The Liz Moody Podcast - Ranking Viral Relationship Advice (with Couples Therapist Zach Brittle)
Episode Date: July 27, 2026The viral relationship advice that we see on social media is often not the advice that's going to help us the most. In fact, it's often the stuff that goes viral that can cause us more frustration whe...n we try it and it doesn't work. So today, Couples Therapist, Zach Brittle, joins me to clear things up and rank popular relationship advice from the internet (from the best advice to advice you should ignore). 🎧 What you’ll learn: • Why couples who never fight might actually be in more danger than those who argue regularly • The one skill that matters more than how you argue • How to know if someone is truly emotionally unavailable • The simple daily habit that builds emotional intelligence in even the most "closed-off" partners • Why certainty is a relationship killer • How to identify the two-thirds of your conflicts that will never be resolved (& why that's actually good news) Check out the previous episode with Zach Brittle: Top Couples Therapist: How To Stop Settling For Less Than You Deserve (Even When He Thinks Everything's Fine) • Listen on Apple • Listen/Watch on Spotify • Watch on YouTube Check out the previous ranking advice episodes of The Liz Moody Podcast by searching the titles below: • Ranking Skincare Advice From Social Media (with Dr. Sam Ellis) • Ranking Fitness Advice From Social Media (with Harley Pasternak) • Ranking Gut Health Advice From Social Media (with Dr. Karan Rajan) • Ranking ADHD Advice For Women From Social Media (with Therapist Jenna Free) • Therapy Advice: Ranking Best & Worst From Social Media (with Lori Gottlieb) • Money Advice: Ranking Best & Worst From Social Media (with HerFirst100K) • Healthy Eating Advice: Ranking Best & Worst From Social Media (with Nutrition By Kylie) For more from Zach Brittle: • Website: https://zachbrittle.com/ • Substack: https://zachbrittle.substack.com/ • Podcast: https://marriagetherapyradio.com/all-episodes/ Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now! Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome.Buy our cute sweatshirts, conversation cards, and more at https://shop.lizmoody.com/. Use our discount codes from our highly vetted and tested brand partners by visiting https://www.lizmoody.com/codes. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to the following podcast sponsors: • IQ Bar: text LIZ to 64000 for 20% off. • LMNT: head to DrinkLMNT.com/Liz to get a FREE 8-count sample pack with any order. • Wildgrain: go to Wildgrain.com/LizMoody to get $30 off your first box + FREE croissants for LIFE. • AG1: visit DrinkAG1.com/LizMoody and get an AG1 Flavor Sampler and a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2 for FREE in your AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 451. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
There is a lot of relationship advice online that sounds good in theory.
Don't go to bed at angry.
Never stop dating your partner.
Let him feel needed.
Stop texting first.
Watch less TV together.
But somehow, we are still having the same fights.
We're still feeling disconnected.
We are still not having the relationships that we know that we deserve.
On the Liz Moody podcast, we are always looking for the levers that we can pull that
will create real felt change.
So today, we are ranking relationship advice from social media.
The top ranking is S-tier.
That is superior advice, the best of the best.
And then it goes in order, A, B, C, D, E, all the way down to F-tier, which is advice that you should definitely not listen to, advice that you should leave far behind.
I'm joined today by Zach Brittle.
He is one of the only therapists in the entire world, certified in both the Gottman method of couples therapy and Terry Reel's relational life therapy.
He is a best-selling author.
He is a top podcast host, and his work has been featured in the New York Times.
Times, The Washington Post, and Vanity Fair.
This is part of a new series where we have already ranked therapy advice from the internet
with Lori Gottlie.
We have ranked nutrition advice.
We have ranked fitness advice with a celebrity trainer.
We've ranked gut health advice with Dr. Karan Rajan.
So scroll back in our feeds.
You do not miss out on any of those.
And then also let me know in the comments what topic we should rank next.
And I really want to know if you disagree with any of the advice in this episode.
It's a free world.
I'd love to hear it.
So let us know in the comments if you would write.
rank anything differently.
All right, Zach Brito, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks.
Welcome back.
This is from Kristen Cavalari.
I'm curious.
Do you know who that is?
I do.
Okay.
I'm impressed.
Did you watch Laguna Beach?
No.
What is your advice for what to do when you feel like a guy is pulling away?
Match that energy.
Do not keep reaching out.
You guys, if someone doesn't text me one freaking time, I'm never texting you ever again.
I mean, live by that.
Because here's the thing. Even if, let's say, a guy saw your text and was like, I'll get to it later and then, you know, forgot, it got opened. He forgot. Well, if you like someone, you're thinking about them. So let's say I missed someone's text. Well, in a couple hours, I'd be like, oh my gosh, you know, I haven't heard from so and so for a while. I should like, what the fuck? And then you would go to text them. So if a guy is not texting you, he's not that interested in you. And I will stand by that until the day I die. You feel him pulling away. Bye.
dating advice more than relationship advice, but what do we think?
I think it's terrible. Her whole thing is coming out of a space of certainty.
If I don't get the thing I want, I know exactly what that means.
And that isn't a place that you can actually build a sustainable relationship.
If he hasn't texted me, that means he's not interested in me.
Or if he's withdrawing, then that means the relationship is in danger.
There's so many different ways that you can interpret someone not texting you back.
I mean, I don't want to get into the weeds of this, but like, their phone could be dead.
Their mother could be in the hospital.
They could be doing something nefarious and weird.
They could be, you know, who knows?
Anytime that you sort of build your relationship philosophy on is the person behaving in exactly the way I need them to behave, then you're, again, you're limiting yourself.
Have you seen the movie?
He's just not that into you?
No.
Okay.
The idea is that women particularly spend a lot of time, like, dissecting the text and trying to figure
out the secret messages and how long he's taking reply all these things.
But really, like, you know if somebody likes you.
You know if somebody's into you.
Do you think that's true?
I think you can know.
I think you know.
Like if you're dissecting it, he is not, is the general premise.
Like if you're having to think it through, then he is not showing you that he's into
in a way that would indicate he really is.
I don't know.
For me, I learned more about Kristen Cavalieri than I did about the guy that she's
talking about just now and the thing.
So if you run hot with your anxiety or if you run hot with your abandonment issues or if you run
hot with your philosophy of how socials work, if you're into somebody and you're and you would
like for them to be into you, that requires then a conversation.
It's almost something like, hey, listen, I don't even really know if this is reasonable or not,
but sometimes when I text you and you don't text me back within an hour or five minutes or a day,
it churns something up in me that makes me start to wonder about whether or not we're
compatible.
What do you think about that?
