Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
Charles and Dan are just two guys talking about relationships, masculinity, and authenticity. Join them as they discuss books and media, as well as their (sometimes messy) personal stories, to encourage men to join the fight for their mental, physical, and emotional health--because a world of healthy, resilient men is a thriving and more secure world for everyone.
Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
Love Languages: How We've Messed Up...
Moving Weekend Recap: Charles and Dan recount their busy moving weekend with unexpected last-minute changes. Charles moved from Winter Garden to Bradenton, and Dan moved from Winter Garden to New Smyrna Beach. Smooth transition with no major incidents except a temperamental tire and a refrigerator mishap resulting in spoiled food.
Lockpicking Adventures: Charles shares a humorous story about forgetting a key and learning to pick locks using ASMR lockpicking videos on YouTube. Tips on dealing with potential theft and protecting your vehicle and belongings.
Gym Parking Lot Thefts: Discussing the prevalence of car break-ins at gym parking lots. Personal anecdotes about thefts and strategies to prevent such incidents.
Air Conditioner Woes: Charles talks about his car's air conditioner failure and the financial strain of unexpected repairs. The importance of budgeting for emergencies and prioritizing comfort, especially in Florida's hot climate.
Troubleshooting Relationships: Introduction to the "Troubleshooting" chapter from "The 5 Love Languages for Men" by Gary Chapman. Understanding the two ways emotional love needs are met: the initial "in-loveness" and the conscious effort to fill the love tank.
Different Timelines in Relationships: The challenge of partners falling in and out of love at different times. The significance of maintaining the love tank through conscious effort and understanding each other's love languages.
Case Study: Brett and Becky: Analyzing a case from the book where a husband falls in love with another woman, leading to marital issues. Discussion on the impact of unmet emotional needs and the importance of addressing them proactively.
Comfort Zones and Altruism: Exploring the concept of stepping out of comfort zones to meet a partner's love language needs. The idea that love is an action we do for others, even if it requires discomfort.
Key Takeaways: The necessity of communication and effort in maintaining healthy relationships. Understanding and speaking your partner's love language can prevent emotional disconnects. The importance of being proactive in addressing relationship issues before they escalate.
Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles. In this week's episode, dan and I will continue to review and discuss the five love languages for men, focusing this week on troubleshooting and addressing issues in your relationship and in your application of the love languages. Topics covered will include our recent moving experience, my new lockpicking skill. Our recent moving experience, my new lock picking skill, the issues I experienced with my car's air conditioner. Emotional love needs and how those are met in relationships. How partners could experience things on different timelines from each other. The challenges in dating relationships versus marriages. Brett and Becky's story, which is a case study from the book communication and love languages. Embracing discomfort, the implications of dishonesty and infidelity in relationships, how to create a healthy environment for resolving conflicts, boundaries, ultimatums and deadlines, working through issues with the help of a counselor or therapist, taking risks in relationships and other topics. Please follow or subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcast app and also check out our full episodes with audio and video on YouTube. Thank you and enjoy. Good morning Charles. Hello there, dan, how are you? I'm well and you Not too bad.
Charles:It's been a busy week. You and I had the big moving weekend where we switched up the plan, not the last minute, but at one of the last minutes, because you had a thing to do on Sunday night and, man, that was the best move. I'm glad that things worked out that way, because doing the longest or hardest move on the first day is certainly the way to do it For sure. So we got me from Winter Garden to Bradenton on Saturday. We it for sure. So we got me from winter garden to bradenton on saturday. We got you from winter garden to new somalia beach on sunday, and the actual moves themselves were fairly, fairly easy no incidents, no broken pipes the trailers functioned correctly, the no sewer leaks, all the lots that were supposed to be there waiting for us were waiting for us.
Charles:Yeah, no, no issues with traveling from place to place. My I had one tire that was a little temperamental, but we just made a plan to stop every 40 or 50 miles and check on it and fill it up if we needed to, and it was fine. The fridge, though.
Dan:Yes, that was something Egg and meat explosion. I think Eggs were fine.
Charles:Oh yes, it was just I did. I had some Kerrygold grass-fed butter that had gotten on the floor, which may have been okay. One stick was still completely wrapped up, but I didn't want to risk it, so I tossed that. The main thing was, my hamburger patties definitely went from that bright red color that they are when you freeze them to more of a brownish color. By the time I realized there was a problem RV refrigerators. Not only do they have the suction to keep them closed, but usually there's some sort of a latch that keeps them closed. If you're a long time listener to the podcast, you'll remember I had some issues with my RV refrigerator, so I replaced it with just basically a college door mini fridge and that did not stay closed for the entire journey.
Dan:You really did try to do the due diligence. You even had me check all the cabinets, yes, and test them. The one thing I did not touch was the fridge. Of course, it didn't hurt me either, and so I'm not taking any responsibility for it, but I'm just saying I think you definitely made your best effort to yeah, and part of it was Make everything go smoothly, and I did.
Charles:Definitely made your best effort to. Yeah, and part of it was make everything go smoothly, and I did. I installed all of my proper cabinet latches so that I wouldn't have to. I was last two moves. I just basically used painter's tape to to secure everything closed because way back from when I originally painted my walls and cabinets, I never replaced the hardware that keeps the cabinets latched securely during a move and I finally, finally got around to, I finally ended that procrastination and got them installed.
