0
SPEAKER_00
Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m thrilled to welcome back to the podcast the brilliant John and Julie Gottman, who have a new book out about navigating conflict in relationships.
0
SPEAKER_00
Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
0
SPEAKER_00
On this show, we pull apart the web in which we all live to understand who we are and why we re here.
0
SPEAKER_00
Pulling the Thread is about big questions.
0
SPEAKER_00
Why we do what we do, how we can understand our own experiences within a larger spiritual and historical context, the ways in which we might begin to understand ourselves and each other better, and what s required to heal ourselves and our world.
0
SPEAKER_00
I ll be joined in conversation by luminaries and wise elders, those who have laid tracks in their work and lives to help us bring meaning and understanding to a world that often feels chaotic and overwhelming.
0
SPEAKER_00
My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance and plant tiny seeds of awareness so that we might all collectively learn and grow.
0
SPEAKER_01
Every single human being is a pack animal.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s what we are biologically.
0
SPEAKER_01
We would die if we didn t depend on each other.
0
SPEAKER_01
Saying what you need is a form of connecting with your partner and saying, let s be a team.
0
SPEAKER_01
Can you serve me in this way?
0
SPEAKER_01
Can I trust you to have my back?
0
SPEAKER_01
I ve got yours, and I want to be there for you.
0
SPEAKER_01
The other thing that people don t realize is that when they ask their partner for something they need, what they re doing is saying to the partner, you are my chosen one.
0
SPEAKER_01
You are my confidant.
0
SPEAKER_01
You are the person I trust more than anybody to be there for me.
0
SPEAKER_01
And the other person may feel very honored about that, actually.
0
SPEAKER_01
What that person is saying is, you are trustworthy.
0
SPEAKER_01
You are the person that I know has the strength and the resources to be there for me.
0
SPEAKER_00
Drs.
0
SPEAKER_00
Shawn and Julie Gottman are two of the most famous and popular couple therapists in the world, not only because of their ability to impart relationship-saving and relationship-strengthening advice, but because of John Gottman s decades of research in the so-called Love Lab, where he observed couples over time and could predict, with a dizzying level of success, who was destined to divorce.
0
SPEAKER_00
In short, the Gottmans are the world s leading relationship scientists, having gathered data on thousands of couples.
0
SPEAKER_00
They then use those findings to train clinicians and create simple principles for couples around the world.
0
SPEAKER_00
In their latest book, Fight Right, they explore complex.
0
SPEAKER_00
something we re all trained to avoid at all costs.
0
SPEAKER_00
Their point, though, which their research supports, is that conflict is essential for healthy relationships, clearing out the brush of stagnant resentments and, eventually, deepening bonds.
0
SPEAKER_00
In today s conversation, we explore everything from fighting styles, there are avoiders, validators, and volatiles, along with our tendency to start conflict harshly because we feel like we need a lot of ammo to justify the rupture and make our point.
0
SPEAKER_00
And then, in our conversation, we moved to modes and paths of repair, along with what their latest research can tell us about infidelity and its root cause.
0
SPEAKER_00
I loved this conversation, which we ll turn to now.
0
SPEAKER_00
As always, I feel like your books are well-timed, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
The whole world needs a primer on conflict and how essential it is and how it can bring us into connection, but how difficult it is.
0
SPEAKER_00
And we all lack this basic training, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
This is not something that we re taught, which is so unfortunate, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
As this core reality of being human, why are we not taught how to have healthy conflict?
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think a lot of religions say that conflict isn t a good thing, that you shouldn t be angry, that you should be kind, you should be loving, you should be compassionate, and all of that is true, but it ignores 50% of human nature.
0
SPEAKER_01
Human nature really likes at times to voice its own point of view against somebody else s.
0
SPEAKER_01
Thus, you re going to have conflict.
0
SPEAKER_01
So it is something that we really, really need to learn.
0
SPEAKER_01
And the only way we learn it is by watching typically our caretakers, our parents or our grandparents, and see how they did it.
0
SPEAKER_01
and we either do the same or we do the opposite and usually both are wrong.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s why we were so glad that John and Robert Levinson did this incredible research using 15 minutes of conflict that they observed in couples to really see how the successful couples did conflict versus the disasters.
0
SPEAKER_02
It s common
0
SPEAKER_02
at least in the United States, to believe that conflict is just purposeless.
0
SPEAKER_02
And yet, it really does have a goal, which is mutual understanding.
0
SPEAKER_02
And so, if you can move two people who disagree with one another, and who love each other, to a place of mutual understanding, then conflict can actually bring them closer, instead of them being like enemies or strangers.
0
SPEAKER_00
Certainly, and it s powerful the way that your research evidences that.
0
SPEAKER_00
And the other thing that I really loved that you explored at some length is that anger, which so many, particularly women, are cautioned away from or conditioned to not express, but we certainly feel it, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
And all humans are in some ways aggressive.
0
SPEAKER_00
And we all, as you just said, Julie, have needs that need to be stated and met.
0
SPEAKER_00
And yet, we re taught that anger is scary, demonic, only crazy, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
Particularly for women, the epithets go on and on, hysterical.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
But that it s an approach emotion.
0
SPEAKER_00
I had never heard this.
0
SPEAKER_00
Can you guys talk a little bit about what that means?
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, this is really based on the research of Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin.
0
SPEAKER_02
And emotions are different in the two halves of the frontal lobes.
0
SPEAKER_02
And on the right side, we tend to process emotions that make us withdraw from the world.
0
SPEAKER_02
Disgust, fear, sadness.
0
SPEAKER_02
On the right side, they re all the approach emotions.
0
SPEAKER_02
Interest, curiosity, amusement, humor, and anger.
0
SPEAKER_02
It engages us with the world.
0
SPEAKER_02
And because Bob Levinson and I really studied couples over time, we found that
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, a woman s anger is not very pleasant for her partner in the immediate sense.
