What can we, as individuals do to try to make our marriage is better in one of them is basically things like attribution, so your partner does a thing and you don't like it. It's sort of up to you to say like what did it mean? events happened. I'm not denying that facts exist, but they dont interpret themselves. We interpret events, we interpret facts and I find that a little bit nerve wracking, because it can sound blaming of the people who are not having success. Another way of thinking about it that I like every bit as much is: how empowering is that, like? We have a huge amount of ability to shape things for better so the science is crystal clear: leave genuine, healthy and enduring relationships there at the centre of the life well, live, but still in its those long term, intimate partnerships that we take most for granted or give the least attentiveness to kind of assuming they keep on keeping on until they don't?

So how do you keep your relationship with someone? You hope to be a life partner, not just alive, but truly, it and flourishing and nourishing and joyful specially over a period of years or if your fortunate enough decades, maybe even your entire life, what's this

ripped to maintaining passion and connection throughout the years. That is where we're headed in this I opened in conversation with professor eli finkel as red eyes into the world of romantic relationships. So eli is the author of the best selling book, the all or nothing marriage had the best marriages work and as a professor at northwestern university, with appointments in the psychology department and colleague, school of management he's dedicated his career to studying romantic relationships. As the director of north western relationships and motivation lab he has published over one hundred and sixty scientific papers has been featured as a guest essayist for the new york times and a survey of his peers identified him as the most influential relationship scientists in the twenty first century, and the economists declared him one of the leading lights in the realm of relationships, ecology, and in today's provocative and insightful conversation, we explore how couples can strengthen their bond and rekindle the flames. Passion through shared novel experiences, drawing from research and personal insights. Eli highlights the importance of going beyond traditional things, like date, knights and delving into the extraordinary discover things like the surprising impact of engaging in exciting out of the ordinary activities on relationships at his faction and passion. How to distinguish between activities that foster closeness and knows that reignite desire and the unexpected benefits of breaking out routines and embracing new challenges together and so much more. He last year

really valuable and new insights on how couples can be deliberate about rebuilding their relationships and resetting priorities, all Creating meaningful connections and lasting memories and resources really fascinating. Take on the profound way that marriages have changed over the last few generations and our expectations have changed around them so excited to share this conversation with you on junk fields, and this is good life project. not, yet Global private aviation leader is known for personalizing every detail of your travels because net, yet standard is not just to meet their definition of perfection. It's to exceed yours, discover more at net jets, dot com so the ten percent happier podcast has one guiding philosophy. Having

is a scale that you can learn. So why not embrace it? It's hosted by dan harris journalist who had a panic attack on national television and then send out on this journey of transformation and he's now on a quest to help. Others also achieve peace and happiness, and every week Dan talked you top scientists, meditation teachers. Even the odd celebrity in wide ranging conversations that explore topic, psych productivity, anxiety and lightness, psychedelic and relationships. The interviews cover everyone from bernay brown to cerebral ass to SAM Harrison more. I love learning from his questions and experiences and incredible guess think of listening to ten percent happier as a work out. For your mind, fine ten percent happier where every listen to pot casts

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said to dive in with you just actually celebrated my twentieth anniversary at last year, been together with my wife for thirty years. if we fascinated by what keeps human beings in the dance together over a long window of time where it's personal, whether to marriage with its long term, partnering, which I think is becoming more common these days or even business relationships. I think there's so much interesting overlap. There let's take a little bit of a step back in time and create a a bit of historical context for what we're even talking about here, because a lot of your work has focused on this really surly, interesting evolution of marriage or partnering describing These three different era, or eons. Let's take a little bit of a step in time and walked me through surly, this progression yeah. I think it's hard for us today to realise that our assumptions about what marriages are so strongly situated

our cultural and historical moment. So, even just in the u s, I find one tool that useful for thinking about how different things are, as do go back a couple centre and think about the moment when Abraham lincoln was born to this is eighteen o nine. A couple hundred years ago, and He was born into a one room, dirt floor log cabin. he had an older sibling, but one additional kid came along died in childbirth His mother died when you still nine years old and is only remaining settling died when a still a teenager. While she was giving birth to her owns my child and a bit of a tale of woe. What sort of an interesting backstory am perhaps the greatest american of all time, but for me it's a telescope to what was life like what and empathy induction what was life like back there before you just sort of strolled by target to pick up the stuff that you needed and in an area like that, if you were alive when life was precarious. Like this end and the eu,

the economic production was the individual household and literally, marriage was about food clothing and shelter, not to mention the creating of candles for light, and this is what family life. Was what would you look for in a partner? Well sure, you'd, love to love your partner in and feel a deep sense of meaning and purpose, and if the sex was good, all the better, but the demand the verb. Psychological fulfilment were luxuries that they weren't necessity and nobody stood at the altar and said No you're, my soul made, or you complete me and my best friend it was like that really until the industrial revolution, so starting around eighteen, fifty and then over a century really reaching it peter on nineteen. Fifty you get the second wave of that first wave was the pragmatic era that really about basic physical needs. Then get this era. That's really this ideology of marriages about latins. This is the essence of what it's about in, and we tell britain came around at the right time to canonized this for us in leave it to beaver the knows best the bread

and are homemaker love based vision of marriage, which, for a long time, people have I too, and was in a start up phase there is a recipe for heaven on earth, and love was private. again marriages about other things. Of course, reproduction sacrament before god, good way too, raise? Children like I was about many other things and economic arrangement, but the ideology. The talk about marriage was that it was about love, and that is still the case but what was wild is that starting around the nineteen sixty call it something like sixty five, Yet, what all of us knows is vast cultural upheaval and even open had aspired to this breadwinner. Homemaker love based vision of marriage. They end up finding it pretty soon. the gender roles, the strictness of the ideas and if it had been the true, that men are assertive by nature but not nurture. Indian women are nurtured by nature, but not assertive, then maybe it whatever just fine, but it turns out that men stifled in their roles, women especially felt stifled in their roles, and you get this.