Charles:but you can't just put one on a refrigerator door and yeah that. That that was one thing, that that didn't go exactly as planned. So I probably lost $7 worth of hamburger patties Big deal, yeah.
Charles:Yeah, but yeah, so survived that. And then a couple of snafus realized that I had left the key for the hitch lock, because we live in the more rural areas of Florida and you know how high the cry rates are in these red states we live in. It's out of control. So you have to keep your hitch ball locked onto your truck so that somebody doesn't just steal your hitch ball.
Charles:But it's also to keep the hitch attached to the truck by the way, true, yeah, but you can get ones that where the pin goes through, and then you just put a cotter pin.
Charles:I see what you're saying, okay, but with those somebody can just pull out the cotter pin, the hitch pin, and then they've got a new hitch, the hitch pin, and then they've got a new hitch. We have been using and I actually have it right here this locking hitch pin, which is great, except when you have a truck with a hitch on it in Lake trip to get the key, or option three, spend months watching lock picking videos on youtube and decide, oh, I could probably do that, and then find a tool, a hardware store in your town that has a lock picking kit, buy it and then successfully implement all the strategies you've learned from watching asmr lock picking videos and in about five minutes I was able to pick open the lock, and then I, once I succeeded at that, I kept practicing and now, when it comes to at least this model of trailer lock, give me a lock pick in about three seconds and I can get in it what all the free trailer hitches you can ask for.
Dan:I'm just saying it's a great boy I'll never have to buy one again.
Charles:There you go. All I have to do is, as we've discussed and learned before, when it comes to breaking in cars and stealing stuff, gym parking lots are the way to do it. There you go. Nobody runs into the gym for five minutes, yep. So when you want to go steal tape, decks or CDs from a car, always go to the gym. From a car, always go to the gym. And yeah. So if I ever need, I'll just go find some giant f-250 pickup truck and I'll assume that guy's in there doing preacher curls for at least three hours and at least I could just pick the lock on his hitch and I got a new hitch, I actually got my car broken into.
Dan:That it wasn't broken into. I left it open, I forgot to lock it and at the gym, and yeah, took everything that's when it occurred to me that, oh, gyms are probably the best Cause, I think.
Charles:didn't Kurt have an issue with parking at the thought it was the gym.
Dan:I wasn't sure if it was the gym or somewhere else, but it happened like right after I got broke.
Charles:Yeah, but you definitely you got to do that math of where's the place that people don't just run in for 90 seconds and it everybody could be a potential criminal Just go check the doors.
Charles:And my move typically with my car is I leave the doors open and I just don't leave anything valuable around. And so if somebody opens the door, looks around. I did have an Amazon return stolen recently because it was just a very it was very clearly a white and yellow, a white and blue Amazon envelope and I didn't lose out on anything valuable so it didn't bother me much. But yeah, generally if you just leave the door open, then I don't have to worry about my ragtop being cut or my glass being smashed. Oh wow, just open up the door, look around in there, decide you don't see anything, or if you see something, grab it anyway and then close the door.
Dan:And usually maybe you should, be like a realtor, bake some cookies for the criminal next time. Just leave them with boys in them. Yeah, oh, no, you'd go with that when we're going. I was not going in that direction.
Charles:So I'm a lock picker now and, as I said on my social media, I am available for both hijinks and capers Excellent. After we successfully completed your move on Sunday or almost did I went to start my car and everything was fine, except the air conditioner didn't turn on. And when the air conditioner won't turn on at all, that usually tells you that it's a blower problem, either the fuse to the blower motor, whatever. In my case it was both. I had the idea. I don't know if I told you this. When I first recognized it, I started thinking okay, I've got this trip to Europe coming up in 28 days. It's going to take some money. Do I really want to spend all this money on a new air conditioner before I go to Europe, or do I just live with it for a month In July in Florida.
Charles:Yeah, how quickly did you come to your senses. When I was driving home, for the first five minutes it was fine, and then it started to rain. And then when it rains in the summer in Florida it still stays 90 degrees outside but you can't have your windows down. And so that was five minutes of the or the top down or the top certainly five minutes of driving with all the windows up in the rain in beginning of July in Florida, or I guess it was end of June. That day it was like no, I have to have the sticks immediately, whatever the cost. And so that's what we did. And yeah, as a middle-class man in Florida, how much did you get for?
Charles:your kidney. Yeah, it was rough. It was pretty rough, but not as bad as it could have been. I was going to say as a middle-class man in Florida, the three greatest sources of financial insecurity are DUI arrests, unplanned pregnancies and broken air conditioners, and I've avoided two out of the three successfully, knocked on wood. It's tough, but yeah, there have been I would say three, three significant air conditioner failures in my life in the last year or so that have led to some financial insecurity.
Charles:And now it's I don't know. I don't think there are any more air conditioners in my life that could break. If the one in your house just went completely out, that would. That could cause some issues for me, but not nearly at the level of the other the previous three. No, definitely not. Yeah, I like you, keep your problems. I like that about you. I try, I try. Yeah. So now, $940 later, which is really close to what I had to pay to replace the AC in my camper. I've got a functioning air conditioner in my car. Now and again, before the final cost came through, I set some limits to say here's what I'm willing to put into this car, here's what I'm not, and I didn't get close to those limits, so I feel good about that. But yeah, it's still man. Blowing $940 on a round trip airplane ticket is so much more fun than blowing $940 on a new air conditioner.
