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should you keep secrets from your partner this is big yes and the data shows it will help to increase satisfaction and lower conflict in your relationship so give me an example of something that I shouldn't say to my partner here's a juicy one so what about oh even when I say out loud I know py Brunson is the world's most influential Matchmaker who Blends groundbreaking science research and over 15 years of expertise to prove that anyone can create shakable foundations for long-lasting life-changing love I read about this study that says men are approximately 624 more likely to separate if the woman gets terminally ill yes what is going on there typically it's because there is a low level of satisfaction in the relationship from not having enough sex for example but this is a major issue cuz 80% of relationships have a lower level of satisfaction today than any point in history and part of that is because most of what we know about finding and keeping love has unfortunately been fed to us through lies let's pause there because I want to talk about those myths okay so does having more sex increase the happiness in your relationship no what about having doubts in your relationship is that bad that couldn't be further from the truth really it's actually healthy to have doubts about your relationship and this is why what about if someone cheats is that the end of the relationship brilliant question and quite honestly and then what are the most important qualities I need in a partner okay this BW my mind so these are the three traits to have a phenomenal relationship number one what this has always blown my mind a little bit 53% of you that listen to the show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show so could I ask you for a favor before we start if you like the show and you like what we do here and you want to support us the free simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the Subscribe button and my commitment to you is if you do that then I'll do everything in my power me and my team to make sure that this show is better for you every single week we'll listen to your feedback we'll find the guest that you want me to speak to and we'll
continue to do what we do thank you so much [Music] good to see you again it's awesome to be here I'm going to ask you a question that assumes that I don't know who you are okay which is quite hard because I know you very well but who are you and who are you to write these two books that I have in front of me find love and keep love well who who am I I'm first and foremost a husband I'm a father uh I'm a son I'm a brother I'm a cousin I'm an uncle I'm a mentor I'm a mentee you know I'm all of those things and I feel like those are the things I am first uh but uh I have a longstanding history with relationships you know I became a Matchmaker my wife and I launched a matchmaking agency we became one of the largest agencies in the United States and what's interesting about being a matchmaker is that a lot of people don't even realize that is a career like there's legit matchmakers there's probably I'd say roughly a thousand full-time match makers around the world and what we do is we literally match people together for long-term committed relationships but what ends up happening if you're successful with that is two people enter a long-term committed relationship and because they've built up a relationship with you they have questions about how do they keep that relationship how do they keep their love so my wife and I then began to transition into counselors and coaches for married couples or couples who were in committed relationships so that's where that that started and that went on for for over a decade and then on top of that I started uh you know I had research Global Research at Tinder which is a great opportunity for me to look at a very large data set and make predictions as to what's happening with our relationships uh I host television shows uh reality TV shows which for good or for bad I think help to spark conversation about relationships that are needed so doing research there you know I do podcasts like this you know so my life actually is all about relationships and that's the reason why I wanted to to write this book and that's the reason why I feel qualified to write this book so how long ago was it that you started doing the
matchmaking oh my gosh so 2008 is when I officially began matchmaking yeah 17 years it was a long time ago the reason I asked that is a lot has changed in 17 years yes we've been through this Evol ution of dating apps and matchmaking services and things like Match.com and my question is where do you think we find ourselves today as it relates to relationships like what is the macro picture how are people feeling the person that's watching this right now that's either single and looking in a relationship and maybe struggling can you give me an overview a synopsis of how they're feeling in their head sure sure and why all right this is a great one so we're feeling different things there's a small percentage of us and I'll go to Eli fle research who wrote phenomenal books but one is called the All or Nothing marriage that I love and in it he states that if you look at marriages committed relationships that 20% of us have higher satisfaction than we ever have in the history of relationships and you think 20% one is that's fairly small and do they really have high statisfaction and and I fully believe this and the reason why is because we have tools you know we have people watch podcast read books watch television shows we have tools like we've never had before more access to therapy so 20% very satisfied but 80% more dissatisfied more upset more confused than ever before and I would say that those who are not in relationships the pool reflects that as well I think there's a 20% of singles who are hopeful and are developing the tools and developing the skills and learning active listening and all these things and they will and they believe they'll enter strong relationships they're they're very hopeful I think there's 80% out there that are perhaps hopeless disgruntled confused dismayed uh you know and and and I would say that that that's that's the landscape today that being said the reason for that is because we over the years have placed more emphasis on one partner versus having a village to lean on so so we're we're leaning more so we're we we're requiring more from our partners so what that means is that if we're requiring more if we're requiring our partner to be we
want our partner to be our best friend we all want to launch a business and be a CEO right so we want our partner to be co-ceo or coo we want our partner to be a great parent we want our partner to come home at night take their clothes off and do backflips in the bedroom right this is what we want this is what we want so we want now more from that one person versus 30 years ago 300 years ago 3,000 years ago 300,000 years ago when when humans really began 300,000 years ago so you you you look at all this and you say wow we want more so therefore for we're going to have lower satisfaction so this is what I believe the the landscape is today and if we start then with people that are looking for love people that are in search of Love um how are the the current tools because I see so much online about how people are disenfranchised with like things like dating apps and they've tried like social media and I've got so many of my friends who are struggling at the moment they're going on 100 dates a year and they're unable to find anybody and I I Ponder to myself I go you're going on 100 dates a year you're almost a professional data and you still can't find somebody it's surely that's not through lack of options or like the top of the funnel there the sort of exposure is fine but there's something further down the funnel as it relates to them being able to convert somebody that seems to be off right right but but also I would argue that it could even stem you you could go deeper to the root right so you think about attachment Styles attachment Styles I know you've talked a lot about attachment Styles attachment styles are kind of the hot thing the hot Trend that people are talking about rightfully so I like this and if you think about that there are primarily three right we know we have secure there's anxious and there's avoidant there's there are other uh variations but in essence these are the three now depending on who you talk to roughly 50 60% of the population are secure that means the balance are going to be anxious or avoidant or or or some combination so therefore if you are on a date and you have an anxious attachment style or you have an avoidant attachment style and you have someone in front of you who is the perfect match for you
they're they're they're taking off all the boxes you could be so anxious or so avoidant that you push them away or you lay blame to a certain character a characteristic or a trait that they have that means nothing to the relationship and you dismissed them you you know um this is going to sound funny but it's sad is do you know what we found when we were matchmaking what the number one reason why people did not allow someone someone to get a second date with them they had a velcro wallet velcro wallet are cool though you change no they're not you can't no no all right so you know what was it was around attraction so one it was you know physical attraction but in particular it was cuz they they smelled really they had bad breath halosis right or there was some odor now you can argue that scent plays a strong role in our partner selection Dr Tara forart talks about this quite quite a bit right so there there's uh there's a evolutionary biology that comes with scent yes I agree but to look across from someone and say you know what you you like you like your breath stinks right and I'm not going to give up the the second date and as a result of your breath stinks you have long uh fingernails you're you're you're in a track suit right for to to to look at these moments and say because of this thing I'm going to dismiss you as a partner I think for a lot of people sounds logical but then for a lot of people sounds ridiculous you know what I mean now how you got to that point is the challenge if you think it's ridiculous how you got to assuming that because someone has a tracksuit on because they have long fingernails it dismisses their their um their validity of being a great partner that is about you that is about you your attachment that is about how you've been socialized that is about so I would argue that people who are going on lots and lots and lots of dates and they still can't feel like they can find the right partner the first place to look at is yourself I do Wonder this because I think the more dates you go on the more reference points of comparison you then have for the next person so date 101 if you've been on 100 previously you've now got a 100 guys who are maybe all good at one thing and date 101 is going to be compared to the
previous 100 on all factors so maybe date 49 had great sense of humor date 53 was rich date 67 was physically beautiful now date 101 is going to be compared to all previous dates on all of those factors and you're always going to find something that is less good at least one factor that is less good than someone you dat previously and I've always wondered are you like accidentally expanding your comparison set by meeting more and more and more and more and more people y so I think this reads to uh Barry schwarz's work uh with the Paradox of choice mhm where you know what Barry Schwartz did with the par Paradox of choice which is brilliant is that when we're presented with more options which is in essence all of these dates when we choose one we have a less level of satisfaction with the choice because we saw that we had a 100 choices versus if you have three choices and you have to choose between one of those three there's going to be a higher level of satisfaction as a result a real life example is my grandmother so my grandmother grew up in I say the bush in the bush in Jamaica okay super super small town in Jamaica my grandmother literally had five or six options as a partner now as a result of my grandmother having those options when she chooses one person there's going to be more value more emphasis even more if you look at the investment Theory more investment placed in one of those options versus if she had a hundred options and she makes a a choice that choice with 100 options becomes more disposable right so this is one issue that we have in terms of giving ourselves so many options the other challenge with this is when you watch people date they typically date the same person you know it's typically it's typically the S the same characteristics even physically you know the the the same I argue that some of the greatest value that we we can receive in the dating Market if you want to look at as dating Market is to take ourselves out of our uh our our Market if you will and put yourself in someplace different right I call this the premium effect so so so an example of this is I had a friend who was a white woman roughly 35 years old who lived in Northern London and she was like Paul I'm dating all
these guys you know I can't find the right one blah blah blah blah blah blah I said 'l look you love art don't you she said yeah yeah I love art I said all right I want you to take yourself down to the black cultural archives in Brixton and I want you to go to this you know this exhibit that they're having and she was like brixon said I said yeah brickton is brickton is cool I go there all the time right I want you to go there now why did I ask you to go I asked her to go because the moment that she goes characteristically she's not going to look the same these are mostly going to be black men and women perhaps even a little bit younger than she is different culturally right but yet they have the same value in art and their appreciation for creativity Etc the moment that she goes there what happens some people in the room look at her like what what she doing here like why is she here those are the close-minded people Carol dwick talks about this in her book mindset we have closed-minded open-minded those are the closed-minded but how do the open-minded react to to my friend they lean in what are you doing here and they're curious and they engage and all of a sudden she opens her network to a whole new group of people some of those could be romantic interest some of those could be platonic they could be friends so when we're dating the serial daters especially the hundred people is it's important for you to step outside of your sphere if you will I want to pick up on something there you said that white woman went into a black space and in that black space you wouldd be considered a premium because basically her characteristics make her rare yes right I was just doing some research then and it says that studies and surveys in indicate that ethnic minorities particularly Asian men and black women often face unique challenges in dating in both the UK and the US and these challenges stem from a combination of social stereotypes cultural biases and the preference expressed on dating platforms and the reason I'm asking this question is to it's not a lived experience I have because I'm not an Asian man although sometimes people think I am there are a group group of people where I don't have a shared lived
experience who are struggling in ways in the western world that like maybe me and you don't understand yeah it no it definitely definitely you know we we have to understand that we exist in a highly racist society and a lot of people don't like to acknowledge it don't like to talk about it like to sweep it under the rug but when it comes to dating it shows up like in this in this statistic that you're talking about now now let's think about this if you are someone who is not black and you are interested in a black I'm sorry you're interested in a partner and then you're and you've had no experiences with black people other than maybe watching some black people on on television and your parents in your community have said all kinds of crazy things about about black people and you have all types of negative belief structures around black people and then and you're a man you're say a white man and you're presented with a black woman on a dating app are you going to swipe on this person no you're you're you're not because you don't understand how incredible she is how smart she is how beautiful she is like you don't you have no appreciation so the reason why they're Swip they're not swiping is their ignorance that's that's that's what it is and that's this is the reason why one of the most important things we can do is widen our social groups this is the most important thing I mean it positively impacts our romantic relationships it positively impacts our life is that we need to have a diverse set of people that we interact with and truly understand how beautiful how beautiful people who are different than us actually are is there a bit of a systemic issue here as well because when I was thinking about your grandmother growing up in that Village in Jamaica that you referenced she would spend a lot of time because of the nature of how she would meet that person in the vill that other man in the village getting to know him Beyond his surface level appearance yes so if he lived across the street she would interact with him see his behavior he might have long fingernails you know but she she gets to learn that he's a kind generous person and he's got a good sense of humor so she can look past the velcro wallet and the long fingernails but in the way that we've designed
