On this show, I've been so lucky to sit down with some of the greatest experts on the planet from when it comes to marriage to romance, chemistry, compatibility, some of the therapists that are working with hundreds of clients worldwide, and people in the public eye who've opened up about their own experience.
You're going to get to hear from all of them in just a moment, so make sure you stick around.
The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty.
The one, the only Jay Shetty.
When it comes to building a lasting marriage, most people think it starts with romance or chemistry, but it's actually something else.
The real foundation to a lasting marriage is emotional resilience. Think about this.
Nearly half of all marriages in the US still end in divorce.
The number one reason isn't a lack of love.
It's a breakdown in trust and communication.
That's where everything starts to fall apart.
In this episode, we're going straight to the heart of it.
Why people cheat and why they stay.
Why forever isn't a promise, it's a practice, and how redefining love might be the key to saving it.
What you'll hear isn't fluff or wishful thinking, just hard-earned truths and relationship-saving lessons.
Jada Pinkett Smith breaks down how marriage isn't a fixed identity, it's a spiritual evolution.
She opens up about separation, reconciliation, and the patterns from childhood that shape adult love. The real lesson is this.
You don't just arrive in marriage. It's not a finish line.
You keep choosing each other over and over as you both grow and change even when life gets messy.
Especially with big life changes, one study found that 67% of couples report being less satisfied in their marriage after having children unless they work intentionally to reconnect.
As she describes here, you don't need a perfect partner.
You need a partner willing to grow with you.
We really look at our marriage as being the cornerstone of family.
We're both kind of coming up with different definitions of what marriage means for us.
We're still figuring all of that out.
Yeah, but the beautiful part is that there's been some really deep healing going on. Yeah.
I mean, you know, that I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it's about.
Marriage is so much about growth.
Like really learning how to grow emotionally, like emotional maturity, spiritual maturity, and there's this spiritual bond there.
I mean, we've tried our best to get away from each other.
I mean, I mean, our best.
And we just don't want to.
So, we are defining it the way that works for us.
And I think getting comfortable with not being concerned about what anybody else thinks about it.
We have this life partnership, and every day we're trying to figure out what that means.
You've both talked about how you feel like you're a mirror for each other. Yeah.
And when I've spoken to Will as well, it's like he feels like you're the person who knows him to his core. >> Absolutely.
>> he know and he knows you to your core, like you know everything Yeah.
>> that potentially there is to know about each other. >> Everything.
>> obviously still learning. >> Yeah.
What's really interesting about that is some people say, "Well, why not just get divorced?" >> Yeah.
Everybody's always like, "Why don't you just get divorced?" >> Yeah.
And it's like, "Mhm, that's like quitting.
I don't think there's any person that could embrace the best and the worst of me and be able be willing to hold space in the way that Will holds space for me and the way that I hold space for him.
And I know that most people probably go into their relationship as like, "You are here to please me."
And yeah, our relationship isn't quite that.
You know, it's like it's more about there's no greater mirror I could have than Will.
He doesn't I can't I can't get around myself, just like he can't get around himself with me.
And I think that that's just been what this has been all about.
Like it's been a deep clearing.
Like really having to look at yourself in ways in that mirror that sure, we talk about this all the time.
Would it be easier to go and find somebody else and have a more pleasing, more comfortable relationship? Maybe.
But would that get me to the person that I really want to be? I don't think so.
And I'm not saying that everybody's relationship is supposed to be that.
I'm not here to say that.
I'm just saying that that's what my relationship is.
That's something I desire to get to a a deeper part, a more spiritually sound, emotionally sound, and really understand love unconditionally.
And the thing that I've learned about unconditional love, you can't really understand what unconditional love in ideal circumstances to really get to what it is to love yourself and someone else completely with all that's divine, all that's human, all that's perfect, and all that is deeply flawed.
And have full acceptance for it all.
I'll tell you, this is You know, marriage is not for the faint at heart. It's just not.
And it is definitely I believe I believe, you know, different people get married for different reasons, so I'm not trying to say why anybody else should be married.
But for me, the holy path of getting to a divine aspect of myself in partnership with Will.
And it seems like Will wants the same for himself.
And it's taken us, you know, I mean, we got together at what? I was 23. Okay?
23 when I first decided to commit myself to Willard Carroll Smith. Lord Jesus. So young. So young.
We were babies, babies trying to figure this out.
And you know what's interesting about young relationships?
You create these young patterns that gets so like these really young, immature patterns in yourself and how you relate to your partner, and then you create these dynamics between one another that it takes a while to like really be willing to look at that stuff and dissolve it and let it go and mature and grow.
It takes some real like self-inventory, courage, right?
Because you're breaking down everything, all your romantic ideas, everything you thought, you know, relationship or marriage, all your romantic fantasies, you know?
Just you know, blow up in flames, but it's really been freeing.
It's really been freeing to see what's more true. Right?
I'm not saying that I don't know the truth yet.
I just feel like I'm seeing more of what's true, you know, as regards to what love and partnership is about.
Cuz I was definitely one of those people that's like, "You're here to make me happy.