Dan:But that air conditioner should last you quite a while now on an old vehicle.
Charles:The blower will have a brand new, likely not breaking down. Yes, that's true, unless there's a really big underlying electrical problems. That blower should last me as long as anything else in the car does. So we'll see.
Charles:Enjoy every second of cold air that comes out every time you turn it absolutely, just yeah, that's yeah, let the gratitude tank fill up, as dr chapman might say. Yes, all right, we are going to cover the troubleshooting chapter of the five love languages for men. Okay, so I found this chapter on troubleshooting to be quite useful. Um, you know, some of the usual things that he does that I'm not a huge fan of do pop up here, like the sports analogy. Again, because men are dumb, they like sports, so you have to put things in terms of professional baseball teams, otherwise men can't understand it. Yeah, so there is a little bit of that the Yankees versus the Cubs or some nonsense. But he does talk about some of the issues that relationships and again, mr dr chapman, for him it's all in terms of a marriage, but I I find a lot of these can creep up in all form of long-term relationships and he basically starts out to say your need for emotional love is met in two ways either through that feeling of being on drugs that you get when you're falling in love with somebody and it's almost like you are. It's like you're driving your car but there's constantly somebody behind you with a tanker truck and they've got a hose going into your gas tank. So you're driving around constantly, just go wherever you need to gas tank. So you're driving around constantly, just go wherever you need to go to, and you're looking at your fuel gauges. This is great. It never goes below F. This is awesome, man. I'm so happy I found someone that's going to be this way forever or never leaves Exactly, yeah.
Charles:And then at some point we all inevitably realize that that feeling of what he calls the feeling of in loveness does go away. And then option two is okay. The love tank is now only going to be filled by direct, conscious effort, and that affects both partners in the relationship. One of the people is going to be the first to lose that feeling of in loveness, and that's when things can get pretty rough. And then, because so many things about falling in love, being in love and even falling out of love, they affect couples in a way where the individuals in the couple are on different timelines from each other yeah, that's something that I think we inherently know, or maybe don't, but that's not something I really thought about consciously, is that?
Dan:certainly not when we're in the middle of it. We don't, but that's not something I really thought about consciously, is that certainly not when we're in the middle of it. We don't think about it consciously in terms of people fall in love at different points and they fall out of love at different, and so that speaks a lot to that awkwardness of that first I love you when you're in a new relationship, who's going to say it first, and then who's feeling obligated because the other person said it. I don't really I'm not quite at that page yet, but if I don't say it now, it's a problem right now. Oh my god, what do you mean? You're not on the exact same page as I am, and I think, logically speaking, if we sat down and thought about it for a second, I think we'd have a lot more leeway for that or that more tolerant of somebody saying thanks after you tell them that you love them.
Charles:Thanks, or I'm not quite there yet yeah, look, I'll, and being okay with that, I'll be honest, I have, in the past I have said it back before I was ready to say it back because I felt like I was obligated, of course, and in the past I have refused to say it back when I wasn't ready to say it back.
Charles:And look, neither of those are fun. It's not a fun situation to be in when you're like in my case, I saw it coming. I was like, okay, if this person feels like the kind of person that at some point is going to drop it, I love you and I'm not going to say it back because I'm not ready to say it back. And there's, you can plan and you could go into it mindfully with the idea of I'm going to be as honest but compassionate as I can. But man, it is, I don't know. I don't know if I've ever been the first one to say it and not get it back, have you Not? That I can recall. Yeah, I don't think I've ever said it and not got it back, but I can imagine what that would feel like.
Charles:I know I've said it back when I haven't totally felt it as much have you refused to say it back when you haven't felt it?
Dan:No, I've never had the balls, and I should be, and that's one of the things that I feel was lacking in my education in terms of when somebody says that a relationship is work, that's something right there that is feeling uncomfortable and doing things that you don't normally want to do. That's the work, and nobody really was clear with me, so I'm going to blame the world for not educating me properly here that that is the work and is feeling uncomfortable because you know it's going to benefit the relationship or the other person, and that's just something that if I wish I had known at a younger.
Charles:Yeah. How did it? Uh, do you and your current girlfriend say I love you? Yeah, who said it first?
Dan:I don't remember. No, I don't remember.
Charles:Okay, let's get her on the phone.
Dan:Yeah, I may have, I may have. And yeah, she did immediately. Okay, right there, but I was also feeling like the way she was behaving, there was no question. Yeah, absolutely.
Charles:Gotcha, that is interesting, but but yeah, so these different timetables that people are on when you are feeling of, if you're the one who's feeling of in loveness goes away first, then your partner is going to have to be speaking your love language in a way that allows you to still still get that emotional need to be met of. Okay, I still feel like I am loved, I still want to do the things I need to do to make them feel loved, and it varies on how soon that tends to wear off. He usually says within the first two years I've noticed it both in my life and in the life of the partners I've been with. It can be quite a bit quicker than two years. It could be a matter of 90 days to six months, easy yep, or it's just okay. I'm still with you, I still enjoy you, I still love you, I'm still in for this relationship, but I'm not feeling the way I felt before, or you're clearly not feeling the way you felt before. So now we're in a different phase here.
Charles:Yeah, and then he goes on to say that if you've decided as a married couple that you don't want to get divorced and you want to stay together, you've got two options.