dating in the modern world where most people now I believe are meeting online in some form whether it's social media or other we're actually purely judging someone in the fingernails we have we make a decision in a couple of seconds whether this person is comp compatible or not and obviously that's not possible um and I just see I just feel this real strong sense of um dissatisfaction frustration and uh desperation yes from people at the moment as it relates to finding someone yes and I just think the systems that we've built social networking the screens have have only exacerbated this frustration and Desperation my question which is somewhat linked to this is really around the old ways of doing things like you were talking about your grandmother and I was really curious about one subject in particular and wondered if you you had any data on this which is arranged marriages yes yes are arranged marriages as successful as the relationships we form today via social media screens etc etc because you know back in the day we were kind of put together um with somebody based on I don't know family or economic reasons did those marriages succeed many of us don't want to acknowledge how successful arranged marriages actually have been and continue to be really continue to be but we have to look at the why right now when people hear this they immediately say oh well what about all the abuse and the dissatis action that happens in these relationships does it happen absolutely but it also happens in non arranged marriages at significantly High rates so why are arranged marriages so successful to some researchers they have a higher level of satisfaction than non- arranged marriages and here's the reason why the reason why is because you have families coming together and negotiating and determin in whether or not this particular person fits within their family structure and what does that mean that means that you have literally a mother a father a grandmother grandfather a brother a sister who come together and they discuss and debate the characteristics they discuss and debate whether or not this person is an upstanding you know is this an
upstanding human being you know is is this person open-minded is this person going to be resourceful right are they resilient they debate these characteristics and the reason why it's so beneficial is because the person getting married is not involved and they're not involved because they would be entirely biased what happens today is incredibly dangerous what happens today is when we meet someone we typically do not involve any friends and family we are already infatuated with the person so we're obsessed with them therefore we can't even determine whether or not they have any of the traits that we want we are living through our own trauma and we're not even selecting them typically they are selecting us so we end up sliding if you will into a relationship that was never right for us to begin with whereas in arranged marriages you have a true debate happening around whether or not someone will fit within that with within the life of that individual another example is why my wife and I in a matchmaking agency we pioneered something that had never been done at least to our knowledge in matchmaking like Stephen if you were a client of ours you came you would be the perfect client at that time right because we had many men who were uh incredibly successful professionally and felt as if okay what I'm missing is I'm missing love I'm missing partnership so if you came to us as a client instead of me saying all right Stephen tell me what you want right and you give me this long list I know you'd give me a list of like 150 things that you want right instead I would say no no no you go sit over there I'm not I'm not even going to talk to you instead let me talk to your brother let me talk to your co-workers let me talk to your exes yes let me talk to your exes let me get a 360 perspective of who you you are from the people who you are closest to and I would then build out a profile based on the consensus of what they're telling me this is so true I've got a one of my best friends in the world has struggled with a few of my best friends but there's two I'm thinking about in particular but one I really want to focus on he's struggled
in relationships for the last I'd say 15 years and every single time he gets in a relationship as his friend I get that's not that's not it that's not it and every single time he gets with somebody else I go that's not it either and I after this last relationship failed I sat with him and I I'm trying not to like you know intervene too much but I said bro I will know I feel like the same way that he knew when I'd found the right one and he would lit if I was to dump my current partner he would literally reverse the decision yes he would write an executive order to reverse the decision because he knows that person is exactly what was right for me in the same way I could literally draw a picture I could tell you the occup ATI the age of the the right person for him based on knowing him and him being my best friend for 10 15 years but for some reason he goes for everything opposite than that right and I've always wondered this I've always wondered like should we be picking our friends partners for them no I if if as a society we went back to our nearest and dearest family and Social Circle yeah and I want to emphasize the people who we TR truly love cuz like not all family's family yeah so if we had that Circle making the decision for us we would have much higher satisfaction rates in marriages without question or much higher satisfaction rates in in Partnerships it's because of precisely what you said reading a study here it says a 2012 study published in the Journal of comparative family studies found that couples and arranged marriages in collectivist cultures reported similar or higher levels of satisfaction over the long term compared to those in love marriages yes yes go back Eli 80% of our marriages have a lower level of satisfaction today than than than any point in in history and and you think about even what we were uh you think about the emphasis that we place on the individual this this is something that needs to really be emphasized because the the more that we require our partner to deliver everything to us the higher their bar becomes the expectation and the moment that they're not meeting that expectation we're we're not satisfied now they could be delivering on nine out of 10 things but because our expectation
is 10 we have low satisfaction because ultimately that's what satisfaction is is satisfaction is really based on our expectation so what do we do about that because a lot of people will be able to relate to this idea that their partner is multiple things in their life or that they feel like they are expected to be their Partners therapist maybe financier um best friend uh Sports uh buddy on the weekend to play paddle with um I don't know life coach Etc some people will feel that pressure while they're also trying to run their own life what' you do about it because you can't come home and say babe listen it's over I'm only going to be your boyfriend from now on a lot of people people won't like this but we have to lower our expectation of our partners we really do and and and what I mean by this is first we have to be begin with determining what do we want out of our partnership because if we go back and we don't have to go back thousands of years we can literally go back to my grandparents the decisions were not am I going to get all 10 things from my partner it is three of the the 10 things and I'll be satisfied with the three of the 10 things why because I have a full community that I can go to of friends co-workers colleagues people who you know in my running club that I can go to for uh for for other facets of my life confidence intellectual stimulation whatever it may be so that's where it begins what what do you want from your marriage then the next step becomes all right are you then prepared to do the work required to sustain that relationship you know uh the the Gans who I know you you've had on the podcast and are really the foremost experts in the world around couples therapy right John and Julie gotman they said something to me that was profound when I was talking to them and that is we're all compatible with each other and and let that sit in for a second it's like okay what does that really mean what it means is that if I were to drop you with another human being on a desolate Island and say that's it it's just the two of you for the rest of your lives you were going to form a very strong emotional bond and chances are you're going to form a very strong physical and sexual Bond right
why because you are required there's no other outlet but to make it work with them look at today we don't feel like we have to make it work there's countless options we can just leave right and and so the this notion that we are compatible with everyone I think is profound because what it means is that you can get through that you can you can increase your satisfaction by putting in the work I um I can totally relate to that I remember working in a call center once upon a time and I was broke and lonely and as I worked in this call center it was late rooms call center in cheet Mill in man Chester um I basically like fell in love with the girl sat next to me in the call center now listen um I've seen her since I think 10 10 years later she came to one of my meetting greets which is she's called Rosie I literally she's probably the first time she realized I fell in love with her but in the context of there not being many options and me being a guy that basically had no other options I wasn't going out to my clubs I couldn't afford it I just fell in love with someone who was in close proximity and I just was really really into her and it shocked me because objectively speaking had I written down what my type was at that period of my life I wouldn't have written that but just because we were held in close proximity for long enough I found the the the attraction yes it the attraction came to be unfortunately that's not the world we live in and in fact one of my friends who's struggling the most in relationships her job is literally to meet people that's like the the base premise of her job and she can't find anyone MH and I think part of what we're what what I'm seeing there is we've described with having too many options but what does someone do about that do they like what's the what's the actionable thing to do if you live in the modern world and you're struggling to find somebody even though you realize that if you were held in a room with five total strangers you'd probably fall in love with one of them yeah it's it's tough right but it always begins with self and self-awareness and I would literally start at well what is my attachment that will inform an incredible amount if she goes back and does the work and realizes that she is
avoidant that will begin to fill in the gaps as to why maybe she's been emotionally distant relationships why she feels like she doesn't need anyone right why people need to jump an even higher bar to be in a relationship with her start with your attachment and realize that if you are avoidant or you are anxious you can earn a secure attachment and there's work that's involved but you can do that and by by the way you can do that without a therapist it's always advisable to go with therapist but let's face it the wait times for therapists the uh the cost for a therapist they're they're not and also the number of therapists on a per capita basis is is decreasing so they're not as accessible as often it we we make it at the mount to see so that's one is you want to start with self that's one secondly is really get grounded on the type of relationship that you want and the reason why this is important is because therefore you can make it clear what your boundaries are when you begin to engage with people because I always say that if you don't assert your boundaries you can take well-intentioned people and turn them into bullies just as a result of not asserting your boundaries so in order to know your in order to assert your boundaries you have to know your boundaries so that's the second piece is beginning to know okay what do I want what do I want for example there are hundreds of variations of relationships that you could have today my grandmother right there was one it was committed relationship committed marriage until you die that was it now you don't have to be married you could live apart but be together see each other on weekends you can decide I want we we don't want to have children you can decide like there are hundreds of variations be very clear on what your what you want and when I say assert your boundaries is assert what you are interested in right from the beginning the the these three steps are incredibly important I want to talk about the different variations of relationships and a lot of the sort of myths that keep us held in the the sort of modern idea of what a relationship looks like okay but you said something there which I which sparked a thought that I had read in
your book um when you said till death do us part yes I read about this study that says that cancer research on heterosexual couples found that if a man becomes terminally ill and his wife becomes the caretaker there was a 2.9% separation rate if the woman is terminally ill and their male partner becomes the caretaker they leave at a 21% rate which basically means that men are approximately 64% more likely to separate from a woman woman if the woman gets sick yes and that was on page 48 of your new book keep love yes what the [ __ ] is going on there that is alarming shocking and it was so alarming and shocking I had to include the study in the book for for me and and I wrote this in the in the chapter around love is conditional and we have to understand that the myth that presents itself is that love is unconditional it is you know if you find the right person there's no condition that could be true with your children right your child could go do something heinous and I believe there could or would still be love for them but that's not the case with our partners and for us to be aware that there are conditions when we go into these relationships that's the most important so it's almost a warning sign in particular to women in that chapter to say there there are conditions and unfortunately when people have gone through and interviewed these men who have left the the the women at at at on on their deathbed and even the women because it's 2.9% of women leave men even the women who've left the men what they will say is that they're no longer getting fill in the blank they're no longer getting the emotional intimacy they're no longer getting the physical intimacy they're no longer getting the you know you fill in the blank and as a result of no longer getting this thing and the thing is the condition they're out so why men though 600 they're over 600% more likely to leave a termin Le old partner than women are yeah you know there's a disproportionate amount of the relationship that's placed on the physical side of the relationship right sex sex yeah you're like Paul say actually what it is well it's it's not all about sex right it's not all about sex but what it typically means is that there is a low level of satisfaction in
the relationship and as a result of there being a lowlevel of satisfaction and the low level of satisfaction could come from not having enough sex or not having the sex that they like it could have could be from there's a you know there's no respect they don't feel like there's equity in the relationship whatever it may be but because there's already a low level of satisfaction when they go into a place where the the the the partner is terminally ill they're more ready to leave right this is normally what you see what you see happen when you see um a partner leave another partner where you see infidelity happening is you see that there was already a low level of satisfaction the level of satisfaction in the relationships not only dictate the survivability of the relationship it dictates the survivability of us there was a study done James coin this this one blew my mind he pulled 200 patients who had congenital heart disease right so not terminally ill but as close as you get to terminally ill and he was able to look at the 200 and he broke down the group based on those who have a high level of satisfaction and those who have a low level of satisfaction in their relationship two years later the couples who had a high level of satisfaction the person in that partnership who had congenital heart failure you know what they died about 11% of the time so 11% they died but those who had a low level of satisfaction two years later 45% of them had died think about that little greater than three times the likelihood of death because of the low level of satisfaction in the relationship so the satisfaction in the relationship is the key and this is part of what I've been trying to drive in this book and a lot of my messaging is that we place too much value on longevity it's ridiculous when I sit down for interviews typically the top see and thank you for not asking me this the typically the first two or third question is Paul how so you've been married for how long how long have you been married how long have you been married and the idea is that because I've been married for 23 plus years that I'm successful in my marriage it's ridiculous it's ridiculous the question