0
SPEAKER_02
But in the long term, her expressing anger really is good for the relationship.
0
SPEAKER_02
It makes it better.
0
SPEAKER_02
So women who suppress anger in their relationships wind up having relationships that deteriorate.
0
SPEAKER_02
But particularly for women, if they can express their anger in a way that s functional and useful, it improves their relationship over time.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s one of the most foundational discoveries, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
It s going against this idea that an ideal state would be a no conflict zone.
0
SPEAKER_00
And that in some ways, the least expressive couples might be the healthiest, but that s not true, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
No, it really isn t true.
0
SPEAKER_01
Though, couples who avoid conflict can also have good relationships.
0
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t necessarily mean they have bad relationships.
0
SPEAKER_01
So, we discovered three different, call it styles, of how couples fight.
0
SPEAKER_01
or don t fight.
0
SPEAKER_01
One is the avoidant couple who just agree to disagree.
0
SPEAKER_01
They may bring up an issue, but they don t argue and they don t try to persuade the other person that they re right and the other is wrong.
0
SPEAKER_01
And then there are validating couples who will definitely bring up problems, but they fight in a very calm and a little bit more rational way.
0
SPEAKER_01
They do engage in persuasion, but it doesn t have very, very intense emotions, like the third type, which are volatile couples.
0
SPEAKER_01
And volatile couples are the ones who are very passionate, very intense.
0
SPEAKER_01
They express their emotions fully about almost everything, and so their conflicts are hot.
0
SPEAKER_01
They re like a fire.
0
SPEAKER_01
But the interesting thing is that volatile couples develop tremendous intimacy.
0
SPEAKER_01
as those emotions, which often are vulnerable emotions, they display to one another so that the other is really seeing the real ways of how they feel.
0
SPEAKER_01
And that is very precious.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s important in a relationship.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of like you re turning yourself inside out and saying, see, here I am.
1
SPEAKER_03
This is who I am.
1
SPEAKER_03
Accept me.
1
SPEAKER_03
And they tend to accept each other in successful relationships, even with all that hot emotion.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, what s the secret, Joey?
1
SPEAKER_03
The secret is you ve got to avoid the four horsemen, which are criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling.
1
SPEAKER_03
And the other huge thing
1
SPEAKER_03
that Bob Levinson and John discovered is that the successful couples, no matter what type, have a ratio of positive interactions to negative interactions that are at least five to one, five positives to one negative.
1
SPEAKER_03
And that s a lot of positivity.
1
SPEAKER_03
But positivity is very simple to accomplish.
1
SPEAKER_03
It could be a head nod, just like you re doing now.
1
SPEAKER_03
It can be a smile.
1
SPEAKER_03
It can be a few words like, okay, good point, fair enough.
1
SPEAKER_03
Those are all positives.
1
SPEAKER_03
It doesn t take a huge energy push to create positivity.
1
SPEAKER_03
Just showing that you re interested, that you care about what the partner is saying.
1
SPEAKER_03
You don t have to agree with your partner.
1
SPEAKER_03
But you re doing a good job of listening, of empathizing, and showing.
1
SPEAKER_03
that you really do want to hear what the partner has to say.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you re open to influence.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right.
1
SPEAKER_00
Although some more than others, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
The three that you listed are healthy, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
And there might be with a validator, might be with an avoider.
1
SPEAKER_00
Or do you typically find more often than not that people are well matched?
1
SPEAKER_00
You ll have two volatile people in the healthy.
1
SPEAKER_00
I would imagine that there s volatile with avoidant that can be very unhealthy.
1
SPEAKER_01
The mismatches are really interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
And what Bob Levinson and I discovered with the mismatches, if they re not really dealt with, then they predict couples getting divorced.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because the person who wants persuasion sees the other person who avoids or tries to be rational as a validator as very distant and cold.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the other person sees the conflict engager as kind of crazy, you know, they just want to fight all the time.
1
SPEAKER_01
And yet, you know, if we intervene, you know, in the last 26 years, Julie and I have been working on, how do you turn a disaster couple into a master couple?
1
SPEAKER_01
And how do you avoid disaster?
1
SPEAKER_01
that actually turns out to be pretty easy thing to solve that mismatch, because they can come to a common way of dealing with conflict that really works for both.
1
SPEAKER_00
In the book, you gave an example of I think it s the man who s the aggressor who s trying to get a rise out of his wife, because he sees it as a way of, I guess, engagement, intimacy, just wants that, you know, that head on collision, and she finds that, you know, bullying and or it shuts her down, she starts, I think, distancing and stonewalling him.
1
SPEAKER_00
Is it enough for people when you re working with couples to say, listen, your wife likes conflict.
1
SPEAKER_00
This turns her on in some way.
1
SPEAKER_00
Is it enough for people to be able to identify themselves and their style and their partner s style in order to navigate it more productively?
1
SPEAKER_00
Is that enough to sort of reset the stage?
1
SPEAKER_03
No, it depends on what else is on the stage, right?
1
SPEAKER_03
If one of the partners is used to bringing up problems with criticism,
1
SPEAKER_03
or with contempt, and criticism, let me define that, means blaming the partner for a problem, personality flaw of that partner.
1
SPEAKER_03
Contempt means also blaming the other person, but doing so from a position of superiority.
1
SPEAKER_03
with a little scorn and disgust thrown in for good measure.
1
SPEAKER_03
So if that s going on, then the other partner tends to be defensive or shutting down, as you just described.
1
SPEAKER_03
And shutting down because they are getting what we call flooded, where their heart rates are going over 100 beats a minute, their blood pressure is rising, they re breathing more shallowly, typically.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s the same as fight or flight.
1
SPEAKER_03
So that person, if they go into fight or flight,
1
SPEAKER_03
shuts down in order to go inside and try and calm themselves down.
1
SPEAKER_03
That s what they re doing during flooding.
