sometimes they use a health self-help book, sometimes they use TikTok, sometimes, you know, but when couples are interested in doing the work, then I think it's just a matter of finding the right resource to help you do that. That's kind of my take on marriage, obviously I've never been married, but I don't know, obviously I don't even know who you do that. That's kind of my take on marriage. Obviously I've never been married. But I don't know. Obviously I don't even know who you guys are. Are you married? Well neither of us have ever been married and we've been dating for six. Six. We don't really have like a start time because we were like seeing each other but not

officially or whatever long distance. No, if it was going to become something more and then we actually started this podcast together in November. And I mean, at that point, we were pretty much at cross the line, but not called it what it was, you know, we were together. And so we say basically six-ish months now. It's still kind of, it's like half-long distance. And I'm leaving like after this to go back to Colorado for a couple weeks. We're healed. I think for us, it escalated quickly in the timeline. I don't feel that it, I feel like we're

like at the two-year mark already. Yeah. Yeah, I think it seemed to have sped up for sure. What I was getting to do was that with all my friends, I've been in a lot of weddings. My friends had been married long time. My parents divorced after 26 years. And I have friends that have been married for 20 years

happily and almost divorced multiple times. So it's like, yeah. my parents divorced after 26 years and I have friends that have been married for 20 years happily and almost divorced multiple times, you know. So it's like, yeah. In my opinion, what I can see is that when you have two parties that are committed to each other and willing to work on it, it can make it. There's no perfect partner. Essentially. Yeah. No, in fact, it's, I mean, I think there's a, there's a myth about marriage that I think is really problematic, which is that it's somehow it is there's a myth about marriage that I think is really problematic, which is that it's somehow, it is the pinnacle, it's the answer, it's the end all be all. And I think that's probably more true about a wedding,

like because it's this big, amazing party and everybody looks pretty and it feels really great. And weddings are wonderful, but marriages are totally different things. Marriages are long labors, and people will talk about how it's a marathon, not a sprint. And I hate that metaphor. I'd really do because it's neither. It's just running.

It's running until you die or you get divorced. And so part of it is, what are you going to do with that journey, that running? Like, what is it? And what do you do when it gets hard? And do you kind of lean into the challenge or do you bail? And I think we have created a circumstance, a culture really where bailing isn't as stigmatized as it used to be. The force isn't as problematic as it maybe once was.

And so the question of what is a marriage now becomes really relevant. Because if it's just something you're doing for fun or if it's convenient or it's, you know, you got to find out kind of what is it? What is it that you're signing up for? Because you can do as you guys are presently doing, long-term committed relationship without the marriage. You can also do a marriage without a long-term committed relationship. What is the thing that you're trying to build and does a marriage help you do that?

I think in my case, it certainly has, but it's not always the case. Huh. Like just the way you word things, it's so interesting to think about it, even in my own life, in in my past relationships going like why did I? Yeah, why was every guy the guy I was gonna marry? It's a good question which of course says a lot more about you than does about those guys, right? Like if every guy is the guy you're gonna marry then something there's something about you that's relevant in that right That's what my therapist

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do appreciate though the compliment the idea of the way I word things you that's relevant in that. Right. That's what my therapist says. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do appreciate though the compliment, the idea of the way I word things. I think one of the things I think therapy should do. I think it's the thing I'm good at. I think it's the thing that we do Lauren, I on the podcast is we do want people to go, huh, I never thought about it like that before because I think we get in trouble when we think we know what we think. Right. There's a thing that we'll talk about a lot called the sin of certainty. You know, and if you are committed and you absolutely are certain that you know what the deal is, then you're going to get into a lot of trouble. But when you can come in with some curiosity and some openness and maybe even some awareness that there are people out there who think very differently than you for very good reasons, it opens up a lot of opportunity for you. We did

an episode a couple of months ago with a gal who had been in the adult film industry for 13 years and she was one of the most thoughtful people about sex and love and marriage that I've ever talked to. And I didn't see that coming. Talked to a biblical scholar about kind of what most people think the Bible says about marriage and what it actually says and we were like,

huh, I didn't see that coming. And then it opens up a whole new world of possibility for you. So I'm curious. We have like a million questions for you, but, yeah, no, I'm curious. Like how you feel as an expert in your field and someone who is in, you know, a marriage and how do you feel or what is your experience with either patients or guests or even yourself about long distance relationships. My wife and I, when we first got together, I was living in Philadelphia and she was living in

Connecticut, two hours apart, and our whole entire engagement was long distance. But it was long distance before texting or email or, you know, zoom or anything. I mean, so we had to like, I'll call you on this landline number, the second ER is over. And we would talk like every Thursday night at 11 o'clock. For now, we now live in an age that the world is very, very flat. You have access to each other constantly in your hip pocket because of text or Zoom or whatever else.

