Latest / Libido Lounge / The 2 Rules That Beat the Gottman Method in Relationships with Zach Brittle (Part 1)

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The 2 Rules That Beat the Gottman Method in Relationships with Zach Brittle (Part 1) · Libido Lounge

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  Lot of complaints, particularly for the low desired partner that all physical contact is a
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  is a bid for sex.
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  And when that's true, it's very easy to kinda turn off or protect yourself because it doesn't
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  feel safe.
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  The world isn't training you for intimacy.
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  The world is training you for survival.
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  It's not until we are forced to grapple with another human being who wants to live
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  intimately with us that we have to train retrain some of those muscles.
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  Anytime that sex and shame get conflated with one another, it becomes a really powerful
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  deterrent from relaxation, from enjoyment, from presence.
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  Contempt is the outlier in that there's no redeeming value in contempt.
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  And I used to think contempt is I hate you, but contempt is I'm better than you.
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  The secret is twofold.
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  Hey, everyone.
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  We are back.
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  Another episode of the Libido Lounge.
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  I'm your host, doctor Diane Mueller, and we are back with Zach Brittle for part two.
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  If you did not listen to part one, make you sure go listen to that in the show notes.
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  We talked about things such as how to use things around the Gottman therapy, things
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  around perpetual problems versus manageable problems, how you deal with different types of
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  problems, how you work with them, how you can work and be married and be in relationship to
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  one person for so many years, but that relationship takes many different forms and how
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  to work with those transitional times and more.
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  So listen to part one below.
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  And as a quick reminder, Zach is a licensed mental health counselor.
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  He has been in this field for twenty years.
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  He's the host of the Marriage Therapy Radio podcast and author of the best selling books,
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  The Relationship Alphabet and The Marriage Therapy Journal.
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  So first of all, welcome back, Zach.
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  It's good to have you again.
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  Thank you.
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  I'm glad to be here.
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  I just found out I was part of a contest, so I'm I'm now I'm gonna be on my best behavior to
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  win the
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  We want you to win.
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  Win the best guess category.
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  Perfect.
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  Perfect.
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  And we're gonna let you guys know about that contest at the end for sure as well as how to
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  win the ZAC.
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  So stay tuned for that.
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  Now I wanna start going into where we kinda hit like, ended up that last show around talking a
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  little bit about desire discrepancy.
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  So Yeah.
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  I know that a lot of people and and it tends to be, but, course, this is not always how it
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  goes.
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  A lot of times, it's one partner, many times the male, but sometimes the female that is
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  wanting more sex and having no idea how to talk about it without it landing as pressure,
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  without it getting rejected.
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  So, you know, what's going can you talk to us about, like, what's going on for that person,
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  like, mentally, emotionally in that position that wants more?
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  Obviously, there can be many different things going on, but some ideas on what's going on and
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  maybe what's the better move than than doing it in this way that feels like it's pressure.
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  Mhmm.
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  Oh, man.
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  If if I could answer that question right now, then I'm sure it would be like the most famous
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  episode of all time.
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  Right?
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  Like Absolutely.
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  This is the age old question about how how to bridge the gap here.
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  I think, to me, I come at this from a couple different angles.
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  One is that when people are interested in growing or developing their intimacy, often in
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  here, that's code for sex.
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  Like, they want more sex.
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  But even if I say even if they say physical intimacy, that's still code for sex.
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  Like but intimacy, of course, is much more robust.
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  Right?
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  Intimacy is emotional intimacy.
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  It's intellectual intimacy.
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  Physical intimacy, I think, is different than sexual intimacy.
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  Physical intimacy is really about proximity.
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  How well do we do space together?
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  And then sexual intimacy, of course, is the all the sex part.
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  And I think there's also spiritual intimacy.
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  So, you know, if you want to tackle the sex part of your relationship, I think you what you
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  actually need to do is tackle the intimacy part of your relationship and kinda build up all
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  five of those areas.
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  And if we just narrow if we just narrow in on two of them for your audience, physical
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  intimacy versus sexual intimacy, The thing I the thing I think is really critical is that
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  people have more physical intimacy that's not sexual and more sexual intimacy that's not
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  physical.
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  And what I mean by that is, like, you need to have the ability to just walk around the park
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  together, maybe holding hands.
