The Viall Files - E527 Ask Nick - I Think My Parents Are Swingers

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Welcome back to another episode of The Viall Files: Ask Nick Edition! We’re back to answer your burning questions about the world of dating and relationships! Before getting to our callers, Nick reveals his plans to propose to Natalie and how he’s going to pop the question! We also get the latest update from Amanda’s break-up song of the week and respond to some listener feedback regarding the recent advice given on an episode of Ask Nick. We then get into our callers! Our first caller has reason to suspect her parents are in a polyamorous relationship and she is wondering how to address it with them. While she respects their choices, she’s hoping to stop them from actively being bad at sneaking around behind her back when she visits. Our next caller met a DJ who goes through a cycle of hooking her in with intense messages but then ghosts her. With this trend repeating, our caller wonders how to uncloud her judgment. Our final caller feels her partner is being hypocritical and setting up double standards in the relationship and wants to know how she can get him to realize what he’s doing. While she fully trusts her partner having his ex in her life, her partner doesn’t bestow the same trust in our frustrated caller. Our caller worries about how they can progress their relationship when in reality, even after two years, he doesn’t fully trust her.  “Your ego is being a bad bouncer”  If you are interested in running a book club in your city, send an email to: [e-mail]  Please make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to [e-mail] to be a part of our Monday episodes.  To Order Nick’s Book Go To: http://www.viallfiles.com Support a Local Bookstore: https://bookshop.org/books/don-t-text-your-ex-happy-birthday-and-other-advice-on-love-sex-and-dating-9798212185622/9781419755491 Check out our new "Introvert" merch at http://www.viallfiles.com today! If you would like to get some advice on Office Hours send an email to [e-mail] with “Office Hours” in the subject line!  To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://www.advertisecast.com/TheViallFiles THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Caraway:  Visit http://www.Carawayhome.com/VIALL to take advantage of this limited-time offer for 10% off your next purchase. Caraway. Non-Toxic cookware made modern. Helix: Helix is offering up to $350 off all mattress orders AND two free pillows for our listeners! Go to http://www.HelixSleep.com/Viall. This is their best offer yet and it won’t last long! With Helix, better sleep starts now. Episode Socials: @viallfiles@nickviall

What's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of the vile files ask Nick edition Nick joined by Allie and Amanda. I think I'm probably engaged today. This is so exciting. I don't know. While we're recording this. Unless something has gone horrifically wrong. I'm proposing on Thursday.

Today is Tuesday. That is so soon. No, he means in terms of just like giving people a little peek behind the curtain. I see, I see, I see. Today, we're recording it. It's Tuesday. It's a Tuesday. He's proposing in two days.

This episode will go live. Six days from now. On the Monday. Now that we're all up to speed. Tell us about your engagement. I mean. Well, do you want to make any predictions now? Whether she says yes or no? Are there any, do you think you're gonna cry do you

think she's gonna cry oh yeah both people gonna cry okay that's awesome natalie's for sure gonna cry yeah i'll i'll probably i'm worse than her yeah about that stuff is it gonna be like uh the tiktok she posted where you had the roses but instead of laughter and it's just gonna be tears between the two of you so yeah i'll i'll tease a little bit how I plan on doing this. And then we'll figure out, I'm sure with Natalie talking about the actual moment and whether I executed on it. But my plan is, and I was like home alone. I know Natalie was out with some friends and I was in the hot tub by myself watching TV. And it just like, I was like thinking about like, how do I, you know, how do I do this? Right. All Natalie has expressed to me is like, she definitely would like it documented in some way, you know, for memories or whatever,

you know? And, uh, you know, we have obviously some friends who are videographers. And so like, we're lucky to like, be able to like take advantage of that. And then like, I've always wanted to be like a surprise. I don't want to do like a whole like, hey, we're getting engaged today. You know, like, how do you do that? How do you plan a situation where you film in and it's like this beautiful space

while simultaneously surprising them? Like, you know, as opposed to just like. Well, and something you've always, you've also thought through that I think is impressive and other people need to take notes is you've thought through what do I tell her it is so that she looks right. But like glam, wardrobe, like you don't want her in sweatpants. So that's the point. Yeah. So like she wants to document it. I know she would want to look her best. So we often get invited to stuff, you know, events, premieres,

you know, stuff. We're lucky and prolific to get invited to fun events around town. And my PR team will often like, hey, this is an event and whatever. And depending on the event, you know, depending how fancy it is or what it is, you know, once in a while, Natalie will treat herself to glam, you know, where she will hire a makeup artist and whatever, do her hair if there's like a red carpet, you know, knowing that these photos will be distributed. I don't do a good job with that, but she always looks good in photos. And sometimes I wish I would have glammed, but knowing that she'd probably want to get glam for, for this, like, I was like, how do I, how do I do that? So I came up with this idea to fake an event. And, and so we, we faked a flyer. Thank you,

Tom Hanks, by the way. So Tom, I'll plug Tom. Tom Hanks has a new movie. Tom Hanks has a new movie called A Man Named Otto. It's like they had a limited release over the holidays and like the premieres like this, I think next, this coming Friday, I think it is. Great. So like they look to see like,

we wanted it to be like believable and shit. And so we made like a flyer this little flyer um at canva pro if you were trying to plan a plan so i had to think of an event of like that might be cool that we could go to and like so you and a guest have been invited to attend a special screening of a man called otto with special guest tom hanks tom hanks is allegedly going to be. Tom Hanks doesn't even know what a great role he's playing in your engagement. Thank you, Tom Hanks. Location to be shared upon RSVP cocktail attire. So we had to like, you know, what would you want to wear? Not too fancy, you know, you know, so we had to think about all that. And then I had this thought, what's this like, well, when I propose, like I want to like be able

to like get it all out because i know i'll be super emotional and all that stuff and so i had this idea of like what if i just like recorded like a message to her and then and then at the end propose right so the idea is so we found this kind of like an art museum screening right and so we found this really cool place. And these people were great. Well, they've been great. I haven't. We haven't done it yet.

But it's Create Studios in Venice. And then it's like a kind of an art warehouse space. They've been fabulous. I overheard your call on speakerphone with them. They were like, we have champagne ready for you. We're going to source this. They've been great. So shout out to them. Thank you for helping make my day hopefully special again and so knock on wood i just my

anxiety is like and i know this won't happen but my anxiety is like what if she feels under the weather and then you have to like pressure her be like you need to come to this and she's like upset she's like you're not respecting the fact that i can't just like i don't think i don't need to make tom hanks you go you know something like that yeah's like you're not respecting the fact that I can't she's like I don't need to make Tom Hanks you go you know something like that yeah if that's not gonna happen

she's like chilling at home Nick please well she's definitely like Keaton comes in with a bunch of balloons and she's like oh fuck she's definitely been like on high alert

so like yeah wait yeah I don't think she's like suspecting it but like she I think she's knowing that it could happen

any time between you know the next few months. I have a question, which is when did you what was there like a specific moment or just like instance where you realized that you wanted to pull the trigger? I know you've like probably had we've been talking about it for a while now. But what was the thing that was like, I'm going to start planning this like I want to do this now. She was like, I'm definitely ready to get engaged for, for our relationship. You know, I just, I always wanted to make sure that we were ready, you know? And so, you know, for me, you know, it's just like, you know, with her being younger than me, I just, I was more, I wanted to take her lead on that. And I wanted like her to feel like,

like when she was really comfortable and ready, you know, type of thing. And we've talked about getting engaged for over a year, you know, so. So yeah, it was just more when, the more insistence she got and more excited we got, then I really started planning. So anyways, Create Studios in Venice, they've been super cool.

So it's like this kind of warehouse, you know, and in LA, you know, they have venues always in these, they have events in these random fucking places all the time. And so the idea is, and then we're, she, Natalie always wanted a party afterwards to celebrate it with like closest friends and family. So that's been her one, like whatever you do, like, can we just like celebrate it with friends? You know, so her mom and my parents are coming in, some Ashley and Jared are flying in, Victoria and Greg are flying in and a bunch of people in LA will be there. And so I've been talking with Victoria and Greg are flying in, and a bunch of people in LA will be there.

And so I've been talking with Victoria and Greg because they also get invited to events, and a lot of times at events, Victoria and Allie will be like, did you get invited to this? And sometimes it's like, hey, we got invited to this. You should try to get invited to this type of stuff. We got invited, and I was like, oh. Now he's like, can Victoria and Greg come?

And I'm like, I don't know. It might be hard to get in. Super exclusive. And then I kind of milked that for a few days. And then two days later, I was like, oh, yeah, they can get in. But I was talking to Victoria and Greg the whole time. Because I wanted to really feel real. I wanted to feel real.

And so I have an actor hired to play a security guard. And then the two women who work at Creative Studio are also kind of play a role where they're going to like check us in because these events have like check-ins. And then like my publicist has told Natalie and I that's just like an immersive experience. So when we get there,

like the whole warehouse will be like pitch black. And again, I wanted to like have this message. So like, I'm going to walk in first and then we'll be like, okay, you only can go in one at a time. You know, it's like this immersive experience. It like, I'm going to walk in first and then, and then we'll be like, okay, you only can go in one at a time. You know, it's like the submersive experience.

It's one at a time. And so I'm going to go in, they're going to hand me the, like they're going to hand me the rings. I don't want to have the ring on me. Cause it's, don't do that. And then the whole floor will be lit with candles.

And then there's going to be like a projector or TV, like, like center stage, so to speak. So she'll walk in and the video of me will start playing, like talking to her about like, you know. Do we need to film this video? When are we making this?

What do you mean? You won't be filming it. I'll have, I'll have people. Okay. File Files episode 527. Does Allie with her iPhone? A five minute episode. I was just wondering if we've thought through the video element.

