WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:09.679 Look up with count all the things with beat it 2 00:00:09.759 --> 00:00:15.240 on the bottom all, Oh wow, is you You're my 3 00:00:15.480 --> 00:00:16.480 favorite view? 4 00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:26.039 But that's nothing, and I am back. It's just me today, guys. 5 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:28.679 Peachas and I were both pretty sick yesterday, the day 6 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:29.559 after fourth of July. 7 00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:33.799 She's still not recovered, so she's gonna sit this one out. 8 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:36.000 You guys got me today, Just me me turn my 9 00:00:36.079 --> 00:00:37.479 light on back here, so it's official. 10 00:00:39.079 --> 00:00:39.560 There we go. 11 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:45.679 I put together a document today this morning, and it 12 00:00:46.119 --> 00:00:51.960 stemmed from the conversation of seventy of divorces are initiated 13 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:55.799 by women, and this is a great conversation to throw blame, 14 00:00:56.320 --> 00:01:01.719 to create all types of conflict and victim versus villain stories. 15 00:01:01.719 --> 00:01:05.040 And it allows us to blame shift so that we 16 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:07.359 don't have to take responsibility for our actions. It's really 17 00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:09.760 easy for men to be like, fuck women. It's really 18 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:11.599 easy for women to be like, our divorce rates are 19 00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:13.439 so high because men are fucking losers and like. 20 00:01:13.519 --> 00:01:15.040 It creates a whole ass. 21 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:22.159 Ugliness around relationships, more specifically marriage than dating. But and 22 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:24.040 I want to get into I got I got some things. 23 00:01:24.079 --> 00:01:26.159 This is This started off as like a thirty eight 24 00:01:26.159 --> 00:01:28.840 page document, so there's a lot to go through here. 25 00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:31.319 I'm gonna read some of it. I'll check them with 26 00:01:31.319 --> 00:01:32.640 the chat every once in a while. For those of 27 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:34.480 you who don't know, I do record this lot. We 28 00:01:34.519 --> 00:01:36.799 record all the time live in front of our Patreon audience. 29 00:01:37.719 --> 00:01:40.480 We are trying to build our Patreon up. So if 30 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:41.799 you're not a member of Patreon on and how you 31 00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:43.319 recommend you go over there and check that out. There's 32 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:44.879 a whole lot of things that they get that the 33 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:47.680 rest of the world doesn't. So if you haven't yet, 34 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:49.840 go to patreon dot com forward slash to be better. 35 00:01:50.799 --> 00:01:53.519 All right, So, divorce is one of those topics where 36 00:01:53.519 --> 00:01:57.079 almost everyone has already picked a side before conversation even begins. 37 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:01.280 Some people immediately blame men, some immediately blame women, Some 38 00:02:01.359 --> 00:02:04.560 blame feminism, others blame the legal systems, some blame social 39 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:08.439 media dating culture. The problem is that once we've decided 40 00:02:08.439 --> 00:02:12.639 who's guilty, we stop asking the real questions. One of 41 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:15.479 the most talked about statistics and modern relationships is that 42 00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:18.840 nearly seventy percent of divorces are initiated by women. It's 43 00:02:18.879 --> 00:02:22.039 a number that's repeated constantly, but very few people stop 44 00:02:22.120 --> 00:02:25.120 to ask what it actually means. Does filing for divorce 45 00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:28.199 mean that someone caused the marriage to fail, Does it 46 00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:30.159 mean that they wanted the marriage to end, Does it 47 00:02:30.199 --> 00:02:32.479 mean that they wanted the spouse to be the problem, 48 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:35.639 or does it simply mean that they were the one 49 00:02:35.639 --> 00:02:38.759 who finally signed the paperwork. Those are very different questions, 50 00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:42.879 and they're very often treated as if they're the same. Unfortunately, 51 00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:46.199 our culture doesn't have much patience for complicated answers. We 52 00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:48.960 like villains and victims. We like stories with a clear 53 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:52.000 hero and a clear person to blame. We like headlines 54 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:55.280 that can be consumed in thirty seconds and reinforced with 55 00:02:55.400 --> 00:02:58.199 what we already believe. If you already think that men 56 00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:01.000 are the problem, this statistic becomes proof. If you already 57 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:03.840 think that family courts are biased against men, again, this 58 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:07.199 becomes proof. If you already think that marriages are outdated, 59 00:03:07.719 --> 00:03:10.960 this statistic again becomes proof. The same number gets used 60 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:14.120 to support completely different conclusions because people tend to look 61 00:03:14.159 --> 00:03:17.560 for evidence that confirms the story that they're already telling themselves. 