The Relationship Advice That Will Help You Live Longer | Terry Real

Key Takeaway

At your next conflict, pause before defending yourself and ask: “Am I trying to repair, or am I trying to be right, control, retaliate, or vent?” If you are flooded, take a responsible timeout: say “I need a break,” explain that you will return, and name when. When you reconnect, address your partner’s hurt first—without adding “but”—and ask what would help them feel better. This single shift moves you from automatic reaction toward a wiser, more connected response.

Episode Overview

Terry Real explains why intimate relationships are foundational to mental, physical, and family health—and why modern couples need skills that culture rarely teaches. He outlines Relational Life Therapy’s approach to power, accountability, repair, childhood-triggered reactions, and “loving power”: being both firm and cherishing. The conversation emphasizes treating the relationship itself as something both partners must actively protect.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Relationship Advice That Will Help You Live Longer | Terry Real from Feel Better, Live More. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Why is it do you think that people who are interested in their health should care about the quality of their relationships? Ah because their quality of relationships will determine first of all their happiness. Uh second of all their emotional mental health, third of all their physical health and fourth of all their kids health. But hey other than that who cares? But let me just do the body for a moment. Uh Dick Murthy, the Obama's surgeon general for the United States has uh cited research. Not being in intimate connection is as bad for your physical health as smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day.

This is hard research. The the devastation that Look, we're pack animals. What I I've been saying this for 40 years and the research has finally caught up with me. We are designed to be relational. That is what the human species is designed for. We don't self-regulate. For example, our nervous systems are not closed. We co-regulate all day long. If you take, you know, I start off my newest book, US, arguing against the idea of a freestanding individual. Yes, individual but always in context. Our nervous systems are not geared to be alone.

Uh so the state of deep connection uh to ourselves and others uh has become more and more a public health issue. Loneliness kills people a and conversely intimate connection cures people and keeps them health. But there are a million stud here this is my favorite study of the 8 million studies. This is Dartmouth uh in in the states. There's a direct correlation between how quickly someone uh gets out of the hospital and recovers from surgery and how many visitors they have. The more visitors, the shorter the hospital stay.

The fewer visitors, the longer the hospital stay. I mean, how black and white is that? If someone's going in for pain a painful medical procedure, the pain is exponentially less if they have a loved one sitting holding their hand while they have it. And it's even less if they have a perfect stranger sitting holding their hand if they have it. We are not born to be freestanding. That is a myth that hurts people. So if relationships are so fundamental to who we are as human beings, why do we find them so hard?

Oh. Oh, you find your relationship. Mine's a brave. You know, I heard, God bless you, I love him as an artist and I like his politics, but George Clooney got on, you know, one of those shows and said he and Amal have not had one fight. to which I say, first of all, I'm sorry. Let me have a conversation with the two of you. It'll be juicier if you do play from time to time. And second of all, please don't go on air and say that to people.

That's the last thing. Look, relationships are hard. Uh, forgive me, I should do my homework, but are are you single? Are you in a relationship? What's your story? Uh, I've been married for I think 18 years now. Oh, wow. Happily married for 18 years and and two wonderful children. Oh, great. How old can I ask? Yeah, sure. 15 and 13. 15-year-old boy, 13-year-old girl. Oh, yeah. They're giving you a run for your money. Okay. I got it. My kids are in their 30s and I just did a family therapy session with one of my kids heading toward middle age and we're still talking about it.

But anyway, look, a relationships are hard. But let's think about that. Why? We've never wanted more from our intimate relationships than we do right now. This is historically new. We really want to be lifelong lovers. We want to have heart-to-he heart talks, hold hands on the beach, have great sex in 70s and beyond. My parents and grandparents, they didn't want all that. It would be nice. There's lip service, but a shoulderto-shoulder companionable marriage, not particularly sexy, not particularly intimate, steady, good enough. Not anymore. Now, we really want connection.

Particularly heterero women really want connection. Part of the reason why relationships are hard is because they're hard. Part of the reason why relationships are hard is because we're trying to be lovers in a context in a culture which does not cherish relationships. It's actually anti- relationships in subtle ways. We live in a selfish individualistic patriarchal culture and I'll go back on all three of those. And it does not cherish relationships. It gives lip service to it. You know, I I've said this all over the world.

listeners. I want relationship skills taught to our children in elementary school, junior high, high, and beyond. Let's equip our kids to handle themselves over and I deal with couples on the brink of divorce. That's my beat. And over and over again, you are I say to somebody, you are just doing what you learned in your family, what you learned in this culture. Those skills are not good enough to deliver on this new ambition of love that we all have. I say to people, you have a filet menu vision and hamburger skills and the result of that is the two of you.

Yeah. There's so much to get into there. Terry, you start off talking about George Clooney and what he was saying, okay, when he was on television and uh why you felt that that's possibly not the best message to put out to the public. And then you also mentioned that there's something quite unique about modern relationships. What we're looking for today is probably not what our ancestors were looking for. Yeah, sure. Our parents, our grandparents, but even go further back than that, the role of a partner, an intimate partner, a romantic partner was possibly different in the past than it is today.

So therefore, in that context, I need to ask you, are expectations of romantic relationships reasonable or are they unreasonable? Both. And it depends on who you're talking to and it depends on what which part of that person you're talking to and it depends on the day you're asking them. But asking your romantic relationship to take the place of the whole village that we used to have uh to fulfill all of our needs. No, that's not realistic. That's true. We we need friends. We need to spread it around.

We need community. On the other hand, asking for that ongoing heart-to-heart connection and passion and closeness, all of which is new for a long-term relationship. No, I don't believe that's unrealistic. I believe it's a wonderful goal, but honey, you got to roll up your sleeves and put the work into making that real because you're not equipped for it. Yeah. the family you grew up with didn't probably have what you want. This culture not only doesn't equip you but puts crap in your head that mitigates against it.

So you have to come to someone like me or Esther there and learn how to do this and also for most of us go back and do a little psychological work on your childhoods and the wounds that you're bringing into your current relationship. So you have to do some work. Yeah, clearly if you ask most people on a good day, how would you like to treat your romantic partner? They would probably say, "Yeah, I'd love to treat them, you know, with respect, with love, with compassion, with reverence.

Yet, despite our best intentions, it's often our romantic partner that gets the worst of us." Why do you think that is? Well, it's layered on the external layer. We have this myth of familiarity. Uh like uh I and it's really male. And now that women have entered the workforce, it's gotten broader, but it starts with men. I go out and fight dragons all day. I come home. Where's my pipe? Where's my slippers? Where's my my martini? Where's my doting wife? And that was the setup for a long time, hundreds of years.

The man goes off. The socioeconomic status of the family is determined by where the man is. And so the woman tends to the man because the whole family depends on his performance. Now both partners are working by and large. I like to say everybody should have a wife and no one should be one. or maybe humanoid robots down the pike. But uh and so this old idea of I go out there and I'm on my toes. I come home and I get to relax, be myself, uh be spontane all this romantic clap.

Relationships shouldn't have to be work. They should just be spontaneous. We should just know what to do and please each other. And if I have to work at it, that's artificial. That's just I I work with high-powered people and what I say to them is if you're going to go out there 80 hours a week and burn it up. When you come home, you don't get to relax, you have to make up for the 40 hours that you were at home. You have to be more on your toes at home than at the workplace, not less.

But that's a age-old entitlement that we bring. You know, well, we're family. I don't have to be polite to you. Actually, you're wrong. So, a there's an entitlement to just be who we are. Forgive me, but uh you may not. Here in the States, there's a a great um cartoon called The Family Guy. It's the takeoff on Yeah. the old Jackie Gleason Honey. So, the husband Father, I love this. I actually play this for people. Husband Father unit throws open the front. You know, it's like the saloon shot from, you know, he's towering and is towing.

He looks at his family. and he goes, "I just spent eight hours on a boat with the guys drinking and fishing. Uh, I need a little me time." And since I'm on men, I teach the men I work with to become what I call family men. You're a family man. I can smell it. Uh, it's the smell of fresh baked bread. Family man. uh stretch grow. The old setup where you go off and fight dragons, you come home and your partner waits on you is gone.

Now I come home. Oh, okay honey. Let me see this kid needs this. This let you sit down. Let me take a that is a family man and we have to learn how to do that. It's not what we're used to. That's a B if I may and then I'll let you speak. At a sort of deeper psychological level, relationships are hard because of the discrepancy of what we want and deserve and what we got. We all long for the divine. We all want gods and goddesses.

You look at Hollywood, you look at the advertisement, they're all gods and goddesses. We all want people who are going to complete us and understand us. Little AI girlfriends and boyfriends. You don't get that. You get a real flesh and blood person with their imperfection and their imperfection sticks in the crawl. We don't acknowledge that in this culture. It's the clash of my imperfection and yours and how we handle that clash of imperfections. That is the guts of our It's the character of our intimacy. But we don't think like that.

