The School of Greatness - 242 Neil Strauss and the Uncomfortable Truth About Relationships

Episode Date: October 19, 2015

"You shouldn't be researching science to decide what to do with your heart." - Neil Strauss If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/242

This is episode number 242 with New York Times best-selling author Neil Strauss. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome everyone to the podcast. I'm very excited about our guest today. Before I dive in, I want to let you know that the book is coming out very, very soon.

October 27th, it drops. I already saw photos that people have it in Canada and Asia bookstores, but it drops in the US and everywhere else on October 27th. Greatness is coming at you. And so many of you have been posting photos of your receipts to me online for pre-ordering it. You're tagging me on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much for pre-ordering your copy. We have some big names that we are competing against for the New York Times bestseller list. And it's going to take all of you supporting, buying a copy, buying three copies, giving a couple to your friends in order for us to make that New York Times bestseller list and impact people on a greater way by getting the word out there.

So thank you guys so much for buying who have already pre-ordered. And if you haven't yet, please go to lewishouse.com book. That'll take you right to the Amazon page. Or you can go to Barnes & Noble. We were ranked 27th overall on Barnes & Noble the other day, and the rankings continue to go up and up on both Barnes & Noble and Amazon. So thank you guys for all your support. It means the world to me, and it's coming out very soon.

Now, this is an interesting episode. It's interesting because I didn't know that it would go this way. We have Neil Strauss on and let me tell you what happened here in a second. Neil Strauss is a seven-time New York Times bestselling author. His books, The Game and The Rules of the Game, for which he went undercover in the secret society of pickup artists for two years, made him an international celebrity and an accidental hero to men around the world. And both books topped the New York Times bestseller list and were number one on Amazon. Now, in his follow-up book that came out just now, it's called The Truth, an uncomfortable book about relationships.

And Neil dives into the worlds of sex addiction, non-monogamy, infidelity, and intimacy, and explores the hidden forces that cause people to choose each other, stay together, and break up. He's seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and he's come to some interesting conclusions about relationships. And I didn't know that it would lead this way, but he ended up digging in deep in an uncomfortable way about how I show up sometimes in previous relationships. And we talk about some things that make me feel uncomfortable. You know, I don't really like talking about the things that are my fears in relationships

and the things that hold me back and the things that I need to really look at because it's scary, it's vulnerable, and it can be sometimes overwhelming for me. So I think you're gonna notice me feeling a little uncomfortable talking about some of my flaws and some of the things that I haven't really uncovered yet and the things that I'm still learning about. So hopefully you enjoy my

embarrassment, my uncomfortableness, and my opening up to talk about some of the fears in relationships in the past that have held me back and what I'm looking at currently to make sure I move forward in a positive, powerful way in all my relationships. So make sure to share this with your friends. If you have anyone who's in this situation or who's going through confusion or anything like that, this is lewishouse.com slash 242. Share it with your friends. And let's go ahead and dive in with the one, the only, Neil Strauss. Welcome, everyone, back to the School of Greatness podcast.

Very excited about our guest. His name is Neil Strauss. What's up, Neil? Hey, Lewis. Thanks for having me on, man. Yeah, man. I am pumped. You've got a book that just came out called The Truth, an uncomfortable book about relationships.

And for me, the subtitle is perfect because I just went through a relationship that I ended a few months ago and was kind of back and forth because I was going through some confusion about it, uncertainty. I really just wanted to take some time to think about it and see how I was feeling. And essentially, it's been uncomfortable throughout the whole process. So this is perfect timing for me to talk to you about it because you wrote a book called The Game, which was a bestseller. And that was all about being a pickup

artist. Isn't that correct? More or less. It's kind of that I, yeah, we can say that. But I was a journalist and I was writing for the New York Times. My book editor said there's this amazing community. And I went underground, kind of not to write a book, but really for myself and learning how to not be the guy in friend zone anymore and got it got out of hand and I ended up doing the game and becoming the number one pickup artist in that world, which is like a dubious accomplishment, obviously. Right, right. So you were living in that world where you're learning how to pick girls up and essentially get women to want you and want to go on dates with you and get their number and things like that to what made you stop doing that and now you're happily married.

What made you transition from that world to writing about this book, The Truth, about relationships? Sure, man. And I can get into it. And for sure, like, I mean, obviously, if you spend your whole life picking up anybody or anything, except maybe the check. But, you know, if you spend your life picking up anything, it's kind of, that wasn't even a funny joke.

I apologize. I'm too wide on that. Edit that out, everybody. So if you spend your life picking up anything, like it's not, it's just pathetic. Like if I was still doing that 10 years later, it would almost be pathetic. I mean, I think. But another level is like a deeper level to discuss about it.

Maybe it's a backward way of getting into like how maybe transition out of that into where i'm at now let's talk about your relationship are you open to it because literally i'm sure whatever you experienced was probably on a similar psychological level similar to mine and similar to a lot of other people's oh man oh yeah no you have to that that whole sound means that that the pain like people will relate. I feel that. I'm open to it, yes. So it sounds like you're just ambivalent about your relationship, right? Say it again?

It sounds like you had a lot of ambivalence about your relationship. Yeah. I mean, uncertainty. There's a lot of love I still experience and miss and appreciate. And I feel like I'm like sweating now. I'm like being interrogated. But something, you know, wasn't fully, and I think it was based on, we had different visions, I think.

And I'm really committed to changing the world for better terms, you know, changing and transforming people's lives, creating powerful, inspiring things. And that comes with a specific lifestyle that I think needs a specific container in a relationship. I need to feel like I'm able to be free to grow, to experience life, to connect with people, both men and women, and feel like I can be a hundred percent authentic and be myself. And, um, I think, uh, let me hop in for a second. By the way, first of all, you've got to, you've got, you've got to read the book and it just came out yesterday. So I know you haven't had time, but I'm going to like, I'm overriding it to you because the entire book is my dilemma with that.