We have. Yeah. Okay. And so, and Greg and Victoria are going to come with us in the car to like, again, really sell that we're going to an event. And then,

so like Greg and Victoria will be behind us. Like when we're walking in this immersive experience. So like, they just won't go in the room. I'll go in. And then there's like the staircase that I'll be kind of hiding behind it'll be pitch black so she'll just be distracted by the candles and the screen and then i'll start playing and then and then afterwards i'll kind of come around the corner i'm getting a little emotional yay and so we'll see if she says says yes so she will and

then yeah so that's the plan oh that's so cute so that's really so hopefully it goes without a hitch i'm assuming we'll bring natalie on and we'll talk about how it actually played out and i know for a fact i'm gonna have some questions and you said you promised us that on the premiere of our very exciting better date than never show which everybody should tune into the nice thing about this this is it's interactive. It is live. You will be there in the moment. And so on the premiere this coming Thursday, you said you would do a quick segment where you'll take some audience questions about all the details of the proposal after the fact. Yes, we will do that. Yeah. So tune in for that. Nice plug. Reminder audience

about Better Date Than Never. We have a new show coming out, a little different than our typical Vile Files content. It is on AMP, which is an app for live shows. It's going to be a live show every Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific,

so 9 p.m. Eastern, where you're going to talk about, you know, dates you might have on the upcoming weekend. We're kind of there to, like, be your friend

that you would sip wine with or FaceTime as you get ready for a date. And it's going to be fun. We're going to have a lot of fun little segments. Obviously, we're going to talk about his engagement on the first premiere episode because it will have just happened. And so much what we hear about dating, I think both from like this show, Callers, also just like being a matchmaker from friends is that

it's like it's rough. It can be really isolating. It can be really exhausting. There's things that can be super fun about it. But I think sometimes those get drowned out by all the other stressful elements. So this is our opportunity to be like, let's make this a little more communal. Let's all have fun. Let's laugh about our common struggles. Let's get a little loose. Let's get a little silly. And also let's get a little encouraging. If you are someone who has a date lined up for this weekend and you want to be one of the people we talk to to kind of walk through, like get ready for the date. If you're shooting a shot on your dating apps or you're kind of in a dating process and you want us to kind of walk through where you are on the stage. If you just got done with a first or second date and you don't really know where your next steps are. All of those scenarios, these are conversations we're going to have on this show.

Email us at asknick at thevilefiles.com. And make sure to put AMP in the subject line. Put AMP or better date than never. That's too long. It's too long. Put AMP. All right, put AMP. And in the meantime, for everyone who wants to check it out and listen to this, it's going to be fun.

Just go download AMP right now. You have to have an iPhone. So sorry, Android people. No, but we're not sorry because you make all the group chats green. Yeah, you do do that. Sorry.

Amanda's been sassy. So all you iPhone people out there who want to check it out against 9 p.m. Eastern every Thursday, this Thursday, 6 p.m. Pacific.

7, or no, 8 p.m. Central. 8 p.m. Central. 7 p.m. Mountain. So go and download it right now. It's a free download. this Thursday 6pm Pacific 7 or no 8pm Central 7pm Mountain so go and download it right now it's a free download and then look for our show

grab a drink if you want one better date than never yeah I might do a little like signature cocktail for each episode we're gonna be drinking but be sure to

email us if you want to join in it's audio only there's no video so and if you want to remain anonymous. It's audio only. There's no video. And if you want to remain anonymous, when you sign up for AMP, just put a different name in. Don't put your picture on. I don't have a picture on mine. So yeah, you can be totally anonymous. And then it's interactive.

So we'll let callers come in and maybe other listeners can share their thoughts, whether they agree or disagree. I also think, I know this is an idea we had, but having a segment of people who have like specific dating rules. If you have like a dating hack or something that you do on a routine basis that's like work for you that you want to share with everybody else, this is like a community building situation. Pay it forward. Yeah. I love cooking, cooking, cooking, cooking. Cooking is an art form. You know, if you're going to be an artist, you have to have good brushes form. If you're going to be an artist, you have to have good brushes. And if you're going to be an artist in the kitchen, you have to have good cooking wear.

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Helix Sleep. I'm a Helix customer for life. I think it's safe to say that Helix is something you love to talk about because you love it so much. Like any time that you get to talk about Helix, your mood shifts. It's a change. Because every time I lie on my bed, I have an honest, conscious thought of, I have a great mattress. It is incredibly comfortable. And I've been blessed enough to stay in some wonderful hotels who talk and rave about the quality of their mattresses and they're quite comfortable. But after getting a Helix mattress, nothing compares, truly nothing. And I was amazed by how affordable that mattress was. It was easy to get. The shopping experience was wonderful. I told them I was a bit of a side

sleeper and they told me that the Moonlight mattress is the one for me. Turns out they were right. And it's just been a fun journey of sleeping on the best mattress possible. If you've listened to this show before, you've heard me talk about how I used to rave about the ability to sleep on any mattress. And I can. But like, I didn't know comfort until I got a Helix mattress. And if you don't believe me, they have over 12,000 five-star reviews. That's a lot.

They've also been voted number one mattress picked by GQ and Wired Magazine. Helix is offering up to $350 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners. Go to helixsleep.com slash V-I-A-L-L. This is the best offer yet and won't last long. With Helix, better sleep starts now. So hopefully you will never, ever, ever have a breakup again after you listen to our AMP dating show. But if you do, we thought you were talking to Nick. I thought you were like, hopefully, ever have a breakup again after you listen to our AMP dating show. But if you do, we hope you're like, hopefully, you never have a breakup again.

I hope you never have a breakup again. Now that she has a ring on her finger. I definitely wish that for you. I wish that for you, too. Oh, wow. Thank you. I'm not in a relationship. Yeah, we'll see.

I don't know. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. So, but if you do have a breakup, please check out our Breakup Song of the Week playlist. It is on our Instagram Instagram on a little highlight. This week's song is also on Spotify. Have we made a playlist? Yes.

Yes. It's like the link to the Spotify playlist is on the Instagram. This week's song. Oh, my God. I love this song. I think it's such a banger. It is Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish. And thank you so much to our lovely submitter.

They said, so this song ended up getting played at various points this year. I've been with a guy for nearly a year. He had plans to go for traveling this November, and we'd planned to be single while he was away. Anyways, there we were. So many red flags were out, and I just ignored. And whenever I was upset or angry, I would play this song, and eventually I got the strength to cut ties before he went.

Pretty sure he was just asking me for tickets to gigs because I can get them quite easily through family connections. Anyway, your podcast and book are getting me through this incredibly painful breakup, and I'm hopeful to meet someone who loves me for me and not what I come with. Literally, I was going to say,

you deserve someone who wants you for not just the tickets. Fuck that freeloader. Great song. Great song. Love some Billie Eilish. Before we get to our callers, I wanted to talk about some feedback we got on a particular

call. I don't know. Which episode was it? Do you know? I believe it was last week's. It was the caller where the young lady was getting married and she wasn't sure if she wanted to have her mom or dad walk her down the aisle. She wanted to kind of honor her mom for the role she played.

I believe it was Ask Nick from January 2nd. And so some people didn't agree with my advice. And we had a wonderful listener send us a message and kind of just give her thoughts. And I wanted just to play some part of it, especially like this type of message. We appreciate your feedback. This was a very gracious message. And so discourse discourse is good but i wanted to i i thought i wanted to respond uh so anyways this is part of her message i'm just gonna she sent a voice note so i'm just gonna play it quick maybe because none of you are in the same situation or in the same boat. As someone that is in the same situation with their parents,

I just wanted to give another perspective because Nick had mentioned that sometimes you need to be the bigger person. And I disagree with that because I, just for me, I believe that being the bigger person normally means that you're accepting disrespect and I don't think people have to be the bigger person if they don't want to and that's just in regards to going somewhere and being cordial with someone and people always say be the bigger person and I don't think necessarily people have to because it means they're just accepting disrespect from people. So in regards

to that I don't think that she should just be the bigger person when it's her day. I also think that if this is going to upset her dad, that's something that he needs to work on then. She shouldn't have to be worrying about his feelings when he didn't worry about her feelings her whole life growing up or her mom's feelings in their relationship together. Granted, I don't know and I'm assuming nobody else knows about how they grew up other than her, but if she wants to give that to her mom she can. And then another thing I didn't agree with was how it's such a big deal for a dad to walk his daughter down the aisle. Honestly, like it's 2023. The last four weddings I've gone to, the dad didn't walk the girl down the aisle. It was either a combination of both mom and dad,

just the mom. All right. So anyways, that's the meat of the message. Again, we appreciate the message. So I wanted to just kind of talk about that. So one thing I want you guys to know when people call into the show, you know, thing I want you guys to know when people call into the show, you know, and I think you guys have probably heard me ask this multiple times, not everything that's on the callers makes the final cut. But a big part of what we're doing is asking people like, what's the outcome that you want? Like, what do you want to accomplish out of this? Because, you know, when people call in with these very personal stories, as I mentioned to Allie and Amanda on the show, like it's not our job to insert our own personal lives and situations and

kind of project our desires, especially as some of these calls might resonate with us or trigger us or things like that. We can certainly offer our insight from our perspective, but we have to be kind of careful on how we project, you know, things that affect us onto our callers. And so we always ask, like, what do you want to accomplish? And now this particular caller, when she called in, very clearly stated that her dilemma was that, you know, while she wanted to kind of honor her mother, it was a priority for her to still have a relationship with her father. That was a goal. And so she was worried, as she said, that if she didn't have him walk down the aisle, that could have significant damage on this