Vision of marriage that shifts again so love stays important, but not enough these days in this third era, where we still are, you wouldn't be shocked if a friend said to you like, I love him, he's a good man and a good father and very reliable, but feel stagnant in this life, and I don't have that much passion and I'm not gonna live the remaining thirty or forty years of my life feeling that way. to have a more rich in fulfilling and frankly us, dick sort of existence, and so we can call this third era, the isaf expire. if era and there pros and cons of these changes. Yeah Minutes interesting, because the first error that you describe what is it that was therefore maybe centuries. If not, you know like human history before that The second area was love based. It seems like. That was a relatively short moment in the history long term partner in this was like nearly ten twenty fifth year- something like that before we flip into self expressions, of is surely the paradigm that really anchors their relationship?

various, whether you have essentially what actually happened that made that more of a blood on the radar then what seems to be longer more, sustained heiress you know it was a blip, that's right, but it wasn't a blip in people's aspirations. So even if you go back to jane austen, so we're talking england and we're talking eighteen tens, basically, contains. Do you have the roots of this right? That's like! Wouldn't it be amazing if you could marry for love now, there's no assumption in those books that, like that, a reasonable option for lots of people it it's like aspiration that people hoped might happen, but they realise that everything was based around marriage and you couldn't necessarily indulgent love based marriage. So the ology had been there for a long time that the vision- I don't wanna cheapen it by calling it an ideology, the vision that how amazing would it be if we could marry for love that that had been around, at least since the late? Seventeen hundreds? My? U not, always rachel, just as a brief aside and in the middle ages, so courtly love, for example,

much believe unromantic passion, but not with your wife, you sick, oh right, like that was meant for totally adult. right, and that was an ideal anyway, the love based era and the modern sense of it really started wait. Seventeen hundred in your right that really there was a brief period of time when it down. neither the scene before people started. Saying, love, isn't isn't enough and I think the reason Why that is? Is that the party the version of a love based marriage. Was this breadwinner homemaker thing and it turns out? That is a luxury, because we have this vision, probably because of when tv came in that traditional marriage and that's just what it was in perpetuity like the fifties. Thing was just what it always was. It never was Stephanie Koontz the terrific historian book called the way we never were. She says leave it to beaver, wasn't a documentary and the reason why I think it really came to prominent in that era was after where to

had been a generation of americans that had dealt with a lot of people, so nineteen, twenty nine was the market crash. You then just had the great depression which ran right into world war. Two were lots of young men were killed and just lot of people and uncertainty, and then you had this period of time where america really for the first time we As the hedge emma was the dominant power embedded in the eight of economic growth and the extent to which it was shared up and down the socioeconomic higher was an unprecedented, really anywhere, and so there was a period of time, call it. Nineteen, forty five nineteen. Seventy five were looking old boy, could graduate high school and get a union card and kind of support a family of five, and that made it possible for us. Have the vision that people had long hoped for then they got it and they thought on average, look some people loved it, but on average they thought this actually isn't fulfilling in the way we hoped and that corresponded with

works better for down and the feminine mistake and the vietnam war protests in the civil rights movement and in it. Basically, what we think of novice traditional marriage was an aspiration people had for a long time. Finally, in the fifties and early sixties, americans, large swaths of americans were able to get it and when they got it, how did they feel It's not that great yeah I mean that makes sense, because what you're describing also he inhaled when we talk about the late sixty minutes, it's funny as lures were having this conversation last night, I was watching this documentary on laurel. In the sixtys and seventys, like the music, seen like folk in the birds and like all this incredible music that came out of that, but there are also describing more broadly how it started out as this race like a bubble type of thing and then all of a sudden, young, vietnam more and it started become political people started to actually expand their horizons and really reexamined life, and that model that you're describing the nearly forty fifty isn't sixties if it were existed, which

like you said you register on tv, but whether real and people's lives. It feels like that blew up so quickly and sometimes so violently, and along with that, you know you have a re examining of race in the country you have reexamining of of poverty and money, and if they did all fed into this moment, that you're describing which really also lead to just a wholesale re, imagining of what it means having a relationship with somebody for like potentially life or a really long time. Yeah, I mean for me one of the dominant intellectual threads that had prime the pomp? If you All for people to have an alternative and to build an alternative vision. Once society went through that appeal that we call the sixties really sort of sixty four sixty I've up into the seventies in vietnam and that stuff, but the Movement that I think was really relevant here was humanistic psychology, and you know that this sort of

wave of psychology might have, unlike friday and in the second dynamic staff, and then we had the behaviorist too thought you shouldn't look into the mind and it's really just about conditioning and reward in responding to rewards and punishments, a fourth and then starting really in the thirties. In the forties you get this. In a stick. Psychology movement, the famous names in this movement or people call rogers Abraham maslow, and the idea that there is a vision of a profound life of a deeply meaningful, purposeful That's not the way freud talked and certainly isn't the way the behaviorist talked, but there's a new a comment enters again, mostly in the egg head communities like the academic communities and so forth, but in the forties If these there is like a root of this stuff, led into the beats a little bit, and by the sixties. There was a lip. There was enough people familiar with these ideas. These ideas that there's like a deep, rich, authentic, true to self sort of life. Actualized sort of life that we could aspire to that one you got

cultural upheaval associated with no vietnam and and all those things and again when we talk about the second, we feminism of the sixties and we talk about the civil rights movement. These are more it's that are really about authenticity there about the profound purpose of the individual, the individuals individual's ability to build his her there when personal existence and it's hard for us to tell a story like that about what our society is and what we value while treating women or or rage minorities as second class citizens. Why telling gay people are not allowed to marry like it ends up being something where the meat Stream tilted left? but these issues and sort of inevitably lead to a lot of the cultural people that were still feeling today. That word authenticity. Also, if you think, is really interesting, because if you think about that night, Second era: the love best era you'd, like I think that all of this would have been something deeply like steeped in authenticity and deep, action and really

How can you not love someone unless you genuinely deeply know them, yet that's not really the way that you describe it. It's almost the the exact opposite, like us more about service level, there's a sword structure. That makes us feel good. It's almost like you You don't know somebody as well as you could last thing, you tat is exactly right. I wouldn't say that the love based air was was inauthentic. Concur. Am I think that love was real, it was, it was probably closer to cherishing cross. It divides the right and his men were supposed to be men and women were supposed to be women. Of course, you got some variation within the man category and the woman category in general, you were supposed to to some extent as gender paragons and that still true to some extent, but that's a significant amount of what we have revolted against, since the nineteen sixty is not until the present day is that is that that's not sufficiently authentic, too. individual that that doesn't take the individual as unique

entity. So much as like, I said, avatar of a gender and the authenticity is particularly interesting here, which is often it is like. Are you the author of your own self of your own life What authenticity is is that there is a self here that those who really em, and can I old, a life. That is true too. my own purpose and meaning, and that just isn't really what the love based marriage was. bowed, and even though most of us don't talk exactly this way. Although some of us do em, you know you make me want to be a better man like their stuff like that, but that's a lot of the cultural dna, in the vision that we have these days for for trying to build an authentic connection, and if dulled me. Let me make one of the comment on this year, which is its related to the diminishing role of religion and god. In Eric and life in western life, more gender, Because you know,