It's like, I get in these relationships and then I feel trapped and I feel like I'm losing experience and there are reasons for this and yours may not be the same, but we're going to dive in a little bit deeper. Let me ask you though, what, cause there was a lot of, what made you feel trapped? You know, I just found out about this and I was about to email my ex and tell her like, Oh my God, I think I figured out why I felt this way. Dude, dude, leave her alone. I'm going to leave her alone. I'm going to leave her alone. But I was thinking about, I was like, Oh oh, my God, it came to me through a realization. I was actually having a conversation with Catherine Woodward Thomas, who wrote a book called Conscious Uncoupling. And the conversation with her, I was like, she was like, tell me about your dad and your parents.

Like, how was their relationship? And I said, you know, my dad was miserable my entire childhood. He got in a relationship when he was 18, 19. My mom got pregnant. So he had to work three jobs and then had three more of us after that and never got to fulfill his dream. And he was always tension, and there was never really a lot of love between them until I was about 16.

They got divorced, and he was the happiest, freest man. And he was able to go pursue his dreams. And he was like the most loving human being. So I realized she was like, you probably associate being in a marriage or committed relationship with feeling trapped that you can't go pursue your dreams. And I never thought of it that way until she mentioned that. And I was like, that's probably exactly what it is because once it starts to feel like it's holding me back in any way, I start to – like literally my body rejects it and I get terrified. Right. And here's the thing. And here's the thing.

So that whole kind of matrix that you're locked in is complete illusion. And what I'm saying is this and again i get it i swear to god my entire book is like this i'll tell you what i did in my book i'll just tell you what i did and we'll get back to your your story and i think i have another piece that i can add to the puzzle of your intimacy problems perfect i i had no clue we were going to do this everyone just listening i had no clue this was happening but okay go ahead it's not too late to just pull the whole podcast i might just delete it uh you know what but maybe there'll be some healing for your ex if she knows it's really nothing to do with her it's about you yeah it is about me of course it's totally about you it's nothing to do with her so uh so that's the

challenge she's incredible and i love her to death that's the challenge right and you and that and that's why like and that's why you that's saying, Oh, here's what was wrong with me and just continuing to engage her. It doesn't let her free. I've been like either let her free or decide or commit to her. But when you stay in this, this gray zone, it just drags out her own pain. Of course. So here's what I did. So I decided all the things you just said, it almost word for word. And then I said, you know what?

Monogamy doesn't make sense. I talked to, and I'm like you, I talked to all the experts. I talked to Helen Fisher, and Chris Ryan, Helen Fisher, obviously went probably the biggest expert on the,

on, on, uh, relationships, especially from a scientific anthropological point of view. Chris Ryan wrote Sex at Dawn. I talked to Stephanie Koontz, who wrote The History of Marriage. I talked to everybody, and these are the conclusions I drew then.

And I'm going to say they're not right, but these are what science says, right? So Helen Fisher says this, that we're born to, that we're naturally, cheating is natural, that we pursue a dual relationship strategy, which is we get in relationships. You know, we cheat on the side and we stick around about eight years and then we do the next one. So it's serial monogamy with clandestine, clandestine adultery. She says that's what's natural. Not that we should be doing it. She said that's what's natural. Obviously, we have. So, you know, Chris Ryan says we were born in groups and these groups,

everybody shared the kids had all the parents, the parents we all kind of mingled instead of a group relationship. And it was healthy. A kid had, instead of having mom and dad, they had 20, 30 loving caregivers. And, and it was a great way to be in a free in this sort of allo parenting. It's called, uh, Stephanie Kuntz says that marriage is uh marriage just changes with the societies and civilizations so it was never about love until about the 18th century when the idea

of marrying for love like oh that's a new idea i was just marrying for like extra field hands and to get the property you know whatever whatever the idea is so so uh so so and now she's she said says that marriage has come into a place of really forming deep friendships, but also sort of a pick and choose where I can design my relationship with these qualities that I want. And do I want to be monogamous or not? Do I want children or not? Do I want to work? Do I not want to work? And we can make all these decisions now.

So the one thing that I did in all the science was there was no science that backed up the idea of monogamy being natural. And by the way, I'm not going to talk against monogamy. I'm just going to say where I was at this point in my life, because honestly, this is just, I don't think I was coming from the right frame of mind because honestly, you shouldn't be researching science to decide what to do with your heart anyway. So, so, uh, I found one paper, one paper called the puzzle of monogamous marriage. And the paper was about, uh, you know, why monogamy is good for civilization. It lowers the amounts of available, lowers the amounts of available of single men and reduces crime. So I called them. I said, so do you think it's evolutionary natural? And they said, no way. Otherwise, you wouldn't need to have all these marriage customs and things.

It would just happen naturally. So I decided, forget about it. Just I'm going to go off and I'm going to live how I should be living. And so I had a really horrible breakup, just like yours. I loved her so much, but I just said I couldn't do it. I felt like we had this great conversation. And it's fun. It's a great interview because I'm really saying things that I haven't even discussed at all uh that are there in the book that i haven't discussed at all so it's

great to talk about she said um oh i said she's like you know just she's like i feel like i found a beautiful bird and i kept it trapped in a cage and the bird the whole time is just staring out of the window wanting to be free so i get it i'm gonna set you free and it was such a beautiful thing to say she said to you she said this to And it was such a beautiful thing to say. She said this to you? She said this to me. It was such a beautiful thing. And then her last line was, but birds die in the wild. Oh, my gosh. And not even in a loving way, not even in a sort of snarky way.

