Supercharge Your Mind, Supercharge Your Love | Amy Morin's Secrets to Unstoppable Mental Strength and Relationship Bliss!

[00:00:00] This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. And I've never hit a best sellers list the week my book goes on sale anyway. Really? That's interesting. Actually, we'll start with that. You're saying, you know, 13

[00:00:25] things mentally strong people don't do which sold like a million copies or whatever. That didn't hit a best seller list the first week? It did not. I think it was a solid year and a half later after it came out that it hit the best seller list.

[00:00:38] No way. So I really admire that. Like it means that word of like, because by then you were done marketing. So it was word of mouth and just one by one people realizing, oh, this

[00:00:48] is a book that's actually useful in my life as opposed to just simply responding to some marketing campaign. Yeah. I got some unexpected press in some unusual places along the way. And Like what?

[00:00:59] Rush Limbaugh on the air on like Monday. He said, oh, we're going to talk about the 13 things mentally strong people don't do. He never got to it. And then Tuesday he said, we're going to talk about the 13 things mentally strong people don't do.

[00:01:10] Never got to it. He didn't get to it until Friday. By Friday, my books had sold out everywhere because it was over a year after the book had gone on sale. So the stores didn't even have that many copies of it. So they sold off the shelves everywhere.

[00:01:23] Wow. I did not know that. You never told me that. Were you, you know, it's a weird thing because, you know, my, I hate to bring it up because I've brought it up so many times. But my article about New York

[00:01:34] City, he read that article word for word on the air. I wish it had been a book. It would have sold millions of copies instead. Millions of people read it. And because it was Rush Limbaugh, everybody in New York, that was one

[00:01:45] of the things that contributed to everybody in New York City hating me. But the rest of the country loving me. So I didn't know that either. He read your list. Interesting. Yeah. He did and Glenn Beck did and Joe Rogan did. I had Glenn Beck as well.

[00:01:59] Oh yeah. So, so you, I wonder what your book probably sold well in New York City, like because they probably didn't know that part because they don't like if you have any guilt by association.

[00:02:09] But your book is the sort of book that probably appeals in large cities anyway, where there's a lot of people having therapy, no stigma to that. But therapy is probably more common in urban areas than rural areas is my guess.

[00:02:22] Yes, you're right. I came from rural Maine where people, a lot of people were still mortified to be seen at the therapist's office. And I remember the way I first started going to New York when I wrote my book

[00:02:32] and everybody was like, oh, I'm going to see my therapist on Thursday. And I'm like, wait, what? And it wasn't anything I was used to because people in rural places I had lived before never were that open about going to see a therapist.

[00:02:44] I don't see a therapist at the moment, but when I was seeing a therapist in New York City, I was embarrassed. Like one time while I was leaving, someone was coming in who I knew. And I was deeply embarrassed.

[00:02:55] I don't know why it's because you maybe because there's this myth that we're supposed to be perfect, you know, and the funny thing is I'm so vulnerable in my writing. Like I tell all my flaws and faults in my own writing,

[00:03:08] but then to actually have someone see me at the therapist, it's felt like very exposing. Right. And so where I was a therapist in rural Maine too, I mean, it was like the principal of the school might run into one

[00:03:18] of their students or something like that in the waiting room because it's a really small community. So I get that. And even I was a therapist and I was seeing a therapist and I still didn't admit it like I think I admitted it publicly,

[00:03:30] like probably like you did long before I would have told my friends or family. Well, if you're a therapist, don't you have to see a therapist? Isn't it like part of the license that you have to have therapy

[00:03:41] to be a therapist kind of make sure everyone makes a living? Well, right. So you have to see like a supervisor, but you can use it more like to talk about your cases as opposed to yourself. Like, of course, issues with yourself come up

[00:03:54] because somebody might remind you of your grandmother or they talk to you in a certain way that makes you causes you to feel a certain emotion. But you can do it in a very like still like a professional way, like I'm struggling with this client

[00:04:07] because I have some my own personal issues. So how do I work with this client as opposed to actually like diving into your own personal issues? And sometimes in a weird way happens on a podcast, like maybe you've noticed this doing your own podcast.

[00:04:20] Like sometimes somebody will write a book that will really touch upon issues that I'm having or dealing with in a bad way. Sometimes it's in a good way, like, oh, I'm glad I read that. Sometimes it's like, oh, I didn't want to think about that,

[00:04:31] but now I have to do a whole podcast about that. Yep, exactly. Right. Yeah. And it will just touch a nerve that I don't want to talk about or I just don't like it for whatever reason or I disagree with it,

[00:04:42] but not in a way that I want to get into a debate about it. I just don't like something about a certain book. Do you ever have a patient and I mean, probably have, but do you ever have a patient that you just really, really despise?

[00:04:56] As I'm nodding my head before you even get done the question. Yes. And so I learned early on that you look at your your list of who's coming into the therapy office that day and think about which patient you hope doesn't show up the most.

[00:05:10] And that's the person you probably need the most supervision about. And it was absolutely right that if there was somebody like, I hope my one o'clock cancels today, that's probably the person I should be talking to my supervisor about because it's something with me.

[00:05:21] What did you hate about that person? Why does that have to be about you? Why can't it just be the person, the despicable person? I guess there is that. But still, even like sitting with somebody who maybe is a despicable person.

[00:05:34] They haven't done anything despicable to me necessarily. So then I think, well, like, why am I offended by their behavior? Why is it so hard to sit here? Because I would find even people that did some pretty bad things usually still had something likable about them.

[00:05:47] Or sometimes people would tell me these stories about things that they did. And I would think, but if I met you on the street or I met you somewhere else and I didn't know this stuff about you, like I would never guess it.

[00:05:56] And I would really like this person. So sometimes it was just more about like, again, they reminded me of somebody or their the issues they were dealing with brought up my own insecurities or my own issues, or I didn't know how to help them.

[00:06:09] Or I felt like it was my fault that they weren't getting better faster. Or yeah, I guess there were some people that were just flat out jerks too, who said rude things. And look, this latest book, which I spoke about in the intro already,

[00:06:21] but 13 Things Mentally Strong Couples Don't Do. And first off, I didn't know you did couples therapy. Do people do a lot of therapists who do individual therapy always do couples therapy or are they usually considered? I usually thought they were like separate types of practices. So it depends.

[00:06:36] If you, if I were had been a therapist in New York City, I could probably specialize in 14 year olds with OCD and have... Which is what my therapist specialized in. And then there was me. Oh, okay.

[00:06:49] So I was the only one who wasn't like a 14 year old girl. Really? Yeah. How did that come to be that you saw somebody that specialized in something completely different? Because I, the friend who recommended her, her daughter was seeing her.

[00:07:06] But she was so good for her daughter. And I was going through something, it was almost like I needed like emergency therapy surgery. And this was the best therapist she knew. So she recommended to the therapist and to me that we see each other.

[00:07:19] I say, yeah, that makes sense then. And so in my experience in rural Maine, we didn't get to like specialize. There was two therapists in the whole, I don't know, county that I lived in. It was myself or my sister.

[00:07:30] So pretty much whether you were a 14 year old girl or a 75 year old man, you were stuck with one of us unless you wanted to travel a long way. And certainly in pre COVID days, like the internet wasn't an option. And still in many places in rural areas,

[00:07:45] the internet's not fast enough to have video chats. Yeah. So I mean, do you do a lot of therapy sessions over Zoom now? Yeah. Yeah. Now it makes it much easier. So I don't have to... That's so much better. Right? Definitely.

[00:08:00] And so back in Maine where I like, I didn't want to see couples. I actually had no desire to see couples, but it really wasn't a choice. So I learned very quickly how to get more comfortable with seeing couples. Yeah.

[00:08:13] So I'm going to dive into what you just said, but it's interesting. This book I feel is the most... So you've done 13 things mentally strong people don't do, 13 things mentally strong parents don't do, 13 things mentally strong women don't do. You've done 13 things mentally strong kids don't do.