Charles:You've got the option of lowering your expectations and just saying, okay, this is just the way things are now, or you decide, all right, this is something we have to work at if we're going to stay together and stay happy, and he certainly recommends option two over option one.
Charles:The part of what we're trying to do with this series is also bring in people who aren't married, and when you're not already married, when you don't have a couple of kids or a kid or a house together or whatever. The option three of okay, you know what Time to cut my losses and run. Okay, you know what Time to cut my losses and run. That also is an option that is certainly easier to implement when you don't have the commitment, the financial commitments, the children commitments, the piece of paper that says you're a married couple. We don't have that and you're just dating each other and one of them feels the okay, I'm not feeling in love, in loveness anymore, and I'm also feeling not really meeting my needs through speaking my love language. I guess I picked the wrong partner. Time to move on to the next one.
Dan:Yeah, it's a lot easier, especially if you're not living together, to be able to just cut and run, and I think that that's led to a whole culture of ghosting as well, where there's no need to communicate at all, and it's easier than dealing with the uncomfortable feelings, than actually putting some work into it and addressing them.
Charles:Yeah, and it's hard not to look at it in sort of moral terms where it's okay if you're dating somebody and that period is over. Sometimes it is the right call to say okay, it's time for me to move on to somebody who's more compatible or more matches my values. More is just naturally more talented at meeting my needs. It's hard to know when. Okay, when do you have the conversation of? All right, are we going to stick with this and try to figure out how to make it work with each other? Or is it like okay, this dating relationship ran its course and now it's time for us to move on to the next partner?
Dan:okay, this dating relationship ran its course and now it's time for us to move on to the next partner. Yeah, I think one of the things that I realized from reading this book was that there's no forever feelings of limerence. Right that it's at some point you're going to need to put in work, regardless of whoever you're with, no matter what that relationship is. At some point you need to put in some work and just be prepared for that. Set your mindset that at some point you're going to need to sit down, feel uncomfortable and do things that you may not want to do. And the question is that time and work and effort worth it for you, versus cutting and running and just going from good feeling to good feeling and then, when it comes time to do the work, just you know, go to somebody else, and I think with the availability of internet dating, it's very easy to do that and to keep doing that.
Charles:Yeah, and I think, in particular, this is a way that the experience for women is different than the experience for men because, as we've talked about in either other books or in our other podcast, as we've talked about in either other books or in our other podcast, released a tbd still there. When it comes to, I just got out of a relationship and now, boy, some attention from other potential partners sure would feel nice. It is easier for women to get that attention than it is for men. So you can, you could very much. Women need only to basically open their ear and open their eyes to see oh, I have many more options available to me than the partner that I'm currently with and that can certainly have an impact on their motivation to continue sticking with a relationship that they're already in.
Charles:When it feels like some of the stuff about this relationship isn't exactly what I'm looking for, and I can appreciate that, again, there's to be like they shouldn't do that. It's like it just is what it is. There's no should or shouldn't about it, it's. You know, women need only look when they want to verify that there is a world full of single men that are interested in them. Now, depending on their mental health and their experience of relationships, then they have to start doing the math of okay, what makes sense for me? Does it make sense for me to start a new relationship with this other potential suitor, or does it make more sense for me to continue to invest in the current relationship that I'm in?
Charles:And they're going to make the best decision they can based on what they have available to them, and that can be painful for men to be in the position where we're just watching them do that because they have all these options and I feel like I don't have any, and that's what leads a lot of men to making poor relationship decisions as well. Okay, he gets into a story here that I'd like to hear your reaction to the story of Brett and Becky. Basically, what happens is there's a gal named Becky who's a wife and a mom, and she goes to Gary Chapman. Now, again, the way that books like this work is, he's probably not talking about a real-life scenario. He's certainly not using the right names, but he's probably changing the names. He's probably also sort of amalgamated multiple experiences into this scenario. But in this case, becky comes to him and says hey, my husband is pretty much checking out of the relationship. He says he doesn't want to be with me anymore, and then he talks to the husband and says he didn't come in by his own initiative, but at my request. It's not really at your request. He came in because you talked to the wife and then, based on what you heard from the wife. You asked him to come in, so really the wife wanted you and him to sit down. So you're sitting down and he's trying to be Brett.
Charles:The husband in this scenario is trying to be nice about it, but he's essentially saying hey look, I don't feel the way I need to feel about her anymore and I'm done. And then, with a little bit more digging, it's because he's falling in love with somebody else, which I would say is often the case. When a man decides to end a relationship, it's because he usually has something else going on or often has the prospects of something else going on. It's not just oh, my situation with my wife is so unbearable I just have to leave it, no matter the cost. It's usually someone else. Like you probably heard the old a man never throws away his last pair of shoes, where I think in the case of women it's much more likely. They can just decide this relationship is unbearable and I don't want to be with him anymore. I'd rather be alone than be with him. But again, their version of alone is different from our version of alone, because their version of alone is I'd rather be alone and have the knowledge that there's probably a dozen guys in my life that would love the chance to be with me, yeah when guys typically don't have that.
Charles:So in this case, he's basically fallen in love with somebody else and they don't go into a lot of detail about what that relationship looks like. But he's in love with somebody else who is seemingly in love with him too, or at least behaving. They're in love with him too, and that has caused him to say, okay, I'm getting my emotional love needs met by this in-loveness with another person, and so the version of my relationship with my wife, where her and I have to actually work at it, that seems like a lot lower quality than what I'm experiencing with this other person yeah, I mean, what chadman talks about here is that he hadn't been.