62 00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:22.560 It's called confirmation bias. We don't start with the evidence 63 00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:24.919 and let it shape our conclusions. We start with the 64 00:03:24.919 --> 00:03:27.759 conclusions that we're looking for, and then we look for 65 00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:31.879 the evidence that supports that. The result is that we 66 00:03:31.919 --> 00:03:35.000 stop trying to understand what's actually happening and start trying 67 00:03:35.039 --> 00:03:38.400 to prove that we were right all along. The reality 68 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:41.400 is is that relationships rarely collapse because of the event. 69 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:46.479 They erode. Trust erodes, respect, friendships, communication, the willingness to 70 00:03:46.639 --> 00:03:49.520 repair erodes. And most people don't wake up one morning, 71 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:51.319 look at their person line next to them, and suddenly 72 00:03:51.400 --> 00:03:54.360 decide they want a divorce. By the time someone files, 73 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:56.599 the marriage has often been struggling for months, years, or 74 00:03:56.599 --> 00:03:59.240 even decades. Nobody ever just wakes up and goes, hey, 75 00:03:59.319 --> 00:04:02.360 I don't want this anymore. Get wrecked Like it's never 76 00:04:02.439 --> 00:04:04.960 the case. This is, like I said, a slow erosion 77 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:09.199 over time. Long before anyone walks into a courthouse, thousands 78 00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:12.400 of conversations have already taken place, thousands of opportunities to 79 00:04:12.439 --> 00:04:17.040 reconnect have already been missed, thousands of small decisions, small disappointments, 80 00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:20.920 moments of disconnection that have quietly moved people further apart. 81 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:24.000 Divorce is often the final decision, but it's really the 82 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:26.920 first sign that something's wrong. That's why I don't think 83 00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:29.240 the most important question is who filed. I think the 84 00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:32.319 better question is what happened long before anyone ever called 85 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:35.519 an attorney, Because if we can understand what slowly destroys 86 00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:37.959 a marriage, we have a much better chance of preventing 87 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.639 one from getting there in the first place. So I 88 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:43.959 want to impact what the research actually says, where people 89 00:04:43.959 --> 00:04:46.480 tend to overreach with their conclusions, and what every couple, 90 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:50.240 whether you're dating, married, separated, divorced, or even happily single, 91 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:53.720 can learn from. This isn't about proving men or women 92 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:56.639 are right. It's about understanding human behavior. Because if all 93 00:04:56.680 --> 00:04:59.160 we do is argue over who's to blame, we'll keep 94 00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:01.680 reducing the same outcomes. 95 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:04.279 Okay, so let's start with this. 96 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:08.800 The statistic itself, Yes, women initiate roughly seventy percent of divorces. 97 00:05:09.319 --> 00:05:12.120 That statistic has been replicated for decades, and at this 98 00:05:12.199 --> 00:05:15.279 point it's not even really debated anymore. The number itself 99 00:05:15.319 --> 00:05:18.079 isn't where the disagreement begins. The disagreement begins with what 100 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:20.839 people think that number actually means. A lot of people 101 00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:24.360 hear women file for divorce and immediately translate translate that 102 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:27.480 into women are good at ending marriages. Other people will 103 00:05:27.519 --> 00:05:30.120 hear the exact same statistic and conclude that men must 104 00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:33.000 be terrible husbands. The problem is that neither of those 105 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:37.319 conclusions actually comes from the statistic itself. I didn't include 106 00:05:37.319 --> 00:05:39.360 a statistic in this document that I feel like I 107 00:05:39.399 --> 00:05:41.399 need to say just to get it out there. The 108 00:05:41.480 --> 00:05:44.839 highest divorce rates are in lesbian couples. The lowest is 109 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:49.720 in gay couples. Men, right, And I feel the need 110 00:05:49.759 --> 00:05:51.439 to say that because this is not a matter of 111 00:05:51.439 --> 00:05:55.160 placing blame. I think that the statistics matter and it 112 00:05:55.199 --> 00:05:56.160 needs to be stated. 