[00:08:32] I've really admire how you've built a franchise out of it. And, you know, this one I feel is the most different because in the other ones, I feel the 13 things are somewhat related to the original 13 things mentally strong people don't do. But this one for couples,

[00:08:49] it's a completely different 13 things mentally strong couples don't do. There's not really a correlation between this and the other 13 things. So I just wanted to do a... And by the way, I think maybe it's because of that. I felt for me, this was the most personal book

[00:09:04] you've written since the first one. The first one was very personal and very moving about your experiences and some of them overlap with this one. Do you have other experience? You talk more about your husband in this one because it's about couples

[00:09:18] and you know, both in the first one and this one you talk about your first husband. And so I just wanted to review real quickly the first book, 13 things mentally strong people don't do. Like what led to that? I have the original article up in front of me

[00:09:32] that you wrote that had like millions of views and that led to your book deal and changed your life. But what led to you writing that original viral article? So it was really a letter to myself at like the worst time in my life.

[00:09:45] So my mother died when I was 23 and my husband died when he and I were both 26. It was the three-year anniversary of the day that my mom died, that I lost my husband and obviously life was terrible and I'm supposed to be a therapist

[00:09:59] who helps other people with their problems. And I found myself in just in a really dark place for a long time and that's not even the right phrase to say a dark place. Like I don't even know how to describe that period

[00:10:08] of my life when I thought my 20s were gonna be amazing and they certainly weren't. And- I mean, what did you, I mean try like what did you do during the day when you're in this dark place? Like what couldn't you do?

[00:10:21] Yeah, so well, I had to go to work because I didn't have any money. So I had to figure out how do I go to work and help other people deal with their problems, which was not, I don't know.

[00:10:31] I didn't know how I was gonna do that either. Like I felt like I could barely drag myself out of bed. And yet I'm like, nobody's gonna come talk to me if they know what I'm going through. And because I lived in a small community,

[00:10:41] some of my clients knew what had just happened too. It was so bizarre. And some of them had no idea and they would tell me about their problems and then some of them would learn about it later. Like I've been coming to talk to you

[00:10:51] about this issue I have and now I know that your husband just died. And I'm like, oh, it's all good, it's fine. We can still talk about what's going on. It was the strangest, like most surreal period of my life.

[00:11:02] I mean, did you have to like compartmentalize very well? Like that must, did you get into this habit of just like shutting off your personal life when in talking about other people's personal lives? I did. So it was kind of like,

[00:11:16] I'd get used to like stepping into the office in the morning, I worked for an agency at the time. So there was a bunch of other therapists who, thank goodness I worked with other therapists too. Who knew? And so we had a meeting before I came back

[00:11:28] where like we sat down and they were like, how do we help you? And what would be most helpful to you? And they like made a pact. Like we're not gonna, just because we cross you in the hallway we're not gonna say, how are you doing today?

[00:11:38] Cause we don't want you to burst into tears at 2 PM. And I was like, that is a great idea. Let's make sure. And they would ask me like, what if we checked in with you like maybe after work every once in a while? Is that okay?

[00:11:48] And I was like, absolutely. Well, that was great that they were upfront and talked to you about it. Cause that's a very awkward situation in the workplace often. It is because I think then people feel like they want to acknowledge it, but I get that.

[00:11:58] I didn't want people to come up to me during my lunch break and say, gosh, I'm so sorry. How are you? And to have this really deep discussion about my problems while I'm supposed to be paying attention to other people's problems.

[00:12:08] So that was a huge thing that they did. And in fact, they had contacted me before my husband's funeral and said, honestly, do you want us to come? Like we would all like to be there for you

[00:12:17] but if it's too weird for like your boss to meet your dad like we don't need to come either. So you tell us what you want. And I was so grateful that they did that. And then I tried to get short-term disability and they didn't cover grief.

[00:12:30] So they said, sorry, you get three days off. And because my sister's a therapist, she marched me into the doctor's office like literally went with me and she's like, look at her, she can't go to work as a therapist diagnose her with acute stress disorder,

[00:12:43] which is like the precursor to PTSD. And the doctor did. And then I was able to get three months off from work for short-term disability because they'll cover acute stress disorder but they won't cover grief. Won't they cover depression? They would, yes.

[00:12:59] But at the time there was like this weird thing about grief and depression pretty much didn't happen simultaneously in terms of how diagnoses worked. It was like if you were grieving, if you were depressed for the first year it was just considered grief, strange but true.

[00:13:14] Wow. So you can't have depression clinically if someone around you died. Right. Back in the day that was the deal. I mean, this was 2003 or 2006. So it wasn't like it was a million years ago but they've since shifted and figured out, yeah, sometimes grief quickly turns into depression.

[00:13:31] Or it could trigger depression. Right. You could have been depressed already and that made it worse. Exactly. So okay, but then what are you, you wrote this letter to yourself? Yeah. So I write this letter to myself that's basically like, okay, Amy,

[00:13:45] if you've learned anything from your losses but also from being a therapist it's like don't do these certain things and you'll probably be okay. And I, since I also needed money like I didn't have enough money as a therapist I needed extra money on the side.

[00:13:59] And one of my ways of earning extra money was to write articles. And I wrote articles for $15 so that I could keep my heat on. It was like I got $600 a month from writing and that was enough money so I could have heat in Maine in the winter.

[00:14:11] Wait, how many articles did you write a month? That's like 40 articles. Right. So I was churning them out after working on the weekends as quickly as I could. Some of them I got paid $25 for but it was $15 to $25 per article. And as long as I made $600 a month

[00:14:27] I could afford my mortgage and continue to live in my house, which was super important to me. I didn't want to move. I had like lost, felt like I'd lost everything else. The last thing I wanted to do was pack up and move. So.

[00:14:37] So who did you turn to in like your grief? Like did you have close friends? Was your mother had passed away but was your father around or? Yeah. So my dad is around. He was just getting into a relationship with somebody that had younger kids. And

[00:14:53] Were you resenting that he was getting into a relationship within three years of your mom passing away? I wasn't like overly resent, like I wanted him to be happy. The last thing I wanted was for him to be alone. He was 19 when he and my mom got together.

[00:15:06] He'd never really been alone. So I wanted him to be with somebody. I don't think that he went about it in a way that I would have. I think he immediately thought we were gonna all be this one big happy family.

[00:15:17] I was still grieving the loss of my mom and then I was grieving the loss of my husband. So then to like be part of another family all of a sudden wasn't anything I was particularly interested in that moment. And they're all happy and bonding

[00:15:27] and you're still feeling detached from everything. That'd be correct. That's a good description. What about your sister? My sister was amazing. So she was pregnant with her first child when my husband passed away. And so her family was growing at the same time

[00:15:42] but she and her husband were amazing and really helpful to me. It's very interesting. I wrote this article in not in this condescending way. This is what mentally strong people do or don't do because I'm mentally strong. I don't know, you're sort of like reminding yourself

[00:16:13] that you need to do these things. Right. And so then I thought just don't do these things and you'll be okay no matter what happens today, Amy. Just don't feel sorry for yourself. Don't give away your power. It's interesting because

[00:16:25] and we'll talk about the specific things in a second but each one of these items on your initial book slash article 13 things mentally strong people don't do. They're all about things that basically if you do these things that you shouldn't do they're not gonna, none of these things

[00:16:41] are gonna improve your life. So that's why you really shouldn't do them. Exactly. And you know we all do them sometimes but on the other hand the more you do them the worse life gets. So I just wanted to be like just don't do these things.

[00:16:53] And then I thought I'm just gonna tuck this letter in my pocket and hold onto it but then it dawned on me. Yeah, maybe it'll help somebody else. So I put it on the internet again just expecting a handful of people to read it.

[00:17:03] I never imagined it would go viral or that I'd write a book or that I'd be here all these years later still talking about it. But it's an exciting thing when an item like that changes your life and you really are able to run with it.

[00:17:16] So let me just say a few of these things. So, and actually as a test to listeners just think about the last time you did one of these things that mentally strong people don't do and I will do that as well.

[00:17:29] So they don't waste time feeling sorry for themselves. I did that today and it's only 1 30 p.m. in the afternoon. They don't give away their power. I probably haven't done that today or but I've certainly done it recently. They don't shy away from change. I'm good at change.

[00:17:48] I welcome change. They don't waste energy on things they can't control. I do that all the time. They don't worry about pleasing everyone. I probably do that more often than I would like. They don't fear taking calculated risks. I'm good with that one.

[00:18:01] They don't dwell on the past. I'm not good with that one. They don't make the same mistakes over and over. I do that all the time. They don't resent other people's success. I'm good at noticing when I do that and then I don't do it.

[00:18:14] But I, it's a social media thing. Like if you're going on social media and I see something, I'll think it for half a second then I'll notice I'm resenting something and then I'll stop. They don't give up after the first failure. I definitely don't do that.