should be how satisfied are you in your marriage or in your partnership and so we can't we have to stop putting emphasis U on on the longevity and really focus on the satisfaction how satisfied are you in your marriage Stephen this [Music] [Laughter] is I hate you fing this question no no I am so the reason why I your wife and we got her answer before so we'll just compare yeah you tell me what she said you sure you want to know on on air what the reason why I hate trying to answer a question like this is because so many people are say oh I don't believe I don't believe what this guy say truly hand on my heart word to my children I have the highest level of satisfaction with Jill you know with my best friend today than ever ever ever ever ever ever and I think the reason for this is because of the enormous amount of work that we put in you know a lot of people don't realize is that when I read a stat Jill is typically right next to me last night literally last night we're in the bed and we are talking about the history of marriage and we're debating Clovis the first of Franks and how he made an impact in relationships we're always discussing these topics and as a result of having the conversation around these topics it helps us to be open it helps us to dialogue it helps us to debate it helps us to have doubt it helps to have trust and autonomy and therefore it helps us to have this strong level of communication and emotional intimacy that then feeds into all aspects of our life into our sex life right into our ability to parent our our our children into our work right all of this feeds from having the strong connection so the satisfaction is Sky High and this is a topic that it was funny because I was like I know Stephen does the research so he could have asked Jill I am very confident Jill would say the same the reason why is because we always check in with each with each other we're always check how are you feeling right now right are do we feel like we're going in the right direction you know when I think about do you have strong satisfaction in your relationship
the questions that always come to mind is do you feel safe with your partner do you feel safe do you feel like you can express your true vulnerability to them right that's one secondly is do you feel respected you know with John gottman's research number one you know he saw he could predict divorce at 99 plus perc or 90 plus perc because of contempt or disrespect in the relationship so do you feel like you have respect another one are you optimistic about where the relationship is going which suggests how much effort and work your part is placing in the relationship so many of us are hopeless about the the future is because we know our our our partner's not doing anything to to to to further the relationship so are you nurturing the relationship many of us are quick to focus on self-love now and nurturing ourselves but the question is how much nurture are you giving to the relationship because that's a separate entity you talking there about sort of the pillow talk with Jill about relationships and constantly it being part of the conversation in your household one of the things that I was I was pondering as you said that is should we spend more time talking about the relationship with our partner because if I think about the relationship I'm in now we spend a lot of time talking about the relationship um whereas in previous relationships it was kind of the elephant in the room all the time so we never really had an opportunity or a forum to ask those questions right about unmet needs or are you happy etc etc and I just think that probably the missing piece for a lot of people in relationships is they just don't have a a space in their week where they sit and talk about the relationship itself yes so so yes should we be speaking more absolutely would it save many Partnerships absolutely would it increase the satisfaction absolutely do we not have enough time I would say this becomes our copout like we're so busy with life think about this I'm so busy with life that I can't give the person that I plan to spend the rest of my life with time right we have to prioritize our relationship with our partner we have to prioritize this we have to figure out when we can build in
time to talk and we have to actually talk about the real things you know I'm willing to bet that most men don't even realize especially in in in in heterosexual relationships heteronormative uh relationships most men don't even realize that their partner doesn't even orgasm when they have sex like you look at the orgasm Gap and you say oh my God you have men orgasming at 95% and women at roughly 65% maybe a little bit higher in in these committed relationships that means that there's a significant percentage that never orgasm I bet you their partner has no idea no noide idea why because there's there hasn't been a conversation around it now the issue is a two-way street it's not only the man's issue that he needs to be aware and have the conversation but she also needs to be able to tell him but you know why she probably doesn't tell him because she doesn't want herur his feelings she has not she's not been having an orgasm for the last 10 years so she feels like if she brings it up now it's going to be detrimental to the relationship so she's trying to protect him right right and or she's embarrassed or whatever it may be he is completely oblivious and unaware and they never talk about their sex life a matter of fact their sex life is a script which is typically most people's sex life it's just a script it's two or three moves that are done man orgasms women woman doesn't that's it think of how powerful it would be if they could just simply have dialogue and discussion it's hard to start that behavior though I imagine in your Rel reltionship with Jill you guys are pretty Advanced right so if you're level one what's level one in karate is it like a white belt oh yeah white belt if you're like a white belt in this stuff where there been 10 years you and your partner just really don't talk about these things it's kind of always been the elephant in the room loads of words have been unsa what would you suggest as like a good starting point to to get the ball rolling in this Direction all right I like this so baby steps so in the book I talk about how we have to normalize the fact that we will be attracted to people other than our partner no one wants to talk about that no one wants to talk about you know it's just my partner
that's it I'm not looking at anyone else right are you attracted to other people oh my Sten come on man are you AB but but absolutely absolutely and not only that and there are different forms of Attraction you know there's physical there's there's sexual attraction there's there's emotional attraction but to your question of what do you do if you're level one in your relationship is you start with these baby steps so Jill and myself we had to start around this topic of Attraction because I had a very hard time just thinking about my wife being attracted to someone else I couldn't fathom it the jealousy the anxiety the anxiousness I have an anxious attachment style so so it just it was just fear right and there there many different things that that that that you can do but I'll give two one is that you just have to normalize that these behaviors are a part of our Human Experience well all have physical attraction some of us will have sexual attraction some of us will have emotional attraction to people who are not our partners if anyone denies it they are lying okay this is one we have to normalize this we normalize it then we begin having conversations around it so what my wife and I used to or did around this and she uh will hate me for saying this but I wrote I wrote this in the book so it's it's it's cool is um we started talking about celebrities easy low-level way people who are arm length distance who do you find attracted blah blah blah I saw that my wife as does I think 99.999% of uh women and Men loves Idris Elba she's like Idris is is is is it to the point where I was like will you leave me for I think she will leave me for it's like she will definitely leave me for this man but we begin having conversations around it it becomes a bit of a joke right it is embedded in our in in the normalization of it and then I begin to do what I call taking my thought to court take your thoughts to court right whereas I would identify okay what is the issue what's the emotion it's actually fear if Jill's talking about someone else she was with it was it was fear but then I and then then I then I draw on that fear what am I in fear of I'm in fear of her of her leaving me she's just going to leave me right but then take that thought to
court what are the facts that can that that what are the facts that I have to support or discredit those feelings well I've been with Jill for 20 plus years right she has never we have a high level of satisfaction it's normal to have attraction right so you take your thoughts to court and then you could begin to recalibrate your perspective on the thing so it gets to the point where do you know that every anniversary Jill gets the biggest bouquet of flowers from Idris Elba I write love Idis Elba so I I'm I'm writing so I've now it's now it's moved to a point where I couldn't even stand this idea to now it's it's so normalized I'm I'm it's jokes about it so so it's very important for us to normalize have these conversations take our thoughts to court and if we are and we have to realize this and I wrote about this in the book is that it is also healthy to have doubts about your relationship we're told that if you're in the greatest relationship if you found your soulmate you should never have doubts myth myth right it's healthy to have doubts but there are healthy doubts and there's unhealthy doubts if it is a doubt that is about uh the growth of your relationship that's healthy to express that if it is a doubt that is predicated in your own fear or your anxieties your traumas that's that's that's unhealthy so to know that informs you know how how how how how Jill and I have have tackled that idea of let's normalize a conversation is this a healthy doubt it is let's build this into to to our relationship so Jill so uh I know jills adors ID Ela and she knows I would leave her for Beyonce yeah I mean that's fair yeah I I just I can just imagine that I've got a certain type of listener who is more how would you word it advanced in terms of the like belt you know when I talked about white belts and black belts more advanced in their curiosity their um Intrigue their willingness to like develop and evolve in the relationship I would bet and this is stereotyping I understand that it's typically women more than men that are like more open-minded to like learn to grow to deepen the bond I think it's t
typically women more than men I would Hazard a guess that it's more women buying your books than men yes and and I'd Hazard a guess that when I make conversations about love and relationship it's typically not always because I can kind of see the numbers but typically more women that are trying to learn to deepen their relationships so I imagine there's a certain person in my audience that sat there thinking I want to do this I want to have these conversations with my partner I want to take down some of these walles and start talking about the lack of orgasms I've had in the last couple of years I want to talk about x y and Zed but I know if I bring this conversation up to Dave Dave's gonna like think I'm weird he's gonna like roll his eyes and like put the football back on and um and I feel a sense of dissatisfaction in this relationship but because we just don't have a bridge of communication I feel like I'm faced with a choice now do I just leave this guy or do I just stick tolerate it and put up with this and that like first step to Bridging the Gap what is it do I turn the football off and scream at him do I do I send him the link to this podcast I think that's probably the best option I think it's just keep sharing the podcast I think I think sharing the podcast with everyone you know I think is probably the I'm joking no no no no no no no laughing I was like I was with you I was like this is this is it but I thought it's really pushing this yeah yeah he said it five times the link truly this is the first step uh so say it's uh it's uh it's lah and Dave yeah okay L's listening to us right now and she wants to deepen her emotional connection with her partner Dave what does she do she sends Dave a link to this podcast and she says let's listen to this together let's have a date night let's listen to this together and let's just talk about what's happening you know what I've noticed with um with one of the shows that I co-host mared at First Sight UK what I'm so proud about is I'm stopped all the time by men and they'll say Paul I watch your show with my partner and our kids watch it as well and we debate what you're saying and sometimes we disagree with you but sometimes we agree with you and I think
this is what we need because just talking about it and having the conversation around it helps to contribute to awareness which puts you on the path to developing skills which then allows you to begin to heal and ultimately that's what therapy is therapy is healing and so having the dialogue based on this podcast based on a book based on a television show is truly not just a first step that's a a significant step towards your black belt I am thinking about the history of relationships I often wonder how many of the rules of relationships that we've been handed by Society are now invalid or maybe we're never valid so you know we have these sort of constructs of like marriage and monogamy and um even like heterosexuality all these things that have been passed to us through religion and through history I was looking at some stats about marriage and it says that in 2019 marriage rates for opposite sex couples fell to their lowest on record since 1862 that's in the UK and in the US marriage rates have been declining since the early 1970s I I'm not married but I spend a lot of time thinking about whether I should be or not I actually had a conversation recently with my partner where I said do you want to get married and it was abundantly clear that she does want to get married but then I asked why and really it seems like it was really just more for the wedding than then for some kind of legal contract that we sign with the government so I'm I'm I'm I'm really wondering based on everything we know about history and the tradeoffs of marriage should I be getting married yes because your partner wants to is that reing enough but but here all right so um I think the institution of marriage what you're going to see this is my my my prediction is is that because nuclear families what do you mean by nuclear family so having um to well it's interesting there's there's different perspectives now on nuclear family but I look at it as you have two partners and children and that creates the nuclear family that becomes an economic unit which drives a society and as that has disappeared
there's been less of a base to drive Society per many researchers so as a result what I believe is going to happen as we see right now in Singapore as we see right now in China as we see right now in Japan you're going to see government heavily involved in incentivizing marriage and marriage is already incentivized right now in terms of uh you know tax benefits uh being able to um uh you know leave assets to your partner leave assets to family members so as a result of the decrease of marriage and decrease of of nuclear families you will see government step up even more to incentivize so you're going to see all types of benefits being thrown at people to to to to get married you know especially as you not only see marriage rates decline but as you also see birth rates declining as they as they are now your question around what what what should you do is that um this is a question around values and this is a question that I believe is very important to have early on now I was saying you know when you meet someone you should lay out exactly what you want this is a very important question to have early early on now in terms of where you where you are with your partner I would say that if she is for if she is Pro Pro this and you were indifferent sounds like it feels like you're indifferent not anti but indifferent yeah I think I'm I'm somewhat agnostic um to it however I can call out a bunch of downsides to getting married really like uh well again I don't know because I'm not married so all the married people are like screaming at me right now I know this because they DM me they've been dming me for many many years since I started the D Co because in some of those early episodes I was really like not I was really quite against it but um over time I've kind of developed my thinking here I just wonder I can't understand the first principles as to why having a like government or religious contract with somebody is going to increase the probability of success in the union of Love um there's obviously the issue with the prenup situation I actually don't have this concern with my my partner so I think she's um I think you've met her you you've met her yeah yeah uh yeah from a distance yes from a distance yeah I I