113 00:05:56.519 --> 00:05:58.360 And that's it. So like this is again, it's not 114 00:05:58.399 --> 00:05:59.480 a blame thing. It's just. 115 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:03.879 Is it that women get sick of people faster and 116 00:06:03.959 --> 00:06:06.879 decide that it's not worth saving. Are they not willing 117 00:06:06.920 --> 00:06:08.120 to put in as much effort? 118 00:06:08.199 --> 00:06:08.279 Like? 119 00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:12.120 Are they are the court systems biased towards women so 120 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:13.800 they get more in the event that they get a divorce? 121 00:06:13.879 --> 00:06:15.800 Like These are real questions that need to be asked 122 00:06:15.879 --> 00:06:19.279 and answered, and a lot of times they're not. So 123 00:06:19.319 --> 00:06:21.920 the statistic itself doesn't tell us why the marriage ended. 124 00:06:21.959 --> 00:06:25.279 It tells us who emotionally checked out first. It doesn't 125 00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:27.240 tell us who stopped trying. It doesn't tell us who 126 00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:31.879 became emotionally unavailable. It doesn't tell us whether there was infidelity, addiction, abuse, 127 00:06:31.959 --> 00:06:35.680 or years of unresolved resentment. It doesn't tell us whether 128 00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:38.800 two people simply grow part of our time. It tells 129 00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:41.079 us one thing. Who filed the paperwork. 130 00:06:41.399 --> 00:06:41.839 That's it. 131 00:06:43.720 --> 00:06:45.879 We have to be very careful not to ask data 132 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:49.319 to answer questions that was never designed to answer. So 133 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:51.879 think about it this way. Imagine two business partners. After 134 00:06:51.959 --> 00:06:55.680 years of declining revenue, unresolved conflict, poor communication, resentment, and 135 00:06:55.720 --> 00:06:58.560 failed attempts to save the company, one partner finally walks 136 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:01.959 into the courthouse and dissolves the business. Who entted a partnership? 137 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:06.120 Was it the person who filed who caused the business 138 00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:06.480 to fail? 139 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:07.600 You don't know. 140 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:11.079 None of that information's there. Maybe one partner stopped carrying 141 00:07:11.079 --> 00:07:13.240 their weight, maybe both of them did. Maybe they had 142 00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:16.639 different visions of the future. Maybe outside circumstances made the 143 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:20.879 business unsustainable. You can't determine any of that by looking 144 00:07:20.920 --> 00:07:23.920 at who signed the final document. Marriage is no different. 145 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:26.519 The divorce papers are often the final chapter of a 146 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:30.040 story that has been unfolding for years, sometimes decades, and 147 00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:33.480 by the time someone files the relationship has usually experienced 148 00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:36.439 thousands of moments that never make it into the court records. 149 00:07:36.519 --> 00:07:40.240 This is death by a thousand cuts. The conversations that 150 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:42.560 never happened because someone didn't feel safe enough to bring 151 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:46.079 them up. It's the conversations that happened when but weren't 152 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:47.079 truly heard. 153 00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:47.720 Got that. 154 00:07:48.319 --> 00:07:51.920 It's the conversations that happened but weren't truly heard. It's 155 00:07:51.959 --> 00:07:54.240 the night someone cried themselves to sleep while the other 156 00:07:54.240 --> 00:07:57.720 person had no idea. It's the resentment that quietly accumulated 157 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:00.519 because neither person knew how to repair it. It's the 158 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:03.240 apologies that never came, the affection that slowly disappeared, the 159 00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:07.040 bids for connection that were ignored, the sacrifices that went unnoticed, 160 00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:09.600 and the loneliness that existed while two people were still 161 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:12.680 sharing the same bed. The courthouse doesn't see any of that. 162 00:08:13.879 --> 00:08:18.480 It simply records who walked through the door first. That's 163 00:08:18.519 --> 00:08:20.560 why I think we have to resist the temptation to 164 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:26.240 weaponize the statistic. Statistics describe patterns, but don't explain people. 