We think a real a good relationship would not have that clash. I call it relational shame. You go to a party and you assume that the couple to the left and the right of you are fighting less and having better sex than you are, but you're wrong. They're thinking the same thing of you. So, the grappling with one another's imperfections, how to get more of what you want in the relationship, how to cherish what you have, how to grieve what you don't have. These are all these all fall under the heading of what I call essential relationship skills that nobody teaches you how to do.

Yeah. The idea that we're all imperfect. And of course, if we partner up with someone, they're also going to be an imperfect human. In many ways, it's at odds with one of the prevailing narratives in culture, which is that of perfectionism. Um, this podcast has been going for maybe eight and a half years now. And the topic of perfectionism has come up quite a lot over the last few years. And this idea that perfectionism has been on the rise since the 1980s. It's probably got even worse in the age of social media, but you know, it was on the rise way before that.

But that kind of plays into problems with our intimate relationships. It, you know, the picture perfect Hollywood romance that we see in films. You know, we go on social media, we we think we're seeing perfect relationships. We may cognitively understand that we're just getting a snapshot, but our subconscious mind is picking up this idea constantly that actually everyone's [clears throat] got a better relationship than me. Everyone's closer with their partner than I am. And of course, if if you're comparing your reality with this mythical idea of perfection, well, of course, there's going to be a problem in your relationships.

Well, that's how we live. We live with all these ideas. Look, the intimacy that we want with each other, all genders need to move beyond traditional gender roles because they're not built for it. And all of us need to move beyond patriarchy because it's not built for it. So, what do I mean? Well, let's look at men. Uh, the essence of traditional masculinity to this day is invulnerability. The more invulnerable you are, the more manly you are, the more vulnerable you are, the more girly you are.

And that is not a good thing. You know, look at boys superheroes. Uh Wolverine, uh uh the Terminator, super not one ounce of softness, like literally no softness on their bodies. Hard. Uh men are raised whether they want to be or not to be stoic, deny vulnerability, deny emotion, deny feelings, deny fear, uh be alone, be self-sufficient. And then we wind these guys up and say, "Here, have an intimate relationship with your wife." Well, good luck with that. Women across the West have been empowered. The great story of the 20th century is going to be the change in women.

They've entered the workforce. They have money. They're doing well in college. They don't need us anymore. Jane Austin's day, they needed us. You didn't get married, you wound up in your uncle's cabin in the back. You know, you had nothing. Nowadays, if I'm going to marry you, why? It's not just about your paycheck. It's about the quality of our relationship. Our grandparents didn't give a about the quality. If if you were stable, didn't drink or cheat or beat it, that was good enough. Nowadays, well, my husband demeaned me in public.

Well, we haven't had sex in two years. Well, I just don't feel close. Uh these lead to divorce. This is new. We've raised the bar, particularly women. But for example, women across the West are insisting on levels of emotional vulnerability, sharing, connection with their guys that were often literally beaten out of them as boys. Literally beaten out of them. Don't cry. Don't be weak. Don't be a girl. And what I say, and I think we need compassion in our hearts for this. I work with tough guys and I get them to soften up.

But let's also have a sense of how big I am asking that man in my office to literally reconfigure masculinity itself in order to open his heart and be with his wife. That's how big it is. And same for women. I'll get into that. But you have to lead women out of their traditional role as well or because what we want is more than those roles allow. You said that the culture is selfish, individualistic and patriarchal. Patriarchal I think. Okay. So I think what where we are at the moment is that relationships are really important to humans.

We uh want [snorts] different things from our intimate relationships at least in the 21st century. And there is a skill to getting those things if we're taught those skills which of course you've been teaching for years. Your new book us is just phenomenal. So many case studies, so many practical tips on how we can actually develop those skills in in ourselves. You have a phenomenal reputation for helping couples who are on the brink. They've been to other therapists. No one can help them. Yet, you seemingly are still able to help them.

Why is it, Terry, do you think that you have been able to help some marriages when other therapists were not able to? I created a whole school of doing therapy called relational life therapy. We have a vibrant school. We teach people all over the world in the UK. uh and it's very different way of doing therapy than the norm. So uh in terms of couples that we do individual therapy as well but in terms of couples therapy we take sides. Let me say that again. Uh I the cardinal rule in couple thou shalt not take side particularly not with a woman against a man.

Forget it. Can I ask your wife's name? Do you mind? First name. No no not at all. V. V. So I I I'm perfectly capable any RLT therapist. We have thousands of us all over the world now, but any RLT therapist would be perfectly happy to say that you're crazy and Rangan, you're even crazier and here's why that this is what you're doing, but Rangan, you're doing five times worse and here. So it's not even Steven. We call it like we see it and that breaks the rules.

And we often when there's a power imbalance, which is not always the case, but often uh when there's one who's one up, superior, entitled, irresponsible, aggressive, selfish, not relational, and then one who's one down, more codependent, enabling, walk around on eggshells. When we have that couple, we throw our weight alongside the one down one to come up and take on the spouse. And then we use that as leverage to bring the one up, one down. You know, we're told in my field that you can't treat narcissists, but we treat narcissists breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

But not in one-on-one individual therapy. Uh I'll tell I love to tell stories. Please. Yeah. So, George Valiant, a great psychiatrist here in Boston, you used to say, this is way back in the day when people were still smoking in public. He said, "There are two kinds of people in the world. Uh there's a guy who uh walks into an elevator, gets claustrophobic, and turns green. There's a guy who walks into an elevator, lights up a big fat stogy, and everybody else turns green." That's the difference between shame and grandiosity.

One down, one up. And when I'm dealing with a couple, there's often one one down and one one up. And normal couples therapy just like, well, you're both even. You know, I I This obviously isn't at all true, but let So, uh, Vid, what's your problem with Ryan? Uh, well, um, he drinks three martinis a night. He screams at the kids. He's threatened me with physicality, and I never know what I'm walking around on eggshells all day long. Okay, great. What's What's your story with it?

Oh, well, she's often 15 minutes late. Well, okay. You both have issues. Are you kidding me? But that's the way we're trained to do it. It's 5050. No, Vid, I'm sorry you've been putting up with it, wrong, and you got to clean up. We take sides and it works. That's one. Two, as I've been implying, all therapy for 50 years has been focused on helping people come up from shame, feel better about yourself. You're not defective. You're not unlovable. That's all shame. We've done a terrible job of helping people come down from superiority, grandiosity, entitlement, irresponsibility, uh addiction, self-medication, acting out.

We have to do both. And as a field, I just did a paper on this. We give a pass to perpetrators. We say that people in the grandio are untreatable. And that is not psychology. That's patriarchy. Patriarchy protects perpetrators. And so does a field of psychotherapy. They throw up their hands and say, "We don't know how to do it." You can't do it on tra in traditional one-on-one talk therapy. Bring the other people in the elevator into the room with you. And then you can talk to the guy who's got the cigar in his face.

So, uh, and then the last thing I want to say is what we're focused on, relational life therapy. We spoon our clients into what I call the jetream of connection and relationality. We move them from disconnection into connection to themselves, what they're feeling, their hearts, and with others. And once they're in that jetream of connection, it's what we're born for. And it feels so much better than the state of disconnection that once somebody tastes it, the stream of connection itself moves them along. We are known for dramatic profound change quickly because we move you into connection and then you want more and more.

But we don't do it on one-on-one talk therapy. We we're much more active than that. Yeah. It's kind of really interesting to hear what some of those key differences are. I I imagine there will be some therapists listening who perhaps might be pushing back going, "Well, hold on a minute. You can't do that." But we're going to explore that throughout this conversation. You know, why why it is you think you can do that. And of course, many of your results speak for themselves. One of the things, Terry, that I love the most about your approach.

That was so clear as I was reading through us today is that compassion sits at the heart of everything in that book. Everything. Beautiful. I love that because compassion is probably the quality that's most important to me as a human being and the one I try and teach and uh model in front of my children the most. You know, I've always said to my kids, you know, sure, it's great to do well at school and study hard, etc., etc., but the most important thing to me is how you treat other people.

That's beautiful. And when you were just talking there about grandiosity and shame, I remember reading it in your book. You you it was so beautiful how you said that psychology has done a really good job for many years of raising people up from the inferiority of shame but not perhaps put enough focus on bringing people down from grandiosity. And I [snorts] really like that because what you're essentially asking us all to do as individuals, yes, in the context of romantic relationships, but frankly beyond that, just in terms of how we interact with people in life, is to treat people as equals.

Not lower than you, not above you, equal. We are all equal. And we should try and treat each other as equal as well. Yeah. And here's what's great about that. ready. We should try and do that for our own sake. For me, I'm a very practical guy. It's not even about morality. It's not because it's doing good. My beautiful DEI uh consultant Dan Young is full of these one, you know, she's African-American. She has these wonderful saying. And one of her saying her language for self-esteem is getting yourself right sized.