[00:18:28] They don't fear a lone time. I don't do that. They don't feel the world owes them anything. I'm okay with that. They don't expect immediate results. I want immediate results all the time. So like how many of those things Amy do you still do?

[00:18:42] Yeah, as you were going through the list I was thinking again about some of those things I still did today. Like if I were honest, like yeah I probably gave away my power today. I was dealing with another company and I'm blaming them for things.

[00:18:52] And I'm like, eh, you know perhaps I could have empowered myself more. It's hard when you're publishing a book by the way is that you would think the, you know I'm not putting down your publisher. Your publisher is Harper Collins, right? Right. And I love Harper Collins.

[00:19:05] My last book Skip the Limes with Harper Collins they've always been very good to me but just the publishing business in general you think that this big billion dollar institution will lift a finger to help you market your book and they do lift a finger

[00:19:20] but you think that you're under the myth that they're going to do a lot more and this is not blaming the publishing industry this is just the industry you really have to do it yourself and everybody falls into the trap of thinking

[00:19:32] they're going to help you more than they will. Yeah, I remember when I wrote my first book and I was like, woohoo, it's all done. I didn't know like no the work is just beginning writing a book is only a small fraction of the battle.

[00:19:44] And marketing, you know if you're a writer and not a marketer marketing is much harder than writing and you have to do a lot of it. So that's one of the reasons why I like self-publishing is that you could kind of do it at your own pace.

[00:19:54] But yeah, so that's definitely one of those situations but when I was reading this 13 things mentally strong couples don't do it struck me how often I've done these things too that mentally strong couples don't do and it's a couple is two people.

[00:20:13] So one or both of the people do in order to do one of the things mentally strong couples don't do it just takes one person or the couple to do one of these 13 things. And then there's a problem. And I've definitely done all 13 of these

[00:20:29] probably fairly recently too. And you know, I've been to couples therapy let's see marriage one, marriage two and at least two relationships. And I really hate going to couples therapy like I think I'm gonna ask you a lot of questions I don't mean to be hogging this

[00:20:48] but I feel like like with any profession the top 5% are good and the other 95% are damaging. And I'm talking about this is not just therapists but like doctors, lawyers, accountants like any profession that's helping individuals you really have to make sure that you're going to the top 5%

[00:21:09] because it's true for any profession 95% are just not gonna be that good. And but for couples therapy if you go to one that's not good your relationship is in danger. I wholeheartedly agree with that that there are some times you might go to a therapist

[00:21:25] who says something quite damaging or they say something that is not helpful at all but especially in a relationship you go to somebody who takes sides and makes it clear who they side with or you go to somebody who I don't know gives you really bad advice

[00:21:37] it could be terrible for your relationship. Yeah, and again I wanna go over the specific 13 things but I feel like the taking sides thing is a big issue when you see couples do you ever find yourself taking sides a little bit?

[00:21:52] Yeah, I mean of course in my head I'm thinking like well no wonder she does this it's cause you're doing that or we're gonna have couples that come in and like can you believe it would you stay with somebody who did X, Y and Z

[00:22:02] and what if your partner did something like this to you and I'm thinking yeah well I'd be upset too so it is tough to remember like it's not my job to take side it's not my job to decide who's right and who's wrong

[00:22:13] it's about helping this couple work together but of course we're human beings too. Yeah and the other problem I had with couples therapy is like you go on a regular basis like you sign up to go every week say and sometimes a week might be good

[00:22:30] and so let's say I'm going to couples therapy with I haven't gone to couples therapy with my current wife but let's say in a prior relationship it's almost like in the cab on the way there we're trying to figure out like well it's like we're doing homework

[00:22:44] well what went wrong that we could talk about right and so that's a drag too. And I've worked with couples too who then like throughout the course of the week they're trying to be on their best behavior because they're like I don't want you to bring this up

[00:22:54] in counseling next week so then they like either avoid subjects cause they're like I don't want to get in a fight about this cause then we'll have to talk about it or they just they find that they're kind of tiptoeing around things or they're extra pleasant

[00:23:04] two days before therapy all because they're really just trying to avoid having to discuss difficult subjects in therapy so instead of really working on their relationship it becomes more about making sure a therapy appointment is as easy as smooth as possible.

[00:23:17] And then I guess that the third thing that tends to happen in a therapy session a couples therapy session for me is I sort of instinctively go into the mode where I want the therapist to like me more than my partner and it's just like an instinct

[00:23:38] so I will act in ways that I feel like I feel I'm winning the session and that's not that healthy either. It's not and I think sometimes in the therapy session somebody who maybe struggles with something outside of the office you could hold it together right there

[00:23:56] in front of the therapist so then they're like no I don't really struggle with that I'm not sure what my partner is talking about or but there's always two sides to a story and we get to decide how we're gonna paint the picture too

[00:24:06] so then people sometimes will be like my version is this and yours is that but yet just trying to get the therapist to align with us and to like us better is certainly something that I think is pretty natural like we wanna be liked.

[00:24:19] Yeah, yeah I think and look some people are better at being likable than others so in a couple one person could win the session potentially. So the first thing mentally strong couples don't do is they don't ignore their problems so like let's say they're really scared about money

[00:24:41] or debt or paying the mortgage and they express that anxiety in different ways and so the relationship has a problem but they're kind of ignoring like the real root of this and talking about it and not getting angry and defensive and so on.

[00:24:56] And money is a big one that people ignore so I'm glad you brought that up because sometimes it'll be we have different values about money so we don't know how to talk about it or it's too anxiety provoking to really sit down and look at the budget

[00:25:07] or sometimes one person earns more than the other so they aren't sure how to divide expenses or one person has a different taste and they like expensive things more than the other person brings up a lot of issues, our own values are the way that we handle money

[00:25:21] but then you try to combine that with somebody else so it means we're either gonna argue about it or we're gonna disagree, we have to agree to disagree or your partner might want you to change your habits lots of reasons why people are like

[00:25:33] I'm just gonna sweep this under the rug and pretend it doesn't exist. Do you find people tend to fix these things? Like I feel like sometimes these patterns are so ingrained like let's say the problem is the woman feels she does all the housework

[00:25:49] and the man feels he makes all the money and they both present each other for that and so that's like a common thing they sort of split the difference on these two different ideas but they never really solve it like it's sort of so built into our culture

[00:26:06] to think that way. And that's a common one that a lot of couples will feel like that and so I think sometimes it's just about understanding each other like all right my partner thinks x, y and z I think this we don't have to think the same way

[00:26:19] but just understanding and having some empathy over perhaps this is what their experience is like and is there another way of looking at it just opening yourself up to that possibility can go a long way. What if one person thinks there's a problem but the other person doesn't?

[00:26:33] Like I wait one person comes in and I don't think we have any problem I'm fine with the marriage and the other person's like this, this, this like does that happen a lot? That happens all the time and so I try to tell people

[00:26:45] well you don't have to agree that there's a problem but if your partner thinks there's a problem there is some kind of a problem whether you agree with it or not and so then it becomes do you need to the problem to be solved

[00:26:57] is that just maybe helping your partner see things differently and changing their mind about the problem or might you change your behavior even if you don't agree that your behavior's a problem it doesn't mean you can't change it. This next one's very important they don't keep secrets

[00:27:11] I think this is like the most important thing all the level to what's a secret and what's just hey I didn't know that was so important or whatever is tricky that the line there It is so most people would say

[00:27:22] yeah obviously you're not gonna keep a huge secret if you have a serious health issue or you have a whole bunch of debt you should probably tell that to your partner but on the other hand people will justify things

[00:27:34] like well yeah I had coffee with my ex the other day but it didn't mean anything so I don't need to tell you about it or my coworker and I have been flirting a lot lately but obviously I'm not gonna tell my partner about that

[00:27:45] because it would upset them so people often go to great lengths to justify the secrets that they keep by saying I don't tell my partner because they wouldn't understand because I don't wanna upset them but it's usually not about protecting your partner it's really about protecting yourself

[00:27:59] What's a secret where someone's couples come to you and you know you talk about examples in the book but secrets that a couple has come to you with whether one side or the other was keeping a secret and you really did feel

[00:28:09] that was an inappropriate secret to keep but the person insisted nah that was no big deal So I've had people that have had children like before they got married and they like there was a man who had a child

[00:28:22] many years ago but he didn't tell his current wife that there was a kid out there that existed that was his and he was like you know I'm not sure because if she'll really understand he was paying child support on this child