1
SPEAKER_03
Any of those, we call the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
1
SPEAKER_03
So again, they re criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
1
SPEAKER_03
And people don t know the alternatives to those.
1
SPEAKER_03
So even if they identify what style, what category they belong in, in terms of their own
1
SPEAKER_03
fighting identity, let s say, they still need the right tools in order to not set off the other person feeling attacked, to not sabotage their getting listened to, and to be able to really have a conversation that feels respectful.
1
SPEAKER_02
I m Rachel Martin.
1
SPEAKER_02
After hosting Morning Edition for years, I know that the news can wear you down.
1
SPEAKER_02
So we made a new podcast called Wildcard, where a special deck of cards and a whole bunch of fascinating guests help us sort out what makes life meaningful.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s part game show, part existential deep dive, and it is seriously fun.
1
SPEAKER_02
Join me on Wildcard, wherever you get your podcasts, only from NPR.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s a funny line where you say that the question that you get asked most frequently is, what are people fighting about?
1
SPEAKER_00
And the answer is nothing.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, everything and nothing.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m sure anyone listening who s been in a relationship with someone can recognize how quickly you can escalate about really dumb stuff, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
Because there s typically underlying issues or unmet dreams.
1
SPEAKER_00
We can talk about that in a minute.
1
SPEAKER_00
you guys clarify the typical cycle that you always you never the kitchen sinking the way that we are upset and instead of saying this is really just about a single issue we could kitchen sink it to use your words to justify our rage.
1
SPEAKER_00
Can you talk about sort of the typical
1
SPEAKER_00
disaster but most typical format or stage of a fight that you guys see?
1
SPEAKER_01
One of the things that we ve really studied is what makes conflicts escalate this way and become dysfunctional.
1
SPEAKER_01
One of the things is that we often don t ask for what we need and we feel like we don t have a right to really have needs
1
SPEAKER_01
And so we think our partner should be able to read our minds and intuit what we need, rather than us asking for what we need.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the other is if we dismiss our partner s negative emotions, if we try to minimize them and don t really listen well, then conflicts escalate because people feel dismissed.
1
SPEAKER_01
And a lot of times just turning away from an attempt to connect with your partner and just be closer.
1
SPEAKER_01
When that gets ignored or rejected, that also can escalate conflict.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s like, hey, listen to the sentence or look at that bird.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_03
You know, one of the things that John and Bob also found in their research that just kind of blew our minds is that the first three minutes of a
1
SPEAKER_03
not only how the rest of the conversation will go, it also predicts how the rest of the relationship will go five to six years down the road.
1
SPEAKER_03
So how you bring up a conflict, just saying after you ve said to your partner, listen, we need to talk, you can either address the problem with criticism
1
SPEAKER_03
by saying something like, you know what?
1
SPEAKER_03
You are so lazy.
1
SPEAKER_03
You never get up after dinner and start doing the dishes.
1
SPEAKER_03
Never.
1
SPEAKER_03
And it just, I hate it.
1
SPEAKER_03
All right.
1
SPEAKER_03
There s the criticism.
1
SPEAKER_03
You never, never and always imply a personality flaw.
1
SPEAKER_03
in the process.
1
SPEAKER_03
So there s the criticism versus what we saw the successful couples doing, which was basically a three-step process.
1
SPEAKER_03
They would say, I feel some emotion about what?
1
SPEAKER_03
What s the situation they re having the feeling about?
1
SPEAKER_03
And here s my positive need, meaning here s what I do want you to do to shine for me, not what I don t like or resent.
1
SPEAKER_03
So in that same situation, it would sound like, you know, honey, I am really tired of always having to do the dishes.
1
SPEAKER_03
There are the dishes and I m the one who gets up.
1
SPEAKER_03
And I would love to be able to share that task with you.
1
SPEAKER_03
Would you be willing, at least some of the time, to also get up and approach doing the dishes?
1
SPEAKER_03
That would make a big difference for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Here s the positive need.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, in this country, I think, Elise, and maybe in, I don t know, maybe in many other countries as well, this is a country which is based on the philosophy of pull yourself up by your own bootstrap.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, be an individual.
2
SPEAKER_00
Don t lean on anybody.
2
SPEAKER_00
Don t ask for what you need because that means you re a sissy or you re weak or God forbid, you re feminine.
2
SPEAKER_00
Asking for your needs to be met is sometimes categorized as being effeminate, which is outrageous because every single human being is a pack animal.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what we are biologically.
2
SPEAKER_00
We would die if we didn t depend on each other.
2
SPEAKER_00
Saying what you need is a form of connecting with your partner and saying, let s be a team.
2
SPEAKER_00
Can you serve me in this way?
2
SPEAKER_00
Can I trust you to have my back?
2
SPEAKER_00
Because I ve got yours and I want to be there for you.
2
SPEAKER_00
The other thing that people don t realize is that when they ask their partner for something they need, what they re doing is saying to the partner, you are my chosen one.
2
SPEAKER_00
You are my confidant.
2
SPEAKER_00
You are the person I trust more than anybody to be there for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the other person,
2
SPEAKER_00
may feel very honored by that, actually.
2
SPEAKER_00
What that person is saying is, you are trustworthy.
2
SPEAKER_00
You are the person that I know has the strength and the resources to be there for me.
2
SPEAKER_01
In just two weeks, we re going to be presenting at the Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference.
2
SPEAKER_01
Actually, next week.
2
SPEAKER_01
Next week, okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
The results of our study on treating infidelity in couples
2
SPEAKER_01
Very successful study the first real control group study in this area and one of the basic.
2
SPEAKER_01
Ingredients of making a relationship a fair proof is complaining to your partner rather than complaining to somebody else about your partner.
2
SPEAKER_01
a critical, critical difference.
2
SPEAKER_02
Whoa.
2
SPEAKER_02
And those complaints can include your complaints about your partner.