And when you don't do it, that's a problem."
And that and that's a normal setup.
That's how we believe relationships are, and you know, I've talked about it before, and I I put it forward in my book, this idea that we think pleasure is the ultimate gift of a relationship, but really purification is, and that's a really tough idea for anyone, including me.
I like I haven't perfected that idea, for me to wrap my head around.
And I can honestly say that I love Radha, and you know, you you've seen us both together and everything, but the greatest gift Radha gives me is a mirror and a purification of Radha can call out my ego better than anyone or anything, and I know it's coming from a good place. >> Yeah.
>> Uh Radha can show me my flaws in the nicest, most supportive way possible, and can receive it back from me. Yeah.
>> And then I feel like because of her, I'm trying to be better, getting better, not for her. >> For myself. >> Mhm.
It's almost like the person that you live with knows you so deeply, or the person that you've seen has seen you in all circumstances, in all situations, knows you the deepest.
I always say, "Radha knows whether I woke up and meditated in the morning." >> Yeah.
Like Radha knows whether I got angry or frustrated at night after a phone call. Like Radhi knows that.
And if I use that to my advantage of am I becoming, am I growing?
But it's such a hard concept for people to understand because it's it's so counterintuitive to the pleasure-seeking mind that we've been conditioned to chase.
And again, I'm not saying we shouldn't have pleasure in relationships.
That's That's not the point I'm making.
I'm just saying that there's more to it. There's another level.
There's definitely more to it.
And I think we've talked about this before, you and I, as far as people believing that romantic love is the highest form. Mhm.
Now, I believe that romantic love is an aspect, right, of a higher form.
But it I don't believe that romantic self romantic love itself is the highest form, right?
I believe within the highest form, you can have romantic love, but that romantic love is not of the highest, right?
And that's all I've been examining and exploring with Will.
And really trying to understand the power of unconditional love, friendship.
Like there's something about friendship, familial love that is beautiful.
But when two people can have an agreement around divine love, like love of a source greater than yourself Mhm.
that you want to be connected to.
And then you decide that your relationship is going to be connected to that same source, oh boy, now we're on to something.
Now we're on to something.
But to think that romantic love can hold all of the difficulties and challenges alone.
And I think that's why so many of us get into these power struggles and why there's so many divorces and why there you know, just all of the strife in relationships.
You brought up something that was really important.
And it's the idea of Radhi when she can kind of pull your coattails with love.
And I think that's it takes a lot of work to figure that out.
Like to not be offended when someone shows up imperfectly.
And that those are those kind of pieces um within relationship.
Like we feel like people are supposed to come ready-made.
You walk down the aisle and it's like he knows how to love me, you know, I know how to love him, you know, and not making room for that space of growth that is inevitable.
People are going to mess up.
People are going to do stupid stuff.
People going to say stupid stuff.
Now, when it comes to abuse and all of that, that's a different story. Right?
But people who are willing to learn how to love each other, cuz I really do think that's what committed relationship's about, marriage or not.
I'm committed to learning how to love myself, learning how to love you, right?
And then learning how to cultivate this relationship that we have with that essence, with those components.
Then that's a beautiful thing.
That's what I believe the holy path of relating is all about.
And not everybody wants that. Yeah, yeah, totally.
You know, some people really just want the romantic version of it. And that's okay, too. >> Absolutely.
That's okay, too, you know.
But um for me, definitely on that path of looking for something deeper within myself, mostly. Yeah.
How did you let go of that desire for romantic love, but then hold on to the friendship?
Because I feel like that's a journey that is so hard, whether someone stays married or gets divorced or like like you both are.
You described yourself as best friends.
How did you hold on to friendship being able to let go of the mirage that you had earlier or even not even the mirage, the reality of what you had earlier, as you talk about in the book?
You know, the chemistry, the spark.
I think so many of us are trying to hold on to that, but you've let go of that and then you're saying, but we've held on to the friendship, the the mirror, the work, the growth.
That sounds like the hard way through it.
I think it's how people show up.
And people don't always show up perfect, clearly.
But one thing about Will and I, we're just not willing to give up. Yeah.
It's like I'm lucky that we just want to have each other in in one another's life, right?
You have moments of disharmony.
But if you know that you're not willing to not have that person in your life, you know you got to put forth the effort and you got to put forth the work to transform whatever's not working.
So we always make the decision to take that one step closer to diving more deeply to learning how to love.
And most of the time, it has more to do with self-inventory, having to go in the corner and look at oneself and then come back and go, I was tripping.
Whether it's I'm sorry or I had a misunderstanding.
Can we look at this now together because now I've looked at it in my corner alone and I've seen my part.
And I want to talk to you first about my part. A, B, C, and D. Right?
And then inevitably, usually your partner go, well, you know, I could have done such and such and such and such. Yeah.
And so when you have an agreement that's really unspoken of like, I want you in my life.
And I want to have good times with you. And I love you.
Then that's the energy that nurtures and keeps one willing to just keep working at it.
So there's that deep love.
And the great thing is that Will's got a great sense of humor. Yeah, good guy. You know what I mean?