[00:28:32] and like under the table so that she wouldn't he went to great lengths to make sure that this his current wife didn't know that he had a child from a previous relationship But he wasn't seeing the child at all? Nope

[00:28:43] I guess because he had a bad end with the relationship and maybe she had a new boyfriend or whatever who's gonna help raise the kid so she didn't want to confuse the kid or I'm putting the nicest possible interpretation to it but it's still a little weird

[00:28:55] Yeah and I think he'd gone years without seeing the child and probably felt guilty about that so he was like I don't wanna step into the kid's life now so he just thought it was better if it was left unsaid But I've had lots of experiences like that

[00:29:06] where people have something from their past that they think this doesn't affect my current relationship so I don't need to tell but sometimes it was big things that definitely their partner would have wanted to know Yeah although I see where the guy's coming from

[00:29:20] he probably was a little insecure and didn't want his current wife to leave him and it gets bigger and bigger of course the longer you keep the secret even though knowing this might not have anything to do one way or the other with her affection for him

[00:29:34] he probably was just really scared Right and I've had other people who had been married before and somehow they were able to keep that a secret when they got remarried that it just never came up and so they might have had an entire past life

[00:29:45] that their career partner knew nothing about They don't hesitate to set boundaries I think this is an interesting one I always have a hard time understanding what boundaries are so it's like a word that's used a lot like oh you need to respect boundaries

[00:30:04] or you need to set boundaries but like what's an example So it might be a boundary within a relationship might be saying like I'm not going to give you my passwords in my social media account or you can't have the password to my phone

[00:30:19] and you and your partner might decide like that's an okay boundary for the two of you to have and then the two of you also need boundaries with the outside world too so you might decide my mother-in-law isn't going to come over unannounced

[00:30:29] or we're not going to loan money to people family members without talking to each other first or I'm not going to loan out the car unless I talk to my partner because we don't just give our things away

[00:30:39] because our boundaries might be a little bit tighter than that Yeah those are all reasonable ones on the social media one like what would you do right now if your husband today said look I can I see your phone and your emails I'd give it to him

[00:30:53] and I know he'd be bored to tears within about 30 seconds he doesn't even have social media so he like well why are you posting all this then I don't have anything to hide so for me it wouldn't be an issue

[00:31:03] and I don't think that it's always about something to hide like if I were having a lot of private conversations with my friends and they were maybe about my friends issues if my friend was texting me that she had a specific personal issue in her life

[00:31:16] that may not be my partner's business to then be able to say to my husband yeah you can go ahead and read all these messages that she sent just to me so I don't think it's an issue necessarily when people say

[00:31:26] I'm not going to give you all my passwords Yeah I think there's a reverse issue too which is why do you feel the need to see my emails so that could be a bigger issue Yeah people that struggle with say jealousy or insecurity

[00:31:37] they often think if I check your phone I'll feel better but it doesn't work like that because when people are snooping they're usually looking for evidence that somebody's cheating or that they're up to something when you don't find that evidence

[00:31:50] you don't like then breathe a huge sigh of relief you usually then think well they probably have a secret phone or maybe they use a different app or maybe I should be listening in on their phone call so for people who struggle with that

[00:32:02] it usually just kind of ups the ante and they want more I think like I'm thinking now 30 years ago I was in a relationship where I was suspicious and it almost becomes like like you never like you said you never get satisfied it's almost like a full-time job

[00:32:19] like what's she up to now Right and it doesn't you never solve anything because the only thing that's going to make you happy is to be really sad is to find something that's bad so like oh I was right oh no I was right

[00:32:33] so uh they don't become martyrs what does that mean So when there's that tendency to be like I've given everything for this relationship or I have to do everything around here or I've sacrificed everything for my family but you don't do it with joy

[00:32:50] there's a difference between being like oh sure I don't really want to do that today but the family wants to so I'll go I mean like I don't know any parent that's like I love watching my child's fourth grade play for three hours right

[00:33:02] but you do it because you love your kid but when you become a martyr it's more about like I did that and I had to do it and I hated every second of it and even when somebody maybe offers to help like a partner who says

[00:33:13] hey can I help you with that like nope because you don't do it right so I'm going to do it all myself and it's just like a chip on your shoulder where there's this bitterness and resentment about everything that you do claiming it's for the other person

[00:33:24] yet sometimes they didn't even ask you to do it you're just going above and beyond and then complaining about the fact that you have to keep doing all this stuff And so with a lot of these and this is we've read before but there's I'll go through some

[00:33:37] some of the others with a lot of these it's just is it just a matter of just being really upfront as quickly as possible like hey I'll do this but it I just want you to be aware I'm doing more here

[00:33:50] and I don't know like how do you talk about that Yeah I think a lot of problems would be solved if we were way more upfront and if our partners when we express those things if our partners just hurt us so usually what happens is when somebody says

[00:34:04] hey I'm like carrying 80% of the load around here their partner is usually quick to be like oh yeah I'm carrying 150% of the load and here's why I think it gets into this argument of like who's doing more if we just listen to each other

[00:34:16] like oh you feel like you're doing a lot more tell me more about that almost 90% of conversations like that could go much smoother and people could come to an agreement or figure out how do we move forward but so often we don't want to listen

[00:34:29] and we've all been there somebody says hey I'm struggling with this and we're like yeah well I'm struggling with that twice as much and it just becomes like this competition of who has it the most or who's devoting the most energy and then nothing ever becomes of it

[00:34:41] because you can't agree on who's the biggest martyr or who's doing sacrificing the most for the relationship I have an idea for you on how you can write you know obviously you write follow-up articles that are related to the book as part of the marketing

[00:34:53] you could write 13 scripts or maybe you have 13 articles like scripts for because what you just said about what they should say like you said that 90% of the time that just diffuses it right there and I feel like if people know these scripts and really pay attention to them

[00:35:08] that will solve a lot of these issues that's a great idea and I think I'll do that because you're right people will often say like exactly what do I say how do we have these conversations so to give people the and I do that too

[00:35:19] when I read a book and people are like just bring up this issue I want to know exactly what do I say in order to get what I what it is I want because I mean it's gotta be like every couple probably has this

[00:35:30] conversation hundreds of times in their relationship you know I feel like I'm working 12 hours a day every day on blah blah blah oh yeah well I'm working 15 hours a day and it's more stressful and it's harder so I feel like that happens all the time

[00:35:49] absolutely whether we're talking about money or like household responsibilities parenting like emotional labor whatever it is yeah there's always that push and pull of like who's doing more and there's gonna be times where one person does more than the other like it's not gonna be 50-50 probably ever

[00:36:03] but when we can have those discussions too like hey I'm working my job is gonna require more during the holidays so I'm not gonna have as much energy to put into the household but it's temporary you have those conversations up front

[00:36:15] that kind of stuff can go a long way toward helping relationships too right like so so like there's all these scripts that people that aren't even aware they can say these things because they feel like it might provoke a fight because that's what they're used to

[00:36:27] because they're used to the the keeping score aspect of these things like I did 12 no I did 14 no I did 17 when you could diffuse things without keeping score in using one of these scripts that you've been saying right here so right because I think the rebuttal is

[00:36:44] or somebody says I've been working 14 hours and the other person says I only work 10 but my job's harder right and then it's like we're comparing apples to oranges yet for some reason we always do want to help the auntie and it's so obvious

[00:36:56] that keeping score is not going to solve a problem right yet we all coming back with like yeah coming back with like no you're wrong I do more is never going to saw has never solved any relation like no one's going to say you know you're right

[00:37:10] I love you honey right no one's ever going to say that they don't use their emotions as weapons I think that's a really important one it is it as a therapist I was like oh I'm going to be cautious with this one

[00:37:36] because the last thing you want to do is if your partner's crying be like I think you're weaponizing your sadness in those tears right now but on the other hand so many people do this for they're like yeah I wasn't actually anxious

[00:37:47] I didn't want to do that thing so I said oh I have anxiety I can't do that or how many people use anger just as a way to get out of a conversation or to escape doing something like I just raised my voice a little

[00:37:59] and then I didn't have to do it because I pretended like I couldn't control my temper and so the more that you know we talk about this in the therapy office all the time when people get honest they often get really honest like yeah I do that

[00:38:10] or people would say yeah I suspect my partner does that quite a bit too yeah and it's it's again it's tricky on both sides like it's it's easy to do it without even realizing you're doing it and it's easy I've definitely noticed that in different partners