So I don't really think that the distance is the issue. The distance is just an obstacle to ever come. When we're assessing clients early on in a relationship, which is part of what you do in couples therapy is you get to, you get to hear their story. If their story is loaded with obstacles and traumas and tribulations and difficulties, then that's going to be predictive of how they think about the future of the relationship. It's an obstacle. It's a trauma. It the future of the relationship. It's an obstacle. It's a trauma.

It's a difference. If the story they tell you about the relationship is loaded with how they overcame an obstacle, how they bonded through trauma, how they manage the difficulty, that tends to be predictive of how they're going to do the future. So for me, long distance is just an obstacle. If it's an obstacle that you go, uh, problem, uh, difference, uh, terrible. And that says more about you than it does about the problem. Right. But if you go, oh, we've created this system where we bond together every Thursday night at 11 o'clock, we talk

consistently for an hour after ER. Maybe we talk about this show. I don't know if you guys are old enough to remember ER, but I am. Yeah. But, you know, that was like a point of it television, and you kind of knew when it was over, it was, and I think the thing about us that worked was that we had really consistent themes and patterns, and the other thing that I think that's cool about loan distance is it forces you into conversation, right? You can't just rely on sex or connection or good food or even just comfort. You have to actually learn how to talk to each other. Right. So I think there's a little bit of a benefit, sort of a forced hand in law and distance stuff because you have to sort of prove your,

prove your commitment, prove your worth, you know, right versus it's, this is easy because we're in proximity to each other. Right. Yeah, I think that's something I've noticed when we are like distance, we like talk, talk more. Yeah, so I've got another question for you. Have you ever run into people that have like no problem with the distance, with their communication? Like it seems easier almost when you're at a distance and when you're together,

that like creating that safe space for a sensitive conversation becomes more difficult when you're in person face to face. I think so. I mean, it's all different strokes for different folks. I mean, people find the way. I mean, I think there certainly are people that are wired to be more independent, and then certainly people who are wired to be more interdependent, more connected to others. I think managing a long-term committed relationship is understanding how each partner has a tolerance

for independence and interdependence and then can you knit that together for one another. And so I think that's really just about a little bit of like, sleuthing it out at the beginning because most things in a relationship, most everything in relationship isn't good, bad, right, wrong, up, down, left, right. I mean, you're an introvert, you're an extrovert, you're messy, you're neat, you're a spender, you're a saver. Those aren't good and bad independent of themselves,

but when they collide with the other in a way that's not easy, then it takes them negotiating. I guess a maybe a better way to word it was how to create a safe space if you know like a partner can be triggered or a safe space to talk about a sensitive subject. Like something. I think it's exactly that.

You create the space. I mean, I've said this a million times. I know exactly how to guarantee a conversation is going to go poorly with my wife. I wait till she gets in the shower, and I go to the next room and I turn on the television, probably a football game. I go to the next room, probably the kitchen,

and I start doing something with pots and pans. And then I say, hey, I need to talk to you about this credit card bill. And I know say, Hey, I need to talk to you about this credit card bill. And I know 100% that conversation is going to go bad for about five different reasons. And I've already named. But if on the other hand, I say, have I wait till she gets out of the shower? And I say, Hey, I need about 10 minutes of your time to talk about something that I don't understand that came up on this credit card bill. Do you think we could do it after dinner? I'd just have a couple questions. You know, like she's knows what we're talking about, why we're talking about it, what the context is.

I think when we eliminate those questions for people, conversation becomes a lot easier. I mean, it just, so how do you create a space, safe space? I don't know exactly, but you probably know how to create an unsafe space. So it's really just about reverse engineering that. I think great. So I guess it might one of my next questions,

I guess kind of made it falls into this, but like helping couples manage conflict and disagreements like in a healthy way. And I think you kind of essentially sort of at least began to sort of answer it. Well, that's a tactical piece of it, right? I mean, the tactical piece is to make sure that you set the conversation up for success.

Like, I mean, I think a lot of of why I watched about 30 seconds of your TV show and understood immediately that it thrives on conflict because it takes place, like in the moment, like with the surprise and that got kind of, there's this gotcha culture. And it just doesn't, that obviously doesn't work in a relationship. What you need to do is create healthy boundaries. And so we talked a little bit about that tactically, but I think I will always say there are three opportunities to mitigate conflict in a relationship. And one is before it ever starts.

And that's through the friendship. It's through the quality of the friendship and through regard and respect and consistency and predictability. Then during a conflict, there's some tactical things that you can do, right? There's some real tactically, do we know how to press pause? Do we know how to manage our own personal anxiety?

Do we know how to apologize those sorts of things? And then, of course, the third time is after it's over. And I think this is actually where the real work is, is once you've had the conflict and everything is settled down, are you able to come back and look at it and go, hey, what do you think happened there? And what can we learn from that? And is there a way to set us up for success in the future? That feels like the real work of kind of getting ahead of it.

