Love, Sex, and Survival: What It Really Takes to Make Relationships Last

Love, sex, survival — Esther Perel has spent decades showing how our relationships shape everything about the quality of our lives. In this episode of Mindfully Masculine, Charles and Dan unpack her powerful conversation with Steven Bartlett on The Diary of a CEO.

We explore the big themes from Esther’s interview:

• Why the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life
• How childhood experiences shape adult patterns (and how to change them)
• The “figure-eight” loop couples get stuck in — pursuer vs. distancer
• Why love is a verb, not a feeling, and what it takes to keep desire alive
• How presence, novelty, and vulnerability keep relationships from going stale

This is a conversation for men who want to stop repeating old patterns, show up more fully for their partners, and understand what it really takes to make relationships last.

Watch the full Diary of a CEO interview with Steven Bartlett and Esther Perel here: https://youtu.be/nTWXfo7narw?si=ycEbp6RpgqQLJ9JY

For all of our full episodes, audio and video, visit mindfullymasculine.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 8:09 Relationships Define the Quality of Life
• 9:15 Love as a Verb vs. Lazy Partnerships
• 17:28 Growing Up Without Models of Healthy Love
• 20:36 The Figure-Eight Loop Couples Get Stuck In
• 31:28 Balancing Safety, Freedom, and Desire
• 36:17 Porn, Shortcuts, and Emotional Vulnerability
• 43:34 Infidelity and the Search for Aliveness
• 53:34 Key Takeaways: Connection, Novelty, and Effort

Transcript

Charles: 0:00

Let's talk about ambiguous loss. Um this is an interesting term that she uses for when someone is physically present but emotionally absent. And she she mentioned something in this section that I I'm finally gonna take some action on something that I've been really bad at for very, very long. Which is which is focusing too much on my phone. Okay. And so the the reason that for social engagements, dates, things like that, I have always felt like I had a good excuse was oh, well, what if we're talking about something and you know the conversation gets really interesting and I want to look up a fact or confirm that something I'm saying is true, blah, blah, blah.

Dan: 0:44

Sure. Because you feel like you're you'd be able to contribute more to the conversation, right? You're investing in the moment indirectly, right? Yeah, I can see that, sure.

Charles: 0:54

But I think that it's still a net negative on my friendships and on my romantic relationships. I am going to actively start leaving my phone places when when I know you know you and I are going out for dinner or I'm I'm taking my partner on a date or whatever. I don't need the phone. And I don't need it sitting there, whether it's face up, face down in my pocket. It's just temptos. It's too temptos.

Dan: 1:20

I get it for sure.

Charles: 1:22

Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles. All right, today Dan and I are reviewing Stephen Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO conversation that he had with Esther Perell, one of the world's most respected therapists and authors on relationships and sexuality. In their discussion, Perell explores why the quality of our lives is defined by the quality of our relationships, how childhood experiences shape our patterns as adults, and the figure eight loop many couples fall into. She explains a tension between security and freedom, how presence versus distraction builds or erodes intimacy, why novelty matters in keeping desire alive, and how issues like sexlessness, porn, and even infidelity connect back to deeper needs for connection and aliveness. We'll share our reactions as men, connect her insights to our own lives, and talk about what to do if you never saw healthy relationships modeled growing up. For all of our full episodes, audio and video, visit mindfullymasculine.com. Thanks for listening and enjoy. Oh, good afternoon, Dan. We don't say that very often, do we? Uh we do not. No, we usually record in the morning, but uh we've had some technical issues with the computer that we use to record your side of the conversation, your audio, your video. And so we've had to come up with a workaround, and hopefully we've landed on one that will be a workaround and will not crap the bed on us in the middle of the recording. Fortunately, our failed attempts only got like two and a half minutes in before we realized there was a problem.

Dan: 3:00

Those were quality two and a half minutes. They were.

Charles: 3:02

Let's see. What do we talk about? We talked about books, we started to introduce our topic for this week. I cleared my throat a few times. And we've not really come up with anything conclusive. We have not been able to figure it out. Um but uh yeah, we're we're pretty close right now. I think uh stand out we we did establish that our chairs are identical. So any difference with the way that we are framed is not about our chairs. So um I think it's my slouchiness. Maybe. I mean, I I consider I think of myself as having poor sitting posture, but um I don't think so. Usually not in it's like the the simpler the chair, the better I sit in it. Like if it's like a car seat or a big cushy office chair, then I'll kind of get kind of sloppy with my posture. But these are just we just use like very basic folding chairs here, and so um I I do kind of default to sitting up straight. Anyway, um we are going to review, discuss, analyze another great episode of Steve Bartlett's Diary of a CEO uh podcast, I guess, video podcast. Uh last week's was uh his interview of Orion Terraban, the um psychologist and behavioral economic economist. Behavioral economist that uh talks about relationships through the lens of of economics and and figuring figuring out what motivates people and how they make the decisions that they make, which I thought was very interesting. So decided to go back to that. Well, um, why come up with new stuff when we can just talk about somebody else's stuff? Yeah. Steve does a great job of putting together an interview and uh and producing a podcast. He was at um one of the podcast movements that I went to that you didn't go to. He was a keynote speaker. Oh, nice. And he he had a lot to say about he is obsessive with the way they produce that show, like metrics and everything. Like he he will like keep records on humidity and temperature and all that to see how people are the most comfortable, the most talkative, how they produce the episodes that get the most views. Like he tries to factor in everything he possibly can that goes into what makes a good episode good as far as ratings and views, and then you know, duplicates that does a lot of A B testing where he'll release like different cuts of the show and see which ones perform better. And I mean it's it's he's a real he's a real business.

Dan: 5:45

I mean, yeah, I mean it's it's a real polished interview where it's I mean, I feel like it's you know next level of what the old late night guys were doing, you know, when they would do interviews. I mean, I guess they still do those interviews when they have a guest on and and the guest does most of the talking.

