Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men

Beyond the Honeymoon Phase

• On "Mindfully Masculine" we support and encourage men who strive to level-up their lives as we share books, media, and personal stories on mental health and well-being. Challenges in your life? We deliver the tips and tools that really help. • Episode 167

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Welcome to this insightful episode of the Mindfully Masculine Podcast, where Charles and Dan explore relationship dynamics through the lens of "The Man’s Guide to Women" by Drs. John and Julie Gottman. This episode is packed with discussions on love, commitment, and personal growth.

Key Topics Discussed:

  1. Understanding Commitment:
    • Debunking the myth of "the one."
    • Biological and psychological factors influencing attraction.
    • Challenges in identifying healthy versus unhealthy relationship dynamics.
  2. Stages of Love:
    • Limerence: The initial, chemical-driven phase of love.
    • Trust: Building confidence in your partner and aligning values.
    • Loyalty and Commitment: Developing a deep, lasting bond.
  3. Relationship Growth and Self-Improvement:
    • Navigating the pitfalls of past trauma and unhealthy relationship patterns.
    • The importance of therapy, support groups, and self-reflection in making better partner choices.
    • Why compatibility in handling conflict and emotional expression matters more than shared hobbies.
  4. Cultural and Practical Insights:
    • Perspectives on arranged marriages and their approach to compatibility.
    • The value of prenuptial agreements and forward-thinking financial planning.
  5. Red Flags and Relationship Risks:
    • Avoiding impulsive decisions during the limerence stage.
    • Recognizing and recalibrating a "broken picker" for healthier relationships.
  6. Actionable Advice for Men:
    • Setting boundaries and principles before entering a relationship.
    • Balancing emotions with logic when making life-altering decisions.

Memorable Quotes:

  • "You should want to feel butterflies, not lightning bolts." – Dr. Drew (quoted by Charles)
  • "The person you're marrying is not the person you're divorcing." – Reflecting on the necessity of prenuptial agreements.
  • "A relationship should be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself."

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Us:

  • Website: Mindfully Masculine
  • Social Media: Follow us for updates, discussions, and more relationship insights.

If this episode resonated with you, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review. We’d love to hear your thoughts! See you next week as we dive into "Mother Nature: Understanding Women and Children."

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Charles:

I've noticed in myself and in my friends you and others that like, hey, sometimes you're with that girl because your picker's broken, Because everything in you and your unconscious was telling you this is a great choice, this is exactly who you should be with, and you're just wrong because of a whole lot of reasons.

Dan:

The wrong things are making you feel right, exactly.

Charles:

Welcome back to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles. All right, dan and I will continue in this episode to discuss the Man's Guide to Women by the Gottmans, and we will talk about relationship dynamics and commitment, the stages of love, challenges in relationships, cultural perspectives on marriage, self-improvement and relationship growth, conflict resolution and communication, prenuptial agreements and financial planning, red flags and relationships, and a critique of romantic ideals and other topics. Please check out our website mindfullymasculinecom to see all of our audio and video episodes and anything else that we find worth sharing. Thanks and enjoy so good morning, Charles.

Dan:

How are you?

Charles:

Just barely, dan. Yeah, good thanks. Yeah, we are recording this just before lunchtime and probably go hit one of our favorite spots, either Panera or the. Oh, I went to Island Fin Poke the other day. I'd go back there again. That was delicious, this place was good. Yeah, they again gave me a free little thing of Dole Whip.

Dan:

That's a nice little finisher.

Charles:

Absolutely. I like that place, yeah, but I haven't had a Southwest Chicken Ranch. That's the salad I get at Panera, right, yeah, oh, that's good. So I might need one of those again. But I've got to get new tires for the BMW. I rolled 200,000 miles on my last trip to Jacksonville and I'm going to go with some cheap tires because I don't know how much longer that car is going to last.