And then of course, you have that after the conflict conversation, ideally it draws you closer. I conflict if it's really well done, it draws you closer. Right. I will say that's something my personal therapist has told me for years and years that there's no point

in having an argument if you're not willing to learn something from it, to grow from it, become stronger together because it happened and we're eight. That's why we're like, make-up sex so much. It's, I mean, it's, it's stand apart for a reason because it's like, oh, look what we've come through. It's like this incredible bonding, yeah. Type feeling of intimacy. Yeah. It's like this incredible bonding, yeah. Type feeling of intimacy. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden, we're back at before it starts. And do we have, do we, or you know, we're still doing friendship, we're still doing regard and respect? Hey, guys, I wanted to take a quick moment to talk to you guys about a product I've been loving lately, Lumia Deodorant. As someone with sensitive skin,

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What are some effective ways to build trust and intimacy in a long-term relationship? Interps to see, kind of, can die off. I guess building trust will be more in the beginning. We like to look for a favorite subject obviously is sex. And then my favorite subject is like the psychology behind why men and women think the way that they think and what is the difference and Luke's like, but if we could talk about it into museum sex,

that's way more fun for me. Yeah. Well, it's fair. And I love that about you. I'll talk about whatever you want. I think the reality when it comes to trust, and I flip this on the set all the time with couples, because A will come in and say I don't trust person B. So maybe maybe local say, you know, I don't trust Kristen and I go, okay, well, there's three things in play there. One is there's a trust gap that means that the gap between

I don't trust it person is saying to person B. I don't trust you. That's painful and obviously if it's if it's a massive breach of trust that's worse than if it's like, oh, you just never take the garbage out when you say you're going to. But the gap itself is painful. So you're trying to minimize the gap, right? If there's a trust gap, you're trying to minimize that as much as possible. The other two things that are in play in there is that in the example that I've said, it doesn't close because Kristen immediately does everything that Luke wants. And it also doesn't close because Luke goes, okay, fine, you do whatever you want. It closes because he builds his capacity for trust and she demonstrates her

capacity for trustworthiness. And as they're doing that simultaneously, the gap closes and it closes because of inertia. We're doing it. So he has to do some personal work to say, oh, yeah, some of this is about me. Some of this is about the fact that I had an alcoholic parent or because my girlfriend cheated on me in college, that's my stuff to deal with. And then some of it has to be about her, where she goes, yeah, I do have a little bit of a problem with time management, or I do, I am a little sketchy with my money.

Or yeah, maybe I do flirt too much. In any case, it's really about both of them closing the gap together inside of the relationship, so that it's not strictly on her to conform to his idea of what trustworthiness looks like. And it's not strictly on him to just sort of go, well, I'm so committed to this relationship, but I'll ignore all bad behavior. It comes in tandem as you're working together. And I think until couples realize that, you build trust together by, you know, obviously that in this story I just told, each of you as partner A and partner B, right? Each of you has an opportunity to say, I don't trust you for whatever reason. But you know, trust around fidelity and monogamy

or sexual loyalty or whatever, that's really different of course, than trust around time management or what, obviously there's just degrees and levels. And so part of it is, what do you mean? I don't trust you, like, I've never cheated on you. Well, maybe that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is, are you who you say you are?

And can I count on you to do the things that you say you're gonna do? Right, I just had another, huh, moment. I thank you for that, huh, moment. Because, yeah, I think my brain, the whole entire time was thinking, I guess I've never considered it like a trust factor in being like the time management or the, you know, the, I guess,

lack of a better term, like the smaller degree of. Yeah, well, there's all these little breaches, right? There's all those little breaches of trust, you know? And it's like, can I count on you to do what you're saying? You're gonna do. I use a talk up, I was like every single thing, every single thing that happens in a relationship

is either trust building or trust diminishing. And it might be, might be microscopic. It might be like tiny, tiny, tiny. But, you know, if you're on a meter, you can hover around zero if you want, or you can build, build, build, build, build, build, build, build. And you do that by being on time and spending your money where you're saying you're going to spend your money.

Remembering to say, please, thank you. And like all the little micro things build up the equity and the account so that when there are the breaches, it's not a breach of character. It's a breach of circumstance. So when you are an hour late, I can go, oh my God, are you okay? I'm worried about you versus, where the hell were you? What's going on? You know, because you're building up the trust equity and all of the little, little, little things.

That certainly hits home for us because I'll say, Kristen has definitely a habit of saying she's going to call or do something else and I'm beginning to expect it to not happen. Just dealing with it like, you should call. Yeah, this stuff has just come to a head for us. So it was really, you know, I had to take it in and say like, hold accountability for myself and realize that something that may not feel so big to me feels really big to him. Totally. I think that's something, you know, with a lot of my friends and siblings and their relationships,

that's something that people don't necessarily put enough of their effort into, is like those really things that you may feel are very small, but just because it's small to you does not mean that it's small to your partner. It can actually be explosive to your partner. Yeah, and you know, you're like, what's the big deal? It's only five minutes or what's

the big deal? I had to be at work or whatever. And the reality is, in a vacuum, maybe that's true. Maybe it's real. But if it's a problem for your partner, it's a problem for the relationship. And that's where the two of you have to figure out, like, okay, what are we going to negotiate here? Because if the breaches are often enough, then I start to wonder, well, what can I count on you for? Well, if not this, then what about the next thing? Well, if not that, if it's only five minutes, then what about seven minutes? And then when is seven minutes become 12 minutes?