relationship that she wanted to have. Not everyone in that situation, it's a priority at that point. We all have different situations with our parents, and maybe this particular listener was at the point with her relationship with her father, it was just not that much of a priority. Maybe she had decided that at this point, I am no longer going to worry about your feelings as it relates to our relationship. And you can either get on board with the boundaries I've set for myself, or you cannot. But either way, I'm going to operate kind of on this path. And this particular caller wasn't ready to draw that line in the sand. In terms of the discussion around being the bigger person, we always talk about setting boundaries. And so I don't think anyone should ever be the

bigger person if that means disrespecting your own boundaries, right? But if you feel like you can be the bigger person without doing that, I do think it can go a long way to, again, maintaining or fixing or healing relationships that, you know, at various times can be damaged or need some mending and things like that. So I think there is a time and a place for being the bigger person, as long as you don't have to sacrifice your mental health or your boundaries, things like that. And that's a personal choice for anyone in these situations. And so if you're someone who listened to this and disagreed with that, you know, again, think about, think about like, I think, I think the biggest takeaway is, you know, if you're someone who's giving advice to a that, you know, again, think about like, I think the biggest takeaway is,

you know, if you're someone who's giving advice to a friend, you know, someone asked for your advice, be mindful to not project your own personal wants and desires in that situation onto the people asking for advice. Because there's a difference between giving advice and it resonating with you and being triggered by something and then giving them advice of something how you would want it to play out, you know out you know I also think there's like so much of an advice I think there's this hope I think it comes from such a good place of being having the perspective of I really want the best for this person and what I think is best for this person is this but I think it kind of has to do I think something you're very big on that I've definitely

gotten more used to like just like working here in my own personal life with talking to friends is like really meeting people where they're at. Like, I think there's this hope that like, well, if I just like can like kind of like trick them into doing the thing that I know would be better for them, it will be better for them and they'll see the light and it will all be okay. And so often like. And we have to be careful what we think is better for us isn't always better for other people, right? And sometimes we'll hear people's advice and we won't ask them what they really want or we won't really listen to what they say when they say, well, this is ultimately my goal. They might just say, well,

a lot of people might in that situation who could be triggered by the story or relate to the story kind of gloss over the fact that she mentioned how much of it was a priority for her to still try to fix this relationship and then give him advice that would maybe not meet her needs, you know, that the advice they would give, it'd be like, well, fuck him. He doesn't need acting justice. Yeah. And again, because that's how you might handle that situation. So, you know, when you're giving advice, it's something we really try to do on this show is not to project how we want it to play out, but we were very mindful of what they, what the goal is that they're, what their goal is when they call in

and try to accomplish that. And we try to maybe peel back other layers to find out, is that what they really want by just asking some questions. In terms of a father walking down the aisle, yeah, it's 2022 and things are not as traditional as they were before, but still for a lot of people and a lot of fathers, good fathers and bad fathers, it is very much a priority for them. And it seemed like for this caller, she expressed that this would be very much a disappointment to her father.

Everyone has to decide for themselves. If you want to decide, well, hey, that's his journey, he has to deal with it. The point was that I was making is that this is going to be a very public event and him not walking her down the aisle is going to make him feel kind of called out, so to speak. And he's already demonstrated that he does not have the emotional regulation to move on and handle it maturely. And she wasn't ready

to simply just draw that line in the sand and say, this is a you problem, dad. I no longer want to make it my problem. And those are journeys we all have to decide with our parents. You know, we're not telling you whether it's right or wrong to like set those boundaries with your parents or not have relationships with your parents. Like all these relationships are different. Parents can be toxic and manipulative, but family is family. And if you want to continue to work on these relationships, knowing that they're always going to be imperfect, I think we always kind of welcome and encourage that as well. So really good point from I think I really I found the voice memo super thought provoking the idea of being the bigger person forces you to accept disrespect. I think that's I found that really interesting to think about.

And what I kind of ultimately like landed on and hearing you say talk about it is that it is kind of an acknowledgement. That's kind of the definition of being the bigger person is knowing this disrespect comes with it. So I guess it's just a personal matter of weighing like, is the disrespect worth the payoff that I hope to have at the end by being the adult in the room, by being the mature person? And it felt like in this case, the answer was yes, but there's so many cases where it's probably not that. I don't necessarily feel like you're accepting

disrespect by being the bigger person. It's a personal choice, right? I think it's very, it depends a lot on the situation. I think you can be the bigger person. It's a personal choice, right? I think it's very, it depends a lot on the situation. I think you can be the bigger person and still adjust relationships and adjust expectations of that person after they've hurt you to the point where it's not like, I'm ready for another punch. Like you can still choose to have them in your life

on very different. And stand up for yourself and say, hey, I don't agree with that. And please don't talk to me that way. Or please don't treat me that way. I'm not okay with how you're talking to me right now, but I'm still willing to have a relationship with you. And I'm still willing to compromise with you. And I'm willing to have a conversation or negotiate with you. So it's not just like falling on the sword or taking punches, metaphorical punches or whatever, things like that. But yeah, anyways,

I just wanted to address that. We appreciate our listeners sending that message and also totally okay if you guys disagree with some of that stuff. But I think the lesson here is just be careful when people ask for your advice, especially when you feel triggered or you really resonate with something. Be mindful of what they really are asking advice for and be careful not to project what you want for them over what they want for themselves. So anyway, if she says yes, hopefully Natalie will be our guest for next week Going Deeper. And we'll just call it, is it the proposal episode, the engagement episode? Yeah, the engagement episode. Yeah. And then we'll just like, I don't know, talk about the day. And I guess it'll be a

Going Deeper look into, I guess, our relationship and proposals and all that fun stuff. You're getting married. And then again, on the AMP show, we'll do, for our first one, we'll have our callers in, share their stories. We'll give advice for dates. We'll hear about dates. And then we'll take maybe some Q&As about, you can guys ask some live questions of me. Unfortunately, Natalie is going to Paris right after we get engaged with some girls. So I'd love to have her on that, but I think it'll be like in the middle of the night. So I'm not going to bother her on her girl's trip, but we'll do some live Q&A regarding the proposal. And if you guys have some questions,

I'll be happy to do some live Q&A with y'all. So I hope you all, again, check out our new amp show, Better Date Than Never. It's going to be a ton of fun, and I really guys hope you guys all check it out. So cross our fingers! Let's get to our callers. Hold on to your kilts, dearies. Peacock original The Traitors is

back with a new season of strategy, betrayal, sabotage, and murder. This killer season features an all-new celebrity cast that Vulture hailed as reality royalty, living in a Scottish castle for the ultimate murder mystery competition. We're talking fierce competitors, reality stars, and public figures battling it out for a whopping cash prize.

This season's cutthroat missions are next level, just like whatever Alan Cumming pulls out of his brilliantly eccentric wardrobe. One thing is for sure, these 21 players will do anything to avoid a plot in Alan's graveyard. Find out why critics and audiences alike are raving about the Emmy award-winning series. The New York Times is calling it a murder mystery with clothes to die for, and Vox adding that it should be your new reality TV obsession. We are certainly obsessed. Stream every episode of Traders Now only on Peacock. Ladies and gentlemen.

What are you doing? What do you mean? Just keep it simple. I'm making the promo. Just keep it simple. Just say, hey, we're the Brav Bros. Two guys that talk about Bravo. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we're the Brav Bros.

No. Dude, stop with the voice. Just keep it simple. I've seen promos on TV, dude. This is how you get the fans engaged. This is how you get listeners. We're trying to get listeners here. If we just say, oh, we're two dudes that talk about Bravo, people are going to get tired of it already.

We need some oomph. All right, then fine. Let's try to do it with your voice. Brav Bros. Good job. How's it going? Good. How are you?

Good. What's your name? My name is Brooke and I'm 26. How can we help, Brooke? So I have a reason to suspect that my parents are in a polyamorous relationship and I need help with addressing this with them. Wow. Okay. What made you suspect this in the first place? I think that's where we start, right? Yeah. So I have been accumulating evidence on this for several years now, and they've never been particularly great at hiding this. But over the holidays, it hit a new level of obvious.

Before the holidays, there was a lot of overhearing conversations accidentally. But then some of the more egregious examples were my dad left out a motel receipt from the middle of the day when they said he was at a work meeting. I think my mom's partner came over to the house as a family friend. And then I heard them kiss goodbye on the porch. And then... Who's the third party? I mean, I don't want to name, but is it a man or a woman? So I think both my parents have their partners. Oh, okay. So polyamorous in the sense of it's not necessarily a throuple situation, but both of them are

experiencing... Yeah. Yeah. So I think they... I don't know the details, obviously, but I think they have an open marriage. They're like an open marriage, open relationship, but they've been hanging out. an open marriage, open relationship, but they've been hanging out. But it seems like they both have particular other partners that have been kind of around. They're not like cycling through different people exploring things, but there's like a particular person they're both kind of also

dating. Yeah. So my mom's partner, because I met him, he came to the house and then it was sort of like what teenagers do where you hear them talking and then all of a came to the house. And then it was sort of like what teenagers do, where you hear them talking, and then all of a sudden you hear quiet. And then it was just kind of obvious. But I think she's still seeing him. And that's been since March. But then over the holidays, there were a couple more blatant examples of it, which is really what has led me to feel like I need to address it at this point. What were some of those examples? So the first example was I walked in the door coming home from... I live out of state, so just coming home for the holidays. And then on their refrigerator, they had a pineapple magnet

with their names on it that they take with them on cruise ships. And the pineapple is widely known as a symbol of swingers so that was pretty in my face and then they take the magnet this is like a thing on cruise ships you put it out on your door on your cruise cabin door yeah to signify it how do you know this ally of all people because i ended up on some side of tikt TikTok where they didn't see these things. Wow. There's a whole world going on at the same time that a lot of us aren't privy to. So it's like the swinger sock on the door is this pineapple magnet. Yeah.