[00:38:26] when they've been doing it like I had one I had one time a friend of mine I was I called this friend of mine oh I'm having an argument with my girlfriend and he said oh and he he was like kind of like a dating expert

[00:38:40] so he said okay when she comes in and starts bringing it up say this, this, and this and he predicted exactly okay she's gonna walk over the window and she's gonna start crying and everything he predicted actually came true because he was just assuming everybody manipulates everyone else

[00:38:55] and this is what a manipulator would do and it was really fascinating to see like different he wasn't being a therapist for me he was just describing like this is what's going to happen and here's how you could win this situation that is fascinating

[00:39:09] and I think there are patterns like that often and you know if your partner struggles with an anxiety disorder you don't want to discredit that and you may need to help them with something but on the other hand if your partner always says like

[00:39:18] oh I can't do that I have anxiety you don't want to just give in and be like okay I'll do everything around here because you struggle with this or when they start crying it doesn't necessarily have to mean you end all conversations

[00:39:28] because then you don't have difficult conversations and I see that happen all the time where people are like we had to avoid this, this, and this because we can talk about it because my partner gets too upset Yeah you know another thing too about the keeping score

[00:39:42] I think everybody thinks things should be equal all the time but it's like you just pointed out like sometimes somebody really does do more than the other and it's not like every relationship is like a communist relationship like sometimes there's imbalance but me being upfront and acknowledging that

[00:40:00] is useful Yeah there's seasons in our life if you're taking care of an aging parent or you're dealing with again something stressful at work for a while things like that are you developed a health issue or you're struggling with something like yeah you might need the other person

[00:40:13] to step it up for a while and there may not be a a definitive timeline you might be like for a while I need some extra help or I'm going to need you to do x, y, and z it'd be great if we could say

[00:40:23] it's just for the next six weeks but it might be for a lot longer than that too Yeah Yeah and that's hard because then like what if some what if because somebody's dealing with something or working so hard they're emotionally unavailable for a certain period of time

[00:40:38] but you just don't know how long like how could they help each other in those situations Again I think it's about those conversations of saying like like let's say I'll use the one of somebody taking care of an aging parent that's a really common one

[00:40:50] where somebody says you know my mom or my dad needs a lot of extra help or I'm their house right now so I'm going to be over there a lot then to figure out well how can I still meet some of my partner's emotional needs

[00:41:00] and it might be that I call you every day for 20 minutes on my commute home so that we can touch base and then when I get home there's 15 minutes of sitting and talking about these things but or Friday nights I'm not going to go over

[00:41:12] to my mom or dad's house and said we're gonna we're gonna go out just the two of us but if you come up with some sort of a plan that says this is what we're gonna do as opposed to the other person feeling like

[00:41:21] I'm never gonna get what I need it's not fair and they sit around thinking about those thoughts things get worse Sorry like I remember when I was a kid my dad was super depressed and depression doesn't have like a timeline and I remember my mom's mom

[00:41:37] my grandmother kept telling my mom just divorce him and like in front of me she would always say that and it really left an impression on me that if you're depressed there's a chance your wife girlfriend partner whatever is gonna leave you

[00:41:53] and the flip side is of course is that's the time when couples who are committed to each other should really try to support each other but I imagine it's a difficult time for both It is and I'll have people that come into my therapy

[00:42:06] office on the other end of that and they'll say like you know my partner has a has a problem it might be a physical health issue a mental health issue or a substance abuse issue and they were like you know but they're not getting better fast enough

[00:42:17] or maybe the other person's not taking any action at all and they're like I you know married this person I promised for in sickness and in health but like what's my responsibility here if somebody has a a drinking problem for 20 years and nothing has changed whether like

[00:42:30] do I really have to keep sticking it out longer or or do I set up a timeline that says I can only handle this for a certain amount of time and sometimes that's what people end up doing yeah I mean really like marriage is not really different from

[00:42:45] I mean this was controversial but marriage is not really different from being like boyfriend girlfriend it's just that it becomes boyfriend girlfriend in the eyes of the government and so then there's legal stuff involved like it's marriage is just like a a boyfriend girlfriend that got legal and

[00:43:02] so it's not like you have to stay with the other person but then but the flip side is you know if you're if you're committed and you want to you really want to be in a relationship for the rest of your life and build and grow old together

[00:43:14] then there's certain obligations to that that are sometimes difficult and I see a lot of people who because they're legally married feel like we have to stay together and sometimes it's practical reasons because I don't have a retirement fund and after 30 years

[00:43:27] like I can't afford to live on my own sometimes it's for the sake of the kids where people are like we're not really compatible but I'm gonna wait till the kids turn 18 or sometimes it's just a religious where somebody says you know my religion

[00:43:37] doesn't allow me to get divorced so we're gonna stick it out so for couples who are gonna stick it out for whatever reason like well then let's make it the best we can and then for other couples who are able to be like

[00:43:48] you know perhaps I picked the wrong partner like that's okay too like I'm not in favor of saying you know you should stick it out no matter what sometimes people are just happier when they say you know we got married when we were young

[00:43:58] and now we're different people like that's okay too yeah yeah and because there's also a stigma just in society to sometimes when married seven times you would think that there's something wrong with them right right exactly so there might be but there might not be where just everybody

[00:44:15] you know we do live in a free world and people should do what they want certainly people in today's world people have been involved in more than seven relationships but if someone is in seven marriages we think oh my god this person's a horrible person right yeah

[00:44:31] I think you can only like some states you can only get married seven times that's the limit right really I think so is that really true I know right and the reason I know that is because there's somebody who lives in my community down here

[00:44:40] I think he's on marriage number six so people are joking around with him like you only got one left wow I mean that's true in Florida I don't know you would think that Florida man is allowed to marry as many times as he wants though

[00:44:54] we'll have to talk to Dave Barry about that they don't try to fix each other yeah so of course not a lot of people come to therapy saying here's what I'd like to work on and I brought my partner just to hold me accountable

[00:45:07] like that doesn't normally happen when people bring their partner to therapy it's usually here's my partner and they're jerk and I need you to be on my side so that you can tell them why they need to change their behavior because I'll be happy if they change

[00:45:21] and then sometimes people have gone at great lengths to try to fix the other person it might be something small like oh my partner's kind of shy so I like to draw them out of their shell maybe your partner's fine with being shy

[00:45:30] they don't want to be the most outgoing person in the room but in other cases the example I give in the book is a woman who's married to somebody with a serious substance abuse problem she goes to great lengths to try to change his drinking habits

[00:45:42] which is something we see often too where somebody says you know my partner's self-destructive or they're hurting themselves and they don't know it so how do I fix this and then that's obviously a lot of work and it's really distressing to think

[00:45:53] that you have to fix somebody else it's a lot of work I remember that that example it's a lot of work and it's a lot of pain too because it seems to be great immediately like she says to her husband

[00:46:05] you know I don't want you going to the bar so much after work and being late for dinner and so on so that's painful and obviously she would like the next day for him to not to go to the bar to come home and have dinner with her

[00:46:16] and they're laughing and joking and eating well and all is good but that doesn't happen so she starts eating dinner by herself and putting leftovers in the refrigerator not complaining but just taking actions that so she's doing what she's taking care of herself

[00:46:32] and then by him seeing what she was doing he gradually kind of started to change and so on but you have to sort of say okay I'm going to do this but for a long time I'm going to be still unhappy while I do this

[00:46:47] because that wasn't her ideal solution either no and there's no guarantee like that changing my behavior is going to change my partner's behavior of course that's the hope and there are an entire like therapy systems like community reinforcement family training is one that is based on

[00:47:04] if you're in a relationship with somebody with substance abuse problem there's no guarantee a lot of people are able to get their partner's behavior to change because basically the more I try to change my partner the more that more defensive they get

[00:47:16] if I quit trying to change them and I just focus on my behavior there's a good chance that they'll follow suit but there's no guarantee of that and that's tough to deal because it means I have to kind of come to that

[00:47:27] conclusion of I can't control your behavior I have to deal with all of this discomfort that's going on with me watching you self-destruct or watching you do these things that are really unhealthy I mean you've seen so many couples and hopefully you've also seen couples

[00:47:40] who have been mostly happy and not unhappy like what do you think are the signs of a really good couple that should stay together no matter what I think that the couples that can listen to each other and that they can empathize with the other person