And then that's a problem. I don't, you know, obviously there's scope creep and slippery slopes and all that stuff, but that is in fact, you gotta take care of the top of the slope. Totally, and your trust bank analogy is so perfect and I agree with that wholly. And that like, it's falling through on the little things over and over.

So when one time it doesn't happen, it's not like it's way more understandable. It doesn't go the other direction where it dimishes to the point where you don't expect it anymore. It's like empty promises. You don't want to get to the point where you believe or you don't believe any promises, right? Yeah, that's a really good point, Luke, actually. I was going to ask you just about like warning signs, red flags. I mean, obviously, we, I guess I'm talking not like obviously if you or if your partner is being, you know,

is cheating on you or abusive and things that are like of that magnitude, I think that speaks for itself. But I guess if we could go a little more, like smaller, more specific as far as like red flags, warning signs that your relationship could really be faltering and kind of deep shit to be honest. And I'm curious like what some of those signs or warning, you know, red flags look like.

I think the generic answer is when the friendship is in trouble, but just don't like this person. Like, kind of there's a residue of like, to just sort of discontent. Because in the research, there's this whole thing that's called bids and turning, right? And so a bid is anytime that you're trying to make an attempt to get your partner's attention.

And what happens is, couples who are doing well, they tend to turn toward bids about 86% of the time. Couples that are struggling, they turn toward bids about a third of the time. So there's about a 60% gap that you can kind of pay attention to scientifically, I guess. But what's hidden in there is like, are you still paying attention to one another? Like, do you still, does your partner still deserve and is worthy of your responses? Like,

when that starts to fade and die and we start to live parallel lives or feel like roommates or we start to just like, that can be a real warning sign because it's, it is in fact the top of the slippery slope. Because if I'm, if I'm making a bid to you, if I say good morning to you and you don't say good morning back, two things are going to happen. First of all, I'm going to say, I'm going to stop saying good morning to you. Second of all, when I go get my coffee, I'm going to say good morning to the Cupid Reast and the Cupid Reast is going to go, good morning. How was your day?

My day was fantastic. Thank you so much. And I'm going to start leaning into that energy. So again, you got to protect the top of the slope. The top of the slope is the basic fundamental regard around bids and attention. Like, I got you. I got your back. I'm for you. I'm pro you. I hear you. I'm listening to you. That doesn't mean I do everything you say all the time. Right. It means I appreciate

that you're speaking and that you you are a person in my life that needs my attention. Right. And so do you think in your experience, like if going back to what you were saying a couple minutes ago about like when couples get into that slippery slope of the glorified roommates thing, I mean, I've been there for sure in path relationships. Do you think that that is already, if they're living parallel lives and they're not really spending time together and they're not putting in the work and they're essentially glorified roommates?

Do you think that's already like the beginning of the end or is there any hope for that coming back? Oh, no, gosh, there's always hope. There's always hope. It's their both- I think it's all clues, right? It's all just clues. It's not the beginning and the end.

It's more like, hey, this needs our attention. We better pay attention now. And then what are we gonna do with that? Because I wouldn't be in my business if I didn't believe there was hope. I mean, there are certainly times when I go, no, there's no hope. Like you guys, you're wasting your time. Don't even bother. But not not in most cases. Yeah. I have a friend that I referenced earlier. They have been married for like 20 years now. And when they went to therapy, the one of the first

questions was like, are you guys still having sex? And they said, they get some people that come in and haven't had sex in five or six years. And they said, those very low chance of coming back. Because like, intimacy has been dead for that long. Your living as roommates, it's hard to come back from that. Is what this therapist told my friend. And you agree with that stance?

Oh, I think that it's all hard. You know, there's a big kind of famous joke in the couples therapy business, which is sex drops off dramatically after the birth of the first child, but don't worry, it bounces back immediately after the last child leads home. Right? Like maintaining a healthy sex life is challenging,

particularly when Limerons wears off, like when the novelty and the newness wears off. But I think couples that have a really, really strong friendship and who makes sex a priority, they do great. They do really great. You're not statistically subject to kind of the nature of whatever sex is. People who are really good at maintaining their friendship and for whom sex is a priority. They have tremendously satisfactory sex lives, but those two things are clinically understood

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Now I know what you might be thinking. Superfoods can be way expensive, right? But with Organifi, you can experience the benefits without breaking the bank. head over to organify.com slash doti. That's or g-a-n-i-f-i.com slash doti and use code doti for 20% off your entire order. Don't wait. Try or I got a question about finances. So do you think marriages have a better chance of making it with like shared bank accounts and total financial transparency or is that- I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters at all. I think I think that you can, here's what I mean. If I tell you the answer to that question, based on where I think you should put your money, you could still be total assholes about your money.