2
SPEAKER_02
But is it that as soon as you start triangulating any intimacy that you re sort of opening doors to other transgressions?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
When you feel lonely and really sorry for yourself and confide in somebody else about how awful your partner is being to you,
2
SPEAKER_01
then you re giving yourself permission to cross boundaries, and that s getting of a lot of affairs.
2
SPEAKER_00
There is a fabulous clinical psychologist, unfortunately she s passed by now, her name is Shirley Glass, and she wrote a book called Not Just Friends.
2
SPEAKER_00
What that book was all about is, you know, at the water cooler, at work, meeting somebody there,
2
SPEAKER_00
just offhand, another person in the office and saying, Oh God, I had a horrible night last night.
2
SPEAKER_00
The other person saying what happened and this partner saying, Well, you know, my wife was really being mean to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
She was being a jerk.
2
SPEAKER_00
She couldn t find anything I was doing right.
2
SPEAKER_00
She only pointed out what I was doing wrong and it felt horrible.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then the other person is being empathetic and caring, maybe putting her hand on the other person s arm and saying, oh, God, that must have felt terrible, awful.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there they are.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re building a connection that goes against the actual marital
2
SPEAKER_00
bond, the beginning of an affair.
2
SPEAKER_00
Shirley Glass also said that what is ideal in a marriage is to have a window between you and your partner and a fence around the marriage that you re not transgressing.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re not crossing over.
2
SPEAKER_00
So complaints, confiding, and so on.
2
SPEAKER_00
Of course, you can have a best friend,
2
SPEAKER_00
That s a little different, but really taking the complaints to that partner so that you can continue to deepen your connection, understand each other s vulnerabilities, which may have played a role in the fight or whatever is going on with you,
2
SPEAKER_00
and coming to some kind of resolution or compromise or even agreement to disagree.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s okay too, as long as it s the partner you re talking to about it.
2
SPEAKER_02
How do you even set up a study like that to understand the underlying mechanisms?
2
SPEAKER_02
Are you talking about what happened in the aftermath?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, it s really interesting, at least, because a researcher named Carol Rusbold really studied commitment for about 30 years in couples who haven t had an affair.
2
SPEAKER_01
Her research is the only research ever done that can predict which couples are going to have an affair, whether they re gay, lesbian, or mixed-sex couples.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s the moment when things aren t going well.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you start thinking, I can do better.
2
SPEAKER_01
a real or imagined relationship, I can do better, that you stop cherishing what you have, you start trashing what you have, and thinking about what you re missing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then you start giving yourself permission to cross boundaries, to not give voice to your complaints to your partner, but to complain to somebody else about your partner.
2
SPEAKER_02
God, it s so obvious, and yet it s amazing to hear it validated, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
I mean, just listening to that, you can recognize that impulse to seek comfort or consolation or even someone to say, you re right.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, that s so hard.
2
SPEAKER_02
I can completely imagine how that starts to happen.
2
SPEAKER_00
Another thing that we saw in couples who were having affairs that was so interesting is that many couples would begin by having pretty bad fights.
2
SPEAKER_00
They d be having terrible fights.
2
SPEAKER_00
There d be a lot of criticism, there might be contempt, a lot of conflicts that didn t have resolution and that were very painful to one or both partners.
2
SPEAKER_00
After a while, those conflicts felt so aversive
2
SPEAKER_00
that couples began to avoid having conflicts, avoid talking about what felt wrong in their relationship, what needs were not getting met.
2
SPEAKER_00
They didn t want to bring them up because the conflicts were so awful and terrible and painful.
2
SPEAKER_00
So they would bury their complaints down later inside themselves.
2
SPEAKER_00
and hold them inside and avoid talking to the partner.
2
SPEAKER_00
So there d be a lot of distance being created because they weren t bringing up their real needs to their partner.
2
SPEAKER_00
That produced loneliness.
2
SPEAKER_00
That distancing produced loneliness.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the loneliness
2
SPEAKER_00
Instead, they re looking at other people as potential alternate partners that might understand them better, might be able to hear them better, and might not feed them the toxins of criticism and contempt.
2
SPEAKER_02
You write a bit about infidelity and fight right.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I think you make this case like typically there s a lot of therapy that s required for for these couples to get back on track.
2
SPEAKER_02
Is there a reason to be optimistic for people who are trying to recover from this?
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s an emphatic head nod, Julie.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yay!
2
SPEAKER_00
Very excited.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because this study was a study of couples who went into therapy, and it was the first controlled study of a fair treatment that had a control group.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we had a waitlist control group.
2
SPEAKER_00
We also had another group who didn t even get any therapy.
2
SPEAKER_00
A wait list group means couples who had affairs but who waited a couple of months before going into therapy.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you could look at how were the couples doing who got immediate treatment versus the couples who didn t get treatment until they finally did.
2
SPEAKER_00
So what we are seeing so far, it s not completed yet, but we have a pre-test and a post-test of how the couples
2
SPEAKER_00
are feeling about one another?
2
SPEAKER_00
Are they turning towards one another?
2
SPEAKER_00
Are they listening to each other s needs?
2
SPEAKER_00
How is their fighting going?
2
SPEAKER_00
Is there a lot of hostility?
2
SPEAKER_00
And we re finding that after our treatment model, which I can also tell you about, they are doing so much better, significantly better than they were doing before.
3
SPEAKER_02
And maybe even before the affair occurred, what we re helping to do is to build marriage number two with the same partner.
3
SPEAKER_02
Because an affair sets fire to the whole sound relationship house and burns it to the ground.
3
SPEAKER_01
The couples for whom we ve actually done six-month follow-up after treatment, and we haven t done it for the complete sample yet, for those couples, the amazing finding is that they actually get better after therapy, whereas in most therapies, couples deteriorate after treatment.
3
SPEAKER_01
In our therapy, they actually get better from the end of therapy to the follow-up.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that s really a very optimistic finding.