And so that's kind of where the whole, a lot of the journey begins. whole, a lot of the journey begins. And I went and tried a lot of, uh, open relationships and polyamory and trying to starting a group relationship and all kinds of stuff. Wow. And what did you discover? I discovered that if you're psychologically unhealthy and have issues, no style of relationship will work for you. Okay. So, so, so, so I'm, I'm maybe i'm gonna save you some time right now that that that like it was like insanity like how who was i to think that okay this relationship isn't working with monogamy i'm gonna be polyamorous with the three serious girlfriends and it's now gonna work it was like three times the mess.

Oh my gosh. Okay. So you've been researching this for years, haven't you? Yeah, I have. I have. When you're really learning about these deep parts of yourself, you're learning it slow. And I think I started to connect with you probably two and a half, three years ago when I moved to L.A.

And I came over to your house in Malibu a few times. And you would have your radio show. And then we'd play some late-night games of Cards Against Humanity or something. I forget exactly. We always had interesting conversations about this. And I think you were engaged or you just were newly married. I can't remember what it was. But I remember saying you were the happiest you've been in a relationship.

And how did you get to that point of being like, okay, this is the one. I'm happy. I'm going to be monogamous. I'm going to be married. Or is that not the case? No, great question and how i got there was by realizing that what i thought was freedom really wasn't freedom and that that the freedom was in the commitment and and so but if you think about it okay if i'm just going to be single or unattached or i'm just

going to be able to do whatever i want you know it's like a bird that's not able to land. It gets exhausting. Really, just going through the processes, which we can discuss, by which I was actually able to get rid of my baggage and be intimate in a relationship and not feel trapped, just opened up everything. I know it sounds strange, but

the world's a brighter place to me because my wife and family, now we have a son, is in it. And it's really all because of this. So this book was never published. It wouldn't even matter because I've got this great family because of the stuff I did. So let's dive into you for a little bit. So you talked about your dad. You talked about your dad and you talked about your relationship. I think that's very true that obviously what was modeled for you is that you have a relationship and your parents have a relationship and it models that, hey, someone can't do what they want.

And then when they're separated, they're free and they're happy. That was modeled on one. Right. And you talked a lot about your dad. Tell me about, let's say, little Louis, age 12, looking at his mom. Just give me a couple words that describe how you saw your mom at age 12, looking at his mom, just give me a couple words that describe, you know, how you saw your mom at age 12. Uh, unhappy, um, hardworking, uh, you know, exhausted. Right. Okay. And here's, here's the thing. And by the way, I'm curious, how'd you know your dad was unhappy in the

relationship? He talked to you about it. How would you know your dad was unhappy? how did you know your dad was unhappy in the relationship? He talked to you about it. How would you know your dad was unhappy? I think it was more of the energy that I felt when he would get home. He wasn't fully, you know, it wasn't like this positive energy around her. There was always this tension around them. It wasn't like they were loving constantly or affectionate.

It was very rare when I saw that. So they would fight. They would yell. They would slam doors. They would,. They would do that type of stuff. Isn't it fascinating? You can tell me if I'm wrong on this, but isn't it fascinating that the person who kind of extols greatness grew up with these sort of defeated people and said, I'm going to overcome that and be about greatness? You know, the interesting thing is my dad, you know, they loved us. They were very loving towards us even though there was this tension.

And the thing is, he always told me, like, never let anyone hold you back from your dreams. Always go after it. He always encouraged me to pursue anything I wanted. And he supported that. I think he did that because he knew at 19 he wasn't able to go after his dreams because he had to start working for us. And he had to sacrifice for the family and put his dreams on the shelf. So for me, I just was like, yeah, I'm going after my dreams. I want to do what I want.

My dad is like supporting me to do it. So I'm going to, you know, he's telling me that anything is possible and I believed it and I created that for myself. And so I just, I think I just realized like, if anyone was going to hold me back from my dreams, if it was like holding me back from being my fully expressed self to chase my dreams, that's what scares me in a relationship. I'm open. I believe I'm open to being fully committed. Right. So, so here's, here's, here's where it is. The whole idea that she's holding you back is a complete illusion that you're making up um which and i think i know

where it may come from uh which is this like with ingrid who's my wife now i had the same thoughts and i had all these kind of resent and i built you build up resentment and then the resentment poisons the relationship and and now she does all the same things and i'm cool with it because you had you have like a weak you have weak boundaries boundaries, you know, which I would guess, I would guess. And again, I'm just really making a guess. You can tell me that the other piece of the puzzle is this mom's unhappy. And when you kind of grew up with a, with a mom, basically the idea is this, and this is true for me too, which is if you grew up sort of feeling sorry for a parent, which you did for both of your parents, it's a thing called enmeshment

or it's also called engulfment. And what happens is when people get needy in relationships, you start to withdraw because it just feels like it's oppressive. And especially what'll happen is you'll often get in a relationship with someone and feel a need to maybe take care of them or to help them. And there's sort of that power relationship there.

And then as soon as they become pendant, then you start to withdraw and be like, God, they're too needy. Yeah, my question for you is I think the challenge is not just – I mean you hit it on both sides. You're really a great case for – you're a really great case for someone who really wants to be loving and wants to help others and wants to connect. Yeah. I'm all about intimacy and connection and love and creating the most magical, powerful relationship possible. And I believe I bring a lot to a relationship. I believe I'm so vulnerable and open and willing to serve and support and want to be there. But I also want to make sure that I'm taking care of myself and it's not holding me back in any way when I, when I'm doing that or it's not. And listen, listen to, listen to your words, listen to your words, serve and support.