used to be or less it this way among highly religious people, there's a purpose out for you in the holy book right. That's like what sort Why are you supposed to live like it's really laid out for you, buy an omniscient end, omnipotent and benevolent entity in so are, as you do things like a lot of people say they you know on it here to any sort of standard I've, religion, or maybe they say there, eight, the historic, gnostic or something like that will then Where do those rules come from the purposeful meaningful life like what they well lived life is science can't really tell us These are moral and what you feel theological sorts of questions, and one of the things that you get with the decline. Role of religion and god in american society of western society. More generally is is that the individual b, hums devalue base that instead of looking to a holy book for site into what is that I'm supposed to do to live a purposeful life now often city for many of us is sufficient. This is

to who I am. Why am I getting but of course, what because I dont feel authentic in this marriage anymore and among large swathes of american society. These days we say fair enough, like what Can you do if it's not really true to yourself, then, of course you have to change it again. People didn't think way in eighteen hundred or nineteen fifty, but lots us, whether we admit it or not! Think that way, circa! Twenty twenty three I mean such a sea change. It's interesting to think of the word authenticity. I never really framed it that way, as like the author of your life, because at functionally, what we're all looking for that sense of both let me exist as I am like it fully, and I have a sense of agency around that like I can lead with that and make jet at it. I can choose around that. Constraints of that nearly that love based era. It was stifling the waiter described me like it doesn't mean it was devoid of love, but

the container in which had existed in the assumptions that near like this is how life will be if we build it this way kind of. We were imploded when peoples are realising what now Writing this isn't enough! For me. It also. It feels a part of what you're describing as a switch from value around peace? and pleasure to meaning an transcendence. Does it make sense? Yes? So this, just a little bit in my book in the context of why and though I have some reservations about the changes that we ve had these changes been talking about this emphasis on authenticity and personal growth, I'm ultimately more positive about it than negative and certainly more positive about it. That much of the social commentary, and I think the She is basically ever since marriage started changing like that, you can go back a couple hundred years ago and you ve gotten commentators, typically toward the conservative end of whatever their their cultural moment was saying.

Something like well. If marriage friendship if marriages about pleasure, marriages about love, will what sustains it when the you're goes away, the love goes away. The friendship goes away like shouldn't the institution be more stable than that shouldn't be based on something not so fickle. Engineering. Ultimately, on commitment on either a sacrament before god or sacrament, before your family or or or just a commitment to live a life like this and not to divorce, things. Don't feel good anymore right to trivialize it a little bit, but that has been a lot of the social commentary and honestly, I find it credible. I find that I take seriously these social commentaries. That's what is marriage if it and involve a commitment beyond like that. Still where it was. When I said I do, and so therefore were together, but if it's not, then it fades and I think again, I wouldn t I totally agree with the critique, but I find the critique, valuable and worth taking seriously, but there's another way,

thinking about it, and this is where I really credit the humanistic psychologists, which is that there is a way of thinking about like a self oriented life. That is about happiness and pleasure, and I do think most of the critiques sort of assume that its equal. Why would I deal with inconvenient because that's a pleasurable and therefore divorce? I think the vision that grew most Finally, in the nineteen sixties, and has continued again with variation to develop up to the present day is more based on meaning and purpose? I think the common carries the critiques I think, are entirely valid if the country It is between you on one side, marital commitment on the other side like pleasure enjoy I totally agree that, like how can you sustain that like? If, if you know we're have joy them. The marriage goes, I totally agree, but what? If, instead of it My pleasure enjoy its meaning and purpose. That is by whatever sort of authors. standard you have set up of like what a good meaningful, purposeful life is here.

How do we achieve that, including through your marriage? But let's just say- and I think most of us do think this- that for those of us who mary, we think a good meaningful, purposeful life, is building and sustaining a long term marriage and then, The fundamental in compatibility between disliked self oriented thing and marital stability goes away. You no longer have an inherent tension right because you could now have. This is hard. This is differ I don't even love. You very much right now, but still for these self reason self expression. South activision, tissue reasons, you say luck. I value the marriage. This is a big part of who I am, and I want to build a stable family for my children and now there's no longer an inherent tension between marital, ability and the self oriented things, because it's not about pleasure, it's about meaning and purpose, and insofar as it's about meaning and purpose, one of the ways that many of us think about meaning and purpose is through working through the hard times together, taking opportunities to grow from these challenges.

And what we ve seen really like. Basically, marriage exploded. It basically failed on moss from like ninety, sixty five nineteen. Eighty, the divorce rate, the likelihood of divorce, went from something like twenty five percent cent to fifty percent between them can a fifteen year period. Marriages, just failed in a massive way. Since nineteen eighty, the divorce rate, have come down, at the national level and they come down a lot among the college educated now, that's maybe a separate topic than the one we'll talk about it, but What we're seeing is that, since the nineteen eightys, we seem to have settled in to a new way of thinking about about marriage, that is really about the explosion of divorce, circa. Nineteen. Seventy five, when things were about pleasure, to a deeper tie Of self oriented marriage. That's about authenticity fulfilled, and and inherent commitment and dedication to something larger than ourselves. That seems to be working significantly The population, perhaps especially these days among the college, educated yeah,

It is really interesting and you're right that, isn't it really fascinating, and maybe it aside by that, will have a significant circle around to it, but am the ex what you're describing also is. If you look at the research That's emerged from puzzle. Psychology, scintillate nine is like this phrase has been repeated in so many different contexts: yogi heed the hedonic treadmill speaking bout? How, when the focus is pleasure or happiness we I tend to habituate both up and down like a horrible circumstance. We habituate back to a baseline, a you win, one hundred million dollars in the lottery. Somehow you habituate back down to that same level, your baseline pleasure or happiness you had before so it It makes sense that if that was you know standard for a window of time, and then everyone starts habituating back to the way they were before. It is not a sustainable way to build something. Long term like if you're going to invest effort in energy in some here as a relationship over appeared a decades or your entire life, and you keeps

like we wording to this baseline of where we started, which for some people is found, stick and others, not so fantastic It seems like a very fragile way to actually sustain this thing and his I mean the sort of positive psych, scholarly literature. Of course this has gone mainstream and significant ways, but a lot of that stuff is about things like gratitude is about altered the way that we think about things to savour better, not to necessarily drink better wine or see better films or or shows, but how, can we engage more deeply with the experiences of life? How can we, acknowledge and appreciate that, of course, life has negative things in it. Of course, these things require work and effort and that we a crucial role in helping to build. There the extent to which we feel fulfilled.