Charles: 6:00

Yeah. Yeah. No, I could I compare it more to like Rogan's long form interviews, but it's so much better because I mean Rogan will go down these rabbit holes where he's just saying bullshit that's just not true, and then you know, his producer will clue him in 15 or 20 minutes down the road. Steve Bartlett doesn't ever do anything like that because I think if he caught himself making a mistake like that, he wouldn't let it get to air. Right. Yeah.

Dan: 6:23

You know, I mean, if he's concerned about the humidity.

Charles: 6:26

Right, exactly. Come on. Yes, and the go 20 minutes down on a bullshit story that proves to be, you know, based on false information is not something he's gonna do. And so for that reason, I'd like to, I think we should stick with him for a while and and look at some of his best interviews and see, you know, what people he's talked to in the mental health space, the relationship space, um, and for recreational purposes, other spaces as well. I know he did uh an interview with Mike Israkel, one of uh one of the fitness influencers we I was gonna say we both like. I think you like him. I I get good information out of him, but he's one of these people that uh thinks he's funnier than he is, and that's the worst. Okay, so we're gonna talk about Esther Perel and her interview um with Stephen Bartlett and what the topics that they got into that I found, um, she's done a couple with him, and I went back to the oldest one. I figured we should start with that one because we might want to do her newer one as well. But uh this was really a good primer to her work in general, I would say. She they kind of covered a little bit of everything that she focuses her book writing and her own um media appearances. And I think I've seen her maybe not a TED talk, but something like that online where she is kind of talking about the same sorts of things. Um she leads off by saying that, you know, the quality of all of our lives is going to be based on the quality of our relationships. And if yeah, that really resonates because it doesn't matter how great of a job you have, how much money you have in the bank, or how how fancy the house that you spend your day sitting alone in really is. None of those really define how good of a life you have. Aaron Powell Yeah.

Dan: 8:09

And I think that recently they've also linked the quality of your relationships to your lifespan as well. And that was like the number one predictor of a long life was the quality of your relationships, actually, above all other health markers, believe it or not.

Charles: 8:24

It's crazy. Yeah, I believe that. I know married men tend to live longer than single men. I think we had a conversation about that. Yeah, there there can be some interesting causation correlation discussions about that, like whether you know, the the person who is going to say no to marriage for their whole life is more likely to engage in other risky, unhealthy behaviors and things. It's yeah, it's always tough to know. Apparently, being being a publisher or an editor whose job it is to write headlines, you never have to really factor in the correlation versus causation thing. You just focus on the the headlines. The soundbite. Yeah, the soundbite, the headline that's gonna get the clicks in the eyeballs. Yeah. But for so many of those things, I I often wonder, okay, well, you know, what what have we done to isolate the the thing we're reporting on is really the thing that led to the uh to the result that we're reporting on? And the answer is usually not that right.

Dan: 9:14

Because there's no consequences a lot of times for for reporters who basically use the the correlation versus get it wrong. Right, you know. So anyway, Esther Perel here, she's gonna do it. She's known for mating in captivity and which we both have listened to or read, yeah. Right, which which that book is really the the basis of that is improving the relationships that the long-term relationships, romantic relationships that we have, and by bringing a little bit more of that spice and whether it's in into the bedroom or just that that novelty that we all experience at the beginning, which you know we call limerence, right? At the beginning of the relationship, how do you keep that going? And you know, she kind of makes the point of and and and Tony Robbins made this point too with his teaching about relationships is if you treated the end of your relationship like you did the beginning of every relationship, it wouldn't end because uh we just take things for granted. We a lot of times, you know, we we devote a lot of our energy towards our our work life during the day, and then we don't have a lot of it to bring to the relationship at the end of the day when we finally see our partner. So there's a lot of things that you know she goes into and and she goes into with Steven on this, but uh that's really a lot of um a lot of that mating in captivity was was also kind of uh there's not a quick solution. She even mentions there's really no answers that come out of that, other than sometimes you need to uh accept both types of a dynamic where you're not going to have the exact same relationship you had at the beginning, where it's not gonna be all you know novelty and super fun and everything else like that. It's it's still going to be some humdrum times, some some daily life times. And I think even um uh Terra Band talked about that too, where when we start dating people, we really shouldn't be doing this big performative type of experiences or impression.

Charles: 11:09

It really should be because the fall off the cliff will be all that much harder.

Dan: 11:13

It really should be, hey, this is this is how day-to-day goes with us, right? So I think there's you know some parallels here between those two.

Charles: 11:20

Yeah, one of the things I was I was thinking, there's a few things that came to mind when I was listening to this episode, and uh one of them was I don't know if it would be considered laziness or culture or whatever, but I have seen in myself and in my friends it's like when you get into a new relationship with someone and you make them your primary and sometimes exclusive source of social connection in the world, then you know, it's kind of cliche to joke about oh, my wife's my best friend, my husband's my best friend, my girlfriend's my best. It's like the more time you spend around them exclusively doing everything with them, the more they become your friend. And for the most part, healthy adults, we're not trying to fuck our friends.

Dan: 12:16

Yeah.

Charles: 12:16

And we're not thinking about our friends. And so, you know, you also sprinkle in some other unhealthy dynamics where, you know, you're making that partner your mom or your dad, depending on gender, too. And it's like, so, you know, we we start things off with somebody hot and heavy, and then the more time we spend around them, if we are lazy, if we don't think about it, if we just kind of cruise into the next phase of the relationship, you're putting all these extra roles on them that you that neither of you associate with sexual intimacy.