I love that. Getting right sized. You're not small. You're not big. You're you're just like everybody else. You're right side. And we teach self-esteem. That's part of what we teach. And compassion. And listen to this. Okay. So, here's what I say. My work, relational life therapy, offers a vision, a map that's radically different than what the culture teaches you, and then a toolbox how to achieve that, how to live that map. We have skills. There's a I call it a relational technology. We have a a a repertoire of skills that work a lot better than what you were taught.

So, we teach you, for example, how to apologize. Most people make a mess of apologies. Uh, yes, but yeah, I did that, but you got to understand. Yeah, I did that, but you No, no, no, buddy. Just I did it. Then shut up. Just land on it. Don't mess up your own apology. the so one of the essential skills we teach is what you're talking about compassion under patriarchy which is the water we're all swimming in you can either be strong powerful truthful assertive or you can be accommodating connected facilitative nurturing quote unquote masculine quotequote feminine but you can't be both at the same time because under patriarchy power is power over it's dominance it's not what Rian Eisler calls power with.

So when you step into power, you break the connection. And for example, you talk about compassion. Under patriarchy, almost all of us, no matter what the body, male, female, trans, whatever, when we step into power, we break connection. Uh, and I call that individual empowerment, which this culture is saturated in. Individual therapists, 12step sponsors. I was weak, now I'm strong. Go screw yourself. I found my power. I found my voice. Oh, you go get them. No, that's that's not no relational empowerment, which I have to teach.

It's brand new. I was weak. Now I'm strong. I'm going to stand toe-to-toe with you, Vid. I'm going to tell you what it is I want. But we're a team. I love you. You love me. How about it? Can we work on this together? We're a team. I love you. And listen to this one. your partner says, "Okay, I'm going to work on, let's say, being less critical. Here's your next line. I really appreciate that. Is there anything I can say or do that would help support you in that?" Who the hell sounds like that in this culture?

We're a team. Let's work together. So, there's a ton of disempowerment in this culture. I'm walking around on eggshells. Don't set daddy off. There's a ton of individual empowerment, which I really think is grandiose. Uh, I I I am woman. Hear me roar. My therapist says I should get speak up. So you're an No. No, honey. No. Relational empowerment. Let's work together. We're a team. This is what I want. How can I help you give it to me? Whole new world. Um, loving. I have a name for this.

I have a name for everything. Loving power. Soft power. How to stand up for yourself and cherish your partner at the same time. Hey, Ryan, I love you. You love me. Here's the deal. I think that you can speak harshly to the kids. I know you don't think so, but I do. And I get bothered by it. Look, hun, as a favor to me, could you This isn't the real you, obviously. Could could you please tone it down? And if you if I'm am bothered by the way you're speaking to the kids, can I just say like, "Hey honey, let's have a signal and you hear that you don't argue with me.

Either take yourself offline and let me do it or calm down and say it softer. Can we have a deal on that on and okay, can I give you something or help you actually follow through with that?" That's working like a team. We have very little idea of how to do that in this culture. As many of you know, when glucose is relatively stable, you feel better daytoday with steadier energy, mood, and focus. But over time, unstable and elevated glucose can also impair your metabolic health and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

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There's just so many places to go, right? Because uh the first thing that came to mind was that if we are as you're saying living in a patriarchal culture, I'm not saying we're not. I mean just for the for the for the point of this conversation, right? I imagine then the consequence is that if let's say a heterosexual couple who've been married for 20 30 years they come into your office for help and I imagine if there is a super masculine man at least well traditional masculine man I should say coming in right and you say to display this kind of softness And that this kind of vulnerability vulnerability I imagine that it's not just a straightforward conversation where they go, "Oh yeah, okay, Terry, that sounds great.

Let me let me let me go ahead and do that." I imagine there's a bit of bit of push back, right? So how do you persuade or inspire that person to actually go there because that may be quite a foreign thing for them and they may be in their 50s or 60s and this may be the first time anyone's ever said stuff like this to them. Yeah. So, I I'm going to do big picture and then I'll zero in. Big picture, my friend. Is in your interest to come down off your high perch and join the human race and open your heart and learn how to be loved and loved.

It's in your interest. You'll live longer. Your body will live 10 years longer. your your partner will be happier, perhaps will shoot for it even sexier, and you won't damage your children. Stay up there. You're going to have a miserable partner, going to have a cold relationship, and you're going to damage your kids the way you were damaged. You know, one of the uh ways I hook these grandiose guys is uh I teach my students is a simple sequence of questions. Ready? What kind of father did you have?

What's your relationship like with them? What kind of father do you want to be? What do you want to pass on to your children? Are you doing that? And if you're not, will you let me help you do it better? A lot of these men who won't, it's the hard work with what I call relational recovery, recovering that state of connection. And it's not easy. They won't do it for themselves. I'm okay. I'm fine. They won't do it for their partners. Ah, she's a But they will do it for their children.

Do you realize that you've become your father in this marriage? What do you think that's like for your children? I can help you stop this. Please. This is not the best of you. let me help you. Who says no to that? No one. They don't say no. They say, "Okay, what do I do?" It's it's so interesting hearing that because I would say one of the drives for me to, how can I put it? Excavate my inner world and make peace with certain things internally. One of the drives for me was having children.

when I realized that oh wrongan if you know you can either tell them not to do something but if they're just repeating what they see you doing maybe I should just sort it out myself so they no longer have that as a model right and blessings to you my friend hold hold the phone I want everybody to hear that say that again say your process again because this is the inner workings of a good man I need to sort myself out because what I'm going to give to my kids is not what comes out of my mouth.

It's going to be what they see me do. Uh that is blessed. I'm sorry, but I have to underline this. I say the best gift you can give your kids is your own recovery. The best gift you can give your kids is your own health. They don't give a what they say what you say. They live with you. They learn what they live. Mhm. So your realization, I've got to clean myself out so I can be the best father I can be to these kids. That's blessed, right?

A sacred work. What's it like to hear me say that? May I ask? It's made me quite emotional actually hearing that because feel that. Um, listen, this is where Terry says, "Take a minute and let yourself feel that. Breathe. has come. It's stuff that I cognitively know and this this work has been going on for many years. You know, I I think for me the whole process of stopping looking outwards and starting to look inwards started when my father died in 2013. You know I used to for the first half of my life I would say probably until I started that journey inwards I was very much driven by external validation that has mostly gone I would say over the last few years I'm I'm just [clears throat] not like external validation just doesn't do it for me.

The most important thing that matters to me at least is that I can look in the mirror before I go to bed and go, "Yeah, I'm happy with how you behave today." You know, you you lived in alignment with your values today. Because actually the thing is if I can do that, my relationships in many ways or or many aspects of my relationship kind of take care of themselves, right? So if we take it back to intimate relationships that that people struggle with, I guess the principle there is that to a certain degree, you have to know yourself and know your triggers if you're going to be able to show up in the way that you want to in your relationship.

Right. Well, so uh I have 8 million sayings and here's one of them. Uh we all marry our unfinished business. Uh so uh we all mystically wind up with partners who were exquisitly designed to trigger us. Uh falling in love is oh this person is going to heal all my childhood wounds and complete me and at least we're going to avoid all that Yeah. Well, real marriage is the day you realize not only is this person going to avoid it or make up for it, but they're reinjuring me in that theme.

I'm back in the soup that I was in when I was a kid. And when we get trauma triggered that way, which is virtually inevitable in intimate romantic relationships, my friend Gabbor Mate uh says, "In relationships, you don't see the wound, you see the scar." So for uh the people uh witnessing this podcast in RLT we talk about three parts of you. The first question I ask myself when I'm sitting with a couple is not what are the stressors? A good couple can handle stress. That's not even what's the dynamic you know she pursues he distances he distances.

It's not even the loop important most important questions which part of you am I speaking to? Am I how may I ask how old you are? Uh 48s. Okay. Am I speaking of the 48-year-old Rangan or are we witnessing the tantrum of the four-year-old Rangan? Who's up right now? I mean there are three parts. It is in some ways analogous to IFS. There's the wounded child part limbic system very very young just all feeling the part of you that was that received the abuse or neglect there's the what I call the wise adult prefunnel cortex the thinking observing part of you that can stop and choose and then there's the part that almost all my clients have lived most of their lives in thinking that it's a wise adult and they're wrong I call it the adaptive child Fight, flight, fawn.

This is a knee-jerk survival. Fight, flight, fawn, which as an adult becomes fixed. Fawn is uh you know, oh lion, let me lick your paw so you don't eat me. You know, uh that this is the codependent enabler. I'm going to fix it and make it all better. Uh that is what we call your adaptive. That's what you learned at three, four, five years old. That's your coping strategy. It's what you needed to do back then, but you don't need it now. And you bring that adaptive child into your relationship and it makes a mess of thing.

