We're All Insane - Dating After Trauma

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

CW: This episode contains brief mentions of SA and DV. Mark Rosenfeld is a relationship coach who helps women build healthy romantic relationships. Relationship coaching involves a professional helping couples or individuals overcome challenges in their romantic or personal relationships. Coaches use active listening, communication techniques, and empathy to deepen understanding of partners' needs, build trust, and create emotional connections. These coaches aid in trust-building, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and personal growth. It is helpful for couples looking to improve their relationship or individuals seeking to build healthier relationships in the future. In relationship coaching, it’s important to explore a client’s traumas and how they might show up in their relationships. Mark talks in-depth about managing expectations of others, how to communicate needs versus wants, why men cheat, and more.  Mark's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Markrosenfeld 1-1 coaching: https://makehimyours.com.au/coaching/work-with-mark/ Mark’s book: https://www.makehimyoursbook.com/book1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's me Devorah. I just dropped an all new bonus episode inside my new subscription channel, We're All Insane Plus. This week's bonus episode is called My Brain was slipping into my spine. Listen now by subscribing to We're All Insane Plus inside your Spotify or Apple Podcasts app or go to we're all insane.com. So my name is Mark Rosenfeld and I work with women on their dating and relationship skills to help them find, attract and keep really healthy relationships in their lives. So I talk to women a lot about what they're doing in dating, things like how to spot red flags, how to know toxic men from healthy men, and how to, I guess, differentiate people that have that real relationship potential. So I talk to women a lot about chemistry, compatibility and relationship

skills versus people who might just be only chemistry or people who might just be only compatibility, basically differentiating all of those and teaching them how, hey, this is. is how you can spot one. This is how you can attract him. This is how you can keep him. And this is how to build the relationship through conflict and communication skills, negotiation, all that good stuff that I think should be taught in schools. But he's not. So essentially, guys, we have the love doctor on the show. I'll take that. I'll say it. I'll take that. I'm good with that. The fucking man right here, the love doctor. Okay. Apaws, applause. All right. So where are we starting? I'm so excited. Like, I know I'm going to learn a lot. So first of all, I love the podcast. And I love the name. That's

one of the reasons that attracted it to me in the first place. You know, it took me a hot minute to figure out that thing. Did it? Yes. But when I got it, I was like, that's the one. That's it. Yes. I love it because we are all messed up. We are all insane. And we all have stuff. And as I watch your podcast, I realize you were talking a lot about trauma, various aspects of it, what happens to people, some incredible stories of resilience and of suffering and just some, some stories that are that are insane. just to listen to. And there's such a connection to my work there because when I'm working with women on dating and relationships, you know, I very quickly learned in the first couple of years, I was just coaching dating and I'm like, gee, I really need to be talking to these women about

their histories. Where is this behavior coming from? Oh, they're self-sabotaging. They're not setting boundaries. They keep choosing the familiar, toxic or emotionally unavailable guy. They keep doing these things that are leading to shitty results, but not changing the behavior. Why is that happening? And so I started doing more and more sort of research into this, looking at therapeutic elements and interviewing women about the histories, upbringings, mother, father, what happened, how did they get their needs met? How did they not? And I just really trace back that every single problem virtually that my clients were having relates back to something that's happened in their past, some kind of major or minor trauma. It doesn't have to be a big thing.

But that if we can understand that, first build awareness around it, learn where the pattern comes from and then learn how to change it and what needs to happen to change. it, that's the most moving way. That's how you, rather than just teaching them a line or a dating skill, that's how you move the needle the most on their relationship results. So just watching your podcast, it got me so interested in, well, sort of what levels of trauma are almost okay in a partner? How do you know when a partner is, oh, they're almost too damaged? And I say that in a way that they could become toxic in the relationship. Toxicity still happens. Men and women can still be very toxic to each other. And that's ultimately a result of trauma. a result of trauma. So how do you make sure that someone is not going to be that when at the same

time knowing that we all have trauma and we are all insane? And so that's kind of become one of my biggest passions in my work. It's just really helping women deduce the difference. Yeah. And I think it's interesting too because I feel like a lot of people, they'll sit there and they want all this advice of like, okay, so like how do I find the perfect guy or they want, they just want this like quick, easy answer, but in reality, which, like, I feel like you could give to somebody, like look for this, avoid this, but everybody wants something that's going to last and it's going to, you know, be long lasting and be good and healthy. Yeah.

And unless you know and you can figure out all of those things, like you said, and I feel like, too, like self-love, self-work, everything, unless you have those things and your partner has those things, nothing's going to last. You could find, like, the best thing and then it could crumble because, like, what you were saying earlier just because of one thing. That might not even be that big of a thing, but it ends up, you know. things that are down the line. Right.

Little things can just throw off a relationship and the relationship might not break until three to five years, 10 years. It maybe never breaks and you just kind of live in a lonely relationship. But very little things. I gave an example when we were off air of a woman client of mine where things were going really well in the relationship. This was a man she met in her early 20s. He was very secure, you know, pretty successful, took care of her, consistent with her.

But the one thing she didn't know how to talk about was sex. She just didn't know how to give a man feedback on that. And that's kind of a hard, awkward conversation to have. Again, it's why the stuff I think should be taught in schools. But she just never knew how to have that. And so years past, she wasn't getting that need met. And when your needs are not being met, we can talk about needs because they're really important. Eventually, when your needs are not being met, you crack.

Like, you can only last for so long and then you crack and you either do something unhealthy or you have to get out of the situation. Like, something will happen. So this woman eventually five years after not getting her needs met after feeling completely sexually unsatisfied breaks up with him. him, you know, in her late 20s, of course, goes and finds the guy then that is incredible in bed, super passion, she just so masculine, she loves him, but is toxic in all the ways that her ex-boyfriend was healthy. He's not consistent. He's not secure. He doesn't put a lot of

effort into her. He's emotionally unavailable. And so she came to me in her late 30s, you know, after eight years of being with this guy who was really not good for her patterns, really rooted a lot of self-esteem stuff in her that she now has to work through. So it's kind of like she went from a guy with one problem, just didn't know how to solve that one little thing. And then her solution, unfortunately, was to find a guy who had the opposite problem, or sorry, sort of met the opposite need, but then he did way more damage in other areas. And if she just known how to do that one thing, she could have saved herself so much time. But I see that all the time.

We don't know how to kind of speak up correctly to get our needs met. And then it kind of blows up in our face. Yeah. And so that being said, I feel like a good place for us to start would kind of be, the root of everything, which I feel like would be in a sense, like the trauma and stuff like that. And then maybe afterwards we can go into the more, I'd say surface level stuff, which would be like the red flags, what to look for. Because like I said, all of that is great.

And those should be things that you look for and that you know and you're aware of. But at the same time, like, we all need to know within. Right. You know, what's going on. How many of us do things where we go, I know it didn't make sense to do that. Right. What I just did there, maybe I dated that guy. Maybe I ate that donut.

Or maybe like I didn't wake up thinking, do you know what I'll do today? Sabotage myself. Right. Do you know what I'll do today? Be toxic to my part. Like no one wakes up with that. It's all impulsive stuff and it all comes from trauma. So yeah, I think it's a good place to touch on.

And emotional needs is where it all roots from. Okay. And we have to understand that we do have emotional needs and we die without them. Yeah, I got a lot of those. Oh yeah. You and me both. We all got it. So obviously when we're a baby,

Human babies are incredibly dependent. They're just, they can't do anything. They literally die if they're not fed for like 24 hours. They're the most needy, dependent creatures that really nature ever created. So a human baby is always testing for, am I safe? Can I get my needs met? So I think for simplicity, it's easiest just to talk about three specific needs. The first one is safety, safety and security.

Every human being has that need for safety and security. If we don't have safety and security as a baby we die. As an adult, we become extremely uncomfortable. And a whole bunch of stuff happens. We can talk about that. So safety and security. The second is love, love and connections. So it's not enough to just be safe.

Babies depend on the mother's love to survive. If mom doesn't love me, I basically die. Really, even when you're six, eight, 10 years old, if you don't have your parents loving and connecting to you, you're in real trouble as a kid. And you have to go into parentification and figure out how to do it yourself, kind of learn independence. So love is a big one.

And we'll talk about love because I get clients all the time that say, my parents love me, put food on the table. They, yeah, they puts a house over my head. They took me to the doctor when I was sick. They had a cognitive knowledge that they were loved, but actually they didn't feel loved. Right. They weren't touched.

They didn't receive affection. It was very cognitive. So it really has to be the feeling of love, not just the knowledge. And the third is autonomy. So autonomy is the ability to set. boundaries. It's not necessarily the ability to do whatever you want, whatever you want. A responsible parent doesn't just let you do anything, right? Put forks into powerpoints or anything. There has to be boundaries. But an example of not having autonomy would be you never have a door on your bedroom

or your mum charges through it every day. For a younger child, it might be, I can't, the child's not allowed to express themselves. So they're not allowed to play. They're not allowed to test the environment in different ways. So autonomy, they're not allowed to say no to their parent is a big one as well. So autonomy is a big one. It's the ability to set boundaries, the ability to say no, the ability to create separateness from your environment and to have even skin is a boundary, right? If someone invades my skin without my permission, then I've lost my boundary and I've lost some of my autonomy, my ability to say no.

And of course, something like sexual assault is a really disgusting example of that. So safety, love, and autonomy. If we just keep those as three of the core needs that we need to survive, we need to be able to feel safe. We need to feel loved and we need to be able to set boundaries with the world to essentially create more safety back in the world. So trauma, how does that relate to trauma? Well, trauma is a combination of two things. Number one is the experience of us not getting our needs met. Now, it can either be acute or chronic. So an acute trauma would be something that happens. You lose a loved one very suddenly. You fall down the stairs. You get left in the shopping mall on your

own, you know, it can be a range of things bearing from sort of fairly mild to very severe. And then chronic trauma. And chronic trauma would be the ongoing experience of not having your needs met. So that would be something like an absent or narcissistic parent. That would be an experience of not being able to say no. For example, not having a bedroom door, not being allowed to express yourself at all, being forced to do things where essentially you can't set a boundary, you can't say no. And a lot of those people who can't set boundaries, they develop avoidant attachment styles. Because imagine owning a house and not having any fences. Yeah. Or locks. Like there's a homeless person in my bathtub tonight. Oh my God, the neighbors are

having a party in the living room. What am I going to do? I can't have any boundaries. So I'm going to move to an island and run away from people. That's my only solution to protect myself. So trauma, either acute or chronic, is the experience of not getting our needs met. Plus, and this is important, plus not having that experience held or. head. Hey, I'm Jeremy Schwartz from American Criminal. On this season, robbery gone wrong or cold-blooded murder. Either way, Boston will never be the same. Listen to American Criminal, the murder of Carol Stewart, wherever you get your podcasts. Or to get early ad free access, subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at Americancriminal.com. Okay, explain. So, like, basically,

no one really acknowledging it. Right. Exactly. That's very simply what it is. So stuff is inevitably going to happen where your needs don't get met, where you don't feel love for a while, where you feel a bit unsafe at time, where someone oversteps a boundary of yours. That's just life. Right. But those are more of like the acute ones. Well, yeah, in general, that would be more the acute. If it's happening chronically, then it's very likely that the person doing it is probably not going to hold or hear you. Exactly. Right. You know, in theory, it could be like your mom is doing that. And, you know, I've seen situations where both parents are doing that, but there's a really great aunt who is holding and hearing. Or there's a really great friend's parent who is holding or hearing. And even that...