I am fulfilled with our lives and- and that is, I think, a pretty. It's not the full story, but it is a is a pretty large part of the story about how people can build productive, meaningful happy lives, despite this on a treadmill problem of like the effective pleasure, does tend to diminish over time, but not so with meaning, and yeah, and I mean, if you ask somebody if they're going through a horrible moment in their life and ask them like. Are you happy like that? He can generally laugh at you or you're. Just like clothes, you out of the room road both were really challenging moment in the life and you ask them like do you have a sense of meaning right now will very likely- maybe maybe not, but at least meaning. is accessible through difficult times. Worse having this may not be so as you're, describing if that's the thing that your shooting for that year, like it that's the standard What comes your way? It's something that we can all hold, which also like. I wonder if that, if that demand

this is potentially that the potential for a sense of futility and a relationship, because you know that, even if your struggling with another person right now, if the larger context is like there's a lot of meaning in this struggle or in the general context of the circumstance of this and that what you really value? You know still work to get back to a place of being happy and pleasure, but there still this fabric of something worthy: that's accessible, to you through that, doesn't make sense yeah. I agree strongly with out now in fairness There are circumstances under which it's easier to have a good marriage and circumstances under which is harder if there's plenty of resources to pay the baby, sitter and pay the house cleaner and take the roma the vacations and like it is easier than if you're chronically figuring out like how to work the three jobs in and get the kids on three buses to take our school or something. So there is no doubt that our active circumstances also really matter but

yeah, you are totally right that we have. A lot of our time in power makes sense of our circumstances in ways that are likely to make our relationships a little bit better and likely to make or likely to make our relationships over the worse. Yet. Not yet global private aviation leader is known for personalizing every detail of your travels because net, yet standard is not just to meet their definition of perfection. It's to exceed yours discover more at net jets. Dot com

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I'm up twice nasa. Let's just go there. This notion of who is your suit. kind of like we ve moved into the self express it. Marriage is right in that, can what were deepening into an and what we ve just come. It into a little bed is. Is this actually available to everybody? And if you are really struggling financially if you are under resource? If you come, is this ass, a paradigm, which is there for the privileged or is it something that really anyone can tap into in some level is available to everybody? But a charter for some, and you know, one of the the ideas I developed in the book of the metaphor and that I I built a lot of the ideas about in the book. As you know, many You're listeners, of course, will be familiar with masses, hierarchy of needs and they might have recognized it in some of the things we were talking about earlier, so that in the first wave marriage was really about the needs lower down the hierarchy, physiological safety needs and then in the middle era. The love based era was for the middle of muslims hierarchy in terms of love and belonging, and then these days,

for the top of masses hierarchy, things like you, know self expression, intensity and so forth, and I find it useful think of messrs hierarchy, not in that triangle that many of us had it have in our heads, but like a mountain and that building an effective marriage is a little bit like, mountain climbing, and so you don't. We and looked at the top of the mountain. If we want the book did not tell people how to build their marriage in many ways that you could build an effective merit if you really want to shoot for them, just that are available. These days that didn't used to be available we now have like well, we can achieve self expression or authenticity through marriage like that kind of amazing, and so there's a level of connection, that's available That was largely out of reach and areas where people want even trying. What do you have like the equip tell me about the skills you have the resources and- and I talk a little bit about this idea- that, like the oxygen gets thinner as you go the big mountain and I think is really where things like.

Social class or insufficient resources insufficient time together really work their adverse effects. So the cultural ideals about the optimal marriage. Those seem to exist up and down the I'm such a class hierarchy across the social costs. From? Let's say that is, if you ask people who don't have a college degree or even on welfare versus people who do have a college degree and are even well to do how important it that we understand each other's hopes and needs, and so forth. There are no differences. This ideal of what a good marriages seems to be pretty robust across economic spectrum, but the ability. Would she that is difficult in another way of saying that is like it. Lot easier for people with resources to bring the supplemental oxygen up there and just enjoy The enjoy the view up there in the very top of the mountain where self expression resides. You know spend some money to make sure that you have the time and emotional resources in the things that you fight about, like whose cleaning the toilet you can pay your way out of those fight, and it just makes everything is,

yeah. It's it. Everything were sort of like that. It's not really conversation about like will happen. We change that It sounds like this is a reality, at least from your observations and the big questions, not how do we change this in a context of marriage, but how do we change a larger social structures so that we have more equities. People have more like so that some of the things that would stop us from putting on the oxygen mass like it that nearly the top, Four and five rungs of hierarchy are available to more people here again one of the issues with me as the answer. I'm gonna give yours both and actually among my fellow lefties, you sometimes get a story that I that I also find kind of of depression, which is that could anybody have a good marriage if your poor right that it's all social structure. It's all your economic circumvent, and I find that offensive, I that paternalism and borderline offensive, like the poor people too work on themselves and work on their marriage and be happy, and so the the anthem,

is on social class, which I feel is crucial because excessive when we deny the individual and the individual couples the ability to make our lives better, so that your question is yes, and I certain I think more marriages which exceed and of would be lower, especially among the people with less education, for example, lower Income, if we had social resource, as if our society restructured to make poverty, less scary, less oppressive? You know that you have to take, and three bus. It is to work at the star box to make us only enough money. I couldn't make ends meet. I think things. Be a lot better relationship should be better. That said, I am not denying anybody the response ability for dealing with it and to make their own life and their own marriages as strong as possible and with responsibility and also possibility leads the opportunity to exert their right, barely acknowledging that we all have some level of agency. Better. That wordier that's right. Look what a time to be alive. It's like

some of what I am saying, may some kind of depressing. That's like well, like rats so margin- and I haven't talked about it. But, like the amount of time were, spending with her spouse at least alone of their spouse is lower than in the past, mainly because we ve gotten so intense it about our childcare. Like so much more intensive about their children, but how come is it that we live in an era of marriage that has a bunch of options and one of the options is shooting for the top of mount maslow that we can look at there too, the top and say like where there's a summit there, that I dont think people earlier era's had even been aware. this did like? Have we divide the equipment have we built. The tools do want to go up there at least for a while, and then when like overwhelmed, because as a new born or because as a cancer diagnosis that well, let's to send back to base camp for awhile lower some of those expectations for a while and then regroup for the next assent, like I thought, That's how the best marriages are are working these days is their expectations very, very high, but also very flat.