[00:47:57] and that they just really want to know like okay what's going on and even if it's painful to hear I want you to tell me anyway like is there something I do that's that's difficult or annoying and for couples who can I guess listen into that

[00:48:09] talk about it and and then they have that commitment to say yeah we're gonna stay together we're gonna work through these things and even though it's hard I'm not gonna abandon you I'm gonna stay right here You know you mentioned something in the book

[00:48:23] that I thought was really interesting that you say it tends to be that the people who kind of almost brag about their happiness or their relationships on social media too much those tend to be the unhappiest couples like that's obviously just anecdotal but do you think it's

[00:48:39] that's really true yeah and I think there's research behind that one that when people are people brag about their partner and their relationship online it's more like they're looking for external validation not to say you can't show some happy pictures and and talk positively about your partner

[00:48:55] obviously you don't want to go on social media and complain about your partner but the people who do it the most often are looking for validation like see don't we look happy together because perhaps they don't feel like they're in a happy relationship

[00:49:06] otherwise they wouldn't need that validation from other people yeah I think it's I think it's really true and I was just I was struck by that because just the other day I was thinking about a couple that I knew like 10 years ago

[00:49:19] and it was a period when I was single and I was asking I was asking this couple what's your maybe it was like I don't know when it was like eight or nine years ago and I was asking them what their checklist was

[00:49:28] they both said that they had a checklist before they met and the other person had really matched that checklist and they're huge they were huge on social media like oh I love her so much I love him so much my life partner and then I just found out

[00:49:42] I was wondering like whatever happened to that couple and just like a month ago they announced their divorce and so then and I read your what you said here and I was I made me think of that about this couple I had just recently researched

[00:49:55] interesting because I think sometimes people get envious of those couples and then you find out oh wasn't perhaps what we thought it was yeah I think I was envious of them and then it's funny though because they had built up such a social media presence as a couple

[00:50:08] in all the comments everybody was like oh she did it she she was doing something probably like look how she had changed her clothes in the past six months like everyone was trying to like find everything from like their pictures like four months ago and and so on

[00:50:24] right yep so like everybody gets involved too if you're going on social media with it you got to expect the ramifications of that and we all want evidence of like I should have seen this coming and here's why you know and then you hindsight is 2020

[00:50:36] so you go back and you pick it apart and you're like trying to connect the dots of like clearly this was going on yeah yeah it's sort of like when someone dies you always want to know like why right and you like and it's so funny like

[00:50:53] and again this is related to social media on Facebook somebody will say oh you know so-and-so was 26 years old passed away you know few roles of this and they don't say why why would a 26 year old you know die and you know might be

[00:51:08] when they don't say it so you start thinking well it was suicide or something so you want to know well was they were they depressed or did something bad happen to them or did they you know have cancer and so they got depressed from that

[00:51:20] and you really do like want to know and it's the same thing with couples like you want to know so that it doesn't happen to you so you could say oh if you at least that's not my situation right because they were like

[00:51:29] or we find out somebody had cancer and you're like did they smoke and anything goes on because I don't smoke then I'm good to go right yeah do they live on three mile island or some radioactive area yeah so you want to know that it's not you're fine

[00:51:45] but everybody else is having a problem right they don't blame each other for their problems I think I'm guilty of that quite a bit as are most people I think where people like you know we'd be happier if my partner would change yeah yeah or if

[00:52:02] oh my partner wanted to do this so I did it but now I have all these problems or whatever yes I think this one actually maybe is the most important because this one is prescriptive they don't forget why they fell in love yeah and like the prescription is

[00:52:19] remind yourself why you fell in love and both sides should do that right there's a reason you pick this person I mean there's however many people there are on the planet and that you've come in contact with and you pick this one person so there's a reason that

[00:52:32] you picked them and there's a reason that they picked you and just keeping that in perspective so that even when you aren't feeling the most loving feelings ever you're still then motivated to be like all right I picked you for a reason

[00:52:44] and and here's why it's still worthwhile to work through these problems that we have and you say I even think you suggest there's research that just looking at photos of your spouse compared with what looking at other photos improves feelings of infatuation with your partner

[00:53:01] right if you made your partner your wallpaper on your phone or you have a little folder on your phone and you just look at their photo throughout the day like it actually improves how you feel about them and then when we have more positive feelings about our partner

[00:53:13] guess what we're more tolerant of them leaving their socks in the middle of the floor or we don't get so upset with them when those little things annoy us because we're still remembering yeah I still have deep feelings for this person yeah yeah I think that's really important

[00:53:28] they don't expect a relationship to meet all their needs that's an interesting one too particularly in this period post-covid where we've all gotten more remote and more isolated and sometimes the relationship has had to meet more needs than normal right

[00:53:44] the people I think are depending on their partners more now than ever to be their recreational companion we're going to everything fun we do together and I also need you to be my emotional support I need you to be the person who's going to build me up

[00:53:59] or give me business advice but also the person that's going to let me have independence when I need it and you think wow we're putting a lot of pressure on somebody to then be that same person that you're going to have a romantic relationship plus a financial relationship

[00:54:11] and you're going to build a household together and you think that's really tough when we put that much pressure on one person yeah they don't neglect their partnership I think that's you know and that's that's related to the next chapter too they don't take each other for granted

[00:54:27] I think I think these are common things as well like that is very easy to fall into just a routine of neglect ideas and after people have been together for like 10 or 20 years they're like you know we have more like a business relationship and

[00:54:42] a lot of the people that come into my therapy office it's not because they fight too much it's just because they don't really connect anymore and that boredom tends to kill a lot of relationships probably more than conflict does or people are like we don't really fight

[00:54:55] but on the other hand we don't really enjoy each other's company maybe we get along fine and we manage the household responsibilities or parenting or money okay but it's not like doesn't really run any deeper than that either and which is related to the next thing

[00:55:09] they don't stop growing and changing and I think you have to do that individually and kind of respect that in the partner but then coming together at the end of the day to kind of be fascinated by all the growth and change is key it is

[00:55:22] and it's a tricky balance like I'm going to grow and change and be a different person and I want you to still love me in a few years and I expect you to grow and change as well but we also need to grow and change

[00:55:32] together as a couple and make sure that we don't grow apart so but obviously you can't just be the exact same human being that you were when you got together in the first place hopefully you do grow and change and learn new things and as you say

[00:55:44] keep each other fascinated and interested in one another over time and that's a difficult balance sometimes you know and all this begs the question about what should one do in life like there's all this research that loneliness reduces 15 years to your life

[00:55:59] it's as if you were like being lonely is equivalent to smoking all your life in terms of lifespan so you think okay well if I'm married I won't be lonely which of course is not always true often it's not true at all so I think there's all these

[00:56:13] counterbalancing things like when should one leave a marriage or relationship I think once people like lose that desire like when you don't have any interest in changing or you've given up all hope that your partner's ever going to change or that you can change anything

[00:56:28] the question would be like why stay like what would be your motivation to stay and if it's just say financial maybe there's some other solutions to that or if it's just for the kids like I never met kids who were like I'm so glad my parents hung in

[00:56:42] there till I turned 18 that's really not going to happen either so I see a lot of people that just delay grief like I don't want to be sad and that would be sad so we're going to stay together for now but they're not happy

[00:56:53] so if you're not actively working on figuring out how to make the best relationship possible then I'd say it's okay to question like why am I here why am I staying and what do I really want in life and plenty of people are probably

[00:57:04] okay with having a mediocre relationship and and if that's you all the more power to you but for people who really want a deeper relationship with somebody then you need to actively be working on it otherwise you're going to end up uh not getting your needs met either

[00:57:18] yeah and then and then life's over right life is pretty sure but at the same time like it's like it's like what people say you know whatever problems you have in one relationship you're just going to bring into the next relationship so and it's hard to know

[00:57:32] where your problems are and where the other person's problems are and I think some of that is true yes when you're in a relationship with somebody you might then say you know I'm also struggling with the same issues in the next relationship

[00:57:44] but I don't think that's always the case either certain people have the power to bring out different sides of us or maybe when you got together with your partner now you're now 10 years wiser and so even though you've developed these certain patterns

[00:57:55] if you got into a relationship with somebody new you might not have those same patterns but obviously the place to start is to say you know if I were to change myself what would I change and you can always grow as an individual

[00:58:07] while you're still with your partner as it is particularly if you do the 13 things mentally strong people don't do right right if you don't do those things and so you know if we looked at that like yeah there's always room for improvement in any of us