You get to support elsewhere. Yeah, even that can really help. If you have that holding or hearing person somewhere. And this is where later in life therapy comes in. Okay. Because... So you don't feel so alone. Exactly. Exactly. And even a good romantic relationship can be a safe place to express some of these vulnerabilities in the, in the right way. Your partner shouldn't be your therapist. Right. But you also don't want to feel judged by your partner when you're being vulnerable. Yeah. Definitely not. Right. So if I was saying to my partner, yeah, you know, it did, it did suck when, you know, I'll make something up. Like when I got into this fight with my ex and she said, I never should have fallen in love with you. Like it really stung. If she's like, oh, well, you shouldn't feel like that.

That's a terrible way to feel. And she piles shame on me. Well, I'm probably not going to share it again, am I? And I'm not going to want to even share with a therapist. So this is why therapists are paid because hopefully at the very least, they create a safe space for you to be held and heard. And I think too with when it comes to even just friendships or relationships with anybody, if somebody's telling you something, sometimes people, sometimes your opinion doesn't always matter. Just listen. Right. You know? And I think that's a big thing. And I have to get better with that. But sometimes people just want you to listen because it almost makes them feel like you said, heard, validated, everything. That's, that's been such a big thing in my own relationship because I'm a guy. Every time Sam tells me an issue, it's like,

oh, I need to fix something. But I've had to. to learn that sometimes she doesn't want that. She just wants me to sit there and just acknowledge her feelings. And so we have a question that we use, which is literally like, okay, would you like me to listen or would you like me to fix something? And I'll just ask her that and she'll be like, I just want you to listen. I'm like, cool, switch off man brain. Just sit there and chill. Other times. But a lot of guys can't switch off the man brain. Well, that's one of the things that I think is one of the hard skills in modern relationships is because as men, we do need to be masculine. We do need to be leaders.

We do need to be strong. We do need to take action. We do need to compartmentalize emotions sometimes. A lot of those man traits are absolutely essential to society. But women are now coming to relationships with slightly different expectations. You know, when it comes to needs, women have their own money now. Women have locks on their doors, a police force they can call. So there's a little bit less percentage of like physical and financial safety.

You know, 50 years ago, even 70 years ago, maybe even 40, women would come to men for just really professional security, financial security, and any emotional needs were sort of icing on the cake. Modern women kind of can do a little bit of that for themselves, right? They have their own incomes. They have their own locks on their doors. It's like, well, if a man is emotionally sort of definitely toxic, but even just kind of unavailable, I'll divorce his ass or I'll leave him. Yeah, I was going to say that that actually doesn't make sense because I feel like even for myself, like I always say like, oh, I'm independent. Like I don't need a man for like money, safety, whatever.

Of course, those, I think for me, those would be the icing on the cake. But my main thing is like the loving connection. Like, that's my main. Yeah. And so women in general, especially women, you know, in this age, are coming now to men for, I still think it's sexy if he has money. I still think it's great if he can protect me. That still feels good.

I mean, you would want a man to protect you. Right. You would still want a guy who's like a little puny raising. Bigger than you. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like he can take care of business. Maybe you let you relax.

You would like that. the scare. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But now he also needs that gear of, yeah, occasionally like turning the man brain off and having some relationship skills. Maybe it's, it's communicating with you. Maybe it's setting a boundary with you. Maybe it's hearing your boundary. Maybe it's like talking about a difficult topic with you. Men can get really scared of women in difficult conversations because women are so much more articulate with their words. Women are so much sharper with their words that we can very easily get overwhelmed and want to run away. And that's one of the challenges for men is like being able to not just find but then initiate these conversations

find a woman who can do this with you and then initiate those conversations that are not so sort of easy for us and give the woman those emotional needs without losing our masculine side. So would you consider that like emotional intelligence? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because I feel like that's really important if a man has that and can hold his own and that kind of thing.

You know, that's an important balance to have. Right, right. It's like if I was to put rough percentages on it, you know, 50 years ago, it was like 45% physical protection for women, 45% financial protection and like 10% emotional. And now it's kind of like, I guess it varies on the woman, but maybe it's like 33, 33, 33, or even 20, 20, 60 for some women. It's a real variation. So men kind of almost like how women have still have their feminine side, but also have this, I can protect myself in a sense and I can earn my own money, men have to still keep their masculine side while being able to change gears occasionally. Not too much. You don't want to be more feminine or more vulnerable than your partner, but you need

to be able to do it occasionally enough. And especially if you as a man are getting into behaviors that are coming out of trauma, and we can go back to that topic, you know, you need to be able to ask for help and do some emotional processing these days. Because women, especially when they get older, will ask for divorce if you're not. They're not there for money. physically protection is like yeah if you could be unsafe they will leave your ass if you're not emotionally able to be present with them absolutely so it's it's tough for men and and we're kind behind women in a sense because women have been sort of getting educated and earning and figuring that out for 50 years now and men are going oh right we need relationship schools what are these

things this is this is hard do I be a woman no that's not attractive do I be a man I don't want to be toxic it's like you got to find this middle ground that modern women are looking for Right. And I think too, something that we were kind of talking about before we started filming was, like you were saying, back to trauma and kind of just how different traumas can affect relationships and how to kind of go through them. Yeah. So as we were saying, trauma is the experience of not getting your needs met and then not being held or heard. And so it gets stored in the body as a memory, which means I don't want that to happen again. Right. It's like if you walk out on the road and get hit by a car, you're very conscious around roads in the future. your body gives you this natural. You almost have like a PTSD from it. Exactly.

Exactly. Your body remembers. And our bodies are very, very smart. So they do things to help us survive that we're not conscious of. And especially when we're young. When you're three years old,

you're not like, hmm, what's the best trauma adoption that I can figure out here to mum not meeting my needs? Hmm, what should I go? You just figure something out. And so a classic example is the people pleaser.

It's like, well, if I'm kind of ignoring my own needs all the time and I'm constantly focused on my parents, I seem to get a little more love. That seems to help me out. Okay, great. So the child's not consciously thinking of that. That's like a memory, right? That's an adaption. So that's why these patterns when we're adults are more body-based than head-based. Logically, our frontal cortex grows out and we're like, hmm, maybe I should stop people-pleasing. That's probably not the best life habit. But emotionally,

we just feel this compulsion to people-please because we've been doing it for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. It's stored in the body as a memory and it's protecting us from getting hit by the car again. And in this case, the car is mom turning her back, boyfriend turning his head, girlfriend leaving us. You know, it feels like the same trauma from 30, 40 years ago. And we have the same response kind of memorized in our body. So, you know, people pleasing is one that it sucks, but it only hurts you. There are other responses to cover trauma that can be extremely toxic to your partners

and to people. And so trauma, when it turns to toxicity, can essentially get, get, passed on. And this is where it gets quite dangerous. So if I didn't get my needs met, let's say that my father was totally not present. Well, I have a lot of sort of anger, but, you know, my adaption as a kid was to just push through it, just to go, oh, I got a muscle through, don't need father's love, got to survive. I figure out a way how to survive. But of course, what's going to happen? When I have a boy as a kid, I'm going to be like, I know the boys survive without father's love, so he can survive without father's love. So I'm passing that down the generation. And then it can

also pass sideways because it can be, oh, well, I didn't get that need for love. So why does she need it? Yeah. Now, that might not apply as much to romantic relationships, but let's say it was my mum that did that instead. So then I'm more likely to apply that and pass it on to my girlfriend because, oh, well, you know, mum didn't need anything or it could have even been the opposite. Let's say mum was depressed all the time. Oh, I always had to take care of mom. I always had to be super on guard with mom. Then you're my girlfriend. It's like, oh my God, I always have to like caretake with you and be super on guard with you and I can never upset you and I can never tell you the truth. And you end up resenting me because I'm not honest with you because I'm doing the same thing

with you that I did with my mom. Your needs aren't getting met. You can't trust me because I'm not honest. You don't feel safe with me and eventually you start to resent me. And that's how it gets passed on. Yeah. And I think a lot of people don't even realize that it is something that's getting passed on. And they're not just doing these things for no reason.

Like I feel like everybody is the way that they are because of something that they've gone through in life or something they've experienced. Yeah. 100% and so when choosing a partner, I think you've got to be so aware of this stuff because trauma doesn't have to be something that like makes you a bad partner. We've all had trauma. I've trauma. You've had trauma. We all have adaptions from childhood. No parents are perfect and our parents just did the best they could with what their grandparents and parents gave them. So I think it's our kind of duty and responsibility to fill in the gaps that they missed and to figure out how to

stop the trauma either being passed sideways to our partners or down to our kids. But it's not always the easiest thing to do. No, and that's what I was going to say. You know, I feel like some people, one, they might not even really realize that they have trauma. And two, if they do realize it, let's say even give everybody the benefit of the doubt. Let's say that they are trying to work on themselves. They are in therapy. But how do you know that you actually are working on it and you're in a good place? Because, you know, obviously everybody says you shouldn't be in a relationship unless you really love yourself and you have it all figured out because you can't really give love unless you love yourself. But with trauma,

How does that really work? I don't necessarily agree with that. I think the logic is, well, if you don't love yourself, you're going to attract someone that mirrors that self-hatred. And there is some truth to that, which is, okay, if I am just like, think I'm the worst person in the world, if I can't set boundaries, if I have, and this is like I have a lot of clients who have, for example, narcissistic parents,

so they have trouble setting boundaries because they don't believe they're worthy of it. So those clients are likely to attract someone toxic. That's true. but it's also not fair to say that you have to be in a full state of self-love to have a partner. Yeah, because we always are growing. Exactly. And you're always going to have wounds. You're always going to have trauma. So I sort of say to clients, look, I think you have to make sure that you're able to do certain things. And this is where dating can come in really handy because dating is kind of your practice field where you don't really care as much.

Like you can practice setting boundaries. You can practice speaking to your needs. You can practice telling guys about your vision. You know, you can do different things while you're doing some of that inner healing work. And so while you don't necessarily need to be like, oh, I totally love myself, I do think you need to just check in on some of your patterns, because if you've dated three straight toxic narcissists as an example, and then you just jump back into dating, you are probably going to attract a fourth one. And if you can learn to set some boundaries, for example, if you can learn to speak up, if you can learn to assert yourself in the meantime, you're not going to entirely love yourself. You're not going to have cured all your trauma at that point, but you'll have probably done enough

to change your dating patterns and attract a guy who can actually be a healing partner rather than a harming partner. Right. I'm just over here thinking about my own stuff. Just processing. I'm processing because it all makes so much sense to me. But let's say like you're aware of all these things, like of your traumas, of how you want to work on it.