He's got a really good sense of humor.
So he has a way of being able to help me get out of my funk.
But I'm kind of like you talk about this a lot with Radhi, where I kind of have to take my time.
Like I'm not always ready to talk right away.
I need I need to like sit.
I need to be with myself.
I need to kind of like work through my thoughts and all of that.
Where Will is always ready to talk. Yeah. I like to go deep. He likes to get funny.
The great thing about him, he can go deep. >> Totally. Absolutely.
>> And there are times that I really like to play and have fun. Yeah.
So we we're like these energetic fields, you know, I'm earth and he's sky.
You know, we're we are your typical yin and yang.
You know, that you know, that there's this great chemistry there between us that just works.
And but when it doesn't work, oh man. Oh man. Oh man. You know what I mean?
Those moments when it's just like ah.
But I think that's just inevitable in every relationship, you know, and but it just doesn't look traditional.
I think that's the point.
That's That's the part where it's like it just doesn't look traditional. It works.
There's There's the trust. There's commitment.
There's There's understanding.
And at the same time it doesn't look It doesn't look traditional. I don't know. I'll be honest with you.
There aspects of traditional relating that absolutely work.
But I think in this day and age, I don't know too many marriages that are traditional. I really don't.
Everybody is trying to figure it out, right?
And I think everybody's so scared to talk about all of the different ways that they're that they're trying to figure it out.
I know so many people who are like married, but not living together.
Married, but have decided to have other partners.
I know so many people and have for a long time that are trying marriage in so many different forms.
[Music] And my whole thing is figure it out for you.
Marriage is not a cookie-cut out like uh formula.
Besides, I do think that there's some staples. You know, love.
But even that, let me take that out for a second.
There's some people who are married strictly for business purposes. I've seen that, too.
As long as there's agreement between two people and how they decide they want to be together, Stay out of it.
It has nothing to do I tell people all the time, don't look at my marriage as being contagious. Mhm.
Whatever I'm doing doesn't mean you got to be doing that. Mhm.
You got to be doing the thing that works for you.
And I feel like every partnership two people have the right to figure that out for them.
And it's so different in norms in different cultures and different backgrounds.
I mean like for me and Radhi, we spend a lot of time apart because she likes to be back with her family in London and I travel for work.
And so we discovered and agreed very early on in our relationship that when I work she would often visit her family back in London and she loves it and she's wants to be with her mom and dad and her niece and nephew and her sister and brother-in-law and everyone.
And I love my purpose and I want to be traveling. I want to be working. I want to be moving.
And I remember so many times in our relationship people be like, is everything okay? >> Yeah.
Like and then we go back to London people be like, why is your wife not with you?
People like, why is Jay not with you?
And everyone starts thinking that there may be something going on and it's actually well no, this was our agreement.
This is something we've sat and talked about and figured things out and actually we love distance cuz we get excited to see each other again. It's refreshing. It works for us.
And again, it may not work for anyone else.
Someone may say, I need my partner by my side every day. Fair enough.
And someone may say, I want to travel more than you do or less.
But we just found that having honest between us and knowing why we were making certain decisions even though they were abnormal to our community, the community that we grew up in where the way we live is very abnormal.
Even though it's just about time apart.
The point was we had an agreement that worked for us.
And I think getting to know you both I I can honestly say that I feel like you guys are both always honest and communicative with each other on what your agreements are. Absolutely.
>> what we have been discussing today as well that you know, there's there's always been that that openness to do that.
>> Oh yeah, well I talk about it a lot in the book. >> Absolutely.
And I think that a lot of people had a lot of misunderstanding as a we talked about earlier I believe in regards to open relationship and being able to be with whoever you want.
No, that that's not what was happening.
And I think a lot of times that people just didn't know that we had agreed to not be together.
As we were trying to figure out are we going to be separated?
Are we going to be divorced? Then we would reconcile.
And then we would break up again.
And it's all this back and forth between us that we didn't share with the world a lot.
You know, and I think now people are just going to have to be okay with our marriage is not traditional in the sense of here we are married but not. You know what I mean?
And you know, as I'm on my path and Will's figuring his thing out we've decided to hold space for each other.
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Relationship coach Sadia Khan shares a truth most people don't even think about.
More men are being cheated on than we realize.
But most of them stay silent.
According to a study by the CDC, men are more than 50% less likely to seek counseling than women.
Which means they're more likely to internalize this shame and carry it forward.
The lesson, emotional reaction might feel good in the moment but it doesn't solve anything.
What actually protects a relationship is emotional regulation.
Fireworks and passion fades but stability, self-control and discipline that's what builds real trust and keeps a relationship strong.
It's not just about you and your partner.
Your relationship sets a blueprint for your kids, your family, your future.
Who you pick as your partner sets the tone for the rest of your life.
Cheating doesn't begin in the bedroom.
It begins in emotional distance.
Spot the signs early or spend time repairing it far too late.
What are the top three things that people you guide and coach and follow you on social media come to you for and say their number one issue is?
Oh, for men, they do suffer from a lot of infidelity where the women are cheating on the men. No.
