Latest / The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show / Episode 47, Season 2: Why Smart People Stay in Toxic Relationships (And Can’t Walk Away)

Transcript

Episode 47, Season 2: Why Smart People Stay in Toxic Relationships (And Can’t Walk Away) · The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the lovedc Podcast. I'm your co host Raina
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Butcher here with our host, doctor Sarah Hensley, the owner, founder,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and CEO of the love Doc relationship coaching services and
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the Love Dog Podcast, which will soon be the Doctor
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Sarah Hensley Show. You can find her at the lovedoc
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: dot com or on any social media handle at doctor
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Sarah Hensley.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Hello. Hello, y how's it going good?
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Good? How about you?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I'm good. So I just want to tell you guys,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Sarah got mad at me this morning for the first
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: time ever in our working relationship or our friendship, because
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I texted her and I was like, hey, so let's
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: go casual today and she was like, yes, I was
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: thinking the same thing. And so I have this like
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: outfit on it looks like.
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: And so outfit that looks like she's going to a
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: wedding shower. And I have a sweatshirt and leggings on.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: So that's my definition of casual. I got over it quickly.
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: I was or I made it into a joke.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: I really know.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: You opened the door and you're.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Like, what that is not casual? It is not It
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: is not casual.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: Looks like your gold necklace with your beautiful jewels is
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: not casual.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: And so now we've said the standard casual is leggings
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: in a sweatshirt. Yeah, so anyway we know now, so
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: today we want to talk about something that I think
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: is you know.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: Quite perplexing prevalent.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's why smart people stay in bad relationships.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: So tell us because we both did it.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: We both did it, Yes, we did it. And there's
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: some psychological reasons why this happens. So, you know, you
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: in your life may have somebody or it might be
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: you who is incredibly self aware, incredibly intelligent, and you
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: are in a relationship that you know is total crap.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: You know it's not meeting your needs, you know you're
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: not being treated well, yet you continue to stay. And
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: the hard question I have to ask people in my
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: coaching practice with a lot of empathy, is what is
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: going on with you that you are still staying in
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: this relationship? Because at some point I said it before,
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: I'll sit again. You are no longer a victim. You
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: are a volunteer. And what you are not changing, you
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: are choosing. And that's hard words.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Stays there and I know that the one pushback or
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: objective you often get is well, you know, I'm scared
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: to leave or.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I'm finances kids.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: And I get that those are really hard barriers, and
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: I want to make sure that I'm sensitive to understanding
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: that those are hard barriers. But they almost can always
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: be overcome. And it is far better for your kids
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: to be witnessing at least one parent saying hey, this
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: is not what love is, than them witnessing a very
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: toxic marriage. That's what is terrible for your kids. Yeah,
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: I fel witness a toxic marriage. I find this interesting
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: in your notes. Being intelligent does not protect you from
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: staying in the wrong relationship. Sometimes it actually makes you
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: more likely to stay. Yes, it can make you more
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: likely to stay because highly intelligent people can logic and
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: reason themselves into staying. Yeah, makes sense, whereas people with
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: lesser logic and reasoning skills will just be like, well,
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: this is bad, I'm out, yeah right, But self aware,
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: emotionally intelligent people try and try and try and try
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: and try to twist them solves into a pretzel to
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: make it work because their logic and reasoning skills are
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: so high that has worked for them in so many
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: other areas of their life. Maybe logic and reasoning works
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: really well at work, and they can solve complex problems.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: So if you're good at solving complex problems, it makes
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: it more likely you'll stay in a bad relationship because
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: you believe you can solve it. Yeah. Right, And so
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: here's the truth. You know, You're intelligence just doesn't protect
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: you from staying in the wrong relationship.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: And so.