3
SPEAKER_00
because they re learning tools.
3
SPEAKER_02
So here s the model.
3
SPEAKER_02
There are three stages to treatment.
3
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, it s so interesting because we found when we just did a survey of therapists doing therapy for affairs, 50% of the therapies or the therapists didn t talk about the affair at all.
3
SPEAKER_02
It was just incredible.
3
SPEAKER_02
So we begin with a stage we call Atonement.
3
SPEAKER_02
And in Atonement, it s definitely a one-way street.
3
SPEAKER_02
in which the hurt partner, or what we call the uninvolved partner who didn t have the affair, can ask any question they want to their partner and get transparent, real, honest answers.
3
SPEAKER_02
So, how much did you spend?
3
SPEAKER_02
What hotel did you stay at?
3
SPEAKER_02
What gifts did you give?
3
SPEAKER_02
You know, there can be many, many questions.
3
SPEAKER_02
I once had a client who came in with two notebooks
3
SPEAKER_02
for her to ask all the questions to him.
3
SPEAKER_02
So also in atonement, we help the hurt partner to express her feelings about the affair
3
SPEAKER_02
without criticism or contempt.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that seems kind of illogical in some ways, because there s so much blame, there s so much hurt, there s so much criticism of the other person.
3
SPEAKER_02
However, what that hurt person does is they describe themselves, what the affair did to them inside.
3
SPEAKER_02
I felt destroyed, I felt
3
SPEAKER_02
decimated, I felt desolate.
3
SPEAKER_02
The other person has to hear those feelings and does their best to empathize with that hurt partner to really understand the impact of their having an affair on the marriage and their partner.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then they have to express remorse
3
SPEAKER_02
an apology, deep, deep, deep apology, very real, very sincere.
3
SPEAKER_02
And they may need to do that over and over and over again, session after session after session, until finally the hurt partner is ready to move on.
3
SPEAKER_02
When they move on,
3
SPEAKER_02
Then there s the rebuilding of the marriage in a stage we call attunement.
3
SPEAKER_02
And what attunement means is really learning how to tune into your partner and listen to their needs, listen to their emotions, including anger, try to empathize with those, not get critical, not get blamed, more defensive, reduce flooding, trying to eliminate it,
3
SPEAKER_02
so that they really can connect through a much healthier way of dealing with problems between them than what was happening before.
3
SPEAKER_02
We also talk about turning towards one another.
3
SPEAKER_02
And what that means is when a person just makes a bid to the other for interest, like, wow, look at that tree, isn t it beautiful?
3
SPEAKER_02
The other says, yes, it is beautiful.
3
SPEAKER_02
as opposed to turning away, which means ignoring what the person said, or turning against them by saying something like, stop interrupting me, leave me alone.
3
SPEAKER_02
So we re teaching the couple all these tools to rebuild their marriage in a really healthy way.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it s interesting, because it s almost like the marriage, because it s gone, is now a blank slate, and they want to learn everything they can
3
SPEAKER_02
to rebuild a healthier marriage.
3
SPEAKER_02
Then in step three, once they ve worked through attunement, there is what we call attachment.
3
SPEAKER_02
And in attachment, typically, this isn t always true, but typically, many couples then return to having a sexual relationship.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s very hard for a lot of her partners to engage in physical intimacy because they re suffering from post-traumatic
3
SPEAKER_02
They re having flashbacks, even if they didn t see their partner with the affair partner.
3
SPEAKER_02
They re imagining what that might have looked like.
3
SPEAKER_02
They re imagining what the affair partner looked like.
3
SPEAKER_02
You know, always more attractive than they feel they are.
3
SPEAKER_02
Maybe inaccurate, but that s how it feels.
3
SPEAKER_02
They re having big ups and downs in their emotions, and they re very hypervigilant, looking for signs that there is still an affair going on.
3
SPEAKER_02
So that precludes being physically intimate, because how much more vulnerable can you be than making love with your partner?
3
SPEAKER_02
don t want to expose that vulnerability at first because you re so afraid of being hurt.
3
SPEAKER_02
So oftentimes during the attachment phase, they re engaging in intimacy and sexuality again, but in a lot of times a different way.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not mechanical, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not
3
SPEAKER_02
pornographic.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not, brace yourself, Martha.
3
SPEAKER_02
You know, it s not, let s finish this up because I got to get to work.
3
SPEAKER_02
Instead, they re taking their time.
3
SPEAKER_02
There s emotional connection as well as sexual connection.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s what s getting built during that attachment phase.
3
SPEAKER_02
And commitment.
3
SPEAKER_02
Commitment is absolutely crucial here.
3
SPEAKER_02
They recommit
3
SPEAKER_02
in a very different and deeper way.
3
SPEAKER_02
And some couples will actually do another ritual to honor that commitment that is now being made in a much healthier way.
3
SPEAKER_01
We had all kinds of couples in this study.
3
SPEAKER_01
We had couples where the person having the affair was the wife, where the person having the affair was the husband.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we had gay and lesbian couples in the study as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it was really much broader study.
3
SPEAKER_02
I don t think we had any trans couples though, did we?
3
SPEAKER_02
No.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that s to come.
3
SPEAKER_02
We haven t studied trans couples yet.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to talk about the findings in your large international study about the increased amounts of respect in gay and lesbian couples and the lack or the lesser degree of dominance.
3
SPEAKER_00
I thought that was so fascinating.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is going back to conflict, but finishing up on the infidelity, because it s
3
SPEAKER_00
Very common, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s one of the things that I am terrified of in my own relationship because I can even just hearing you talk about it, I feel PTSD, even though it hasn t happened to me at this point.
3
SPEAKER_00
And yet at the same time, I recognize like, well, if you re married for long enough, it s certainly possible.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it s really common, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Or maybe not as common as we re led to believe.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s hard to really estimate the probability because when you hand out questionnaires in an airport, the way Shirley Glass did, most people throw them away.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you re not sure that you re getting a real representative sample.