don't a concern that she's going to try and bankrupt me or that I might try and bankrupt her um so that's not really a concern um the whole charade of like doing a massive wedding I think is a little bit weird I think why can't we just have lots of events over the next 50 years where we bring our friends and family versus like one I've also watched a couple of my friends at the moment who are getting married the the like two years of pain in heart a can like canceling date nights so that they can afford this one wedding day yeah feels like highly logical to me I've got one particular friend who is having to cancel so much of their like everyday joy to save up for this one big event which is stressing them both out and I don't think they're going to have well I don't think he's going to have a great time at the wedding anyway because he seems so stressed by it all I just I sometimes hear that people can't like get out of their marriage without having to like file a divorce um thing with like the with through lawyers and going to court and battling out in court I just think you should be free to leave if you want to leave I don't know I just think this is a terrible analogy and completely unrelated but like in football many of the problems we see with my favorite Club Manchester United at the moment is we've got people on fiveyear contracts who we just can't get rid of and like they want to go we want them to go but because we sign these long contracts with them it's like incredibly difficult and you now these players have been like thrown in the back room and they're not playing football and we're like just completely ignoring them because we can't get out the contract yes so I I just think yeah I hear you I hear you all right can we talk about this yes all right there are many secular marriages so you don't have to do anything religious related and it sounds like a big difficulty that you have could could be the the number one is the wedding because but the wedding to me the premise of it is a public Declaration of your love and to your point it could be a small as you want it could be as big as you want you could have as many as you want right that public declaration Could Happen 50 times
over 50 years it is up to you so that is you and your partner navigating that space with regard to getting out of it this is the single biggest change that we need in marriages marriages in my opinion should be much harder to get into you shouldn't be able like literally you and your partner could go to Vegas Drive up so a drive-thru you could have an Elvis Presley impersonator marry you you pay $25 and you're married it's ridiculous I think that there needs to be there needs to be hurdles in place there needs to be some type of vetting some type of premarital coaching counseling so everyone is aware of the commitment that is about to be made and you have the tools you have skills around Conflict Management Etc needs to be hard but then if you want out you should be able to get out in an hour it should be easy drive up Elvis Presley says it's over $25 it's free yeah yeah free right that's the way it should be but it is the the the the the reverse now you're right marriage is hard to get out of that's changing there's now the introduction especially in the UK of the no fault right but but that still takes it still could take 6 months or so there still is a lot of haggle so so I I agree with you there is that it should be much easier to get out but ultimately what marriage is is marriage is a declaration of commitment done in a formal way can you not do that without the marriage like can you not do a declaration of commitment without having to go to like a church or whatever else and sign documents and stuff I don't know is it not possible I it is you know it is it is so I think I just have commitment issues I think that's probably what it is yeah I think that's the core of it because you know what's so interesting to me is that you're already going to well how do I get out of this yeah right and it almost feels as if there is a fear of committing to someone for the rest of your life because that that's a massive I mean think about this you're going to commit to someone for the rest of your life for the rest of your days and what we feel because I've been there because when I I'm getting anxiety as you say it I'm like [ __ ] know the rest of my
life the rest of your life but think about this the anxiety is the fear of what is not even come yet so that means that you can now interrogate your thoughts okay you have fear over what what's the fear but isn't it just a terrible idea to commit to someone till death do you part because like imagine if I said to you you got to pick a job and then you got to do it forever yes you would the amount of procrastination that would occur because of the significance of that decision would would basically stop you picking any job at all because you'd be like I can know I got to pick one and do it forever and you know you'd be you'd become a perfectionist you know you'd be looking for perfection in every single job and maybe this is in part the issue is that because we see marriage as being such a final thing that we really have to make sure the pick is perfect is perfect I agree this is one of the myths right this whole notion of till death do us part which really was handed to us in religion if you look through Christianity Hinduism even a lot of the modern day Islamic marriage ceremonies there's some formation of you will be with this partner for the rest of your life and I think what that does is it actually sets us up for a lower level of satisfaction it sets us up for complacency oh this is all we get right it instead they can't leave me they can't leave me so therefore I don't have to try as hard I don't even have to talk to them now yeah I don't have to get to the gym no I can just sit here like so that is a myth though because we know where where divorce rates are separation rates are we know that there are you can get a divorce so you can get out she can get out we have to we have to put that to the side but the key is is to think about when I always like interrogate the fears is well what's the upside what's the upside of having a partner for Life what what would you say upsides I mean I could also name the upsides I think so there's a certain sense of stability and focus that comes when you know that home is kind of locked down so as an entrepreneur in particular I I advise anybody that's going to pursue a big grueling tumultuous uncertain challenge like building a business business to have a
partner at home um and and I know Sir Alex Ferguson was big on this when he was selecting players for Manchester United he would often inquire about whether they were in a relationship because if they had a stable home life then they would be much more focused on a training ground and I see that with myself you need a stable base um if you're single I think as an entrepreneur it can become an immense distraction an immense distraction because on one hand you're trying to build something over here and you're trying to build something over here I think marriage is useful as well because when you know that it's hard to get out of it means that exiting isn't the path of least resistance which means that you you probably will go to therapy first and you probably will see if you can fix it and figure it out versus just throwing it away yes so it becomes less disposable yes which means that you're more likely to fight to fix the thing um and what are the other upsides um I mean the stats right so the stats around health and wealth all suggest that if you're in a good productive healthy relationship you're going to earn more money I think it's 4% more a year in a productive uh marriage both Partners net earn 4% more a year and according to Robert waldinger who came on the show you're going to live longer so I get it yeah and you're going be healthier you're going to be healthier yeah yeah L less disas come on Stephen I know you know do you know what it is I'm not trying to throw the marriage out I'm wondering if there's an alternative which do you know what it is part of me as well if you look at the way I've live my life I've always tried to test the system so school like not going to school dropping out of University being an entrepreneur there's always been a bit of a [ __ ] you and me to the system and a real pause in questioning what I'm being handed as the right answer to interrogate whether it's still valid now okay so like many of the answers I was given you go to university then you go get a job and then you hand out your CV all of these things proved in my life to just be BS there was a better way so when I I'm approached with a conventional system like marriage immediately I go hm let's interrogate this thing and I would say I'm with you
throw the system out think about just one thing and you you said this and there's research behind this it's the investment model Right theory so the more you invest in the preparation of your partnership in the actual partnership the more that you're investing time res all resources the higher satisfaction you have that's fact right that's that's that's research that's in essence what you're saying right so that's the way I that I would approach it is how can I invest as much as I can in this partnership with this person that I love what is it that predicts a successful marriage in your view well once again what is success is it to to me success is high satisfaction High satisfaction is has a strong correlation around well-being uh Dr Carol riff I think is the OG of well-being she doesn't get enough credit she created a model called The Six Dimensions of psychological well-being and in essence if we are working to increase each one of these Dimensions so for example one is having a vision of your life like what is that Vision that you have for life and the question though is do you feel like you are actively in pursuit of that Vision if you don't feel like you know what your vision is or you're not in pursuit of it you're going to have lower well-being right so the higher well-being that you have individually the higher satisfaction you have in your relationship the more successful your relationship is all that like fundamental qualities that I should be looking for in a good partner oh yeah I mean there's a million but the the core the core that I I like to write about is and and I'll actually I I'll even uh synthesize it you want to have a partner who is aware of their well-being and who is focused on their well-being this this is this is incredibly important because one of the most profound re uh bits of research that I I feel like I included in the book is that most of us believe that having alignment in the values of our partner is the most successful or is the high is the number one determinant of having a successful partnership we think it's about values we're told it's about values we're fed values which by the way goes back to you know where that goes
back to religion you know how have you heard of you need to be equally yolked no oh you haven't heard this you're not reading your Bibles exp me all right so the Bible talks about you have to have a partner you have to find a partner who's equ equally yolked what does that really mean equally yolked comes from oxen right so two you have one Ox here one Ox here they're tethered together they're plowing the land if they're walking lock step they can plow the land if you have one going off this way one going off this way you can't plow the land you can't produce so the Bible says you need to have a partner who is equally yolked pastors then interpreted that over the years to be what values you need to have a partner who shares your value vales has the same religion has the same accent this is how we became regimented in class this happened Century after Century after Century right we get to today you ask anyone on the street we grab 10 people nine out of 10 would say and and we said how important are values nine out of 10 would say values is everything what values change they change I value things much differently today than I did 10 years ago our values change they're not constant we need to throw away values are they important yes are they the most important no so therefore let's deemphasize the focusing on finding someone who matches all of our values instead well-being key are they focus on their well-being that's one two yeah values is important but you know what what's what's what's equally if not more is you know what how open-minded are they like H how how how much do they lean in how how curious are they and then the third is how resilient are they because having a relationship with anyone means tough times so are they able to bounce back or when things get tough do they just lay on their back so if you have a partner who's resilient you have a partner who's open-minded you have a partner who's focused and nurturing their well-being you have a great partner what about ambition does that matter I I think ambition is a value set okay e yeah I just wonder because a lot of
people would say that they want that in a partner but just by I mean like running the mental numbers not everybody can be ambitious and people that aren't necessarily hugely ambitious also find love and keep love but when you ask them on what they're looking for they'll tend to have a preference towards someone who's ambitious or goal orientated one of the things we talked about kind of in between the lines was how Society has changed and one of the ongoing conversations in dating at the moment is around how women are struggling to find compatible men because women are more educated I think there's more women graduating with college degrees now the top 10% of men seem to be having all of the sex According to some studies that I read a lot of the sex and then there's this bottom 50% of men that are somewhat disenfranchised because they they're not getting the attention they're probably turning to things like pornography women are dating up into the right I'm told so women I did read a study that said the majority of women are still looking for a man who's earning more than them but in a world of equality which we all agree is a good thing where women are more educated now there's there isn't enough men up and to the right anymore so there's this sort of disparity between you know what women are looking for but actually what's available in the market potentially these these these are all facts however we have to in we have to interrogate the this this this data but more so I think we have to interrogate The Narrative that's being handed to us so I feel like the The Narrative that's being handed us today is that you know what the top 20% of men or 10% of men they're good but the bottom 80% you suck that couldn't be further from the truth and I think we have to acknowledge and this is where uh you know two things could be true one we live in a patriarchal society absolutely absolutely but do we need to extend more grace to our men absolutely we do are men lonlier than they ever have been absolutely are men confused absolutely right are men being misled absolutely let's extend more grace to our men what does that mean that means being aware that we do live in a loneliness epidemic
being aware that less than 27% of men have a friend that they can feel is a confidant that 0% of them now feel like they have someone who they can go to at 3:00 a.m. in the morning it's being aware of these things it is saying you know what I um can appreciate other traits and characteristics outside of how much you earn or how tall you are right these are it's important to be able to understand and and you just asked me you said where are the most I said nothing about how much money someone makes nothing about how tall they are right but at the same time what we have to understand is the narrative that is handed to about women is that all women are looking for the six foot plus CEO right who's making over 100,000 pounds or dollars a year and that is also not the case this study here says despite advancements in gender equality resarch indicates that better educated women still tend to prefer husbands who earn more than they do that's from The Institute for family studies an analysis of online dating behaviors across 24 countries found that women are more selective than men showing a marked preference for men um with high incomes and education levels which which again proves this up and to the right thing but there's just not enough men up and to the right so there's going to be a lot of women that are somewhat dissatisfied according to this all right so the challenge if if I'm really interrogating this is one is it's talking about High educated women so we know that Highly Educated women are on average dating hypergamous right which is what you're talking about up so someone who's dating someone who has the same or higher level of Education the same or higher level of financial resources and why is that because that's the script that Society handed to women to say the only way you can survive is by finding a man who can deliver this to you right right that's and and I think we have to accept where it came from it was this terrible Society of you know what you're not going to be safe unless you find a man who could provide but you fast forward to to today a large percentage of high Highly Educated women are dating this way but that's not all women the other part is yes are women beginning to out earn men and outeducate men absolutely in certain