I know there are people listening to her like, that's going to send them running for the hills.
Great.
Goodbye.
Now we know.
But we don't know because we assumed it and we like put it in stone before we had the conversation, you know?
So this is what I always say.
I say, like don't play games at the beginning of a relationship because you want to know sooner rather than later if somebody is compatible with you.
And a lot of my single friends push back and they say, yeah, but like the games work at the beginning.
Like, and then as you develop more intimacy, you develop more connection.
to keep a guy interested to kind of trick them?
Okay.
Okay.
I mean, if that's your goal to trick them and keep them interested, then, yeah, play the game.
But if your goal is to establish like a 40-year-long conversation with somebody who is not exactly the same as you, who didn't come up in the same value set as you, who didn't have the same relationship with their phone as you, then it doesn't work.
Okay.
So where would we rank this advice?
based on the merits of that video alone, we'll call it enough.
There's something valuable in it, but it's missing, I think, actual adult behavior.
When I listened to it, I thought, oh, I've heard this conversation before.
In my freshman year in college, I heard a woman describe this exact same scenario, and I was like,
that's really weird.
If he had thought about me even once over the last hour, he would have called me.
I was like, he was a soccer practice.
But that sounded like a 19-year-old to me.
This clip is from Arthur Brooks.
He is a Harvard Happiness professor.
He's written a bunch of different books.
And he has four simple ways to strengthen your marriage.
Here's how you fix every marriage.
You do four things.
Number one, you have more fun together as opposed to rehearsing grievance.
More fun, less grievance.
Therapy is like, grievance, grievance, grievance.
Have more fun together.
Second is pray together.
If you get married, the goal is to fuse your right hemispheres.
The best way to do that is by meditating together, is by praying together,
is by doing right hemisphere activity together.
The third protocol is to make eye contact whenever you talk.
Never be talking without making eye contact.
Way more important for your wife than it is for you.
Way more important because she gets three times as much oxytocin,
which means she's better at bonding,
but it also means that she's better at starving
when she's not getting enough oxytocin.
And last but not least is remember, A, B, T, always be touching,
always be touching, always be touching.
More important for men than for women, as a matter of fact.
That's why when you're with your beloved and she hooks her arm into your arm while you're walking on the street, you're like, I'm big and strong.
Do we think these are the four keys to a good marriage?
I do not think those are the four keys to a good marriage.
Do you, I mean, there's four pieces of advice there.
Should we tackle each one individually?
I think they're all different.
Okay.
I mean, I think the first one for sure, have more fun.
Absolutely.
I think couples need to learn how to have more fun and need to learn how to play.
Even when they come in and talk about how therapy is work, I'm like, okay, it can be work.
And even relationships can be work.
But work is one thing.
If it's Siberian labor camp, I'm swinging an axe at a bunch of rocks and just hoping that I can get through the day.
It's another thing if it's like the amazing race.
And we're working on like figuring out how to get to the place and do the thing.
We're going to have some fun.
We're going to go on a little mini side quest.
He frames playing in contrast to therapy where he says you're stirring up your grievances.
How do you think about therapy in terms of that as a therapist?
Yeah, I think couples will come into my office.
They'll use that room for different reasons.
Sometimes it's a courtroom.
Sometimes it's a science lab.
Sometimes it's a yoga studio.
Sometimes it's a playground.
I think the playground has the most success, the most opportunity to go,
hey, what is this?
And what are we building?
And how about this?
And do you have that tool?
When people come in to a courtroom and they want me to play judge,
yeah, it's work and it's hard.
And it's not work I enjoy.
I don't want to play judge.
I'd much rather play who's the guy who walks around on the playground and says,
you're doing great.
It's not quite a coach, but it's more like the holder of the space
that allows them to stretch and risk and figure
out new things. Is there anything that we can do pragmatically to, one, bring more play generally
to our relationships, but two, to bring this element of play to therapy? So you can literally
play games, play board games, play card games in your house, gamify things that are hard. I have one
couple who they were having a really hard time in their sex life, and they decided that they
were going to turn it into a game. They had to get 100 points a week. They made the rules. I didn't
make the rules. And sex itself was 75 points. And oral sex was 50 points. And making out was 25 points.
and holding hands or like snuggling in bed, they were less.
They were 10 or 12 or something like that.
And they just were like, we're going to try and get 100 points a week.
And they turned this thing that was hard and challenging for them into a game.
So this advice to have more fun, where would we put that on our tier list?
I think that's superior.
Okay.
Yeah.
But it doesn't have to live in contrast to therapy.
You can bring that fun into therapy.
I think therapy can be fun.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then the next one was pray or meditate together.
Yeah.
I mean, I put all three of those in the same category, which is that tactically, they're all good advice.
They're all good things to do.
I don't think any of them are superior or required.
I'm not a very touchy feeling guy.
So always be touchy is like not a way to strengthen my marriage.
It's actually a little bit annoying, a little bit off-putting.
And again, I don't think he's wrong.
I think women do love eye contact.
I think men love contact.
Yeah, I mean, there are hormones that are released when you hold prolonged eye contact.
Again, I think it's all good.
It's just not the four things.
that you need to do to protect your marriage.
I wouldn't say, no, don't do that.
Don't pray.
Don't make eye contact.
Well, it's interesting, though, the physical touch thing
because you're like, that feels very individual
since you're like, I don't actually like that that much.
Well, and some people are really, really uncomfortable with eye contact.
It's very painful for them.
So when we put that at like maybe C in terms of like these next three,
just because they can work.
Maybe more like B.
Okay.
I mean, they're positive things to do.
Yeah.
They're just not essential things to do.
They're not superior things to do.
If there were maybe one or two things that you think are the keys to a good marriage,
what would you say?
Be kind.
I think be kind is like the main thing.
Don't take yourself too seriously is another one.
I think you have to actually be creative.
Those are, that's an essential one.
So like tactically, all of those things have different manifestations.
But thematically, I think it's all in the idea of I have a choice here to make this harder
or easier.
one of the ways I can make it easier is by not taking myself too seriously and by definitely being
kind and by being creative in the ways I'm going to tackle solutions. If we're not creative,
we're certain, right? We're certain. We're narrow-minded and that limits our options. And I think
certainty kills. But they say curiosity kills a cat. I actually think it's certainty that kills
the marriage. It kills a marriage, for sure. I know exactly what you're going to do. I know exactly
what you're going to say. I know exactly how this argument is going to go. That limits your
options. And that does make it harder. Okay. This is from J.