Dan:His suspicion is that brent had been feeling loved or his love tank had been empty for quite a while, right, so that made him open to other stuff, right, exactly, yeah, and he's. And what he said was beck Becky's love tank was only like half full, but it was enough for her to think everything was okay and not really address it. And then when Brent came to her and was like hey, look, I want to divorce someone and things, she was pretty upset, shocked that it had gotten that way. Chapman's trying to make the point is they never really talked about their love languages, they didn't put the right work into what each other needed, and that's how they got into the situation that they're in.
Charles:Yeah, and he makes the case what we talked about before, where the falling in love with someone isn't really a thing that you plan to do or choose to do. But that being said, um well, you still need to be open to it, exactly Like when I've never had, I've never had an issue when I was in a committed relationship where I would put myself in the position where I would even entertain falling in love with another person, even if things weren't going great in that relationship. It's just I I was not open to thinking or seeing women in such a way where me falling in love with another person was even a possibility. And I'm not saying that's because I'm such a great flawless guy. I'm saying that's just not how I'm wired, where, yeah, in this case Brett, whatever this woman was, whether it was a colleague or a neighbor, or whatever this woman was, whether it was a colleague or a neighbor or whatever he made decisions that allowed him to get some emotional needs met very innocently and very easily at the beginning that he then did make the choice to. I'm not going to get in the way of these feelings deepening and growing, which is the thing. If you just run on autopilot. Your marriage will fall apart in most cases and new unhealthy relationships will present themselves as well, and so that that seems to be what he did. But then after a few months she's not feeling in love with him anymore the new girl. And then now he's back in dr chapman's office feeling all sad about his life because he's mourning the loss of this second relationship that is existing alongside his marriage. And listen, I find this idea that this guy goes and falls in love with some new girl and, I would assume, starts up a sexual relationship with her and then she loses the lovey-dovey feelings for him. So he gets sad and he's like, oh, I guess I'll give my marriage another run. And then the wife welcomes him back and then three a year or three years down the road. It's a huge success story. Dr Chapman talks about how happy this guy is to be back in his marriage and working. You know, speaking her love language and she's speaking his and they're working together. It's like I, I don't, this isn't okay, this is not okay with me and I. It feels like a very churchy message again where it's okay.
Charles:So there was this guy fell in love with another woman, started a relationship with her. She essentially dumps him and then he goes back to his wife and he's I think I'm ready to give this another shot. Let's put some work into this relationship. I respond to that we off. Yeah, and I don't see how. Now again, I don't have kids, I don't have a mortgage with somebody else. I get that there are externalities that are saying okay, you dodged a bullet, this guy's willing to stay with you, so you got to make it work. But man, I would, from what I know about myself, I would burn down my life before I would take somebody back in this scenario.
Dan:Yeah, I definitely can see this being a guy, and I could identify with this guy actually myself because, again, I didn't realize what that work meant for a relationship. I came from a divorced parents. Right, I didn't see them. That work meant for a relationship. I came from a divorced parent. So A relationship, a long-term relationship, is sitting down, talking through things, arguing, making up and just seeing what that takes to have that relationship.
Dan:For me, yeah, sometimes you make some mistakes and maybe he needed that realization as well. It's oh, wait a minute, I'm not flawless like his mistress or whatever. Identified a few problems with himself, and so it's oh, wait a minute, this is what it's going to take to, this is what the work is. And then, yeah, he's lucky that Becky took him back for sure she didn't have to, but I think they had kids together and stuff like that, so I could see her going. Okay, look, he made a mistake trying to find love with somebody else. And then just realizes, hey, it's not as easy to go off and start this new wonderful relationship as it is.
Charles:And so maybe, hey, he realized, okay, it is worth at least putting a little time and effort into the current relationship and seeing how he could meet her needs a little bit, right, yeah, the interesting thing to me is that Chapman doesn't make it clear that Brent even told her that this was going on or apologized for it yeah, no, no, none of that was in there.
Dan:No, yeah, correct.
Charles:It feels a little weird, doesn't it?
Dan:Yeah, maybe he addresses that later on. There's a chapter on apologizing. I don't know. Maybe he brings Brent and Becky back, who knows?
Charles:Is it possible that he had this whole experience and he kept it under the radar with uh?
Dan:you know, I mean an average person would know hey, how can you? Most people would be like look, just, I'm just gonna leave. Like you said, I think most men aren't gonna leave unless they have something, somebody else that they're working, that they're hanging out with, whereas a woman is a little bit more okay, I'll leave on my own volition because the relationship sucks. So I'm guessing, if she's half intelligent, she's probably suspected this guy is.
Charles:Yeah maybe not, I don't know.
Dan:It really depends on yeah, he didn't really get into it and that probably leads to what you were talking about. This was like an amalgamation of a bunch of different stories, so there's some details, I think, that were left yeah, perhaps, yeah, but yeah, I I think there are.
Charles:There are certainly partners who are cheated on and, either because they're naive or because they don't want to do the digging, they never know that they're cheated on. That does happen, yeah, and I wonder if that's the case here. Chapman is purposely making it sound like you could have these little misfires with your adulterous relationships and then potentially go back to the original relationship and she doesn't even need to know.