Dan: 12:50

Yeah, yeah. And they even, you know, they talk about this in the in the video where I think she was saying it was related to we don't have that sense of community and larger families anymore. It's we're really kind of putting all those roles on that one person that we're partnered with at that point. That's a lot of responsibility, and like you said, it's going to mold that into more of a a buddy-buddy friendship type of just operating, maybe a roommate type of situation. But what I thought was interesting here is when she said that a lot of times when she'd see couples, more often than not, when you fix the relationship, it doesn't fix the sex.

Charles: 13:32

I thought that was interesting too.

Dan: 13:33

But if you can fix the sex, that's got a lot more potential to fix the actual relationship.

Charles: 13:39

Yeah, that is usually not the way that we think about it. We we think about, you know, I have to communicate better. Communicate better, work on the connection. And yeah, what she yeah, the way she said it was what you do in the kitchen is not gonna affect what you do in the bedroom, but what you do in the bedroom changes the people who walk into the kitchen. Yo, well said. Yeah, that's that's the way I heard that part of it. I re-listened to that this morning. Yeah, I'm gonna drive over here. And uh it's like, yeah, that is that is really interesting. I mean, if you are if you're making an effort to have the fun and exciting sex with your partner that you had at the beginning of the relationship, then uh Yeah, it will change. I mean, I I think of it. Do you remember the um You've seen Back to the Future, right? Of course. You consider that one of the seminal 1980s movies? Absolutely. I do I it's hard for me to think. I mean, that Raiders, Empire, and maybe Batman. All Batman came out in '89, so it's kind of right on the tail end. I would say Back of the Future for me is the ultimate 80s movie because it had, you know, all the 80s pop culture stuff, but it also had a little bit of a sci-fi angle. And anyway, the way that George and Lorraine, the two McFly parents, relate to each other in the beginning of the movie versus the end of the movie. Yeah. Um, yeah, when when Marty comes back to 1985, yeah, spoiler alert for anybody who hasn't seen it in the last 40 years, you waited too long. Um, when Marty comes back to the future after the past has been changed because his dad stood up to Biff. Um you know, he sees his parents walk in from playing golf or tennis or something, and he's like, Mom, you look so thin. And because she's in much better shape. And um she's like, Oh, thanks, Marty. And then as George passes behind her, he smacks her on the ass, which is nothing at all what they look like in the beginning of the movie. And it's like, yeah, if if you don't work at that kind of a relationship with your partner, then yeah, I think, and I've fallen into that roommate model and and friend model. And the other, the other component of it, and she mentions this in the episode, is so many of us don't have that long-term healthy, exciting, romantic romantic relationship modeled for us by our parents. I I certainly didn't. I was thinking about that this morning too on the driveover, where, you know, my my parents, my father worked hard to my grandfather who raised me, he worked hard to make enough money for us to pay our bills. And my grandmother worked hard to keep up the house and make sure everybody was fed and had clothes and all that stuff. Um, I never saw them work on the relationship with each other at all in the slightest. Like never, never did I see them say no to something for me as a kid or for, you know, the upkeep of the house or the job situation. Never, never did they say, uh, I can't do that because I promised my husband or wife I was going to do this. You know, that never ever had the their romantic relationship, their relationship, calling it romantic relationship seems like a lie, yeah, was never a priority. And so, you know, as as it being the that was a primary romantic relationship that I saw as a kid. It's like, okay, so now what do I do? I just read a bunch of books, and you know, as we've as I've learned from Terraban and other sources, it's like the insight that you gain from reading a book about what a relationship's supposed to be is no substitute for watching it modeled in real time. It just isn't.

Dan: 17:27

Like, and then undoing the model that's been seeded into our minds as children, and most of the time, it's not, you know, I mean, I came from a divorced parent, so I didn't see my mom had no relationships after the divorce, and my dad's were fairly short term, except for this for uh you know a more recent one.

Charles: 17:45

Right. And do you remember how old were you when he met her? Do you remember 20s, 30?

Dan: 17:50

I was in my it must have been in my 30s. 20s, maybe late 20s, I think.

Charles: 17:56

You were pretty much all locked in as far as how you viewed relationships by that point.

Dan: 17:59

Right, right. And and I mean, even and and there I saw a little bit at this when it was early on, I saw, you know, some romantic interactions between the two of them, but then I that quickly turned into a you know a typical, you know, kind of just I'm doing this and you're doing that, and we're kind of friends and we do things together. And, you know, I so yeah, I didn't have I really didn't have a a good model either. I mean, I had parents of friends who are at least still married, but they weren't like m mushy or romantic in front of in front of kids at all, if they were at all, you know.

Charles: 18:36

And and there I mean there certainly is a way. Uh I don't see it often, but there there is a way to be romantic in fr in a way that is suitable for all audiences. Absolutely. And almost nobody does it. I mean, at least as far as I as far as I can tell. Yeah. And yeah, so I I've had to uh this is another one of those issues where recently, um I mean, if I was a 13-year-old girl with a crystal collection, or you, I would say the universe is trying to teach me something.

Dan: 19:06

Uh-huh.

Charles: 19:07

But uh yeah, the whole idea of the really the the only way to fix some of these patterns that we've learned as children is to to go through sort of a disciplined reparenting um strategy where you basically are willing to open up the hood and get down to that inner child and say, okay, it's time for me to, using the guidance of some experts, I've got to complete some exercises that will sort of supplant the bad information that I got as a kid by default with some deliberate steps of replacing it with good information. And so that's that's something that I'm going to be doing now that I find myself um between relationships, out of relationships, single again. Um it's it's time to dedicate some some time to to sort of cleaning up some of that mess that is still hanging around. Yeah. I'm a 47-year-old man, it's time to it's time to to get some of that dealt with in a way that is going to be permanent because yeah, I you know, some some relationships end big and bad, some end small and fairly good, but it's still, you know, I'm not I'm not seeing the results that I I want to see. And I think that's because there's still some junk in there that uh neither one of my parents are going to volunteer to uh fix all of it for me. Um so I gotta do it myself.