And even like we're saying self-sabotage, which I feel like is a huge one. How, I guess back to my question before kind of like, how do you actually work on that? Like is your, would your advice be therapy? like what would you suggest? Yeah, I think. Dating is a good one like you said too. Yeah, I think, look, coaching and therapy are both really good options. The process is for sort of recovering, you know, if I've met someone who I suspect has a lot

of trauma and I'm considering dating her or if a client has met someone who she suspects has a lot of trauma and she's considering dating him, there's sort of three sort of steps that we look for. The first is self-awareness. So self-awareness is not the key, but it's at least they know. where the door is. They at least go, okay, I'm aware that I'm kind of have some fucked up stuff. I'm aware it affects my relationships. I'm aware that some of these patterns are going on. At a minimum, self-ownership gives you some sort of small green flag that it could be okay.

It's not enough on its own. You can't go to court and say to a judge, yeah, Judge, I know I killed him, but I'm very aware of where that pattern came from. So totally came from my dad. I'm like, I'm fully aware of what's going on. Judge is still going to send you to jail. So self-awareness alone is not enough, but it is knowing where the door is. So it's a good sign if someone is able to say, okay, yeah, I'm aware of what I have. I'm aware of some of my patterns. I'm aware of what I do. I'm maybe even aware of where it comes from. That's a great sign. On the other hand, if he or she was like, oh, no, didn't affect me. No, I don't know. I think it was fine. Just that sort of blaséin, nonchalant response, I'd be very weary of that in someone who's been through a lot of

trauma because I'd be almost certain it's going to come out later in potentially a toxic way in your conflicts. So these are things that, let's say you have three or four relationships in the past, which let's use your narcissistic example. Like let's say you've been with the same kind of person. Yeah. And all of your past relationships were toxic. And you're aware of that. You're working on yourself.

You're becoming more aware of what's looked for in a partner. Yeah. So let's say you stumble across someone that you think is different and good. So where do you go from there? Like is that when kind of these red flag, green flags would come up and then you, you know what I mean? Yeah. with the next stepy after that. So I'll go through the three things look for and then we'll come back to that if that's

all right just to keep things in order. So self-awareness is the first thing. Processing it and relational awareness would be the second thing. So someone who says not just I'm aware of it, but yeah, this is how I'm processing it. So that could be therapy coaching. They're really the best too. The type of therapies I rely on the most that either I use or that I send clients to are IFS, which is internal family systems or EMDR, which is eye movement, desensitization, something.

They're both very much internal based. So they're working with, you know how we said earlier, it's like a body memory. So they're very much working with the body memories and the body processes. So if someone is working on it, sorry, if someone is aware of it, if someone is processing it actively, that's a good green flag. And then the big one, and this is kind of rare to get to, but if someone's actually had something we call post-traumatic growth. Yeah, I remember you talking about this on the phone. I wanted you to talk about it. Yeah, and this is where someone's actually,

so the ultimate healing of trauma, it's kind of like the Nike swoosh. They go down and then they spring back up and they're actually better than they started. And this happens, it doesn't happen to every trauma victim. It probably happens to, honestly, very few, but it is something you can work towards in therapy. It's where you take the trauma that happened to you

and put it into a story that makes it empowering for you. So it's not to say that everything happens for a reason. I don't believe that the children are raped for a reason. That just doesn't make any sense to me. They're raped because someone was very, very traumatized and passed on that trauma. It's that simple. But in your own life,

whatever's happened to you, you have to make some kind of meaning and then some kind of growth that's come off of it. So a simple example is I have one of my coaches and he says, look, Mark, I am not grateful that rape and sexual assault happens, not one bit.

But I'm grateful it happened to me. And I said, why, what does that mean? He said, well, it happened to me when I was five, and I carried a lot of anger for a long, long time about this. But he said, you know what? He's in his 40s now, late 40s. He said, you know what? Because of that sexual assault, it put me on a healing journey. It led me to start a business. It led me to meet my wife. It led me to my beautiful kids. It led me to everything. I mean, he's very wealthy now. It led me to all the financial success that I've had. And the truth is, I can't deny that if that sexual assault, if that rape,

it never happened, I would not be here. Right. So I look at my kids every day and I'm legitimately thinking like that, that had a purpose. And I'm actually grateful for it. And I'm not grateful it happens to other people, but it makes sense to me now. I see it. I get it. It would be the same if, you know, let's say there's infidelity in a relationship.

90% of couples break up. 9% of couples live with it, but the trauma is still held. She doesn't trust him again. He doesn't trust her. But 1% of couples start a new relationship. and they start a relationship with a new level of vulnerability, a new level of communication, a new level of what works. They throw out the old relationship entirely and something very new and beautiful is kind of

born from the ashes. And that's a couple where they can actually say, especially after a few years or even a decade, they can say, we're actually grateful that that happened. It's like the thing that brought us together. It's sort of, it burned the old relationship and brought up the beautiful new one. And that's when you know someone's truly healed because they will talk about it and there's no like twang. Right.

It's not held on anymore. It's like, bitterness. Yeah, it's a total ownership of, of my story. You know, they'll talk about it proudly.

That there's no sort of inner. Hatred. Hatred. There's no, there's no angst. They're not even, they're not even in a state of forgiveness anymore because they're like, it ended up being a gift.

So those are the things you can listen for when you are around someone who's been through that trauma. I often related to, you know, being in animals in the past. I used to be a veterinarian. So I often related to animals, which is you can understand someone's had trauma.

You can understand a dog has had trauma, but it doesn't mean that you get bitten. You still need to be aware. I might need a cage here, even though I can empathize with the trauma. You have to be careful, and you need to know what to look for if the dog's going to be aggressive.

You can empathize, but you still need to protect yourself. And it's very much the same in dating. You can empathize with people who have been through trauma. Some of them make fantastic partners, and some of them will be the most, unfortunately, toxic people you'll ever date and you need to be able to kind of know when to put the cage. versus when it's safe to open it.

So my question would be too is what if somebody really hasn't had trauma, like literally any at all? Do you think that their experience levels are not lower, but, you know, maybe just different. Yeah, I think it's an interesting question because I don't think no one's had any, but there's a small percentage of people who have just had super secure upbringings in a lot of areas. I would be very curious about their previous relationships because it can go either way. Sometimes they've just had really good relationships and they're,

20, 30% of people that just have that super secure upbringing. They seem very, very solid, emotionally stable. And they just don't, you know, you see them in conflict. They handle themselves very well. And they just seem like really good partners. Other times, they may not have been, like the parents might have raised them stably, but they might not have, for example, learn the relationship skills or they might not have learned how to do conflict. It can be little things that would put it off. So I'd be curious about their previous relationships. Where they healthy? Why did they break up? What's kind of their history there? And then I would be very, very curious about how do they show up in conflict. You've always got to look at how someone shows up

on their worst day. Yeah. It's like if I'm a great boyfriend six days a week and then I beat my partner once a week, then I'm a shit boyfriend. Right. Right. You always measure it based on the worst day. So it really comes down to, and that's kind of the test in all this. It's like, how does this person show up when they're stressed tired and triggered? What do you see? Are they able to, they're not going to be perfect. It's not pretty, but are they able to at least talk? Maybe I need some space. I'm feeling blank right now. Just need to take a break. This trauma's coming up for me.

I'm going to work on it with my therapist. Like, is that their worst day? It's not pretty, but it's a good worst day. Or do they completely shut down and go silent? Do they scream, go crazy and get very controlling? Do they become physically toxic or confrontational? That's really the biggest test. So it could be a good thing or it could be like,

hmm, maybe there's not the experience there. It could go either way. And that kind of brings me to this other point that I feel like is pretty common and I feel like people just in general. I don't even want to say nowadays because there's always been these love movies out, right? And I feel like in general people will watch movies or shows that just display love as amazing and beautiful and which it can be. Yeah, absolutely. But it's not always like that.

And I feel like you have days like that. And then you have days where you're just not in the mood. And I think that a lot of people can hear and know that relationships are work. But a lot of people aren't. willing to show up for that work, whether it's both partners or just one. And I think that that's a big thing, too, that people need to be aware of is even if, let's say, you guys both have been through traumas and you haven't figured out and you are doing really well, let's say for a month or two or three or even years. Yeah. But if something comes up, which it's going to, because I always

things always come up. Life will always smash you. Yeah. I just don't think that people are always prepared for that kind of work. And I think that for some reason, I honestly still can't figure out why. But because if you think about it in your friendships, if you have like a little issue with your friend, it's really, it's a lot easier to get through that. Yeah. Than it is with your partner. Yeah. It's crazy to me. Like, because I don't know.

It just so, because I've had lifelong friends that I've been friends with for like 15 years. And then I have these relationships and it just seems like they always hit this like two year market. It's like, shoot. Yeah. And usually by that time I'm over it anyway. Yeah. I mean, in your friendships, your attachment system isn't triggered anyway. as much. So you're a lot more in your intuitive logical brain. It's safer. There's less,

you know, if your needs are like buckets, like imagine like three buckets, safety, love and connection, autonomy. You know, your friends contribute 10, 20% per friend to the bucket. A romantic relationship can be 50% of the bucket. So it's just a have, it's, it holds more. There's more stakes. Yeah, there's more on the line. And it also is just much more representative of our parents. So your friends just don't feel like your parents. So the same protective systems, that's like, oh, I need to people please, they don't need to be as active because there's not as much threat. Like, you're walking near a different road.

It's like with your friends, it's more like you're walking near a cycle track, so there's no chance of being hit by a car. With your lover, you're walking near a road. So there's a chance of being hit by a car again. So it's a different protective system that kicks into save you. Right. Okay. So I want to ask you a question as if I'm your client.

But should I do it after or should I do it now? Why don't we do it now? Okay. I'm not able to it now. Yeah. Okay. So I won't go too into detail. But I guess my question would be just like a general question.

Okay. Because I know that this is part of my trauma. Well, there's two things actually. I feel like this could be an interesting point. Okay. First one when I was, like I guess I was, I always get the ages wrong. I think it was 12 when my dad passed away. Okay.

So something I've noticed with myself is that. And honestly, I never, I never went therapy about like for it. Yep. And also I noticed that I didn't really grieve it. Granted, I was younger. So I think that you're, you're just in a different place in life. Yeah.