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  Speaker 2: What's the answer.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: What is the answer? Well, first let's talk about why
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: this happens a little bit. You know, it's one of
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: those things where it's intelligence versus what's happening in your
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: nervous system. So your IQ lives in your prefrontal cortex,
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: that's your intelligence, but your relationship patterns in relational needs
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: live in your nervous system.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Totally different, right, Okay, And so.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: Your relationship is governed by your attachment needs, your emotions,
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: your reward systems, and your identity. And so there are
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: a lot of reasons that people stay in bad relationships.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: One is identity loss. And I talked about this in
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: my breakup workshop last week. That research shows that when
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: we're with somebody for a long time, we take on
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: aspects of their identity. You know, I've taken on aspects
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: of Donald's identity.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Sor I've taken on aspects of Josh's He's taken on
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: aspects of mine.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Donald is the most hilarious person on
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: the face of the earth.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: I am convinced there is nobody funnier than him. And
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: it's crazy.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I'm just kidding you should think that way.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: He's so witty and he just he always says things
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: at the exact right moments, and I feel like my
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: humor has increased, Like I'm more witty as a result
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: of being around him. I've picked up on it. I'll
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: never be as witty as my husband, Yeah, I'll I'll
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: never get to Donald, which is why they need to
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: start a podcast, because I swear to goodness.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Okay, for instance, the Tiger Woods thing.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: Okay, poor Tiger every decade he's in a car crash, right,
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: just hire a.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Driver, dude, you're like a bazillionaire.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Hire a driver. It's not rocket science.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: Donald was just he has cracked so many jokes about
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: Tiger Woods lately that have just because they just hit
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: at the exact right time, right, even like relating them
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: to our situation. You know, at least you're not like
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: tiger Woods and like in some way like makes it
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: relevant to our situation. So anyway I've taken on aspects
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: of his identity. He loves to golf. I've started golfing.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: I suck, but it is what it is. I'm going
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: to take lessons and I really enjoy it. Never in
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: a million trillion years what I thought I would like
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: to golf. And so when you detach from someone technically,
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: then you lose part of your identity, and that is
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: incredibly destabilizing. And that is part of what makes it
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: so gut wrenching, because your identity is who you are,
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: It is what you show to the world, it is
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: who you come home to in the relationship to self,
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: and when part of that is lost, it can feel
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: soul crushing. So a lot of people fear the pain
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: of detachment, one because of the identity loss, two because
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: their nervous system has learned to be afraid of painful emotions.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: Their entire lives and all and securely attached people are
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: that way. They just have different strategies of avoiding emotions.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: Anxious people, band aid avoidant people. So we've talked about
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: that in our episode in Somatic processing.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: And so when.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: Your values to be respected, to be treated well, to
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: be happy are in conflict with your behavior, which is
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: staying in a relationship that does not produce those results,
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: you end up experience something called cognitive dissonance. And I
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: think I've explained this on the pod, but I'll go
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: back because it's very relevant. It is a term that
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: appears in pop psychology, but it is a very science
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: based theoretical term that was actually coined in nineteen fifty
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: eight by a guy named Leon Festinger, and it was
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: the wooden spool study.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: And I know I've talked about this, but it's a
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: very interesting study.
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  Speaker 4: I don't think you have talked about the woods the
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: wooden spool study really. Oh my gosh, that's like social
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: psychology one on one. If you're ever in graduate school
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: for social psychology, it will be on your comp exams,
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: I promise. Leonfesting or nineteen fifty eight, the wooden spool Study.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: Leon Festinger brought a bunch of college students into his
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: research lab and he had them organizing wooden spools in
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  Speaker 4: a box, like the most boring task ever. Okay, not fun.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: Stacking wooden spools up in a box not fun? And
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: they had to do this for like thirty minutes to
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: an hour.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: This was in the fifties.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: There were no cell phone, so people's brains weren't dopamine
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: addicted anyway, so maybe they could handle it a little
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: bit better than we could. And then he randomly assigned
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: groups of people to either be paid twenty dollars for
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: this experiment or one dollar. But part of the experiment
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: was at the end they had to go out to
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: the people waiting in line for the next group of
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: people to come in. He paid them either twenty dollars
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: or one dollar to go and tell those people waiting
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: outside that were getting ready to come into the experiment
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  Speaker 4: that the experiment was really fun and interesting that they
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: would enjoy it. So organizing the wooden spools actually wasn't
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: the main part of the experiment. The main part of
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: the experiment was them telling people like basically lying and saying,
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: this is really fun. And then afterwards they measured how
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: fun did you actually think the experiment was? How fun
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: was it to organize these windspools? The people that were
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: paid twenty dollars said it was boring as hell. I
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: didn't enjoy it. This sucked, but you know, you gave
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: me twenty bucks, which in ninety fifty eight twenty bucks
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: was like a lot of money, right, maybe like two
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: hundred dollars today, right, And so they were very honest.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: The people that were paid one dollars did something different.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: They said it actually, it wasn't that bad. It was
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: kind of interesting. It was kind of cool, Like I
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: enjoyed sacking them, like.