Chetty. Most of us only do one thing with our partners, and it's watching TV. And that is the lowest
form of intimacy that you could possibly ask for with any human being. If you and I watch TV together
for 200 hours a year, we would potentially be no closer than we were before. I have this pyramid of
intimacy and entertainment's on the lowest rung of the ladder. But that's what the majority of couples
are doing. So if we're only watching TV together,
I promise you, that relationship is not growing. It's actually falling apart slowly and you have no idea.
The hands dimmer, like soundtrack in the background is very dramatic, but don't watch TV together
because that's killing your relationship. Yeah, I mean, I think that's fine advice. I'm kind of like,
I don't know. My wife and I love watching TV together. It's a great way for us to connect and turn off
our brains. I think intimacy is a ladder, but it's also a wheel. The wheel of intimacy, I was holding my hands up like,
this for clients. And I go, it's intellectual, emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual. Physical and
sexual are different. And spiritual doesn't have to be religious, but for a lot of people it is. But
intellectual intimacy is really important for people. We watch TV and we compare notes about characters.
We watch TV and we think out loud about what it is. We have different versions of shows that we
watch. She watches shows by herself. I watch shows by myself. And then you watch shows together.
And we have a network of conversation about and around that. It's not all of our intimacy, but it's
certainly part of it. That's what I was going to say. I think there's a way to engage with TV.
Same with gossip. Yeah. People, like, I think gossip gets a bad rap, but if you're using it to be like,
well, what are the choices that I would make and sort of what was their motivation, etc., etc.,
I think it can be a really interesting, fruitful form of conversation. Well, and the other thing for us is,
like, we'll sit down, dinner will be over and I'll be like, what do you want to do? Do we want to watch
to watch TV tonight? And sometimes the answer is yes, I need to turn my brain off and just be quiet with or near
you. Sometimes it's no, let's play a game. We'll go for a walk. He says there's
something that they only do. It's the only thing they do. I think the only. I don't know any of those
couples. But sure, if the only thing you do is watch TV, then yes, it is very good advice to not watch
TV. I know couples, though, and I've fallen into these points in my relationship where it just
becomes the go-to. I have this thing called the novelty rule, which is about intentionally
infusing novelty into our lives. And we have to say, like, we're going to do a novel evening
tonight, even in a really small way. We're going to play a game. We're going to go for a walk.
We're going to go paddleboarding, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And so I do think that it's ripping yourself.
out from what is the default if that has become the default in a way that's not helpful.
So where would we put this?
See.
All right.
This is from Lauren Olivia on TikTok.
I have a very bad news for you.
And that is that the man that you were looking for is not going to be perfect in the very
beginning.
And you are going to have to ask him to change some things for how you want to be treated because
he's never been with you before.
And so he's not going to be perfect.
no matter how emotionally intelligent he is, no matter how discerning he is, no matter how much of a
great provider he is, you are a nuanced, unique, fiery, ooey, gooey, yummy, defined feminine woman
who wants to be loved in a very specific way that no one else has ever wanted to be loved in before.
And so that is where the communication part of a relationship comes in, where he now loves you
the way that you want to be loved and you love him the way that he wants to be loved.
And that is what makes a relationship, a relationship because you are you,
Uniquely loving each other the way you uniquely want to be loved.
What I thought was interesting about this video is the comments are really a mix of people being like, yes, like tell them what you want, tell them what you need.
Then people asking questions like, well, when do I do that?
How do I not scare them away?
And then a ton of people being like, no, girl, don't settle.
Don't settle.
Like there's a perfect person out there.
Just wait.
I definitely don't think there's a perfect person out there.
The one is a myth.
What did she start out by saying?
the she said like I have bad news for you the perfect he's not going to be perfect right away
it's not going to be like usually they are perfect right away like because we we have our like
blinders on and we're we're all we're interested in the novelty and the novelty forgives a lot of
sins we go this is so fun so I'm not going to really care about the fact that he was late
and didn't tell me or something like that you know we tend to put our like a rose color
glasses yeah or just like we ignore some pink flags because they're just not like the upside is too
high but I do think that some of what she's saying is really gold you do need to
to learn how to ask for what you want in a way that works for your partner. You can't just make
demands. Like it has to be a function of desire. Like I talk to clients about this all the time.
Desire versus demand. If you're demanding, demanding, demanding, demanding, that's a red flag about
you. If you're willing to express your desire in a way that works for them and begin negotiating,
that's a skill that you have to have as you keep going. This is about you relative to me.
You know, the things that I've done my whole life that worked for my first girlfriend, my first wife,
my first whatever, if I meet someone for whom that doesn't work, then the process of being in
relationship with that person is the process of changing in a ways that meet for them.
I do think this is so interesting.
I think about it all the times with the idea of like, oh, being a good boyfriend or being good
in bed.
And it's like the idea of good is so subjective person to person.
I don't think you can be like universally good in bed.
I don't think you can be universally a good partner because you're going to be good for each
person.
Right.
And I use the embed one a lot with people.
because if you're in bed with somebody and you go, oh, right there, faster.
Your partner generally is going to go faster.
And if you go, yeah, keep doing that.
They're going to keep doing that.
If you say, ouch, they're going to stop.
I mean, that's the nature of being in that kind of intimate environment and communicating effectively.
And so I'll tell clients, like, why is it any different in your, like, emotional life or your intellectual life?
It feels good when you do this.
Ouch.
Please stop.
Can you try to become good lovers for one another by,
help training them how you're going to come intellectually or emotionally or spiritually,
you know, like.
How do we frame something so that it's a desire and not a demand?
For couples who are new at this, people who are new at this, I usually tell them to be
hyper explicit. I think this might come out standing like a demand, but I'm really trying
with all my heart to express a desire. So please hear me as best you can with those ears because
I really want you to change this thing. But hyper explicit makes it really hard to fill in the
gaps for your partner. Like, if they're like, are this a demand? Are you threatening me? Like,
I'm not threatening you. It might sound like a threat because I'm not very good at this right now,
but I do want to tell you something that's important to me. Hyper explicit can go a long way for
people, particularly when they're trying to learn early on. That's the same one when we practice
guitar. No, do this. It's going to hurt. Put your fingers in this position because that's what,
where the sound comes from. You can't just go, oh, do roughly this or just try to play it at the
top of the neck of the guitar. You know, you can't, you have to get really specific out where do
each of my fingers go in order to make the sound that I wanted to sound. Something that I have heard
from a lot of men in my life is like sometimes it just feels like there's so many desires, demands,
whatever you want to call them, but it's like, okay, she wants me to get her flowers, okay,
she wants me to ask about how she's feeling, okay, she wants me to do this in bed, okay?