But from 15 years old to now, I've always been in relationships. There's been my breaks of max, maybe six months, but I've never really just been alone. And that's not to say I don't think I can be alone. I know I can be alone and I'll survive. But I prefer to be in a relationship or to have a partner there. Like I like that security. Yeah. That being said, I feel like I know that that might be one of the reasons why I kind of just

stay in relationships. Yeah. Also, I've realized, which I've told Julie about too, that whenever I lose a partner, you would think the world around me is just crashing down. Like I'm not going to survive, which I always survive and come out of it better. And I'm like, you know, obviously you look back and you're like, I can't believe I was upset. Yeah, yeah, of course.

But I almost kind of feel like in my mind, the reason I, and I understand breakups are hard for anybody. It always kind of feels like your earth is crumbling around you. Right. But I almost feel like, to me, it's like, losing a male figure again and again and again like every time. Yeah. And that's like my one thing, which you can hit on in a second.

I want to put the other thing out there because I'm going to forget if I don't. Yeah. The other thing is I've been in multiple relationships and a few of them there's been cheating. Yeah. And obviously now looking back, I don't give a crap about those. I don't know why I say crap. I can ask him cheating or you or both? Him and what I'm talking about.

Okay. I've cheated before, but I was like in middle school. So like or high school. I'm talking about the guy in this situation. And like I said, looking back, I don't care about them anymore, but obviously I hold on to those thoughts of like, of cheating and just, and I have this. I just like, I don't believe God. I think that 90% of men cheat.

And that's not to say that I don't believe in love. I believe in love. I want love. I feel like I'm a hopeless romantic. Like that's all I want. But I definitely have this like anger and darkness inside that when I'm, in a relationship or when I start talking to somebody, like I can, I can really like them, but I can see it and I can feel it that one day I'm like, usually when I'm with them,

I'm really present. I'm in the moment. But then as soon as I'm alone again, it's almost like this self-sabotage of like, maybe I'll like ghost them for a few hours. It's like that's where those toxic traits come out. And it's like, okay, I'm going to be hard to get. I want to be this and that. And then I almost feel like it's a way in my mind to be like, let me keep them guessing

and on edge so that I stay. interesting so then they don't cheat down the road. Does that make sense? It totally makes sense. I know that was a lot, but I just tried to get it all out. Do you want to address the second one first? Either one. Yeah. Yeah. I love that you brought that up. We'll address the first one first, I think. So when we, I see this a lot when I work with widows is if we don't grieve something fully, it's kind of like we have an emotional cupboard. And guys who go to war get a lot of this as well. They're not allowed to be emotional at the time. It's you just have to put it in a closet, compartmentalizer, and get on with the job.

And when you're 12, it doesn't sound like you grieved a lot or you had a lot of time to process that. So it sort of gets put in the emotion cupboard and sent to the back room so that you can get on with your life. Too much to process now. Got stuff to do. Need to survive. Right. So what can happen later is let's say you, you know, you're 18, you're 20, you're 22,

whatever and you go to break up. Well, breakups already trigger a lot of sadness. You're already ticking some of those like 40% of my buckets getting tipped on the floor. Like this sucks. You've already got a bunch of sadness in the cupboard. It's like, I don't. want to add more. Oh my gosh. So it's harder to do the breakup with all that sitting in the cupboard. So what tends to happen is you end up kind of delaying the decision, maybe giving

guys extra chances, maybe letting guys get away with behaviors that really, you know, I should be speaking up on that, but I don't want us to break up. I don't want to cause drama. It's harder for you to risk the breakup with all that sadness kind of unprocessed in the cupboard. So what tends to happen is, well, I jump from relationship to relationship because being alone kind of sucks doesn't feel good. But I also end up in these relationships that go on too long or don't get broken up because I just don't want to like have that stuff. As you said, it kind of echoed. It echoes to like what happened when you were 12. So you don't want to feel that again. But unfortunately, it kind of ends up like becoming a repeating cycle because you then don't, don't maybe set boundaries

quite so well, don't break up as soon as you should, don't have the difficult conversations. And cheating is kind of an end point of a bunch of relationship problems. And this flows into kind of your second point is, you know, cheating is the result. And unfortunately, it sounds like you've had this repeatedly. And so now you've developed a self-protective belief, which is men cheat. And that is a sensible self-protective belief when you've been through what you have. Because if I've been cheated on, like I've never been cheated on, but if I've been cheating by every woman that I'd ever been with, I'd be like, well, women are cheaters. They break my heart. So I need to make sure I play the game to stay one step ahead of them. Yeah, that's what it is. It's a game to be one step ahead.

It's like self-defense, right? Because it's like chess, I need to hurt you. Right. But the hard part is a true relationship is built about, it's built through vulnerability. It's built through shared vulnerability. So it's actually, it's like opening your neck and saying, cut me and then trusting that they won't. So when you get into game playing because you've had past trauma, you end up with people who play games and who are trying to like one up you.

And of course, one of you eventually wins, but you hurt each other in the process. And there's no shared vulnerability. and then you just go further down that path, right? So it's, yeah, I do think there'd be some processing for you to do there around that because unfortunately the sadness probably led to you not doing certain things in your relationships that led to the cheating. That's not to excuse cheating. I'm sure the men you've attracted have been maybe bad communicators as well and weren't

able to speak up. I mean, it'd be interesting to look at. We're just straight up losers. Yeah, potentially. Like there's different reasons guys cheat, right? Guys can cheat because they're not feeling satisfied. Guys can cheat because they don't feel worthy. Guys can cheat because they have poor impulse control.

That's a big one. If I don't have... And I think with their dickhead instead of their regular... Right, right. If I don't have... I mean, what is being a man? Part of being a man is being able to live with integrity, which means not being impulsive.

So if I just go and drink instead of going to work, right? That makes me a pretty shit man. Yeah. It's just following impulse. But, I mean, that's probably a trauma response, but without going there. So if I just go and stick my penis in another woman, just because, oh, she's hot, I'll do it.

And I ruin a relationship that I've built. Like, that's dumb and that's impulsive. And it makes me very unsafe. And it's going to pass my trauma on to my girlfriend, who's then going to believe men are cheaters. And then it's going to attract untrustworthy men down the line. Now, the reason, like, let's say I do go and cheat. Like, why am I doing that?

Well, it's either because I can't have a conversation with you. It's because I don't feel that I can have the capacity or I never could have conversations with my mom. So I don't have them with you. It could be because my needs aren't being met, but I don't know how to tell you. It could be because I don't know how to set boundaries with you. So this is my form of rebellion because I'm scared to like tell you know and you have,

we have so much at stake now. Like you're responsible for 50% of my bucket. So I don't want to like set a boundary with you, get scared that you're going to break up with me. So instead I go go and cheat to sort of save myself without risk. So it's, it takes two, I always say. Like you're the one that end up her being cheated on. But there's also been a series of events on both sides with the communication that has become like a slow moving train rack and cheating at the end, I would say is where that problem, like it's like the end. It's like the end of a bad train ride. Right. And even besides just the cheating things too is like I said, and I can't stress it enough. Like I really do love love. And I would love to find a long lasting. Good. Good. I like that. Too many people have

lost that. Yeah. No. And you would think I have every reason to have lost it. But I have it. And I don't plan to. I love that. Because I think that love that love that love that love that love is what makes the world go round. I think that it brings so much happiness that a lot of anything that you do can bring happiness. But that on its own as you know, it's a different category. It's the number one thing. Yeah. Like who wants money and health with no one. Exactly. Well, there's some. But there's some that and the only reason some people like that is because they had no love and they don't, they don't think they're worthy of it. Yeah. That's not the true them. That's the trauma. Right. And I agree with that. And I think too that.

I guess what I'm saying is even though I feel like I have these thoughts, like men cheat or nothing really lasts that long, I would hope that it would and I want it to. But that being said, I feel like, and I know you're not going to agree with this, but, and I know it's wrong. I don't want to think this way. But I do feel like, I'm trying to think how I want to word this. Because there's so many different ways that this, I can see you going with this that I'm like trying to avoid the.

No, I'm curious. Okay, so basically what I'll say what I'm going to say first, and then I'll say what I think all the things you're going to say are. But like basically things, I don't think things last that long. Like I feel like everything eventually comes to an end. Somebody will disappoint you, whether it's one year down the road or 11 years down the road. Okay. But that being said, I understand relationships take work and both people need to be in it for the right reasons.

They need to be healed. They need to be working themselves, all this stuff. like how many relationships do people have to go through or not go through and just like to find you know what I mean? It's like how do you, what if nobody is in something that lasts for a long time and they just find their one. Not that there is one because I think that I've had multiple ones. But fuck.

You know what I mean? Shit. Like I would love to find a man and then just like Mariam have kids and never think that he would cheat. but like, or I would hope that we would get married and stay together forever and live a happy, beautiful life. But like, obviously my trauma doesn't believe that. Right.

But I also just think in reality, that's really not easy to find. Like, I know these ladies are like, love doctor, this isn't easy to find. Yeah. And look, what I teach is the process to do that. Okay. So if I was working with you and like if you were my client, we would look at, okay, what are the patterns of what you've attracted in the past? Let's go through it. Let's go look at the traits.

How does the dating evolve? What are you doing specifically? You are the common denominator. What if every single one I've dated is different? There's always commonalities. There's always threads. You might not see them at first, but there's always things. It could be something as simple as the way they communicate or how they show up in conflict.

Now, sometimes you can bounce around and yo-yo. You can sort of ping pong one toxic and then go to a different type. You can go to opposites. That's a thing. But there's always the common denominator, which is you. So what tends to happen as we go through relationships. learn some stuff and hopefully make gains, but we can also hit trauma and go backwards. So it's like there's never guarantees in life. Like I went to the gym yesterday, but the world could have ended

today, right? That would have made me going to the gym yesterday look pretty stupid. Why am I sweating my last day on the earth at the gym? But the odds are the world's not going to end today. The odds are there's going to be a tomorrow. So we put in place processes that guarantee at least as best as possible our success. So that's what I do with women. We look at, okay, Well, if you've been the common denominator and you've had a lot of cheating, like, first of all, that, that really fucking sucks and that empathizes. And every time you open your heart up and a guy does that to you, that's good. I'm going to cut his dick off next time. That's going to, like, let's try not to pass on our trauma now, shall we?

But let's. Is that what that is? I thought that was doing the right thing. That's probably passing on a little bit of trauma. Yeah, let's kind of just. Well, it's not going to be passed if he doesn't make it. That's true. Tush.

So you're bringing out a dark side of me. I know. I love it because this is where the growth happens, right? It's in those dark moments. Yes. I already have my question after you're done explaining. Okay. Do you want to ask it now?

Yeah. Let's say that you made me perfect, right? Let's say we've gone through. There's no perfect. There's no perfect. Pretty close. Let's say you've got me. Sure.