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  Speaker 2: We're both groups told that it was exciting, the twenty
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  Speaker 2: dollars and the one dollar.
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  Speaker 3: No.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: No, they were both told to tell the other people
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: it was exciting. Oh okay, after they were done. That
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: was the only that was the independent variable, whether you
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: were given twenty dollars or given one dollar, that was
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: the independent variable. They all did the same thing and
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: told the other people the same thing. So why did
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: the people who were paid twenty dollars, why were they
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: honest and said this experiment sucked? Were the people that
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: were paid one dollar said it was fun?
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Why do you.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Think I really don't do.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Whatever the jeopardy theme is here, it's because the people
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: that were paid one dollar experienced cognitive dissonance. And cognitive
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: dissonance is this idea that your values don't mature match
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: your actions, or your beliefs don't match your actions, you're
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: gonna have to go down. And so, yes, I'm not done.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: So in order to reconcile that difference in your psyche,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: you have to either change reality, change your what you
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: believe is happening, right, or change your behavior. So they
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: changed their reality about how they thought about the experiment
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: because they couldn't reconcile. How did I lie for just
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: a dollar? That doesn't that doesn't match up with my
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: belief systems as being an honest person. So I have
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: to make the experiment more fun in my mind in
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: order to justify why I told them that.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: So let's apply this to the bad relationship. Right, you
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: rewrite the reality of your relationship. You convince yourself it's workable,
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: it's doable, it's better than you know it could be.
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: I can handle it. I haven't tried everything. Whatever and
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: what people do, especially those that have attachment anxiety. And
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: I did this in my relationship, but I bet you
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: did it in your relationship too, which was you would
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: take mediocre crap that wasn't even that special and blow
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: it up to make it mean something big. Well, he
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: grilled steaks the other night. He quote cooked for our family. Yeah,
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: so he's a good husband. Yeah, just like basic things. Yeah,
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: Like it didn't matter that he locked me in the
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: laundry room last week, right because he was angry at me,
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: But he cooked steaks.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I used to use that a lot.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: But he's such a good gift giver. Oh, but he
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: gives such good gifts.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Oh, but he said that I would do the good
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: provider thing. He's really good with money. He's good with
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: our finances.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I can't even mind he just screwed somebody else.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but he literally comes home smelling like perfume. So
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: you rewrite reality, you don't face the truth. And a
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: lot of what I have to do in coaching is
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: staring at people and telling them really hard truths. Sure,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: like especially when their partner is cheating or like still
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: in contact with an affair partner and they're putting up
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: with it, and they're rationalizing why they're putting up with it,
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: and I have to tell them, you should not be
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: here under no circumstances. Is that okay? That your spouse
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: is still in contact with their affair partner.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: It's so interesting to hear like the psychology behind this,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: because so many people are just like, well they just
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: have a false narrative or you know, they're delusional or
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: you know, but there's actually this brain component there.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Is then there's more brain components.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: Ye keep going, I love whom I love when you
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: dig into the science of the science. So there's intermittent
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: reinforcement right in bad relationships. We've talked about this a
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: billion times. In bad relationships, they're not always bad all
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: the time. If they were, we wouldn't be there. But
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: because there are moments of good, like the time where
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: they cook steak and eat dinner with the family and
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: they're yucking it up and they're joking, and you see
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: your family at the dinner table and you're like, Okay,
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: this is a good moment, this is great, this is
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: what I want. This is what I want. Can be
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: followed by five bad moments, but that little bit of
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: good let your brain up with a lot of dopamine
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: and serotonin, and so you're chasing the good. You're continually
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: addicted to chasing the good because you don't know when
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: it's going to come back. Intermittent reinforcement always creates anxiety
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: and addiction to trying. It's the construct behind everything that's addictive.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: So relationships, even bad ones, can be extremely addictive. Not
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: being able to process emotions effectively is another reason people
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: stay you band aid with other people. If you only
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: know how to coregulate and self instead of self regulate,
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: you know that facing the pain of detachment is not
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: possible for you because you can't self regulate your way
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: through it. You can't process your way through it. You
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: have to rely on someone else to help you co regulate.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: And even though you might not know that logically in
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: terms of what is going on, your nervous system knows it.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: So it's extremely resistant to detachment. So more reasons, Yeah,
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: we're gonna make this quick episode. More reasons effort, justification,
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: and the sunk cost fallacy. This is beautiful social psychology.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: I love my discipline so much. It's so fascinating, so
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: fascinating to me. I loved I loved college, I loved
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: graduate school because to me, just learning about human behavior
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: was just so so like I just.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: It enveloped me. And that is why at the core,