people and they realize, like you, can't have high expectations. All the time Can we calibrate expectations to what our circumstances can actually for now and, like man, I'm site that I get to live in this era. Yeah. If meaning is near the balls, I then that allows you to calibrate up and down and still experience it. You know it's like you, don't have to leave that thing, which quote keeps us together which are both aspiring to what we want to leave it behind yell. If struggle, ouch into our life or, if not in the struggle. You just said, and then in you write about this and hope that this will you have a kid, Every parent knows that just things and profound ways- and sometimes as you describe in the book like you- have to have the to descend down and no that actually available to you and that's that doesn't mean it's the end of the marriage. It doesn't mean we no longer love each other. It doesn't mean you there

sexes, annihilated from the relationship from this moment on just for awhile. Is it your adjusting like two whatever's going on it? Using also has an in, especially in this particular context? I know any and you write about, you kind of use, your own relationship as a laboratory, and you write about you share about your own experience like during that particular season of can do ding down in as a way of still making everything. Ok yeah it. even now, I sort of like some emotion, thickened back it, it was a hard adjustment for us. Many from me, you know I gotta go, if I'm seeking some sympathy from your listeners, who don't have and our thinking about having kids, I guess I would say, like weary, find the thirty hours a week like what are you gonna cut from your life? Once you have your kid and it's gonna be a lot of stuff you like, and there's gonna be like a lot of stuff. It's replaced with, is you know, mondrian diaper, ing and in those

aren't necessarily that fine, but, depending on the temperament of your kid, you might have a lot of things that likes. Of irrational screaming and maybe not. on may not only from your kid is on that might be from new early. For me, You said something interesting a minute ago that I hadn't thought that I think you like unlocked my thinking that it never occurred to me before, which is the way I talk like the descent right that that is, like things, are amazing and were travelling to europe and were yet having lots of sex and just like in each other, in this profound way and learning about each other living an authentic life together and then what happens again from any of it from any of us. It's the first kid, but for whatever reason, the dense the ability to hang out there at the summit goes away and almost nobody will ever just hang out at the summit forever. All of us are gonna have to descend, sometimes in the way. I've. Always about that is. You know what a bummer, like. That's a bummer it's good that it's available in like hang out a base camp as long as you need to and that that a good way of lowering your expectations with disappointment. But the way you characterized it a few minutes

was fastened in for me, because you said like in a way if you thinking about meaning and purpose, isn't that all part of it? Isn't it all like hey we're entering a new stage here, and how you gonna play out, I dont know but we're in it together and we are going to make sure that were not expecting so much that were chronically fighting and disappointed and that isn't necessarily like the disappointing part of the relationship that may well be hard the whole meaning purpose connection, part of the relationship and I'll make the next summit even more pleasure. yeah, I mean it's interesting to me, also kind of gone deep down the rabbit hole with meaning and some of the research that evolved around it of the last really two decades and is fascinating, and it really kind of tracks, where that you describe the evolution of marriage as well as really become this ever new element, good thing in no small part accepting we have the luxury to centre it more than we did what was all about keeping them near the family, say putting a roof over their head and food on the table. If it were an indifferent moment,

but being there you know, is also astonishing, powerful and then I also reflected things: viktor frankl, sleep famous peace, young man search for meaning most horrific circumstance you could ever live through and yet you upon reflection. Becomes not only a source of personal meaning to keep him going, but it becomes an entire field of therapy logo therapy. That then says let centre this because it makes it friends, because when you're going through these really hard moments, and now we're talking tax of with somebody else, it's still gives you something to say, but we are checking this box and that box. it really really matters to us regretfully, am frankel built a lot of his thinking around the new treaty obligation at a person who has a why to live endure almost any. How I forget the exact date. You might remember it. You remember the exact line. I think that's pretty much, the quote yeah and look. can I do want to be unsympathetic? Gonna wanna blamed people for their hardships, lots.

People really will struggle with their marriages and their personal lives. Many for very, very legitimate reasons. I don't wanna rest a hundred per cent of the responsibility for little success at the feet of the individual in the couple. But there's a lot of room for us to interpret things in ways that will make the marriage worse or make the marriage better and actually even at the very practical like let you know last brunei book is a very practical and even at the level of like well, ok. So this framework for thinking about marriage is correct, like what Can we as individuals do to try to make our marriage and we talk about a bunch of one of them. Is this basically things like attribution, so your partner does a thing and you don't like it. It's sort of up to you to say like what did it mean I mean event happened, I'm not denying that facts exist, but they dont interpret themselves. We interpret events, we interpret facts and what does it mean that my partner showed up late for the third straight time,

not causeless, to give the benefit of the doubt every time there is some risk that you make yourself a doormat, but the extent too, we feel the stress about it and that the relationship will suffer is heavily determined by the way we interpret the events that were experiencing, and I find that little bit nerve racking, because it it can be sort of sound blaming of the people who are not having success. We are thinking about it that I like every bit as much is. How empowering is that we have huge amount of ability to shape things for better and I think it is incredibly empowering and you share a whole bunch of like different things. Ok, like here's something to explore here, something you explore in that attribution, I think was fascinating. Is it external? Is an internal internal for the good stuff, maybe extra for the stuff that does sit clay re with us, but it feels to me that for literally everything that you offer whether it's gratitude exercises or understand attribution differently. there's a meadow skill and that medical as awareness medical is the ability to actually zuma ones out its

just the ability to focus your attention at a particular moment time, but is the ability to actually notice where your attention is being focused? What is your inner chatter? What is the external chatter? What is the moment in the circumstance give us, and all we ve moved into this phase were like we have now been given. This amazing opportunity to explore the selfish ass. If the meaning driven party relationships were also in a moment, Incirlik human- history we are still fragmented and so destructive, and the pace at which we live is bizarre, sir lake near human flourishing that the ability to please get metal like that. I feel like it's almost been annihilated from most people's lives right there. of life has indeed picked up the start they must revolution which is under way. It started with the agricultural revolution, but you were still working by like the sequencing of the sun. Like the sun comes up, you get up in her chores that you doing me in the morning in their towards you do in the springtime, but that's

really different from now on it, and then with mechanization and electric lighting, and literally like working by the clock, I mean that that we dont think about ever, but that was a monumental change to the everyday life of humans and assessed The twenty four hour factory system that that emerged in a little bit into the industrial revolution and things just got faster and faster, and the amount of information that available to us at any given moment is in staggering, in the literal sense like if we really tried to take in the bombardment. that as what we would be, we would be crippled and so we have to engage in some sort of tree eyes. How are you figure out what to attend to and it's hard. Especially because often you know we're with were at home with her like spouse or significant other in our spouse, isn't like vibrate against our late with its and sturdier than but our