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  You need to be able to go to the bathroom with the door open.
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  You need to cook together in a way that doesn't strictly feel like foreplay.
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  I think there's a lot of complaints, particularly for the low desired partner, that
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  all physical contact is an is a bid for sex.
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  And when that's true, it's really easy to kinda turn off or protect yourself from anything like
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  physical intimacy because it doesn't feel safe.
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  Alternatively, I think people need to have more sexual intimacy that's not physical, meaning
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  they need to learn how to talk about it, and they need to learn how to, like, have sexual
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  intimacy on the walk around the lake.
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  Like, when they're saying, hey.
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  Well, what do you like, and what do you think, and how should we think about this, and what is
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  that going on?
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  And I think a lot of people sort of inherent and then invest in these old tropes around
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  sexuality that they never challenge or test.
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  And so it becomes a referendum sometimes on frequency and quality without really being a,
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  like, a a real investigation in what our sex life is meant to be for us.
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  So that's where I start.
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  I start you know, I'm not doing sex therapy in my office, but I am doing relationship therapy.
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  And sex is just part of a relationship, not all of a relationship.
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  And I think when you take your eye off the ball and you neglect to say the other pieces that
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  need attention, that's where things begin fall apart.
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  And I think it's a mistake to zero in on strictly the physical part of sexual intimacy
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  as a solution to this thing that isn't working for the relationship.
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  How do you feel like we get and do you feel like that we get trained out of intimacy in any
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  way?
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  Like and I know, like, any of these questions I'm asking, feel like we could go on for hours,
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  right?
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  So there might be many different answers for this, but what are some of the top ways that
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  you see that we get trained out of intimacy?
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  Where does shame play a role in this?
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  What other things are the
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  top starters, we're never trained into intimacy.
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  K.
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  Like, I don't I think when we are young and we are growing up in our homes without labeling it
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  strictly this way and almost no, like, 14 year old would say this.
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  But between, you know, eight to 14, you're not working on intimacy.
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  You're working on survival and sanity.
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  And so you develop those strategies, and you develop them as ways to help make sense of your
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  space on the planet.
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  And, you know, I think everybody has trauma.
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  Some of that trauma is capital t trauma.
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  Some of that comp trauma is lowercase t trauma, but the world is not helping you.
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  The world isn't training you for intimacy.
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  The world is training you for survival.
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  And so these traumas that are coming at you require you to if we stick with, like, purely
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  psychological language, require you to fight flight or fix, fight, flee, or fix, and we
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  learn those in our early adolescence, and we perfect them.
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  And it's not until we are sort of forced to grapple with another human being who wants to
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  live intimately with us that we have to kind of train retrain some of those muscles.
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  And so I don't know that we're trained out of it.
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  It's I think it's more like we're never trained into it unless it becomes something that we're
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  really intentional about or that our families are intentional about, you know, that are some
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  some families, obviously, they have they do a great job of cultivating that and helping
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  people understand how sex works and how sex works relative to shame and how, you know, sex
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  positive is different than what I mean, there's all kinds.
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  Right?
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  And so I think part of it is just, like, culturally, we're not we're not actually all
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  that interested in intimacy.
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  Well, there's a ton of interest in sex.
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  But, you know, I always tell people that the sexiest sex actually, here's here here's what I
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  always tell people.
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  If you think right now about all of the sex that you have encountered in the public domain,
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  like whether that's pornography or rom coms or, you know, even just, you know, magazines in the
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  checkout line at the grocery store, almost all of the sexy sex is not between a man and a
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  woman who are married to each other.
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  Yeah.
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  So really good point.
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  Sex is, you know, is scandalous or it's, you know, hyper sexy.
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  It's separate from the work of intimacy.
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  And so I think, you know, we've been trained that sex and intimacy aren't the same or
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  intimate sex is something that kinda belongs in this other other sacred place over there that
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  we don't really have access to and nobody's really talking about it.
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  I think one time, we got to go into Claire and Phil dump dumpy's bedroom from Modern Family.
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  One time, they were having sex and their kids busted on them.
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  It's the only time I can think of that I've seen a married couple on television having sex
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  with each other, and that's astounding.
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  It's almost like we've said, no, married sex isn't sexy.
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  It's something else.
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  And I don't I think you have to disabuse people of that.