And it just feels like the list adds up and up and up. When is it too many? How do we know
what we're kind of allowed to ask for in a relationship? Well, I think for that guy, it's too many
when he can't keep track or he begins to get resentful about it.
If he's like, oh, I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to do.
Everything, it's always something.
And then what I would do if I were him is I would slow it down and say, hey, I really want
to be a good lover.
I can't do 100 things.
Can you tell me the one thing?
Well, I think a lot of women are asking for that because they feel like maybe they're
carrying the mental load.
They're carrying the emotional.
They're doing the bigger lifts in the relationship.
So they're asking for these like little crumbs to get their fix.
Yeah.
Tell me the one thing.
If I got this right over the next seven days, try to.
seven, 10 days at a time, you know, because all of learning how to do anything is practice.
If you have a way to follow up at the end and go, oh, I tried this for seven days.
Did it work?
Was it helpful?
Does it trend in the right direction?
I mean, everybody's aiming for better.
Just better, right?
We get married for better and for worse.
Better is always relative.
It's not all better.
It's never going to be all better.
It's just better than before.
And so are we on the right trend line?
Do you feel like women have more needs in relationships generally?
I feel like women express more needs in relationships than generally.
And women are wired to be more relationally sensitive and attuned.
So if men have their, you know, I don't want to like put them all in the same bucket,
but if they're like fed and the roof over their head and they got a bed, a lot of men are okay.
And I think if they're having regular physical intimacy, I would add to that list.
Sometimes.
Yeah.
I mean, that's not always true.
I mean, the libido question is an interesting one because there's tons of cliches about how much men prefer sex more than women.
but I don't think that shows up universally in my practice.
I think there are a lot of women who are interested in sex and desire.
They just need it differently than some of the men that they're in relationships with.
But I think even that adds to this idea like Jesus Christ, women need so much because
they need their 20 minutes of foreplay.
They need the compliments.
They need the dinner.
You know what I mean?
It feels like are we too relationally demanding?
I don't know.
They just need eye contact and physical touch.
And that's like that's the whole thing.
If you were able to learn how to do that.
that as some good, you know, solid, what we call it, B advice, maybe you'll find out their needs
aren't as great. The reason people continue to express their needs is because they don't have
what they want. If you go to a restaurant and you ask for a glass of water and you don't get a
glass of water, you're going to ask for a glass of water. And he's going to bring you a nice
milkshake and you're going to, can I get a glass of water? And here he comes with a glass
of wine. Can I get a glass? The only reason we repeat ourselves is because we don't have the thing
that we want. So if men are dealing with women who are saying, can I get, can I get, can I get, can I
get, part of what they need to say is, it seems like you're not getting what you want. Can I get
clearer about what that is? And then it'd be the other partner's job to figure out what do they
really want? What do they genuinely asking for? And how do I ask you in a way that works for you?
Yeah. Okay. So where would we actually put this advice? Uh, I think it's A, right? Yeah.
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and use code Liz. Okay. These are the two questions that Quinlan Walther says we need to ask for a lasting
relationship. Okay.
If you want a lasting relationship, or more specifically, a loving, healthy relationship,
you need to ask your partner these two questions. One, how or when do I unintentionally
hurt your feelings? And two, what could I do differently to make you feel more loved?
I'm not into it. I don't like the setup. The setup is, how do I hurt your feelings? It's almost
like inviting complaint. I like the second question. What can I do to make you feel more?
loved, but if I'm evaluating them on their merits, I don't think I would tee up the first one
like that. I actually think I would start with the first one, the second one.
How can I make you feel more loved? How can you feel more loved? Do you feel like people usually
have an answer for that? Because like, if my partner asked me that I, I don't know, you know what I mean?
I guess I could go away and think about it. You could go away and think about it or I could
continue to ask you questions. Do you feel loved when I bring you Snickers bar? I feel so loved
if somebody is out and about and they bring me a little treat that shows that they were thinking
of me that makes me feel very seen. There you go. Yeah. So, okay. I got to their
pretty quickly.
That was just a second question.
And I get people menus all the time.
People go, I don't know.
I go, well, let's look at the menu.
And then sometimes I'll start again just with the five-level languages because they're
so low-hanging and they're easy.
Like, do you like it when I go for a walk with you?
Do you like it when I empty the dishwasher?
Do you like it when I bring you a Snickers bar?
Do you like it when I tell you that you look pretty?
And, you know, you might go, I like all five.
But you might go, no, I really love it when you tell me I look pretty.
And I go, there we go.
I need to be more vocal about how.
to care for you. And again, there's probably 500 love languages, but it's easy enough just to go,
at the end of a given day, how do you know that I love you? Is there another question you would swap in
for the first one? Is there anything that I'm doing right now that is missing the mark? I want to know
what I can do better, but also if I can do something less, I always tell people, nobody ever
asked me on an airplane, but if they did, what makes a relationship work? I would say two things.
Number one is you got to be a grown-up, and the number two is you do more things that your partner
likes and fewer things that your partner doesn't like. And so part of like figuring out to be in
relationship with you is knowing what you like and doing more of that and learning what you don't like
and doing less of that. But I don't think I would necessarily go into, please tell me how I'm
hurting your feelings right now. That a lot of couples aren't skilled enough to answer that question or
to hear the answer and- Not get defensive. Responsibly, you know, handle it. Okay, so maybe a C?
Sure. Yeah. I'm curious what you think of this video. This is from
self-ora on Instagram.
Okay.
I don't know why men don't understand
that the happiness
of a marriage
is in the husband's hands.
It's not in the wife's hands
because a woman is responsive.
She reflects and amplifies
what she consistently receives
from him over time.
Give her attention,
reassurance, and respect,
and she naturally gives back
more than most men expect.
Make her feel chosen,
valued, and seen,
and she connects more deeply
without needing to be forced.
But give her neglect,
criticism or silence, and her warmth slowly fades without him even noticing. A woman mirrors the emotional
environment. I think, again, it's very hard to put men and women in totally different categories and
say, this is what a man should do and this is what a woman should do. I don't think any of what that
guy is describing is wrong. I think women are going to respond to healthy inputs and loving
inputs in loving and healthy ways. I think men will too. It's not all in his hands. It gives him actually
too much power. There's a lot of advice like this online when I was looking for videos and
advice for this episode. I was kind of shocked by the amount of advice that was like men are proactive
in relationships or should be and women are reactive. That seems to be a very common thought.
I think we're both reactive. I mean, that's just the nature. And I think like begets like.
I think if you have a commitment from one or both partners to be healthy and kind and loving,
it's going to solicit that from the other, no matter what their gender is.
If somebody comes in and they're critical and they're withdrawn or whatever else,
it's going to be a lot harder to solicit that kind of response.