Dan: 20:36

Yeah. What did you think about her figure eight dynamic?

Charles: 20:39

Yeah, I did some more looking into that where we're basically, you know, you've got the two people that are stuck in this never-ending pattern of trying to make a bid for connection, and then the other person sees that as something not a bid for romantic connection and re and responds to it in a way that is unhelpful. Um the the one she mentioned is is the case where the man kind of interprets it as you're trying to control me, you're trying to interrupt me, you're trying to take over my schedule. And the woman is like, no, I'm just trying to find a way to connect with you. Find a way to connect with you so I don't feel so I don't feel lonely. Right.

Dan: 21:17

I don't feel like you're here for me.

Charles: 21:19

Right, exactly.

Dan: 21:19

And and you know, and in that dynamic, he the more she what she calls knocks, basically, which I guess she was using Steven's relationship in video as the example.

Charles: 21:29

Yeah, a lot of credit to him for being as open and honest as he was.

Dan: 21:32

Where, you know, in he his example that he gave was he'd come home from work and he'd look at his, he'd be working on his laptop for a little while. And every time he was just starting to get to work, his partner would ask him like questions that really didn't matter, like, hey, you know, do you want something to drink? And he's obviously got something to drink right there. Or or what do you think of this? And that was just a completely, you know, random thing that she was she was trying to, and she just kind of kept interrupting him. And the problem was he was not giving her full attention when she was asking the questions. He was kind of like, look off his phone for a second, uh-huh, uh-huh, and go back to work. And so what Esther Perell was talking about was she kept knocking on his door saying, Hey, let's connect, let's connect, let's connect. And he was recoiling and basically with that whole, you're trying to interrupt me. And I like the way she said is that we create the other person and how they react to us in that, those patterns. So basically, the more he recoiled and didn't give her any type of focused attention, the more she kept knocking on the door, and that more that bothered him. And I like how she said, We really got to fix yourself. You need to change something in you if you want to change something in somebody else. So the solution in that case was stop what you're doing, give her your undivided attention for a couple of minutes, and then you know, let her know, hey, I just need a couple more minutes to finish on, you know, what I'm doing here for work, and that relaxes her nervous system. So then she's less likely to continue to interrupt and and constantly ask for attention. So I mean so part of it does come back to communication, I think, in that regard. But I you know, it was, you know, it really kind of hit home with me. It's just like, oh wow, in order to interrupt somebody else's pattern, you need to first interrupt your own and and do something that's going to be a little bit uncomfortable.

Charles: 23:24

Yeah, and that's and that's the thing. It's uh, you know, depending on how you were raised and what specific uh issues you came out of childhood with, um it's like the the more chaotic your life was, the more you're going to prize and value familiarity above everything else, even when that familiarity is an unhealthy pattern that you developed with your partner that could and probably will lead to the destruction of the relationship. It's still like, yeah, but this is what I this is what I understand, this is what I expect. So I'm more comfortable with that than than doing something different or being the one to step out and do something different.

Dan: 24:02

What's interesting, she says, is that that pattern, that figure eight that keeps reinforcing itself, I should say, that can be seen not just in that situation, but whether you're talking about kids, we're talking about vacations, it like it's a it's a pattern that she sees happen no matter what the circumstances that the that couple is in. So that's basically what's dictating the whole dynamic of the relationship. And you know, she if she if you remember, she kind of goes down and says that the the emphasis of one partner, if they are kind of holding the flame for that relationship. Yeah, that is the something that in at least in Steven's case, his partner was really kind of holding the flame for the relationship. And that is something that he doesn't he kind of outsources to her as part of that relationship. And I think that was the word that they even used. Yeah. And so what Esther said was if you let her do that and you don't respond, eventually when she stops knocking on your door for attention, you're gonna wake up one day and go, Oh my god, what where'd she go? Like, I I'm alone, I didn't realize what I had, you know, until it's kind of gone, right?

Charles: 25:23

Yeah, I think um one of the things she should she suggested in that section, if I'm remembering correctly, is also have a conversation with your partner where you acknowledge that that is what's going us. Yeah where you know you you recognize it and you appreciate that they're that they're willing to do that. Because yeah, that with that push-pull figure eight dynamic, it's it's exhausting on the on the one that keeps chasing, trying to to get what they need, and the other one is just kind of backing away, backing off over and over again. And I think that you know, we we go into the relationship, into our relationships with the personalities that we have. And so if you're gonna be a chaser and the other person is gonna be the not chaser, the very least you can do is have a talk where you both acknowledge that that's what's going on and that you both, you know, at least can understand, if not appreciate, the nature of those roles and how they're going to kind of follow you along for that relationship and and hopefully figure out a way to make the relationship work, even when there is that dynamic. Yeah.

Dan: 26:35

Yeah. I think he was saying that his partner, she does a lot of she's got uh she does a lot of breath work.

Charles: 26:41

She's got like a studio or does retreats and stuff.

Dan: 26:43

And and he said that you know, that's not something he ever thinks about is terms of relaxing, taking a break. He's really focused on work. And what he said was he does appreciate that she will sometimes interrupt him and go, hey, we've got to go to the beach for two hours.

Charles: 26:56

Yeah.

Dan: 26:56

And you need to take that break. And he recognizes that it gives him some balance. And because he's got that balance, he's able to do his current job better. So to go back to what you said, which is recognize that you can't do everything that you're able to do without that other person's contribution, natural contribution, which is hey, I want connection. And through that, you know, they they're able to relax a little bit, take his mind off that work. Right. You can be then a better CEO of right of the better partner, absolutely.