Yeah. Taking it on the road. Interesting. Okay. So that was the first thing. And then we were at a family dinner with my grandmother and my dad was showing me something on his phone or showing both of dad was showing me something on his phone or showing both of me and my grandmother something on his phone and a romantic text popped up.

And then my grandma, of course, not knowing any better, I'll use a fake name. She was like, who's Jane Smith? And at the entire dinner table and my dad looked a little panicked and said like, oh, it's a coworker or something. But I of course had time to see a snippet of the message and it was certainly romantic in nature. And then the last example was that I'm pretty sure my dad went on a date while my boyfriend and I were staying there. Because he said they both were acting really shady about it. They were saying they were driving someone to the airport or that my dad was driving a friend to the airport, but they didn't leave until after 11 at night. So in conclusion, I just didn't really buy it. And over the holidays, I also talked with my older sister about it, who's had her own

suspicions and has seen things on her own over the years. So I'm not really doubting it anymore. So my question to you is, what about this situation bothers you the most or more? Is it the fact that your parents are doing this or is it that they're hiding it from you? I think it's probably a little bit of both. So first, it's a little bit insulting these lies that they're telling, especially because they're so obvious. It's kind of like I'm having to pretend not to know. So that makes it feel a lot dirtier, I guess. But then I think on another level,

I don't think anyone wants to know anything about their parents' sex lives at all. And some of their behaviors, like bringing a partner to the house or going on a date while my boyfriend and I are staying in the house, I just find a little inappropriate. Yeah, it's almost like,

of all the things that are popping in my head right now of, of, of, you know, I don't, of trying to kind of empathize with you and put myself in your shoes. The fact that it sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, that your parents are still treating you like you're 10 and not 26. And it's kind of like in your face and like acting like you're just oblivious to this. And they're bringing people over and they're having this stuff and like, well, simultaneously, like not telling you the truth because like on one end I can understand from your parents standpoint, like, you know, if you were, let's say in an open relationship with your boyfriend, I'm guessing you wouldn't go to mom and dad and, and tell them, you know, or you wouldn't want

them to know, or certainly you would feel uncomfortable with them knowing. So I can understand why your parents would be uncomfortable with you knowing, but the simple fact that they are trying to kind of have their cake and eat it too, so to speak, by bringing them around, including them in holiday things, and then just like just lying to everyone while you kind of know it's there but you're you're put in this weird position of uncomfortability of like what the fuck's going on and i'm just i'm having to just like play along with your lie even though like i fucking know there's something more to it like that i can really understand your frustration for sure yes definitely so i think it is if it were out in the open it would would be better because we're not playing this. I'm not having to pretend not to know. But I think another part of it is like, I live in a aspect of their lives private for the short time that I'm with them.

Because we've seen each other in other places over the last year. Like we've gone on vacation together outside of their house. And maybe it's something about them being in their environment that they don't want to put any aspect of their life on hold. But it's pretty uncomfortable. And I don't think I would want to, if nothing changes, I don't think I would want to stay with them if I visited in the future. Okay. And that seems reasonable. What's your, other than this kind of very unique situation, what's your overall relationship with your parents? It's really good. They have always been super open about sex. Like we've always been a very sex positive family and they are the annoying thing, or maybe the good

thing is that they seem super happy right now. They're all over each other. They just seem really, they do seem really happy. So I'm sure it's working for them and I support them in theory, but it's different when it's your parents and when it's so in your face. Yeah. I'm assuming you've already thought about ways to address this. What has crossed your mind? So since there is not a future visit planned already, I almost thought like, is there any need to address it until there is a future visit where we are looking at, okay, what are we going to do for the holidays or something? So a part of me thinks I should just wait until that opportunity comes up again. And then another part of me thinks, okay, we just had this holiday visit

where there were all these behaviors that bothered me. They were also on their phones constantly. And because I had seen the text from my dad accidentally, you can kind of see that when someone's texting that person, like you're not reading it, but you can see the name pop up on their phone. And so they were texting their partners the entire weekend. So there was just a lot of that. So I thought maybe it'd be good to address it now since it just happened. And then the last consideration is that we're going on a family vacation in April to this all-inclusive resort. And it's just the parents and me and my brother and sister and all of our significant others. So my sister and I were like, are they going to be scouting out for partners while we're on this vacation? They're bringing the magnet. I mean, based on what you're telling me, I have no reason to believe that if you don't address this prior to that, that they're not going to do some suspect things on this trip. I'm in favor. I love your lady's input on this, but I'm in favor of addressing it relatively soon

via like a FaceTime kind of conversation. And I think it sounds like you have, again, relatively healthy relationship with your parents. It sounds like communication is, you know, relatively open, the lines of communication. And this is just a really fucking weird and difficult and challenging conversation you need to have with mom and dad. But it sounds like if you kind of approach it, you know, this is not about you judging them. You know, they're adults. They have the right to do whatever they want. And I'm assuming while this particular venture is not your cup of tea, that I'm sure you might do things in the future that you hope that other

people that love you wouldn't judge you for whether you want to tell them or not. But if you ever come to a point where people found out or they needed to know, I'm assuming you would hope that whether they agree or disagree or not, they would just simply accept and love you for who you are and let you live your life. So I think you just want to bring that type of energy to the conversation because this is not about you

judging them or telling them they need to stop. This is about you first saying, listen, mom and dad, like we're not stupid. We're 26 and you've always raised us to kind of be open and sex positive and communicate with each other. And so I wanted to bring this up because you do have the right, I feel like,

to say, do what you want. But like, this is still, you know, from our point of view, I cherish our family dynamic. And when I come home for the holidays, it would mean a lot to us that, you know, you kind of protect that for us. And when we're not there, do whatever the fuck you want. Take your trips. But if we're going to take a family trip, it would really mean a lot to us for it to be our family and about our family. And I don't want to see you guys,

you know, sneaking away or having texts. It would really mean a lot if you could set some boundaries for yourselves and respect our needs as a family so that like, I can still enjoy it. And like, whatever you guys want to do, do it. But like, also, I just don't want, the lies are just, it's, I don't want you guys to have to lie to us unnecessarily. We're not children anymore. We're adults. And I understand why it might be difficult, but like, we see And so one, I just want to have a conversation around, I'm not trying to call you out, but just be upfront with us. And hopefully they own up to it. And then if they own up to it, just, hey, I have a request. And that request, tell them your request.

When we're home for the holidays, can you take a time out from your non-traditional parts of your relationship and just focus on our family dynamic? And I think it's okay to say, listen, I'm not telling you to do this. I'm not demanding it, but I am saying that it does make me feel a little uncomfortable. And again, I'm not judging you, but if you don't want to do that, I understand. But just going forward, we're not going to stay with you, you know, when we visit, you know, we're just going to, you know, I might have to adjust, but like we might make changes in our end. And if, you know, if you're, I don't want to know if we want to go on this family trip,

if you're going to be putting pineapple magnets on the door, it's just like, I want, if we're going to take a family trip, I want it to be a family trip, not a family trip with mom and dad's, you know, boyfriend and girlfriends. And it's just like some version of that where you just kind of, I think what you should do is be the role model to your parents in this situation almost. And I think as adults, we have the opportunity, even though it feels weird and foreign because our parents growing up were the ones who, they were our mentors. They were our role models. They are the ones who told us what was right and wrong and whether we could do something or not do something. But as adults, you're an adult and you can do what you want. So you have the opportunity to

teach your parents. I think I'm so grateful for my parents in so many ways. And one of the things I'm so grateful for my parents is their willingness to learn from their children. I have 10 brothers and sisters. I grew up ultra conservative in so many facets of my life. And as us kids grew up and ventured out to the world and were introduced to new people and new cultures and ideas, we have shared some of those ideas and thoughts with our parents. And that has expanded their points of view. And they haven't completely changed their entire value system, but they have definitely become more progressive and more open-minded as a result of what they learn from their children. I think this is an opportunity for you to lead by example and communicate to your parents in the way that you want them to communicate to you. is motivation to get through the awkwardness and the uncomfortability of this conversation and kind of think of it as like the greater good. Like, you know, you're doing this because you

hoped your parents would do this to you and still be willing to have an open and honest conversation, even though things are awkward and weird, because that's the type of relationship you want to have with your parents is open and honest and have mutual respect and treat each other as adults because you're all adults in this situation. You don't think bringing it up so that it's out in the open will give them like free reign to have everything more out in the open or is that's why it's important to include the. Well, I mean, so much of you bring it up is to acknowledge that you know it exists. And then the second part of the conversation is to set some boundaries. You're saying, now that I know this is existing, I have some boundaries or I have some things that I'm just not comfortable with. And they can choose not to respect your boundaries, but you can choose to then, you know, enforce

your boundaries by, you know, not staying with mom and dad or not going on this family trip and saying, listen, I need you guys to respect the fact that I'm not comfortable with this. And if you guys want to say tough, deal with it. That's your parents' right. But it's also your right to respond to them making that decision. You know, it's all kind of cause and effect. People make decisions and we react to those decisions. You can set a boundary, people can choose not to

respect it, then it's up to us to enforce it. And sometimes, as we talk about almost on every episode, sometimes you have to enforce it first to get people to respect it. Oftentimes people, when you suggest a boundary or you communicate a boundary, it's kind of like a game of chicken. They're going to make you enforce it first to prove that you have the kind of guts to do it. And when it comes to kind of a parent-children dynamic, you might have to do that because they're used to having the power in this relationship. So just kind of be prepared for all those scenarios. And I don't take it personally, just be prepared to have to enforce it if they don't meet you right away and kind of have that empathy and understand why this could be weird. It seems like a reasonable request, but so much of this conversation isn't to lecture them or let them know. It's not so much about the lying. It's about how you want them to handle the situation now that you know it exists. And then setting some expectations and boundaries with them and request and seeing how they respond to that. And that's why I think you should bring it up now because it gives them

time to process this. It gives them time to have a conversation with each other. Like, oh, we got caught. They're going to feel probably defensive, all these kind of feelings. And I don't know how they're going to respond, but they just might need time to process that their children know. And they might need time to process these demands or requests that you're going to have of them. And so I would rather you just say it now and let them talk through it and figure it out.