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  Yeah.
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  It reminds me of the saying around that I think applies to a lot of situations in health,
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  wellness, psychology, which is it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
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  Meaning like, okay, well, was society.
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  Was programming.
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  It's TV.
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  It's media.
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  It's all these things that maybe programmed us out of, you know, or never into intimacy, like
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  you said.
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  We never got trained.
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  And so it might not be, like, your fault from childhood not having the program, but if you
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  want a different life, then it's still our, like, responsibility to say, okay.
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  Well, how do we wanna be doing things different, and how do we wanna train ourselves
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  into intimacy at this point?
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  Right?
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  Well, I think there's two questions that I always pose to clients about how to let's I'll
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  use I'll borrow your language.
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  Train yourself into intimacy, and particularly if it comes to sex.
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  Here's the two questions.
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  Number one is, what is it for?
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  When you thought when you're thinking about sex and the fact that you'd like to have more of it
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  or you'd like to have different sex, like, what why?
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  What is it for?
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  Because, you know, when you first meet somebody and sex is great and it's easy and it's
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  spontaneous and it's a thrill and maybe you're unmarried, you know, so it is still sexy, it's
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  almost like a job interview, and you wanna perform.
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  You wanna be at your and then you kinda get the job.
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  Maybe you get married or maybe you whatever, and you don't have to be as diligent as you
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  were before.
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  You know?
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  And then maybe you start having kids, and pregnancy sex is different than, you know, just
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  recreational sex.
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  But then maybe you've had your kids, and now is it for?
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  Because I've got the job.
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  I've got the kids.
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  What's what are we doing?
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  Like, is it for and so I think where it gets into trouble is where it's for him or where
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  it's for her, unless that's by agreement.
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  I do have one couple.
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  They had the healthiest sex life of all my clients.
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  They have sex twice a week.
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  Wednesday nights for him, Saturday mornings for her.
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  They have eliminated all questions about initiation and rejection.
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  They have eliminated all questions about who is in charge of a particular moment.
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  They've eliminated all expectation for how whether it's good or not.
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  What it is for them is consistent.
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  It's a priority.
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  They are creative.
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  They're thoughtful.
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  They take care of each other, but they're really clear about what it's for, and they have
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  a really healthy sex life.
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  And then the second question is what counts?
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  Like, if sex is you know, only counts if we have p and v sex that both of us orgasm, then,
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  you know, good luck.
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  I hope that that I hope you get that.
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  But it's kinda hard to to accomplish, you know, especially with any kind of consistency unless
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  you build that skill, which is fine.
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  But, like, does it count to make out in the shower?
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  Does it count to just, like, you know, pet each other while you're watching a movie under the
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  blanket while your kids are still in the room?
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  Does it count to talk about it?
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  Does it count to walk into a store and, you know, whack each other with dildos and laugh at
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  the hilarious stuff that you're never gonna like, does that count?
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  Because if the only thing that counts is intercourse, then it's very easy to put a lot
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  of pressure on or rather the pressure that is on that, it makes it very easy to avoid.
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  You know?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  I couldn't agree more.
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  I think the way we define it is so limited.
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  And the moment we limit it, the moment we really stick ourselves in a box that Yeah.
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  It's just extremely hard to make everybody happy and get their, you know, needs, like, met
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  and all of that.
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  I I wanna also talk about shame.
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  Mhmm.
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  So do you work with shame a lot in your work?
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  Sure.
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  How does this play a role?
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  Do you find like, how much is, like, shame part of our lives?
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  Does does this come up with majority of your clients?
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  How does this impact intimacy?
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  And intimacy, let's broaden intimacy in this question beyond even the physical and sexual to
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  just the wider spectrum of intimacy like you talked about.
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  I just wanna take a quick break to say one of the number one things that leads to a lack or
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  just a slowing of passion in the relationship is thinking that our partner's body and mind
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  and spirit is going to be the same today as tomorrow.
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  So one of the things that happens for so many bodies especially for female bodies is that
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  with time, the pleasure needs change.
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  And we get into those sexual scripts and those habits of doing the same thing over and over
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  and over again, not always realizing that our pleasure body is wanting something else.
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  This creates a lack of passion, a desire, a lack of orgasm, and it's one of the reasons why
• 12:04
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• 12:35
  Now, let's get back to our episode.