Charles: 27:28

Yeah. Um let's talk about ambiguous loss. Um, this is an interesting term that she uses for when someone is physically present but emotionally absent. And she she mentioned something in this section that I I'm finally gonna take some action on something that I've been really bad at for very, very long. Which is which is focusing too much on my phone. Okay. And so the the reason that for social engagements, dates, things like that, I have always felt like I had a good excuse was oh, well, what if we're talking about something and you know the conversation gets really interesting and I want to look up a fact or confirm that something I'm saying is true, blah, blah, blah.

Dan: 28:14

Sure. Because you feel like you're you'd be able to contribute more to the conversation, right? You're investing in the moment indirectly, right? Yeah, I can see that, sure.

Charles: 28:24

But I think that it's still a net negative on my friendships and on my romantic relationships. I am going to actively start leaving my phone places when when I know you know you and I are going out for dinner or I'm I'm taking my partner on a date or whatever. I don't need the phone. And I don't need it sitting there, whether it's face up, face down in my pocket. It's just it's too temptos.

Dan: 28:49

It's too temptos. I get it for sure. Brain surgeon, somebody's on the table dying. I don't, you know what I'm saying?

Charles: 28:56

So I have to I have to put my phone up to my chest to get things adjusted.

Dan: 28:59

Stare at it first and then so that is absolutely something that I I want to work on as well, but I'm not ready. I can't, I can't leave in the car.

Charles: 29:09

So um see, I don't I don't think I've got the you know, back to the whole go bigger, go home thing. Like just this, oh I'm just gonna put it in my pocket and not take it out.

Dan: 29:18

Dude, that's why I don't buy peanut butter. It's because I don't keep it in the house. Because I I've got the same, I can't, I I can't not exactly no, that's the right move by taking the temptation and make it much more difficult.

Charles: 29:28

Now, see, right now, today's a bad example because right now I I own one pair of uh convertible pants for hiking that uh the unsophisticated witness could look at them and consider them to be cargo shorts. So if I was wearing cargo shorts or cargo pants to dinner, which uh God help me if I ever do, yeah, I could put my phone in a pocket and then zip it closed. And that's so that would be enough one more step. It might be, but again, I I am not going to sign up for a Life where I wear cargo pants to a nice restaurant. So it doesn't matter. It's it's a moot point. It's staying in the car. It's crazy. You know, this this watch is so much more useful than you know an old Nokia or Motorola phone was back in the day. Where if I'm in the restaurant and I'm waiting for you to show up and you text me that you're running late, I'll still get it on my Apple. I can still respond to it without it being a source of distraction. Because I mean, real really, yeah, my everything that I need my phone for, with except for maybe one business app that I use frequently to remote control my customers' computers, everything but that I can do on my Apple Watch. There you go. So there's no reason.

Dan: 30:43

So now it's gonna be like this, right? Yeah.

Charles: 30:45

What were you saying, Dan? I'm sorry. I lost track of where the conversation was.

Dan: 30:54

Yeah.

Charles: 30:54

Exactly. So um I'm gonna try that. The next time you and I hang out, are we going out to dinner tomorrow night?

Dan: 31:00

Uh we gotta talk about that. Oh yeah.

Charles: 31:03

Yeah. Okay. I don't know. I think it's I think it's our last uh magical dining weekend, but uh if we can squeeze one in great. If not, no worries. Yeah. If we do, I will be leaving my phone in the car. Okay. All right. So God, that means I gotta lock my car. I gotta start locking my car now, too. Oh my God. The things we're willing to do for the appearance of mental health. Right.

Dan: 31:25

Move ambiguous loss out of our lives.

Charles: 31:27

Exactly. Um, all right, we talked a little bit about the erotic tension, safety versus freedom, and how um, you know, the the two things that we're looking for in our long-term romantic relationships are really safety and excitement. And it's hard to be both of those things. You can't really be both of those things to another person in a given moment. You have to choose one or the other.

Dan: 31:51

Right, right. But we need both.

Charles: 31:54

Right. You need you need both. Yeah, and that's that's one of the things I've said about, you know, relationships where um where my needs weren't being met. The the need to feel um respected and desired is not something I require constantly, but I do require it consistently. And and I think that if you can figure out a way to provide I think every human being does. Yes. Yes. Well, no, some people some people require it constantly. Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, and and that is that's a lot of work. I mean, when if you're with somebody who requires, you know, the feel feeling respected and desired constantly, I think that puts an undue burden on the yeah, and and I probably I've probably been in the constantly camp where before I've engaged in some of the work that I've done over the last few years, um, I feel like I'm I'm more in the consistently camp now. And and now I'm willing to own that, that I do need those those two things consistently. And if a partner is unable or unwilling to provide it, then we're we're not not a good match for each other. Um but she does mention how one of the reasons that men are not able to manage that balance of providing safety and freedom for their partner is because they spend all their good energy at work and then just come home and are ready to basically plant it on the couch and wait for their partner to wait on them.

Dan: 33:22

Yeah.

Charles: 33:23

Which, you know, that's gonna, that's gonna wear on the partner. Well, another thing she said when when her and Steven were getting into uh some of the challenges he's had with sex in his relationship with his partner, she made a point that I've not really heard voiced this way, but it makes complete sense. We live in a culture, maybe a little bit less now than when we were younger, but the general message was men love sex and women tolerate sex. I'm sure you remember whether it's tropes in TV shows or movies or just hearings, your friends chat with each other, you know, in single sex conversations. That is definitely something that we have we have made um sort of a cultural default. And you know, she she addresses it by saying, Okay, you're saying that you're complaining that women don't like sex. Maybe they just don't like the quality of sex they're having.

Dan: 34:20

Mm-hmm.