There might be multiple conversations you need to have with them. And certainly it gives you time before the next holiday to try to meet those boundaries rather than come home for the holidays and kind of like only bring it up when they do it and then they're on the defensive and it doesn't give them time to kind of process their emotions and things like that. So logistically, you think it should be a FaceTime conversation with both of them? Yeah. I mean, again, you know your relationship with your parents better than I do, but if you're comfortable with it, I would just say,

hey, mom and dad, can we talk? And can we talk over FaceTime? I'd like to have a face-to-face conversation with you guys. And I don't know if it's something you and your sister want to do together or you want to do on your own. If you and your sister want to do it together, I think that's all the more powerful. And just saying, make sure you guys are aligned with the boundaries you guys want to set with your parents. And just say, hey, listen, do what you want, mom and dad. We support you. We don't necessarily wanna hear about it,

but whatever you, you guys seem really happy and I'm excited that you're happy. And if this is what you wanna do, great. But all we're asking is that when we're home for the holidays or we're taking family trips, can you just cherish and respect our family dynamic and not necessarily throw it in our faces? I think that's reasonable. You don't live there. You live out of town. That seems reasonable. Okay. That's good to know. Cause I didn't know how to balance

supporting them, their choices and their freedoms, but saying just like not around me, cause I don't want to come off as hypocritical or judgmental or anything. But yeah, it is tricky when it's your parents. Yeah. I don't know how they're going to take it. Right. But you can support someone without saying, hey, listen, I just don't want to be a part of it, but like I still support you and I don't judge you, you know, and I'm assuming they know that this is non-traditional and not saying that it's wrong. Assuming they know that this is non-traditional and not saying that it's wrong, it's just non-traditional and other people aren't comfortable with it. And I think it would be inappropriate for anyone to push when they push, you know, ultimately they're pushing their comfort zones or they had to have at some point they had to be exploratory

and push their comfort zone. And just because you want to push your comfort zone doesn't mean everyone else should push their comfort zone. And when we push our comfort zones, it doesn't mean that's the right situation for everyone else. And so your parents would have to kind of have that level of selfishness for them to respond in a way that was kind of like, don't make us feel judged. Because you're not, you want to have that energy of like, and start by saying, we support you. We love you. I have noticed that you guys seem really happy. And ultimately, like, if that means, if your happiness makes me happy and I would lead with that. However,

that doesn't mean I want to necessarily be a part of it and I don't want to be around it. And I still want to know and just, I want to just enjoy mom and dad. And yeah, I may, if it's me being selfish, it's us being selfish that we don't want to necessarily want to enjoy mom and dad. And yeah, if it's me being selfish, it's us being selfish that we don't want to necessarily want to have mom and dad and their boyfriends over for Christmas, boyfriend and girlfriend over for Christmas. Like, I hope that's okay for us to ask. And you're not asking for like half the year or long,

you're asking for a handful of days a year for them to just prioritize the family. And so I should only bring up the discomfort with staying with them or perhaps not going on the family. And so I should only bring up the discomfort with staying with them or perhaps not going on the family trip if they push back on that request? Yeah. So you set the boundary, you communicate it, and then you see how they respond. And like I said earlier, be prepared for them to have to like process this and talk with each other. There might be some early pushback. And then you just say, you know, again, I'm not mad. I just like, I'm uncomfortable with it. And when you say,

hey, I'm uncomfortable, we're uncomfortable with it. We're not judging you, but just, it's not fair for you to expect us to be comfortable with things that necessarily you're into. Like, I'm not judging you just because I'm uncomfortable with it. I'm asking to just, I'm just removing myself and letting you do your thing. Because like, listen, I would want you to let me do my thing. And I'd hope that you support me. If I do something, if I'm into something that you're not into something, as long as I'm safe and happy. And if you're safe and happy, do go nuts, but I don't have to always want to be a part of it. And I think we can draw that distinction. All right. Well, thanks for calling. This is a, an incredible story, you know.

Yeah, thank you. Hopefully the conversation goes well. Your parents seem fairly open-minded. So I think that could be a good sign. And I think if you lead with love and support, I think you have a better chance of enforcing the boundary. And if they don't, they're being selfish. And it might just require a little bit of tough love and a little bit of boundary enforcement for them to come around. Based on what you're telling me, I would be surprised if this turns into like, fuck you guys. I guess like, you know, essentially them cutting you out of their lives just so they could like do this whenever they want. I don't get that sense, but we would definitely love an update whenever you have this conversation. For sure. I will certainly let you know.

All right. Take care. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye. How's it going? I'm good. How are you All right. I'll take care. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye. How's it going? I'm good. How are you? Good. What's your name?

I'm Erica. I'm 21. How can we help Erica? So I met this DJ while promoting at a club in New York city. And he tells me that he loves me and he's like really into me, sends me these extensive voice memos. And then he goes off the grid for like weeks at a time. And what are you trying to figure out? I'm trying to figure out like if it's worth

staying in touch with him or if I should just cut him off completely because he's expressed that he wants to stay in my life, but like doesn't really know how. He said he doesn't know how? No, but I can tell like that he's not really at a place. If he is constantly ghosting me, then I don't know if I really want that in my life. If I want to move on with other people, I don't want him clouding my way. You know what I mean? Sure, sure. Describe to me the it was the second time that i promoted for one of his gigs and like blew up the place the bar had like amazing profits and he was like i fucking love you like you did this blah blah blah okay so that wasn't it wasn't like a moment where it was just the two of you and he like yeah hold your hair back and he's like i'm so in love with you no it was just like, I fucking love you.

You were great. Like, great job. It was more like, okay. But how did you receive it? Like, the way that he like whispered in my ear, I was kind of like, what? Like, he's up, like, we didn't know each other that long at that point. I was like, huh? I was like, oh, thanks.

Sure. And how old is this DJ? 25. Okay. I mean, and like, I'm assuming you agree that like well i don't want to judge every dj but like yeah yeah you know he is a dj and you know it's like like a fuck boy salad kind of you know yeah no he has like every red flag in the book yeah and so he's a pisces i'm not as familiar with pisces as you might be but oh pisces men are like stay away well more importantly like 25 year

old djs might might be in their fuckboy era right yeah especially like he used to be in like a big brat too like what would you what what are your reasons to consider ignoring the obvious red flags well like those were the red flags at first like when i first met him i wasn't like expecting you know to like ever expect anything out of him i was like well this is just like a dj i work for whatever and then like as i got to know him closer like i found out he was actually like really nice to me and like he goes to therapy and i was like huh so he has some green flags sure there and we just like really click and get along well i guess so yeah that's

really the only reason like we've just become really close yeah listen like yeah i'm sure you maybe have heard me often say like in a lot of cases the the bad doesn't make up for the good or you know the green flags don't necessarily make the red flags disappear and just because someone has red flags doesn't mean they're a horrible person or a piece of shit i know nowadays we kind of talk in these kind of black and white scenarios they're either like a saint or a narcissist you know like that's not how most people are most people are just like human beings who have and can be selfish and self-centered and they can go through periods in their life where they're only really thinking about themselves and everyone nowadays in hookup culture kind of goes through a fuck boy era

right and when you're going through a fuck boy era you you tend to well be a fuck boy and prioritize hooking up rather than like you know building emotional connections and you're kind of playing the field and you justify being a fuck boy by never really going down a path of like, you know, talking about committing to a relationship or you tell people like, oh, I'm not looking for a relationship right now. And most fuck boys think that's enough because they think to themselves, oh, yeah, I told you I'm not looking for a relationship. And then they do the other things like act like your boyfriend or act like your girlfriend. boyfriend or act like your girlfriend. And, you know, for example, like the fuck boy would say, hey, you know, I'm not looking for a relationship right now, you know, especially if you were just like, well, hey, what is this? You know, like, well, you know, like, you're great and I like you, but I'm not, you know, looking for anything serious. I have a lot going on. I'm busy with

school. I'm busy with work. I'm trying to be the world's greatest DJ. But do you want to go out to dinner or do you want to come over? Right. And so I think we have to be mindful to not lie to ourselves or trick ourselves by saying, oh, well, I see these red flags. But I mean, I know he goes to therapy. So that means he's not a, like him going to therapy doesn't mean he's not a fuck boy. I also think part of what stuck out from your email

is it just feels like maybe he's hooking you or continuing to bring you in with words. Like you mentioned these super long voice memos where he goes on and on about how great you are and how much he really likes you and wants to keep you in his life. But then he'll ghost you for weeks and then he'll circle back and say, oh, I was dealing with family stuff. My grandma died. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Here's your new voice memo. That has happened, as you said, multiple times where he'll go completely off the grid, send you a super long voice memo and kind of as you said multiple times where he'll go completely off the grid send you a super long voice memo and kind of like pull you back in and I think your

main concern is you're heading to Europe for six months and you don't know if you should like bring this guy kind of virtually with you or if you want to just have a clean slate and be able to date new people and I'm wondering if he's continuing to pull you in every few weeks that's a very kind of jarring situation it makes you feel like you kind of always have someone on the back burner and can't be fully open and available to new guys. I mean, listen, a fuck boy. Yeah, exactly. Fuck boys. Again, they're like, you know, I don't know if you've read my book and if you haven't, I recommend it. Don't text. A little bit. Yeah. Okay, great. Thanks. Fuck boys aren't bad people in a sense. I think nowadays, men, women,

anyone can be a fuckboy because all it takes is to... Have you even hooked up with them yet? No, that's the weird part. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything, right? Yeah. So you might be thinking, oh, well, we haven't even fucked, so we can't be a fuckboy. All it takes to be a fuckboy is to be... You're slightly less interested in them than they are in you, but you're still kind of investing in them at your at their at your convenience and so right now you're you're confused because you're kind of open to this idea of making him a priority and he is only open to

having you in his life at his convenience yeah and he's like giving me weird signals like one time it was the last i mentioned like he sent me a five-minute voice memo like last week and they were like two weeks or like I finally felt like I was like kind of moving on from him like I'm going to Europe in six months blah blah blah and then he like threw me for a loop and sends me this five-minute voice memo and he was like I'm not going off the grid anymore I like really he was like you're like such a genuine, amazing addition to my life. And like, I want to keep in touch with you. Yeah.