Charles:

I'm starting to get some noises and stuff and I'm going to find a new mechanic because it's just coming all the way over to Deltona whenever I need something. So I found somebody with pretty good reviews, a little closer to where I live, and I'm going to try them, give them a shot, say, hey, tell me what these noises are and what it's going to take to fix it, and see, see what kind of number they give me, and that'll determine whether I, you know, if it's too expensive, I might just say, okay, I'm going to just keep driving this till it breaks down and save as much as I can for the next vehicle. Hopefully, fingers crossed, there's nothing big going on, just some of the, some of the shifting's a little rougher and some of the gears are giving me a little bit of noise when I'm driving down the road. I hope so. That'd be great, but it is a manual, so those are, you know, have a reputation of being cheaper to fix than automatics. So we'll see. But I'm going to have to take it someplace, going to have to get new tires and take it to get the transmission looked at. But fingers crossed, because it's still a fun car to drive. I still like having it, but cabinet, but we'll see.

Charles:

Okay, so we're going to dive into our next chapter real quick. This one is going to be called is she the one understanding women and commitment? And this is a new section in the book, the man's guide to women, and as usual, we will use the summation at the end of the chapter to sort of guide us through the different topics that are covered. First thing Dr Gottman and others get into or bring up is that men want commitment just as much as women do, and I would say that, you know, on average, most men verbalize the desire to have a, especially as they reach a certain age, the desire to have a wife and family, just as much as women talk about wanting a husband and a family. It's just sometimes the age that they start talking about that is a little bit different.

Charles:

I think usually men are a little bit older before they start talking about it, the way that, with the intensity that women do, most men know when a woman is quote, unquote, the one, which is a concept that I I find dubious, and I feel like he he could have done a better job of explaining how there is no the one for you, in a metaphysical sense, more I don't know.

Charles:

He did an okay job where there's, there's a range of people that you could probably have a successful relationship with and there's nothing magical about one of them over another, but there are some intangibles that make you feel like you found the one more more than others right, there has to be an inherent rightness for a woman to be the one. She has to smell right, feel right, taste right and look right. So, yeah, some of those you kind of. It's very vague, still it is, and I didn't appreciate the rightness comment. Yeah, I think it's okay and fair to say that there are some intangibles that you might not be able to succinctly express in words why one person appeals to you over another person.

Dan:

But as a research scientist, shouldn't that be their job?

Charles:

It's your job to take the magic out of this right.

Dan:

Right, that's where I feel like he was kind of the same thing with his comment of man up in certain circumstances, right. Agreed, I'll dig in a little bit and, yes, be more precise. So I understand why.

Charles:

Yeah, I do appreciate that sometimes you know you will feel a connection or attraction to one woman over another and it's not something that you can easily quantify. But that doesn't mean that there aren't real criteria that your brain is evaluating on some conscious or unconscious level what I'm concerned about is a lot of times I felt things have been right and they have not been.

Dan:

They have been wrong, and so my lack of understanding of what that rightness feeling is. I think it was to my detriment where. So I would love to know what is at play when I'm feeling, when those things are are are feeling right yeah, that's.

Charles:

That's a great point. And and he did not really do any, he didn't really flesh out the idea that I've. I've noticed in myself and in my friends, you and others, that like, hey, sometimes you're with that girl because your picker's broken, because everything, everything in you and your unconscious was telling you this is a great choice, this is exactly who you should be with, and you're just wrong because of a whole lot of reasons because the wrong things are making you feel right.

Dan:

Exactly, that's exactly.

Charles:

That's exactly what I was saying perfect way to put it yeah, when that happens. Yeah, if you've not, if you've not done some work to be as healthy as you can be, then you're not going to be as attracted to the healthy option when he or she presents themselves. You're going to and look. I think I mean when, when you've been through some relationships that didn't have the result that you hoped that they would, and when you've been through some experiences as you were younger, it's like they're part of us, part of you should have a healthy skepticism of okay.

Charles:

The way that Dr Drew said it on one of his tv shows or radio shows back in the day was you should want to feel butterflies, not lightning bolts. If you've got any kind of a history of trauma or you know seeing poorly modeled romantic relationships in your parents and the fact that you're feeling lightning bolts, that might be an indicator that this is not the right person for you. And getting, getting too, and we'll get into the different stages of falling in love. But if the limerence stage, the first stage, hits you too hard, that could be related to your lack of health and your lack of function, not how great this person is for you.