And it doesn't matter if it's in separate accounts or in joint accounts. What you need to be is what you need is people who have really clear idea of what their shared vision is, what their shared values and goals are, and then money is just a resource to help pursue those. Yeah. So if part of your shared vision is autonomy, then you might be better by having separate accounts.

But if part of your shared vision is, say generosity, and you wanna put everything into a pot and then distributed as productively as you can, but money is just a target or an example of where the relationship reality is. I think two conversations you had about money. One is with your financial advisor who can help you understand specifically the math related to your goals and your dreams and your risk tolerance. Then the other one was really about what money means to you and how does it work and how do you intend to use it and what do you want to accomplish with it? What kind of legacy do you want to leave?

And that's a separate conversation altogether. And then when you knit those two conversations together, you can go, oh, we need 17 accounts or one account or whatever. I do think there are some basic principles and play around accountability and transparency Particularly for people who are reliant on one another, but no, I don't think there's a right answer to whether or not You should have a single checkbook or different checkbooks. Why is it and is this even true? I mean, I feel like pretty much everyone is heard like you know divorces tend to happen over like ABCD like certain certain specific things, money being one of them,

but I think like loss is one, the death or something of that nature that can cause a lot of stress, things that cause stress essentially, but money being one of them, like what are your thoughts on that, that it can cause such a... I think divorce happens because people care more about X

than they do about staying married. And if X is money, then okay, if X is sex with other people, okay, if X is, I don't like how you get along with my family, or I don't like your personality, or I, and so I know that's a really, really simple way to put it, but in my office, people are talking about divorce, I'm like,

look, you got two options. You stay in this relationship and you do the work to make it better. Or you leave. And people sometimes, when they're given that option, they'll go, no, it's actually more important to me to protect my finances or my, and listen, I think sometimes X is a really, really good reason. Myself esteem, my safety, my dignity, my happiness in life. You know, I think those are fine things to be committed to. And then if you can vet that against the relationship and go, oh, I can't maintain those things

while being in this relationship, then divorce maybe is the right option. So I'm not anti-divorce. And sometimes it's unconscious. I'm more committed to my own autonomy than I am to being a married. And so I'm sabotaging by making everything impossible. That's still you caring more about your own autonomy

than it is about you caring about the marriage. Right. I definitely had my ambition getting the way of past relationships. I've been married before, but definitely, I've been like, my business is more important than you. You know, and this bad as that's may sound, that's where I was in life,

and it obviously didn't make for a very healthy relationship. Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, I mean, honestly, if I think about year eight and 18 for me, I probably could point at the same sort of thing. Like I was more committed to X than I was to maintaining the the like the health and wellness of my relationship. And then I got a good look at the consequences and the options and decided, no, I'd rather I'm gonna put the work in and I'm really glad I did. I think the cool thing about that statistic

that I offered you is that people on the other side of seven years generally report an increase in marital satisfaction as they go along. So I think if you're gonna get out, get out early, but if you really wanna be in a healthy relationship, it is more a marathon than a sprint, but it's also just running and evaluating the run as you're going. The reason I say it's not really a marathon is because if you're running a marathon, you're halfway through. You can go, okay, I'm halfway through. I've only got two more miles,

I've only got six more miles. You can't really do that in a relationship. That's kind of a shitty way to be in a relationship, which is to go up. I'm going to do this for 26 years. really do that in a relationship. That's kind of a shitty way to be in a relationship which is to go up. I'm going to do this for 26 years. Right. For 26 to two years. And then, you know, halfway, you're like, well, I only got half, I've got less left than I had before, you know, like, that's not who wants to do that. Right. No, totally.

So do you have suggestions for couples considering taking the leap, like, stuff to do before actually getting married, like, pre-marriage counseling or some things that they should check off a list before they make that leap. So, like, I'm anti-checking off a list, right? Like, I think a lot of people who come in for pre-maredal counseling, that's exactly what they're doing. They're go, hey, can we, my pastor said we should do this or my parents said we should do this.