A lot more than I ever expected. >> Really?
That's blowing my mind right now.
My number one client is a man who's just been cheated on by a woman.
And because there's not much talk about this on social media and there's not much talk about this in general, we're almost programmed to think men cheat. 100%.
Yeah, it's rare that you find the the idea of women cheating.
And men don't actually talk to each other when they've been cheated on.
They kind of keep it to themselves cuz they're almost embarrassed or ashamed.
Whereas women we can confide in each other a bit more.
So my number one client tends to be the man that's been cheated on or the woman that can't get the man to commit.
That tends to be the two fields I kind of have seem to attract in terms of clients.
But men getting cheated on or men not being masculine enough tends to be the common theme of my clients that keep coming back in.
What's the difference between the woman a man dates and the woman a man marries?
I would say the key difference is the element of stability and responsibility.
And what I mean by that is being with a man who's super social, who's a big drinker and has got all these friends and busy all day every day and got this amazing life is great for dates.
You get to go on great vacations with him.
You get to go to nice restaurants and so on and so forth.
But when we get when it comes to getting married, if you don't look for a man with a lot of self-control, you will really suffer.
And what I mean by this is that he needs to have self-control in terms of his sexual discipline.
He needs self-control in terms of what he puts into his body, even the food he eats, everything.
And he needs self-control when it comes to his money.
If in those areas he's got no self-control, for dating no problem. It doesn't matter.
Yeah, he can be sexually wild.
He can spend all his money. No problem.
You can enjoy a great life.
When you marry a man like that, every day is anxiety.
Every single day is anxiety because his lack of self-control will lead to a lack of self-respect.
And as a result, he'll have such low self-esteem that you can't trust him to make decisions.
But men with lots of self-control, you can trust that they make great decisions.
You can trust their judgment.
And you can finally start a family or start your goals.
But you can't do that with men who have got no self-control.
Do you know what the amazing thing is that I I as I was listening to you I was thinking about like men don't learn that anywhere. No, they don't. >> It's so hard.
Like if I never lived as a monk, I wouldn't have any sense of self.
>> your biggest lesson living with monks?
I mean, a big part of it is sense control.
Like you don't you don't you eat what you're given.
You're celebrate while you're there.
There's complete focus and determination on the path.
And so there were so many amazing mental mastery tools that I gained in terms of discipline Yeah.
and organization that I don't know where else I would have learned them.
Can you excel as a man without self-control, do you think? >> think so.
>> It's an impossibility, isn't it? >> Yeah.
No, that's why I love what you're saying.
I just feel bad cuz I can't think of It's the opposite that actually.
We're told men are being told that be with as many women as you can.
Be have zero sexual discipline.
And you know, you you can kind of eat whatever and there's always those Olympic cuz so don't worry about it.
Or there's we're actually being told to reduce our like our self-control and replace it with hedonism.
Follow your impulses and you only live once. Just do it.
That kind of mentality where it comes to drinking, when it comes to food, when it comes to money, just spend, spend, spend all these things.
Unfortunately, we're pushing men into a slow and steady depression because we're reducing the importance of self-control and replacing it with self-indulgence.
And that is a slow suicide for a man.
He'll only start to respect himself when he can control himself.
And and that only when he can control himself he can then excel.
And if you pick a man who can't control himself, you'll spend the rest of your life trying to control him and it will bring out the worst side of you.
You'll become a you'll become a mother to a child you'd never wanted to adopt. Wow. That mic drop. No, that's so powerful.
It's uh as I'm listening to you, I'm just sitting here thinking how much there is a need in helping men realize that mental mastery, sense control, discipline are what's going to find the right person.
But I think the problem is men also believe that if they're the life of the party, if they're the big spender if they're the big guy at the party, that's what's going to attract the right person.
It would attract a chaotic person.
There are women lots of women that would like that.
There are lots and lots of women that would like that you're a big spender, you're spending on bottles, you're going drinking all night and you're the life and soul of the party.
But it won't attract women who want a fast life don't probably don't want to invest in you.
They're probably not going to be there when you're suffering and you're on a downward spiral.
My my reason I'm so strict on men when it comes to self-discipline and sexual discipline in particular is we live in a time when men don't really get a say in when a baby is born, it's not really up to them if that child stays.
Our women have the right I I don't know what it's like in America, but usually we get to control if we want to keep the baby or don't want to keep the baby.
And as a result we get some autonomy.
If we if it's the wrong man, perfect.
We don't have to suffer the consequences.
But with men, if you get the wrong person and you don't have a good relationship and then you bring children into that mix, you create a generation of broken children.
And you are more responsible for that, yeah?
Because you have to be more careful than women do because we still have autonomy.
We can get rid of a child if we need to.
You can't really have that much say in it.
So you have to be so disciplined with who you are laying down with.
And if you ruin I know men who have ruined their families just because they couldn't control themselves sexually or just because they couldn't have that right right conversation with their wife and say, "Look, I'm missing the intimacy.
Maybe we should just part."
Instead, they just light a flame into their own home and then suffer the consequences.
So sexual discipline is a really really important one for men followed by financial discipline.