I also think it only takes one person, it could be either one of them, to change the pattern.
And I'm not talking about the woman saying, I'll accept anything that you throw at me,
and I'm going to stay positive about it.
It's more like, oh, yeah, I don't think you're trying to hurt my feelings, but you did.
And so I'm going to go over here and take a walk and I'll be back and you can see if you want to try again.
Like, I think there's an empowerment that she gets to have without depending on whether or not he shows up in meaningful ways.
Does that make sense?
It does make sense.
I think I struggle with this idea of like, you didn't show up in the relationship in the way that I want.
So I'm taking away your toy.
Are those types of little punishments okay in a relationship?
I don't really think of it as like taking a relationship.
away your toy. I think of it as taking away your access to like a mutual relationship. I'm not going
to play the part of you get to be a bully and I'm going to be bullied with no consequences. I'm going to
play the part of if you're going to be the bully, I'm going to draw a line and say I'd very much love to
hang out with you in real life as friends and equals, but I'm not going to subject myself to this
category. So we think like a D because it's generally like okay reciprocal advice. I think it's
because it's, if you listen to it, it gives too much power to the man.
Yeah.
The woman can only be okay if the man shows up in the way that he's supposed to show up.
No, that's not fair.
So I think he should show up in that good way.
I think it's good advice.
I just don't think it's the linchpin of what health is.
Do you think there's any truth to like men should be providers, women should be nurturers,
we're pushing against our natural instincts and that's causing a lot of friction and modern
relationships?
A lot of people would say for hundreds and thousands of years,
the men have been out fighting animals,
and the women have been home and taking care of the home,
and we're pushing against that in modern society.
Yeah, men literally only have one advantage over women,
and it's strength.
The fact that for millions of years,
they've been leveraging strength to hunt and build and access
is amazing and great,
and we have so many positive outcomes because of that.
Like, that's amazing.
We don't live in that world anymore,
where strength is actually the thing that defines
how you can be successful in the world.
And it's really only a kind of strength.
It's physical strength.
I mean, I think most women are more intellectually
and emotionally strong than most men.
And so this idea that we're still following the shoulds of biology,
I get it.
And there are certainly jobs that only men can do
because of what they require physically.
I don't think we live in a world right now
that necessarily requires that men are the providers
and women are the kind of the receivers of that.
I just think that women
also are just better at it, better at being stewards of the home and better at being the stewards of
the relational dynamics. I mean, that's just... But is that because they've been socialized to be that
over years and years and years and years? I mean, it's so hard because we are trying to create a new
paradigm. I think so many people these days are asking, like, what is the function of a marriage?
What is the function of a relationship? Because it has changed so radically from what it has ever been
historically. And I think a lot of the friction we're seeing these days and a lot of the pushback
against that friction with like the Tad Wife movement.
and blah, blah, blah, is because people just like don't know what their roles should be.
Or because they don't know what their roles could be, they choose something that's very easy.
They choose something that's very easy to define or easy to celebrate or easy to defend without actually doing the work of changing.
The role of a marriage, I think, is so that each person, and this has been the journey that we're on,
has the opportunity to become the better version of themselves because they're accountable,
because they're reflected because they are in relationship.
But the real benefit is, I think, and I'd like to believe what happens to,
the family, like what happens to my kids and what happens to their kids and what happens? There's a
world become a better, more relational place because we've done the work of marrying two people
who are different and creating something ideally that's better. I don't think it's really easy
to look around right now and see that that's happening. But I think when I get frustrated or
curious about like, what's the purpose of my wedding? I still do look at my kids and go so that they
can have something better than I had, not economically, but relationally. That's such an interesting
way to put it because to me, there's a lot of chatter.
Like, should relationship be hard?
If a relationship is hard, are you in the wrong relationship?
And to me, inherent in the personal growth that you're implying is one of the core
functions of a relationship is friction, is difficulty.
Like, that would be not a bug, but a feature.
Well, do you know who has relationships that aren't hard?
People who are talking about roommate syndrome.
And they're like, this isn't hard.
It's actually very, very easy.
but nobody's growing and everybody's bored and nothing interesting is happening.
So I think, yes, relationships should be hard.
In the same way, I think going to the gym should be hard.
Yeah, because that's how you are growing.
Yeah, that's how you grow.
The quality of a good relationship isn't whether or not or even what kind of conflict
it has.
It's whether or not they can repair and grow on the other side of whatever conflict it is.
Same with your muscles.
You want your muscles to tear and then repair and grow.
And that is the goal.
And if you're going to the gym and you're not achieving that,
wasting your time. Do you feel like men feeling more irrelevant these days is like a big
part of the problems you're seeing in your practice? I don't really think it's the word irrelevant.
I think it's almost more like powerless. It's not that they're irrelevant. They recognize their
relevance. They're just sort of like, I wonder if there's anything I can do to make a difference.
And what they're not entertaining is can they do something that requires more vulnerability.
What else can I do that doesn't require me more vulnerability? That's where their powerlessness
comes from. And I'm like, you got to actually meet your partner in the moment.
So you think one of the most powerful ways that men can contribute is with vulnerability?
I think so.
What does that look like?
I mean, it looks like saying, I don't know what to do here, but it's not this.
I don't know what you want me to do. I don't know what you want me to do. That's not
it. It's more like, don't think I know how to do this. I never learned how to do this.
Can you teach me? Help me. Like, let's figure out how to. And I think it's a little bit of a trap
When people have kids, I'm like, teach your kids.
Teach your kids that you don't know how to do this.
I'm trying to learn how to ask for what I want.
That's hard for me, you know?
So I'm going to practice with you.
Is that okay?
And now you're actually literally passing down the thing by being vulnerable
enough to not know and submit yourself to someone else's scrutiny about it.
This is from Matthew Hussey.
Do not marry someone that you never argue with.
marry someone you argue well with.
That means that when you have an argument, you reach good compromises.
You have a good recovery time.
In other words, it doesn't take you days of miserable toxicity to get good again.
It takes you minutes or hours.
You're both good at coming to the table to apologize and soften.
It's not always the same person who has to save the two of you every time you have an argument.
And by the way, you only know these things by having hard conversations early.
on and being able to talk about the big stuff so that you know who you are when there are
differences in opinions. And the goal isn't to agree on everything. You won't. And that's fine.
But it is to make sure that you understand each other's expectations and you know ahead of time
that you can handle the differences. I personally really like this advice because I had a lot of
arguments with my partner very early on. And I remember feeling really bad about myself because
couples would say like, we never argue and we're in a better relationship because we never argue.