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: like I don't want to quit. I don't want to quit.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: I love what I do. I love helping people.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I don't either work not we're we're not paying.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: I just had a moment of a little temper tantrum.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: I regulated my way through it. Yeah, my husband co
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: regulated my way through it.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: I beat my head against the wall. It was fine,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: it was fine.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: Let's talk about effort justification. Interesting study. I know I've
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: talked about this in the pod, but you know, I
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: don't remember because we're almost don't remember.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, so it's worth mentioning again.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: The first study ever on effort justification was in fraternities,
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: where they randomly assigned people in fraternity rush to rush
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: the same fraternity, but one group was required to have
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: a lot of hazing. And if you don't know what
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: hazing is, okay, hazing is when they treat you like
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: absolute dirt as you're rushing, right for Greek Rush. Okay,
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: sorties do it, praternities do it. I think there's a
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: lot of laws around it now, so I think it
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: doesn't happen that much. But back in the day, yeah,
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, funny side story, Okay, hazing was kind
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: of on its way out When I was rushing in
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: two thousand and four.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: There was a little bit but not much.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: We found these old photo albums of our sorority in
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: the eighties and the hazing that they went through and
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: they documented it.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Oh my, were.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: They like tied up in their underwear and oh.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: My gosh, yeah, like just pure humiliation. I can't even
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: put into words on the parties and how out of
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: control they were. We would have been sent to what
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: was it called standards. It's called standards when we were
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: the standards. But okay, so if you were too out
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: of control on a party and somebody took a picture
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: of it, you were going to standards, like you were
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: going to get a punishment. Apparently that in seventies and
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: eighties we found all these albums they didn't care people's
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: boobs were out like it was, And that was more
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: in like the seventies. Right in the eighties it was
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: a little tape yeah, and then we were in the
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: early two thousands slowly tapered off AnyWho.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: That was a side story.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: So in this in this experiment, they were randomly assigned
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: to either have hard hazing like they had to go
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: through a lot, or very soft hazing. They just had
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: to write a paragraph about why they wanted to be
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: in the fraternity and then at the end of the day,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: fraternity was a fake fraternity and they didn't know it
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: and it sucked. Okay, like the fraternity was like really boring,
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: Like they had like two months in the fraternity and
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: nothing really happened.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: But just like meetings.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: And then again, just like the cognitive dissonance study, they
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: asked folks to actually rate, like how much are you
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: enjoying your time in the fraternity. The people that were hazed,
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: what do you think they said?
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: They said, it's great, it's great, I love it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: I'm glad I did it. The people that just had
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: to write the paragraph, what do you think? They said,
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: it's boring, it's boring. I think I don't think I
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: want to stay. Yeah, it's a principle called effort justification.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: The more effort you put into something, the more you
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: will justify continuing it. And that happens in relationships, especially
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: in bad ones, when you twist yourself into a freaking
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: pretzel to try to make it work.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes sense.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: I've wasted all this time, I've wasted all this energy.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: I've given everything of myself. We have kids, we have finances.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: I get it. I did too.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: I thought my husband would die if I left him,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: and he did. Yeah, you can't get any more risky
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: than that in terms of trying to leave other than
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: you dying. And I was afraid of that too, Yeah,
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: I thought, you can tell him.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: I was afraid.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: I was afraid for my life when I left my marriage,
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: desperately afraid for my life. Thought for sure I would
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: be buried in a construction site, under concrete and no
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: one was going to ever find me. And I did
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: it anyway, And I don't know how. I don't know
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: how I got out. I look back and I'm like, God,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: I can't believe I actually did it.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: God, I mean, I think God put things in your
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: path to show you you could, you know. I mean
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that's when we met, not that I was I was
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: just one piece of the story. But you know, there's
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: you have multiple pieces to the story. Everybody has multiple
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: pieces to their story. And you know, you know, He
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I think put me in your path to show you that, like,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: single mothering wasn't that hard. You know it was possible,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you could do it, you know, hard but not impossible, right,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: hard but not impossible.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and then there's something called the sunk cost fallacy.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: And this applies to dieting as well as relationships. So
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: let me just give the dieting example. You order a meal,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: it's huge, right, because in America they give us a
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: huge portion. Right, Like you go to Europe or you
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: go to the Virgin Islands and you're like, it's like
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: a in America. It's like, here's your triple cheeseburger with
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: you know, your extra double fries and your gigantic coat. Yeah,
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: you can order this meal and you can eat some