Dan:

It's a hard sell because once you felt lightning bolts which most of us have at some point yeah, now that's the kind of the bar, like I could be feeling this good, and so now you feel like you're settling for butterflies and there could be things now that you're looking for to sabotage the relationship and the relationship whatever it is, because you didn't get to those lightning bolts, sabotage the relationship and the relationship whatever it is, because you didn't get to those lightning bolts, and that's usually a recipe for disaster or unsuccess or unhappiness.

Dan:

And so that's why I wish he kind of would dig in a little bit more in terms of the mechanisms and you know what. What is okay, that you know how right is is is right, like what you know how. What is okay, that you know how right is right, like what you know how good does it need to be and how good is too good, like if we could get into that, like what kind of behaviors do you exhibit when you are with a person, when it's butterflies versus light eagles, what you know, what kinds of things are you thinking or feeling typically? Just give us some examples of you know right and butterflies versus lightning bolts and he may have touched on a little bit. I've not, I forget. He may have a little bit in the chapter, a little, I just forgot.

Charles:

But yeah, but yeah, well, maybe we'll get into that a little bit later yeah, it might be thought be something else to look for in a in another book too.

Dan:

That might get a little bit into that I think the name of the book should be butterflies versus lightning bolts and we will write.

Charles:

I think, yes, yeah, that's. That's an interesting question, though, that how, how much of the, how much of the struggle that we have in our relationships are just based on how bad we are picking good relationships and how much our brain is tricking us into thinking that chaos equals chemistry. And, yeah, that's a fair question. Okay, so the three stages of love are going to be limerence. Stage two is trust and knowing that you'll be there for each other, and the third stage is loyalty and commitment. So we'll get into those in a little bit more detail. You can't fall in love with just anyone and you can't make it work with everyone.

Charles:

And I found it interesting to talk about, like, even in cultures where there are arranged marriages, sometimes there's more selection going into those arranged marriages than we Westerners might think that there is. Looking at them from the outside. Yeah, I didn't realize that. Yeah, neither did I. He mentions, like, in the case of some Indian couples, usually they're. You know, once the couple meet each other, in a lot of cases maybe not every case in a lot of cases they have a way to say we need to get back to the search, because this isn't the right person for me, and then they'll chalk it up to like or some other color.

Dan:

I think it's the sari that the woman wears. Yeah, she'll change colors if she's not interested. I think for the sneaky pretty good.

Charles:

Ella has the opportunity to do that too, Okay.

Dan:

Yeah, I'm sure there's some sort of code come out, chewing gum versus not whatever.

Charles:

Whatever it is. That's interesting that, yeah, they have. Even though the parents take on a lot of the responsibility for making that pick, there are still ways that the the individuals yeah, I didn't realize.

Dan:

I thought it was almost like a forced type of thing. Yeah, and you know that it makes sense if it's been around as tradition for so many years, that they would be intelligent enough to realize that the person, the people getting married, do need to want at least at some point feel like, yeah, they are compatible or open to it, so have some sort of fail-safe kind of veto type of situation.

Charles:

That would be a good idea.

Dan:

Yeah.

Charles:

I'm glad to learn that that exists. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't know that. So stage one of the falling in love process is what the gotmans call limerence, and you and I have talked about limerence or on on this, on this show. It's that. It's that feeling of being in love with someone when your chemicals are just your chemicals of your hormones are going crazy to get you bound to this person as tightly as you can at the beginning of the relationship so that you'll be willing to stick with them when things are a little bit harder. Ie, you know, children and household are requiring you to do things that are difficult.

Charles:

And you know, I imagine I have not found myself making I've never made lifelong commitments or decisions while I've been in the limerence phase with someone and then, you know, had to kind of sober up and realize, oh crap, what have I done?

Charles:

I think of you know celebrities, you know flying to Vegas and getting married on sort of a whim when they're in this stage and then they have to figure out how to live with it or roll it back or whatever. And yeah, I'm glad I've not found myself in that position. But I have been in the position where I've been in limerence with someone and have thought, okay, this is it, this is my person, I'm going to be with them forever. And then it didn't turn out that way. So that's why it's so important to not make decisions with lifelong consequences when you're in the first few months of being with a new partner yeah, but sometimes you'll get pressure from the other person to make a person, or your friends or family, I mean, there's no telling where that pressure could come from right, and that's why it's important to say no, I don't.