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  I mean, think, of course, shame is part of our lives.
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  Like, we we we kind of particularly in the in the West, we sort of grew up in this pair
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  puritanical sort of umbrella that helped us discern, like, what was okay and what wasn't
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  okay.
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  We've recently coined this corner of the sexual lexicon called sex positive.
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  It's almost like we needed to add that word.
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  Nobody added the word sex nobody's sex negative.
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  I'm sex negative.
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  I'm sex negative.
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  Like, we didn't need to classify that one.
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  It's a baseline is that we're kind of kind of shameful about it.
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  We kinda have a little bit of a, like a, I don't know, like a prudishness about it.
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  Unless you don't.
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  I think that shame is obviously it can go both ways.
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  You can have you can have a lot of shame, be full of shame.
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  You can have no shame and be shameless.
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  You can you can be somebody who just walks around with entitlement and whatnot.
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  And so I think the the target is something called appropriate shame.
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  Appropriate shame is probably in the neighborhood of the thing that you labeled by
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  saying it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
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  Like, there are things that we ought to feel bad about and things that we ought to be
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  working through and thinking about.
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  I don't think on the surface there's anything wrong with sex.
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  Obviously, it's a it's a necessary part of human propagation and development.
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  But anytime that sex and shame get conflated with one another, it becomes a really powerful
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  deterrent from relaxation, from enjoyment, from presence, because I gotta protect myself from
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  this thing that has been, I don't know, dogging me around for thirty years.
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  I can speak to shame that's rooted in finding a stack of my dad's Playboys when I was a five
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  year old kid.
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  You know?
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  I can I can speak to shame sexual shame that's attached to being an evangelical and the height
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  of the purity movement and being like, I guess I need to not do this or I'm going straight to
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  hell kind of thing?
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  And so I think when you when you when you put messages around people that aren't
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  developmentally appropriate, they don't have anywhere to go except for shame.
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  And so that is, I think, the the thing that we've sort of propagated culturally for
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  centuries.
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  And I think, you know, what's cool about my kid's generation is they're they're not
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  grappling with the same kinds of messages that which is interesting to see, but certainly
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  certainly my generation, the fifties and the forties are are trying to figure out whether or
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  not it's okay to feel pleasure.
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  Like, that's a weird thing.
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  Like, of course, it's okay to feel pleasure, but somehow, you know, maybe that did get
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  trained out of us.
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  But, again, I think that's more likely it never got trained into us.
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  My dad certainly wasn't, like, coaching me up about appropriate sexuality.
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  He was hiding his own in the basement under a stack of newspapers.
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  Mhmm.
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  Yeah.
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  I think that was very, very, very common.
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  And I wanna talk now about contempt, which I know is one of the Gottman's strongest
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  predictors of divorce.
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  But before we do that, just want to remind everybody as always that there's always so many
• 15:21
  different root causes for why intimacy goes awry.
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  And everything we're talking about today in this podcast, as well as so many others, are
• 15:30
  all things that should be considered in order to bring oneself and one partner to a better
• 15:35
  and, you know, more fruitful, intimate relationship in all areas.
• 15:40
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• 16:08
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  great.
• 16:14
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  blood flow, more joy, more feeling to that area, and, you know, in many ways help us
• 16:24
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• 16:28
  all the shame around.
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• 16:32
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• 16:36
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• 16:39
  Now, contempt.
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  So like I said, the Gottman, this is Gottman's single biggest predictor of divorce.
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  So I'm curious, have you do you feel like with what you've noticed, do you feel like this is a
• 16:51
  likely a true thing?
• 16:52
  Have you seen anything in your work?
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  And, obviously, we're trying to distill this down and oversimplify things with this
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  question.
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  But what have you seen in your work has been, like, the maybe the top couple things that are
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  either the biggest predictors of divorce or the biggest things that you've seen that had led to
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  people walking out of your office and being like, yeah.
• 17:11
  We have some of the strongest interrelational skills and are very happy in the relationship.
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  Let me let me talk specifically about contempt because contempt is one of the four horsemen of
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  the apocalypse.
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  Those are four behaviors that doctor Gottman surfaced as, like, when these are present and
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  uncorrected, they tend to predict relationship demise.