Dan:Yeah, see, that's the thing that gets a little bit tricky there, because now, if there's dishonesty for for me that's such a huge thing yeah, if you find out somebody's been lying to you, it's just okay. Now, no, what can I trust, what can I not trust, and that's a whole nother I would assume there's some dishonesty.
Charles:Have you ever been in a relationship where somebody came home and the first thing they told you was oh, I just cheated on you. Oh, that, that doesn't even happen in a movie. Come on, there's going to be some level of dishonesty. It's a matter of okay. Did he come clean to her eventually, or did he decide? And how much dishonest? What period of time do you slap on dishonesty? And it's oh, that's an understandable amount of dishonesty. I'm going to forgive it. Yeah, it's no. Nobody cheats. Nobody who's a cheater is not also a liar, because we don't do stuff like that.
Dan:I mean, we can go down a whole book full of rabbit holes here based on that. So I think that's why he avoided addressing that issue, because I think he's really just trying to make the case for why you should learn each other's love languages. Yeah, that's and the repair that it potentially could do, because-.
Charles:Yeah, I mean it also prevents you as worth a pound of cure.
Dan:And so the one thing that I I another thing that I took away from this chapter was looking in the past, when I've had issues like arguments with partners in the past, I realized that you need to create the, a healthy environment where you are showing the other person that you do care about them and that you care about their needs and their love language, and through this specifically, he's talking about doing that, through learning their love language and practicing that before you can heal what was happened in them.
Dan:Yes, for sure, I've never really thought about it like that. Yeah, you don't have an environment, a good environment, a healthy, new environment to address all the mistakes that you both may have made in the past. And in the past when I've tried to deal with things, it's only been using the tool set that I currently had, which wasn't sufficient to deal with and try to resolve those past issues and work through them. It never went well and a lot of times it ended up in I think he mentioned it here like complete silence, because neither of us had the tools to basically properly identify and work through the past issues. Another thing I took away from that is you really need to both be vulnerable and say I am willing to create an environment that is going to be beneficial for both of us, before you even start to address the problems of the past.
Charles:Yeah, I agree. I think you can't have a partner whose love tank is bone-drying, completely empty, and then think, okay, in this current status, let's open up these old hurts and these old resentments and try to do something about them. You know again, as you and I have talked about before, the motivation to fix things. It correlates to the partner's level of attraction for you, and when attraction is low, motivation is low. And when we talk about attraction, we're not talking about how good looking you are, we're talking about, like, how emotionally attached and invested is this person to you. And that usually has to do with how you treat them as a partner, not how good your haircut is or how fit your body is. And so if you've been giving your partner unattractive behavior which is another way to say you haven't been filling their love tank for this long period of time then their motivation to get into, to get under the hood and try to fix the big problems is going to be extremely low.
Dan:Yeah, they're not going to have anything to give, they're not going to have extra.
Charles:They're not going to see what's in it for them either. It's like I'm already on empty. Why subject myself to the emotional torture of getting into these past resentments, past disappointments and past betrayals if there's nothing in it for me? And I would say don't respond to that by saying, okay, I'll manipulatively fill their love tank for six weeks so that I can get them to a certain level, and then we can decide today to start filling their love tank and decide today that one of the things we're going to have to do is unpack some of these previous issues.
Dan:Yeah, that's the your best hope of resolving this is trying to fill their love tank as much as possible. That's your only hope, that's your best hope. And then you just got to hope that they are going to reciprocate. They may not right, they may not fill your love tank, but at least I feel like if you've done everything you can to fill their, to to get to know them and fill their love tank, you've done everything that you can for that relationship and then at that point you can sleep at night knowing, hey, if it didn't work out, you know what you put your best effort in right.
Charles:Yeah, and then it does get into the different timelines. There are going to be situations where your partner feels like, okay, this has gone too far for too long, I'm not interested in trying to get it back. And is that okay? Is that right? Is that it almost doesn't matter, it is what it is.
Charles:And from my own personal set of values around this, if a partner comes to me seemingly in good faith and is willing to say, listen, I'm still willing to try new things to fix this problem, then I feel a moral obligation to say, okay, then we need to go ahead and give this another shot. Yeah, if my partner comes to me and they're like all I want to try is the same things that have already failed time and time again and I'm not willing to try anything new and I was okay, then maybe, maybe this has run's course and we're done, yeah. But when you look, there have been times in my previous relationships where I've gone to my partners that, look, I'm willing to try new things, try to fix this, and the response was I'm not. And okay, everybody in the couple has veto power. What a couple continue.
Dan:Absolutely nothing you could do about that if the other response you might get is oh yeah, I'll do this and I'll do that and just never material, never materializes.
Charles:And of course actions speak louder than words, and so yeah, like you said in the previous episode, we, we are what we do now, what we say we'll do, and that is certainly true.
Dan:So that might make it things difficult. So I think you need to be prepared to put some, some mental deadlines on things. When, when, when you're working, working on things, just have an idea of a timeline. And my warning went out to everybody there is just be prepared every time you extend that timeline. If you don't have a hard set deadline for certain things, you could end up wasting a lot of time on empty promises and, uh, it's not an easy thing to then come to that person and go, hey, time's up, type of thing.