Like that's the enmeshed thinking, you know what I mean? So there's no, you don't have to serve. You don't have to serve the person. And so that's the thing that maybe builds to the resentment. So let me ask you this. This is – I don't know if you're ever going to put this on, but it's kind of – it's interesting, right? I'm terrified to put this out already. Here's the thought. I'm going to take a step back and just tell people a little bit of the context of where it's coming from and then we'll dive back in if that helps which is this your templates are created in your

childhood you know and obviously uh you're born and your brain is just you just got this brain it's got some a little bit of architecture in it but the real architecture your brain is formed by your early experiences and in a three-year-old, I think a child, I think this research is wrong, but it's a popular research. I don't think it's correct. I think it's different, but about 700 neural connections a second, your brain is forming in childhood. And a three-year-old has twice as many neural connections as you and I. So it's all, all these things are being wired in there. And then from three to 17, there's a process called pruning and the things that aren't used are removed. And that becomes the box of thinking that you live in.

What did you need to do to survive your family? And what didn't you need to survive growing up in your family? And no matter who you are listening, all human beings are imperfect. Therefore, all parents are imperfect. Therefore, if you can remove any sort of blame and look at yourself, any sort of blame for your parents, because there's no blame, they did the best they could. And really look at that. You can start to understand yourself.

It's a, most of my books take like a year or two. This one took five years because that's how hard it was to see myself. So, so my thought is you're going to replicate this relationship with everybody and you, and, and, and the whole idea that she's kind of keeping, you have the choice. You, I mean, she, she wasn't keeping you tied up physically, right? Uh, no. Right. You, you have the choice to do mean she wasn't keeping you tied up physically right uh no right you have the choice to do anything you want at any time right correct yeah so how was she keeping you from that were you making up something like oh i can't do this because it'll hurt her because she won't like i mean i don't want to get into it too much okay you don't have

to you don't have to i mean i think there here's a thing by the way i'm only talking from being on the other side of it you know like again before, again, before I started the journey in this book, I was exactly all the stuff you're saying. So everything I'm saying I've only learned in the last year. It's not like I'm an expert. I just went through this myself to get to a place where I'm happy. Yeah. So, okay. So let me just unpack a few things.

You've been through my suffering already is what you're saying. Right. Yeah. Yes. By my illusory self-inflicted suffering. So here are a few things. The idea that you have to make her happy, right? Couldn't cheer up mom.

Can I make her happy? The whole idea – first of all, you can't make anybody happy. Your job is not to make people happy. You can't. You don't make anyone mad, sad, happy, anything. That's a choice they make, right? So the responsibility for you making her happy leads to the resentment. And again, look at your mom, right? anything, that's a choice they make. Right. So the responsibility for you making her happy leads to the resentment and look at your, again, look at your mom. Right. Next thing is,

uh, okay. She, and also her neediness, like she needs me to be there. Right. And there's that neediness. And then we talked about earlier when you get that neediness makes you kind of withdraw and that neediness is kind of a turnoff. You want to help. Uh, but when it gets too needy, it starts to like feel stifling and uh and uncomfortable yeah but here's the thing you it still was a request you still have the opportunity to say no but there's a word called uh and again i learned this because i do it and so what this this is like honestly this is gonna be the only interview that's really about the book that i've done you know i i've done the dog and pony show today where i'm like doing uh like a satellite TV interview and like trying to give tips.

And at the end of the interview, I just hate myself because like I just don't want to – I like talking about real things. I don't like sort of having five bullet points and trying to say that on a TV show. I like this is a real conversation. I'm like fidgeting over here. That's great. That's why the book is called An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships. It's uncomfortable. So yeah. What was the second thing? What was the third thing? Sorry, I cut you off. Oh, I don't know. book's called an uncomfortable book about relationships it's uncomfortable um so so yeah

that was the second thing what was the third thing sorry i cut you off oh i don't know i think i'm on the fourth or fifth thing so but no but the main thing and here's what's fascinating i think it's so hard to see yourself but i bet a lot of your your listeners are actually hearing some of these ideas but i'm sure but yeah so it was sort of her neediness and let's say you you also choose partners who are kind of the opposite like you you're because of where you are psychologically you're going to choose somebody who is more needy and that's the dynamic that's an dynamic dynamic you're going to get you get into so she has her side of it her side of it doesn't matter you could just change yourself and that's good enough yeah and i would say she's so needy i think there was

just certain things that she wanted that she really really wanted but it wasn't like she was so needy all the time right, there you are taking care of her feelings. It's so sweet. Right. You look at all fascinating, right? Cause even then you're like, Oh God, I'm not thinking about myself. I gotta, I don't want her to be upset or feel like we're saying that. I mean, it's, I don't, there's nothing against, you know, I'm a hundred percent love for her is what I'm saying. It's not like she was wrong or bad. It's just, uh, we're not calling her needy, but you were saying that she needed you to be there. So that's a need.

Yes, yes, yes. So there's a thing called – and I experienced it called pathological accommodation. And it's the idea that against your own interest, you go along with somebody what somebody wants because they want it. So you put them before you in a way. And that builds up resentment. Yeah, that builds up resentment and becomes this poison in the relationship that's what happened so what all your listeners are probably thinking and they may not be but what i am is and i cannot dude just maybe just get on the kindle right now or something when we're done

talking but uh i'll send it to you i'll send you got to get it's like a white bible kind of like the game was a black bible so it's a beautiful object i'll send it to you. I'll send it. You got to get it. It's like a white Bible, kind of like the game was a black Bible. So it's a beautiful object. I'll send it to you. Yeah. Well, I ordered it too. So I'm excited. Oh, good. Oh, yeah.

Thank you. Great. Perfect. So what would have happened if you just said no? She would have reacted in a way she wanted to react, whatever that would have been. She could have been hurt. She could have been hurt. She could have been frustrated. She may have been upset or sad.