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  Three of them, the first three, the way at least the way I list them, criticism,
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  defensiveness, stonewalling, I actually think have a little bit of redeeming value.
• 17:36
  I think the world needs critical people.
• 17:37
  I think the world needs defensive people.
• 17:39
  I think stonewallers are generally doing the right thing.
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  They're just doing it in an way.
• 17:43
  Contempt is the outlier in that there's no redeeming value in contempt.
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  And I used to think contempt is I hate you, but contempt is I'm better than you.
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  An intimacy is not possible when one partner believes themselves to be above or below the
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  other.
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  You can't you can't have intimacy with somebody that you are that you think is beneath you, and
• 18:01
  you can't enjoy intimacy with somebody who you think thinks they're above you.
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  And so the real work of not only staving off divorce, but of achieving intimacy is finding
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  that space where you realize that we're the same.
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  We're we both are bringing something amazing and wonderful and human and vulnerable to this
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  space of intimacy, and we're doing that by agreement in order to increase, you know,
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  pleasure and connection for us both.
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  And so the thing about contempt is some of us have it.
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  We don't even know it.
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  You know?
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  Like, contempt is I'm better than you because I'm a man.
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  Right?
• 18:34
  And and, again, the culture has been affirming men for centuries.
• 18:38
  I'm better than you because I'm the mom.
• 18:39
  Right?
• 18:40
  The mom the mommy blogosphere, whatever is so, you know, intent on knocking out of the park
• 18:45
  that sometimes there's no room for the dad.
• 18:47
  I'm better than you because I'm faster.
• 18:49
  I'm stronger because I know more Game of Thrones trivia because I'm nicer or I'm better
• 18:54
  at therapy.
• 18:54
  That's also contemptuous.
• 18:55
  Like and so, you know, part of what you have to do is stop looking for ways to elevate yourself
• 19:01
  above your partner even unconsciously.
• 19:03
  And the way that you do that is you start elevating your partner.
• 19:07
  You start cherishing what you have.
• 19:08
  You start leaning into gratitude.
• 19:10
  You start finding ways to speak their love language.
• 19:13
  You start you start, you know, loving them in self sacrificial ways to send the message, I'm
• 19:19
  not better than you.
• 19:19
  We're the same.
• 19:20
  We we want the same thing.
• 19:22
  We want we want to live a long, happy, connected life.
• 19:25
  We wanna set a good example for our kids, and we the only way we can do that is together.
• 19:28
  That's where you have a chance.
• 19:29
  And when you don't do that, in particular, when you are fueling some of these myths about who's
• 19:35
  better, and and I use the word myths because any of those things that I just said is just
• 19:39
  made up by me.
• 19:40
  If you and I got into a contest right now about which one of the two of us was better, all we
• 19:45
  all I have to do is change the point of comparison.
• 19:48
  You know?
• 19:48
  You're like, I'm better because I have blonde hair.
• 19:50
  I'm like, well, I'm better how guys have short hair.
• 19:51
  And then who who knows?
• 19:52
  Who who cares?
• 19:53
  Who's winning?
• 19:53
  Right?
• 19:54
  Like, it's just you gotta stop changing the point of attack, be in the moment, and elevate
• 19:58
  your partner in a way that says to them, I value you, and I value you as a critical part
• 20:02
  of my life.
• 20:02
  You make my life better.
• 20:04
  And there from there, intimacy is possible.
• 20:05
  Yeah.
• 20:06
  I love it.
• 20:06
  And such a it's one of the best definitions of contempt I think I've heard.
• 20:10
  So thank you so much for that.
• 20:12
  And You're welcome.
• 20:13
  Just for the kind of final, like, question today before we let you go and talk a little
• 20:18
  bit about how people get ahold of you and all of that and Yeah.
• 20:21
  Help people vote for you so we can have you back before we do all of that.
• 20:24
  Is there anything I would like, you talked a little bit about contempt and kind of the
• 20:27
  opposite around, you know, edifying or elevating the other person and just really
• 20:32
  helping to them to feel like you're on the same team.
• 20:34
  My last question is, is there anything else that you've seen as a general rule that has
• 20:39
  been one of the more helpful things for couples across the board to keep their relationship
• 20:44
  strong?
• 20:44
  Yeah.