Charles:

I don't make decisions like I don't make these huge decisions when I'm on drugs, which is essentially what you are.

Dan:

Yeah, right, yeah. So he said what kind of hormones are going on? Oxytocin.

Charles:

Yeah, something I haven't even said or pronounced before. Let me find it here because it is. Yeah, he mentioned some chemicals that I had not heard the name of before Oxytocin, dopamine, phenylethylamine, pea testosterone, estrogen, serotonin and dihydropendastosterone huh, okay dhea, you can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't stop obsessively thinking about your partner.

Charles:

You're crazy, excited, head over heels in love and you may find yourself doing some wild things, and often your partner, who's going through that with you will will be in the same boat. And yeah, it really. I mean it does feel like you're on drugs and rash. Your, what is it? Your? Your fear response goes down. Your ability to look ahead and plan for the future goes down. I mean, yeah, it's quite a trick that biology plays on you.

Dan:

It kind of forces you to kind of be in that moment and then not be able to think forward or as easily think forward, because you're feeling so good in that moment that you're just focused on the present time. Sometimes that's good to do, but it's sometimes not good to make long-term plans in that state.

Charles:

Right, that's where you know. I think you know, having maintaining your therapy, your men's group or your women's group, and talking through this process with other people that you trust and that understand it is very important because you know you need you need somebody to sometimes talk you down a little bit.

Dan:

Yeah, because and you need those external people because they're not feeling, they're not on, they're not on the same drugs that you are, so they definitely will be bringing a different perspective.

Charles:

Yeah, and and it's. It's good to have people like that in your life that can kind of check you when you're experiencing this, because it's very difficult for you to check yourself, other than just having certain principles like I do not move in with someone that I've known less than x number of months or years. I do not marry someone that I've known less than x number of years. I do not fill in the blank. Whatever those rules are, it's good to have those before you get into the relationship so that you don't find yourself just getting completely caught up and, making you know, putting your name on a 30-year mortgage with somebody that you met three months ago I know a lot of people will, and I've been guilty of this too is oh well, this person is different.

Dan:

Like I can, I can shortcut this principle. You're not. You're having great reasons why and I can sign this mortgage because this person is completely different than all the other ones and stuff. And it's just like, again, you're judging it under drugs, right? Not? Not with a clear head. So if friends and family are starting to ask you some questions that are getting annoying to you because they're saying, oh, you're acting different, you, you know there's a good chance that you might be, and usually it's going to be they're going to be mentioning it to you. For your best interest, just try not to be so quick to dismiss that.

Charles:

Yeah, I agree. Now I got married pretty young and my wife was pretty young too, and we did not have any kind of a prenuptial agreement, or even really talk about having one, because we didn't have any assets. So what do you need one for it? Neither of us came from families with a lot of assets, so you were engaged. Did that conversation ever come up with you and your fiance?

Dan:

No, it never did. I mean, neither of us also didn't have any assets, didn't really have any assets or a lot of money at that point and I was engaged for five months and it was like before we even sent the invitations out or anything, we decided we're not doing it, for the right reasons.

Charles:

I think, as I'm older not that I still have much in the way of assets on paper, I certainly have my assets are a very extensive lifestyle where I get to do what I want all the time, and I don't think you put that into. You don't put that into a prenuptial agreement, but I would. I'm just thinking of this because I watched a show recently where it was about a family, a woman, getting married and her family had a lot of money and it's like you know well. Well, I'll send you to my lawyer and get the prenup. Oh, I'm not getting. It led to a whole bunch of that, but she was. You know, she met the guy fairly recently, so she was definitely in the limerence stage and you know, the idea that they weren't going to be together forever seemed preposterous to her. So why would they need a prenuptial agreement if they're going to be together for the rest of their lives?

Dan:

So there's so much more behind that. It's kind of one of those things I feel like a lot of people are like oh well, you're going to jinx the relationship if you have that type of thing Right, and it's just like holy cow, what's the difference? If you're going to be together, then you don't need it, but get it anyway, like you know. That's why there's a reason. There's medical insurance, auto insurance, I mean some of it's dictated by law, but at the same time it's like you have it but you hope you never use it right it does.