Charles:That is just so uncomfortable kind of One could make the argument of don't set ultimatums at all. And I would say, if you are going to set an ultimatum that says I need to see this kind of change in this time horizon or else, I would personally not feel comfortable doing that without some third party being in the mix to hold both of those accountable and say, all right, listen, charles, don't set this ultimatum, don't set this boundary if you're not willing to hold it. So if you say I need to see A, b and C by this date, or else it's going to be my job to keep you accountable to that, and if your partner is willing to say I promise that I will change A, b and C by this date, then that third party can also keep them accountable along the line saying, hey, are you doing this or are we going to kick the can down the curb until he has to enforce this and you guys break up for good yeah, absolutely.
Dan:That objective third party is huge and it would have made my life easier in my situation. It was she had promised, by a certain deadline, I'm gonna do all these things. Like it wasn't my ultimate. I was like saying it was basically like hey, why the conversation went, what? Why is this not working for you? And she was asking me that and I listed all these things and she's I'm gonna start doing all these things by such such a date. Gotcha, I actually doubled the timeline, she that gave a deadline of a certain period of time. I was like you know what? You don't even need to do all these things, just do a couple of them and do them by. And I doubled the timeline because I really I was skeptical to begin to be honest and and I but I did want You're skeptical but hopeful, but hopeful and I was just like let's make it as easy as possible. And it still did. And it was not any easier at the end.
Charles:Yeah, the second time. Yeah, I can feel your pain. That would be a tough situation.
Dan:But a third party would have been great to basically have that accountability.
Charles:Yeah, have that accountability, yeah, and that third party obviously would need to be a true third party, not one of your friends, not one of her family members. It would have to be somebody completely separate. Issue a pro that one of you doesn't already have an established personal relationship, okay. So he gets to the point of people who say, but what if my partner's love language isn't what I naturally speak in? And rightfully, his answer is yeah. So what? It's probably not going to be and you need to decide that it's worth making the effort to speak their love language. Or he doesn't say this, but I'll say it, or get out of the relationship.
Charles:If you come to the realization of, oh, but the thing that works for her is the hardest thing for me to do and I'm not sure that it's it. It's like, okay, what's the right person? Yeah, that don't do it. Yeah, now if, if you have the doubt of, oh, this feels like it's going to be too much, then yeah, you might be with somebody. I don't think people should break up just because they have different love languages. But if you have different love languages and you're not sure that's learning to speak theirs, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Then you should probably save the two of you a lot of wasted time and just part ways. Because, yeah, if the motivation's not there, if you're not sure that you're willing to work that hard, if you'd rather be alone or with somebody else than him or her, then you should probably come to that realization sooner than later.
Dan:I do like the way he phrases things here when it comes to getting out of our comfort zone, and he says basically, ultimately, comfort isn't the issue and love isn't something we do for ourself, it's something we do for somebody else. Don't totally agree with that? No, me neither Don't get something out of it.
Charles:And I thought about sure when I read that part about the illusion of altruism and how you and I are on the same page where there really is no altruism. Even when you donate a million dollars to your favorite charity, you're buying a million dollars of good feelings. Yep, you're giving away your money and you're trading it for a million dollars of good feelings. We all do things for ourselves. While the benefits to others can be, and should be huge. When we're able to do that, it's still you are getting something out of it or you wouldn't be doing it when it comes to sacrificing things for others.
Dan:if you're not getting something more valuable than what you're giving up. You're not doing it, and I like the way he delicately phrases getting out of your comfort zone. He says most of us do many things every day that don't come naturally for us and, for example, getting out of bed in the morning is for sure. A lot of times we just want to sleep in and he says but by the time the day is over we feel good about getting out of bed in the morning. Exactly, and I really liked when he said our actions precede our emotions and so in the areas that really get you over that hump and in terms of getting out of that comfort zone is take action. Don't think about it. You start thinking about it A lot of times. Our brains will get in our way and slow us down or stop us from doing it to begin with.
Charles:I'm absolutely guilty of that, but whenever I've shut my brain down and just started to take action, it's been easier to do the things that are uncomfortable soldier and it's during the first Gulf war, and he's talking to a younger, more inexperienced guy and the guy's like I'm, I'm scared, I don't know how to handle this.
Charles:And his answer was you do the scary thing, and then the courage comes after. Yeah, and that is certainly the way that it goes. With the hardest things you have to do, whether that is, you know, taking it back to the beginning, telling someone you love them when you're not sure that they're on the same page as you or what you? Just you do the scary thing first, and then the courage to do it comes after the fact, after you survive doing the hard thing, after you're able to look back and say okay, I didn't know if I should do that, I didn't know if I could do that, but I did it and I'm still alive and kicking. And that's where the whole importance of any personal development or self-improvement comes in, because as you work on yourself, you start believing more and more of I can take risks and I can survive, even when it doesn't go well, because you've had the hard evidence to prove that to yourself in the past.
Charles:Yeah, Every. As I say to my friends often when I'm trying to encourage them, the only thing that every shitty thing you've been through has in common is that you've survived it, and if you're still here, if you're still listening, if you're still reading books, if you're still yeah, listening to podcasts, then that means you've survived everything that's happened to you so far.
Charles:And not to minimize some of the things that were rough, because I'm sure they were, but you're still here, you're still kicking and, like in that example, you're still getting out of bed in the morning. I don't know anybody who has a happy life, who only does the things that in the short term feel comfortable. Those people are miserable. On the surface. Intuitively, it might feel like, oh, that's the best life at all. You just wake up and do whatever you feel like all day, every day, and until you have set that thing inside you that says here's what is worth doing on a daily basis, if you just let every whim and everything that occurs to you in the moment, then yeah, you'll be a very overweight, out of shape, lazy person on the couch doing what feels good in the moment all the time and not having a lot to show for it, and that doesn't feel good in the long term.