May I tell you a story? Of course. Okay. So, you know, a couple on the brink of divorce. Why? He's a liar. Lies about everything. Uh the wife says, "Tell him he's got nice shoes on. I'll tell you their sneakers." I mean, and you walk in, you go, "The sky is blue." He goes, "Well, it's kind of gray. So I teach my students, listen to the report. He lies about everything. Watch what he does in front of you. He evades me. Okay, I got him. He's got a black belt in evasion.

Okay, that's his adaptive child. Next question. Who was he evading? Right? There's always somebody on the where the adapt is adapting to some. It's done in a relationship. So I say to him, who tried to control you growing up? Brilliant. If you don't, but we teach people to think like this. You're on this side of the sea soul. Who's on the other side? Who tried to control you? Sure enough, my dad. It's a true story. Military, how I ate, how I sat, what courses I took, what friends I had.

How did you deal with this controlling father? He smiles. That's resistance. That's health. That's smiles. And he says, "Ready? I lied." Brilliant. Dad said, "Don't play with Henry." I played with Henry and I came home and told him I played with John. Brilliant little boy. Well done. But I have a saying, adaptive then, maladaptive now. You're not that 5-year-old. Your wife is not your father. Time for this old dog to learn some new tricks. That was it. They came back two weeks later, hand in hand, all smiles.

They said, "We're done. We're cured." And they were. They're the cures are the ones I tell you about. They they were okay. There's a story here. I say, "Yes." Over the weekend, wife sends him to the grocery store to get 12 things. Uh, true to form, he comes back with 11. The wife says, "Where's the pumpern nickel? I want you to feel this." This is what my wife Belinda calls a moment of relational heroism. He said, "Every muscle and nerve in my body was screaming to cover my ass and say to her they were out of the pumpern nickel, which is not true." He forgot it.

I wanted to say that. And in this one moment, I took a breath. I thought of you, Terry. We can lend each other our prefrontal cortex. I thought of you. I looked my wife in the eye and I said, "I forgot the damn pumpern nickel." True story. She burst into tears and she said, "I've been waiting for this moment for 25 years." Wow. That's recovery. Moving beyond your automatic adaptive child's response into something thoughtful, observant, choiceful. You know, you mentioned meditation. I have a great friend Thomas U, wonderful spiritual teacher.

He says to observe is to have choice because the part of our brain that can observe is the same part that can choose. Yeah, that's the first skill coming out of the automatic knee-jerk into something thoughtful. It's just so simple when you get it right. It's not when you're in it and you don't realize that this adaptive child inside of you is running the show. And then it makes me think of what you said earlier on, Terry, that you know, man or woman, whoever, you've been out working all day, right?

And then you just want to come home and chill. But actually, if you do have a romantic partner or someone you live with or children there, well, you got to be careful because if you've given the best to your work and you are spent and have nothing left, it's not going to be the wise adult who walks into the house. It's likely to be the adaptive child. So that when a trivial request comes in, you fly off the handle. But then that also then speaks to the the problems in culture, right?

because we we we do have a capitalist culture. We you know I agree one of the great things of the 20th century has been the empowerment of women and because of the way economics work at the moment for many people. Two parents are often having to work. They've often moved away from their family structures and their tribe. And so it's quite a big ask, isn't it? go out, work all day, be feel tired, and then also bring your best self to your house in the evening.

I think for many people that's going to sound like quite a tough ask. Yeah, I I have two words to respond to that. You ready? Tough I hope that's not too technical. Listen, I work with people, particularly men. Men men have a harder time because we've had that centuries of of entitlement. We were the bread winners. So, we go home and get taken care of. Uh, I work with a lot of men about what I call learning to become a family man. And it's good for us.

This is what I mean when I say I get these guys who are one up to come down by helping them realize that it's good for them to come down. It's good for them to open their hearts and let themselves be loved. It's good for you to stretch and learn to be a family man. Now, this is what I mean. I start this way and I'm talking to you exactly the way I would talk to a client. Um, research is clear. I think this is so great.

If you get a gift, you will be happier than before you got it and it will last a certain amount of time. If you give a gift, you'll be happier than you are if you get one and the happiness lasts longer. Giving actually creates more happiness than getting. Yeah. But we may have lost this. So I talk about the joy of going beyond your comfort zone. Shaking yourself out of your gratification and showing up for your family. I always tell this story if I may. It's so Belinda's got a full-time practice.

She's a brilliant therapist. She'll write books, but she's not sitting around eating bon bons. It's three o'clock in the morning. My now 30year-old, my kids in their 30s were babies. And I get this. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, at 3:00 a.m., hey, one of the kids is crying. Go feed them. And I go, I know you were up with them three days running, but honey, I'm at the har I got to talk at the Harvard couples conference tomorrow. I got a thousand therapists in that room.

The you do it tonight and I'll do it for the rest of the weekend, but but I got to be in shape. And my wife 30 years ago said one phrase that changed my life. You ready? Here's what she said. She looked at me with a smile and she said, "Give the lecture. Tired. Go feed the kids." And that rousing myself out of my I'm a performer. I got a Okay. Stretch a little. Go give. Yeah, that's learning to be a family man. And it's good for your soul.

It's good for you and it's a good thing to teach your children. I love how direct you were there when you said initially, you know, well, you know, tough luck. You just got to get on with it. That if you if you want a good quality home life, that's what you got to do. If if you don't, fine. But if you actually want that, you just got to find a way. I mean, I know there are little tips and tricks. One of my really good friends who's a GP, he's realized that actually a transition between being at the practice and home is very useful.

So, he doesn't live far away from his house, but when he gets to his house in his drive, he'll just sit there for 2 or 3 minutes. I can't remember exactly what it is he does, but there's some form of just transitional practice so that he's a in a different state when he walks through that door. And I kind of feel that working from home for many people has caused an issue here because you know if you used to have that commute between the office and home you might have wound down a little bit switched off from work got yourself in the right state.

So I think that's something that I observed there listening to that. But also the theme of directness, right? You were direct with me when I asked the question. You know, many people are going to find that hard. Your wife Belinda was direct with you when you she wanted you to feed the kids in the middle of the night. And it reminds me of something in in this new book of yours, right? Well, it's not that new anymore, but it's your latest book. In it, you you talk about three steps to getting what you want.

Number one, oh yeah, dare to rock the boat. Number two, um once your partner is listening, help them out. Three, when they start to give you what you want, reward them, right? But it sounds as though what you're just talking about there, what Belinda said to you was kind of in many ways, dare to rock the boat, right? Don't just passively accept it. This is that theme, isn't there, of equaleness, right? It's not about rolling over. It's, you know, it's that beautiful term you you you write about fierce intimacy, isn't it?

It's kind of like it's not caring and loving necessarily to suppress your needs and actually say what you want to say, right? The beauty is, look, yes, I I I wrote, it's an audio book, Pierce Intimacy, and and what I say is we need to take each other on. We stop taking each other on. We say we're accepting, but we're really settling and resenting and then it things go to rot. Um that we don't take each other on in our marriages. We do in the beginning, but we stop.

On the other hand, the reason why we don't take each other on is because when we do, it doesn't go very well. So, we back off to keep the peace. But instead of that, I would like you to master skills so that when you do take each other on, you do it more skillfully and you have a chance at actually doing it. If Belinda had said, you you're son of a You're so selfish. All you care about is yourself. I've been I don't know that I would have gotten up.

But for Belinda to say, give the lecture tired. I'm tired, sweetheart. Go be with the kids. with firmness but cherishing in the same breath. That's brand new for our culture. And yes, that I responded to. Yeah. It's what I call loving power, soft power. And it goes beyond patriarchy. Yeah. Under patriarchy. When you step into power, you're harsh. But you don't have to be. I teach people how to be cherishing of their partner and assertive in the same breath. You love me. I don't like this.

as a favor to me, could you do it this way instead of that way? Let me help you do that. Yeah, that is a whole new world. Yeah. Let's just park getting into the skill of repairing in in in for just a moment. I just want to finish off for this conversation at least on the adopted child. Okay. So, this idea that usually when we fall out with our partner or things don't go so well, it's because the adopted child is in charge, right? It's not the wise adults.

Okay. Right. And and your adaptive child invites their adoptive child and then the two of you are off. I like to say your adoptive children are fight the two of you can sit down and have a beer. You're not even there anymore. Your adaptive children are running the show and fighting the fight with without you. Is it not true therefore that all it takes is one of you to stay in wise adult mode? Even if your partner has lost it and gone into adaptive child mode and perhaps is not talking to you the way that you might want to be spoken to.

you actually can still help influence that situation by not reacting and recognizing that at the moment my wife is actually 8 years old that's who's talking to me would you would you is that is that fair to say yeah here's how it goes the way it normally works is one of you gets triggered moves in your adapted child fight flight or fawn that triggers the other one they move into their adapted child and fight back or distance or whatever they whatever their knee-jerk is. And then that those two moves feed off of each other.