Charles:

It does feel like what's the point? It's in that category of superstition and magical clinking and stuff like that where, yeah, I would say if I, yeah, if I ever got married again and I was, you know, worried about any of my assets or any of her, or she was worried about hers, then yeah, of course you know why. Why make a big deal about it? Part of me is also I. I'm of the opinion if I was married into money, that's her money, it's not my money and I don't need somebody else's resources. I'm capable of generating my own resources or regenerating them if I need to.

Dan:

I heard a great way of thinking about it. I don't know who said it, but it was basically the person that you're marrying is not the person that you're divorcing. So that's why you want a prenuptial agreement. That's true, yeah, because. And you're not going to be the same person either. So let's just be honest.

Charles:

Yeah, and when something goes through, when something turns from a personal relationship into a business relationship, which is essentially what a divorce is, a divorce is a business transaction that you want to go into your business transactions in as strong a position as you can, or even in as equitable position as you can. That's fair to both people. And so, yeah, yeah, the time to make that decision of what's fair is when you're not in the middle of divorcing the person. Right, well, you still need the yeah when you still like each other exactly yeah, um, so yeah, I just thought that one of the things that goes along with that limerick stage is this idea we're going to be together forever, so let's make some huge decisions right now. And, yeah, that can definitely turn around and bite you.

Charles:

Stage two is trust and knowing if you'll be there for each other. So stage two is when the limerick starts to wear off and you start looking at the situation like, okay, do we have the same values? Do we feel the same way about things like children and money and sex, and what is a good life? And answering those kinds of questions and being able to, for the first time since you've met each other, being able to answer them honestly and decide okay, is this the kind of person that I can stay true to myself and also stay true to them for the rest of our lives? Yeah, you got to kind of ask those, those questions, and on the one hand, it's harder if you come up with no's. It's harder to get out of the relationship because you've been with them for a while, but on the other hand you can.

Charles:

Now that you're not on the same dose of drugs as you were before, you should be able to look at those questions a little bit more reasonably.

Charles:

And that's also when she's going to be making decisions like okay, is this the kind of person that I can run a household and raise a family with?

Charles:

Is he gonna be reliable enough and trustworthy enough to get myself into those kinds of positions where I'm really relying on, on his ability to provide for me emotionally, financially, in all those ways? Yeah, a third stage of love is about loyalty and commitment, which, again, trustworthiness really kind of is a vein that goes through all three of these. As far as what the woman's looking for from the man, you know, are you going to be who you claim to be and are you going to do the things that you say you're going to do, and it gets harder and harder to overlook those failures the longer you're with somebody, as well it should, and so if there are sort of chinks in your armor when it comes to being who you are, or being who you claim to be and doing what you say you'll do, then you know, in in stage two, that can be where the breakup happens, yeah, where you know you've you've not had the track record of of being who you claim and doing what you say you'll do.

Dan:

And I think it's important to show those chinks in your armor to your partner is show that you're not perfect, you don't have it all figured out Right, because then, as long as you're being truthful to yourself and to her, I think that's, that's the foundation of of all of what you're just talking about.

Charles:

Yeah, I agree, he gets into this one part where this has been a. This has presented some problems for me in relationships before. And let me know if you, if you've had this experience as well. You don't need to have similar likes and dislikes to work as a couple, but you do need to be compatible in how you handle conflict and express emotions and affection. So I've had relationships where we did share likes and dislikes, like very, very closely, but we did not share how we handled conflict and expressed emotions and affection to each other.

Charles:

And you know, now, as I've gotten older, I realized, okay, well, one of these is important and the other one is not. And the sharing the likes and the dislikes, it feels like, you know, kind of low-hanging fruit or easy wins, but it's not nearly as important for forecasting the success of your relationship as okay, well, do you actually have the same value? Do you? Do you look at love and relationships and mental health? Do you look at those things the same way as each other? The expression of emotion, the how to handle conflict, you know, do you if those? If you don't match up on those things, then it doesn't matter that your favorite band or your favorite movies to say.

Dan:

Right, yeah, because that's a good point. I mean, the likes are the easy ones. Right that are you're going to be able to find something.