Or maybe she would have said, well, this is what I need, and I can't be in a relationship unless this is something you can give me. Or she would have handled it any way she would have handled it. But for me, there was a fear of her not being happy and reacting in a way that, um, you know, that, that where it wouldn't work out or she wouldn't want to be with me or, um, I don't know any of those types of fears. Wow. Like I really felt like, I just felt like so emotional hearing you say that because that's really where, where it all is that, that, that by trying to protect her from having your, your fear of her response, you're trying to protect her from those things,

ended up being worse for the relationship than just letting her have a response. And the saddest thing is you don't even know what it was. You don't even know what it would have been. I don't. And you never gave her the chance to do what was right for herself. So maybe instead of emailing her and saying that's what it's all about, you can apologize for assuming you knew how she'd react to that, not letting her have the reaction. Don't do that, but what I'm saying is it's another way to see it.

Yeah, of course. Okay. one example, I'm sure there are many other examples of this, but if you did it just across the board, if you just said, hey, I'll come with you on the Sundays when I can come with you, and I won't come on the Sundays when there are other things that I want to do, how much advance notice would you like on that? Yeah, and you pathologically accommodated and did it and built up resentment, and that kind of hurt the relationship versus, by the way, not saying that what would be interesting is if you really just did what was true to yourself throughout in a compassionate way. Either here's what would have happened if you did exactly. Listen, let's say this. Let's say you took care of yourself and you took care of your needs.

She could have had an upset reaction, but then later come around and said, OK, maybe, you know, it's a bad expectation is not real. She might have said, cool. She might have gotten emotionally upset and she might have broken up with you and that's okay because it means the relationship wasn't meant to be. And you would have saved a lot of pain and time. Yeah. I feel like each relationship that I get in, I learned so many new lessons about myself and about all these things. But it's just interesting to be able to look at, dive deeper and deeper on the why and how. And I love that what you just said is,

I think it's important to focus on being who we are, being 100% authentic to who we are, not worrying about hurting someone else as long as we're coming from compassion, but being true to ourselves and what we want and need. And I think it'll work itself out the way it needs to when we come from that place. Yeah, exactly. I'll give you a simple example of maybe even on the reverse side of what you experienced,

which is when my last book was out and I think my relationship was pretty new, my girlfriend, she didn't want to come to the signings or didn't like didn't want to come to the signings or something i didn't want to come to one of the signings i'm like you're not supporting me like i've worked so hard on this book you're not coming you're not supporting me i made up a whole story about how she wasn't supporting me and who cares she doesn't want to come to a signing she doesn't want to come to a signing why do i need her to be there and now i'm on now i have a new book out and we have a baby so she's staying home and she's not you know and i'm like oh that's good if she wants to come great the invitation's open if she wants to you know if we can choose to get a

babysitter for those days we can if not whatever it's fine but i imposed a whole story on it versus oh someone doesn't want to come to an event that's occurring turn into she doesn't support me she doesn't care this relationship sucks you know like like we, we just go from like zero to 60. So now what did you, when did you realize that like, okay, you were going to commit a hundred percent to your wife? Yeah. Yeah. You know, here's, here's what happened and this is why it's so tough. So I basically had all the insights, like I started to realize, okay, here's what's going on. Here's what's happening. I, I mean, I'll come out and say it. So this is how, this is my, this is, you've been so intimate and vulnerable. I shall do the same. And again,

it's, I mean, it's in the book anyway. Uh, so I cheated on, on Ingrid, who is my wife now. And I felt horrible. I felt, I thought it was a good guy. I really loved her. I wanted to be with her and I, and I cheated on her and I just couldn't understand why would I do that to someone? Why would I hurt somebody like that who loves me? Why would I like break her heart? Why would I ruin my future? And why would I act outside my ethics system and outside my morals and just for sex that wasn't even that good anyway? And so I was talking with a friend and he was saying, you know what, if sex, it was more important than all that, maybe you're a sex addict. And we had a lot of conversations about it.

I said, you know what, I'm just going to check into sex addiction rehab. I don't know if I am or not, but certainly like the need for sex was stronger than the need for integrity and honesty and everything else. And so I actually checked in to rehab,, uh, which is very ironic as the guy who wrote the game, I understand. And I, and there I sort of started to learn about, okay, what are the forces, unknown, unconscious, hidden forces operating on me that made me make this decision? Largely having a, you know, depressed, controlling mother and parents in a bad relationship. If that sounds familiar at all, you know, a dad who, you know, a very meek dad who kind of gave up everything for it's so similar.

It's insane. And, and started to learn about that, but here's the crazy part. So I learned all about the fears and intimacy. I had the fears of being controlled, the fears of being smothered, the idea that I kind of have to take care of someone that I'd resent them for a choice I made. Right. And, uh, and here, but here's the crazy thing. And then when I told you that story earlier about her and I broke up, cause I thought Managi wasn't natural. That happened after I learned everything about myself. Like I learned it all. And then I still did it. And the thing is the stuff is so strong that the knowledge is not enough. It's like when somebody said, says like, Oh, I'm going to stop dating jerks or I'm gonna stop dating people like this. And

you're like, wait, you you're in another relationship with the same person again, you know, a new version of the same person. And so I had, I went through some super deep that I highly recommend to everybody, uh, kind of, uh, healing trauma, emotional work that really purged that really sort of, uh, let work that really purged, that really sort of, let's just say, weakened those connections we were talking about in the box, those stories that we build up. And so I went through some really, really heavy, yeah.

Well, first thing was humility. I had to accept that, like, as smart as I am, I know nothing because I'm just messing everything up. And just say, I know nothing. I let go. All my logic is not going to help me. Right? You know, the second thing is just not blaming I know nothing. I let go. All my logic is not going to help me. The second thing is just not blaming anyone else. While she's doing this and she's doing that,

I had to just accept all the responsibility. Then the third thing was to just treat... There's this thing I took out of the book, and I'll say it here, that I thought... Whether we think of them as trauma, like a psychologist may say, or just variables that make you you. I think of all that stuff as like all that bad messaging you got growing up, you know, as a sort of like a cancerous ball attached to the heart by an elastic band. Right? If you can get rid of that, you can actually see reality and get out of your story and be in a pretty accepting, happy place. Yeah. And so what I did was I just kept stretching with every therapy possible. I kept stretching that elastic band until eventually it just sort of,

I won't say snapped, but got so weak that it has no pull over me. Wow. Okay. And I'll give you some examples of what I'm talking about because it's hard. Everyone thinks that therapy is talk therapy. I don't believe talk therapy is very, very useful. It's only an hour. There's no real very, very useful. It's only an hour. There's no real – for most people, it's only an hour. There's no real treatment program.