But I've heard you say before that if someone cheats on you, it's partly your fault. >> I do say that.
>> And I wanted to hear your take on that to understand that.
>> I know that sounds terrible and I say this particularly with you know, men especially.
I'm like, "It's always your own fault."
And the reason I say that is most cheaters come with smoking guns on the first date.
There's always some signal that their behavior was not transparent.
And whenever you catch them cheating, usually it's they say, "I always knew."
Because from day one they were like this.
It was a And I always say, "People usually don't lie.
They might say lies, but they show you their red flags pretty much from day one."
And it might have been that they were in a relationship when you met them.
Or it might have been that you caught them in a few lies when you first got with them.
You would have caught some signs that this person is capable of deeper lies.
And when we I'm not saying you should always look for the bad, but when we keep ignoring poor behavior, what ends up happening is we are becoming distant from the truth.
We are going into denial.
I actually don't have a problem even if your partner is cheating, no problem.
You have radical radical relationship with the truth.
And there's some women out there that are mistresses.
They're so happy in that role because they know the truth.
They know that he goes there, spends time with his wife, I'll see him when I see him.
Truth is really important.
So the more you align yourself with truth, the more you won't actually get blindsided.
But when you start missing red flags again and again, you haven't been intimate in months, nobody if somebody's not coming home on time, nothing's adding up, and you keep making excuses, unfortunately, we create the environment for these types of people to flourish.
It's almost better that you protect your own home and protect your own sanity.
Doesn't mean you become accusatory, but you know that your treatment is not what you're what you appreciate.
And if they continue like that, they don't have to cheat.
The behavior is enough for you to start setting a boundary.
And the behaviors you don't need cuz some cheaters will say, "Well, you can't prove anything."
Cheaters will always want you to catch them red-handed.
You as the person should say, "I don't need red-handed evidence.
I can see your behavior's not treating me rightly."
Stop them there before they get to the point where they're disrespecting you more and more.
That's where the gaslighting comes in, right?
It's like Yeah, people get gaslit.
>> They do get gaslighted really heavily and this is even as a psychologist and you know when I'm as a therapist.
And this is where I have to be a lot more empathetic because I've had clients there that were like, "She keeps accusing me."
And they're so like convincing that I'm like, "You need to stop accusing him."
I don't And then she'll say she sees me afterwards, "I found out he was having an affair the whole time."
So the gaslighting is very very real, but the feeling they give you is always true. So they'll lie to you.
What their words their lips will be there, but your feeling that gut instinct that something's not right or they're lying to you, try and pay attention to that.
And even if you never get evidence, that feeling it is partly your partner's responsibility to help soothe those anxieties, not make them worse.
So if if you have that feeling and they're just like, "Babe, look, whatever you need like to make you feel better, no problem.
I've got nothing to hide."
But if they get less and less transparent, try and pay attention to that.
What I'm hearing from you is if you pay attention to the signs that you're seeing, you don't let yourself be in a position where you're taken advantage of.
>> That's what I'm saying.
I'm saying know your partner better than they know themselves.
The moment they start changing, you spot it quicker than they can.
And so And I'm sure you have this with Radhi where you probably know her so so well that it would be difficult for her to have a double life without you.
You'll know her behaviors, the way she moves, what how she talks, how she kisses you, everything. You pay close attention.
When you pay so much attention to your partner, it's quite difficult for them to live a whole double life without you catching on.
So try and stay attuned as much as you can.
Yeah, every relationship has a rhythm. It has a pattern. Yeah.
>> And when the pattern's off, you check in.
I think one of the things I see in relationships struggling, especially as they get longer term, is we don't recommit. >> Mhm. So life changes. >> Mhm. Right?
Me and Radhi had a dating life.
When we got married, we had to recommit to a different way of living. >> Mhm.
>> When we got married, then we lived in New York, we had to recommit to a different way of living.
We moved to LA, different way of living.
It's almost like I've dated so many different people in Radhi. Yeah.
>> As in she's evolved, she's changed.
And And same back at me probably to some degree.
But I think we don't like it when our partner changes.
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Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb challenges the fantasy of a blind love.
If you can't talk about marriage, money, and the future before the proposal, you're not ready.
More than 53% of couples split because of too much conflict and arguing, while more than 70% break up because of a lack of commitment.
It's impossible to form true commitment and conflict resolution without open and honest communication.
The takeaway, it's easier not to be honest when the topic is uncomfortable.
But vulnerability requires honesty.
And ultimately, clarity is the most loving thing you can offer your partner.
Our community had a lot of questions around was what's the right amount of pressure for someone to get married or proposed to you?
Because I think people get to this point where they feel like we've invested so much time, we're together, we're here, but this person is just not proposing.
They're not getting They don't you know, they don't want to get married, whatever it may be.
And then gets to this point of this ultimatum of like And now there's even a TV show called The Ultimatum, which is all about people dealing with that period in their life.
So what does someone do in that scenario where they feel there's good commitment, we're getting somewhere, but the other person isn't showing this excitement, enthusiasm, or even taking action on taking this relationship to the next level?