3
SPEAKER_01
But as far as we can tell, it s really somewhere between 15 to 25% of couples who will experience an infidelity.
3
SPEAKER_01
So for the most part, it doesn t happen.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then Carol Ruspo s research really comes in here because it talks about the critical ingredient of giving voice to your complaints to your partner and really thinking in your mind, you know, this is the love of my life.
3
SPEAKER_01
I really need to talk to him or her about what I feel and what I need.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then you wind up really cherishing what you have
3
SPEAKER_01
rather than feeling sorry for yourself for what you don t have.
3
SPEAKER_01
So those ingredients really a fair proof for relationship.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so it s not something that can happen to you like a tornado that you have no control over.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can actually control these things in your relationship if you really turn toward one another when you re upset and give voice to your complaints and also cherish your partner and realize
3
SPEAKER_01
How lucky you are.
3
SPEAKER_01
I always think every day when I wake up next to Julie, you know how lucky I am to have
4
SPEAKER_02
the most wonderful woman in the world for me, right next to me.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s just great.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so when I m upset with Julie, I m going to talk to her about it.
4
SPEAKER_02
Because, you know, she s the person that I love.
4
SPEAKER_02
And yeah, who I need to talk to about these problems.
4
SPEAKER_02
So yeah, you have to be something that you fear.
4
SPEAKER_02
And you have no control over because you really have control over this.
4
SPEAKER_00
Your last book, which we ve talked about on this podcast before, but The Eight Dates, a short guide to reconnection and some repair.
4
SPEAKER_00
As someone in my relationship, we are probably avoidant validator, somewhere in that mix.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we can really stow loneliness just because we both like a certain amount of alone time, et cetera.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I will say from having done, you know, I loved that weekend workshop with you guys, that was so fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
but also some of the interventions in that book, or just paying attention to it, flagging it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because I will have moments where I m like, where s my husband?
4
SPEAKER_00
I m so lonely.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then I can actually bridge it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It can feel very existential and threatening.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then we can rebuild it quickly within a conversation.
4
SPEAKER_00
Why does it feel so extreme?
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if I m alone in feeling that, but I can go immediately to,
4
SPEAKER_01
I m alone.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, I think from alone to loneliness for some people is a very short step.
4
SPEAKER_01
It may have to do with being more extroverted and wanting to connect more and more, maybe more than your introverted partner.
4
SPEAKER_01
Might have something to do with that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so you re missing the connection a lot.
4
SPEAKER_01
For John and I, each one of us can get lonely pretty fast.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m an introvert.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s an extrovert.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if he is working on, I don t know what, working on a book or something, or working on a research study.
4
SPEAKER_02
Or playing the fiddle.
4
SPEAKER_01
Or playing the fiddle downstairs far away where it s safe, then I can get
4
SPEAKER_01
lonely too, because it feels like the house is empty.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s gone.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s not there.
4
SPEAKER_01
And all of us, as I was saying earlier, we are pack animals.
4
SPEAKER_01
We need our connection.
4
SPEAKER_01
We need our main person there.
4
SPEAKER_01
A lot of the times,
4
SPEAKER_01
And if we re preoccupied, if we re distracted, then yeah, fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, we re doing other stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s not a big deal.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if we re sitting and we re really hoping to have connection and our partner isn t there, our partner may, you know, be downstairs or in the next room, but they re preoccupied with something else, then we begin to feel devalued, taken for
4
SPEAKER_01
worthless, sometimes even invisible.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s painful.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think also that childhood has something to do with this.
4
SPEAKER_01
If we grew up very popular with lots of friends, blah, blah, blah, then it doesn t hurt quite as much as when, if we were children who were very, very lonely.
4
SPEAKER_01
how loneliness feels now.
4
SPEAKER_01
Loneliness can feel much more acute, much more painful because there are echoes of our childhood loneliness within it.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s triggering an even more painful loneliness because in childhood, we feel things a hundred times more intensely.
4
SPEAKER_01
than we do as adults, which is interesting.
4
SPEAKER_01
So if that gets triggered, that childhood loneliness, my God, you know, it breaks our heart.
4
SPEAKER_02
So we got a baby monitor, so that Julie can be the baby.
4
SPEAKER_02
And she can go to the other end of the monitor and say, John, come on upstairs.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then I put away the fiddle.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, that s not what I say.
4
SPEAKER_01
What I say is,
4
SPEAKER_01
It s really good.
4
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, he s a very excellent partner.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s a good idea.
4
SPEAKER_00
We have a small house, so I can just chirp and he ll hear me.
4
SPEAKER_00
But we ve established some rules, like we try to go to bed at the same time, et cetera, which I think is incredibly helpful, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Because otherwise, we can just miss each other.
4
SPEAKER_00
We ve talked about this, but there s that stunning statistic about parents of smaller children where they talk for, what, 35 minutes a week?
4
SPEAKER_00
Is that the statistic?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that was the Sloan study at UCLA of dual-career couples with young children.
4
SPEAKER_02
And they found that they spend less than 10% of an evening in the same room.
4
SPEAKER_02
And over the course of a week, they talk maybe 35 minutes on average.
4
SPEAKER_02
And most of that is about errands, who s going to do what when, rather than having open ended questions, or they say, how s life treating you, baby?
4
SPEAKER_02
You know, yeah, about your job?
4
SPEAKER_02
How do you feel about being a mom?
4
SPEAKER_02
How do you feel about being a dad?
4
SPEAKER_02
And what do you want our life to be like five years from now?
4
SPEAKER_02
So they don t ask those kinds of questions and they naturally drift apart because the relationship doesn t get priority.
4
SPEAKER_00
Let s talk about that, the dream work, the way that conflict so often is on top of our undiagnosed dreams, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Or maybe what we haven t even admitted to ourselves.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s exactly right, Elise.