Dan:Yeah, I think part of the key to that is taking the time to sit through and think of all of the rewards and the benefits of doing what is not comfortable in the moment, and so that you can really say, hey, this will be worth it at this time. Yeah, I might get a little bit of a if I did the other thing. That's easy. It might be, it might feel good in a moment, but the rewards are going to be much greater if I don't do what's easy.
Charles:Yeah, and that's, that really is how you, but you got to take the time to get uncomfortable and do that too, and the risk in your relationships too, or you've got to decide I'm going to give to this relationship and run the risk that she's not going to give back, and then, yeah, at some point, if you're doing the right thing for a long period of time and your partner is not giving back, then yeah, you have to make some tough decisions. But so many of us are. We're afraid, we're not afraid of oh no, I'm going to work for six weeks at filling her love tank and she's not going to do anything we're scared to death of. I'm going to do one thing. I'm going to start. I'm going to try to do one thing for her, and she's not immediately going to recognize my effort and reward me for it, so it's easier for me to not start at all. It's that. That's where the problem comes in, it's not this.
Charles:I'm going to adopt this strategy for the next month and a half, being someone that fills my partner's love tag. It's we're scared to death that I'm going to try one thing and she's not going to reciprocate, and then I'm going to feel like a fool, I'm going to feel like a sucker, I'm going to feel like a loser and I'm not going to ever be able to recover from that when, yeah, you can recover from it. You can recover from the six weeks of not her not giving anything back. You can recover from the six months of her. You can recover for more than you think you can.
Dan:I think it's important in almost all relationships to basically foster communication in a way with the other person that they see that you care about them, not just with romantic relationships, but with friendships and work relationships as well. Just, I think, get good at practicing identifying and filling other people's love tanks, because I think it's going to be a life skill that you can use everywhere when you do need to do it for somebody else. It's not as difficult after you've been practicing it for years.
Charles:Yeah, we talked about that with atomic attraction and approaching women that you're interested in, it's if you strike up a pleasant conversation with every stranger all day, every day. It's not a big deal. Then going to talk to a pretty girl that you see at the grocery store is not going to feel nearly as traumatic to you as if you're a hermit who never talks to anybody. But then you see this one girl and you're like, oh, I'd love to talk to her, but that would require too much of an identity change for me to walk up to her and start a conversation when you already pulled off the identity change of. I'm just somebody who starts conversations with everybody I see and meet and I try to make their interactions and their life a little bit happier because we have I make a little joke or I say something insightful that they might benefit from.
Charles:If that's who you become, yeah then, yeah, you don't have this huge mountain of anxiety when you're trying to just extend that a little bit further to a pretty girl that you want to talk to, and yeah, but, like I said before, I've never put myself in a position where I'm with a committed partner and I could accidentally fall in love with some other girl. But what I have done is I put myself in the position of my partner is not filling my love tank anymore in the way that I need her to, because for me it's I want to feel desired and respected by my partner and that's. If I don't have that, then I'm not a good partner in the relationship. So, even though I haven't looked outside of the relationship, I have done the. Okay, you're not meeting my needs, then I'm certainly not meeting yours. Yeah, and that's that, that indifference. And check out, that's the toxic reaction that I have to my love tank being empty, not looking at some other girl and thinking, oh, maybe I can get her to love me and then I'll feel better.
Dan:I think most of us are what you describe, and probably because we don't ever even take the effort, or even realize we need to take the effort, to express what our needs are to that other person. Right, I've totally been guilty of that.
Charles:Yeah, it's hard.
Dan:Instead of them, like expecting them to read my mind and say oh, you know, we've been together for so long, you should know me, you should know what I need. Meanwhile, I've never actually sat down and communicated that to them, right?
Charles:And I check out. That's a hard conversation to have to say to somebody. Look, regardless of how you feel about me and regardless of how you feel like your actions should be affecting me, I've got these three needs or whatever, and they are not being met at all right now. And I am, I'm checked out, yeah.
Dan:And that's a very vulnerable and needy type of position to come to.
Charles:Yeah, absolutely Partner with it's not easy, yeah, cause their reaction to you could be well, let's break up, yeah. Or it could be well, let's fix this, or you don't know what they're going to say yeah, you choose to just toil, continue toiling in misery, instead of having that tough conversation, yeah, and uncomfortable conversations make for comfortable lives, and comfortable conversations make for uncomfortable lives, and that is just, unfortunately, the way life works. When you're willing to have uncomfortable conversations, you can have a comfortable life, and if you're not willing to have those uncomfortable conversations, then your life is going to be perpetually uncomfortable. You're just not going to get what you want.
Charles:I like this chapter Certainly more good than bad, which is about the highest endorsement that I ever give on this show. The next one, on anger, is also pretty, pretty profound. So you and I will take a quick break and then we'll record that. One Sounds good, sir. All right, thanks, dan. Wow, you made it through the whole thing, so you must like us at least a little bit, in which case you should definitely follow or subscribe to our show in your chosen podcast app. Thanks, we'll talk to you next time.
.jpg)