[00:58:19] but I'm going to start with myself rather than being convinced that it's my partner who needs to change that's a good advice to start with yourself you mentioned though that and I found this to be true basically that couples therapy is a lot about

[00:58:49] just the couples want approval to divorce yeah that was my I didn't realize that again when I started as a therapist I was like okay I'll see whoever walks in my office and then the first couple that ever came in and they were just they hated each other

[00:59:03] and there was no doubt about that fact that they hated each other and and they really weren't there to stay together I think they just wanted to know that it was like we've done everything right like there's nothing we can do right as they're both nodding their heads

[00:59:15] and it was probably the only thing they agreed on and they just wanted to like check it off their list yes we have tried everything including therapy and there's no hope for us so no use since why are they getting each other

[00:59:25] like a lot of couples I think they they got together and it was like this heated passionate relationship and then when they fought it was also heated and passionate and they never worked through the issues they just argued and yelled and screamed to the point that

[00:59:42] they weren't communicating unless they were yelling and screaming at each other well definitely you know this was 13 things maybe strong couples don't do this is a great book but it was really almost more than a book that is about like individual self-help this one was more triggering

[01:00:04] for me because it's like the other people you might have affected with your problems so it's not just like about me improving it's that it just reminded me of like all these unhealthy situations from my past you know and when you're when you're old enough

[01:00:17] you have many unhealthy situations in your past and so it just I was thinking of a lot of things while I read this book and all you know we only briefly touched on all the stories you mentioned and all the advice you give and so on

[01:00:28] like we just hit the chapter titles but there's a lot of deep stuff in here that made me think thank you I'm glad and again I come by these lists honestly they're all mistakes I've made and things I continue to struggle

[01:00:41] but also things I've learned along the way like all right there's hope and then yeah because you've advised a lot of couples like your couples therapist so you've seen these patterns right and I've seen plenty of people who came in by themselves where they said

[01:00:53] you know my partner won't come in with me and some of the stories in the book I never actually met the partner I only met the person who came into my office and we still made a huge changes so I wanted people to know like

[01:01:02] even if your partner says no I'm not I'm never going to couples therapy you can go by yourself and make some pretty big changes too Do you ever see the TV show Entourage? No because there's a couple there's quite a few couples therapy scenes in there

[01:01:15] I'm just curious like what couples therapy scenes in movies or TV you felt were good couples therapists you know being led by good couples therapists Well you know that's an interesting question like I just there was a TV show built

[01:01:29] or reality show filmed in the town that I live in in Marathon, Florida recently and they had it was like a 90-day fiancé one of those spin-offs Oh yeah And so and um they had these different couples therapists working with all of these couples

[01:01:43] in a group therapy setting and I'm like screaming at the TV because it was so not realistic of what couples therapy was where they were like doing group therapy with these couples that had completely different problems and everybody was drinking and they're doing all of these things

[01:01:57] that would never ever actually happen in a couple's therapist office so I knew that that was a terrible example bad representation of it but in terms I don't know if I know any like and I don't watch a ton of TV or movies

[01:02:09] but what I would say is a example of a good couples therapist that's accurate most of the shows about therapy in general are really inaccurate the way that they portrayed on TV But you have so many like potential follow-up articles like on MVS of like

[01:02:24] you have such a wealth of material in here like it's but it's the beginnings of like a lot of depth that you could then explore in different articles so you're going to be able to market this for years this book Well good, you've given me hope, thank you

[01:02:35] Yeah What's um what's the next what's the next one you want to do? Ah that's a good question too we've been talking about doing something with business and leadership because my speaker's spirit wants something that has to do with business but I don't know

[01:02:49] I don't know yet what the next one is and I'm in a great place because usually my readers tell me when they read the first book they're like what about kids? So I wrote the parenting book and then all these women were like what about women?

[01:02:59] And so sometimes my readers tell me I think a financial one I think is very good because you know financial and health are you know if you think about it love financial and health are the three most important things because there's a phrase in marketing

[01:03:18] that you want to you want to good products to market are ones that help people get paid, get laid, lose weight so so it's basically you know financial relationships health and a financial one I can see because there was because I was very unhealthy financially

[01:03:41] and and did all the things that mentally strong people shouldn't do and I could only recover financially when I started doing important you know things for my finance you know I had to be mentally strong about my finances so I feel I feel like that's an important one

[01:03:58] I think so too I think that could be a helpful one for people because money is certainly an issue people talk about in therapy all the time as well Yeah because it's such an emotional issue money money is just it's like a replacement for emotions in many cases

[01:04:11] right you know and also I want to thank you Amy because I didn't mention this earlier but I was having a chess lesson like six months ago and my chess coach and I called you in the lesson to try to figure out like

[01:04:27] how I wasn't being mentally strong with how are you either I was learning or competing or whatever and you spent a good amount of time and then you wrote the 13 things you know or the 10 things actually I should do and think about in competition

[01:04:42] and when I was learning and trying to to study this thing that's been you know that I'm getting back to as I'm older and I really appreciate the time you spent on that You're very welcome well I have been thrilled to be able

[01:04:55] to follow your journey a little bit as you're trying to conquer your chess game as you grow older I'm trying to run faster as I get older and to figure out where that tipping point is I'm too old to keep running faster and so I've appreciated your journey

[01:05:08] in figuring out like at what point did you come to the place of acceptance versus when you keep saying no it's possible well I wonder too I have a that point has to happen at some point I guess and because like some things age I don't know

[01:05:23] there's a lot of particularly because like chess is mental running is physical although arguably there's a little bit of mental and running and there's a little bit of physical and chess like you need stamina and so on and so you wonder some people say

[01:05:39] oh age shouldn't play a factor at all and you see people who are 90 years old who run a marathon and you see people who are 80 years old who play chess very well and so there's all sorts of things you have to learn and then basically

[01:05:52] what I've kind of concluded is I have to be a better person in every aspect of my life to be a better person at one aspect of my life interesting if that makes sense yeah so and and you know why are you trying to run

[01:06:09] as fast as possible as opposed to just running I think it started like I don't know I was like in my late 30s and I was like I wonder how fast I can run a mile and then I was like I wonder if I could run it faster

[01:06:19] than I could when I was like 14 and I did and then I thought hmm so it just kind of happened like I'll follow if I could shave 15 seconds off what if I could shave another 15 seconds off and then I thought well might as well see

[01:06:29] exactly how fast I can run how fast can how fast can you run a mile like 613 ish of course 13's my lucky number so you're not going for a four minute mile I'm not I was just going to be happy with six which when I was a kid

[01:06:41] it was like 710 or something and so I thought all right if I could shave and I don't have a coach or anything and I don't want one I'm just kind of seeing like on my own like I feel like I could probably shave 13 seconds off

[01:06:51] if I had somebody who told me my form was terrible and but like it's fun for me and I'm afraid if I hire a coach and did it like super seriously some of the fun might be gone so I'm just doing it well

[01:07:03] okay that's a very interesting point too like maybe being relaxed about it helps you so so how long how long has it been since you hit 613 and you haven't been able to go past 613 so it was probably a year ago when I hit 613 a year ago

[01:07:17] so a year is a fairly long time to plateau because you're not only trying to go past the plateau you're running a race against age right because at some point 613 probably does get harder in another 10 years 613 613 might be harder than it is now right that's just a guess

[01:07:36] so if you did get a coach they would instantly identify what parts of your form are off and then like a week later you might hit you know 5.59 it's true that may be the case and for some reason like I don't want to do it it's like

[01:07:51] when I was a little kid I loved running so when I was like we have video of I think I was probably five and I do a lap around the house and make my mom time me and then like here I am at my age

[01:08:00] still doing the exact same thing right basically timing myself to run a mile and I and I love it and I don't want to lose the love of it and maybe I'm being ridiculous by thinking that a coach would make me take the fun out of it but

[01:08:13] I mean if you if you think it it's probably true so you know it's the whole thing about arguing for your limitations if you don't want to have a coach then don't have a coach but I've one intermediate like one intermediate thing you can do you're like

[01:08:28] in between what you're doing now in a coach is do you videotape yourself in the run nope so maybe you could video yourself running and watch it and then you could see where you feel like your form is off okay yeah you're right that's probably a middle step

[01:08:41] and that might be fun would you think that's not fun too because it's taking it too seriously um it might I don't know like it could be interesting I'm afraid it's like painful like you know it's kind of I find it painful to listen back to my podcast