4
SPEAKER_01
So a lot of times people fight on the surface, and they may be fighting about a relatively important issue like parenting.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s not always nothing.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s style of parenting or
4
SPEAKER_01
How much money should we save versus spend, et cetera.
4
SPEAKER_01
However, they re rarely getting down to the core of their position on the issue, which is subterranean.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s buried deep inside.
4
SPEAKER_01
They might not have had time to really reflect on why is this such a big deal to me?
4
SPEAKER_01
Why is this so important?
4
SPEAKER_01
So what we did is we created an intervention or an exercise that people can access.
4
SPEAKER_01
All of this stuff is accessible now on a software platform we have called Gottman Connect.
4
SPEAKER_01
All the exercises, all the teaching, all the interventions.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this exercise is called the Dream Within Conflict exercise, in which one person is the listener, the other is the speaker.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the listener is simply asking those big open-ended questions, we have six of them listed, to really open up the partner and understand what is beneath their position on the issue.
4
SPEAKER_01
and then we trade roles.
4
SPEAKER_01
That person is asking us the same question.
4
SPEAKER_01
So we each have an opportunity to excavate and draw up what is really key for us, what makes it so important.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it might be an ideal dream,
4
SPEAKER_01
or it might be some childhood history that really influences our position on the issue, or it could be simply a sense of, I guess I would call existential purpose.
4
SPEAKER_01
It relates to the legacy you want to leave behind.
4
SPEAKER_01
Your position on this issue is so pivotal to your identity that it is who you are.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s an aspect of who you are.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you give that up, it feels like you re giving up the bones of your body.
4
SPEAKER_01
But your partner may not know that, nor may you, if you ve been staying on the surface.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it takes some deeper reflection.
4
SPEAKER_01
But my God, the intimacy that comes out of that, that s where you build incredible connection through conflict.
4
SPEAKER_02
So when conflicts are gridlocked like that, and we see that reflected in parties who go to war, or in Congress where there s no working with the other party,
4
SPEAKER_02
It s because there s this underlying set of values or beliefs or dreams or hopes or wishes that they re not getting to.
4
SPEAKER_02
So nobody feels really safe enough to talk about what s most meaningful to them.
4
SPEAKER_02
And these six very simple questions
4
SPEAKER_02
unearth that.
4
SPEAKER_02
The excavation is a great model.
4
SPEAKER_02
Our grandson loves trucks and he loves the excavator and I think those six questions are the excavator.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s interesting thinking how we even open this conversation, John, when you were talking about needs and how we want our partner to anticipate them.
4
SPEAKER_00
We have trouble articulating them.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think, to your point, Julie, sometimes we don t even know what we need or want.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I sometimes get into this, and this sounds so cheap.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s almost like a, I don t want you to meet my need because I don t want to have to meet
5
SPEAKER_02
any more of your needs, right?
5
SPEAKER_02
Like a tit for tat, in part, because I think so many of us haven t accessed these deeper, like, this would be amazing.
5
SPEAKER_02
Like, this is my dream.
5
SPEAKER_02
I recognize I m not going to get it in one day or one year.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s going to take a lifetime.
5
SPEAKER_02
But I wonder if we couldn t do this deeper work with our partners to really understand what that looks like if we wouldn t feel so much scarcity around being in service to each other.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s a wonderful point to bring up, Elise, that sometimes we feel like we re giving and giving and giving and giving, and we re also keeping score.
5
SPEAKER_01
If we re keeping score, that s a problem.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s really a problem.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because that s not how relationships work.
5
SPEAKER_01
That isn t how relationships work, actually.
5
SPEAKER_01
There have been theories that that is the best thing for a relationship, and it really isn t.
5
SPEAKER_01
What we found is that
5
SPEAKER_01
When you re making a decision, if you consider your partner s needs as important as your own, or maybe even a little more important than your own, that is what creates a successful relationship.
5
SPEAKER_01
Trust.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
5
SPEAKER_01
Both people are doing that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I remember, Elise, when our daughter was much younger, both of us felt very needy of other things.
5
SPEAKER_01
You know, we felt needy for exercise.
5
SPEAKER_01
We felt needy for alone time.
5
SPEAKER_01
We felt needy for time with our friends.
5
SPEAKER_01
and so on, who was going to get their needs met.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I remember times when both of us were like, I want to exercise.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, no, I want to exercise.
5
SPEAKER_01
Somebody had to stay home with our daughter.
5
SPEAKER_01
So we would at those times say, oh, my God, both of us are so needy.
5
SPEAKER_01
What are we going to do?
5
SPEAKER_01
And neither one of us felt like we had the resources to give to the other.
5
SPEAKER_01
So, you know, we would compromise in some kind of way.
5
SPEAKER_01
But eventually, things typically balance out.
5
SPEAKER_01
They don t balance out at that time, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
But John, for example, I might be giving him lots of extra time to do whatever he needed to do.
5
SPEAKER_01
But then, if I had one of my infinite number of surgeries, man, was he there for me.
5
SPEAKER_01
He was incredibly there for me in a way that I d never experienced before from anybody, parents or other.
5
SPEAKER_01
So there, my goodness, there was the love, there was the cherishing, there was the giving back.
5
SPEAKER_00
Here s a really important point that Julie s raising, I think.
5
SPEAKER_00
In a lot of relationships, we see the standoff where, you know, people refuse to think for two.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re really two strong personalities opposed to one another, and each person is negotiating for the best deal for themselves.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s kind of like your gain is my loss, and my gain is your loss.
5
SPEAKER_00
and they can t negotiate a situation where both people win.
5
SPEAKER_00
And those people who live in that kind of a relationship we found die sooner.
5
SPEAKER_00
We thought these people were just not returning our phone calls.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it turned out that those people had died in our longitudinal study.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s hard to return a phone call when you re dead.