You're just coming in and talking about what – I find talk therapy not useful because most of your beliefs and your trauma and the things that happened to you growing up. I was just going to say it's more physical than it is just in your head. Exactly. Exactly. It's physical. It's emotional. When you're a child, you don't have language. Things are not happening logically, and there are a lot of therapies that work

on the emotional parts of it that work on... If you're not... If the therapy doesn't involve you having feelings, it's probably not working on the deep level where you grip onto things. There's something called somatic experiencing, which is about releasing... It's almost like if you think of someone dies in a house with unfinished business and they haunt the house until their business is finished.

That's like maybe the stuff in your body that's a lot of whatever the stored up pain and sadness and anxiety. And again, seeing parents fight is not a good feeling to have, and that's all locked in there. And so they do things that kind of unlock that and release it after all this time. So that was good. Uh, there's a lot of programs that, uh, where you'd sort of really unpack this stuff and do a lot of, let's say just heavy emotional work through this stuff. And it's, it's life changing. Like there's a moment when you can step outside of your own head, outside of your box and see the world as it is not as you think it is like, Oh, it's a beautiful place. I just need to get back there. And then, but here's the, I'll tell you the last little piece of it, which is this. So when we got back in the relationship and I really showed and proved

in every way that I've changed. Um, and again, the burden is on me to, to, to earn back trust, not for it to be given. When I really earned that trust back and she saw that I was really a different person in the relationship and in my life, it got her interested in this stuff because let's face it, she chose me. So she has to be – something's equally wrong with her. Just as I'd say the same about your ex. So generally that's a pattern. saying about about about your ex right so uh so generally that's a pattern i'm in ingrid's case it wasn't emotion out there just a dad who literally was not there period just had since she was a certain age um and so there's a lot of abandonment fears for that so often and again

it's no surprise like the cover of the book is puzzle pieces because i think we're interlocking puzzle pieces sometimes um and so her dad like cheated on her mom right so of course she ends up with this cheater hey reform the cheater then i can heal my childhood wounds so she had her do her own work on her abandonment and do everything else so she got to the same place and i think it's a great relationship listen every relationship is going to have issues and problems you keep shopping for relationships no problems you're going to be shopping until you die. So if you go decide – if you can be with – both recognize your own problems, not each other's, just your own. It's up to your partner to recognize their own. But if you get lucky enough that you can communicate about yourself and your issues and they can communicate about theirs and both work on them, then you can get to have – I guess if that – when we're conscious uncoupling, you get to have a very conscious coupling. I like that. Now, how long were you with her until you guys broke up?

We're probably together like a year till we broke up and then we were apart a year. And now since then, I think we were together, we've been together three years and now I'm married with a baby now. And I look at him and the coolest thing about all this stuff is all the stuff I learned about what's healthy parenting and not healthy parenting has made me so much more conscious and better of a father than I would have been otherwise. Yeah. Wow. So what did you do in that year apart? Were you guys still hanging out at all? Were you fully focused on yourself? Were you off dating other girls? What was, what did you learn about that year? That was when I, when I, when I had the, I tried the open relationship and the polyamory and like the sex community. I was like, I'm going to be so free. I, I had this vision.

I had this, I had this vision and I, this, I swear this really, I, I'm not just saying it just because I think maybe you led the way with this. So I had this great idea. I had this great idea that I'm going to get all my friends together who feel the same way. We're different women. I've dated and they've dated. And we're going to live together in like a sort of like a – Oh, my gosh. We're going to create a new kind of lifestyle where we live together with no relationship attachments, total freedom in the morning.

And we built this kind of – designed this lifestyle. We had yoga. We did yoga in the morning. And we built this kind of design, this lifestyle. We had yoga. We did yoga in the morning. We had someone come in and teach nonviolent communication, which is a great way to talk with each other. We always did a lot of sort of start growing our own stuff, like just really like living, traveling, and just really enjoying life and being in this kind of free situation. And I really had this paradise in this kind of free situation. And, and I really had this paradise in my head of this is the way to do it. We're going to be like Chris Ryan's book,

sex at dawn and do this thing. However, you knew this was coming, right? But like less than a week into it, someone's jealous partner tried to kill me with an ax. Oh my gosh. What?

So yeah, my free love commune almost turned into the manson family oh my goodness yeah with an axe yeah yeah we had an axe we were chopping these coconuts and it was it was he got in a jealous rage and and it was pretty scary oh my gosh man that's crazy so so so did it last did it end there the fantasy end there or what but what happened was he and that person left. Then it kind of started – It kicked them off the island. Yeah, yeah, which is funny. Now it's not a free love commune.

It's a total dictatorship. It's ridiculous the things we do. So it happened from there. Then it was kind of working and we said, well, we could do this, but the thing is, it's a lot of work to just manage everything. We had the kind of meetings every morning where we discussed through our feelings and what's going on. And, and, and so it was, it was a full-time job just managing it. There's a, for, for like the, the super, for the super, for the super nerds, uh, here's a little formula that I can

help you with. and if anyone can figure it out uh you know before i tell you what it is i'd be impressed or i'd be really cool to know so it's n times n minus one over two i have no clue and so what is n i have no clue so n is the number of people in the relationship and the sum is how many relationships you're having. Oh my gosh. So in other words, I thought four people – if I was with three women, that's three relationships. But it's really – let's see. Three minus – well, shit, I would kind of be the math.