• 20:44
  I go back to the same I sort of have the same thing that I always imagine if anybody asked me
• 20:49
  on an airplane, like, what what what's the secret?
• 20:52
  Yeah.
• 20:52
  The secret is twofold.
• 20:53
  The secret number first part is something that we talked about in the last episode, which is
• 20:56
  really the idea of any healthy relationship requires two functional adults, two wise
• 21:00
  adults, two sober adults, two people who are coming to the table with their best sell sense
• 21:06
  of self on behalf of the relationship.
• 21:08
  When you have that, you your lights your light speed your light years ahead of everybody else.
• 21:12
  The second one is also pretty simple.
• 21:14
  It's do more things that your partner likes and fewer things that your partner doesn't like.
• 21:18
  You can do that without being an adult.
• 21:20
  Right?
• 21:20
  And it sounds something like, fine.
• 21:22
  I'll do it your way.
• 21:23
  You know?
• 21:25
  Or I I guess I'll I guess you'll never count on me to do that again.
• 21:28
  As an adult, And then two people are doing that together where they're trying to show up with
• 21:33
  their best kind of with their best foot forward, and then they're efforting to serve
• 21:37
  their partner by doing things that they like and not doing things they don't like.
• 21:40
  That's the secret.
• 21:41
  And the reality is that that goes for every single couple.
• 21:45
  You know?
• 21:45
  The Gottman method is gonna say, do these things, which they're all good, but they might
• 21:49
  not work for some couples.
• 21:51
  Like, you know, think about money in an egalitarian way.
• 21:54
  That's generally a good principle, but maybe it doesn't work for a certain couple who they have
• 21:58
  organized their finances in a different way where one is very clearly in the driver's seat
• 22:02
  and the other one is not.
• 22:03
  I mean, that might work for them.
• 22:04
  So but what never works is when you know how to please your partner and then you don't do it,
• 22:10
  or you know how to antagonize your partner and then you do do it.
• 22:13
  That is never gonna lead you to something like a healthy relationship.
• 22:16
  I love it.
• 22:17
  And thank you so much for that.
• 22:19
  And as a reminder, everybody, vote for Zach.
• 22:22
  Download.
• 22:23
  Share this with your friends, partners, so we can get him back for our end of the year
• 22:28
  episode.
• 22:28
  Remember, always invite our best performing our best performing guests to come back where we
• 22:32
  get to do a deep dive.
• 22:33
  So we'd love for this to be a continued conversation with you, Zach.
• 22:37
  I do wanna make sure before we let you go that you tell us a little bit about your Substack
• 22:41
  again.
• 22:42
  We will have a link for that as well as your podcast and your books and other ways for
• 22:46
  people to follow you and get in touch.
• 22:48
  But if you wouldn't mind just, like, letting us know anything you wanna want us and my audience
• 22:52
  to know there, that would be great.
• 22:53
  Sure.
• 22:54
  So the Internet's easy.
• 22:55
  My name is Zach Bodil.
• 22:55
  I think I might be the only one, so you can find me that way.
• 22:58
  The podcast comes out every Tuesday.
• 23:00
  It's called marriage therapy radio.
• 23:01
  I the format is that I interview couples, and I sometimes couples come on and they wanna they
• 23:06
  ask me, and sometimes I go find couples that I wanna talk to, but I've gotten to have a
• 23:09
  variety of diverse conversations with people from all over the map, which is very fun.
• 23:14
  And then on Instagram, I'm at marriage therapy radio.
• 23:17
  And on Substack, again, it's my name, Zach Biddle, or it's called stuff I write.
• 23:21
  So can go to stuffiwrite.com, and that's where I'm just kind of tinkering with ideas and
• 23:26
  themes that matter to me.
• 23:28
  And so, yeah, that's that's easy enough to find me.
• 23:30
  Amazing.
• 23:31
  I love it.
• 23:31
  Well, thank you again for your time.
• 23:33
  Thank you everybody for being here.
• 23:35
  We'll see you next week on another episode of the Libido Lounge.
• 23:38
  Very cool.
• 23:39
  Thanks.
• 23:42
  Thank you for listening to the Libido Lounge.
• 23:44
  Please don't keep me a secret.
• 23:46
  Please share this with your friends.
• 23:48
  You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as how to work with me at mylibidodoc.com.