5
SPEAKER_00
So that standoff kind of marriage, you know, where it s a zero-sum game,
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, my gain is your loss, and they re always negotiating for the best deal for themselves.
5
SPEAKER_00
They never build that trust, and it turns out their hearts are working harder at every beat.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re beating harder, their blood pressure is higher, and eventually their body gives out sooner.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and I think it was in our last conversation when we were talking about sort of the impact versus intention and also how the research suggests that when we re so focused on everything that s not being done or everything that we are doing, we miss everything that our partner is actually taking care of, right?
5
SPEAKER_02
We re somehow blind to their movement as they take the trash out, right?
5
SPEAKER_02
We re not accurate documenters of what s really happening in our relationship.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s such an important point.
5
SPEAKER_00
Behavioral therapy for couples initially assumed that in an unhappy relationship, people weren t very good to each other.
5
SPEAKER_00
They weren t being loving and kind and generous.
5
SPEAKER_00
But the truth was, and Robinson and Price discovered this in a great study, that they were being positive, but their partner was missing 50% of the positivity.
5
SPEAKER_00
They weren t perceiving it.
5
SPEAKER_00
They have a habit of mind where they were catching their partner doing things right.
5
SPEAKER_00
They were always looking for their partner s mistakes.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so they missed all the good stuff.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
Oh, you guys are always full of not only fascinating insights, but so much wisdom.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I loved this book.
5
SPEAKER_02
I took 20 pages of notes.
5
SPEAKER_02
There s also so many great charts.
5
SPEAKER_02
I love the idea of just ripping out pages and putting them on the fridge.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then you go and you consult the chart, right?
5
SPEAKER_02
As you guys do.
5
SPEAKER_02
How do I figure out what I m feeling?
5
SPEAKER_02
Oh, this is what I m feeling.
5
SPEAKER_02
Until we learn these skills, skill building.
5
SPEAKER_02
We all desperately need an advanced course in navigating the world, particularly because the world is not really how we would prefer it to be, right?
5
SPEAKER_02
The world doesn t match our preferences.
5
SPEAKER_02
As devastating as that is.
5
SPEAKER_02
I love the Gottmans.
5
SPEAKER_02
I write about our experience at their weekend retreat with tons of other couples in honor of best behavior, but it was something that Rob and I still think about and talk about.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I realized after we signed off that I flagged that we would come back to this insight that they offered about how gay and lesbian couples differed and it s
5
SPEAKER_02
Quite interesting, actually.
5
SPEAKER_02
This was part of one of their vast studies that they did, I think with maybe like 40,000 couples.
5
SPEAKER_02
And what they found is that this was an observational study with 21 same-sex couples for over a decade that came to be known as the 12-Year Study.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I m reading to you from the book.
5
SPEAKER_02
They observed that gay and lesbian couples, to begin with, seemed to have a better capacity to laugh at themselves,
5
SPEAKER_02
In conflict, they tended not to take things as personally as heterosexual couples.
5
SPEAKER_02
They also tended to be more positive and upbeat during fights.
5
SPEAKER_02
They were more likely to use humor and affection, even in the midst of conflict.
5
SPEAKER_02
And along with that came lower levels of physiological arousal, less flooding.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then they go on to say that the data also showed that same-sex couples were much more sensitive to not dominating each other.
5
SPEAKER_02
So may we all learn from our friends who are in same-sex couples how to navigate conflict as well, as they seem to be far more masterful at it.
5
SPEAKER_02
This is a great book.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s full of lists and, you know, cheat sheets that they essentially are like, you can easily just tape this up until you get the hang of it.
5
SPEAKER_02
repair lists, ways to understand if you or your partner might be flooding, how to navigate a fight and its stages.
5
SPEAKER_02
They articulate that those stages are essentially setting an agenda and then persuasion.
5
SPEAKER_02
But typically we, it depends on the conflict style, but there s some people start at persuasion rather than really trying to understand the actual agenda or what s underneath.
5
SPEAKER_02
The third stage is to attempt to reach a compromise, but many couples skip persuasion or they go right to persuasion and their point is all in good time.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s really important to use John s word to excavate what s really at play.
5
SPEAKER_02
Otherwise you re destined to keep repeating these same conflicts.
5
SPEAKER_02
All right.
5
SPEAKER_02
As you can see, I love this stuff.
5
SPEAKER_02
I could keep going and going and going.
5
SPEAKER_02
If you liked today s episode, please rate and review and tell a friend.
5
SPEAKER_02
You can find show notes and full transcripts of the episodes at EliseLoonan.com.
5
SPEAKER_02
While there, please sign up for my sub stack.
5
SPEAKER_02
I send a short note every Wednesday about topics that are aligned with this show and a deeper dive most Sundays.
5
SPEAKER_02
Or follow me on Instagram at EliseLoonan.
5
SPEAKER_02
And finally, if you haven t already, please consider picking up a copy of my New York Times bestselling book, On Our Best Behavior, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good, available wherever you get your books.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s an exploration of how women have been conditioned for goodness,
6
SPEAKER_00
Men for Power, and all the ways we ve been programmed to police ourselves and each other according to these cultural ideas of what it is to be a good woman.
6
SPEAKER_00
I d also like to give a huge thank you to my sponsors who make this show possible.
6
SPEAKER_00
Please support them the way they support this podcast.
6
SPEAKER_00
This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studio.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you enjoyed this episode, please listen, rate, review, and follow Pulling the Thread.
6
SPEAKER_00
Available now for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.
6
SPEAKER_00
I want to give a shout out to Phil Svitek, Lauren Legroso, Mary-Kate McDonough, Ali Brockman, and the entire Cadence 13 team for producing these episodes.
6
SPEAKER_00
And to Valero Duval for my key art.
6
SPEAKER_00
Take care of yourselves.
6
SPEAKER_00
I ll see you next time.