So I'm curious how you think about that. I think I put it in the neighborhood of Superior when couples
come in and they haven't, they're doing premarital counseling or something and I'll ask them about
conflict. They go, we don't have a lot of conflict. I always go, well, you need to, we need to figure that
out because you're going to have it. And we might as well need to, we might pick a fight because
it's important that people know how to do conflict well. And again, I've said it a million
times, like repair is the skill. And if you've never arguing, you're never repairing.
What if they're just like, well, we agree on everything?
Well, that's not going to last.
And then I'll surface the thing that they don't agree on.
Like, that's not hard.
I can sort of...
You're just like, poke here.
It's like, well, what about this thing?
And they're like, oh, shoot.
I'll poke around and go, yeah, we don't agree on that.
I hear these two stories a lot.
My parents argued all the time.
And so I'm a person who doesn't like conflict.
Or my parents never argued.
And so I don't know how to do conflict.
In both cases, they're telling stories about how they never saw repair.
When people have never seen how to repair, then it's going to come back and bite them.
So people need to learn how to repair.
And if we need to pick a fight, particularly in therapy, I'll do that because it's important,
even if that they can surface some of the things that push buttons that they haven't started pushing for each other.
What are your hot tips on repair?
Appreciate that it's more important for me to go to bed feeling connected to you than it is for me to win this.
That's a hard thing for people to wrap their heads around sometimes.
Like a terrible piece of marriage advice is don't go to bed angry.
I think sometimes you should go to bed angry.
It may mean that you sleep fitfully,
but it's better than staying up until 3, 4 a.m.
When you're exhausted and you're trying to hash through,
yeah, I go to bed angry all the time
because I'm like, when I wake up,
when I eat some food, drink my macha,
I'm going to come to this argument so much more clear-headed.
Totally.
It's not taking yourself too seriously.
It's going ahead and playing the long game.
I think there are tactical things that you can do.
Like for me, repair is really an investigation
and what do we both want?
I want the thing that we both want.
like what is that?
I don't run experiments, but I'll be, I will drop into the part of me that says,
okay, I'm going to assume for the next 10 minutes or so that you're correct,
that what you're saying is actually right and good and that there's something for me to learn
from it.
And I just toss off the part of my brain that needs to rebuke that.
Because if I can't accept influence, we're not going to achieve repair.
So it's really important for me to go, all right, give it to me one more time.
I'm going to listen with this part of my brain so that I can actually see what the take
is for me. Two-thirds of arguments are unsolvable in relationships. What does repair look like for an
unsolvable argument? I think at the end it looks like, I guess we're kind of bad at this still, huh?
All right. You want to get some ice cream? Wait, really? Yeah. That's your couples therapists.
I think, do you want to get some ice cream is the best end to almost every single conversation?
Why? Because we appreciate that there's something out there that we can both enjoy and sink our teeth into,
literally, as a way of marking the moment without marking it with a door slam or without marking it
with somebody crying or something. We can go, let's, let's, how about we just eat some ice cream?
And it's okay that you're like, should you acknowledge? Like, we're probably, this might be one of our
two-thirds of our fights that we're never going to agree on. We're never going to come to consensus on.
It's interesting to talk to couples about that research and say two-thirds of your issues are
perpetual and to see if they find that encouraging or discouraging. Sometimes you find it encouraging
because we're not alone.
We're the same as everybody else.
And you find it encouraging because,
oh, that makes sense
why we come back to the same thing
over and over again.
What it then needs to also reveal
is that there's a different solution.
It's not get to the bottom of this and fix it.
It's make space for this to coexist
because we got bigger fish to fry.
The way I always think about it is like
choose your two thirds.
Like I just think it's the most powerful thing
you can do in a relationship
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what are the great things in this person?
Are they this, this, this,
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Liz Moody. This is from Nikki Patton on YouTube. Okay, Bessies, it's been a while since we've done
relationship advice. This is how you know if your relationship is going to last. Let's get into it.
Honestly, it all comes down to majorly one thing. When you feel,
first meet that person. You're so excited and you're so keen on like getting them to like you
that you put in the most effort. The problem with a lot of relationships is that people think that
after a few months you can stop that effort. No, oh my God. If you're in a relationship or the next time
you're in a relationship, after a few months, look at the person you're with. Are they still trying
as hard as when they first liked you? Because it's so painful when someone changes, but the real ones know
you need to do the little things. You need to make that person feel like you still have a crush on them,
make them feel valued.
You can get comfortable, but don't stop trying.
Yeah, I think that's why.
I think there's wisdom there.
The reality is that you do try hard at the beginning.
It's the same way that you go after a job.
You put on your best outfit and you make sure your resume doesn't have any typos and you do the work.
You get it and you go for it and you show up on time and you do the whole thing.
And then once you get the job, you loosen your tie a little bit and you can relax a bit.
You start to become more familiar.
It's the same thing in a relationship.
I mean, this is the thing.
that brings people in is that it's so easy at the beginning to work on the friendship and to build
affection for one another and to prove that you've got my attention. But then once I've gotten it,
particularly once we're in and the system starts to move and maybe we have kids and we definitely
have jobs and mortgages and whatever else, it's easy to relax the relational energy. Yes,
you've got to wake that back up and you have to do it with small things, which I hope is good news
because you don't have to do massive major overhaul things all the time to keep the relationship going.
It's literally maybe as simple as eye contact or saying good morning or making sure to ask a question at the end of the day.
Little things do go a long way for sustainability.
But the other thing is I've been married almost 30 years.
I don't want to have a crush on my wife.
That's not the thing I'm going for right now.
I want to have an intimate, deeply connected, mutually edifying relationship with my wife.
For me, a lot of this conversation is about the friction between I want to do these little things.
I want to show these little efforts.
I want to make you feel like how we did when we were first dating.
And I want you to be my cozy home, my safe space, my place, my place I don't have to perform.
Where do you think we should fall on that spectrum with our partners?
I think we need to recognize that there's a kind of a time and a place for everything.
One of the things that we're learning right now is how to choose who are we going to be right now.
Are we going to have an argument right now?
Are we just going to kind of be cozy people right now?
Are we going to try and have more intimate time right now?
One of my favorite questions is now a good time.
If two people walk into a moment and for one of them it's a good time for an argument,
for the other one, it's not a good time for an argument.
Or one of them it's a good time for sex and the other one is not a good time for sex.
Setting the context is really critical.
So I don't think you have to choose between either or I think you have to choose what are we doing
at this moment?
And when?
Like, is this a moment I'm dressing up for my partner?
Is this a moment that I'm being cozy and casual on the couch?