And a lot of people build their pre-maredal counseling, like, kind of offerings around, okay, we're gonna talk about sex, money, in-laws, household chores, and so on, and somehow you've checked off the list, well you haven't, you haven't gotten close. I think what you ought to do is get into a relationship with a therapist who is going to be able to walk with you, be able to kind of stay with you. I think if you're gonna commit to sort of pre-marital therapy, you know, I think you ought to commit to post marital therapy. And we live in a world right now where a lot of people are in relationships that look like marriages without being married, like maybe even like you guys, like there's sort of, we're already sleeping together, we already have a dog, we already have a shared finance situation, we already. So part of it I think is

really getting articulate about what you actually think a relationship is versus just being in a relationship. A lot of times we call it there's a dilemma when it's sliding versus deciding. So people will slide into a relationship because oh this is cool and we're spending the night each other's house anyway. So my least is about to expire. Why don't we move in and oh gosh now we're pregnant and well why don't we get married and there's sort of this sliding energy that I think is we're recognizing and it's kind of unhealthy. But I think you can still put decisions in there.

We're going to decide. We're going to decide this. We're going to decide that. And I think deciding to do therapy can be really helpful, but honestly deciding to, you know, read a book together or listen to Mary Sturpy Radio or whatever is more helpful than I think than nothing nothing obviously. But I think it still comes back to the couple because I know people who go to the gym five times a week and getting no results because they go to the gym to take pictures and you know and they're friends.

But you know there are other people who go to the gym once a week and they get the input they need from their trainer and they do some real work and they tweak some things and they go home and then they put that into practice and they do a little bit of, you know, diet management and they do run on their own and stuff. And those people are getting way more results from the gym than the people who are going to the gym all the time. That's a really good analogy actually. Taking what you're learning from therapy or let's say your podcast, do you put it in place? Yeah place. And then yeah, the constant practice of that, not just the practice that, I think that's something that I've learned pretty quickly on too,

is like it's not the practice, like in the time of struggle, in the time of the fight or the disagreement, it's like the before and the after, that is like the most important. Yeah, totally. So, Chris, and you've used therapy as a analogy to like a toolbox. And you go to therapy, they get tools. Yeah, that's what I say.

It's like, my therapist gives me tools to put in my toolkit. So that way when I'm in those moments in my life, I'm not, you know, I'm not calling her on them like, you know, I freak out or a text, I'm going, now I have this tool, I know what to do with this tool in this moment. Yeah, I say to couples all the time I think people come in and they say we want some tools and I'm like that's great because I'm home Depot

Yeah, I got all the tools. I got I got a lot of experience I got a lot of understanding of the research. I got a lot of practice I've been marrying myself so I I understand I get what do you what do you need and I think where where the couples Get in trouble as they don't know what they're building and so if you if you're gonna come in and go I need some tools to go great. What are you building? What are you working on? What do you need? And I think where where the couples get in trouble is they don't know what they're building and so if you if you're going to come in and go I need some tools to go great. What are you building? What are you working on? What do you want to accomplish? What would make your relationship better? If I said to you guys in a week, if we got on again, and I said how's it going guys and you go? It's going a lot better. How would you even know? What would you even be describing? Right. Is it less conflict? Is it more sex? Is it deeper conversation? Is it more time together? All of those things are like

is it deeper conversation, is it more time together? All of those things, you might go all of those things. Well, they're all also just different for different couples based on wherever they're at in their kind of timeline. How do you feel about love languages? Some people think it's like so cliche and I just kind of as of this year had this different understanding of love languages and mine have changed over the years,

but I think so, I'm just curious your thoughts on this. But my opinion now stands is like, really, it's not like what language in which I like to give as it is what language my partner for first to receive. It's both. Because my giving language does not always vibe with the way Luke.

And you know what's wild about that is that's kind of like you're speaking Japanese, but you understand German. Uh-huh. Meanwhile, he may be speaking Portuguese, but understands Icelandic. Right. And so in that scenario, I think people who love each other would kind of, I've tried to learn as much German as I can, or I'll try to learn some Japanese, or I'm going to, I'm going to figure out how to, you know, and we make it work because that's how you do it. You know, that's how you would do it if you needed to. The thing about love languages as a metaphor is,

you know, Gary Chapman got famous by writing this book about five love languages and there's, you know, he turned it into a franchise. You can get like, you know, five love languages for your dog, now and whatever I mean. But there's probably 500, there's probably 500 love languages. And so I think learning as much as you can about your partners and how to speak that language

on their behalf is an act of love. And in fact, if you said, hey, my love languages, I really like to be thanked for stuff. This is actually me, Zach likes to be thanked. And my wife is one of these people who doesn't want to thank you for stuff you're supposed to do anyway. Like she's just, that's just kind of how she's conditioned.

But she has understood, she has come to understand that when she thinks me, I get a double bump. I get the thanks, which is just part of what my body wants. But then it also get the fact, the evidence that my partner is doing something that she doesn't want to do because it makes me feel good. And that's trust building. That takes that, that's it. And so she could very easily go, look, that's how we did it in my house. We didn't say thank you in my house. We were tired for what we got and like that it it it it it. And I would be like, cool, good story. I still would like to be thanked.

Yeah, I didn't know that house. This is what I need. So the fact that not only did she do that, which she knows you love, but she went beyond what her normalcy feels because she knows it. Yeah. That's small gesture would mean so much to you. It's very loving. And you know, we do this, we do this by the way, way easier when it comes to say sex and like physicality.