cities not in every everywhere of the world men on average still earn more income so so so if you look at at at at the The Narrative that's handed to us you could say well you know what men on average Still Still earn more but my point is this my point is that I think we all need to re-evaluate what it is that we want no longer do we need to have a partner for most of us or should I say this is me speaking out of privilege for many of us in the west no longer do we need to have a partner for pragmatic reasons if you think about maso's hierarchy of needs and you just divided it into three categories you would say the bottom the bottom kind of rung is all of our psychological and physical needs food shelter right then that kind of middle rung is belonging and connection and the top rung is selfish evolved self you know we want to be you know we you know well self- evolved living our best self contributing the most that we ever could to this world marriage and partnership and selecting a partner was largely based on that lower rung all the way through to the 1960s that's like yesterday if you think about how long we've lived but it's that Evolution as well because you see the same thing in the animal kingdom with like the orangutang which has like 98% the same DNA as us they still select for survival factors so I think what's interesting when you look at uh different mammals and the uh the The evolutionary biology is that there's lots of similarities but then there's also lots of traits that are different you know so it's it's one of those where we have to appreciate that as Homo sapiens we are unique and we live in a structure that we have largely created ourselves we're talking we're debating about the institution of marriage I mean marriage didn't exist for the vast majority of our existence but this Golden Rule thing you told me about this yeah and you told me that it's cross-cultural yes so so it is and this Golden Rule thing please explain it for people but for me that is evidence that there's still an evolutionary component to selection for men and women and I read I was reading this study that said women um almost 50%
of women prefer to date only men that are taller than themselves while only 13% of men prefer to date only women that are shorter than themselves and another study revealed that women are most satisfied when they're partner is approximately 8 Ines taller whereas men are most satisfied with a height difference of about 8 centimeters taller than their partner so women clearly have a preference here significant amount of them to dating a man that is bigger than they are yes but all right yes this is so good all right couple things here M do we have these preferences absolutely it's a lot of this handed us through evolutionary and our biology absolutely is most of it handed to us through socialization definitely do we change as we increase our well-being yes so here's my point if you were to go back and say Zena look you go back 10 years say Z look would you prefer to date a man that is taller than you I would say there's a there's a good chance she would say I would prefer it yes has that been her result no does she appear to be incredibly happy and satisfied yes right with Tom Holland that's from my op from from my outside looking in yes why could that have been the case because she grew up being handed to script she grew up the disn ification of relationships she saw the The Prince and how large the prince always was in comparison to the princess she saw that the prince was able to pick up the princess like she saw all these things she believed all of these things and then as she became more mature as she realized that she doesn't need anyone's validation as she understood the things and the traits that she loved she was like this Tom Holland guy is hot yeah but is it that is an exception not because Al Tom Holland's got 30 million in the bank so yeah but but but this does happen you hear happens but it's it's the exception isn't it it's not the rule it is and you know why also that's the exception and I agree I'm with you it's the exception because most of us have poor well-being most of us have low self-esteem most of us do I would argue most adults have low self-esteem mid to low self-esteem and what does that mean it means that we need the validation of
others right and this is the reason why I always say it goes back to us do you really think this is the answer to this do do you not believe that there's a big evolutionary component to attraction selection preferences like because I I'm struggling to believe that Society is the only reason why we're why we pick certain people and I I do part of me wonders and slightly worries that we've we've almost accidentally inadvertently designed design Society in such a way where what we're looking for no longer exists necessarily so we have to confront this new reality that in fact we're going to have to adjust some of our preferences if we are going to be happy and find what we're looking for yes I do believe that a large percentage of the decisions that we make have been handed to us genetically so I'm I'm I'm with that uh and I think the research suggests that so if you have for example um you know uh I was talking to to Dr taros wart and talking about you know a woman in the club if she's ovulating or not ovulating just based on that men are going to be attracted or or or or or or not attracted or you think about scent right really what we're trying to do with scent the reason why we're turned off with scent is that it's genetic it's that if we end up mating with someone who has too close of a a genetic mirror to ours the child won't be as so we need diversification in our in our genetics and we don't realize this but we can determine that through our scent by being turned off it's it's it's a whole sniff test so does Do genetics play a role absolutely golden mean we talked about Golden mean where in essence this is women on average loving to see wide shoulders and a thinner waist and Men on average loving to see smaller hips uh smaller waist wider hips now can people debate these Concepts absolutely do they stand up um I mean are there uh evolutionary reasons for these yes because it speaks to being fertile for women or it speaks to being uh strong to protect right for a man all of this does play a role and sometimes we don't realize how much of a role Evolution has played in why and how we make decisions which is why it's also important though to understand how the society that we have created as human
beings also plays a role how we were handed you should you need to have a partner who's the same class as you you need to when you find your partner that's person that completes you when you find a partner that's till death do you part those pieces were handed to us so there's no wonder why we're confused we have all this evolutionary uh uh decision-making happening that we're not even aware of and then on this side we have Society telling us this is the person that we that we should have and this is this is the reason why and I go back to why awareness is key and understanding how and why we are gives us a power it gives us a t autonomy over our decisions so that when you are making that decision on your partner you can ask yourself you know yeah I would love to have a partner who's over six feet but how important is that really to me why why do I think I I feel this way yeah and once you begin to have those debates with yourself that puts you on the path to making a decision that you're going to be more satisfied with in the Long Haul I think that's the key and I think the awareness comes from confronting both realities which is on one hand there are some evolutionary things that are going to make me have a bias towards a certain type of person that has certain attributes even if those attributes actually um not going to lead to a long-term healthy relationship like [ __ ] boys yes like Charisma and bravado and confidence is like somewhat attractive but it might not be a great husband and then on the other hand there is tons of things Society has handed me through magazines and media that have portrayed an image of what beauty looks like that are also just [ __ ] I think understanding both is the key to that sort of autonomy being able to say actually I understand where that's coming from in me but I will make a rational prefrontal cortex decision to select something else some evidence of this The evolutionary basis of Attraction comes in this idea that people who have symmetrical faces are more beautiful and more attractive across cultures is that true yes so there are many scientists that will say absolutely but here's what one thing I know definitively about attraction is attraction to someone else is largely
based on your self-esteem and this is what I mean is that the lower your self-esteem the more dependent you are on the validation of the public so therefore you will want to have a partner who is considered to be attractive so if Society if the script is is that symmetry is it or if the script is um wearing this type of trainer is it if that's what Society is saying then if you have low self-esteem you want a partner to look like that because you need the validation of the partner however whenever you see this is what I this is what I say whenever you see someone who's walking around with a partner and you think how did those two get together right chances are there's an element and remember I'm not talking about one has super high income or one has super high status I'm just talking about you look at at at at a couple and you say they look odd right one of them could be traditionally attractive one of them might not normally what's happened is that you have someone with high self-esteem who has no need for the Public's validation of their partner at all I don't think people talk about this enough but it's so unbelievable true in fact I know an individual who has a historically low self-esteem and went through a lot of stuff when they were younger and I remember when they got into a relationship I remember exactly where I was stood in London I remember the time of day when they turned to me they just got into a relationship someone with historic low self-esteem and they said to me Steve I really like her but I'm kind of worried this is an exact quote I'm kind of worried like if I walk into a restaurant with her on my arm is it going to be a good look and I remember saying to this person like if that's the way you're assessing this person based on how they'll look on your own when you walk into a relationship my God this relationship is [ __ ] because you're overlooking the actual things that matter the most important things and this person has gone from one relationship to the next to the next to the next all of them failing as the more time I've spent with them I thought to myself like it's because their selection is being made through insecurity and low self-esteem yes just back to back to back to back to
back yes it's not being made based on the like the essence of the person the the other areas of compatibility that matter more over the long term it's that constant like surface level connection yes and and I think most of us are making decisions based on our self-esteem did you see this as a Matchmaker you know yes cuz you saying Rich guys right yeah exactly I you know uh I distinctly remember when I was on previously and and You' ask about like what was one of the most profound things that that you saw and I never had thought about that question until you asked it and it was uh these men who were coming who had incredibly low self-esteem and what it was is these were what I call Lake Bloomers you know it was the the the the guy who always felt like no one liked you know no one liked how they appeared they were the quote unquote ugly duckling they they then found the gym later in life right they they they they found their Mojo later in life they were always studious um they were a bit introverted maybe shy at the same time um and here they are and when people walk past them they're like oh my God this guy's a stud like look at look at this guy he's a stud but he never thought he was a stud nor does he think he's a stud today which is why I say go back to doing the inner work we would take a CL like that and oppos just saying let's put you on a date we can't do that we have to begin to work with you so that you realize how incredible you actually are why can't you just check them on a date if they've got low self-esteem be because okay we can sit them across from the most incredible match but they won't recognize it because they're making decisions based on their self-esteem so they're making the decision that your friend made right how will this person look on my arm when I bring them to the Christmas party opposed to what's their well-being look like or do we do do we share any values Etc so you can end up taking someone who could be great for you and push them away or dismiss them or worse you can invite someone into your life who's not the best placed for you because of a result of your insecurities like a narcissist like like like a narcissist like a SST like a psychopath like a mellian right
you know there's a distinct group of bad people in the world David bus writes about this that we have to realize they play on our fears they understand when someone has low self-esteem low well-being they're attracted to that person why because they're better able to manipulate them what's our best defense the best defense in any relationship in life is our well-being it acts as a wall against all of the bad people in the world and what it also does is it acts as a magnet for the great people in the world because people with high well-being and high self-esteem tend to surround themselves and and and understand and even attract people with high well-being and high self-esteem okay so two personal case studies popped to mind in my friendship group that I that I'm aware of people that I'm aware of um they are approaching their 40s okay they would both probably say say that they had low self-esteem they don't feel like they got the time pull to figure out their self-esteem because in both situations they're like I need to find someone and they're in a bit of a rush I'd say one of them is a male one of them is a female now what would you say to both of those people approaching their 40s feel like they're in a bit of a rush one's sort of contending with a biological clock MH um the other just is contending with like social comparison all of his friends are in relationships and settling down and he's still single both fundamentally have low self-esteem so the way that they're trying to solve this problem is they're trying to get blow Dres to make themselves look pretty on the external to attract people in and dating as many people as they possibly can to try and find someone as soon as possible yes I would tell them you haven't even lived half your life yet you have plenty of time period but I've got a biological clock over here you know what I understand that but you know what's worse you know you know you know what what is what is incredibly sad is that I've seen a large percentage of people say I have a biological clck I want to have a child so therefore I'm just going to have a child with with with with anyone what happens what happens what ends up happening is it ends up becoming a incredibly difficult scenario to
manage because you now are in a partnership with someone who you don't like you don't feel safe with there's no emotional connection they create stress on you they end up not being apparent to the child that stress leads to other issues that you may have like autoimmune disease you end up not being able to show up as your best self for the child the child sees this and they they have a myriad of issues as a result of you wanting to beat your biological clock I say this I understand the desire to have children I get it I wanted my wife and I tried for eight years a lot of people we we we went through IVF you know I get it to this day we still pay for our embryos to be frozen it's like it's one of those where I understand the desire to have children what age were you oh my God it was probably 16 years ago when we started IVF we were early to to to IVF we um and by the way even before the 16 years we had tried like naturally to to have a child we went through one year of Cycles unsuccessful we end up we ended up losing one of our losing a child right um devastating absolutely devastating and then we then have a cycle that that works which which is our first son Kingston and then we have a cycle that works fairly close after our Second Son uh Liam but one of the unold stories about IVF and I and I wish people talked about this more is that you may still have eight embryos six embryos that are still viable we have nine embryos that are still viable and so what do you do some people will donate them to science some people will have them destroyed but there's other folks like my wife and I that are thinking know these are lives that we've created like what are we going to do and so we have paid to store them so every month since we began our Cycles we have paid to store them now from what I uh uh some people have told me that there there limitations in certain countries around how many years you can actually uh store your embryos but it's such a grueling decision to have to make um and um and it's it's it's it's it's one that that we made so I understand the desire to be a parent I fully do how old were you and Jill when you decided to do IVF I say this because you said 16 years ago you look about 30 yeah yeah I mean yeah I