This is like that birthday party thing where you feel like, you know, the other person should just know.
Um but we're not communicating about it.
The fact that people don't talk about whether they want to get married before a proposal happens is insane to me.
It just >> I'm glad you said it.
>> It makes It makes no sense that it shouldn't be a total surprise.
You should know that you're both on the same page and you should know that the other person is definitely going to say yes.
That you've talked about this.
So many people come to me for premarital therapy where they can talk about cuz they know they want to get married and maybe they want to They're not even having any problems.
having any problems. They just want to talk about their families and how they're going to blend their families and the in-laws and the siblings and, you know, this person and this personality or they want to talk about money or they want to talk about whether they want to have kids and how many and
how that might work or they want to talk about balancing their careers or they want to talk about sex and all the different things that might be hard to talk about before you get married that are so important and they might not have the answers right now, but they're learning how to talk about these challenging topics. Mhm. And people say, Mhm.
And people say, "Oh, you're in therapy and you're not even married yet.
Something must be terribly wrong."
It's like, "No, something's terribly right."
And so the fact that that people are saying like, "I really want this person to propose, but I don't understand why they're not."
And they don't feel like they can ask the person means you are not ready to marry that person.
If you don't feel like you can bring this up and say, "Where are we?
We've been together for this amount of time. I'm feeling this.
I'm wondering where you are with this."
And the person you'll get so much information from. "I do want to marry you.
I don't feel ready yet because of this, but I think I will feel ready in 6 months." Right?
And then you have a choice.
Do you want to wait for that or do you not want to wait for that? Or never.
They may say I don't >> Or they might say "Actually, I don't know how I feel about getting married.
I don't know if I'm going to come around to that."
You have a choice about what you want to do with that.
"I, you know, oh, I didn't realize that I I thought I did want to get married, but now I'm not so sure."
Well, that's really important to know.
Why what's happening between us?
So that conversation is so important.
Or do you just want to sit there scheming with your friends about how you can drop hints or how you can like analyze the behavior because the person did this and what does that mean?
That doesn't sound like the kind of marriage you want to be in.
Don't you want to be in the kind of marriage where you can say to the person, "Hey, this is what I'm desiring.
This is what I'm wanting.
Where are you with this?" Mhm.
But that's such a basic conversation.
But that's so much healthier than an ultimatum, too, because I think we also get Again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier.
You haven't given that regular check-in. Right.
>> You haven't touched base.
You don't really know what that person's belief system is around marriage or whatever else it may be.
And all of a sudden, it's built up for you as this big thing.
And now you're like, "Okay, well, either you marry me or we're over."
And then that's not comfortable for that person, either, because now they feel they're forced into a choice as opposed to a sense of how do you feel about this?
And what are your thoughts about this?
Again, it comes back to we're so scared of appearing to be naggy. Yes.
We're so scared of appearing to be high-maintenance.
We're so scared of appearing to be the one who's needy or desperate or whatever maybe, but we are feeling all of those things.
I've had so many friends who are given the advice that if your relationship's not working out, have a baby and it will save it. It's terrible advice.
>> made sense to me because if your relationship's not working, now you have another relationship to take care of who is a new child, a new human being in the in the world.
And so, how are you going to You're going to give less attention to each other.
You've already been given no attention.
Now you have less attention to share with each other and more attention on this another being.
I'm I'm shocked that that advice still gets passed around and people still see it as a viable solution to a bad relationship. >> Yeah.
Yeah, they think of it as like sunk cost, like we've been married this long, so we can't we can't start over.
We can't You know, what do we do to save this?
Let's have a baby because it's a distraction.
They think like this will be great, it's exciting, it'll bring some vitality and energy and aliveness into the relationship when if you don't already have that aliveness and that vitality between the two of you, the baby is not going to provide that for you. Mhm.
You're going to get a lot of outside attention, like, "Oh, that's so great. Look at the baby."
But in reality, you guys are going to have to be more of a team than you've ever been and problem solve more than you've ever had to and figure out how to create connection under much more challenging circumstances.
So, it's the most counterintuitive advice and and I I always tell people, "If you are not solid, do not bring another person into this family."
Yeah, it's almost like you already don't have problem-solving skills, you don't have collaboration skills, and now you're having to make choices on behalf of an entirely new human being where the stakes are so high and everything feels like it's personal of whether things are going well for the child or not.
>> Well, what happens is the pain Olympics start.
And what I mean is that, you know, I had the baby all day, I have it harder, you didn't do this.
No, I had it harder cuz I've been at work all day and now I have to take over this and you didn't have to work all day.
Whatever it is, they vie for who has the most pain and then they compete for it.
And that becomes their relationship.
You know, you owe me because I won the pain Olympics today.
No, you owe me because yesterday I won the pain Olympics and I never got my reward.
And that becomes their whole relationship. Mhm.
Yeah, one of the questions I ask people when they said to me like, "Should we have kids now or is it the right time to have children?"
I often say that I think we're asking the wrong question.
Like, the question should be "Do I know how my life is going to change and am I ready for that? And am I aware of that?