So that's, that's bullshit. It's, it's, what is, what is he wants to keep in touch with you? You're such an important person in my life. I want to keep in touch with you. You know, like, listen, he's going to say what he wants to say because he's thinking of himself right now. And he's just in a probably more selfish place in his life. And it doesn't make him a bad guy or a narcissist. It just makes him a little selfish right now. And he might be, he might have convinced himself that he's being open and

honest with you. And he's like, listen, all I'm saying is I just want to keep in touch with you. You have the right to say, well, I don't want to just be someone they keep in touch with. I want someone who's willing to make me a priority because it sounds like if he was open to it, you would be open to an exploring a relationship that had two people prioritizing the other person and two people who would go out of each other's way to make sacrifices to make the other person happy and feel loved and feel secure and safe in a relationship, right? It sounds like he would be open to exploring that. And right now, he is giving you every reason to think that while he likes you and he wants you in his life on some

level, he's also said and showed you that he's not interested in really making you a priority outside of his needs. Because think about it, everything he's saying interested in really making you a priority outside of his needs. And because think about everything he's saying is you've helped me. You're good for me. It's nice to have you around. You make me feel good. And I'm sure those are all true. He hasn't said like, I really want to be with you. I want to figure out a way to do that. What do you need from me to make you happy? What do you need from me to show you that I care and not make you confused so that you call into a podcast and ask someone like, I'm really confused about this situation. You said multiple times that you're confused. And so going forward,

like to us, we're reading this email, like the obvious, it's an obvious answer. And I'm not saying that to like make you feel stupid because this is a very relatable situation. This is about you not confusing yourself with cherry picking. Oh, well he's today he said this and that made me feel good. But yesterday you said that like you have to, you know, take a 30,000 foot view on the situation and look at all the things he's done. Right.

And you, you can't knowing that he has these red flags, like 25-year-old DJ who kind of very charmingly said he loved you in a way that wasn't like, I'm in love with you, but like certainly kind of charming and sweet and certainly has done this, I'm sure, with a lot of people and he kind of says these cryptic things and very noncommittal things like,

I want you in my life or I want to stay in touch, is enough to know that despite his ability to say charming things and be charming doesn't mean he's interested in making you a priority. And you have to decide for yourself that you prioritize being made to feel like a priority over all things. Before anything else, despite them being charming or good looking or having a cool job or, you know, I have fun with them when I hang out with them, I need to not be confused. I need to feel like they're willing to make me a priority. I need them to be consistent and I need them to want to meet my expectations, whatever those expectations are. I want to be able to feel safe and secure

so that I can communicate a boundary saying, hey, I want X, Y, or Z or an expectation. And then knowing that they're willing to listen, hear you out, and then go out of their way to meet that expectation, even if it's an inconvenience to them. And that should be your top priority for people that you involve in your life. And so that will make you less confused when they, you know, call you up randomly and say, how you doing? I've been thinking about you. Like, I miss you. He's not lying when he says that in that moment, I'm sure he missed you. Cause he was like in the voice memo, he's like, and I genuinely wonder about you and want to know how you're doing. And I'm like, okay, then why didn't you text me?

That's the thing. You expressed your feelings for him. He didn't respond to you for two weeks. You unfriended him on social media to get a cleanse, to go away. He might have noticed that. He might have not. I don't know how closely he watches social. Yeah, he did.

He texted me about that. But that's the thing. So then he's like, great. I got to step it up. She's leaving. I got to pull her back in. But his voice memos, his words, they're not the same as his actions. His voice memo saying how he's genuinely wondering about you, isn't the same thing as him saying,

what do you need from me? When can I come see you? How can I be a good person in your life? Your ego is willing to take anything he's willing to give you because every time he reaches out, it makes you feel validated and special. And when that happens, it makes you ignore some of these more important boundaries that ideally you would have set for yourself or you would have prioritized over the random ass messages or voice memos or phone calls that say, I genuinely think about you sometimes. You deserve more than a twice a month voice memo. You have to get better at prioritizing your expectations for the people that you involve in your life. And you have to get better at kind of ranking what's important. And so when those things happen, you don't get confused by these random acts of kindness

or these words of affirmation or things like that because there's nothing really behind it. And even though it makes your ego feel good, it makes you feel validated and it's like, well, he was thinking about me. He can like you. He can think about you. He can find you hot or attractive. He can love your job skills and he can do all those things and still not want to

make you a priority yeah i didn't think about it that way and because i also like i don't want to have like a pen pal and like i don't like i'm going to europe i'm gonna go to europe and meeting so many like be a free agent don't be weighed down by some guy. Literally go find some hot Greek man that will actually put actions into this relationship. And I've had other since him. I've probably gone on more dates, hooked up with more people than he has. And I can't emotionally connect to them. Because once I start and I start liking another guy, then he always comes back. And I'm like, and so that's what i don't want to

happen you can't control his actions you know you getting over this like and a lot of people do what you're what you just said well i just he's gonna reach out yeah i mean he is gonna reach out he's going to be a fuck boy so you have to enforce these boundaries for yourself you have to communicate your expectations other people and only you can enforce your boundaries. You can't hope that other people do it for you, right? You can communicate a boundary and hope that they want to meet that boundary, but when they don't, you have to be the one who enforces it. And you have to decide for yourself whether you want to prioritize being made to feel like a priority or do you want to prioritize made to feel special intermittently whenever they do it at their convenience? Because yeah, you can't control

him. So you like you getting over him isn't like hoping he doesn't reach out or say he misses you. It's deciding for yourself that you want and deserve more from any relationship that you are willing to pine over or think about or, know make a priority this is taking your emotional energy and you're wasting on a guy who's only giving you energy when it's convenient for him yeah and i don't even think he like realizes that he's doing that and like if i ever told him that he is he'd be like oh my gosh i didn't mean but like but that doesn't yeah that's irrelevant that's his journey and that's also a testament to the fact that he doesn't care about how his actions affect you. Like he has no, and I've so been there where it's like you get the text and it's like, it's a rush, you know, and you know it's bad, but it's like so exciting when they text you.

And I think, I don't know, what's helped me is framing it as like the reason this is so exciting is because his treatment is like in the basement on the floor like it's not that he is like we're standing on the ground floor and he like is rising to the penthouse it's that like he has tunneled down so low with how badly he treats you that like of course it feels like this big rush and this big difference but it's only a testament to like him not being great it's not him like really rising to the occasion as my former roommate would say the bar's in hell like we got the bar i always i always see yeah i always see like on tiktok or whatever and the people talk about like the bare minimum of how low the floor is but you're letting your ego your ego is being a bad bouncer kind of yeah it's like your ego is like well this is okay and like

i feel like i don't know we don't know you that well but just in this encounter you seem to be the type of person to like see the best in everyone so if someone's coming to you and saying well I had all this stuff happen and I promise this won't happen again like you're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt but it's now happened multiple times so you have to stop believing what his words are saying and look at his previous history, his previous actions, and say, no, this isn't the first time this has happened. And he continues to tell me it's going to change, and it still hasn't.

Your ego will accept any kind of validation it receives. All your ego wants is to feel important and special. And our egos are what allows people who are only willing to do the bare minimum or set the bar very low. Your ego is what allows people to get away with that the bare minimum or set the bar very low, your ego is what allows people to get away with that. Because when they set the bar low and they do anything, it feels like something. And your ego is here to say, well, don't enforce a boundary. Just let it here. Let's hear them out and have them say this. And then we make excuses for ourselves, our egos doing this, because it's like, oh, well, it's telling us we're special. They're thinking about us. Instead

of reaching out to someone else, they reach out to us, not all the other girls that he could have been reaching out to. That's up for you to decide where the floor should be. And your ego's always going to try to lower the floor because it's going to just take whatever it can get. We have to hold ourselves accountable to not let people get away with setting the bar or the floor solo or doing the bare minimum. It's up to us to raise the floor and doing that by not giving those people such oxygen or such rewards for doing the bare minimum. Because that's, yeah, it'd be nice if they learn on their own, but, and it's not your job to teach them. It's just your job to protect yourself and your wellbeing, your mental health and your emotional

energy. And you do that by not giving in to your ego needing the validation and kind of respecting what your heart and your soul and your mind and your mental health needs by setting expectations with other people, deciding what boundaries you need, prioritizing the things that are important over the things that are more superficial, like just simple validation. validation and then following through with that and saying no to your ego once in a while and saying, well, this might feel nice and this could be fun tonight to hang out with him. But I know in the long run, it's not going to make me happy. It's going to be instant gratification immediately followed by some sort of emotional hangover when he ghosts me or disappears and things like that. But you have all the information you need. And right now you're just kind of deciding to cherry pick and conveniently ignore certain things because at times it's fun. It's just, you know, I always use kind of food analogies. It's saying no to the sugar or, you know, knowing that like, if I binge on this, I'm going to feel like shit afterwards.