Is this a moment that I'm trying to delight my partner with my witty, sparkly conversation?
Is this a moment we're sitting comfortably in silence?
Yeah.
If you're bad at this, being really explicit about it is helpful early on.
And then sometimes you create the right kind of signals and rhythms and codes for one another that help you do that.
And in my practice, I'm not chasing enthusiasm.
I'm chasing intimacy.
It doesn't have to be fun and adventurous all the time.
But intimacy is the thing that we're really chasing.
and that's a more subtle piece of work.
So what would we give this advice?
That's a good be.
Sometimes you should date your partner
and sometimes you should just sit down
and listen to them or ignore them.
I love being ignored.
Rebecca hasn't texted me one time
since I've been down here.
And that's amazing.
I love that too.
Zach and I almost never talk
when we're traveling separately.
And I think sometimes my friends think
it's really weird.
They're like, what's wrong with you guys?
But it's like, this is my time
that I'm enjoying for me,
that your time you're enjoying for you
and then we come back together.
And also then we have all this fun stuff to share when we get back together.
Right, right.
Yeah, I love it.
Okay.
Let's do two more.
Okay.
This is from Mel Robbins.
The most important things in a relationship, I say this to our kids who are 26, 25, and 20, do they feel like home?
Can you walk through the door and exhale?
You know, like when you play tag as a kid and there's a safe base?
Yeah.
That's your partner.
And so if you've got 80% of the right things, which are, are they loyal?
do you feel like their home?
Do your shoulders drop and you exhale?
When you get a text, are you like, oh, that's my person?
Do they have lifelong friends?
Do they have good relationships with family?
Do they treat people well when you're out?
If you got that, you've hit the fucking jackpot.
Everything else in life is a skill.
I do think it's funny that she says,
do they feel like home?
and also do they do all these other things?
Because like it's like, well, it's a few things.
But in general, I thought this was interesting to react to
because there's this idea that there's something inherent
and then everything else is skills that can be learned.
What's your opinion on that?
I like that.
I think it's actually pretty consistent
with the way I think about doing therapy.
I mean, everything is skills that can be learned.
Relationships is a skill that you can develop.
But it has to develop inside the right context.
You know, and she's calling that context home,
I think is lovely.
But it could be a context of play.
Literally, it could be a context of wealth building.
If your relationship was like, we are all about wealth building.
And we woke up every day.
And that's where we felt alive and connected to one another,
then the skills could flow into that space.
It doesn't have to be this like soft settled thing.
For some people,
their whole thing is, no, we're each other's ride or die,
but in the way we build a business.
You know, it doesn't have to be the way we establish a home.
But I do think, yes, absolutely.
The context in which you feel safe and known and seen
is the container that you can do intimacy in.
If that's not present, then it's very, very hard to apply any tactics, right?
You can give tools to people, but if they hate each other, they're just going to weaponize
those tools.
That's because the context is broken.
And that happened over time?
Because I assume they didn't start off hating each other in a relationship.
I think a lot of people ignore stuff at the beginning of a relationship.
They let a lot of things kind of fluff off or, oh, we'll fix it later kind of things.
And when they actually don't do the work of fixing it later, then that calcifies and it becomes
really problematic for people.
So do they start off hating each other? No, but I do think they start off without really knowing each other.
Are there ways that we can make sure that we know each other at the beginning of a relationship?
This is where I hope I'm setting my kids up in a successful way to really be able to ask the right questions and have the right boundaries and kind of make sure that they are really clear about their own sense of what works for them and what doesn't in order to vet that against the relationship that they're in.
Are there tactical things?
I don't remember when it was, but at the New York Times, I think it counted out these like 20 questions.
And that was based in Arthur Aaron's research.
Yeah.
So, I mean, you can, can you do that?
Sure.
But you still have to live in life with people.
And, you know, you have to know how to do challenges.
One of the coolest pieces of advice that I ever got when I was a young person was,
don't ever try to get into a relationship, long-term relationship with somebody without first
spending a major holiday at their home with their family.
Like, go be in their environment and see the levers that are being pulled around them in this
kind of setting and see what you.
what you can learn. It's not a test, but it is an opportunity. That is, of course, where people really
kind of settle into their, like, what are they taking care of? What do they care about? What's,
what's triggering for them, you know? So I think there's lots of ways you can get to know people.
How would you rank this advice? I like it. It's a name. This is from LIS on Instagram.
Okay. I read a quote that said, if you show a man, you'll stay through anything, he will start
to believe he could put you through everything. And I wish someone had told me that sooner.
The moment you stop proving how much you can endure is the moment you start being respected. Because
a woman who will walk away is far more powerful than a woman who will stay through anything.
Yeah, I love it. What she's talking about is leverage. I will, I will stay in this relationship
on these terms, but I won't stay in this relationship on these other terms.
But what if you don't want to leave? Like, what if you want to stay in the relationship?
But you really want them, the relationship should be different. But you don't want to leave it.
That's amazing. Yes, I think that's very noble and wise and good. But if you, if you've gone in the
most healthy way you know how about the process of change and it's not changing and what you decide
is well I'm not going to leave so I guess I'll just tolerate whatever what is that that's not that's you
saying I'd rather be in this relationship than I'd rather be a whole person and you know at the end
of the day people will tell me I want this and I go okay well and maybe I'll say it doesn't
seem like you can have it with this guy he's not going to quit drinking ever he just literally
told you he's not going to quit drinking so you now you now do you really want to
stay or do you not want to stay? Well, well, I don't want to leave. Okay, well, then that's actually
the thing that's more important to you is how do I stay in this relationship? And then you have to
figure that out. And then you have to figure that out. That's now the work. I don't denigrate anybody's
priorities. But if people say, this has to change or I'm leaving. And then they say, but okay, no,
I'm not really leaving. Then this doesn't have to change. And then that becomes the thing that you have to
learn how to grapple with. Do you think part of what we're going for in a relationship is
unconditional love? Like, I will love you, even if you don't have a job. I will
love you, rich or poor, all those things?
Not probably.
And I think that's amazing.
I just also think the definition of love is under the microscope there.
Loving you doesn't mean I enable you and stay with you no matter what.
The kindest thing I do might be leaving you.
The kindest, most loving thing I can do is leave so that you grow the fuck up.
And then you have access to this thing that you deserve, which is to be an adult on the planet,
which I can't help you do because we've been doing this for 15 years and nothing has changed.
It's so annoying, though, because then they'll go off, like that might be their way,
up call, they go do the work, and then the next person gets to, like, reap the benefits of this
person that you love.
I understand that.
I totally do.