It's a vicious circle. The more the more the classic is the more she pursues, the more he distances. The more he distances, the more she pursues. So it feeds on itself. How to intervene? One person changing the dance step breaks the pattern. Do they get what they want? Depends on the day. And I talk about detachment from outcome. That's from 12step. And relational integrity. Relational integrity is this. One of my 8 million sayings is this. I in intimate relationships, everybody gets to go crazy, but you have to take turns.

So your partner's in their adaptive child. You're not. Good day for you. Try a couple three times to help get them. Honey, I'm sorry. I I I sorry you felt like that. I didn't really intend that that way, but but what can I try a couple three times to make peace? If they come into their wise adult and they meet you there, great day for everybody. If they're stuck in their adaptive child and they're not listening, you try a couple three times and and I have some miraculous thing to do.

Ready? If they're still stuck in their adaptive child after a couple three times, go away. Stop trying. You're beating your head against the wall. You're about to move into your adaptive child in 10 seconds. Don't do it. Take a break. And the breaks are uh contracted. Not in the heat of the moment, but in a calm. I'm going to go make some tea. I I don't feel like we're getting much of anywhere. I I'll come back in an hour and try you again. I if you are in your wise adult, your partner's in their adaptive child, you try and get them out of it, they won't go and you don't jump in the mud pit with them and get into your adaptive child, then go into the vicious circle.

If you stay steady, even when they're not, that's not a good day for your partner. It's a mixed day for your relationship. It's a great day for you. That is a strong muscle. Keep it up. And the focus of the people working with us is not on what they do on their side of the net. You do your best. It's on what you do on your side of the net. So if I behave with skill and integrity even when the heat is on, I'm lonely. I wish my partner were joining me.

This isn't the most pleasant moment of my life. But I held steady. Good work. So, it's not always about getting what you want in the response from the other. It's your best shot. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. If you don't get it, I teach people. Here's another skill. Micro disappointment. Uh, Vid was in her adaptive child this Thursday at 3:00. That's disappointing. You're It's a little lonely. Stay there. Don't jump from there to, oh, here she goes again. Oh, she never. Oh, I always just stay put in the disappointment of this Thursday at week and get off your high horse.

Visit her adaptive child. You're not talking to a mature adult. Big deal. You're liable to be in your adaptive child 5 minutes from now. You don't go down into shame. It's not your problem. It's hers. You don't go up into judgment. You're you're liable to do the same thing five minutes from now. Stay humble. And you let go. Okay. Sorry. I'll get some tea. I'll see you later. Yeah, that's a lot of work for somebody to master. Yeah. Do Health is a preventative health app I've created to help you understand when your health is starting to move in the wrong direction.

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There's two things that come up for me there. Number one, in that example, when you have tried two or three times to, you know, calm things down, the first thing is baby, baby, baby. Yeah. Don't get into the mud pit with them. Right. I love that. That's a great phrase. Don't get in the mud pit with them. Um, but if you're not being successful there, um, you're saying, "Okay, maybe now's not the time to continue." You don't want to just storm off, right? You don't want to withdraw, right?

You have to communicate that actually. Hey, listen. I don't think now's the right time. I I I don't like what's happening in me right now. Don't even talk about them at all. Okay, this is useful. Don't No, we I you know what? This isn't working for me. I love you, honey. I'm going to take a break. I I need a break. Here's the beauty. I had to teach everybody to speak from the eye. If you speak subjectively, nobody can argue with you. You say, "We need a break." Everybody goes, "No, we don't.

You're always running away. I want to sit here and deal with this. Okay, well, you're in trouble. You say, "I need a break. What's she going to say?" Well, you don't. Well, honey, actually, I do. What can I tell you? Call me crazy, but I need a break. I'm Bye. I'm going to lose. I'll see you later. So, that's another skill is learning to speak from the eye and not tell your partner what they're doing. Yeah. It also makes me think of the the major theme in the book which is we not me right this idea that um you know I think chapter three of my favorite chapter in the book is when us gets lost and you and me takes over right so what I take from that in this context is it's not about being right or wrong here if you're in this situation what is the best thing for the relationship not what is the best thing for me in this moment or the necessarily the best thing for your partner.

It's what is the best thing for the relationship? Is the best thing to both get into adapted child to start shouting, you know, to scare the kids, to do whatever, right? Is that the best thing? Well, probably not. Easy to say that when you're in wise adult mode, of course, people don't want to get into adaptive child mode, right? So, they can hear this and go, "Oh, yeah, that's what I do regularly." Okay. How would you advise someone who has recognized that throughout this conversation? How would you help them go, okay, next time that happens, don't get into adaptive child mode?

It's it's a lot easier said than done, isn't it? Well, it's not don't because you will. It's what are you going to do when it happens? A and here's three words for everybody. Take a break. Uh if you go to my website, uh there's a one-pager on how to take a formal timeout. Uh there are softer versions of I'm going to make some tea. I'll be back in an hour. But I have instructions on how you take a break. It's called you take a break in a way that takes care of your partner.

Honey, I'm leaving. Here's why. Here's when I'm coming back. Uh that's responsible distance taking. There's an explanation. I'm going to lose my I I'm taking a break. And there's a promise of return. I I'll check in with you in about 40 minutes. And you have to do it. Can't lie. No, that's a skill I have to teach people. People normally go, I'm taking a break. Let alone storm out and huff. That's going to get you chased. You want distance? Take care of your partner. Deal with their anxiety.

Make it clear it's a break, not a rupture. Help them be less anxious and they won't pursue you. Don't take care of your partner. Just throw your weight around and they're going to you're going to get chased. So, a skill is is something that gets you what you want. You want distance. Okay. Be nice to your partner while you take it and they'll the odds are they'll give you distance. Yeah. Throw them off in a huff and the odds are they'll pursue you. Uh so I I want to, if I may, I want to fade back to the big picture.

Yeah, please. Okay. Remember I said there's a map and we've been talking toolbox. Let me say something about the map. Our relationships are our biospheres. We're in them. The father of family therapy, Gregory Basin, the great anthropologist said uh and he created family therapy. He said he devoted his life to correcting humankind's philosophical mistake. What is that mistake? that I'm outside of nature and I can control it. That's individualism and patriarchy. My power is to dominate. Dominion over all the things of this earth. Bad idea.

I talk about ecological wisdom. I'm not above my system. I'm in it. I breathe it. My relationship is my biosphere. I breathe it. I can pollute my biosphere by being selfish over here, but I'm going to breathe in that pollution in my partner's coldness. So, we are ecologically linked. There's no escape. Once we stop thinking with sort of grandiose controlbased individualism and enter into the humility of understanding that I depend on my biosphere, then it becomes my enlightened self-interest to take care of it. Whether I'm talking about mother earth, whether I'm talking about my country, whether I'm talking about my family, it's in my interest to take care of this biosphere because hello, I'm in it.

You know, I say this a I get these big burly, this is true. I get big girl, why should I have to work so hard to please my wife? And I always uh knock, you live with her. I'm not outside of the system. I'm in the system whether it's my body, my mind, my marriage, my family, the world. I need to be a good steward of the biosphere. So, it's not about me me. It's what the biosphere needs. Now, if I'm one down, there isn't enough me.

My biosphere may need me to be more assertive and power. Come on up. If I'm one up, the biosphere needs me to open my heart and yield. Don't be so damn selfish. Um, give in. Do what your partner asks of you. Uh, we meet in the middle, as you were saying. We're not better or less. My beloved friend Carol Gilligan says, "You cannot love from the one up. You cannot love from the one down. Love demands democracy." So when I work with couples, whatever, for those of us who are one down, grow a backbone, take some risks, lean in and deal.

For those of us who are one up, get off your high horse, learn to be responsible, open your heart, be accountable, you won't die, you'll like it. And so leading men, women, non-binary folks into intimacy is correcting their self-esteem. You're not you're not better. you're not worse and teaching them how to be connected and stay connected. Yeah. I first came across your work, Terry, I would say maybe a year, year and a half ago. And the way in which I came across it was one of my really good mates phoned me.

I think I was abroad. He said, "Mate, you you've got to download this audio book. This is killer. You're going to absolutely love it. It's completely transformed the way I see certain things in my own marriage. And I thought, well, I really trust and respect this guy. If he's telling me that, I'm I'm going to get it. So, I downloaded it straight away. And one thing I found incredibly helpful is this idea that in, let's say, my relationship with Vid, for example, right? There's not just two entities.

There's not just me and Vid. There's also a third entity, which is the relationship itself. Right? I got to tell you, Terry, it's so simple now thinking, "Yeah, of course." But before that, I I I didn't quite get it in that way. And it's not only, I think, helped me see my marriage through a different lens. It's it it goes beyond my marriage as well. So, I've been doing, you know, I've been, you know, trying to communicate uh positive health messages to the public for maybe 12 years now, 13 years, something like that.