So if you're having sex and your lover goes right there, right there, faster, faster, what do you do? You do it. You stay right there and you go faster. Yeah. Because you're good and responsive lover. That's what you do. But if your partner says,

hey, I'd really like you to thank me more often. Sometimes we go, well, I don't know. I don't know why would I thank you. That's not what we did. Like it's stupid. What we do that in our heads sometimes. But part of I think staying in a long-term community relationship is letting your partner know

what makes you feel good. And then being a good and responsive lover to meet them in that place. Even if it's not your thing, you know? You might be like, Oh, actually, I'd like to go slower right now. Slow is actually what I'd want to do. But what you're saying at that point is I care more about my pleasure than yours. There's a time for that, but it's also a message. Right. You're pretty groundbreaking. I like for reals, after this, it's like, yeah, sorry. Don't say sorry.

We're giving you like a hard hell yeah. Yeah, my brain's exploding a little bit. So as far as those tools we were talking about, do you have some simple tools to cope with stress and anxiety in relationships? I think this is a really important question that happens comes up a lot. Yeah. Stress is a killer for relationships, particularly external stress,

because when external stress becomes like gains influence over the relationship, like your boss or the dog that barks outside or your commute or the long distance, like those are things that are being imposed upon you. And you need systems that help you protect from external stress. One of the things that we often will recommend is that you just create kind of to your question

earlier about how do you create a safe space that you actually create a safe space where you can de-stress. And if I'm giving you kind of the clinical answer, sometimes we recommend that you have a conversation where there's one purpose and the purpose is to reduce stress. And you might even say, I need a stress-reducing conversation right now. So that one of you can go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

about all the things that are bothering you. And the other one goes, yeah, totally. Your commute is horrible. Yeah. Oh, me and your boss is a jerk. I get it. Yeah, growing older is hard. Ding, it's over.

There's no solution. There's no taking your boss is a jerk, I get it. Yeah, growing older is hard. Ding, it's over. There's no solution, there's no taking your boss's side, there's no pivoting, there's no have you thought about, because all of that raises stress. Again, I think you have an option in that specific conversation to show your partner, I can do this. I got you. I'm pro you right now. Yeah, like, I don't want advice. I just need you to listen. Yeah, and I don't want advice. I just need you to listen. Yeah, and I think we're not, I think that that cliche exists a lot. And I think it's really hard to understand when to use that, which is why I think you should just ask.

Like, hey man, I just need 10 minutes. All I'm going to do is vent and all I need you to do is agree with everything I say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then when you do it, when you do it, even despite your best intakes, you might be like, you know, I've been telling you for a year, you should quit that job. Yeah. Yeah. And then when you do it, when you do it, even despite your best intakes, you might be like, you know, you, I've been telling you for a year, you should quit that job, right? I'm telling you for like, that's not

stress-reducing. Right. This is fantastic because I, I could even hear the me and me, might, the old me and me go, well, but I can't just like, you know, like, I'm already sitting here thinking of the rebuttal that I probably would have said before. Yeah. But I just know from experience, like, I know, like I'm already sitting here thinking of the rebuttal that I probably would have said before. Yeah. But I just know from experience, like I think about it almost like. I think about it. I'm not putting up letting someone get away with murder all the time because I do think

you have to hold each other accountable and accountable. But sometimes you don't have to do that. Like you're not a parent, be a partner. Yeah. We know how to do this. And if you think about it, like if you're walking down the street and somebody's like, hey, I want you to vote for my guy. And you think that guy is full of crap.

And you're like, no, you're guys full of crap. And what about this? And what about the other thing? You would do that. You could do that with a certain part of your brain. But if that same person walked into your political science class and was like, hey, today, I'm going to tell you about this guy. And you have a test on Thursday.

You immediately suspend the part of your brain that needs to go, what about, and have you thought of, and you take notes, and you just listen, and you just listen, and you write it down, because you want to pass the test on Thursday. And what I'm saying is passing the test is staying connected to your partner, which means sometimes you need to suspend the part of your brain that wants to go, what about, and yeah, but, and but you, you know, we want to stay connected, because staying connected is the is the secret in a long term committed relationship. And score keeping is never going to keep you connected. That's for sure. I mean, I always say if one of you's winning, then the relationship is losing.

Yeah. It's a good mind. Great. I think sometimes the best way to end an argument is to call Rochampo and go rock paper scissors shoot and then somebody wins somebody loses and then can we get some ice cream. Yeah. All right, got it loose. I thought we were doing for not.

I mean, seriously, if you guys are in a conversation, if you're in a conflict and it's the same conflict you're in all the time and it's boring and old and just not going anywhere and you know how it's going to end, just somebody slamming a door or something and one of you goes Rochambo and you go, fine, rock paper scissors shoot and then you win and then you're the one who has to dish up the ice cream. That's it, you're done. Yeah. Because you're obviously not trying to accomplish anything.