[01:08:53] like I think it would be painful to watch myself run but like in in when I was doing stand-up comedy I didn't have a coach but I would videotape all my comedy sets and watch them later to see oh I said I'm too much or I

[01:09:07] did I move I was moving around the stage in a weird way I should be more consistent how I'm moving around the stage or more planned how I'm doing it so you so you might see like just basic things in your form that you could change

[01:09:19] and then you don't need a coach like that then you could just get 559 and and write the book you know or whatever it is you want to do and you know it's ridiculous like you knew I got six back abs in 30 days and like I had a coach

[01:09:31] yeah that was I've been running trying to run a time to mile it's been years right like I've literally done it a thousand times and like I haven't made any progress and yet with a coach your racing is similar to my chess in the sense that

[01:09:43] and here's where it's similar you're better than you were at 14 but somehow you haven't achieved this level where you feel satisfied with it right right exactly and you think that six minutes will do it and maybe it will like it's it's not the case that you know

[01:10:00] it really just might do it like you might be happy with 559 and say that's it right I'm done like I achieved that with comedy like I got to a point where I was happy and like I was done but but yeah but it's interesting what you're willing

[01:10:13] to do and not willing to do with it like the coach takes the final but that's why the only thing I could think is well a watching YouTube videos which is like a virtual coach and my guess is you've done that and have you asked

[01:10:25] like you and I had the same personal trainer when you got six pack ads Robert Briggs right so did you have you asked him I haven't actually I haven't at all like he used to have me run as part of my my training

[01:10:37] but it was just more about can you keep up with the speed on a treadmill like sure but I mean I'm sure he would have advice about it but you don't even and you talk to him so right I should probably ask him huh

[01:10:47] but there's a reason why you haven't right right it's and it's like I'm a therapist I'm supposed to know why I do certain things but something about it like it's almost a joke on social media every day I post like gonna try again for the billions time

[01:10:58] ha ha I didn't do it and and I'm okay with not doing it yet at the same time I'm like I get I get to do something tomorrow I get to try again maybe because when you hire a coach it makes the commitment more real maybe like

[01:11:12] that that now you once you hire a coach now it's possible for you to fail right and that I wonder if that's it like I'm not afraid of of like doing it but I'm afraid of like what if I really tried my heart as deep with a coach

[01:11:24] and then I found out I couldn't do it maybe that's what I'm afraid of yeah because then you disappoint not only yourself but the coach right and you don't want to disappoint another person with your issue and and but that's why I'm saying so maybe it might

[01:11:38] be okay to videotape yourself yes that there's that discomfort of watching yourself you know on camera which nobody likes to do but but but but then at least you're not bringing another person you're not bringing in an accountability partner that's going to be disappointed

[01:11:52] if if you don't succeed and it would be interesting now as an experiment to see if at least so it's been a year since you hit 613 it'd be interesting now as an experiment to see what things you can add to your routine that will get you to 612

[01:12:07] at the very least because now you've plateaued for a year there's two issues one is achieving the goal of less than six minutes the other is breaking free of your plateau because that's an annoying thing like oh you always want to see improvement so so it might be

[01:12:24] and I'm sure you've I mean I know how much you you take seriously diet and exercise and so on I couldn't get the six pack in three as with the same personal trainer and I couldn't do what you did and so maybe though

[01:12:41] are they mean the only thing I think that you can add is this video taping your your run because you again you've probably done all the diet things the sleep things the exercise things you're probably in great shape to do it are you know other women your age

[01:12:57] who can run faster than a six-minute mile I don't so you haven't joined like any kind of Facebook groups about running or things like that nope so that's really interesting because you're you're obviously really interested in it right and this is like I would definitely have

[01:13:15] tried to figure out anything to a get past the plateau and b get the goal I would have done anything I know it's a strange it's a strange thing right and like normally in anything else in my life like I would study it I would read it

[01:13:30] I would do it but there's something about this like I don't know if it's like I just want to do it on my own or again like it's fun like I thoroughly enjoy it but I guess like do you get something out of not succeeding and maybe

[01:13:42] maybe I just enjoy it like you know I don't want to crush every goal because then I'd have nothing to look forward to so perhaps I'm like well get something to do tomorrow I don't know yeah like are you afraid you'll stop running

[01:13:53] if you hit past six minutes maybe like in every day I'm like today's the day and I'm always like it's like a joke with everybody who sees me running too but like um and again I find it fun and I'm not upset when I don't hit the goal

[01:14:05] I'm just like ah today wasn't today maybe tomorrow but see the fact that you're not upset when you don't hit the goal does tell me it's not about the goal so because you would be upset if you didn't hit the goal right like you should be right otherwise

[01:14:21] you're not it doesn't you don't care that much right and so it's a strange it's a strange thing because again in every other area of my life like if I'm decide I want to do something and do it really really well like I'll

[01:14:32] put in all the effort to get there and this one I'm like I'm trying really hard and do it every day but I don't know I just like the running and I think it's fun and maybe it's just the challenge and the joy of attempting it knowing it

[01:14:42] probably isn't going to happen today deep down but and enjoying the the self-deprecating social media posts and the community around that that you probably get you know you probably enjoy that a lot yeah and maybe it's something like just really easy to fail at too if I know

[01:14:59] yeah right you know like you're you're you're you're the way you think of yourself doesn't change right if you fail every day like you don't say oh I'm the unhealthiest person in the world because you you don't think that because you know you're incredibly healthy anyway so

[01:15:15] and society is not valuing you differently if you go from six minutes and 13 seconds to under six minutes right so it's interesting I did it's strange and people who always be like Amy why don't you you know get a fitness watch and do this and people

[01:15:30] a lot of people some guy in a walker last week was offering me advice as I like to ran past him but like so I get a lot of unsolicited advice too and people are like really cheering me on which is cool but yeah no I think

[01:15:44] well this makes me think do you think you'll write a book at some point you're a great writer so you think you'd write a book at some point about something other than 13 things mentally strong ex don't do yeah I do I don't think this will be

[01:15:55] like the chicken soup for the soul with 8 million books in this series I do think one of these days hopefully I'll bridge out and have a different book too yeah maybe I can see runners high and you're what you get from running well you know then that reminds

[01:16:09] me of Haruki Murakami's book what I think about what I think about when I think about running do you know that no uh-uh so he's a great you know Japanese novelist he's he's written 20 or so novels he's he's probably a front runner for the Nobel Prize in literature

[01:16:28] every day like he's currently Japan's most respected and revered novelist I probably read everything he writes and but he also earlier on in this career he was a translator for Raymond Carver who is a famous short story writer in the U.S. who his most well-known story is

[01:16:46] what we talk about when we talk about love and so Murakami wrote a book something like what I think about or what I talk about when I talk about running and so a playoff on that and it was kind of his autobiography in a weird way

[01:17:02] but he's also an obsessive runner and writer and so it was it was um he talks a lot about running in that book and I don't know I was just curious if you had if you had read that but but that's essentially his version of

[01:17:16] what you're going through right now interesting and how it interweaves with how running interwoven with all the changes in his career and his life and so on so and what he got out of it and so it'd be interesting to explore like what you're getting out of it

[01:17:31] and what your what your true goals are here because you you always have I always notice with you you do have something that you're going for but it just might be unclear what you're going for here right right yeah and I don't know it's a strange one

[01:17:42] but I don't have the I don't have all the answers for this one for sure yeah that's good it's good not to have all the answers there is that too and being okay with that I don't have all the answers to some things in my life

[01:17:52] and I'm not okay with it right but which is why I brought you on to that that chess one by the way and this is we're still in the puggies but Ava Tick wants to know if you want to go on his podcast so I'll reintroduce you guys

[01:18:04] yes thank you I would love to be on his show yeah and good luck again marketing this one I really think this is this is a I mean all your books are great this one really touched me that 13 things mentally strong couples don't do just as much as

[01:18:21] 13 things mentally strong people don't do and again all your books are great but I think these for me personally these these had the most effect because 13 things mentally strong kids don't do I don't really I don't care as much right I'm not a kid anymore

[01:18:37] I think about my kids but they're on their own now so they got it they gotta find these things for themselves so but thank you Amy you've been on the podcast like 10 times I feel we've even talked about how to start a jewelry business

[01:18:52] right on the side so so I always appreciate you being around and being on the podcast and consider you a good friend and I look forward to to the next time we get together me too thank you James thank you