Charles:

Most likely, and you can very easily. You can fairly easily change your likes. Yes, you know, the person you're dating can expose you to a new TV show or a new band that you weren't familiar with before and you're like, oh yeah, they're pretty good, I like those, I'd be happy to go to their concert. But then you know if, if the way you express emotions or the way you think about intimacy are not the same, that's that's going to be a bit more of a problem.

Dan:

Yeah, your communication styles are different, yeah, especially when it comes time to resolving a problem or thinking about a problem or an issue that is far more difficult to manage and find, I think.

Dan:

But I also feel like, if you come from a position where you were not, as before listening to this podcast and reading these books and things, I was definitely more focused on being right and my ego is getting in the way A lot of times whenever I would have an argument, instead of trying to figure out what the solution is and then providing time and space for the other person to get out, communicate everything that they need to, that other person to get out, communicate everything that they need to, and those two little things, you know saying that this person is important enough and the relationship is important enough to work on a solution to the problem and not care how we got there or how we get there.

Dan:

That and also giving that time and space, and you know being able to take some. Also giving that time and space, and you know being able to take some. Maybe some things that don't sit with me very well, maybe that I don't agree with, but just focusing on allowing that time and space for the communication to happen from her, from the situation, had made such a big difference in my life in terms of my overall happiness and my ability to come to solutions and resolve problems a lot more quickly with a lot less stress. So those are the two things that I try to really, and I'm translating that into just not just my relationship but with my girlfriend, but with other people as well, and it's worked pretty well with my girlfriend but with other people as well, and it's worked pretty well.

Charles:

It's worked pretty well, yeah. Yeah, my revelations in that space have been, you know and we talk about this all the time where any of these techniques, any of these practices, any of these anythings that we recommend for men to sort of integrate into their relationships, into their lives, are all contingent upon the belief that I am enough and I'm healthy enough, I'm good enough. No matter what happens to me, I'll deal with it, I'll be able to roll with punches, everything's going to be okay. And yet, and where?

Charles:

Yeah, if you and I think you know, when we talk about the four horsemen that can doom relationships and how, you know, my, my special one, special one that spends a lot of time hanging out with me is defensiveness, and if it's very easy to feel like you're being poked and that idea of I'm good enough, I'm sufficient, I can handle anything. If that gets prodded at and starts to crumble a little bit, you're like, oh now, now I'm feeling like I might not be good enough, I might not be feeling like I'm enough for this person or for this relationship, then the defensiveness wall goes up immediately and, yeah, it takes a lot, of, a lot of uncomfortable work, to sort of build up that self-image that tells you no, you're, you're gonna be fine, you can, you can hand, you've handled. Crappy stuff has happened to you before. Crappy stuff is going to happen to you again, and the only thing all those crappy things have in common is that you survive.

Dan:

Yeah, no, I think it's great that you look back and you can look from actual evidence of you handling things that are more difficult, or even not as difficult, but surviving through it and going hey look, I even came out better in this situation than I was before. So this is an opportunity for for me to get uncomfortable and feel a little pain, but I might actually be a better person afterwards.

Charles:

Yeah.

Dan:

And that's that's been for me. It's just find the emotional space and to remember those things Right and take in the time time. Especially when that whole high starts getting up right in the middle of it, it's really difficult to think of anything of other than what's happening right there in the in the middle.

Charles:

Oh, yeah for sure. Okay, here's. Here's another one of these points at the end of the chapter where he gets a little little. You will know she's the one if she makes you feel like you are your best self and you feel more alive, adventurous, joyful and loved when you're with her. But based on what he's talking about, with stage one being in limerence, you feel that way. If any girl checks off the necessary biological, cultural checkpoints, that makes you fall into limerence with her. You're going to have all those feelings and it can sometimes have very little to do with who she actually is and what she actually is, and it's about your chemicals and the way you feel when you're around her. And so you're checking off all these boxes based on these magical beliefs that are really more about your body's hormones than they are about her, and I know I've made the mistake of superimposing my idea of my ideal partner and relationship upon what I'm currently experiencing.

Dan:

When I'm in that limb rest it's very easy when you're on those drugs to kind of combine both of those and get a little confused. Perfect round peg to fit in this round hole, and then you must later.