And you can make excuses saying, well, it tastes good and it's sweet. And oh my God, like, you know, what's the big deal like i'll be fine like you just have to decide whether you want the hangover or not sugar is never going to be healthy for you and fuck boys are never going to make you feel good about yourself yeah and like he would say all these things about like how like talented and funny and great i am and i was telling like my friends i was like oh my gosh like he said this and this and this and they're like we already knew that like we already knew that you were amazing. You don't need him to tell you. And I was like, oh. That's your ego, right? The less people give us, the more it feels good when they give us a little

bit of something. So the lower they set the bar or the floor, that means that allows them to get away with the bare minimum because their ego is so willing to accept anything. So you have to kind of, as I say in my book, meet your ego and kind of have an honest conversation about like your ability to recognize validation over fulfillment. And then in the future, when you see red flags or red flags that tell you like this could be a fuck boy, I want you to always ask yourself the question, do I feel like a priority?, I want you to always ask yourself the question, do I feel like a priority? Am I confused? And if you don't feel like a priority and you are confused, those should

take priority over all the other feelings. Being confused is more important than the occasionally feeling special because you don't want to be confused in a relationship. It's so emotionally taxing and draining to be confused in a relationship, to not have the answers. Because having a relationship with anyone, you want that security and comfort. You want clarity. And it's so fucking draining to be confused in a relationship that you're so willing to put emotional energy into. It's just such an energy sucker. So you need to recognize being confused and seeing that is one of the biggest red flags there could be. And until you're not confused, you shouldn't be willing to

give that much emotional energy to anyone. That's so true. Prioritize clarity. I never thought about that way. Yeah. And so all the other little things that he could say don't confuse yourself being like well he said this or we did that and blah blah blah but like that's you trying to that's you being confused trying to figure out and dissect his actions and words and things like that i mean i've never thought about it that way like that being confused is such a red flag that it is one of the biggest yeah yeah this really, this really helps. Well, good luck. I'm like, whoa. Yeah. Keep us posted. Finish the book. Have fun in Europe. Yeah. How long are you going to Europe for? Five months. Five months. In Florence and then traveling all around. Great. This is a great, you're 21, you're going to Europe, be selfish. Prioritize your needs,

be selfish. Don't lead people on, don't confuse people, be upfront, but it to Europe, be selfish. Prioritize your needs. Be selfish. Don't lead people on. Don't confuse people. Be upfront. But it's okay to be selfish right now above anything else. And this is not necessarily the time for you to be looking for a husband or even a boyfriend. Go have some fun. Be open to any possibility. But if I were you, if I could do life over again and be 21 and go to Europe, I would really prioritize myself and my time. And anyone I let into my life and anyone I would invest emotional energy on, I would really want to make sure they're worth it and they're willing to meet my expectations. And if they were going to get in any way of my dreams or immediate needs or my excitement for these trips, I would be very careful to let them in. Especially like romantic partners and things like that. Prioritize your friends and the people around you. Be open to relationships, but this is the time to really enjoy yourself. You're not always going to be

able to go to Europe on your own with all the freedom in the world for the rest of your life. I don't know what the rest of life is going to bring you, but like right now, you just kind of have yourself to worry about. So take advantage of it. Yeah, I will. Okay. That'll be good. All right. Well, take care. Thank you so much. All right. Bye-bye. Good luck. Bye. How's it going? Good. How are you? Good. What's your name? My name is Olivia and I'm 32. How can we help Olivia? So my partner is being a hypocrite and creating double standards in our relationship. And I don't know how to make him see that he's doing the same things. Okay.

How do you feel that he's being a hypocrite? So basically, like when we first started dating, it was very clear that we both had our exes in our lives. So basically breakups of over five years ago. So, you know, kind of in the past sort of thing, but they're very present in our lives. You know, still to this day, we kind of figured this out after one month of dating. In his situation, he shares a dog with his ex, but also he spent a lot of time at her house working in the garage, basically on motorbikes. So he would travel three hours on weekends, basically to

spend time there. Initially, I wasn't there as well. And then later on in our relationships, about six months in, I started going with him. So I was very much around the two of them and had to spend time with her alone and be okay with that. And we tried to develop this friendship among the three of us and be around her new partner and just normalize it in that sense. And then on my end, my ex and I, we've been friends. We never had a bad breakup. We talked our whole way through it and it was very mutual. And we just really wanted to work through all the residual feelings or issues right after the breakup. And then we remained like he's one of my best friends. And I think a lot of that

is to do with, we share a lot of creative interests. Basically it kind of led to, I was building a team at my current job, which is a remote job. And he has a skill set that I needed. So basically I ended up having him join my team as well as some other friends of mine. So I kind of work with him on a consistent basis. And also there have been like work trips and stuff like that as well. So I understand that like for the average person, that would be a little bit hard to deal with. From my perspective, I was like, well, I'm dealing with stuff on my end to do with my partner's ex. So therefore it's kind of like evens the playing fields and kind of makes us both have to accept some realities in that sense. But as time goes on, he's kind of

spent less time at her house because we moved in together. And now I have a garage at my place that he can do that work. But there's still constant communication with her on his end. And also, they share the dog. So it's kind of consistently there. And then I've started to also kind of work with her a bit as well. So that's not going away anytime soon. But I think on my partner's end, he just acts a bit passive aggressive whenever I have to do anything work related.

So it's more or less like, you know, petty texts when I'm at work or like when I have to be on location, things like that that are very distracting to me or just kind of villainizing kind of like what I have to do. So I feel kind of like I'm upsetting him. So I kind of get weary about like saying certain things or going certain places because I don't want to make him upset more or less. What conversations with him have you had about this topic?

So I think it's like, he's not super chatty, but he does like, like about this kind of stuff, but he does like whenever something's bothering him, he will express it but that's kind of like as far as it goes and then recently we had some not arguments but discussions however you want to say and he was kind of expressing and which he's done throughout a whole relationship that he has like jealousy issues because of previous partners cheating so then we kind of clarified that he thinks these are scenarios in which a partner would cheat because his friends have maybe cheated on their partners in similar scenarios sure so but i don't have jealousy issues yeah so and i don't have fear of abandonment or anything like it seems like he has a lot of but i mean what so when he said hey babe like you know listen like you guys are going on trips and these overnights and they're just like these are situations in which people cheat you know and what do you say to that i i

kind of like tried to explain my relationship with my ex a bit more kind of like what led to our breakup and kind of like the vibe of what our relationship is now because i've wanted to have them spend more time together so we can kind of see that. But I think he's a little bit more resistant than I am. Yeah. Have you ever asked him straight up, like, do you trust me? Yeah. His answer to that is kind of like, I don't trust anybody. It takes a long time. So he's kind of- At least that's honest. Yeah. So I think he's very aware of that. So how long has he been dating? Two years. So if you were to ask him today, hey, babe, do you trust me? He would still say, I often say I don't trust anyone.

There are still people, very, very, very exclusive small group of people that I choose to trust at the risk of being wrong and being hurt by them. And then there's everyone else around is like, I don't fucking trust anyone. Everyone's just kind of, yeah. And, and I, I'm just wondering, like, are you in that circle of trust yet with him? Cause it sounds like maybe you're not. I think what it is too, is that he basically was saying like in the beginning, like earlier on in our relationship, it's going to take time. So, and then I felt that he used, like I said, these work scenarios as reasons to not and then

he kind of like in his head like mentally but also he's physically made a list when we were in one argument of things that are built like are reasons why he shouldn't you know but really what they are it's not necessarily things I've done that are hurtful it's just kind of like a work trip you know going to spend time with my ex to have a meeting you know what I meanful it's just kind of like a work trip you know going to spend time with my ex to have a meeting you know what i mean like it's more like yeah i get it so someone like i get where he's coming from as someone who's been cheated on or he's been hurt by people he's trusted before it's these are kind of i guess triggering scenarios in which he's just learned to be like i don't know that's a red flag it sounds fucked up and my gut tells me that i need

to like inquire and ask questions and that's's fair. I mean, that's logical where he's coming from. But nevertheless, it still tells you that you're not in a circle of trust yet, which is like, I guess, a reality. It's not like a judgment on him or you or the relationship. It's just, I think it's something that you both should just be honest about in terms of where your relationship is. Because if you had trust, like trust isn't like, as long as you aren't around people who you find attractive, or as long as you're not in compromised situations, then I can trust you. Trust is knowing that no matter what situation you find yourself in, that he trusts you to make the, whether it's a hard decision or easy decision, because we can always be tempted. It's doing the

thing that secures the trust. It's knowing that you don't have to worry about the scenarios. And making a list of all the things that's just like, because him making that list is him saying, I trust you, but. here's all the scenarios in which I don't trust you. If you go on a trip with someone, if you're in the room with someone, I deem to be more attractive to me, or I think is your type, you know, or, or if you're around a guy who I think wants to fuck you or whatever, then I don't trust you. Yeah. So I think what I'm kind of dealing with right now is kind of like, what's my responsibility and what's his, you know what I mean? Because I think obviously we have to kind of like recognize. I think it's having an honest conversation, you know, about, listen, I just want

to talk to you about this situation. I hear like, you know, you want to empathize with him and not, you know, it's delicate, right? You don't want to make him feel judged for having these thoughts. He's not wrong, right? It's just saying like right now, and you want to make sure you say it in a way that's not judgmental, but like trust is knowing that you trust me despite being in scenarios that make you feel uncomfortable. I understand and I'm not mad and it's okay if right now that you don't have that trust with me right now, but I want us to have that kind of trust. So how can we get to a place where if we continue to have our exes in our life, that you would trust me despite the situation? Because I'm telling you, faithfulness

and trust is a priority for me in our relationship. I hope, you know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but, and I want you to trust me in any situation. Now that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the right to say, babe, this, this makes me feel uncomfortable. And I want you to invite him to say, like, I always want you to communicate with me when a scenario makes you feel uncomfortable, but I hope that you give me the opportunity always to show you that you can trust me. And trust is, I feel like by some kind of definition, is that willingness to be wrong. You know, that's trust. It's that faith that you can believe in someone to do the right thing, knowing that you don't have control in stopping them ultimately. Never being in a compromising situation or having a spotlight

them on all times or access to their GPS location or having friends watching them, that isn't trust. That's just making sure that they're never in a situation that they could fuck up. That's policing and that's parenting. you know, that's. Yeah. And I think we kind of like, those situations kind of like happen quite a bit where I feel like, like I mentioned that like a week or two ago, I was on my phone a little bit more that week. And then he gets a little bit paranoid that like, you know, he kind of brings up the topic about, we need to connect more and you need to be off your phone.