That's four of us. Three – I'm messing up the math. I don't know. Four times three over two, six relationships. So three people is really six relationships. So in the house, I think there were 10 people. So whatever. Oh my gosh.

Whatever that is, that's how many relationships you're actually having. Oh my gosh. And so it's such a skill to keep that many going. That's a lot of energy and a lot of work. That's exactly what it was. So you tried all these things and then a year goes by and you realize what, that none of this works and monogamy is the way to go? No. Okay. What happened next?

What happened was I realized the problem wasn't relationships. The problem was me. So that was the first thing was realizing like, okay, the problem is not her, you know, trying to control me and keep me from being free. The problem isn't monogamy. The problem was me. So that was the first thing was realizing like, okay, the problem is not her trying to control me and keep me from being free. The problem isn't monogamy. The problem is like solely me and the way I think and everything else. So then that's when I did all the work that I was telling you about. And sort of just – and I was willing – the other thing is when I really was sort of trying to reconnect with Ingrid or trying to make the relationship work. I was also open to whatever happens. I'm letting go of the outcome.

If it's right, it will happen. If not, at least I'm a healthier person. So I did the work for me, not for her. I think that's an important distinction. That's important, yeah. Because even in a relationship – go ahead. Were you in contact with her at all that year or was it here and there? Were you guys still seeing each other or was it completely disconnected?

Almost completely disconnected and any connection was a bad idea. So if you – so one thing I can say is – yeah, I did like a whole like blog post about this, but I really feel this is true. I don't know. I don't – I haven't read about the uncoupling, but I think if you – you've got to set somebody free. about the uncoupling, but I think you've got to set somebody free. And I think the best way to sort of uncouple, and I don't know what the philosophy on it is, is to be firm about it, to make the decision and then really be firm about it. To say, not to waffle back and forth and let it drag on for years. And then together say, we're going to communicate for a week or for two weeks.

Whatever you want, whatever you need, I'm there for you to help you through this stuff. And then after that, though, no matter what happens, we're not going to communicate until both of us are actually really over it and can actually be friends and have no emotional attachment or pain. In other words, I can see you with a new partner and not feel sadness or jealousy or regret. So I think you have to, every time you communicate with someone, once you're broken up, you reset the clock on your recovery and their recovery. Wow. I remember you saying this actually in your little – what was this like little star dungeon room you had with beanbags in your house in Malibu. I think you remember saying that because you guys were talking about how you got back together or something.

And I remember saying you got to fully – that one week period where you can talk about anything. You can be there for a while, but then you've got to cut it off. I thought that was brilliant. You're a much better man than me. Yeah. You need like a friend or someone else to talk to because, of course, you have a pain and only that – you feel like the person who caused it or even if you caused it this time, you feel like they can cure it or make you feel better a little bit and it becomes addictive. And so – So was she off with other – in other relationships or were you even aware of what she was doing or what? Yeah, I wasn't aware.

I tried – I didn't – I stayed strong. I didn't check the Facebook. I think she unfriended me anyway. But I didn't check Facebook or anything like that and didn't do vicarious contact by asking friends what she was doing. I did a little bit of that actually now that I think about it. But pretty much it was pretty good. Yeah, but she had some awesome relationships with really cool guys. Like, I saw – I can check this out.

Oh, my gosh. I remember like – I think there was a point where I got weak and I really wanted to get back together with her kind of halfway through this. And a friend was friends with us, showed me a Facebook photo or something. And she was with this guy who was like the most good looking guy I've ever seen in my life. Like he looked, he was like an underwear model. If I can remember, I wish I could remember his name. I don't have you guys Google.

Like face like James Dean and like a body with just like rippling with muscles everywhere. And I'm like, okay, I guess it's done. And I definitely don't, I don't have a lot of ripples. Not where I want them. Right, right. So did you kind of let go fully then or was that give you more – were you kind of like sad more then or what was the feeling? No, I thought, you know what? I hope this guy isn't ambivalent like me.

Like I hope this guy doesn't have questions about monogamy like me and and i just said yeah i just thought you know what i'm i'm probably not ready anyway wow yeah and so but to answer your question so so and it's funny there's been a lot of articles about this book and they're all like you know player chooses monogamy and it's a convenient cultural narrative yes but but my belief really is is that there's just these false distinctions of choosing monogamy or non-monogamy or this or that. They're just false distinctions.

And we just made the commitment to just be in a relationship and do whatever is right for the three entities in the relationship, which are me, her, and the relationship. So whatever serves all three throughout it. It's weird. Like, say you made a rule.

If you decided before you started your career, I'm always going to do this in my career. Like late now, you just feel like you change, you grow, things happen. So, so all we do is just make the commitment every moment to be true to those three things and do what's right for them. And so what, you know, you let her go, you're, you moved on, but then why a year later did you decide to reach back out or how did it, how did they get back together? What, what happened and how did she, and how did she trust you again? Yeah, no, I just realized that I really, really blew it. Like I realized that I really, really blew it.