Charles: 34:21

And it's like, oof, that is probably true. I mean you show me a woman that is consistently having the kind of exciting sex she enjoys with a partner that is giving her safety and freedom. And I would wager that's probably a woman who's really into having sex. Yeah. But if you show me a woman that is just not feeling fulfilled from the sex, not having orgasms, not knowing the kinds of things that it takes for her to have a great time, but she's with a partner who's not willing or able to do those things, then yeah, I mean, why would she want to engage in the practice of kind of, you know, getting warmed up and never never feeling like she's with somebody who cares enough to do the job at at the level that she's willing to do it for him. And so I I really think that that's changed the way I think about it. Now, you know, if I if I do hear a a friend complain or even joke about, you know, the idea that women don't like sex, my my mind from now on is immediately gonna go to oof, brother, I got I got some bad news for you.

Dan: 35:40

I mean, that it makes no sense. I mean, how did humans I mean, you know, how how I mean Do you really want to answer that question? Okay, no, I guess we don't get consensual sex for women is brand new. That's that's that's crazy to me. I that's see, didn't even think about that.

Charles: 35:55

But you're right, absolutely right. Yeah, there are governments in the world right now that are older than female consensual sex. Yeah.

Dan: 36:01

But I mean, it's got to be built into the human being. That's what I'm saying. Really? And and so yeah, maybe it's been so it's maybe it has been suppressed for many, many years, right? In terms of the ability socially to for a woman to express that.

Charles: 36:17

Yeah, I mean, where a woman can say, Oh, if I'm not if I'm not getting good sex, I'd rather have no sex at all. And like, hey, I get it. I can if if I was always constantly having a little bit of sex, but my favorite parts of sex, my favorite sex acts were just completely off the table, then I would kind of adopt a why bother attitude. And she talks about that with uh men's kind of their outlook on porn. And um, and again, I get tired of talking about porn, I get tired of talking about masturbation. It feels like, you know, every everything about male sexuality kind of does circle back to those topics, but to her credit, she does sort of boil it down in a way that uh I've not heard it laid out before. Which uh item are we uh on? Oh, number six. When a man chooses to interact with porn instead of interacting with a real woman, he's kind of you know vicariously living through the male performer. And what is it that the male performer gets in most porn, which again has been designed and sold, marketed toward men? Um, he doesn't have to worry about rejection because women in porns never say no. He doesn't have to worry about his performance because dudes in porn never have a hard time either starting or finishing. And in porn, there's never any ambiguity about whether the woman is having a good time because she's screaming her head off and going crazy, and things are being squirted and yelled and all kinds of things. It's like, oh, this woman is definitely playing the role of somebody who's really having a great time and everything's going perfectly exactly the way she'd like it to. And so that that does make a good case for why some guys are just like, oh, I'll just sit on the couch and watch this porn and pretend I'm the guy in the porn and he's having a perfect sexual experience, that there's no um no criticism, no vulnerability, no rejection, none of that stuff factor in. So I'll just do that instead. It's like I personally can't do that math, but I get why other people can.

Dan: 38:29

Sure. I mean, it's a lot less work, it's a lot less vulnerability, it's a lot less risk that you're gonna get rejected, that you're gonna feel like you're doing something wrong, especially when you're at your most vulnerable, which is when you're completely naked, or you know, just wearing socks, you know, whatever your thing is. So I absolutely, and that's I mean, the thought, you know, we talked about that a little bit with the AI girlfriends and everything, right? Is it's it's you're creating this perfect world, but that doesn't do that. It's so short-lived, you know?

Charles: 39:00

It's like you're and yeah, and compare, I mean, when you compare it to having good sex with someone you're in love with, it is a very poor substituted deed.

Dan: 39:09

Yeah, you're not if like like you said before, is when you change sex, you change the people walking into the kitchen. You're not walking into the kitchen with the the the porn actors you jerk, you know, jerked off to. So that's the thing, is it's like that, you know, those good feelings then build a sense of fulfillment and a basis of an amazing relationship or potential for amazing relationship when you're doing humdrum thing.

Charles: 39:28

Oh, no, absolutely. Yeah, when you're when you're you know having dinner together, watching a movie, playing a board game, and you know that you're doing that across the table from somebody that you consistently have great sex with, it makes everything else feel better and more fun.

Dan: 39:42

And I think the other piece of this is physical. It's like it's a stress relief for both of you. So it might loosen things up a little bit enough to where you it might get to tap into your creative juices a little bit more and then have some ideas to spice up the relationship and to do other things or to do the same things, but in new different ways, helping to keep some of that variety that we all crave alive.

Charles: 40:11

Yes. And speaking of creative, uh, that reminds me one of the things we talked about on one of our other attempts to record is uh I'm encouraging you and any of our other listeners, guys especially, that uh are involved in any kind of a creative job or creative side hustle or creative business that they're trying to get off the ground. Uh, read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Um I'm reminded because her and Brene Brown both recently had new books come out within like the last week or two. And uh I am probably going to re-listen to uh Big Magic. So um I don't know if it's the kind of book that we we delve into on the show. Um I don't I don't know if I would I enjoy consuming it. I don't know if I would enjoy talking about it for that long, but uh yeah, I I want to uh access more of the creative parts for some projects and some things I've got coming up, and I'm gonna revisit that book and I encourage you to do the same. Um, especially, yeah, I've definitely I think you've been listening to audiobooks on higher, uh faster speeds for a long time, haven't you?

Dan: 41:20

Uh you know, but I've started to slow that down for the first time I listened through it because I noticed that a lot of times I'm getting a little bit stressed trying to follow and and retain all that information. So the first time I listen to it, usually unless they're speaking really slowly, I will do one speed or maybe 1.1, and then if I go back to listen to it to take some notes or pull something out of it, then I'll do like a 1.25, 1.5, something like that.