mean this is the thing is everyone's like well how old are you what a lot of people don't realize is I this year 50 so you were about 34 35 yeah uh I would say I was about 30 yeah I was mid-30s and Jill was same mid-30s okay yep and you've been training for eight years so quite honestly we had been trying so we got married uh when I was 25 right uh we started trying shortly thereafter because I've always wanted to be a father always and so very quickly after we got married we thought you know children as us will have it and it just doesn't happen that way and what we began to see is that one of the challenges was around the stress that we had in our lives and how we were unhealthy as a result of the stress and and the impact that was having on our inability to have children did it cause a strain on your relationship when you went through these struggles with fertility absolutely you feel like you know the script that I felt was handed to me and this was a script is that you're a man and if you can't have a child you're not a man that was the script that was literally I remember being at the barber shop right when I had hair when I used to go to the barber shop um and that was that was the idea you know you'd have the guy who was like I've got eight kids you know and and as a result I'm the manliest man in the room and I would leave thinking my God I can't I can't even have a child like what what's what's the issue and then you begin to think okay you know um um what are all the factors and you begin to go through the test and you begin to your point and you've already done this is you see there's a multitude of issues and for some people they're incredibly fertile and it takes boom eight times but for others and I'm in the others it takes years you know um but I will say this and this goes back to the investment Theory the more that we invested in the pursuit of having children the more the desire increase and then now the level of cherishing our our boys is on a whole another I think because of that experience is on a whole another Lev I can imagine it really tears
relationships apart this issue of fertility in children especially if the results come back I was super scared when them sperm analysis came in and they like sent me the email with password on it I was like oh my God if imagine if I open this document now and it says that my spam are like not not good like she's going to leave me you know that's what you kind of think yeah and I'm sure she she might have felt the same way she might have there might have been a doubt in her that said if if her results came back and it was bad then maybe I would leave or something OB I wouldn't but um I'm sure it tears a lot of families apart a lot of relationships apart this these issues of fertility yes and and and that's why it's so important for us to spend more time in determining whether or not we feel like we have the right partner before we decide to commit to them before we decided to have to have children with them which is a massive decision before we decide to move house or move into a house our partner our our partner is often life or death for us the selection of our partner the selection of our partner is I truly believe the most important decision that we will have because of all these things that it that it dictates that we've talked about so having more emphasis on who that partner is and the dialogue upfront is so incredibly important you know you think about this is like the top uh the Gans you know they talk about how 69% of problems in a relationship will never be resolved 69% never be resolved that's scary that's scary what does that mean that means that you have to learn how to manage it so that means that you have to have a partner who has Superior conflict management skills and so do you if you can't if your partner doesn't have that you are in for a world of hurt wouldn't it be great to have determined that before you decide to have a child with someone because once you have a child the level of conflict is going through the roof I umum I had some stats that show that in terms of mental health a study published in nature showed that
unmarried individuals have a 79% high risk of developing depression compared to their married counterparts maybe I should get married but also Research indicates that strong social connections like a romantic relationship can increase longevity significantly and a comprehensive study analyzing 43 data sets revealed that the quality of one's romantic relationship is a significant predictor of overall life satisfaction High relationship satisfaction correlates with increased happiness and well-being um and the stats go on and on and on and on even financial implications which is quite quite staggering yeah I I this is a bit of a different question but um we talked a second ago about self-esteem and how if someone came to you in your matchmaking days and they were like Keen to form and find love one of the first things you'd say is like we need to work on the self-esteem but if a man comes to you and they are let's say you're one of your sons okay Kingston is that your oldest yes that's my oldest Kingston goes that listen what what should I be doing to increase the probability now that I find and keep a partner what work can I do on my own now like do I need to hit the gym do I need to read a book what do I need to do do I need to go out and earn money and I want the honest answer that you would say to Kingston when no one's looking you know what's Wild is I've already started talking to Kingston about this okay because we work out together on the weekends uh and I'm shocked at how strong he's getting he's 14 uh all the time I tell him King Kingson King surround yourself with great people that's it surround yourself put yourself in proximity to people who have healthy relationships to people who have high satisfaction in their relationships it's no different than in business you want to succeed surround yourself with folks who are succeeding in business you surround yourself with those people and what you begin to do is you begin to observe their habits you see their skills you adopt their habits you adopt their skills you understand where the boundaries should be what is a healthy doubt what is an unhealthy doubt you learn all of these behaviors by simply surrounding yourself with good people this is the
key as you guys know whoop is one of my show sponsors it's also a company that I have invested in and it's one that you guys asked me about a lot the biggest question I get asked is why I use whoop over other wearable technology options and there is a bunch of reasons but I think it really comes down to the most overlooked yet crucial feature it's noninvasive nature when everything in life seems to be competing for my attention I turned to whoop because it doesn't have a screen and will armed the CEO who came on this podcast told me the reason that there's no screen because screens equal distraction so when I'm in meetings or I'm at the gym my whoop doesn't demand my attention it's there in the background constantly pulling data and insights from my body that are ready for when I need them if you've been thinking about joining woop you can head to join. whoop.com CEO and try whoop for 30 days risk-free and zero commitment that's join. whoop.com CEO let me know how you get on myths yes we talked about a lot of myths today and your book contains 21 different myths um I won't go through them all because I think people should buy the book and read them all and we don't have enough time to go through all of them but just picking out some of the ones that really stood out to me okay uh one of the myths that you say in your book is that more sex equals a happier relationship is that true does having more sex increase the happiness in your relationship no no now here's the investigation of that studies show that couples who have a high level of satisfaction in their relationship they have a high amount of sex but it's not as a result of the sex that gives them the high satisfaction it's the high satisfaction that gives them the high amount of sex so the challenge is that we have to reframe and we have to stop thinking that just because we're having a lot of sex it doesn't mean that we have a great relationship I see this happen all the time especially I'm Married at First Sight a couple sits down the first thing they say is oh Paul I don't need any help we're having sex like rabbits first of all lions have much more sex than rabbits secondly is that
doesn't mean you have a great relationship the fact that you're having lots of sex it tells me nothing so the the the myth is that if you have lots of sex it means you have a healthy relationship but could you be in a sexless relationship and also be extremely happy you can many people many people are in that space you've met people that are like this yes there are a significant percentage of people that are like that especially as we get older you have couples in their 80s who've now reached a point where the desire for sex is not there maybe it's once a year and I know everyone in their 20s 30s 40s even 50s like oh my gosh once a year this is crazy but if you have a couple you know you know uh there are two different desires here there's one is called a spontaneous desire and one is called a responsive desire now there is a gender difference here most men even if if you look through the ages all the way up to' 60s '70s they have what's called a spontaneous desire which means that they are ready 24/7 they could just go they they they need no emotional turn on in order to have sex they just get a hard on sat there hard on demand okay pretty much whereas as women get older typically they require responsive desire what is responsive desire they want some emotional connection some emotional currency they want some safety they want a conversation and not just one but they want to have a buildup of that emotional currency in order for them to have a responsive desire to the sex in order to have sex so there's different desires when you talk about sex um and I think that more discussion needs to be had around responsive desire and the importance of building what Dr Karen gurnie talks about is as emotional currency to build up that connection with your partner so it's almost emotional currency is almost like putting deposits in the bank account right if you if you're if if there's an empty sexual bank account and you just go to your partner and you say I want to have sex in other words I want to make a withdrawal there's nothing there you're getting nothing literally you're getting nothing however if you are placing deposits in what is that that is just wanted to send
you a text to to tell you you know how much I do love you to I appreciate how well you take care uh of the kids um uh I can't wait for us to have date night tonight uh you know just to watch the movie and have wine right these deposits hugs kisses with no requirement of of of sex you know I often talk about 30 second hug and I gave you a 30 second hug once why don't you look happy about that no it matters it's important deina does the same she's a really exceptional hugger yes she's very good so the 30 second hug I talk about the sixc kiss and so many people respond back well if if I gave my husband a 30 second kiss he'd think that se sex is at the end of that no we need to normalize these things that's putting emotional dep deposits into our partner so then once it's built up then you can go make your withdrawal right and and so um yeah sex needs to be looked at it I think more and more from the standpoint of responsive in spontaneous desire desire management term that I talk about with my friends sometimes um should we spend more time apart in our relationships we we live in a society now as you said where we're becoming more and more individualistic which means that there's more demands being placed on our partner to be everything and if they're everything surely they're less attractive because if they're our counselor our therapist our accountant or our best friend there's it seems like logically then they wouldn't be as spicy yeah if if they are everything we set ourselves up with a very high stakes relationship because the moment that they don't become everything they could be 99% of everything but the moment they're not 100% we're disappointed but also like if this person is like my emotional support in so many areas of my life they are my friend they are my uh co-founder of my company I wonder if the the spice you know they say absence makes the heart grow fond I wonder if the spice is going to leave the building the the spice can but there are other I think more challenging issues that that can arise and I'll give you my example because I fell into this right so I uh reached a point in my marriage where my wife was everything to me she was my co-founder we were running a
matchmaking agency we spent nearly all of our time together we were co-parents uh right we were uh if I had a a a a business question a platonic question a romantic question I would go to her uh it got to the point where I saw myself disconnecting from my Social Circle I used to go uh to I had season tickets to to to watch basketball I would stop doing that stop watching my NFL football on the weekends because it was just spending time with with with you know with with Jill and the boys and I realized very quickly that what was happening is I was investing everything into my wife and my family and the issue is that and this is this is what happens with so many people is that I had had no other confidence in my life I had distanced myself from from almost everyone and the issue from from that is is then I'm bringing no value into the relationship because I have no no other relationships that's ultimately what that means is when you have other relationships when you have other friendship circles you're learning new things you're bringing novelty into your relationship you are adding spice to your relationship I wasn't doing any of that that continued for quite some time this this is one of the reasons why I got involved with football here is that being involved now with a with a with a football team in England has allowed me an outlet outside of my family and even outside of my Social Circle that I was building here that is entirely different right it's it's it's a different group of PE it's a group of people who I had not come across in my walks of of of life who I love and adore and learn so much from and I have a sense of enjoyment and because I have a sense of enjoyment there I begin to have more purpose in my life I begin to have more joy in my life and the more joyful I am about my entire life I can bring that to my relationship and help to boost that that that relationship and and so it's almost like you know if if you think about uh if you're an electrical battery right and you're charging and you are the battery how wonderful would it be to be able to get a charge from 8 sources opposed to one right maybe the the one is not working today and therefore you you you don't get charged up but if You' have eight if you're getting charged eight different sources right it hires
the likelihood of you being charged up um to uh you know to to to live your best life and I think this is where the attachment Styles comes into to play again because I think in my relationship I'm maybe a little bit more of on the avoidant side and she's maybe a little bit more on the anxious side so I think there's a desire in me to like space Freedom explore Wonder um she has that too of course but I think I just I have it a little bit more so it can sometimes feel like she's pursuing yes the the quality time and I'm maybe pursuing being on my own yes which causes this sort of dysfunction or this this imbalance I guess some couples who are both anxious I don't know if they get on but no I mean what happens most of the time is anxious find avoidance oh okay yeah so th those are the two that that end up matching and it's very important to work for for you both to work on an earned secure one of the best ways to do that is to surround yourself with couples who are secure why is it that anxious relationship attachment Styles go for avoidance you'd think they'd go for anxious right and and we should probably pause to Define what these attachment Styles mean sure sure so uh out of Mary answorth and John bulby uh research uh which you know buby from the UK answorth from from Canada the whole idea is is uh it was something called The Strange situations test which examined the relationship that we have with our first caregivers and those who had a secure attachment is where your caregiver was really always there for you so in your time of need your caregiver was always there to to to be of support anxious which a large percentage of the population is is is anxious anxious is where your caregiver was there sometimes other times they they weren't this is is very prevalent in Immigration communities first second generation especially second generation immigrants where your uh parent was working you know they're out hustling multiple jobs and they're there for you sometimes but they can't be there for for you all the time and then you have avoidant avoidant is when the caregiver wasn't there so you had to learn to self Soo you end up seeing a large number of very successful business people are avoidance why because they've