You've healed me. I'm just cruising. I'm doing great. Sure. But that still doesn't account for the other person. It does and I'll explain why. Because when you're in a pretty. good space, at least good enough. The old people that vibed you and were attracted to you

just won't. You will be turned off by them and they'll be turned off by you. They might think you're hot and they might DM you, but you just want, you'll be like, ah, just get a weird vibe. You're just like, ah, this doesn't feel good. You'll start demagnitizing them and you'll start being like, okay, this is a really healthy trait. Now, as you get to know more of those types of men, you'll start to notice more and you'll go more in depth. You'll do conflict better. You'll notice how he communicates. You'll listen in for some of his emotional traits. And like, you've never experienced a subset of men in your life, at least as dates that don't cheat. I have some.

Have you dated them? Yeah. Okay. So not every relationship. They got other issues. Okay. Other issues. Got it.

Yeah. So. That's why I'm saying they're all. They all got their own set of issues. Right. Right. So you've got to find someone that's good enough in all areas, not like perfect in any. And it's the same with, it's the same with us as partners.

We need to be good enough emotionally. We need to be good enough in our feminine masculine energies. We need to be good enough in handling our trauma. so that we can do all the basic things right. And even just wanting a relationship, there's some people who are not relationship-minded. So that's a thing. But yeah, you've got to be a standout

because everyone kind of wants that. Every woman is after that. And frankly, every man is after a good woman, too, that has that. So you do have to get yourself in a good enough place. But the next person you date doesn't have to be like the one you marry. They could be the next stepping stone towards that. And relationships tend to bring out our traumas more.

So it will be your opportunity to work on. on the more and see what comes up. Got it. I got another question. There's some people that believe that when you're in a relationship and like you said, you should be vulnerable, which I agree with. And I think that's how you open up and get closer. Yeah.

But there's some people that believe that when two people in a relationship, they must become one. Now, my mindset, I used to kind of think that. But now as I've gotten older, I feel like both people should be able to stand on their own, be independent, but still be vulnerable and love each time. other like what is your mindset on that so there's a process of dependence through to independence through interdependence dependence is a baby so dependence is if your parents says you're eating on the roof you're eating on the roof right you you cannot set any kind of boundary with a parent because you are completely dependent on them and then you go to independence and you're like oh

I can actually do stuff on my own I can set boundaries I don't need the parent so you get to independence interdependence is going back to dependence but this time with boundaries So it's like, let's say you and I are together. It's like, okay, I rely on you, you meet my need for safety. You meet my need for love. You meet my need for autonomy. You are like 50% of that bucket in my life. But the difference is with a parent, I cannot set any boundaries, as in the parent can

basically control me by controlling the bucket. Right. Whereas with you, in an interdependent relationship, there's now a respect for boundaries, which means that like you're not using, you're not manipulating me by saying, oh, I'm going to withdraw love from Mark if he doesn't behave a certain way. So I'm still vulnerable to you. I'm still getting my needs meant by you. But it's no longer in such a way where it's the trust. It's like I'm opening my heart now to you and I'm doing it in a way where you're not going to abuse it. And the same from you to me. And that's really beautiful is you open your heart to me and you can trust. And trust takes

time. Trust is marbles in a jar. It's built. It doesn't happen straight away, right? You slowly open your heart and you're like, Mark could hurt me, but he won't. And I'm like, but what if he does? Right. And that's where you have to build the trust. And that's why trust is long time to build, easy to break. So, okay, but then what if I trust you fully? Yeah. And all of a sudden, Mark is just like, yeah, bad day. And then you break the trust. Then I'm shattered. Very traumatizing. And then I got to heal again. 100%. Very traumatizing. Do you see why it's getting really annoying to keep healing? Of course.

And that's why the little things along the way that build that trust is so important. Because if you have not like built the marbles in the jar via the right means, if you're not consistently having those difficult conversations, if you're not like working through problems together, because if we're doing this evenly and we're both being vulnerable, then I have just as much to lose by breaking trust, like by betraying you as you. If I'm truly being vulnerable and open-hearted with you, like let's say I go and cheat on my partner tomorrow,

which I could do. Right, let's say I go and do that tomorrow. I have just effed up four years of work, four years of difficult conversations, four years of planning a life together, four years of talking about kids, like, I've gone and just ruined it all. So I have skin in the game, right? So that's what gives you the security, is the amount of skin that I have in the game. So if I've been truly vulnerable with you, then by cheating on you or by hurting you,

I have just as much to lose as you. And you betraying me gives you just as much to lose. So it's that shared vulnerability and the way we've worked on the relationship, like the difficult times we've been through. Like my partner and I did long distance for a year, for example. So that's very hard to do, right? That's a lot of effort. So if I just go and like cheat on her tomorrow, I just burned all that effort.

Like that fucks me up as much as it. But some guys don't have that mindset. So you're saying if they don't, then they're not ready. Well, if they don't have that mindset, you'll spot it early because they won't want to invest in the relationship. They won't be vulnerable. They won't be sort of working with you on. the relationship. They'll want it to be easy all the time. They won't want to have difficult

conversations and you weed them out. I need help. I don't think. Mark, I need help. Well, you're asking the right questions. I mean, look, it's it's like we develop beliefs because it makes the world sensible and safe. So it's like, why are trees green? Now, not all trees are green, but we just believe trees are green because it simplifies the world. It means we don't have to think about things. So we develop beliefs to keep us safe. And obviously, if you've experienced a lot of cheating, a lot of betrayal, a lot of shittiness at the hands of men, a natural belief is like, well, men are the enemy or men suck or men can't be loyal. Of course you're going to think like that.

Like, that's your whole reality. So it's hard to change that reality. But if you keep doing the same thing and not changing anything, then you're going to keep getting the same reality. And this is uncomfortable work in many ways, and a lot of people don't want to do it. But it's worth it in the end because when you do really get a great relationship, not just with yourself, because a lot of this is internal work, but on the outside as well. well, and you're like, oh, wow, I can do that. It makes sense. Yeah. So like where would, for example,

I know I kind of already asked this before, but like where would someone start with that? Yeah. So I think looking at the commonalities of what they've contributed in the past and what they've attracted in the past is a big one. I like to look with clients, especially about how all their conflicts have gone down in the past in terms of have they happened at all. Do they know how to talk about wants and needs? When do they start doing that? Is it in dating? Is it in relationship? How do men typically respond to that? Looking for patterns in their past is what I usually do. And then we set a future vision.

And the important thing about setting their vision, it's not just, oh, here's where we want to be, happy and love relationship. It needs to be their future vision on a bad day. So what is your really bad day in a relationship and how does that look? Your tired stress triggered, he's tired stress triggered, you guys are in conflict. What does that look like? It's hard to envision. It is hard to envision because this stuff isn't like really taught in school.

We're not taught. What does healthy conflict versus toxic conflict versus no conflict look like? Most of us have only ever experienced two forms of anger, zero, where everything is muffled in or violent, unhealthy anger. Yeah. There is such a thing as healthy anger. But most people are like, I don't know what that is. What is that? So there's so many of these things that are just not taught.

And that's why I say relationships are three things. Their chemistry, how we feel. Their compatibility, how we fit together, which is living location, religion, money values, health values, even things like number of children you want, sex compatibility, like there's chemistry which is feeling, there's how you fit together. And then part three is relationship skills. So chemistry compatibility, relationship skills. You can have great chemistry compatibility.

Great feelings. We like all the same stuff and we want the same living location, same number of kids, great compatibility. But he doesn't know how to have honest conversations with her. She doesn't know how to manage her triggers. Their conflicts suck. Pretty soon they resent each other. and they go through five years of hell before they finally divorce.

So I look at those relationship skills that clients do or don't do and how they've showed up in their previous relationships and say, okay, how do we bring those into your early dating and how do we make sure that you're starting to do those things early on and filtering for that guy who is like that on a bad day? So if he is showing up a certain why on the worst day, how does that kind of guy, like what are his emotional tendencies on a first date?

Yeah. Probably not like crazy, exciting insane chemistry. guy, but he's probably like pretty grounded. He's pretty like knows himself. He's probably a bit self-reflective. He can probably talk like about some stuff he's learned from relationships. So it's sort of tracing that back and your filter is less about chemistry because everyone puts too much focus on chemistry and more about relationship skills. And that's how we go down a different path. You practicing them and you filtering for them. So then if you run into an issue, you just got to get rid of them? No. Like what if you see a red flag? Like, oh,

well, we don't meet I-d-eye on that. Well. Because I probably, like, there's definitely when I was, you know, like looking back at some of my relationships when you were saying that. And there's definitely, I should have ended it probably a year before. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite questions is.

You keep trying to make it work and it doesn't work. Yeah. And one of my favorite questions is at what point did your intuition really tell you something was right? Right there in that moment. Yeah. It's very, it's very soon. But usually like, oh, my dad passed away when I was 12 and I have a lot of sadness.

So I don't really like going through breakups again. Oh, you know, the last. guy broke up with, he hit me that day or he then went and slept to my best friend so I don't like breakups. We have all these reasons that are usually trauma-based or fear-based to avoid our intuition. But usually when I talk to women about that, it's like, you guys are very emotionally intelligent, you're intuitive, you know, like you know when a guy is actually a good solid guy for you. You know when things are going off track. You can sense it. My girlfriend is so good at sensing when things are often and calling it out. And she doesn't do it in an aggressive or demanding

way, but she also just doesn't let it slide, like a passive weakling. So, stuff gets talked about. At the start of our relationship, I was that guy that's not really good at bringing stuff up. And I've had coaching around that. So I get a lot, being a lot better at just really bringing stuff up with her, making sure I'm speaking my mind, having difficult conversations with her. I don't know if that answered your question. Do we get off topic then?

No, it did. I have another one, though. Do you ever talk to women about ego? Not really. I mean. I got a big one of those. She's a problem. No, because if you think about it, like, and I mean,

I tell Julie this all the time, like so many things that I realized coming up, you know, like after breakups and stuff like that is a lot of thoughts I have because here's here's why I bring it up. Yeah. Because I think that when a girl or even guy goes through a breakup, most of the time you know it was the right thing. Like you know it hurts. Yeah.

And it sucks. But you know, okay, we weren't meant to be. Things weren't lining up. It just needed to happen. Right. But and obviously there's that pain of losing someone and healing, but then there's the ego, which I feel like gives you the thoughts of like, okay, but I don't want to see them with somebody else. Or what are they doing right now? And I feel like that's a big thing that I at least people maybe my age think about because like even just from friends that I have when they get out of relationships, hearing what they say, it reminds me of things that I think and say, which I am aware is my ego talking.

Right. Like, if you really love someone, when you guys break up the first thing that you're going to think of shouldn't really be, oh, well, it's going to be hard to see you with somebody else, in my opinion. Like, I feel like that should be like, it'll be something that you think about that's going to hurt, but that shouldn't be like the first main thing. I think it's just a natural consequence, to be honest. I mean, you break up for a good reason.