Charles:

The glasses come off and you're like if she was a square the whole time. Right, right yeah, exactly so yeah, that can be, that can be difficult, and so I, yeah, I wish, I wish he did a little bit better job of you know, telling you, and and he did it in one of the earlier chapters he made it very clear how you know your, your vision, will be impacted when all these hormones are going crazy.

Dan:

But then you know, you still use phrases like the one and it's like you said well, I don't know if you're, there are many ones, there are many of the ones. Keep that in mind.

Charles:

Yeah, there are, but then, you know, finding the one and making a commitment or about doing what it takes to make a relationship last. It's like I don't know, man. I feel like in my own experience, most people, men and women, are walking around waiting for lightning to strike and not spending a lot of time thinking. I don't know how to recognize, you know, real lightning from a transformer blowing up down the block, but it's like it's. It's very easy to make a mistake when it comes to that, and especially if you've got a complicated relationship with your mom, your dad, the kind of, you know, marriage or relationship they modeled for you when you were a kid. It's like you know.

Charles:

What have you done? Who have you asked? Who have you done? Who have you asked? Who have you talked to? What have you read? Who have you listened to? To do anything to sort of calibrate your ideas of what relationships are supposed to feel like versus you know what your parents in the movies have told you that they're supposed to feel like and look like. It's like I don't know, man. That seems like I mean, because this and so many other books talk about how you know, as men, the most important decision we'll ever make is you know what partner we choose to marry and start a family with, and we're almost doing no work to figure out like, okay, are the criteria that I am unconsciously evaluating to find that person remotely close to what they should be, or am I just going based off?

Dan:

of vibes. Yeah, and the easier move is just go off of vibes.

Charles:

Right, so that was last last tax, yeah and then you end up with a society where half the people are getting divorced because the vibes change. Change or don't? Labs or? Yeah, absolutely so I don't. I think, yeah, maybe for our next book we might need to do some legwork and see who's out there talking to you about making informed choices for how to choose partners, especially in the context of what kind of baggage are you holding on to from your childhood that you may not recognize that you're holding on to. We'll see what's out there.

Charles:

Okay, here are the things that will make you a zero when it comes to this. You refuse to ever commit, meaning you just, you know, decide to adopt a lifestyle of I'm going to be a perpetual bachelor and I'm never going to even entertain what the possible benefits of, you know, monogamy or long-term commitment are. If you think every woman is the one which, more specifically, would be, every pretty woman that shows you a little bit of attention is the one. You make a commitment to a woman and you don't honor it. You threaten to leave the relationship and bring up divorce when you are in upset. When you are upset or in conflict, yeah, that's definitely a big no-no. You don't cherish the woman in your life, you always think there might be something better out there than the woman you committed to. You don't sacrifice for the relationship or you don't look to your relationship as the place to get your needs met. So we'll hit a couple of those real quick. If you always think there might be something better out there than the woman you committed to, he mentions that might be a symptom of agreeing to a committed relationship with a woman you've never felt limerence for. So if you made decisions that were purely based on logic and checking off some boxes but you never actually felt that, that chemistry with somebody, then, yeah, those people usually do end up looking back thinking, ooh, maybe I could have done better. Yeah, so that's something to look out for.

Charles:

Don't go into this just purely based on logic. It's got to be. You got to keep the logical side of your brain working as well as you know. Look for chemistry and look for just attraction. You don't sacrifice for the relationship and I I've got friends that are dealing with situations with partners where when things are good, they're good, but they're stuck in a situation with somebody who's never actually willing to say no to anything else that they want for the purpose of the relationship, affection of other men or women or whatever it's like.

Charles:

Yeah, if you're a relationship where somebody is not saying I'm gonna say no to this other thing so that I can have this valuable relationship with you, then you're always going to feel like you're you're in second, third, fourth or fifth place and never in first place. You don't look to your relationship as a place to get your needs met, which, yeah, that's, I mean, part of's. Part of the difficulty or struggle we can run into in a social media based culture is when you commit to someone, you're saying the positive feelings I get from feeling attractive, it's 100% your job to make me feel those things now, and I am not going to be looking for other men or other women to make me feel special or make me feel attractive, because then you run into what? What if you meet somebody else who's better at making you feel attractive than your partner is? Then you're going to continue to try to solicit that feeling from that other person and that's going to be bad for your relationship.