165 00:08:26.360 --> 00:08:29.000 They can tell us what happened across millions of marriages, 166 00:08:29.319 --> 00:08:31.959 but they cannot tell us what happened inside of yours. 167 00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:36.480 Every divorce has a story. Sometimes the spouse carries most 168 00:08:36.519 --> 00:08:40.039 of the responsibility. Sometimes both people contributed in different ways. 169 00:08:40.399 --> 00:08:42.600 Sometimes both were doing the best that they knew how, 170 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:46.159 but neither had the skills to build a healthy marriage. 171 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:49.320 Sometimes one person checked out years before the other even 172 00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:53.200 realized the relationship was in trouble. Reality is messy, Human 173 00:08:53.240 --> 00:08:56.879 relationships are messy, and if we're serious about helping marriages survive, 174 00:08:57.000 --> 00:08:59.639 we have to become more interested in understanding the process 175 00:08:59.639 --> 00:09:03.240 than a sie blame. Blame might satisfy our emotions for 176 00:09:03.320 --> 00:09:05.919 a moment, but understanding it is what gives us the 177 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:09.360 opportunity to do something differently, and if nothing changes, the 178 00:09:09.399 --> 00:09:12.919 same patterns will simply repeat themselves in your next relationships. 179 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:15.559 Let's see what's going on in the chat over here. 180 00:09:16.360 --> 00:09:17.960 He's not aware of those statistics. 181 00:09:19.159 --> 00:09:23.360 Okay, marriage is not dating sounds obvious, right, But I 182 00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:26.080 don't think people slow down enough to really appreciate the difference. 183 00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:31.799 When you're dating, there's emotion, attachment, attraction, shared experiences, habits, memories, 184 00:09:31.799 --> 00:09:34.720 and expectations. If your marriage is healthy, it still has 185 00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:37.200 all of those things, but dating has an exit that 186 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:41.000 is relatively simple compared to marriage. You can en the relationship, 187 00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:44.039 and while it might be painful and emotionally devastating, the 188 00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:48.279 structure surrounding it is usually much less complicated. Marriage changes 189 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:51.480 the equation. Marriage isn't just two people saying I love you. 190 00:09:51.559 --> 00:09:54.320 It's two people building a shared life that eventually starts 191 00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:58.159 to function as one. You become one flesh, You share bills, 192 00:09:58.200 --> 00:10:02.399 a home, routines, family systems, holidays, friendships, debt, and often children. 193 00:10:02.840 --> 00:10:05.360 You organize your future around each other. Your decisions are 194 00:10:05.360 --> 00:10:08.879 no longer just your own because your lives have become intertwined. 195 00:10:09.559 --> 00:10:10.960 That means when a marriage. 196 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:13.200 Begins to fall apart, people aren't simply asking do I 197 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:15.360 still love this person? They're asking a whole lot of 198 00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:20.120 other questions. What happens to the house, what happens to 199 00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:23.720 the kids? What about our finances? What will our families think? 200 00:10:23.879 --> 00:10:26.440 What will church think? What will our friends think? Who 201 00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:30.279 am I if this marriage ends? What will this cost me? Emotionally, 202 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:34.360 financially and socially. These questions carry enormous weight, and they 203 00:10:34.440 --> 00:10:38.440 fundamentally change how people experience the relationship. This is why 204 00:10:38.519 --> 00:10:43.039 the research becomes really interesting to me. Stanford's sociologist, doctor 205 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:47.759 Michael Rosenfield, studied more than two thousand heterosexual couples as 206 00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:50.240 part of the How Couples Meet and Stay Together Study. 207 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:54.000 One of his most interesting findings wasn't that women initiated 208 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:57.440 roughly seventy percent of divorces. It was among the unmarried, 209 00:10:57.519 --> 00:11:03.360 dating and cohabiting couples. There was no statistically significant significant 210 00:11:03.399 --> 00:11:06.799 difference between men and women who chose to end the relationship. 