a spouse, is not a phone dings at us that a new email that just right, that a new tweet that someone just responding to your tweet or whatever it is in that deeply fragmenting and to all of us need to figure out, how can I be present but the essence of an authentic life is living it with present. How I simultaneously live in the real world and, take advantage of these incredible opportunities to learn about the world? I I like twitter- or at least I have like didn't over the recent and I, like him, l I can. These are all great things, but how can we make so that there is real time for Your connection with our partner, like women out to dinner, is our phone on the table or is it that link There were ninety straight minister when neither one of us look at a phone. It's like a big deal, but it wasn't like a self control challenge that people faced even twenty years ago it's less than eighteen hundred right. It was just. You were just sort of there, the moment, and now we have to work at it

complicated again by the reality of childbearing, where it used to be like open the door and the kids go out enters changes. I have him society and so forth, but now pair certainly in the u s, and especially among the college educated, are spending an immense amount of very dedicated time take care of the children, and I won't object. I think it has many prose alongside some cons, but one of the most significant cons is, There is less and less time for the spouses, for example, to have time just the two of them and in your plan for the long term, lobbying of your children may be taking a few minutes away from the kids now to really cultivate. The relationship to me with your spouse probably a good investment in the long run? If the only thing you care about is your kid wellbeing, sustaining a deeply meaningful connection with your espouses, eight monumentally great thing for your kids, not only for the stability that it affords, but also for the model that it gives them of what

a good, loving, connected relationship looks like yeah. That's just what was spinning in my head. It's it's like, yellow, like they're, watching every move you make, and it doesn't matter what you say. You know as every parent knows, it's like they are watching every move, and it's all about like how you behave. What are you modeling for them? That is the ultimate lesson. Little did we realize that early eighties police song was really about your children being stalkers. I like it,

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I need to actually go and do the things. So I can really figure who I am and be the person in the world ends, and so does my partner, that over time there are going to have to be sacrifices. then are made for one person to support the other person quote going for the full expression, diphilus scurried expression of their identity, and that while it can sometimes be like fantastic and I'm so excited, there is support you There also be moments where doing that is going to mean stifling your own, pursuit of your own exploration of debt, an expression that lowness, gaudily, b b. An interesting point of potential friction and growth within a relationship right and it is not actually a fully solvable problem is an inherent part of living, a deeply meaningful life Of building a deeply meaningful relationship that it will not be the case that all

ways. You can live totally in accord with your authentic and preferred existence, and your partner can do the same, and so this this, during out like how we're going to do that, people often use the word compromise. I I teach negotiation here at the business school at kellogg, and I don't love. Thinking in terms of compromise, in terms of more like you and me, speak, like win win. In all situations in its true, you don't have to split the difference on these things, but there is not that. Some amount of compromise is required in agenda like this movie has an aged well because of the comfortable age. Prince between the protagonists and because woody Allen has become a compromise figure for apparently there legitimate reasons, but the movie manhattan has something very interesting. So this again was long considered one of the great films up until until recently, and he Is forty two in stating a seventeen year old, this again part of which uncomfortable what but what's interesting about it for the present purpose is

has this great opportunity to study abroad. like a really once in a lifetime opportunity to study abroad. In here, This is totally encouraging her to do so ask me amazing, you gotta go. You can't miss an opportunity like that, but she's in love with him and doesn't really want to go and he broke up with her which interesting about it is then later in the movie, he discovers how much he loves her. Doesn't really know that he thinks is sort of like a flag and then is like no she's really important to me and happens at the end. He This is literally runs through manhattan to get to her house and she about about to get into the category of the airport, and he says I don't think you ought to go to london the idea is when we really love when we really care he willingness. We have to support our partners goals, especially if those goals won't necessarily cultivate. The relationship Our willingness tends to decline because hurting the relationship and keeping the stability of the relationship makes us a little selfish were willing to make sacrifices to, but we're gonna requires If this is from our partner or really try to require sacrifices from our partner in

is that if we were a little less committed, we manufacture like go ahead and if it puts us up what's the difference in and this is one of the major tensions of loving of really deeply. Loving someone is: can we love and also try to afford. Thereupon, well growth in ways that maybe compromising for the marriage and look I'm not even sure what the right balance is there someone that up, like the ideal person, has infinite grace for there. nor taking opportunities that might risk the relationship. I dont know what the right tradeoff is there, but the reality is: all of us are going to deal with the fact that you, have perfect symbiosis on these things. You cap maximize the ability support your partner in all ways and the ability to make sure your partner doesn't do anything that could be dangerous, fear relationship. We ought to figure out what are covered level is unknown in those situations there it is a really interesting and complex. I don't come problem just reality like certainly as this type of relationship, I've spent some

exploring buddhism and this. for me the thing that popped into my head, I think about us- is the notion of non grasping you, like This is why you wouldn't call an aspiration, because it with you, you're not supposed to desire ass by certain states, you know? It is you're working towards you know, being able to sort of like achieve a a an experience or a state of non gasping, and that applies not just to staff but to people this is one of the same way that you're source in your team up yearly, there's no clear easy answer right here: I've struggle with his exact same concept and buddhism around people. That deeply love, in theory you should feel completely fine if they vanish from your life and because We're contentment, your sense of meaning. Your sense of being this year should come from the inside out, not from you. It should in try not enter the? Maybe I'm misinterpreting that end and I've got plenty friends who are buddhists who are listening to this may correct me down there, but that's always been my reading

and I struggle with that for the same reasons that were described in the context of this weathers. a partner or whether to child. I cannot imagine the notion of letting them less on the level where it just doesn't matter if they need to go off and do their thing in their normal or in my life you see some similar in the stoic tradition in ancient greece. You see some of these ideas on ice with them in the in the way that you describe struggling with them. I don't know if it's just I'm excessively american something, but I love goals like I. I love wanting and craving an aspiring, maybe- This sort of related to the marriage stuff we're talking about is that the really are meaningful individual differences on these things, and working together and in light of the fact that that people differ on these things. Dangerous is one of the challenges, but but also opportunities of a deep longterm connection. Now I want to drop into a couple of things that you talk about. You described this experience of the all marriage, meaning when, if you can say yes to this old man's, not like I'm gonna dabble in this