Dan:

So Glover summed it up a relationship should be the icing on the cake and not the cake itself. To try to solicit that feeling from that other person, and that's going to be bad for your relationship.

Charles:

Glover summed it up A relationship should be the icing on the cake and not the cake itself of your life. Right, right, yeah, yeah. If you feel perpetually not good enough, then anyone who comes along and makes you feel special is going to be potentially a very disruptive presence to the other things that you value in your life, like your romantic partnership with your long-term monogamous partner. So if you're always kind of feeling like I don't know if I'm good enough, I don't know if I'm enough, and then some good-looking guy or gal comes along and tells you things or makes you feel things in a way that your long-term partner has not been doing, or or even if they do do it, but it doesn't feel as novel and as special as it, you know, when you're used to hearing, hey, you're good looking from the same person for years and years, then when somebody else comes along that's that's why it's important to keep up those boundaries and not really, not really open yourself up to people coming along and in making you feel that way. So yeah, that's very important.

Charles:

Anything else from this chapter that you wanted to get into? Again, I was just a little bit. It felt a little woo-woo to me. You know how I hate books, that I bring any woo-woo into anything. So what part was woo-woo for you Any time where he mentioned the one?

Dan:

You'll know it's the one if dot, dot, dot, yeah it's like that's to have a whole chapter about this and not really get into it in terms of I feel like, yeah, it wasn't really explained. Well, I feel what, who? That that one is right. I mean, I don't even hold, I don't even really like the idea of using the term the one, because that sets an expectation of to me. That person is completely what.

Dan:

The situation is controllable, right, and people change and, and so they could be the one at the beginning, they could be compatible with you. So I feel like, you know, maybe it's just a cute way of saying how do you improve the odds or increase the odds of meeting somebody that you're going to stay with for the rest of your life? And I guess it's a little bit easier to say the one. But the the issue that I have is there's like no talk about the other person changing in a way that maybe isn't compatible with with you, because you can't control a lot of external things in your world, and that includes your partner, or they potentially could change in ways that aren't compatible with you know what you want and what you, you, you guys, you know came together as a couple at the beginning with. So, yeah, I feel like there could be a little bit more meat in this chapter.

Charles:

Yeah, I look at the one as a term that is completely backward, looking like, yes, she's the one I've chosen, she's the one I've committed to, but not a term that you use for before you've decided that she's the one. It's. Oh, I think I found the one. It's like well, have you? Have you decided that she's the one? Then she's not the one if you haven't already made that decision. It's just, she's potentially a good match. She might be the best match that you found so far that you'll ever find.

Charles:

But the, the idea, yeah, it does feel like there's something metaphysical or spiritual or woo woo about this.

Charles:

That, yeah, as as someone who's been in relationships with people that I thought were going to be the one and it didn't work out that way, yeah, it's like okay, if it. If it happens once where you're wrong, you get this wrong. Then and I think dr gotman was married before, oh, really, his wife julie too and it's like how can you, how can you still talk about things in that way where you went into a relationship completely convinced that you figured out, you got it right, and then it turned out you were wrong? It's like, yeah, I don't see how and I'm not down on remarriage or second marriages or anything like that. But I do feel like when you talk about relationships in those terms and you get proven that it doesn't always work out that way, in a very personal way, maybe it's time to outgrow that kind of talk and sort of leave it behind, because that's the way I feel about it yeah, no, I, I see that sure anyway, all right, that's where we are for that chapter.

Charles:

the next one will be see chapter 14, mother nature understanding women and children. And yeah, that'll be interesting to talk about the levels of commitment and affection that women have for their offspring versus the, the feelings they have for their partners and how men react to that. I'm hoping to get into that a bit on the next one. So, thanks very much, and you and I will talk about this again next week. Sounds good, sir. Bye, bye-bye. Thank you so much for sticking with us for the whole episode, dan, and I certainly appreciate it. Again, please check out our website mindfullymasculinecom for all the news that's fit to share, as well as our full audio and video episodes. Thanks again, bye-bye.

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