And are we aware of how our life is going to change?"
To the point you're making of "Well, who is going to take the responsibility?
And am I going to feel like you're not helping out?"
And what does that look like?
Again, having a conversation about it seems like the practical thing to do.
Another relationship that seems to add more complexity since the beginning of time is in-laws.
You mentioned it earlier that you have clients that come and see you for that.
The amount of friends I've spoken to recently who have this challenge where they feel that their in-laws are too involved.
Their in-laws are not involved.
When their in-laws are too involved, they're too controlling of either or one of the partners or they have expectations, they have certain demands on time and holidays and where they're spent and all of these kinds of things.
What I found to be the core pain it it again going back to our earlier conversation is people feel their partners' parents are too involved, too demanding, too hands-on.
But they feel their partner can't stand up to their parents and their partner doesn't understand how it affects them.
That's kind of where I've seen the main pressure that people are carrying.
How does someone deal with the fact that they feel their partner doesn't defend them or stand up for them in front of their partner's parents and therefore they feel their partner doesn't understand what they're going through?
I have gotten thousands of letters to my column and to my podcast about in-laws.
And what I always say is in-law issues are couples' issues.
So, people think it's about the mother-in-law, the father-in-law, it's about the two of you.
And if your partner, whose parent that is, cannot talk to their parent on your behalf, that's a couple's issue. Mhm.
So, the person will say, "Oh, it's really not that bad."
But if your partner is saying, "I am really struggling with this and it's not your you know, it's it's not their parent, you need to talk to your own parent about this.
You need to have your partner's back.
And if you don't, your partner is going to feel that you are treating them the same way that their parent is.
You might not be doing the same thing, but the fact that they don't have your support is going to pull you apart in this marriage because your partner, it's not about taking sides, it's about prioritizing this couple's relationship and saying, "Listen, when you do this, it makes my wife feel like she's not a good parent or she's not a good wife.
And you might have these values, Mom, and I understand that, but I don't want you saying those kinds of things.
You can have whatever thoughts you have, please don't say them to me or to my wife because I'm very happy with our relationship."
And what you're really standing up for is the relationship.
It's not just standing up for your partner, it's standing up for we understanding each other, we can talk about these things with each other.
And we do not want that kind of interference.
What do you do when your partner doesn't have the guts to do that?
When they don't have the authority or the the relationship with their own parents, which is constantly being They've been babied, they've been Mhm.
you know, the mommy's boy or whatever it may be and they don't really have the courage to stand up to their parents and say what you just said, which isn't rude, it's not Mhm.
mean, but in their head, they're like, "How could I ever defy my parents?
Like, what does that look like?"
Or or they're guilt-tripped >> Mhm.
like by their parents where it's like they're like, "I could never do that to my mom, like she's loved me since day one, like you just turned up in my life 2 years ago, like what do you do when your partner's feeling that way? Yeah.
Well, I think you help your partner to understand that this is a very loving thing for the relationship with the parent, too.
So, you're not telling the parent, "I don't want you in our lives."
You're saying, "I want you in our lives.
We both want you in our lives, but we want you in our lives in a way that makes us feel like we're enjoying our time with you.
And if it becomes this thing where we're not enjoying our time with you and it becomes problematic, we're going to be spending less time with you and Mom, I don't want that and my wife doesn't want that.
We both want to spend time with you, we just want it to be enjoyable. Mhm.
So, we're asking that you not talk about this, whatever the issue is, or you not do this, or you not tell my wife to do this, or you not criticize because that makes it not enjoyable and then we're going to see you less.
And we love you so much that we feel comfortable saying this to you.
If we didn't love you and we didn't care how much we saw you, we wouldn't be bringing this up.
I'm bringing this up because I love you and I want to be able to see you. Mhm. Yeah.
>> And I think when people when you set boundaries in a loving way, when you say, "I want to see more of you.
I want to be able to continue to see you.
I'm not pushing you away, I'm pulling you close.
But the way to pull you close is to make sure that we have a good time together." Yeah.
Yeah, and I find that sometimes and and can be different in every relationship, but often this at least in the people I know, the pressure often falls on the man who feels like he's in between his mom and his wife in that in that kind of a setup where at least those are the ones that I'm aware of and I'm sure it has takes all sorts of forms.
But it's often quite a heavy pressure that I know a lot of men feel.
And they're like, "I don't want to let my mom down and I don't want to let my wife down and now I'm stuck in between these two things." Yeah.
And it's almost like, "Who do I choose?"
And I feel like I have to choose a side.
>> Right, but you're not choosing, you're actually choosing to bring everyone together.
You're saying, "I want us all to be able to be together."
And so, what I'm doing is I'm making sure that it that we can spend more time together.
Yeah, that's great advice and I really hope that reframe is kind of, you know, permeates.
One of the things I imagine you see a lot in therapy is one partner has forced the other partner to come there.
Maybe in couples therapy, it's hard for two people to feel equally as excited.
Maybe if they're premarital, that may be more equal, but when it's reactive, it's definitely one saying, "We need to go to therapy."
And someone may feel forced.