It's going to suck. Yeah. Of course you're going to be like, oh, I don't want to see them with someone else. I mean, especially men because men really are not good at high levels of emotion. we're good at compartmentalizing little ones and then with big ones we just sort of pretend they don't exist. So when we break up, we are more likely than a woman to be hooking up the next night because it's like sadness, fuck that, I need a distraction. Women are much better with processing things and that's why the old breakup analogy of like the day after a breakup she's sad, six months after a breakup, he's sad because she does the processing first, gets over it and then he does a processing way later. So it's pretty commonplace that women are like, I'm so sad, you know, all this stuff is going on.

And the guy is just totally compartmentalizing, not thinking about it. But I think it's a pretty natural thought to just worry. I mean, it's part of the process is he is going to hook up with someone else. Of course your ego is going to be hurt. Of course you're going to be sad about it. It doesn't mean it was the right. Sorry, it doesn't mean it was the wrong decision. It means that often you're doing the right things.

There's a saying hard choice is easy life. Have you heard that one? Yeah. You make hard choices. You have a better life. you make easy choices, you have a worse life. Right. So it's just part of the pain.

Yeah, he might be with someone else. Yeah, it's going to make you sad. If a client's really deep in that, I might say, what meaning are you taking from that? Oh, it means I meant nothing to him. It means that I have no value. And, you know, that's usually childhood stuff that's being reemerged from the breakup.

But a lot of that emotional processing stuff is you just got to sit there and get punched in the face. Yeah. Like, you're still doing the right thing. Yeah, just feel it. Just get, you're still doing the right thing. you eat ice cream for a week or two, then you slap yourself, you go to the gym and you hang out with your friends and you're over it. But I don't think it's a problem. I think it's just a natural

course of breaking up is worrying about them being with someone else. Of course you're hurt. Yeah. That was all my questions for now. Of these relationships you've been cheated on, how many were cheating versus were not? Well, hold on. There's so many. I got a thing. No, okay, so I think technically I was only actually cheated on in two. Okay, are we counting high school relationships? I feel like we shouldn't. No. So real relationships two.

And then I would say there was a solid, I might be forgetting someone, two or three that didn't have cheating. Okay. But they had their own issues. And what's the typical other issues that you guys break up because of cheating? What's most common? Like besides cheating? Yeah. They're all different.

Gosh. So I guess one would be that there was no connection, like actual deep emotional connection. Like it was very surface level. Okay. Very just work. Okay. There was no love. Like deep love, real love, communication.

None of that. Okay. Another one would have been something was just off with that one. I don't think he was straight. My gut was telling me something there. My guts never said something that's right. That was just that. That was kind of dumb though and short-lived.

And then the other one, that one's really complicated. Like that one, I felt the most, I think, love and connection with that person. Like, I just felt like that was my person. even in general just as like people outside of relationship but I kind of lost the physical connection and I think that that is very important as well how far into it were you when you lost the physical connection see him and I were on and off for years so maybe like a couple years in but we were it was like it kind of stemmed from high school we were on and off and in high school I was just he was doing his thing I was like we'd be together

for a few months, then we'd break up and we'd be with other people, and then we'd get back together. And then we were together again when I was older, like in college and I was away for college and that was really, really hard on me. And like that kind of, that helped a lot, having somebody, you know, there for that. And then I think it just kind of, it was after we got back together when I was older, I think that I kind of was like, I love him to death as like a person and a partner, but the physical is just, like, I didn't want to. interesting and and that that's happened a couple times like the longer that I'm with someone that sexual desire just in you yeah your sexual desire like it just goes away like I don't

care as much as in the beginning and so in these relationships how do I put this do you find yourself generally quote unquote wearing the pants playing the more masculine role or are you very much in the feminine role it depends like I've been with a guy that was like 100% had the pants like kind of was a little bit like physical um I'm very kind of blunt though like I hold my own even if like I was never a little scared bitch but he definitely was more of the dominant one and then I've been in relationships where the guy was weak and I was wearing the pants yeah but I obviously I've found that I 100% want to be just balanced and equal with someone yeah but I like hold this I want to be so and like and I am independent but I always just

think in my mind like I need to be independent so bad like I and I show vulnerability but I feel like I always like I give a little and then I just pull back by like 10 steps. You know what I mean? I think, I mean, I obviously don't know you, but I would guess just based on your history, your demeanor, the way you show up, I would guess that there's a vulnerability issue that comes through, which is where in general, it's like the guy will create the physical space. That's where men have real dominion is like, I keep you physically safe. I protect you and she can relax. And then in general, the woman creates the emotional space, which is she sort of holds a safe emotional container.

And so a man doesn't want to go outside of your emotional container. Otherwise, he's the feminine. Like he's a pussy. So if I'm more emotional than you, I become the feminine. And that's no man likes that. Right. So when it comes to the physical space, it's kind of the guy is the, because the guy is the protector. Because the care of the space.

So what if I don't really look at that anymore? Like I really don't even think about that anymore. I can protect myself. I'll beat somebody with a baton. I think that if you're being honest with me, deep down, you would love that. Maybe. But I agree that I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Like I would like that.

Right. But it's just not like I think because of everything, all the different types of relationships I've been in, the main thing. Like my first thing that I'm looking at is like, okay, do we have a connection there? Yeah. You know? Yeah. That kind of comes down the road, the whole fight the intruder off. And one of the risks with just being, you could be too focused on connection.

Like, connection's a good thing. But what can happen is if you're in more of the masculine role, as in if you're not looking at that stuff at all, then a guy could come into more of the feminine role in that area. And you may end up, I mean, we'd have to break down your relationships individually, but that can be why the sexual attraction disappears. because your body. I do, I think I do act like a man sometimes. Right. And it's very, you know, I don't want my partner ever being the man. I mean, I want her able to speak up.

I want her able to set boundaries with me. I want her to be able to speak her mind. So I got to go down the masculinity a bit. A bit more receiving, a bit more trusting. A bit more. Because as men, we come to women for our masculinity, essentially. We want to feel masculine around you. So the only guys that don't are going to be underfunctioning guys

that you're ultimately not attracted to. There are those guys. And they go, oh, alpha woman. Oh, she's so amazing. And they will sort of attach to you. And like, you'll get a great emotional connection with them, but eventually you will not want to touch them. Your body will be like, oh, it grossed out by them.

Yeah. So if you want a guy that you're sexually attracted to, then, and this is the balance, right? It's sexually attracted in alpha and a good communicator. They don't come along every day. So that guy is going to be attracted to a woman who can also, you know, speak up, assert, do those. things, but has that feminine side to balance out his alpha side. And that's where you trust.

That's where you receive. And when we're talking about physical versus emotional space, as I say, the guy's looking after the physical space in general. I know that you said that's, that's not always for you, but deep down it is. So he looks after the physical space. You will be leading the protection in the emotional space, which means that you will be the more emotional one. you will be more affected emotionally by him than him by you. So for example, let's say a guy buys you flowers, right? What would be your reaction to that? I hate flowers.

You hate flowers. Okay. If it came from... It does nothing for me. Okay. If it came from a guy who was really alpha, would you still hate flowers? Yeah, I don't want them. I don't want gifts.

Okay. Just love me. Okay. What type of love do you prefer other than, like, what's your love language? Touch. Touch. Okay. I think.

Let's go with touch. So when a really alpha guy touches you and... I'm not into alpha guys right now. Okay. But if he was safe, let me rephrase that then. If there was a trustworthy alpha guy... All right, maybe it's not touch. Let me change it.

Can I change it? You can change it. I'm thinking it's not touch. I'm thinking touch comes after the fact. I think I like guys that are like that can communicate and open up. That's where I am right now. Like I want them to be able to talk to me. me and I want them a big thing for me and this is me I don't want to say this is me being selfish but

and I know that that I have stuff that I have to work on. Yeah, yeah. But I feel like I am a very outspoken person. I always have been. And I feel like a lot of guys will kind of look at that and think that I'm crazy or I'm too much. And like I like the guys that like that. Like they look at me and they're like, yeah, she's cool.

She's badass. And then on top of it, we can talk for hours and like communicate and I can ask you anything and you're going to answer it. Like you're not going to be like uncomfortable to open up to me. Yeah. And I know all that takes time, but you know what I'm saying. So you like the guys that open up, communicate to you. Yes.

And then if I like you, then you can touch me. Gotcha. So would you do the same for them? Would you open up, communicate to them? Yes. I feel like I love to communicate and talk. I'll tell somebody anything. Like I love people asking me things because I want to talk and I want to tell them.

Yeah. But I think that when I start and I feel like I've noticed too that in the beginning, I'll say and do anything. Because in the beginning, like you said, you don't really care. that much. You don't really like that person. There's no investment. But then I noticed that once those feelings start, like I said, when I'm with them, I'll be vulnerable.

But as soon as they're gone and I'm by myself again, that's when I start playing the self-sabotage and the toxic games of like, well, let me be hard to get or let me not respond for six hours and see how he responds. Yeah. You know? And that's kind of where I see. That makes you unsafe. Yes.

The vulnerability issue, right, because I don't know. It's like they leave or they're going to come back. Right. Oh, that's kind of sad. And the guy's like, if I'm the guy on the guy on the, you know, I'm the other end of that. And if it's like inconsistency and unpredictability is a real turnoff for someone who's looking for something really healthy and stable. I know. I need to stop. I was thinking about it last. And you know what's funny that I've realized about myself. What? Mr. Love Doctor. Tell me.

Is that I, and this is not even just with relationships, but if I do something that I know is negative and toxic, I literally get mad at myself for it. You know what I mean? I don't feel good after. Yeah. Like I'm almost like, I'm, I know. I know. know I'm putting myself, digging myself a deeper hole by doing that than if I was just vulnerable and nice opened up. Because the worst that happens when you do that is, okay, maybe the person's not right and you get hurt. But at least you're not. You can tick your box. Yeah. At least you're not contributing to the toxic games and whatever else. Yeah. Yeah. I think being rejected for vulnerability is something that we've got to learn to be proud of. And it's very hard

because it's not our instinct, right? But, you know, when my ex broke up with me, I was super vulnerable. I was like, hey, I think you're making a mistake. I think this is a good relationship. I think just, I think we should be together. She thought about it for a while. She changed her mind. And then essentially, I moved on, met my now partner.

And six months later, she was like knocking on my door. I made a huge mistake. That's what always happens. Vulnerability, but I was very proud because, you know, vulnerability, if you can get rejected for that, that's a great way to get rejected. Because the right person, if you just do that enough, then, yeah, it sucks getting rejected by that person. But the next person's going to come in or the person after that.

and they're going to be like, oh my gosh, this person is so open-hearted and safe. I can be open-hearted and safe as well, and you guys start to build that. Versus if you get into that defensive mentality, you're like game. Like, I dated a woman who it sounds like was a little bit similar to yourself and I was so into her. We had the most amazing connection, like deep conversations. I was obsessed with her. And then every time she would leave, I'd be like, Mark, she is so into you.