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: of it and get full and look at it on
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: the rest of your plate, right, And so why don't
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: want to throw this away? That's wasting it. I should
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: just eat it. And if you grew up in the
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: eighties with our boomer parents, were you were going to
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: clean your fricking ploint, You're not getting up from this
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: table to eat every bite.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: You'd be sick.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But then your mother would say a moment on
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the hips a light or a moment on the lips,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: a lifetime on the head.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So it was like this big hypocrisy.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: We grew up exactly this day.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: So you can throw that in the trash and you
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: still spent the same amount of money or it can
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: go in your belly and you can feel miserable and
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: gain the weight, and you still spent the same amount
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: of money, which is more productive throwing it away.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Throwing it away.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know about you, but in my house,
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: we don't waste food. We put the leftovers in a
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: container and we put it in the fridge, and then
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: we let it go back exactly, and then it sits
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: there for two weeks and goes back.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Then we throw it away.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: Okay, And so we do that. In relationships.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: It is a sunk cost.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: You are not going to get these days back, my friend,
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: but you can spend them better in the future. Try
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: intervention first. Always try intervention first, and couples counseling. Ever,
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: I would say eight out of ten people that land
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: in my practice have tried couples counseling and failed.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: That's like the underlying That is the underlying thing that
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: we see.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: Ye.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: I am a last hope Obi. I am the Obi
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: wan right one.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: And I'm not saying I can save every relationship, sure,
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: but I will tell you if it can't be saved,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: I am very direct. I will say you guys need
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: to get divorce. I will tell you. I will let
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: me be the person that decides for you if you
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: need that.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But the fact that you've had people who have
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: you know, like you said last episode, had divorce papers
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: sitting in.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: Front of them waiting to sign, and then they said
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: with confidence after the group putting them as shredder. Yeah,
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: it gives me goosebumps.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: I need to hear.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so amazing. It's what I need to hear.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: That's that keeps me going. It keeps me going when
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: things are hard.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Because I wanted to quit.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: That was the morning I told my husband, I'm quitting
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: in ninety days if it's not better. Yeah, because it's
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: the business side. It's the technology side.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: It's the tech. It's the business side. It's not the work.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: The work.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: Coaching is hard, but fulfilling for me, beautifully fulfilling for me.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Teaching. I love teaching group.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know you love it.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: I shine.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: It's where I get to feel alive. It's where I
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: get to speak in parables. It's where I get to
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: see couples look at each other and smile and hug
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: each other when their light bulbs are going off.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: That this is fixable, that that is beautiful. I don't
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: want to top that work. Oh gosh, I did not
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: play on right.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: But the business side of this is so oh freaking heart.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: It is like, we had a month where we didn't
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: make money and that has never happened in the history
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: of this business. We have never had a month where
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: we did not make money. Yeah, and because of TikTok,
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I believe, I truly believe it is the lack of
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: reach on TikTok. We went a month without making any
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: profit and that scared me. Yeah, and I I refuse fear.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: I had to really beat fear. And the enemy wanted
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: to bring me. Your business is going under TikTok tanked,
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: and that's where you have the most people, and you
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: know you're not gonna be relevant anymore. And then you know,
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: like you said, God's like, do you really think that
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: I Am going to give you this big project that
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: you cannot yet announce that is going to elevate you
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: a zillion times over, just to crash your business right
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: before it happens? And I was like, Okay, God, you're right,
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: You're right. A low month doesn't mean we're out of business.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: My husband, who's the CFO, was like, don't you think
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: that this is why we have reserves. Don't you think
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: that this is ever expected in business. You're not the
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: only business that had a one month. You've been in
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: business for years and never had a month a non
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: profitable month. Right, He's like, Sarah, you got up now,
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: He's like, now if it if it keeps up like this, yeah,
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: we might need to rethink some things, right, but we're
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: gonna be Okay.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: March was better.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: March was definitely better.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: We profited, yes, good, we profited in March. Yeah, we
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: paid everybody and at the end of the day, everybody
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: got paid. It was more of like a kind of
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: breaking even. Yeah, but it was still everybody got paid,
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: including me.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: It was the most stressful month we've ever had in
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the history of this, in the history of this.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: I literally wanted to crawl in a cave. And I
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: have superbs self regulation skills. Okay, I was with you, sister,
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: and so where was I going?