Charles: 41:49

Really? Okay. So if if I'm uh if I'm re-listening to a book I've already read, like on the drive to your house, because we're gonna talk about chapters, I'll do 2.0. Oh my god. It's it's not easy, but that's as fast as I can go and still feel like okay, it it's because it's mostly about triggering the memory of the first time I read it. Or you just want to jump into that moment. I just I want to kind of just get into that space of feeling like I I've just been in the material. Yeah. But yeah, for a brand new book, or certainly for fiction, I could never for fiction, I'm listening on 1.0 all the time. Yeah. Unless, unless, yeah, for because for fiction, the only time it's ever like, oh my god, this is so slow, I have to speed this up, is when some an author is reading his own work of nonfiction where it's like, dude, you are just I forget what book it was recently, but this guy was oh, it was the um The mind, uh right, yeah, quick, quick guy.

Dan: 42:47

I it was so slow.

Charles: 42:48

Yeah, I had to. His normal pace of reading is just it's ridiculously slow. Yeah, it was only like 10x for that one. That was crazy. Yeah, and uh Sam Harris is a very slow reader and slow talker on his podcast, but I find his voice so soothing and relaxing. I won't speed him up either. So I'll I'll listen to him at normal speed. But anyway, um, yeah, Big Magic, check it out. And uh Brene Brown's book, once I listen to that, uh I think it's called Strong Ground. Okay. Um, that may be something because we haven't done one of her books for the show yet, which surprised me when I was looking at it. We we reference her stuff all the time. We reference her stuff all the time. I think we might have talked about one of her TED Talks, but we've never That's right, we did. We've never like gone through a full book of hers. And so this this one may be the one we do that on.

Dan: 43:30

I'm gonna I'll uh Steve holds up to her past work, though, you know.

Charles: 43:34

I mean, it's hard for me to imagine her putting out anything that's not really top shelf. Her and Dr. Julie. Like they they could do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. Um, at least not yet. So let's talk about infidelity real quick. Um he tried to get her to say, I I know he was looking for what is it that causes people to be unfaithful, and he was hoping for a fairly brief, concise answer. But from her expert opinion, there just isn't one. She's like, there's a bajillion reasons why people are unfaithful. I mean, she she did do kind of a good job of boiling it down to um you're looking to it's about crossing a bridge. Like you're you're looking to get from you are to somewhere else that feels like you haven't been there before and you're not sure you can get there. And she kind of tied that into what it is that draws us to our partners. And it's really it's the version of our partners that are kind of off doing their own thing and are not completely familiar to what we spend our time with day in and day out. So seeing your partner at work, seeing your partner like really deep into their hobby or their passion in a way that is not the same as the person they are when they're yeah cooking breakfast. Yeah. And and she said it's kind of and and I thought about it a little bit more too, where it really when I think about how addicting the feelings of limerence are in a new relationship, I mean it's a lot of work to recreate that. It may be even impossible to recreate that with your long-term partner. And it's also a lot of work to end a relationship and deal with all the stuff that goes along with a divorce or a breakup.

Dan: 45:27

Yeah.

Charles: 45:28

So I think there are some people that just see cheating on their partner as a shortcut of, hey, how can I experience all those crazy honeymoon phase feelings of limerence without either doing the work with my existing partner or ending my relationship and and you know, turning my whole life upside down for a breakup or a divorce. And they they just do some math that say, okay, the easiest way is for me to just find another partner and and cheat on my existing partner. I have never done that or come to that conclusion that, oh, this is what I need to do. And I don't think I ever would, but I mean, never say never, I don't know, but uh it seems like that drive for the new, the exciting, if you're in a relationship where neither you or your partner are willing to put in any of the work to get that new and exciting feeling back, at least on a limited basis, which one of the things I think Taraban said either in his interview or his episode was um sometimes the cure for um either a sex drought or just mediocre sex is hotel sheets. I thought that was a good yeah, I thought that was a good way to put it because yeah, going going on a nice little romantic get here with your partner is is a good way to be changing you're changing the environment.

Dan: 46:53

Sometimes it doesn't take that much. It really doesn't. Right. What's interesting is when Steven asked her, why do people in happy relationships cheat? Yeah. And and you know, and she said, Yeah, lots lots of times that is the case. That you know, they don't want to end that relationship, they but they they do cheat. And I believe she said something along the lines of it's not that you want to leave the other person, but that you want to leave the person you have become in that relationship.

Charles: 47:21

Yeah.

Dan: 47:21

And so you are looking for something that's disappeared in yourself in this current relationship. So you do that with somebody else because it's it's difficult to kind of get that back and get those feelings back. So hearing that, that really resonated with me because that that makes sense. You know, there's been times where I've been in a very happy relationship and you know, had, you know, I you know, I would think a lot of us have had these fantasies of of you know having, you know, having uh cheating or an affair, whatever it is, not that action.

Charles: 47:52

I didn't all think about it. Yeah.

Dan: 47:54

But where does that come from? And I think she really kind of pinpointed that there's something that we're missing within ourselves that we've we may have changed because she also talks about how we both partners are involved in creating this relationship. And so, as part of that, we are changing our identities in the relationship. So we are actually slightly different people than what we are when we're single, you know? Yeah. And I feel sometimes it's a lot of times, maybe that's why when we do end up breaking up, is because we liked the things and who we were when we were single, and we have fonder memories of that. And so then that's that's what might promote the breaking up of the relationship. When other times there's a lot of other things that are so good about that relationship, you don't want to throw that away for a fleeting feeling of you know, missing this one or two pieces of of your relationship, of who you used to be.

Charles: 48:46

Yeah, I I would say that don't you think that a lot of the decisions we make in relationships, um, whether it's maybe decisions is even not the right word, but the drives, a lot of it has to do with who we are or who we wish we were or who we wish we weren't, and we're looking for qualities and characteristics in the other person that are either making up for our deficiencies, or you know, in some cases, and I guess in the healthier cases, it would be, you know, hey, here's something I really like about myself. I would love to spend more time with somebody else who is like me in this way, but also, you know, has we're gonna be attracted to some people that have the right kind of deficiencies too, and that's where sort of our unhealthy behaviors come in.