And then I, and then he's on his phone a lot. So I think that's where the, it's more like a bit of paranoia. And then I'm kind of like, well, you's on his phone a lot. So I think that's where it's more like a bit of paranoia. And then I'm kind of like, well, you're on your phone a lot now and I'm just sitting here. So I think you just need to try and maybe couples therapy could help, right? Right. And they can maybe help guide that conversation. But I think you need to have a conversation with him about the things that trigger him without making him feel judged and kind of validating his insecurities, but still asking him to figure out ways in which he can trust you and just pointing out and recognizing that right now he's just not there. someone. And his actions are showing that he's just not there. And it's not a judgment on you.

It's just more like, yeah, he's been hurt. He's been scarred. He's got reasons not to trust people. You know, he just maybe hasn't fully healed from those experiences. And so he needs to be vulnerable enough to just recognize that, hopefully through your support. And then you just have to say, hey, listen, like these are scenarios in which it feels like it's less about me being on my phone. And it feels like it's more about the fact that you've, you know, sense that I'm up to something and I'm always down to be more present and I'm always down to connect with you more. I just want you to be honest with me. So if you are feeling insecure, if there's something, you know, in your gut, that's challenging your trust with me, I want to give you permission to just tell me that because I'm not offended by

you hearing that you have trust issues because that's, you know, it's weird to be in a relationship, especially when someone you live with for two years to just kind of say, I guess I don't always trust you because it's not necessarily about you. It's just, it's things that he's dealing with, but call it what you want. He doesn't, he doesn't have that trust for you to to say yeah this scenario bothers me but i trust her and me trusting natalie or my girlfriend isn't about you know not watching her giving her never like allowing her to go

to scenarios i mean listen like if all of a sudden sudden Natalie started clubbing on the regular and going to parties and never inviting me, I would be like, that's weird. You know, every once in a while when she has a girl's night and there happen to be guys around, I'm just going to choose to trust her and know that this is about her hanging out with her friends. And that if she gets hit on by a guy or flirted with, I trust her to do the right thing and protect our relationship. Yeah. Cause it's also just like, for example, recently I was away like out of the country and then he went to her house and like spent the night and cause he was working on something in the garage. So I just feel like I get challenged as well in those kinds of situations and I feel, you know, those emotions as well, but I think I just more or less know that it's something that I have to process first. And, and I just am like, well, I trust him. So I'm just going to like, I'll maybe express that this is a little difficult,

but I'm not going to put that on him because I trust him. But that's something that, you know, you're okay with doesn't mean he is right. So it's more about like, I think some conversation around like, hey, babe, what could I do in these scenarios to make you feel more secure and safe? And it's more about asking you to do more rather than less. So rather than stopping you from communicating with people or working with people or taking work trips, it is when these scenarios come up and you're feeling this, I would love for you to communicate to me this feeling and what can I do to make you feel safe and secure? Maybe it's going out of your way to reach out more. Maybe he just needs to, you know,

connect more with this ex of yours. I don't know if they're friends at all, but like, is there anything I can do more of to make you feel safe and trust me more? And it's, I think it's just kind of an ongoing thing. You know, I don't, it's something we're always, you know, especially for people who have been hurt and scarred by people they've chose to trust in the past only to be wronged by them. You know, it's kind of a, it's a process, it's a journey, it's not going to happen overnight. So you both have to just be willing to communicate and have empathy. And I think if you guys just have like where you create a safe space where you just acknowledge that he just doesn't have the type of trust in this relationship that maybe he aspires to. And you're not even, it's okay because I'm not mad because he's not judging you or the relationship.

It's just that he hasn't healed yet. And I think if you give him permission to say, it's okay that I'm not in that circle of trust. Yes, but I still want to get there. You then can have, start having conversations about how you two can get there together. And again, I think couples therapy in this scenario could be a great place to start. Or does he get therapy on his own? No, he's kind of like not, doesn't really understand the concept of therapy too well. So it would kind of be a bit of a leap to get him there. But yeah, I think in like what I have tried doing is just

kind of, you know, made our trips a little bit more local because I can, I do have control over that. So. But on some level, he's going to have to get to a place where he can trust you if this relationship is going to go anywhere. Because he has, yeah, he has the right to have been hurt. And I, I empathize with his hurt. But if he wants to have healthy relationships in the present and in the future, he has to do the things that are going to allow him to heal. That's his responsibility to do that. It's not your responsibility to kind of meet his emotional needs, having him not do the work. You're willing to help them. You're willing to work with him,

but he needs to be willing to like take up the mantle of healing and figuring out how he can trust some people, especially the people he's in romantic relationships, assuming he wants to have trust in these relationships because it sounds like you desire to have trust and you guys can figure out how you guys do that. And it's something to keep in mind. I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong, but like when you set a boundary, like, hey, we're going to have our exes in our life. You both have the right to change your mind when it comes to a boundary, right? But you're just asking him to be consistent and not necessarily have double standards based off of the fact that he has insecurities that you don't have. And he just

needs to be able to recognize that and own up to his insecurities. And you need him to do that. So again, maybe couples therapy, while he might not be open to therapy on his own, to say, listen, I want to have trust in our relationship. It's something we're struggling with. Use we language and us language

rather than like you need to do this and this is something you're doing wrong. And it would mean a lot to me if we could do this together to get to a place where we have more trust so that we don't have to cherry pick certain activities. And that even when I'm doing things that maybe X's in the past, making you feel triggered, that you will still choose to trust me. And I'll always be willing to communicate with you about certain things that make you feel more safe and secure. And I just want you to know anytime that you're feeling this way, I want you to tell me about it. I want you to communicate

with me and be direct and not necessarily be passive aggressive and just saying it's about connecting and being on the phone less and things like that. Just let's us have an open and honest communication about how we're feeling in any given moment and see how it goes. That sounds good. And also another thing that I think would help was I was reading this book called lighter by young Pueblo. I think it just came out and it's a lot about like letting go of the past because about like meeting the moment, not bringing a lot of baggage, basically emotional baggage into a scenario and judging it. And I, I asked him if he wanted to listen to the audio book with me because he does love like podcasts and self-development and stuff like that. So I think like just kind of opening his

mind to like stuff like that as well could help. That might help. I mean, you know, I think it could help, but like when we kind of like, Hey babe, read this, you know, like I don't know how open he's going to be because we could read something and then think it doesn't apply to us. I don't think he's fully aware how much he hasn't healed from these past relationship wounds. Yeah, I don't think so either. I'm assuming he thinks he's fine and he's over it. I think you having an honest conversation without trying to make him feel attacked and just recognizing that you two do not have the kind of trust that you hope to

have in this relationship. And that is okay, but you want to find ways to get there because you want him to trust you in these scenarios that while I understand other people have violated that trust, I want you to choose to trust me and know that when I'm in environments that like, you know, you don't have control or you don't know what I'm doing, that you can trust that my priority is to protect our relationship and to protect the trust that we work so hard to have in this relationship. Like I said before, it's not guaranteeing and ensuring that no one can fuck up. It's giving them the opportunity to fuck up and knowing that they will choose not to. Totally.

Makes a lot of sense. He doesn't want to give you the opportunity because he's too afraid because he doesn't trust you. And I don't think he thinks he doesn't trust you. Yeah. It's tough, but yeah, I would try the couples therapy thing. You know, the book, fine. I just, my gut would tell me he might listen to it and then think it doesn't really apply to him. Yeah. I think so too, now that I think about it. So yeah, I think it would definitely have to be a bit more like hands-on working together with a therapist probably. what you said, how it went. Maybe you said something and realized it was a mistake and you tried something new and it worked. We'd love to know how you were able to communicate with him about this and see where it went. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. I'll keep you posted. All right. Take care. Cool. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Thanks for listening. Again, I hope she says yes and assuming she does, Natalie will be our guest on Going Deeper on Thursday to talk about our engagement and our proposal. I'm assuming she'll want to, but would love to share that day and moment with all you since this relationship that I have with y'all is important to us and me. And we talk about love and dating. Yeah, you share with us. Now he's going to share with you. I'll share with you. So be sure to check that out on uh on thursday

also on thursday night our new amp show better date than never is uh launching on amp our live show all things dating dating boot camp if you will we'll hype you up we'll get you ready for dates we'll help you download dates you know discuss how the date went discuss next steps on dates whether you want to shoot your shot. Maybe there's a conversation you've had with someone you're talking to on a dating app, but it's like vile files adjacent, so to speak. And we'll take some live Q&A regarding the proposal as well. So I hope you all join us at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. And until then, we will see you back on Wednesday all right bye with a planet fitness block card you don't just get a great workout you get a great workout

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