Don't overthink it. This girl just is so about you. And then inconsistent, crickets. And this girl was driving me crazy. And after like two months, I realized I'm becoming anxious. Like, this isn't me. I'm not an anxious person. This is really unhealthy.

And I told her to call me and she said she'd call me and then she didn't. And I was like, that's it. I got to walk away because I'm literally. I wouldn't do that. That's a little too far. It's a lot. She has a few steps past me. It's that unpredictability, though, that I'm like, she's not relationship material.

Like, I can't trust her because she's so in and then so not. Right. So consistency on both sides. You have to show up the way you want a man to show up. If you're vulnerable and consistent, you're going to get more guys who are vulnerable and consistent and you're going to turn off narcissists and people who just see women as adversaries. Got it. Versus if you show up game playing, you're naturally going to vibe people who gameplay.

Like if that sort of behavior, if you did that to me, I'd be like, yeah, this is so inconsistent. I'm going to date someone else. Yeah. You don't know something like grossly toxic that I do? I would love to. Okay. That sounds great. So besides everything toxic that I just told you about myself, this is just, this is just

different. So every relationship that's ended, literally every single one. And this isn't, I don't do it on purpose, but I think, like, I don't do it on purpose, but like she does it on purpose, I think. Like, younger you? Like, no, like whatever of the brain or something. I don't know. Body memory, you. Yeah, that. Yeah. So whenever I get out of a relationship, whether I broke it off, the guy breaks it off. Gotcha. Obviously, it's always hard. Even if I'm making the decision, I still go through it. But I've realized that, like, I go through this place of being really, really sad, really, really vulnerable. And even in my most recent breakup, like, I feel like I tried to, like, stay really strong with that.

Not even not show emotion, but I was like, okay, I'm not going to cry and beg, like I always do. Because I've always gone through this phase of, like, crying and begging after, even if I'm the one that does the breaking up. Because I'm like, okay, never mind, I think, because then you start feeling it. You get the sadness. you're like, oh, this sucks. Get away from this. So every single one, I've gone back and cried and begged. They've all rejected it.

They've all come running back after. That being said, that being said, I said I wasn't going to do it my last breakup. I got drunk. I did it. Hardcore this time. Probably the hardest I've ever done. I'm like crying, screaming. I can't live without you.

Oh, my God. Begging, okay? Like a fucking simp. All right. Hated myself after. I was like literally hated myself. But then I was like, you know what? The next day.

Because of that night, I hated myself. I was like, wow, like that was a really all-time low. But the next day I was like, you know what? I think it was so good that I was at vulnerable because, and this is where the toxic shit comes in. When he comes running back, which they all do, like, it's going to fuck with them worse because they're going to know that at one point she was crying and begging for me. I full-blown rejected it. Now she's moved on.

That doesn't want me at all. But like I could have said yes then. didn't and now she's gone. But I've realized that being said, every single breakup, not on purpose, really. I just noticed it after the fact. Is that like I'll cry and beg and be really upset and be really full-blown, 100% vulnerable because I want that person back. And then I kind of, obviously, they say no and then I grieve and I heal on my own time. I get over them. And then they want me back and it's just such a rewarding feeling because I'm like, I'm not in that place anymore. It's validating. Yes. That's all. Yeah. I mean, it's human nature a lot of

that. It's like a response to feel good again. And I don't think it's, you know, I suppose if you said I'm going to like be intentionally vulnerable. I think this is a terrible relationship. So I'm going to go over there, cry just so he'll regret it in six months. Yeah, I'm not that crazy. That would, that would be a bit much. Yeah. But like I say, we're not here to judge. We all have these parts of ourselves that we look back and we go, oh gosh, that was not my best day. She's, I guess in the end, we just have to look at, okay, ultimately, are they, are they sabotaging us? And if they're not, at the end of the day, we're still getting out of a bad relationship. You're going to make mistakes.

You're going to look stupid at times. If you achieve the end result and got out of a bad relationship, good for you. If you can do it a little bit better next time, you know, sometimes being vulnerable is just putting yourself out there once really vulnerably and then letting it sit and letting yourself be rejected after that. I think that's the best thing to do. Letting them float. Yeah, because then you have to sit there.

You've done it once and you've been really vulnerable. be like, hey, you know, I'm actually really, really sad about this. I think this is a great relationship. I do think that with work, we could have a great relationship in the future. If that's all true and you put yourself out there and then you get rejected, you can walk away and be like, yeah, I did everything from my end. And when they do come back in six months, fuck yeah, that's validating. Like, yeah, I was a great partner and you did make a mistake. So I've moved on now, but thanks for reaffirming that. We always take validation from the outside world. We just have to make sure we're not sort of getting it in a way that harm.

others are oversteps their boundaries. So I don't think that does as long as we say, it's not being intentionally manipulated to do that. I just notice it after the fact. Yeah. We're always sad after breakups. I think the question we've got to ask is, look, breakups, breakup happen for a reason. They break up for a reason. Are we, if we're going to get back together, is there actual real potential there? Can we actually work on our relationship skills? Was this like a dumb spur of the moment breakup in a couple that's otherwise communicated really well? we're a good couple. We work well together.

And we could actually address the unmet needs and communicate through them. Or am I just feeling sad right now? Right. And I want to get rid of the sadness. Which most of the time I feel. Most of the time it's BS. Yeah. So most breakups, I think, are good things.

Yeah. And we look back at that relationship. We go, oh, I learned a lot from that. Wow. I'm learning so much about myself and about relationships. Good. I love it. That being said, was there, I know that you had like some categories that you wanted

to touch on. Was that all of that? I think one thing that might be interesting to touch on is wants and needs because we talked a lot about needs. And I think sometimes for women, especially, you have a lot of female listeners, don't you? I get a lot of women who come to me and they say, I don't know how to speak up without sounding controlling or demanding. Okay. Yeah. So this is a big one because as much as we sort of are living in an environment where it's like, oh, you know, women are getting all their needs met now.

And it's like, like, men are the problem. I mean, there still needs to be a lot of training, at least for the women that come to me, which I think is a pretty representative wide sample on how to speak to men and get their needs met without being needy or controlling. So I want to differentiate needs versus neediness. That's a good one. Because no one wants to be needy. No. Right?

But you do. You should be able to say, this is what I want. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you make sure you're doing that? Because men, like men and women are very interesting the way we balance each other out typically. This is not for every woman, but typically women are sort of the more awareness around connection. They're sort of almost like the police officers of connection in a relationship.

Just women are a bit more sensitive to that. It's probably biological pregnancy. Women are just more sensitive, that side of the spectrum. But if you have too much connection, something happens that you referred to earlier, which is you lose yourself. You become kind of molded, blended, and that's why you need boundaries and autonomy. And typically, this is the thing that men guard the most. Men are more sensitive to loss of boundaries, loss of autonomy.

A simple way that me and my partner manage this is three nights a week, we sleep in separate rooms. I love that. Because it helps me focus on work. I'm like in the zone. I don't want her around me. There's too much like stuff that needs to be done. And I always wake up in the morning more attracted to her. So that's like a simple thing that we do, for example.

Right. Right. Plus we have different bedtime. So I'm like, if she's going to bed at 10.30, I'm going to bed at 8.30. I don't want her waking me up because I've got stuff to do with there. Yeah, that's annoying. Right. I've got stuff I'm working on, you know, future family, that sort of stuff. I've got to be in work mode. So you can do little things like that to create separateness. But to the original point,

men are more sensitive to things around autonomy and freedom. So typical complaints from men will revolve around. She's needy. She's controlling. Women definitely have those complaints, but they're more common in men. You hear men talk about that more. And so women hear that and women say, well, I don't want to be needy or controlling. Men hate that. I just shouldn't ask for anything. And that's not the best response because what ends up happening is the relationship becomes devoid of difficult conversations. The woman stops being challenging. The guy kind of loses respect for her and he ends up either cheating on her or leaving her or maybe she leaves him because there's no communication. So just going, oh, I don't want to be needy so I'm not going to speak up at all is not the solution either.

So to know what to differentiate neediness from needs, first of all, neediness is the feeling of being controlled. Needs are natural and healthy. So for example, if I tell you, hey, you have to text me each morning. Would you say that's needy? Yeah. Of course, because I'm controlling you. Have is a very controlling word. You should text me each morning. Should is a very controlling word. You need to text me each morning. Need is also a very controlling word. As soon as I obligate you to do something you don't want to do, you will perceive me as needy because your autonomy is being reduced and you'll feel the instinct to lean back. So men have the same thing. So it's very important to differentiate needs from neediness. Needs is a natural consequence of

human. Safety, love, autonomy. Neatiness is obligating or forcing your partner to do something, either intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes men just perceive control even when it's not there. So it can be intentional control or unintentional control. And men have this sensitivity to that, so they pull back. So women ask this very intelligent question, how do I speak about my needs without being needy? Very smart question. Well, you've got to differentiate needs and wants. So needs are essentials. They're deal breakers. You should always make your needs. deal breakers. That's autonomy, that's connection, that's safety. There's a couple of others, but we'll just stick to those three. They should be deal breakers. Your wants, however, you're not

going to get all your wants met. So a simple example would be, let's say that I, like, I'm not a morning texter. I hate, it's just not something I would ever do with any date ever. So if a woman said, I need you to text me each morning, first of all, I wouldn't like her language, but I would say, look, that that's probably not going to happen. And what she would hopefully say in response is, okay, well, thanks for sharing your honesty, Mark. I appreciate that. I would never want you to do something that you don't want to do because I'd never want to control you. Right. At the same time, my need for connection is, I know connection is an important need for me. So what else could we figure out here? Maybe we could do a phone call twice a week. Maybe we could do a date once a week.

And then I could contribute, oh, what if I, what if I sleep over at your house on Friday night? You know, I'm playing a voluntary part now in meeting her need. And believe it or not, we men love to meet your needs. Like, there's no greater joy in life than seeing a woman like enjoy us being useful to a woman, seeing her get her needs met, her response, she smiles, she lights up. I know you're not for flowers, but like flowers can be a sign of connection, but it could also be taking her on a date. It could be planning a nice weekend. It could be touching her, giving her a massage. These are all things that create safety, that create love, that even create connection. So we love meeting your needs, but what we don't

love as being obligated. We don't love being controlled. So you have to be able to differentiate a need versus a want and make the needs non-negotiable and the wants negotiable essentially. So the need, like let's say the need is, again, love and connections an easy one. Safety would be another one. Hey, when you, what would be something that a guy does that makes a woman feel unsafe? Let's say he's walking on the footpath, the non-car side of the road and that makes her feel unsafe. She's like, hey, it would mean a lot to me if you'd walk on the other side. It makes me feel really safe. Would that be something you're open to?

And then the guy then has the autonomy to tell her yes or no. In most cases, a guy is going to say yes to that. His autonomy has been respected. He doesn't feel controlled or obligated. He's going to say, sure, if that makes you feel safe, I'd love that. And he swapped sides. Now, there might be some guys that say no. Like, I don't know why you'd say no to that, but let's just take it as an example.