And you know, for the last few years, I've released a lot of podcasts, uh, written six books. I I've been doing, right, and I very much enjoy what I do. But during that time, my team has grown. There's a good eight, nine people now who work with me to help do all this stuff, right? And I realized, oh, [clears throat] that's a separate entity, the business, the team that needs tending to, right? Yes, I can do my job. all the team members can do their job but we weren't really tending to us as an organization as a team.

So it's a separate entity isn't it? Yeah. Yes. It's a different level. There's you, me and then there's our context uh nature, the planet, our culture, our race. uh there's just what are we situated in and what does the the context it's what I call waking up to you e ecological wisdom ecological humility I'm not above it I'm in it and it's in my interest to take care of the it that I'm in and I call this ecological wisdom and once you wake up it turns out this is great being relational and being ecologically wise are synonyms.

They're two words for the same consciousness. Let me take care of my biosphere. It's not one wins, the other one loses. But by the way, when you have this map, the norms of our culture disappear. So for example, when you're thinking ecologically, relationally, the question, as you were saying, who's right and who's wrong? The answer to the question, who's right and who's wrong, is who cares? It doesn't matter. Wrong question. Here's the question. How are you and I going to navigate this thing in a way that's going to work for both of us?

That's the question. When you're thinking relationally, if one of you wins and the other one loses, you both lose. Why? Not pie in the sky ideal, real politic, brother. You will lose because the loser will make the winner pay for it. I guarantee it. And that's true whether it's your marriage or two countries that are living next to each other. You cannot gain security by controlling the person or the people or the country next to you. That's a myth. It won't work. You It is in your interest to deal with the environment that you are dependent upon.

Be a good steward. Wake up. It's not about win lose. It's not about right wrong. It's not about I give in, you don't. Your b if you're one up, your biosphere will need you to open up and soften up. If you're one down, your bias may need you to toughen up and get a little firmer and more truthful and more assertive. Dare to rock the boat. I It's not about the two of you. It's about what the biosphere requires of you in that moment. It makes me think of one of your foundational principles, which is there's no such thing as objective reality in relationships.

That's a bitter pill. Yeah. But I would say the biggest thing that I've learned or one of the biggest things that has helped me in my own marriage over the last 18 years is letting go of the need to be right. Few years ago I figured it out. I thought, "Oh, this is there's no this it doesn't matter. It actually doesn't matter. No one cares. No one cares." Hey, I proved I'm right. Okay, what's for dinner? Um, you know, this is what I like to say.

Look, both and I are fighters. Our adopted children are both fighters. Screw I'm from I'm a blueco collar Jew from New Jersey. I grew up in violence. She grew up in violence. It's like don't with us. So when we go off it's like fight means fight. You don't want to be there. Um so nowadays on a good day we'll get revved up fight. We'll take a break. One or the other. We say I need 20 minutes. And nine out of 10 times, 20 minutes, one, we take turns.

One of the other comes back. It sounds like this. I know you recognize it. Um, hey, uh, B, uh, I don't really want to fight. Do do you want to fight? I don't want to fight. Uh, what what do you need, hun? And then [snorts] Belinda says, "Well, you really were an about dot dot dot dot dot." Yeah, I was, actually. You're right. I'm sorry. I I I didn't mean to hurt you. What? Okay. What do you need? Well, you could apologize about dot dot dot.

Well, I'm sorry about dot. But by the way, five years ago, it would have been, well, what about the other three dots? Now, it's like, okay, I'll take the dot. Thanks. And we make peace. Why do we make peace? This is what I call keeping your head on straight. Here's what I'm thinking. When I make peace, honest to God. Ready? How do I want to spend my evening? That's what I'm thinking. Do I want to spend my evening fighting with this insane person who's fighting with this insane person or do we want to end this nonsense and go cuddle on the couch and watch a good show on TV?

H I'm in charge. How do I want to spend my evening? And that's the wise adult. And the beauty is shifting out of that automatic knee-jerk into the thoughtful wise adult. We call it relational mindfulness. that transition which you may need to physically take a break and go walk around the block. Whatever it takes. Shifting out of that automatic kne to thoughtful, okay, I wonder what skill I could use here. That can be cultivated. Go to the gym and get muscles. Sit on your pillow and meditate.

Meditation is a great boon to relational mindfulness. And Thomas and I did a couple of courses on intimacy and spirituality. And I I've been meditating for 60 years. Belinda and I start off most every day meditating. And what I say is, yeah, great. It's great to be spiritual in your Christian in the morning. Why don't you remember to be spiritual when you're in the kitchen, your wife is screaming at you. Be spiritual in that moment. That's relational mindfulness. Woof. I call it whoosh. Woof. Belinda gives me anger.

I'm ready to bop her in the nose. Take a breath. Bring it down. Get centered. Okay. I wonder if there's anything I can do right now. Yeah. It's my work. And the more work I do, meditation, therapy, parts work, the easier it is for me to do that in the moment. But it can just be grown through doing it just like any other muscle. Yeah. I think something that people may find reassuring is this idea that you've been married for over 30 years. You have been 40 years.

40 years. Congratulations. I I I like to call it the best five years of my life. Well, it it's this idea that with all your knowledge, your expertise, you've created this new therapy system. you clearly are able to help um you know problematic marriages find repair and the ability to move forward. But I think what's reassuring for people is this idea that despite all of that, it still happens, right? And you write about this, don't you? That relationships are this constant cycle of harmony, disharmony, and repair.

Again, I think that's one of the the best concepts I've I've I read in your book was this idea that this is the natural order of relationships. It just goes through that. And you know, we're probably pretty good, I think, aren't we? At well, harmony, then disharmony. But it's that that repair, right? The ability to repair. Cuz you're kind of making the case that this is going to happen in all relationships, this cycle, right? So, you better get good at repairing. If you're not good at repair, the disharmony stays and it doesn't return back to harmony, does it?

No. Every couple that I see on the brink of divorce has one thing in common. Their issues are all over the place. Their character is all over the place. They all share this. They do not have a working mechanism of correction. Every couple on the brink for 40 years, that's that's what's going on. They don't have the capacity to say, "Hey, Rangan, don't scratch me here. That's not where I is. Scratch me here." Oh, okay. I will. No. Don't scratch me here. Scratch. Don't tell me what to do.

Don't scratch me here. Excuse me. I feel really criticized. Don't scratch me here. Scratch me. Well, I've got an itch, too. Every couple, the process of I would like you to change your behavior this way for me to be more pleasing. Oh, okay, hun. I'll I'll do that. Is broken. That does not work. And I have to restore that process of listening to your partner and actually changing your goddamn behavior a little bit to be more pleasing to your partner because it's in your interest. You're not being whipped.

You're not being submissive. You're working to be a better partner to your partner. Great. Do it. Uh, but it's almost an art that's been lost. That it's a good thing to change to make yourself more pleasing to your partner. That's not a bad thing. That's not wimpy. That's loving. When you talk about the skills of repair, one of the things you write about is this idea that repair is not a two-way street. What does that mean? Uh, everybody gets this wrong. So, okay. So, why don't we move into repair?

A, we don't know how. Nobody taught us the skills. B, we don't really want to. If you're in your adaptive, the first step in repair is what I is relational mindfulness. I call remembering love. What am I about here? Somebody said, wait, why am I talking? Uh, we have five losing strategies of the adaptive child. Being right. Why am I talking? To prove that I'm right and she's wrong. Take a break. Why am I talking? To get her to dot dot dot control. Take a break.

Why am I talking? To vomit all of my bad feelings about her to her. Therapy says that's a good thing. It's crazy. I call that the vomit bag approach to intimacy. It's unbridled venting. Why am I talking to hurt the way she hurt me as retaliation? Why am I talking? I'm not. I just thrown off. I withdrew. Yeah. One thing I found incredibly helpful is this idea that, you know, when things aren't going well, remember that this is someone you love. Yes. It's so bloody obvious, Terry, when you think about it, but it it's not obvious to people in the moment, right?

Remember this is someone you love. This is someone you chose to marry. This is someone you are living with and never having children with. So surely you should be treating them with, you know, a degree of dignity and respect whenever you talk to them. But we don't or I would say our adapted child doesn't anyway. I think our wise adult does. That's exactly right. And remembering who you're talking to is a technique for getting out of the adapted child into the wise adult because it's only the wise adult that can remember.

The adopted child is not about intimacy. This is a bitter pill. The adaptive child is about survival. It's not about us. It's about me. Godamn it. I'm going to survive. And it has its place, but not it has no nuance. Yeah. You know, I must say this to couples at least twice a week. When Belinda comes at me that one day a year, when Belinda comes at me with anger, I immediately take little Terry. I've got a composite. He's about eight. And I literally envision him behind me holding on to my shirt.