211 00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:11.200 The gender gap emerged primarily once couples were married. So 212 00:11:11.279 --> 00:11:15.080 think about what that means. If the entire explanation were 213 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:18.480 simply that men became such terrible partners, we would expect 214 00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:22.000 to see women ending dating relationships at much higher rates too, 215 00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:26.799 and we don't. The significant difference appears when marriage enters 216 00:11:26.799 --> 00:11:29.399 the picture. It tells us that we have to look 217 00:11:29.399 --> 00:11:32.000 deeper than simply blaming a gender. We have to look 218 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:35.440 at what changes when two people move from dating into marriage. 219 00:11:36.559 --> 00:11:39.600 And I think one of those biggest challenges is obligation. Right, 220 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:42.120 We're now carrying a whole different load on our back 221 00:11:42.159 --> 00:11:43.960 than we were carrying when we were just having fun 222 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:48.559 with all of this. Dating has expectations, and marriage has obligations, 223 00:11:48.600 --> 00:11:51.039 and they are not the same. When you're dating, most 224 00:11:51.080 --> 00:11:53.799 of what you do still feels like a choice. You're 225 00:11:53.840 --> 00:11:56.919 choosing to spend time together, You're choosing to invest, and 226 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:01.960 choosing to stay. Marriage introduces responsible responsibility to your spouse, 227 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:05.080 your family, your children, the life that you've now built together, 228 00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:10.279 and responsibility changes the psychological experience of a relationship. Human 229 00:12:10.360 --> 00:12:14.720 beings naturally enjoy what they freely choose, but when that 230 00:12:14.799 --> 00:12:19.519 same choice becomes begins to feel like duty, sacrifice, pressure, 231 00:12:19.720 --> 00:12:23.519 or obligation, something starts to shift. The relationship can begin 232 00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:26.879 to feel less like freedom and more like confinement. And 233 00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:30.120 I don't think that commitments the problem. I think that 234 00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:35.399 it means that relationship with commitment matters, right. I think 235 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:37.720 that this is where many couples begin to struggle. The 236 00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:41.200 normal weight of commitment starts getting interrupted as evidence that 237 00:12:41.240 --> 00:12:44.559 something must be wrong. Our ordinary discomfort that comes with 238 00:12:44.639 --> 00:12:49.080 sacrifice starts feeling like oppression. That natural friction that comes 239 00:12:49.080 --> 00:12:52.360 from building a life with another imperfect human beings starts 240 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:53.879 sounding like I've lost myself. 241 00:12:54.720 --> 00:12:54.960 Now. 242 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:59.200 Sometimes that's absolutely true. Sometimes that is absolutely the fucking truth. 243 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:03.759 Sometimes someone really has lost themselves. Sometimes a marriage is 244 00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:08.519 abusive or controlling. Sometimes it's emotionally unsafe. Sometimes that shit's 245 00:13:08.519 --> 00:13:13.480 really over. Those realities exist, and they should never be minimized. 246 00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:17.480 But that's not every marriage story. Sometimes what people describe 247 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:21.080 as harm is actually the cost of commitment. Sometimes what 248 00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:25.320 they call incompatibility is really emotional immaturity. Sometimes what they 249 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:29.039 call losing themselves is actually grieving the fantasy that marriage 250 00:13:29.080 --> 00:13:33.159 would always feel like dating. That's a very difficult truth 251 00:13:33.200 --> 00:13:36.159 to accept because dating and marriage ask different things from us. 252 00:13:36.200 --> 00:13:40.480 Dating is largely about discovery. You're learning who this person is. 253 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:43.480 You're asking yourself, do I enjoy being with them? Are 254 00:13:43.480 --> 00:13:46.399 we compatible? Can I see a future together? Where marriage 255 00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:49.519 is more of a construction, it's asking can we build 256 00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:52.039 something together when life gets hard? Can we do it 257 00:13:52.039 --> 00:13:55.600 when we're tired, when we're stressed raising children, when money 258 00:13:55.639 --> 00:13:58.039 is tight, when one of us loses a job, when 259 00:13:58.039 --> 00:14:01.159 our health changes, if we're grieving, if overwhelmed, when we 260 00:14:01.279 --> 00:14:05.039 disappoint each