Right. So why don't you just accomplish getting some ice cream? Yeah. Just figuring sometimes, yeah, the same stuff. And sometimes you need to bicker, right? Like I think back to this idea that like, when you go into a long-term community relationship, but you do get these two privileges

that you don't get elsewhere. And one of them is that you can solicit sex anytime you want, which you can't do with the grocery store or at your job or at the soccer field. And the other one is that you can becker and widen and mone and argue, which you can't do with the grocery store or at your job or at the soccer field. But I think both of them should end in intimacy, right?

Both of those privileges should end and we feel closer. So sometimes you do need to becker because it's just you're the safest person I have. I was curious to your thoughts on that because I noticed it's something that I can tend to do. And not to say, I think I've learned over years, I'm 40 now, so I'm old. But I've learned over there.

Well, that's so sweet of you. But I've learned over the years like to not, you know, a lot of people, you take out on your partner like most of your day because it is the person closest to you. And I don't think that I like take things out on Luke, but I do notice like complaining, racking, bitching about things to him

that don't have to do with him. But I think that like, where is that healthy balance where it's, because it can be draining, it can be kind of like soul sucking. I guess, unless you're like, looks like I got you. Go ahead, you got 10 minutes, bitch, all you want. I'll pro you. Give me some of the time, I'm gonna be pro.

I'm on it. I got it. Ding, and then we hug, when we say I pro you, let's put this to bed, let's go do something to fun. Right, you know? I guess where I hit a wall, those when it's the the same thing like you're saying when it's like the same fight Here, whatever you bicker over. Yeah, it's honestly that it's like complaining over the same thing and nothing We don't know how to stress

Same external but nothing no no attempt at a solution no suggestion Taken or whatever it just like it gets harder to hear the same thing Yeah, well when I what I usually say to that is that like again There's a time in a place. I think on Saturday morning, when you're on your walk and you go, hey, babe, last week, you came home five days in a row and you complained about the same exact thing. I think it's time for us to look for a solution. Like I think we need to do that.

And I'm willing to help. I want you to, I just want you to know that I listened to you for five days. For five days in a row, you told me how you hated your job. And I think we need to get serious about looking for a new job. That's so hard to do. I have that conversation. I mean, to have the patience and then have the conversation and bring it up in that way.

If it's been like such a passionate kind of like complaining or big external Because you're playing the short game. It's hard because you're playing the short game. You got to play the long game. Being in the long-term community relationship is saying, Hey, I see where this is headed. And I need to figure out how to play this card. But I can't play it until Saturday.

But we live in a culture right now that is inviting us to play the short game all the time. I mean, it is literally like, that is what is happening right now. Tiktok or whatever. And everything looks like it's supposed to be wrapped up in 22 minutes or 48 minutes, whatever, the length of the television show is. But no, we gotta play the long game. And it's so, it's hard because we're tempted

to play this short game all the time. If I could fix this right now, which I can't fix it right now, you can't fix it until you're connected. Okay, I just took that to heart. I'm the fixer. Fixed Okay. I just took that to heart. I'm the fixer. Fixer, I want to fix it now.

Yeah, would be great. You can't fix it though unless you have permission. Yeah. You don't get permission until you show that you're connected. I feel like we just went to therapy together. Yeah, you did. Hell yeah. That was like, that was like my greatest hit right there.

That was, oh my god. Well, yeah, I had a lot of huh I'm glad for that. Thank you for Wow moments. This was so much fun. Thank you for being on even though you're not feeling great. Yeah, no You're the best and I would we would absolutely love to have you and Laura's a lot of fun You guys should definitely have her back. It's not both of us. And I would love to have both of you and see the two bounds off of each other as well. We do that quite a bit. So awesome. Are you on social medias?

I'm not personally. The podcast is it's called Maristere Peretio. You can follow us there. You can find me at ZachBritel.com, which is just my first and last name, but the dot com. And you know, Google, you can find anybody on Google. So yeah, it's ZAC H and then brittle like fragile. Yeah, like BRI TTLE.

Yeah. So follow Zach and then we yeah, again, we thank you so much for this. It was so much fun. Yeah, it was so much. It means so fucking eye opening. Cool, cool, hard opening, soul opening, brain exploding. Yeah, very good. It's like work to have you guys on again. I'm glad I worked out. Awesome. All right, soul opening, brain exploding, and... Yeah, very good. It's a lot of work.

We'll love to have you guys on again. I'm glad I worked out. Awesome. All right, we'll talk to you soon. Make sure to follow us on social media. You can follow me on all platforms at Kristen Dodie and follow Luke on Instagram at Luke Double Under Score Broadred. Be sure to click the subscribe button so you can stay up to date with new episodes every

single Wednesday. Thanks for listening. See you next week.