And I have a deal with him. I say, "Okay, listen. Between Belinda's anger and you little vulnerable guy is me. My adult self, my big body, like Superman, I'll take the hit. You're protected back there. You don't feel any of it. I got it. Now, here's your part of the deal. You let me deal with my wife. Don't you try and deal with her. make a goddamn mess of it. So that's our deal. I'll protect you. You let me have the wheel. And that is a practice over.

I could do that. You know, I I deal with tough guys. That's my beat. And I I literally have like 6 foot, five, 270 lb lineback NFL linebackers ducking into the bathroom and putting their little boys on their lap five, six times a day. Literally, they they write to me and tell me they're doing that. Wow. The the trauma work happens in the therapy, but that's just the prologue. The real work happens outside in the heat of the moment. Take a break. Take that little boy.

Fight fight fighter fawn. Put him on your lap. Hear him. Love him. And put him in the back seat. Take his sticky hands off the steering wheel. You're driving the bus, not your adaptive child. Yeah, if we just go back to repair is not a two-way street for just a moment, Terry. Ah, let I I just want to because I think it's such a great practical tip for all of us when we're thinking about repair. What what what is the thinking behind that? You know, where where do we go wrong with that and how would you help us solve that?

Great. So, the first skill is remembering love. The first skill in repair is getting into the wise adult which wants to repair. The first thing you got to ask yourself is what am I about here? Wait, why am I talking? Am I really talking to repair or am I talking to control my partner, prove I'm right, get back at them with some adapted child threat. Okay, be honest with yourself. And if the answer is, I don't remember that I love this person. They they're evil and I hate their guts.

Great. Thank you for being honest. Take a walk around the block. Don't try these skills from your adaptive child. They won't go well. We all do it. I do it. Hey, Belinda, I have some feedback for you. Do you want it? Uh, no. Thanks. Uh, the words are there, but um, no. So, the first order of business is getting into the, you know, we we have uh workshops all over the world now. And my favorite slide in the workshop is other workshops teach you skills. We deal with the part of you that won't use them.

So first get out of that part into the part that actually wants to make repair. That's your first move. Okay. Now repair. Everybody gets this wrong. Repair is not a dialogue. Repair is not a conversation. Repair is a one-way street. Your partner's upset with you or your colleague or someone at work or your kid. You have one job. Get them out of disrepair back into repair with you. Out of disharmony, back into harmony. That's your job. Why you want to do that? You live with them.

It's in your interest. And also you love them. So why not? What everybody does is well you have this issue. Well, I have that issue. Well, yes, I did that. But you have to understand that nobody gives a Here's the metaphor. All you people watching and listening. If your partner, kid, co-orker comes to you and they're disgruntled. You have one job. Help them feel better. Here's my metaphor. You're at the customer service window. Somebody comes to you and says, "My microwave doesn't work." They don't want to hear you say, "Well, my toaster doesn't work." They don't want to hear you say, "Well, the reason why your microwave doesn't work is because you're an idiot and you're plugging it in." Fix the damn microwave.

Deal with their ouch. Help them come back into connection with you. Then maybe hours later, the next day or maybe not at all. Then maybe you can say a little bit about what was going on with you. But somebody comes to you and they're unhappy with you and you start Yes. budding them. Well, yeah, I did it, but you have to understand the flying saucer landed on my damn roof. Yeah, I did it, but look at the things you do to me. No. Yeah, I did it.

You're right. I'm sorry. What was that like for you? What could I give you now? How can I help you feel better? Keep your eyes on the prize and about you and your excuses and feelings and your issues. This is not the moment. Your moment can come later, but in this moment, you're at the service of the person who's unhappy with you. Yeah. What what I love about that is that it's like what we said before, as long as one of you can remain in the wise adult modes and apply some of this stuff, you can stop things escalating, right?

So, but you also have to restrain yourself, don't you? You have to go, as you're just saying, now's not the time. I don't need to get my side of this out right now. Okay? Yeah. All I need to do is help my partner move out of adapted child into wise adult. So I need to give her or him what they need in this moment to do that. Everything else comes after that because the truth is it's it's it's frankly pointless to try and have a rational discussion.

Adapted child to adapted child or even wise adult to adapted child, right? You you just it's it's the st, you know, we're in stress state. We're not in thrive states. So, I I I I I have a saying um uh about women in particular. An angry woman is a woman who doesn't feel heard. You want to deescalate your angry partner, help them feel heard. Okay, I got it. You're right. I'm sorry you feel bad. What could I do to help you feel better? If anything, be at their service and you will deescalate them.

Yeah. you start coming in with your issues, your excuses, you're this, you're that, they're going to feel like you're deflecting and they don't feel heard and they're going to escalate. Try it. Yeah. I I I I don't take anything I say on faith. Try these techniques and see if they don't work better. Tar, I've got some questions uh from my audience to to put to you, which I thought would be quite illuminating to go through. But before we get there, I I just want to touch on something that has sort of underpinned a lot of this conversation, which is this idea that the culture trains us a certain way.

It instills certain ideas within us, which causes problems in our relationships. And one of the things I was thinking about was this idea that the kind of qualities we need for good intimate relationships, for close intimate relationships, are perhaps not the qualities that a capitalist society values and celebrates. And I I I feel the forward to your book, US, really illuminates this. Would you mind if I read a bit of the forward that none other than Bruce Springsteen wrote to your book? Okay. Um, would it be okay, and again, you're from New Jersey, you said obviously, you know, the king of New Jersey, uh, Bruce Springsteen.

Um, would it be okay if I just read a couple of bits from his forward? True. Okay. By my early 30s, I'd become aware enough to know as things stood, I'd never have the things I wanted. A full life, a home, a wholeness of being, a companion, and a place in my community of neighbors and friends all seem beyond my grasp. I didn't have the judgment, the courage, or the skills to bring a real life to fruition. Okay, that's how he starts. But then he goes on to say this.

I was one of the most successful musicians on the planet. But work is work, life is life, and they are not the same. Even more frustrating, the things that made me good at my job, my easy tolerance, even hunger for the isolation of creativity, my ability to comfortably and deeply reside within myself and put all my energy into my work for days, weeks, years at a time. doomed my personal life to failure. I lived a lonely but seemingly secure existence. I had to reread that forward over and over again.

It was such a beautiful articulation of what Bruce has got from you. But there's that key point there in the last few sentences I read out, which is the things that made him the exceptional rock musician that he has been were also the things that made him not so good at life. Yes. Our culture rewards adaptive children. Our culture doesn't like wise adults. Our culture rewards performance. Our culture is nervous about real intimacy and maturity. Uh, our culture doesn't know what to do. We live in a patriarchal, which means masculine values at large.

Power, dominance, performance. Got that one. Vulnerability, connection, cherishing, love. Yeah, well, that's all nice, but business is business. So, yeah, I deal with high rollers, and every single one of them has been a roaring success out in the world. and a mess uh in their personal lives and a mess between their ears. They're not happy. So, I talk about the difference between gratification and relational joy. I'm glad this came up for the listeners. Gratification is a short-term hit of pleasure. It's great in its place. You know, you smoke a joint, you have a martini, pretty girl flirts with you, your stock goes up.

All great. In Boston, your kid gets in the harbor. That's ground zero. All great in its place. Relational joy, which I have to teach these often men, is a deeper down pleasure. You have it. A deeper down pleasure of the joy of being, the joy of just being there and being connected. Parents get this. Sometimes your kid is gratifying. Sometimes you want to throw them through the goddamn window. If you were in that spot where you were hating their guts and I said, "Hey, I could go back in time and you would never have to even have this kid." You deck me.

It's not about whether they're gratifying or not. It's deeper than that. That's relational joy. The joy of connectedness to yourself, to the people you love, to your body, to the planet. Connection feels great. Many of the men that I work with have little to no idea of relational joy. It's all about performance and gratification. And the world has made them billionaires, stars, celebrities, but they don't know how to be close. They don't know how to sit still and be at peace inside their own bodies. So, okay, when you're out in the gladiatorial arena, be a gladiator.

When you come home, put down the sword and shield and be a lover. Uh, you can be both. Yeah. I'm not I hate it when people critique me and say Terry Real is trying to feminize men. Get lost. It's not at all what I'm saying. I want whole men and women. Whole people of all genders. And you know I love to tell stories. May I tell you this is one of my favorite stories. See traditional mas traditional patriarchy stoic invulnerable men accommodating resentful women. That's the norm.

Or now after feminism women have two choices. They can be traditional accommodating resentful or they can be liberated which is individual empowerment. Now I'm strong. Go screw yourself. Relational empowerment is the next step. All right. U what I want is wholeness. I want strong and sexy, wise and loving, selfish and giving. All of the qualities based on what's in front of you and what you have to. So I want wholeness and adaptability. Uh Bruce talked about being wildly adaptable to the culture as large and he's a star, not so adaptable in his living room.