So she would say, okay, safety is important to me. so in what other ways could we ensure that I feel safe with you. Maybe you always sit at the restaurant facing the door or maybe, I don't know, maybe is there a way like we learn a martial art together or something? If she really, and this is kind of a hard conversation, it's like not feeling safe with a guy, not feeling sexually attracted to a guy. These conversations can hurt egos, right?

But if you ignore them, you're just going to get unattracted very quickly. Yeah. And the cool part is once you work through these conversations, that's a hard. conversation to get through, but once you do it, it's like a flag in your relationship. It's like, oh, we did that together. So now him cheating on you burns another flag. So the more difficult stuff you work through, the more of these difficult conversations you have, understanding that, yeah,

you must get your needs met, but you've got to negotiate on your wants. And if you scream at a guy, because like, you won't take me on a date on Friday night, fuck you, you're a horrible boyfriend. What are you training him to do? Either never have conflict with you again, never be honest with you again, or just be a subservient little shit until you're not attracted to him. Yeah. So it's very important that like you make space for a guy to speak his autonomy. You make space for a guy to disappoint you. Tell him no if that's his truth.

But still hold your needs as a non-negotiable. That's the core of it. The wants play around, the needs, non-negotiable. Yeah. And I was going to say too, I think as we have said many times, communication is huge. And I think also it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Oh, 100%. You know, like I think the words that you were saying, like should need have to you.

You should like you should do this. You have to do this. Those are obviously going to make somebody feel pressured. But if there is something you want, you know, there's a way to address it too. Like you said, like it would make me feel really good if you did this. And then I think like you said too, seeing their response is going to tell you a lot based on that. So I think people should be like confident and comfortable enough to address those things, but also be aware of the words they're using and how they're saying it so that the other person doesn't feel.

targeted. 100%. And a big part of what you were saying before, you know, you said, I don't receive flower as well. A guy is, a guy is looking to what you will receive. So, I mean,

flowers is kind of a weird example. You're not going to get flowers on a first date. But a guy wants to do things on a first date that affect you because it's a reflection of the openness of your heart. Like, let's say that he plans a date for you, pays for you, takes you somewhere nice or takes you on a nice walk or something.

And you're just like, yeah, that's what you should do. Yeah. Well, the only way he's going to keep dating you if he's like a little bitch boy, and that's what he loves. Like any other man is going to want to see your responsiveness. Like he's going to want to see you emot. Like, thank you so much.

That was amazing. It doesn't have to be anything big. Just appreciation and positive feedback. It's like a Labrador. You're getting a Labrador soon. What do you do? It gets the paper. You're like, good dog.

It's amazing. Men are exactly the same as Labrador's. Like, you have to give positive feedback with emotion when they do stuff right. language. Right. Okay, I got it. It's just like dog. Like, we're all like dogs.

But men, you just got to train us like dogs. Like, give us positive feedback. And then if we do something wrong, you don't go, you're a horrible fucking dog. You should never have been a dog and like hit the dog. That just makes a dog traumatized and miserable. With a man, as you say, you need to keep the tonality right. You need to respect his autonomy and then give him feedback on the way it's made you feel. And most women don't do this.

Most women say, I feel like you're not, I feel like I'm not a priority to you. or I feel like you don't care or I feel like you're not invested in this relationship. And those are all thoughts. None of those are feelings. And when a man hears a thought, all he wants to do is debate you. Oh, you don't feel like I prioritize this relationship. Here's 10 reasons why I prioritize this relationship. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

And then you fire back and you're more verbally astute. So he goes off into a corner. And you complain because you never had your feelings heard. But you never said any of your feelings. You didn't say, hey, I feel sad that I didn't get to see you. Hey, I feel hurt that we didn't spend any time together this week. Men get that. that's how we receive our feedback.

So whether it's positive Labrador feedback or negative, do something differently, feedback, sad, hurt, disconnected, whatever your feedback is. You must use feelings because if you use thoughts, you're going to end up in a debate and you're just in the masculine energy. It's never going to hit. Yeah, and I feel like that's kind of where the vulnerability. Vulnerability, thank you. Exactly.

Ties back in. Exactly. Because I feel like a lot of people are just, the thoughts I feel like are almost a defense mechanism. It's like you just want to shout them out and say, well, this is how you feel. And you're jumping down someone's throat because you actually don't know what they think and feel. So I feel like that's when you have to be vulnerable and just actually say, it made me sad. I didn't get to see you today or I want to see you today or something, you know. Exactly. And this is where, yeah, it would mean a lot to me if I could see you today or tomorrow or

I would love it if we could organize like a regular date once a week. Would that be something you're open to? Right. And again, if the guy says no, he has every right to say no. Like you have no right to step over his boundaries if he says no, but you also have a right to speak to your need for connection. And so if he's not able to negotiate a different day and he says, well, no, I am only going to see you once a month. You say, okay, well, that sucks. I don't think we're sort of compatible around the connection need. And there doesn't have to be any malice about it, but it's just if he's in a different position where he can't meet that need, then at least he's honest. Right. Great. You've had the conversation. But nine times out of ten, the guy will actually

work through that conflict with you. And then you have a little flag that's our relationship. And that's something we've done as a team, which burns if someone breaks to trust. And the more flags you have, the more things you've done as a team, the more both parties have to lose when it all burns if someone breaks to trust. And the longer you should hopefully last with the person. The longer you should last with a person. Say I'm learning.

I'm going to be a more vulnerable, nice girl. I would say, nice isn't necessarily, maybe kind. I don't like the word nice. It's too synonymous with lack of. at boundaries. I'll be kind and vulnerable when I like somebody. Use feelings. Give them feedback. I'm trying, trying, working on it. I have things to work through. You, the, the cool thing about humans is we're most beautiful for the screwed up stuff. Yeah. Someone can be sexy on Instagram. Someone can look perfect on Instagram. But at the end of the day, if someone's all perfect, we can't

connect to that. Like, like, if you're just absolutely perfect in every way, I know I'm a human and flawed. So if you're a robot and I'm flawed, then there's no connection. Right. So you being imperfect. You need to relate. Exactly. You need to relate. So I can relate to your imperfections.

You can relate to mine. So at the end of the day, it's actually our imperfections and our flaws that create relating and relation because we are vulnerable and we are human. So you've got to bring that out, girl. Yes. Share it with those guys who deserve you. So my question is, for the girls watching, do you do like virtual sessions for people? or is it just in person?

Like, what if somebody wants your skills and your help? Yeah, I do it all virtual at the moment. Actually, I do do some in-person stuff, but it's mostly virtual. I'm starting up more in-person stuff. But yeah, if anyone wants to reach out, I've got a book or they can reach out for a one-to-one session. So we work through a lot of deep stuff with either myself or one of my coaches. And we go through the previous work, some of the trauma clearing work. There's some pretty advanced therapy.

And then we go into advice and coaching. and it's all dating and relationship skills kind of from there, building a vision and then building the skills. So you have a book and then do you have your own podcast too or no? I don't yet. I think I should start one. Hey, would you come on it if I had one?

Yes. What kind of question is that? What do you ever say no? Good, good. I was just putting you on the spot. Obviously. Yeah, no, I'm not coming on. Yes, of course I would.

Screw me, Mark. I'm not going on there. No, I think that would be great. I can see a lot of success in that. I think you should. I would listen to it. Thank you. Oh, I appreciate that.

and men. There's some men in there. They would listen. Awesome. And I feel it's great to have men on here as well. I was going to say, I think it's good too for men. Everything you say is good for men as well because I think that there's, like you said, there's not enough people with actual knowledge and wisdom talking about these topics because men don't really know either unless they're taught, you know. And it's so extreme when you hear it. It just seems it's either like extreme right wing or extreme extreme left wing. It's either like men are terrible or men are perfect and women need to change. I just don't see the, middle of the ground advice it's actually appropriate to keep the masculine feminine as well as live in

the modern age i just don't see it enough and i think too it's like no matter how good your upbringing is it's you still need to learn things yeah so i feel like it would be really beneficial too for men to hear you know what you have to say because also i mean i'm sure you could you could definitely help both parties but i feel like too just for men to have that knowledge of how a woman's brain works because i think a lot of men don't get that and they almost take it as like they get to defensive also because they think it's just a woman kind of, you know, just coming at them. But in reality, we just think differently. Yeah.

And I think a lot of men just get in this situation where it's like, I don't know what to do here. Does she want me to fix the problem? Does she want me to hear her? And they sort of men don't like feeling like failures. We don't like being, we don't mind going away and being uncertain on our own. But then when we come to you as sort of leaders or tribal leaders, you know, in the relationship or in the tribe, displaying uncertainty feels like weakness to men because it's like tribal days, you know, is that a tree or is that a coming army on the horizon?

Women look to men for the answers and for the certainty. So I think one of the challenges for men in relationships is balancing that uncertainty, which inevitably comes up with life struggles, with stuff that happens. You're going to feel uncertain as a man at some point in your relationship. It's hard to get your life perfect and to be a perfect partner. it's almost impossible to do without practice. You need to be with women and you need to be in relationships. You need to practice this stuff.

So it's hard for men. When you're in relationship, you hit that uncertainty. You're like, am I allowed to show it? Is she going to be unattracted to me? And yeah, if you show it too much, she might be. But you can't show it none or she'll divorce you. So there's sort of that middle ground there where it's like, yeah, most of the time you do need to not show it and take the lead.

But then sometime you need to be able to slow down, communicate, communicate what you're going to do about it and then go out and fix the problem. If you're sitting there in a victim pit, she's going to be unattracted. But if you have no emotions anymore, modern women are coming for the emotional needs as a big part of why they even come to relationships. They've got a lot of their own money. They've got a lot of their own success. They don't, if you're emotionally dead, they're going to go somewhere else as well. So as a man, just kind of like as a woman, we need to juggle all the balls and physically provide, financially provide and emotionally provide in sort of different ratios to what was required 50 years ago.

And that's where the love doctor comes in. I'm telling you, you're going to do so well on TikTok too. Yeah, I really need to do that more. No, you'll watch. Because Julie's going to pull out like 10, 15 TikToks from everything that you've said. And it's going to be bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I'm putting it into the universe. No, but seriously, like everything you say is so spot on.

Oh, thank you. And I so appreciate that. It means a lot to me. Yeah, of course. And I really hope that some ladies from my show reach out to you. I feel like they will. We link everything in the description. beautiful. Thank you. All of it will be there and they're going to be reaching out to the love doctor.

Thank you, Dev. It's been such a pleasure. You're so much fun. Yay. I'm so glad. This was amazing. It was great. I'm so glad you came on, kind of switched it up here on the show. Me too. Yeah. Thank you for having me. It was a real pleasure. Of course. You did amazing.