If you really want to build something, truly beautiful and exquisite and sustain it can take work sustained work. Wherever they gotta be all in on it? So some of the things that you exporting all in on you We talk a little bit about them. You like attribution, really understanding and it's interesting also some of the research I've seen says when we look at somebody, who's done sunday. We consider to be wrong. We think of them, often as well. That's a bad person, but when we do the exact same thing, I'm a good person done a bad thing. I made a bad choice. under lake the research that I've seen as it is more in the context of others who were not closely connected with potentially strangers you season politics on the time right, wonder of that same thing. Unfolds within the context of very close relationships like a marriage. In brief, yes, the stores a little bit more interesting than it is with strangers because

will depend on whether there is like a competing interests between us and our spouse, or sometimes we give our spouse. credit in, and that's easy for us to do. But when there are some amount of tension awkwardness, we shall those same self serving tendencies of you ask people and you ask imaginary number of heterosexual couples, you asked the man. Senator the housework. Do you do you asked the woman? What percentage of the housework do you do and lo and behold, on average, that's over a hundred percent right, there's they're doing more than one hundred percent of the housework collectively and down the list It's hard, especially when we're having conflict to the magnanimous and to feel like all the other person's perspective is fair enough, the issue that you raised here is is so fundamental that I put some time into trying to investigate like isn't anything we can do as for relationship researchers are also as individuals to try to figure out how do we deal with this problem? problem being that we tend to have my open. Or self serving the experiences like we're having a fight with our cut.

with our spouse, for example in, and we ran one study where we recruit at two hundred and twenty couples from the chicago and evanston area- and we had them right everything for two years about the biggest fight that had in their merits during that four month period, and In the second year we randomly assign people to either to be an experimental condition and intervention or in the control condition and the intervention condition we dealt with exactly this issue. So if we the major problems in marriage? Is that when we fight it's really hard for us to get a broader perspective that it's really easy for us to see what why what we did is reasonable. What the other side did, what our spouse did was not reasonable what we did in this intervention as we had people write about the conflict from the prospect. a neutral third party who wants the best for everybody wrote three times in the second year for looking of the study for for twenty one minute in total, and we found that really help that relative- to people who were in them

mutual condition. They didn't do this additional writing tat the people who had tried to think specifically about their complex from the perspective of a neutral third party, who wants the best for everybody or more satisfied Actually, there were more trusting. They actually had a little bit hotter marriage, those statistically significant effect on passion in the relationship and- and so there are things we can do There are things that we can do to orient our thinking. That was twenty one minute over the course of a year of labour. The marriages were were reliably better in that condition than they were in the control condition, thus fascinating to me that the structure of the experiment to that that you asked them to put themselves in play some other person rather than the other person in the relation up, because I would have thought I That would be the go to a while back because that trigger empathy, but actually the third person is a thing that we make they difference as fascinating inferior. If your idea is just as compelling and just as plausible, we didn't include that condition. We were focusing on an idea called self distancing, read that as I've talked about myopia, the the sort of

tunnel vision. We get when we feel like no I'm right and so we were trying to focus on this concept of like what have you stepped away not some omniscient person, but just somebody who wants the best for everybody. How would they think about it? once you do that it pretty easy, like are fair enough. I Will we overreacted? I was a little defensive and you start to realize like well. She also probably had reasons for feeling is for with me as she was in it. It's it's a third party perspective that does that. I think it is plausible that Your hypothesis also would have received. Empirical support should be tested it that is trying to adopt your partners perspective. I should like this, this third part thing, but they're both really interesting. That there's s something elegant about the third party thing to me, because I wonder if trying to adapt the other person perspective is gonna feel to four. where is it might feel a bit more neutral. My easier to step into you a neutral observer shoes than the partner who you may not be feeling great feelings towards, like a directive in my eyes is fascinating one

things you talk about, which is something that I need you more than my relationship and I think, a lot of with stress, with pace with a lot of bandwidth constraints for a lot of people in complex in there lies the notion of celebrating together or savouring. go out the window, and yet when you intentionally bring back in it seems so simple like this can really make a difference, I found that really does, and- and this is one of the things that you speak about an offer up as well yeah. This is in a relationship. Researchers shall gable at usc, santa Barbara and others have have really unpacked over the last twenty years, is there there's like tons of research for many decades and this idea of social support, which which was assumed to be important when somebody's suffering going through a hard time so I wanted to ask. But what about like savouring when things go well and it looks like it every bit as important on average as supporting each other, things go badly and I think it's into for some people unless intuitive for others, but if you would think it up

honest level like like a threshold of like, what's a good event like what something worth celebrating it could be that you know you worked on a project and is completed. It doesn't have to be like well. You finally got your job if his job or a major promotion. What, if I don't know five to ten times a year, something that that just exceeded wherever you had the threshold that was like you know what this is large and get the wine whatever it is for you to be like kudos too you? I know you worked at that, and this is an amazing opportunity for you and I just want to say how excited I am for you, and it is so low cost. It's like a pleasure but we often do, I don't want to be critical, mainly because I'm looking at myself here is like Ok, I'm almost done with this email and then, like ok cool. That's interesting. But of course the inbox is still open right here. It's like okay, cool and then the phone buzzes, and it's like. Oh really, that's great baby, nice work and then you're a signal shut. It all down take a moment half an hour and say

physical ass to this one. Like I'm, I'm aware it's not the biggest thing that ever happened. It's not going to be a life changer in the whole trajectory of our existence, but that something worth taking a moment to savour. Oh, my goodness, I it's a big deal. yeah. I think it's so much bigger than a lot of us really imagine, I think sometimes we wait for those things like we're kind of like well, it's not here yet now here, sir, so like the notion of what, if you'd lily, built a structure around like a recurring moment where you agree to sit down and literally just surface, could in any one month period, there's gonna be something, that's worth celebrating reflecting on or savouring together, we don't mean if its tiny doesn't have three big thing. I was about a measure describing that somebody who I know did this structure is magical life, dinners or once a month goes out and they sit down to have a nice dinner, the share bottle of wine and they talk about their life and the exchange of tiny gift. It's a moment to just nothing, is even happened. It's a moment to say for the fact that their together that's a lie

each other, and that they actually created this space for each other and have a weapon in like the world that we live in is something to celebrate. Suits is like, We have to wait for these things to drop like we can just, we create moments to acknowledge the fact that they have there- I mean, even just you, listen, glad sort of makes my eyes a little wet. It's just beautiful, and, and it's not that hard in here, you don't have to be a ripper it doesn't have to be a bottle of wine, and a nice restaurant like it could be, could be out I'd like there's ways that almost all of us, even those of us really struggling again. I want to say a hundred percent of us. Almost all of us could something like this and the different on average will be notable and beneficial. Near the one thing I want to explore. Also with you is this notion that you talk about which is novelty. We know novel, exciting activities are doing something that little just breaks the pattern, we'll just fall into a rhythm. You know, without even realizing that were in this thing and there's something kind of magical about just breaking them.