Um, and, uh, so we just sort of met, I got like, I kind of got like her, her brother was having a wedding and I basically kind of got invited to that in some way and I just showed up and I just knew this is my chance to see her again. This is my last chance. And I brought all these sort of like little gifts to show her that I changed. I, I, uh, for example, changed, I cut off, I cut off everything from my past, uh, as far as, um, the person who I was and maybe the unhealthy people I was hanging out with. So just a new phone numbers, new email addresses, uh, you know, I gave her sort of like just whatever I could do to prove that she, she could trust me. Um, and, and kind of, we had this

discussion and, and it wasn't like, Oh, we got back together. It was great. What happened? We got back together and it was actually pretty uncomfortable. And, you know, she had a lot of, uh, trust issues obviously, and a lot of fears. And, and that's when she started doing some of the work I had done and, and, and, and, and it's great. And we got to this place and the coolest thing about this place is one of the big, my biggest fears got proved wrong, which is that I thought that over time, passion and sex like fade in a relationship. It just gets old. Um, and what happened actually is it gets old if you turn that person into your parent you turn her into mom you know you can't make happy right and then

you're you don't have sex with your mom or whatever maybe she turns into dad who's always whatever dad was doing emotionally in his emotional withdrawing and she doesn't have sex with dad and i found that as we let go of our parental stories about each other and get closer we be closer to emotionally without fear like the sex are like we keep having the best sex of our lives each time we kind of have yeah wow i mean this is i'm first off i'm glad to hear this is all happening so congratulations on everything it's great man i i swear to god like i swear to like it's if if i just haven't hadn't done this i really just would have been i would i probably would i may have been married but i would have been miserable, resentful, like cheating, scarring my kids and – or I just would have been single forever and blaming it on everybody else.

Like I'm just – it's just amazing. It's amazing. How did you know that she was the one or the one that you wanted to marry or that this was it? I mean how did you know it was her? Right. I guess it's funny. I mean, all those questions are really like logical questions, right? And they're also like, well, how do I know?

What if there's another one? The first thing I did is I got rid of the words what if. I removed them from my vocabulary. No more saying what if. What if is like the most – is a really unhealthy way to go about what if there's someone else? How do I know? What if that's wrong? I changed it to I will accept it if.

I'll accept it if it doesn't last forever. I'll accept it if I'm wrong about this. And suddenly life becomes easier. So you're not putting this like I'm going to be married for the rest of my life, like it has to happen. If for some reason for years it's not working and you guys can't shift, you're open to whatever is an option. Yeah, whatever is right for her, me, and the relationship.

And that's the other kind of logical fallacy is like you start to build it up in your head. Oh, I can't be with my ex. I need to break up for me. You just invent this fiction. If you just do what's right for you and all of you guys in each moment and continue on like that for each moment, it's even more likely to last. I love this. I feel like we should talk for another three hours, but I want to leave it at that and ask you a couple final questions because I'm excited to dive into this book. I think hopefully if I get the courage to post this, people will get a lot

of value out of this. At least if anyone did, I feel like I'm getting value out of it. So I appreciate you letting me go through a little therapy right now. Thanks for being so open about everything. That's like a risky, brave thing. It's very risky and I'm terrified. But I think that's the reason why a lot of people like this podcast is because I go there and my guests go there. And so I think I'd be doing – I want to be doing what I speak into that people should be doing in their lives if I don't post this. So just curious to see how people are going to react. So I want to ask a couple of final questions. I want to make sure everyone gets this book.

It's called The Truth, an uncomfortable book about relationships. We'll have it linked up here at the show notes, but you can get it anywhere at Barnes & Noble and Amazon and things like that. Final two questions. This is what I ask all my guests at the end. If you've written a number of New York Times bestselling books, you've been a writer for a long time. But if for some reason all your writing had vanished and you had one piece of paper to write down three truths about life that you've learned and this was the only thing you got to leave behind for people to read of yours is these three simple truths, what would you say those three truths are? Probably I know nothing, you know nothing, we know nothing. There you go. That's all three. Okay, perfect. The final question, before I ask the final question,

I want to acknowledge you, Neil, for coming on and sharing and allowing me to go there, putting me in the container of feeling safe enough to share and trusting you for kind of guiding me through this, but also for going through incredible suffering and pain that you have. I know the pain you've been through internally and emotionally through all this. I feel it. I get it because I feel like I've, um, I've lived part of that myself. Maybe it's not at the level that you have, but I can only imagine the type of pain you've gone through to get to this point. And I acknowledge you for sticking in it, sticking it through, uh, doing the work on yourself and coming to this place because

it sounds like it's one of the most beautiful places you've ever been in your life with happily married with your new son. And, uh, I couldn't be happier for you. So I acknowledge you for doing the work and sharing it with all of us. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. That's very accurate and very perceptive and empathic. Yeah. And my final question is what's your definition of greatness? And my final question is, what's your definition of greatness? I think that I wouldn't – I just think that – it's interesting. I did the questions.

I really should have listened to your podcast before coming on. I was like, I'm going to prepare for these three questions. I really would have given – but honestly, like I guess for me personally, like I don't – greatness to me as I hear it sounds like an external standard. So I guess greatness for me is just always, A, knowing yourself, and then B, what's knowing yourself, always being true to yourself. So greatness comes from within, and you're the only judge of that greatness. I like that. Neil Strauss, thanks so much for coming on and sharing, man. I really appreciate it.

Great. Thanks for a great, great conversation. And there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Again, not the most comfortable one for me, but I'm already believing that you guys are going to be getting a lot out of this. And hopefully my pain and my discomfort and my confusion and, and all the things that I go through gives you guys some insights and allows you to connect to anything that's maybe confusing or that you're not sure about in relationships

with you as well. So thank you guys for listening and for bearing with me through the discomfort and the disease. And I really appreciate your support here. Make sure to share this out, lewishouse.com slash 242 with your friends. Anyone who you may think enjoy this or get something out of this. And make sure to pick up a copy of Neil's book to learn more. It's called The Truth. Make sure to check it out over on Amazon or bookstores near you. Again, my book is coming out October 27th.

Make sure to pre-order a copy. Buy a few copies for your friends and give them away, and it would mean the world to me. This is my dream. I've had this dream for eight years to come out with this type of book, and it's finally coming true. Please help me by spreading the message of greatness to the world by buying a copy and letting your friends

know as well. I appreciate you guys so very much. I'm going to be going on a tour as well. Make sure to check out lewishouse.com slash events. Come see me in person. Give me a hug. Give me a high five. Let me know what you enjoy about the podcast and which one you are inspired by the most. So thank you guys again so much. lewishouse.com slash 242. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.