learned to be self-reliant anxious turn tend to be more of the what feels to be needy right secure I'm I'm okay you know I'm I'm okay about myself now why does to to do anxious and avoidance end up matching because the anxious feels comfortable in Pursuit that's their that's our because I'm that's our that's our disposition and I think I'm I'm earning more of a of a secure but our my natural inclination is that I'm comfortable in Pursuit and avoidant is comfortable being pursued because you have an opportunity to connect but then create the distance you know when you want to so you end up seeing many anxious and avoidance come together and it's important to recognize that so you've already recognized this which is half the battle is the awareness now you can begin to develop the tools to become more secure that's difficult that's the work it's difficult isn't it I think Step One is obviously awareness because then you can start start to sort of catch yourself out and see yourself when you're exhibiting certain behaviors and really start to question them that's kind of what I do now as an avoidant I when when my partners like looking for attention and looking for you know making those bids for attention as they call them I observe what they're doing I observe how I feel about it I and I then rationalize it um above both of those observations in a different way so I'll rationalize it as I love this person so much and if they need some attention now just play the game Steve just give them what they want whereas before I'd be like why are they annoying me mean yes but I have to do that every day like as many of these podcasts as I've done as many times I've heard about attachment Styles it's still an ongoing battle yes and I think this is important because sometimes we believe that we're fixed or cured because we have information that we're going to act upon it at all times but the wiring is so deep it it is and it it is it is a Continuum it it never ends and to your point is this is the work the work is that mental energy right that you had to go through uh you you're doing uh this uh uh thing Dr Julie Smith talks about it metacognition is really
what you're doing having the thought about the thought and that is tiring Tire exhausting it's exhaust to do that all the time is exhausting but that's the price that you're paying to have the relationship that's the work yeah and she's worth it yeah people that listen to this podcast will know that like you know when I talk about marriage and stuff it's not um anything to do with her in particular in fact she's the person that's made me want to get married she's the person that's made me agnostic before I was against it now I'm like it doesn't really matter if she wants it then I I don't really care um so I'm saying all of this in spite of the fact that I believe I'm with the perfect person yes and when I say perfect I mean Perfectly Imperfect as well yes as as I am to her but I just couldn't imagine ever finding anyone better so I'm saying all of this in spite of that just in case anyone was wondering and I genuinely mean that like I wouldn't say otherwise I'm not saying that just for the sake of it I my friends know this too my friends all believe and I believe that she is there's no one I'm ever going to find that's better than her yes um few more questions that I had that came emerged from reading your book which by the way is superb thank you I have to say it is published by flight books and there's probably some kind of disclaimer I have to give for the ASA com for me but um so that's hasht ad but um one of the ones that was quite provocative to me me is this question should you keep secrets from your partner this is big yes so many people are like well don't say that this is crazy what you're saying there are quite a few studies on a concept called selective disclosure and a matter of fact one of I think the most provocative compelling studies on selective disclosure looked at uh you know many many couples and one couple or one one group was told to be entirely transparent to your partner so tell them everything every issue every concern that pops into your mind tell them right that's full transparency then the other was selective disclosure now what is selective disclosure there rules to selective disclosure one is is that you
share information that's relevant right you share information that considers their emotions information that considers their boundaries information that acknowledges the future of your relationship that is timely and the tone is very important how it's delivered that's selective disclosure so this group was told to do that what do you think happens at the end of the result at the end of the experiment everyone in the transparent group they've killed each other no I'm I was going to say Jesus no no no they they haven't killed each other but the group that had selective disclosure has higher satisfaction less conflict more autonomy in their relationship so it's very important to know that what I say secret is is I'm saying you have to selectively decide and I think selective disclosure is a concept we should spend more time thinking about so give me an example of something that I shouldn't say to my partner okay so well once again it depends what your partner's boundaries are right so so you discussed these boundaries you know all these things but but but just generalizing I'll give an example so your partner always leaves the cap off the toothpaste always it annoys you it annoys you right it annoys you however you know your partner is going through a lot of stress at work they're working on a new project is it the right time to bring up the fact that the cap annoys you probably not probably not here's a juicier one your ex slides into your DMs and wants to congratulate you and it's platonic it's congratulations you respond back thank you that's it nothing more look at you speaking from experience was it on the new book what was it on what did she congratulate was it the podcast congratulations on your new podcast thank you arive delet block right it's like thank you right so boom you know your partner is working through a trauma around jealousy is it do you run home and say so and so sent me this message probably
not right so selective disclosure means that you're taking into consideration the relevance of the information their boundaries their emotions Etc try to it it truly is a concept that I believe will help to increase satisfaction and lower conflict in your relationship I think that's super important uh because a lot a lot of the narrative has just never lied to your partner and it's it's interesting cuz all of those things you've said have happened to me in my relationships before where an ex slides into your DMs and I'm literally sat with my girlfriend and my the ex is just saying oh love this or something and you like almost panic because I'm like I don't want to lie yes but at the same time what's the point in me stopping this moment to say something that's irrelevant and you know um interesting very very interesting it's an important Insight you you're talking there about diminishing conflict and I am I was recording some stuff over the week weekend where I was thinking about relationshipss and one of the things I've really come to believe over time is that the the the best predictor of a long-term relationship is what how you are at conflict resolution yes and there's this quote that I love that I've never forgotten that says You can predict the long-term health of a relationship by whether each cut heals to 99% or 101% does your conflict make you stronger I love that and in the big thing that I noticed in this relationship versus my previous relationships is there was this in built natural conflict resolution system based on who we were as people okay and I say that because like she doesn't want to shout she doesn't want to scream she wants to listen I don't want to shout I don't want to scream I want to listen which meant that from the first moment of conflict we were able to resolve it and move on yes whereas in previous relationships it was like two people that were just broken records trying to get their point across at the other person yes almost trying to win yeah you know so one is I love that quote I love that and what I found and I age our ability to and I say you know I I I'm careful with using the word management now opposed to resolve given the research from the Gman around how uh 69%
of these issues won't be resolved but but managing the conflict there's two ways that we typically try to manage it one is we try to win the argument that is the route that is always going to lead to a low level of satisfaction the other route is to try to gain understanding about why your partner thought that so so so it's just simply I just want to understand right should you apologize absolutely should you always apologize all right so so here here's what the research shows this is well I will say this I uh when I was writing the book I was writing a chapter on apologies and I go to Jill and I say Jill how many times a month do you think I apologize to you and she's like H you only apologize like every other month so she's saying that I apologize about six times to her per year and I was thinking oh this is terrible because the data shows the most successful Partnerships there's an apology every week on average once a week and what I realized in the Trap that I fell into and I think a lot of men fall into this is the threshold in which we believe we should be apologizing so something will happen in the relationship and I'll think what I need to apologize for for that it's just like it it is what it is you know so for example I mean the the trash is is always a big issue in my household right so I'm supposed to take the rubbish out or take the trash out and sometimes I forget okay I forget I don't think it's apology worthy to forget to take it out but but I realize that's my threshold but to my wife that is a I mean there's World War III and there's not taking out the rubbish so that's a major issue so her threshold level is different so part of what I learned in investigating this chapter is for us to be so in tune with our partner that we understand what their threshold is and we meet them at it I had an incident in my relationship a couple of weeks back maybe five six weeks ago where I didn't want to apologize because I wasn't sorry because I didn't think I did anything wrong okay and I'm I think I am actually quite quick to apologize to my partner I've I've apologized this week I've probably apologized last week for something but it was a really interesting moment we're actually in um
like relationships counseling therapy or whatever we've been for since the start of our relationship been doing this we've been through like three different therapists and I looked at the situation of effectively and arrived at the conclusion that in the future I would not have done anything different so I arrived at the conclusion that an apology would actually be disingenuous like I'm I would be apologizing for something and probably setting a new standard in our relationship that I know I can't me in the future so I I explained that and said I don't I don't want to apologize because I wouldn't mean it in this situation and I wondered whether there's any Merit in that like does your apology genuinely have to be sincere or are you just doing it just to keep the peace you're you're doing it only when it's sincere but how we're doing it is very important so in in the research that I found only 50% of apologies are actually effective right what constitutes an effective apology there's a system that I I've created called Arc okay a acknowledge acknowledge what happened yeah so for example I am sorry that I interrup interrupted you genuinely sorry right that I'm sorry that I interrupted you two is remorseful and I apologize for the fact that you may feel undervalued or not listen to as a result that's the remorse and then the C is the commitment and in the future I'm going to try to um you know pay more attention when we're having these conversations so that I'm not interrupting you right so this is this is the the kind of you know what I call Arc method but the idea is to make it effective is to acknowledge what happened be remorseful for the emotional impact that's the key and that's where I wanted to come with with yours and then see is what's your commitment for the future that makes it a comprehensive apology so in your situation perhaps what you did objectively you would do in the future but you are remorseful for how it made her feel so I'll give you some context I was basically working on something very very important I was going through it and I told her previously I'm going to be going through this thing I need to be working on this thing it's very very important she knew the every single
detail of this project I was working on okay she knew the the deadline she knew the significance of it profound and one thing I'd learned probably from doing this podcast and speaking to you was that assume people can't read your mind yes so brief them yes and like if you're going to be a bit strange if you're going to be a bit focused let them know ahead of time so I'd sat her down and said listen for this period of time here I'm going to be a bit weird and I'd asked her to lower her expectations on me okay which I think is a pretty like Forward Thinking thing to do and within a short period of time we had had uh a disagreement a moment of conflict because upon like while I was working on this thing on the third bid for attention I had seemingly ignored it which caused a spiral and I hate when you ignore me and I'd said listen I told you I was I sat you literally sat you down night before and in the morning and had a conversation with you just to tell you what was going on and how I needed to focus on this thing yes so I thought the reason why I didn't want to apologize was because I thought I did everything I thought I was supposed to do like I thought I was like i' let the person know told them exactly what let them in on it let them know what was going on in my nervous system let them know what was going on in my mind and we still ended up in this like situation where there was a bid for attention and I wasn't quite there but I literally said I'm not I'm probably not going to be very present right now yes so I thought well what could I have done in future like what more could I have done Y in that situation so I thought maybe I shouldn't be apologizing here because I actually don't know what commitment I can make to so then do you just not apologize then you just didn't apologize so we were in theer we were in like a the coup's therapy thing okay so I was telling the therapists this to see what they their perspective was and they didn't they I think they kind of sided with me really I think they started with me and then my partner ended up apologizing which is quite rare because I typically think that I should apologize oh my gosh okay well so I may have a different take then okay please
one is you have you're clear that your partner is anxious yeah she knows she's anxious so you're aware that as a result of her being anxious there's a higher level of reassurance that she is going to need while she is working on healing and becoming earn earn detached but people never really heal you never I never heal you well you know what healing is continual yeah the question though is can she get to a place of being secure absolutely happens to many people so she's in the process of evolving into secure so while she's evolving into secure you have to give her that benefit of the doubt that she's going to need a little bit more on the reassurance front that's one secondly is if you did sit her down you explain all these things what also could be the case I'm not saying this is but what also could be the case is that there's not enough emotional deposits that she currently has in the account I think that's fact so as a result of there not being enough she's checking in for for the for the uh re Assurance so being aware of those two things the fact that she has an anxious attachment she's developing secure but she has anxious so she'll her threshold is is is higher for the need or lower for the need and you may not have given enough emotional currency early on it makes sense to me that she would kind of check in and and and there would be a bid now given the fact that you're head down you're focused you acknowledge the bid and you specifically said you chose to ignore the bid the third one it was the third bid it was the third it wasn't it was I actually didn't feel like I not it I looked up and smiled but she was 100 meters away from me okay and she and then I okay I'm GNA be completely honest okay because I'm there's no point me bullshitting this is good this is okay okay so I I looked up I smiled and then I got up and walked across and I picked up my headphones and I came back and s [ __ ] up when I say I know I [ __ ] up no I know it's worse than I thought I thought the two I thought there were two separate incidents I thought it was the smile and then I thought maybe if I put my headphones on I could focus no no you you need immediately after this you need to go apologize [ __ ] yeah you you know I