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Sun costs fallacy?
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, deviated so far from that. It's okay,
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: you won't get these moments back. And do you want
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: to go to your deathbed never having known what real, beautiful,
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: healthy love feels like now that I have that with Donald,
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: I thank God every day.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: There's no way, there's no way i'd go back, Like now.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: If parents did it, your mom's never gonna If you're listening,
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: if you are a sixty five to seventy five year
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: old man who would love a woman who is an
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: excellent cook and very wonderful housekeeper and very beautiful, very
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: beautiful heart.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Oh she is. She has such a beautiful.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Heart, beautiful heart who likes to read books and take
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: care of her grandchildren. Please reach out Terina at the
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: lovedoc dot com. Yeah, because my mom is just never
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: gonna put herself out there to date.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: She's just not going to No, no, she's not. How
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: old is your mom?
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Seventy five? She looks fifty.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Five, she does. She looks crazy hot, mama. Yeah, she
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: looks again, she looks really great.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: But she's just not confident enough to try to put
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: herself out there. But she needs a life partner.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard, just companionship. I think companionship is so important.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: To die without knowing. And she didn't have good love
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: with my dad. She loved him, but it wasn't healthy.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, each other.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: That's how I always felt about my mom. It's like,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I just wish she'd had one good love. Because it
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: changes everything.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Changes everything everything. It changes your perspective.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: It can be in your current relationship.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: I see.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: If I didn't believe that ship relationships could be transformed,
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: I would be out of business. I wouldn't be doing
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: what I'm doing. But I see it.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I hear it.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: We get letters or not letters, emails okay for people
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: six seven months, a year later saying we're good, like so,
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: thank you so much. You gave us a second chance.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: And that to me, it's just it's everything.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: It is, it is.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: I gotta I gotta focus on that right now when
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: I'm just like, but Margins, but the mission, the mission things.
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: But the tech, Oh my gosh, we got to redesign
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: our website. Oh my gosh, our logo goes, Oh my gosh,
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: we need in new domain.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of there's a lot. Yeah, that's it,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and that's that's what you gotta do. You just got
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to say, Okay, one day at a time, what's the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: task in front of me that I can tackle right now?
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: This is how I've just decided to do it. What's
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the task right in front of me that needs to
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: be completed right now, and then I'll move forward, right,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I'll move forward.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: It's very tough. It's very tough. Sometimes I just kind
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: of have to flip a coin.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Okay, where am I going?
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: But I do think that, you know, the mission is.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I got emotional the other day talking to our new
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: director of sales, Ashley, who's wonderful.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: Wonderful and will always be her at the Love Doctor
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: because you personality and.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: We love her so much.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But you know, I got emotional because I was just like,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I don't want to lose sight of the mission. And
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: our mission has always been, you know, to save marriages,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: save families, save communities, save the world. And that might
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: be audacious, but so what, so what that's that's right,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: it's right, and we and we believe that at the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: cellular level that if we can save marriages and save
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: family as we can save communities, and we can save
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Amen to let that be where we stop.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, So guys, if you are also a believer
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: of that same mission, we are just so grateful that
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you are here, that you continue to listen every week,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you continue to tune in and you know, listen to
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: our spills about how hard business is and how tough
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: this is, but hopefully it also shines a light on
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: why we are doing this work, why we are here,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: why we continue on, and honestly, it's for you.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: It's for each one of you.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so just thank you. We're so grateful for you.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And you know, obviously, if there's something that you guys
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: want to specifically hear about. I think that the DA
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Stuff people love the DA Stuff do.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: Because they're everywhere now, they're everywhere cause and pain, but
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: they have their own pain.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they do, they do.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I've just I was reading through some of the reviews
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the other day and like all of them were about
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: DA Stuff and great feedback. But so we appreciate any
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: review that you guys can leave us. You want to
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: reach out to me personally, you can do so at
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: right now at the lovedoc dot com. And if you
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: have a specific topic that you want to hear, reach
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: out to support at the lovedot dot com. And please
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: guys continue to tune in, like, listen, follow all the things,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: and until next time, peace, love and perspective.