It's very common. Here's a story. Um I had the privilege of being with a Messiah community in Tanzania. Yeah. And I had a men's group with the elders for four nights. We talked about everything. God, women, love, death. It went from English to Swahili to Messiah to Swahili to English. So, here's a moment I'll always remember. I say to them, in America, where I'm from, there's a debate about what makes a good morani, warrior man. It's one word, morani. What makes a good morani? Some people think a good morani is tender, sensitive, responsible.

Some people think a good morani is ferocious, tough, hard as nails. What do you guys think? What makes a good morani? True story. So I went and they're all talking and then this one little guy stands up. He stands up. He's about 4 foot2, maybe 300 years old. Chris is like, it sounds like he's totally pissed at me. And a here's the translation that's word for word true says I have no interest in talking to you what makes a good morani I could care less but I will talk to you about what makes a great morani listen when the moment calls for fierceness a good morani is a killer don't they'll sl your don't [clears throat] don't cross them they'll kill you when the moment calls for tenderness a good morani lays down his sword and shield and is sweet like a little baby.

He said, "A great morani is the man who knows which moment is which." So good. So good. It's such a beautiful idea this one of wholeness that you talk about, right? So it's not about I'm either this or I'm that. It's like no no no, there's room for all of it, right? You can express all those parts, just express them in the correct situations like a great morani. I really really like that. Something I can take away and and think about. Uh Terry, I wonder if it'll be okay to go to some questions that my audience have um written in and pops to you.

I don't think we'll get through them all, but I think there's a couple there which I think would be quite interesting and take us into a slightly different place than the things we've already spoken about. Okay, so this one has come in. Terry, how do you keep a healthy interest and fresh perspective on a marriage after almost 40 years? What can you do to create excitement? Well, this is interesting. I um the great um director, actor Olivia Wild just came out with a new movie and a stere uh consulted and and they said I was very much present in the making.

Uh, EA and I are go in slightly different directions on this is kind of fun. A stere goes, "Well, you need mystery. You shake it up. Have sex on the couch. Wear something. Wear an outfit. Uh, tell each other some secret fantasy. Juice, you know, just juice it up. More mystery, less brother, sisterly platonicness, and a little more loverness. And that's all I like that. That's fine. Here's where I go. Tell the truth to each other. You want to keep your relationship passionate. Take each other to the max.

Deal with each other. Here's something about me that you don't know after 40 years. Show more of yourself. Take more risks. Um, things get stale when we stop telling the truth to each other. And most couples stop telling the truth to each other. So, as Sarah would say, get some fantasy, get something going, get a sex toy, move out for a week, you know, do something like more affairish inside your marriage. I would say be aggressive in a good way. lean in and take each other on.

Show each other parts of yourselves that you've held back from. Uh that'll keep it alive. Yeah. So, I think we're both right. Next question. How can I understand what my partner is going through when he is not ready to discuss or open up? What steps should I take to solve this? You can only say this is important to me. even if you don't want to do it for me. Would you work on doing it? And if they're not listening, the answer is no, then drag the son of a gun into therapy with I would recommend an RLT therapist because they'll take your side and lean in and try and get through to the guy, assuming it's a guy.

Uh so try it yourself with skill. You may not want to open up, but I need you to open up. I'm lonely in here. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Remember the three steps. Dare to rock the boat. Look, I need you to open up. I'm lonely. Teach them what you want. This is what I mean by opening up. I want you to tell me about your day. I want you to tell me about your feelings. And how can I help you do that?

And then once your partner tries, this is huge. I'm so glad this came up. When partner B starts giving partner A what partner A is asking for. Do you think partner A swoons in their arms and says thank you money? No. They cut it off at the knees. They protect themselves and go back to their corner of skepticism. Too little too late. You did it but you're not doing it right. You're doing it now but you're going to stop. Stop protecting yourself. you did I say celebrate the glass 15% full was only 5% full last week like if your kid gets a D in school you read them the riot act they come back next week with a C you don't say where's the A you say good progress let's keep going same thing with your spouse if your spouse tries encourage them don't discourage them I like to say hey honey you just did a halfass job congratulations That's great.

How do we get the other cheek on board? You know, work with them, but from a place of appreciation and positiveness, not criticalness. Encourage them, don't discourage them. Yeah. Brilliant. Uh, two more I think which we will just try and quickly cover. Um, when do you know that the relationship is really over? I mean, we could do a whole podcast on that, but here's the short version. And if you go to my website, there's an article called rowing to nowhere. When is enough enough about this?

I talk about what I call a relational reckoning. So, you haven't gotten through. Okay. Step one, learn a whole new set of skills to talk to your partner better that increase the odds that they'll be able to listen. Two, if they're still not listening and you're doing a great job, drag them to a therapist and a therapist who will take your side and help you with them. Three, if nothing works, should I stay or go? Here's the tool. I call it a relational reckoning, and it's a question.

Am I getting enough in this relationship? Am I getting enough in this relationship to make grieving what I'm not getting worth my while? Am I getting enough to make bearing the pain of what's missing here okay with me? Because you're with an imperfect person and things will be missing and they will hurt. So, you know, maybe you're a great lover and your last 20 relationships were with partners who, you know, sprang from chandeliers in the ceiling. You're now with a a person who's been sexually molested as a kid.

They're quiet. They're contained. They need to be in control. You got to go slow and gentle with this person. Do you miss the wild party nights? You do. Don't keep talking to your partner about that, but you can talk to me about that. Yes, you miss it. But oh my god, she's a wonderful mother. She's a beautiful friend. And we love each other. Sex is okay. It's not stellar, but it's okay. Good enough. And what do you do with your grief? You feel it. Don't blame her.

Don't go looking for somebody else. Just stand in it. Uh, you're walking down the street and you see a guy with some sex pot woman who's all over him. [gasps and sighs] Oh, you feel a pang in your heart. Oh, I remember the old wild days. Oh, well, that's not what I have here. It's okay. What I have here is beautiful. If the answer is it's not good enough to make grieving worthwhile, then fight or get out. If the answer is, you know what, it is good enough.

For now, at least I can let go of it. Then godamn let go of it. Don't walk around like a big victim and embrace what you are getting with joy. Yeah. So do your reckoning and then own it. Yeah. That's such great advice. Terry, one more question I think would take us into a different area again is is this one. Is it okay to be friends with an ex partner? That's a great question. You're asking the wrong person. Uh, don't ask me, ask your partner, is it okay with you, my dear spouse, if I remain friends with the next lover?

And uh, is there anything you need in order for me to have that privilege? I I like to say, bring your exes home. Uh, introduce them to your family. dissolve that membrane of the two of us and open it up to the people you're living with now. It will be less frightening to your partner if you do that. But I don't know. It's between you and your partner. Yeah. Terry, I could talk to you for hours. Honestly, I think you've just done such phenomenal work for so many years.

Uh the book of yours I have read is Us: Reconnect with Your Partner and Build a Loving, lasting relationship. I think it's such a wonderful read and and a beautiful guide for all of us who seek to improve our skills in relationships. So, first of all, thank you for all the work. Thank you for writing it. And my final question, Siri, um, is is really for that person who's listening or watching and has realized throughout this conversation that you know what, they don't really have the skills that are needed to have an adult relationship, right?

I think many people will be going, "Wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know that." So for that person who is in a relationship but feels that they're constantly arguing with their partner that despite their best efforts nothing seems to change. They're wondering is it me? Is it them? You know for that person who's basically lost hope. What are your final words to them? Well I want everybody to come to my website tterreel.com. I'm really pleased to say along with a two-year training program we have for professionals, we're developing more and more offerings for the general public.

Great. So, I have a beautiful class on what healthy self-esteem looks like, what uh boundaries look like, basic relationship skills, how to get more of what you want in your relationship, and parenting. Uh they're all pretty affordable. They're all online. You take them. Amazing. If both you and your partner took them together, start there. And if that's not enough to move things, go find an RLT therapist. They're they're all over the world, so go to the website and find them. Yeah, I love that. I guess that that sort of really closes off this conversation beautifully.

This idea that the culture around you doesn't teach you the things that you need for modern 21st century relationships. So, it's not your fault that you don't know how to do it. But now that you know that you don't have the skills, go out there and get the skills, right? The information is available out there. Now, this book, for example, has got a ton of information in it. But as you say, people can also go to your website. Is that terryreel.com? That's it. Just t r y re.com.

Yeah. Brilliant. Terry, honestly, such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for everything and um I'll hopefully get a chance to see you at some point in the future. I would love that. Bring me back on the show. I'll do I'll talk some more. And I got to tell you, you are what we call a good man. And this world has a lot of bad examples out there right now. And you're a good one. So, bless you and the work you're doing. And stay strong and healthy.

We need you. If you enjoyed that conversation, then I think you are really going to enjoy this one. If I were to choose to live my life over again, I wouldn't live it in this way. Yeah. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. When you're driven to work too hard, you actually ignore what matters. And where does that come from?

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