And if we zoom out far enough to go, and because I love that person, I'm really happy for
them, that's what I wanted for them, because I love them.
Otherwise, we're talking about how much I love me.
I love me.
And so I want this for me, and I don't want you to be happy because that makes me feel bad.
Then we just have to own that what you love is you.
Which is good.
Which is okay.
You should love yourself.
Yeah, you should love yourself.
But I don't think at the expense of someone else.
And is there grief that comes with seeing people move on from a relationship and maybe find
some happiness somewhere else?
Sure.
Yes.
And if the tradeoff is, well, I wish I was in this miserable relationship instead.
Like, if that's the alternative, I'm like, what, what?
That makes no sense to me.
What's one relationship green flag that you think people should pay more attention to and one
relationship red flag that you think we're not paying enough attention to?
Well, I always go back to emotional intelligence.
Like, if people have the ability.
to understand their emotions and feel them, and they can understand your emotions and feel them,
then that's a relationship green flag for me. How they do that is different. That may be,
that may not look the way people want it to look all the time. Like I have a, like a soft and
cuddly kind of boyfriend. I think I'm not that person. I'm, I'm pretty hard-edged,
but I definitely have an ability to like think about my emotions and manage them and think about
other people's emotions and care for them. But that doesn't make me nice. You know,
Is that a skill that can be learned?
Being nice?
No.
Being emotional intelligent.
Yeah.
And I think for me it's actually been fun to expand my emotional vocabulary and to think about
the impact on other people and to look for clues in other people that I've actually enjoyed that process.
It's been a, and I sell that to clients.
I say, have fun.
Grow it.
Become amazing at this.
You can do it.
You know, and there are little tactical ways that you can do that.
Wait, can you give me one tactic?
I have a couple that taught me about this skill.
They do every single day where they sit down at the end of the day and they say,
here's a feeling I had and here's why I had this feeling.
And so he might say, I felt frustrated today because I was on a sales call and I really
thought this woman was going to buy my business, but she didn't buy it.
And now I'm frustrated.
And then his wife will say, I can see how you'd be frustrated by being on a sales call
and having a high expectation for your business and then it didn't come through.
And that's all she does.
Even if he says, I was really frustrated today because you said you were going to make pizza
for dinner and I got home and there were tacos.
And she's not like, well, because I would say, I can see how you were upset because you were
expecting pizza and you got tacos instead and that's upsetting.
But the exercise for the two of them that they do every single day and she's better at it than
he is, he has to write him down, is that he has dramatically expanded his vocabulary,
his emotional vocabulary.
They have become much more tuned to one another in terms of like just what they feel and
why.
And they're both practicing empathy and compassion every single day.
For a guy who was not good at it, but who decided,
I want to be, I want to have a broad emotional vocabulary.
I want to be attuned to my partner.
I want to understand compassion.
He's just taken on this simple practice.
It takes on, what's 18 sentences or something?
It doesn't take long.
It's less than five minutes and they do it every day.
And if you're listening and you're like,
how do I get my partner to do that?
That's our entire other episode.
I'll put it in the show notes.
Yeah.
And then red flag.
I think for me, it's can you, can you accept influence?
Like if your partner can't accept influence,
if they can't change, if they can't grow and they can't evidence that they're interested
in that, that is a big one for me.
And I think you can tell pretty fast.
You can usually tell, by the way, they drive a car, by the way that they treat the waiter at the restaurant.
You know, there's lots of ways that you can tell whether or not people are interested in giving and receiving influence from their partner.
Okay.
And then I would love to hear from you one piece of relationship S-tier advice and then one piece of common, you know, it's out there.
People are talking about it, but it's actually F-tier relationship advice.
Well, the F-tier one for me is easy.
It's this whole idea of don't go to bed angry.
I think people need to respect their own time and their own physiology and their own capacity
for having skills when you're tired.
So that's my F to your advice.
Thing about superior advice, I think there's something about really learning to take a minute,
a beat, a pause between stimulus and response.
When you can see someone have something happen to them and watch them climb up into their
heads and make a choice about what it is, how they're going to respond, and then they can kick it back in.
I think that is a skill that you can build. I think it is a skill everyone should have, both whether
they're driving in the car or they're trying to make an emergency decision at work or whether or not
they're feeling lonely at home, particularly when I'm early on with a couple, and it's clear
that they have a lot of work to do. To each of them, I will say, we've got to learn how to create
this pause, how to create this place of discernment, place of wisdom between stimulus,
response so that you have context to actually do something.
And one tip to do that?
I learned how to meditate during COVID.
And the one lesson that was most valuable to me literally was a meditation or recording that
I heard about sound.
And that sound is a thing that happens to your eardrum.
And then your brain makes it mean something.
And he just invited us for 10 minutes just to think about your relationship with sound.
Can you make it louder?
Can you make it quieter?
Can you remember what it sound like?
Can you make it happen again?
like just constant changing the
and the premise at the end of that meditation was
if you can learn how to do this with sound
you can learn how to do it with physical pain
addictive impulses, emotional triggers.
You can meditate next to a construction site.
You don't need to meditate on the mountains of Nepal.
You can actually bring attention and awareness
and pause anywhere, any time, if you practice it.
So later on in the meditation thing that I was learning with,
he said, okay, tomorrow,
I want you to plan ahead because I want you to meditate in a busy, noisy place.
And it was the same thing.
Like, go sit in this place and change the sound by filtering it through different lenses.
Like, can you listen for the highest note?
Can you listen for the thing that's most muted?
Can you hear something behind the thing?
That work between your eardrum and your brain is not different than the work between
like the impulse on your heart or on your psyche and then the way you respond.
And so I've had fun learning how to do that.
Zach, this was awesome.
As always, tell everybody where they can find you.
Probably two places.
Number one is I have a podcast that comes out every week.
It's called Marriage Therapy Radio.
And it's really just me talking to other couples about how they do their relationships
and trying to figure out what works and what doesn't.
And it's cool because they're from all walks of life and we get all kinds of different things going on there.
And then finishing up a book right now and I'm rolling that out in the next year.
And between now and then I'll be active on Substack, which is you can look up by name or it's
called stuff I write. And I'm going to be trying to think out loud more in that space over the next
year or so. Love it. Well, thank you so much. Yeah. That is all for this episode. Thank you so much for
listening on Apple or watching on Spotify or YouTube. You can subscribe or follow so our next episodes
get sent directly to your feed. If you like this episode, leave a comment or better yet, send it to a
friend, a coworker, a parent, or somebody else that you think might love it. All right, I love you.
Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast.
Oh, just one more thing.
It's the legal language.
This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.
It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist,
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