Dan: 49:36

When you say right kind of deficiencies, give me an example.

Charles: 49:40

Oh, look, I mean, if if you grew up with a uh a parent that had the ability to get super defensive or stonewall or abandon you, then by by default, without doing the work that you need to do, you're gonna be looking for partners that you feel have the ability to do those things too. Yeah. And so when I say the right kind, I just mean the kind that my nervous system is trained to recognize and say, oh, that's I can I can understand and predict what that's gonna be like. So that feels safe. Yep. Even though it's anything, it's anything but safe, you know. But that's that's definitely, I mean, yeah, having matching up on those deficiencies is something that all of us will do if we don't take steps to avoid doing it.

Dan: 50:32

Yeah, I can see that our nervous systems then are accustomed to even when this the feelings are bad for situations.

Charles: 50:38

Familiarity can can trump good sometimes.

Dan: 50:41

But you know, you know what to expect. It's not gonna be an unknown in terms of how, you know, even if they do pull away or or oh yeah, just abandon you, whatever it's like.

Charles: 50:50

No, absolutely.

Dan: 50:51

Like, oh, I can handle this. I've handled it before, right?

Charles: 50:53

Yeah, exactly. When you go, hey, I've I've got this need that you're not meeting, and I'd I'd really like you to to change the way you deal with this when it comes to you and me, and they say thanks, but no thanks. I'm not doing it, you're like, Oh, okay, that's that's the that's it, that's what I thought would have happened. The world works the way that I thought it did. Now I can be heartbroken that they said no, but also feel some relief that the world makes sense to me.

Dan: 51:16

Yeah? Whatever. So, what would be your biggest takeaway from this video?

Charles: 51:20

Um my biggest takeaway is spend the time and effort necessary to recognize when people And I would say I'll limit this to friends and lovers, um, when they're trying to make a bid for connection, take some time to recognize it and verbalize that you recognize it and and just you know, tell the truth about what's going on. Like I I see what it is that you want from me, and either I'm not capable of giving it to you right now, or I am capable of giving it to you, and here it is. But either way, don't ignore it, don't pretend like it didn't happen, and and don't just I mean, I really do think that the the cause of so many of the the causes of so many of the relationship outcomes that I've been frustrated with are either bad modeling or I can't I don't know if laziness is the right word, but I didn't put in the work that I needed to put in, you know, for that security freedom balance to keep the relationship what I wanted it to be. And whether it's because I didn't know how or I didn't feel safe enough or what whatever. It was a problem on my end that I didn't do the work that I needed to do. And that wasn't the only problem in the relationship, but that was a big problem. And so now again, it's it's kind of a shitty deal for my past partners that I get under the hood and do all the hard work when I'm single, but that is that is kind of the way the way that it goes. Yeah.

Dan: 53:03

For a lot of us, I think.

Charles: 53:04

For a lot, yeah, I think for most people. So it's just boy, you know, if if you're gonna do it when you're single, be serious about it so that the next relationship you get into, you don't make it their problem.

Dan: 53:15

Right, right, right.

Charles: 53:16

And so anyway, and and I think the other thing is if you do that work while you while you are single, the quality of partner that you find yourself in the next relationship with is gonna be better as well. Sure. Because light does attract like, right? So anyway, um, yeah, what about you? What's uh what do you have to take away?

Dan: 53:34

Uh the phrase she said that love is a verb, and that just resonated with me on a lot of different levels that you have to put in that work.

Charles: 53:40

And you conjugate it every day.

Dan: 53:42

Yes, yeah, kind of that's great.

Charles: 53:43

Yeah, exactly.

Dan: 53:44

She did have some good, she she did have a way to turn her face and and you know, part of that is is realizing that you know long-term relationships, it's it it is work and it but it can be an enjoyable work, right? It's it's not it shouldn't be I shouldn't use the word shouldn't, right? But it it it really shouldn't be a struggle, I feel the the putting in the effort to be a solid, stable partner, but also bring some variety and some nuance and some you know fun times and creativity to the relationship, that's both need to be there. It's not gonna be one or the other. And before this, I was like, oh, you know, how do you it it goes from one to the other, like all relationships, it's limerence to you know, roommate situation, routine, right? And so, but I was really, you know, and when she's like, you know, it needs to be both, it needs to be both, and you vacillate from you know freedom to security, back and forth, and you know, uh stable to uh you know to variety. And so that and that's the way I was kind of applying when she said love is a verb, you gotta you gotta work for for both of those things.

Charles: 54:50

Yeah, and and I'm reminded of the idea in it in so many areas. It's it's true that relationships are hard, but you know what else is hard? Breakups, loneliness, and meeting new people. That's hard too. Yep. So choose your hard, right? Yeah. And yeah, it's gonna be, I mean, life, life is hard. So you just gotta decide, you know, where where are you gonna put in the work? Are you gonna put in the work only when you're desperate and you have to put in the work because you know, misery is literally at your door, or are you going to put in the work a little bit gradually on a day-to-day basis to have the fun, exciting, secure life that you want to have. And uh yeah, it requires some some deprogramming and some reprogramming, but you know, I gotta think it's worth it because you know the the lazy alternative is not. Agreed. All right, thanks, Dan. We'll uh we'll start reviewing some of uh Steve's other episodes and see who we uh who we want to dive into next. Yeah, sounds good. All right, talk to you later. Well, thanks for listening all the way through today's episode of the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. Dan and I both appreciate it. If you enjoyed it, please like, review, and share it with someone who might get value from the conversation. If you didn't like it, just pretend like you never listened. For all of our full episodes, audio and video, visit mindfullymasculine.com. Thanks again for being here with us, and we'll see you next time.