I thought there were two separate incidents I thought look up smile H and then I need to go get them headphones because because I need to focus on writing this thing no no when when a bid comes through when a bid comes through we know Goins talk about this all the time when the bid comes through is it's important to affirm the bid but this is a great opportunity to discuss what affirming a bid is you know what would in that moment what would have been enough for her to feel reassured have that conversation maybe it she would have said if when you right before you picked up the headphones a hug or a kiss on the cheek would have been great I would be good right and so to be aware of what it means to be reaffirmed is is is is so important or should I say affirmed is so important so in this case I would a if I were you I I would apologize and do that investigation around what affirming means because everyone needs to be affirmed you know differently I'll apologize to her promise but no it's a good I'll actually I'm seeing her tonight so I'll just let her know that I've got a slight different perspective on it now I love it um let's go for one more myth okay okay let's go for two more all right um because this one's a prevailing one that I've been exposed to in my relationships should you go to bed angry at your partner this is perhaps the most believed myth period we always hear this just apologize and it's not just in romantic relationships you know I noticed this all the time when I was in school when I was when I was younger is if there was a disagreement or an argument the teacher would say just apologize right I I played football uh American football and you know the coach would say just just just you know just just swipe it like Ju Just make up like and you think about that and what we're saying is that if you appear to be in Harmony you have a great relationship but we know that's a falsehood in actuality the key is that if you are able to fully manage what is happening be aware acknowledge make adjustments around the conflict then at that point you are living in a true harmonious relationship in a healthy relationship so whenever people say oh we got into
disagreement just make up before bed I think that is some of the most disastrous advice you can have why because you're going to be dist like you just get into an argument you're going to be entirely distressed entirely distressed and then what kind of response are you going to give you're going to give the worst qualitative response that you can will you reconcile what's happening absolutely not a profound study around this researchers divided two groups of people one group they showed distressing images to terrible images terrible right and the other group they say they showed the same image however the second group was allowed to sleep for 8 hours at the end of 8 hours so what group one can't sleep group two saw the distressing images they can sleep at the end of the eight hours they then track the reaction to the images what do you think happens the group that didn't sleep that didn't rest that didn't get regulated they report a much higher level of distress around the images the group group that is reporting back that had sleep they're regulated they're able to look at the images differently they're not it's the same image but they're not as distressed the point here is that the best thing that we can do to give ourselves regulation is a cooling off period sleep on it so you should go to bed angry you should go to bed angry and when you wake up resolve it the brain does wonderful things in in your sleep doesn't it it really helps to sort of pack things and and make sense of things and rationalize things better but also obviously it's regulating hormones and the and the Brain in a way which I guess will make you make more rational decisions the next morning not from the amydala but from the logic centers of your brain exactly exact rest is is a superpower and we don't use it enough last myth then if someone cheats on you okay is that the end of the relationship no or at least it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be uh I I I've referred to the Gman a lot and I think the reason why is because you know they really did starting in the 1970s change couples therapy right where couples therapy primarily between like the 1950s and 70s was about these interventions when your relationship was
doomed and and and it was about to be over so it was a last ditch effort was to go to these therapists but the Gans came along and said no you could build these skills you could build these these these these tools to help you all the way through your relationship no matter at what stage you're in but they also spend a lot of time in what I call these these these these these existential um um issues like cheating and from their research they show that 70% of people who go through uh their process can end up having a higher level of satisfaction the key though is around the ability to truly forgive your partner and what I say all the time with infidelity whether it may be emotional infidelity or physical infidelity is go see a professional first especially if you've built what you consider to be something profound and special with your partner they believe it's profound and special and in particular they want to fight and you have an awareness for how special it is go see a professional because seeing a professional literally can put you back on track to have a phenomenal relationship question I didn't think I was going to ask you but I probably should ask you based on that because we're talking about infidelity what about digital infidelity only fans only F well so I mean is that infidelity does that count does pornography count as infidelity well long story short is it depends on who you ask most people that I talk to qualify that as infidelity if you're not disclosing to your partner that you're doing it so if you were out here on only fans or or a a full pornographic site and you do not disclose to your partner that this is something that you do that's infidelity that's cheating right if it's something that you disclose you have a conversation about then then clearly it's not right so for some people they will say that's still it is in my opinion if you were not disclosing that to your partner it is I'm reading some stats here and it says that about 80% of men view porn on their own um and roughly 35% of women reported to watching pornography on their own so watching on your own without your partner having any awareness of
that for for many people that would be or or or I I believe many people would consider that infidelity with a quarter of men reporting that they conceal their pornography consumption from their partner and nearly a third of women Express concerns about their partner's pornography use yeah yeah you know this is why I I think it's so important we have to normalize it almost goes back to normalizing being attracted to people we have to normalize this because with the attraction there's emotional there's physical and there's sexual attraction and we have to understand that this is a part of Being Human this is what we've been given and the reason why one reason why that we hide it is because Society likes to shame us and say oh no once found your partner you should never have eyes for anyone else and part of that is what the script that's been handed to us and we talked about religion having impact on this and we have we have to normalize these conversations because when we do we'll have higher satisfaction because we'll realize that you know like you turn around and say oh my God like my partner does this too you know what I mean um so it's incredibly important for us to normalize this concept around having an a level of attra raction outside of our partner when it comes to food I trust my gut and I trust Zoe a business I'm an investor in and today's sponsor of this podcast all the nutritionists I've spoken to have highlighted just how misleading information is out there when it comes to food take healthy Halos the claims you see on packaging that say things like low sugar and nothing artificial are often a sign of foods to avoid have you ever noticed a health claim on fresh fruit you probably get my point understandably there's loads of distrust out there who should you turn to for accurate information I use Zoe which is backed by one of the world's largest microbiome databases and most scientifically Advanced atome gut health tests Zoe gives you proven science whenever you need it as a Zoe member you'll get an atome test kit and personalized nutrition program to help you make smarter food choices that
support your gut to sign up visit zoe.com and use my code steven1 for 10% off your membership that's zoe.com code steven10 trust your gut so I've invested more than a million pounds into this company Perfect Ted and they're also a sponsor of this podcast I switched over to using matcha is my dominant energy source and that's where perfect Ted comes in they have the matcha powders they have the matcha drinks they have the pods and all of this keeps me Focus throughout a very very long recording day no matter what's going on and their team is obsessed with quality which is why they Source their ceremonial grade matcha from Japan so when people say to me that they don't like the taste of matcha I'm guessing that they haven't tried perfect Ted unlike lowquality matcher that has a bitter grassy taste perfect Ted is smooth and naturally sweet and without knowing it you're probably a perfect T customer already if you're getting your match at places like blank Street or Joe in the juice but now you can make it yourself at home so give it a try and we'll see if you still don't like matcher so here's what I'm going to do I'm going to give you 40% off our matcher if you try it today head to perfect head.com and use code Steven 40 or if you're in a supermarket you can get it at tesos or Holland and Barrett or in the Netherlands at Albert Heine and those of you in the US you can get it on Amazon is it ever productive in a relationship to be overtly jealous like to be babe where are you texting when are you coming home like that kind of jealousy where you're like expressing the jealousy so so so that level of overtness in your jealousy I would say is is is dangerous and it speaks to your insecurities and this is why I always say like because that goes to doubts in the relationship and you know there are healthy doubts if if the question is around growth of the relationship that's healthy if it is about a fear based on an insecurity that's unhealthy Paul this is a exceptional book this is an exceptional book um really it's exceptional because it confronts some of the biggest myths that I think hold us all back from being able to keep love and in many respects find
love in our relationships so I highly recommend everybody who's listening right now check out the link in the description you can get a copy of this book on pre-order it'll be out a week from now roughly on the 6th of February I believe it comes out the 6th of February 2025 and it is the book probably the only book you'll need um in order to increase the probability drastically that once you find that person you will do the very difficult maybe even more difficult thing of being able to keep that person um because I like many people listening Once Upon a Time thought the game was to find them and now I've been in a relationship for some time I realized that that's actually when the work begins and that's what these 20 this this book that debunks these 25 myths really helps us to do in a way that is so accessible so um actionable um and really strikes at the heart of a lot of society's BS to be quite Frank um it's published by flight books which I probably have to say for legal reasons which is our publisher as well um but nonetheless I read this book and you're this is the reason why I wanted to speak you today cuz it's really essential book and there's a lot of mass media social media propagated myths that I think are really standing in the way of most of us Paul we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for and the question that's been left for you is what experience did you have around age 10 to 13 where you discovered your own power to get things done without your parents being involved I know right away right away when you said 10 to 13 I zeroed in to me in New York in Long Island on a bus on a school bus getting my head smashed in to that school bus so I was uh our family was one of the first black families to move into this all Italian neighborhood um in Long Island New York and uh there were a lot of people who you would put into the to the bully category and there was one person in particular that really was was was was trying to get to me and time after time he would taunt me he would say certain things uh he had control he was like the bully of the bus and I had no friends on this bus and he
would literally sometimes like smash my head into the the the glass as he was walking out and the bus driver would look and never stop never say anything and I remember that but you know what every day I got back out on that bus and a lot of the times that he was smashing my head it was because I would say something to him as he was walking out or he would be outside and I never forget like he would walk off the bus and I would still flick him off right and he would get back on the bus smash my head in the next day I I hit him again and I learned how resilient I am I'm a resilient guy resilient right I keep you you you push me down I get right back up Maybe not immediately but I'm definitely getting back up and so that was what I learned and that was without having uh you know my parents involved that was just me it's crazy how you can remember that so quickly I I love how uh that question was posed because you know it it focused on the lesson yeah you know know from from um from from that moment and it's interesting because I've thought about that moment many times but I've never thought about the lesson until this question you know and so it's empowering to look at it from that perspective but it's interesting because you chose an empowering lesson oh do you know what I mean so that's like the choice you made there I was reading this book called the courage to be disliked I don't know if you've read that book no but it basically says that what happened the first chapter in it anyway says that what happened to us in our past doesn't determine our future in fact we choose how to take what happened in our past to serve a current goal so that thing that happened to you on the bus you've chosen to take the goal of like it's going to make you resilient today and you've said to yourself now I'm a resilient person because I get back up now someone else could have said they could have chosen today to adopt a like a victim mentality and they could have said I'm always the one that gets picked on yes and that's just my luck yes and that would serve a current goal of an image that you want to maintain and construct today now the image you want to construct is you you're the type of person that gets back up so anyway the power is within you no
that's brilliant it really is Paul thank you everybody please go get this book it's an incredible book and it's probably the definitive book on this subject and that pulls on so many different reference points from PS experience as a Matchmaker to a lot of the science to the interviews you've now done it's an Incredible Book keep Love by Paul C brunon 21 Truth for a longlasting relationship thank you brother thank you thank you do you know that 80% of New Year's resolutions fail by February it's because we focus too much on the end goal and we forget the small daily actions that actually move us forward those actions that are easy to do are also easy not to do in life it's easy to save a dollar so it's also easy not to making one small Improvement each day one tiny step in the right direction has a big difference over time and that is the 1% mindset which is why we created the 1% diary a 90day journal designed to help you stay consistent and focus on the small wins and make real progress over time it also gives you access to the 1% Community a space where you can stay accountable motivated inspired along with many others on the same Journey we launched the 1% diary in November and it sold out so now we're doing a second drop head Toth diary.com to grab yours before it sells out again I'll put the link below [Music] [Music]