One thing I found that a lot of people say to me is, "Jay, I just can't get my partner to open up."
Like, whether it's in therapy, whether it's with me, I'm asking them, I'm talking to them.
I'm just like, "I just want to know what you feel."
Like, even with the question you said earlier of like, "Hey, I I I have a dream to get married, what's your take on it?"
And they'll be like, "I don't know."
Or they'll they'll go quiet when it's like "Hey, we need to go talk to your parents about this because they're getting really involved."
And they just go quiet, they don't know what to say.
And they constantly feel that these their partner doesn't have the capacity to open up.
And I find this especially with young couples where they're just like, "My partner doesn't have an emotional vocabulary."
Like, they don't have the ability How have you encouraged people in those scenarios to be able to open up or help their partners open up or create a safe space when a lot of people don't have that skill and that ability to actually even know what they're feeling and thinking.
Yeah, you have to create the space for that person to feel comfortable opening up.
So, often people who can't open up or have a hard time with it, they were not given the space before.
So, when they opened up, someone would say, "Oh, no, you don't feel that way." You know, right?
So, when they were growing up, they'd say, "You know, I'm upset about this or I'm sad about this."
And the parent would say, "No, don't be sad. Let's go get ice cream." Right?
So, there was no space for the sadness.
Or, "I'm really angry about this."
"Oh, you're overreacting. You're so sensitive."
So, they don't tell someone that they're angry about something.
Or, "I'm really worried about this." "Oh, don't worry. It'll all work out."
Or, "What do you mean you're worried about that?
Why are you always so worried about everything?" Mhm.
So, they never felt like they had a space for their feelings to be received and held.
We talk about in therapy the the concept of feeling felt.
What does it mean to feel felt?
And I love that expression because I think that when you want someone to open up, they want to feel felt.
They want to know that you're going to receive whatever they have to offer in a compassionate way and in a way that feels connected. Mhm.
So, when you tell someone, "Tell me what you're feeling. Open up."
That feels like so much pressure.
As opposed to just, you know, being with them.
So, maybe you you start with something like, "Hey, I'm feeling really this about this, you know.
What was that like for you?"
And they might say, "It was fine." Cuz they don't know.
"Did you have a good time?
You know, did it make you sad when this happened?
It made me sad, but maybe you didn't feel that way."
You know, just just helping them to have the vocabulary.
There's this thing called a feelings wheel.
And a lot of people only learns like with the colors, the primary colors, right?
So, red, yellow, blue, right?
And then if you mix red and yellow, you get orange. And there's more nuance.
And if you put more yellow, it becomes more yellowy orange, right?
And so, people only know like happy, sad, mad.
But they don't know like, "I felt frustrated. I felt scared. I felt vulnerable. I felt anxious.
But where did you feel the anxiety?"
"Well, I felt it in my belly. I felt it in my chest." Right?
So, there's so much nuance.
And for people who don't open up, they often only have those three primary emotions.
And then they don't really know how to describe what they're feeling.
So, you can mirror that for them and model that when you talk about your feelings.
Like, "I was really afraid of that.
And I was really angry, but actually underneath the ang- anger with my friend, I was feeling hurt."
"And I realized I was feeling really hurt by her behavior and it seemed like I was angry.
But I'm feeling really neglected."
And so, you know, "Did you ever feel that way?
Have you ever felt, you know, we whatever it is."
But it just like it's just becomes part of the air.
It's not like, "Sit down, face me, and tell me how you're feeling. Open up to me." Yeah.
>> That feels like so much pressure, but it just like it's in the air and they've never lived in that environment before. You have to remember.
So, it's just this is a new planet that they've landed on.
And here's it's like a new Let's say it's a new city.
And in this city, we speak a different language.
And we speak in the language of emotion.
And they're going to start to pick up the language bit by bit, but they're not going to be fluent right out the gate.
So, don't say, "Speak French to me."
It's like, "Oh, here's this new language.
You'll pick up a few words here and there." That's so good.
That's such a great visual and analogy.
Like if I turn up in a different city or a different country and someone just expected me to know how to speak that language, I would feel so much pressure.
And And actually, we've all experienced that where you're like, "I don't even want to try and say a sentence cuz I feel I'm going to sound so stupid." >> Mhm.
It's that comfortability and that could take a while.
Love isn't supposed to be easy.
And it doesn't survive on perfection. It survives on truth.
It deepens when you stop performing and start practicing.
Strong relationships aren't found, they're built.
So, whether you're healing from betrayal, navigating change, or building something new, always start with honesty.
And it's okay if yours looks different. Each and every one does.
All that matters is that it's real.
If you enjoyed this podcast, you're going to love my conversation with Michelle Obama, where she opens up on how to stay with your partner when they're changing and the four check-ins you should be doing in your relationship.
We also talk about how to deal with relationships when they're under stress.
If you're going through something right now with your partner or someone you're seeing, this is the episode for you.
No wonder our kids are struggling.
We have a new technology and we've just taken it in hook, line, and sinker.
And we have to be mindful for our kids.
They'll just be thumbing through this stuff, you know, their their minds never sleeping.