even for hot minute that sparks something not just individually but collectively yeah, I mean I do for a very hot men. One of the thing It has been interesting to me, as I have looked into. This is like how many divorces are really about fighting or infidelity there. There like, we grew apart and fair. Nothing was people shouldn't divorce, but it's, in a story of a border it off in a story of like we didn't really happened, nutrients. We didn't, invest enough in making sure that we grew together and and had novelist France's together in and so in. Such a psychologist, like art, Aaron and others have done work on the importance of of novelty and one of them is that I find interesting about it, and I touch on this. Also in the book is, is that people like me both scientists, but also just generally, people who comment on relationships have taught forever about date night and on average, the right,

on average like adding a debate. It is a good thing. The way you ve talked about. It is a particularly good version of a date night, but which interesting, if we're getting to the point the fee. the sort of social science of this is getting to the point where we can talk a little bit about, like which sorts of date nights for which of connection, and one of the studies that I find interesting, I was led by a researcher and Amy muse in toronto. randomly assign people either to a no intervention condition to a condition where they engaged in company activities together, so they listed whatever they find comfortable. With seinfeld whatever it is or to a third condition where they did novel and exciting things so that these could have been dancing. I think somebody listed like shocking oysters, like I, whatever was, and what we it to me about it, as they had to measures that they were interested in and turned that relative to the no intervention people? If you looked at at one of the measures which was Closeness like how connected do we feel sure that both Those interventions are effective, right trend.

That making time together to watch more dino netflix, because we point of doing it together makes us feel closer, from. Dancing also makes us feel closer. But if you want to look at hardness- and you know you talked about a hot minute- if you look like sexual desire, sexual passion, the like seinfeld version doesn't do. It as the doings of nice pleasurable routine, things together is nice, it does make us feel close. It doesn't spark passion what sparked pay, is things that are outside of our every day that we do deliberately because their unusual in a typical and again guess is that many couples could look in the last year and say we did that zero times there especially I mean, if you look at the last couple of years for welfare enough with fairly it's an outline for a lot of folks, but I wonder if the last three years, a lot of folks and I'm just thinking about lay personally malik- have developed a rhythm. Based on an assumed set of constraints and, like fear, and concern literally for life and limb, and then,

you're doing this for three years, I know how hard it is to them, like, as the world starts, to shift as there's no like more of an emergence and a feeling of safety, and I'm going out in the world at one How easy it is to break up, that has been a sacred agreement between two people, are entire families for three here's where, like breaking that agreement was, essentially devastating outcomes like we all step inches early this year were emerging inter likened the next phase. I wonder how it will be. As we all childlike look back and say have we fallen into justice hyper route as relations, pattern and little we're gonna have to rewire are sensitive. the insecurity in order to break that pattern, both alive to redevelop our social and yelling communities, but also within the relationship to

I know how hard it is compared to us are like just at any given moment before the last three years to actually make those shifts. I think I feel mostly hopeful I mean I'm speculating beyond the data. I find your question fascinating to some degree. I think the transition has happened. There's no doubt that some people are still being very cautious but like, but it was a year ago, and so I think a lot of people have made this transition, but not everybody and some people for very good reasons, or are being very, very careful still you're talking about sort of the coven yea mascot over there two things are say: one is there's a lot of stuff to do that isn't like covered threatening, right, look, I'm looking out oleg Michigan right now, and that happens to be a gorgeous view. But are your family that, like has taken what together, a couple that has taken walks like, I think, a lot of people set those patterns and they ve been really good. I mean is that it evelyn exciting activity, unopened novel and if people view it as an opportunity and like then we went to this, in our local partner. By in this other one, and you know it,

let us try to enjoy the light around christmas time, like, I think, there's lots of ways. We can do these things with without worrying about it. That's the first thing. The second thing is, I'm really hopeful about this. Breaking out of pandemic, it's gonna be a while before we know what the implications are for long term relationships, but This is an amazing opportunity to break out of residence rights. I think you're right in a way to frame the issue of like because we ve been shut down and has been like literally life and death. Circumstances surrounding those decisions is gonna be hard for us to break the routine, and I think that is a very reasonable way to look at it. There's another way to look at it, and I am optimistic that that this is gonna be. I am hopeful that he's gonna be the more widespread one, which is that we got a reboot like how coolest, like we ve, been married for an all nineteen years, and then we had this years and now we're like break or two or three years, and I were sure, to bring back out and entering the world and what is it that we really love? We don't worry. Things that we actually missed. What were they

Seen things that we were doing that, like you know what didn't miss it all went, we are stuck at home and if people are deliberate about that, what an opportunity I understand that it came at the cost of mass death in pain and economic anguish, and but at this point, especially if, I was continues to received and if, if we can sort of keep the the a compromise among us safe what an opportunity reboot and reset what the priorities are and what we're gonna try to do from here on out yeah its vassenka. They think we saw your way, others wholesale such a re examination of careers over them, well, yeah. The great resignation in which the great regret for some heap on like wedding and all this all the different stuff and like nearly the highest quitting rate and in in many many many many years, so people really are reexamining, like the connection between meaning and work and we also saw all our relationships blow up and people were sort of cohabitating without the ability to actually separate and realize

it's not working any more or like there were bad situations that really has either to end. and I wonder if folks, who are in long term relationships who move through this time who still very much want to be together and feel very comfortable together? I wonder like that group of people will this same experience as the same level of re examination and reset router, then just like we kind of get to go back, things were without actually taking the time out and say: who are we each individually, and what do we want from this thing together? But I agree with you. I think it is an incredibly opportune moment to actually do you notice are like really reflect and say likes Let's see what kind of magic we can create maker or sustain, or continue to build or grower built into this thing, and I am the as well, I'm excited legacy beside have anywhere it happened in some relationships that were struck. Before anya

an incubator, now I'm it's gonna be really fascinating as a mom, for people to re examine how do we take is really just use it as an inciting as it in for something even more magical. I'd like to there's a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well in this container of good life prodded. If I offer the phrase to live a good life, what comes up I guess I'm traditional in some ways. I find my work to be very, very fulfilling I'm very happy in my marriage these days. Even I had a heart adjustment of parenting and I'm happy with that and even though I dont have a traditional religious, world view. I feel like there's a value system that meaningful for me and I try to build a life that the lines with and so in so far as I am able to do those things and insofar as my kids are happy and enjoying work in my wife is happy, that's kind of it I will say, with a copy of that. You know it's nice to have her

then enough resources to be able to deliver the whole existence, but I do not have the best. I got

thank you kate. Before you leave. If you'd love this episode, safe, bet, you'll, also love the conversation we had with Julian john godman about love and marriage. You'll find a link to their episode in the show notes, and of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow a good life project in your favorite listening app and if you've found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable chances are you did since you're still listening here? Would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favorite and share it, maybe on social or by text or by email, or even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know those you love those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better, so we can all do better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen, then, even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered, because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together until next time on Jonathan fields signing off for good life.

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