other, when we have flaws that neither one 261 00:14:05.080 --> 00:14:07.320 of us knew existed when we first fell in love. 262 00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:11.639 Because marriage isn't about preserving the excitement of dating forever, 263 00:14:11.799 --> 00:14:14.120 It's about learning how to build a life that can 264 00:14:14.159 --> 00:14:18.120 withstand reality. That's why marriage isn't dating. It was never 265 00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:20.559 supposed to be. It asks more from us, and it 266 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:23.720 demands more from us. And if we expect marriage to 267 00:14:23.759 --> 00:14:26.639 continue to feel like we're dating or in the dating 268 00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:29.720 phase without accepting the responsibilities that come with building a 269 00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:32.399 new life together, we're likely to mistake the normal weight 270 00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:35.759 of commitment for evidence that the relationship itself is broken. 271 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:38.799 We're going to get into some terminology and shit in 272 00:14:38.840 --> 00:14:40.879 a little bit, guy, So I know that this is 273 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:41.840 kind of dry right now. 274 00:14:41.960 --> 00:14:43.600 Just bear with me. I promise this has got some 275 00:14:43.639 --> 00:14:46.639 good information in it. I think this is. 276 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:48.519 Probably going to end up in the dating playlist along 277 00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:50.360 with I Versus You statements, because there's going to be 278 00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:53.279 a whole lot of scenarios in this document that's going 279 00:14:53.320 --> 00:14:58.799 to explain better ways to deliver things to your person. 280 00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:02.240 Marriage is one of the strongest mirrors that most people 281 00:15:02.279 --> 00:15:05.240 will never stand in front of. It shows you your ego, 282 00:15:05.559 --> 00:15:09.159 It shows you your selfishness, your wounds, where you still 283 00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:14.200 want love without responsibility, intimacy without sacrifice, and devotion without surrender. 284 00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:16.519 But most people fail to see it, and then they 285 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:20.320 fail to take accountability or course correct, because marriage does 286 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:23.000 not just reveal whether you love someone, It reveals whether 287 00:15:23.080 --> 00:15:27.080 you have enough humility, maturity, and spiritual discipline to keep 288 00:15:27.159 --> 00:15:30.039 choosing love when that fantasy wears off. A lot of 289 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:32.840 people are not leaving marriages because there's not love. They're 290 00:15:32.919 --> 00:15:35.519 leaving because they do not know what to do with 291 00:15:35.559 --> 00:15:39.799 the weight of commitment once love starts requiring sacrifice. So 292 00:15:39.879 --> 00:15:43.240 the language we use, one of the most interesting ideas 293 00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:45.679 that we came across while researching this topic, has very 294 00:15:45.720 --> 00:15:48.440 little to do with divorce itself, but with the language, 295 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:52.440 because words that we choose don't just describe reality, they 296 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:56.519 shape it. Psychologist Nick Haslam coined the term concept creep 297 00:15:57.279 --> 00:16:01.360 to describe what happens when psychological concept slowly expand beyond 298 00:16:01.399 --> 00:16:08.440 their original clinical definition. Words like trauma, abuse, gaslighting, toxic narcissist, 299 00:16:09.240 --> 00:16:12.519 emotional neglect, and even boundaries begin to stretch until they 300 00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:17.799 cover experience that they were never originally intended to describe. Now, 301 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:21.759 before anyone misunderstands us, real abuse exists, real trauma, gaslighting, 302 00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:24.919 all of that should exist. We've coached people who were 303 00:16:25.039 --> 00:16:27.879 genuinely manipulated, people who've lived in fear every single day, 304 00:16:28.159 --> 00:16:31.399 and people whose nervous systems were permanently altered by what 305 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:34.840 they endured. Those experiences deserve to be taken seriously, and 306 00:16:34.879 --> 00:16:40.159 the language exists because those circumstances are real. The problem 307 00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:42.759 isn't that we have these words. The problem is that 308 00:16:42.759 --> 00:16:47.279 we've started using these words for just about everything. Think 309 00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:49.759 about how often you hear them today. A husband disagrees 310 00:16:49.799 --> 00:16:53.279 with his wife and suddenly he's gaslighting her. A wife 311 00:16:53.279 --> 00:16:57.080 forgets to techt back, text back, and now she's emotionally neglectful. 312 00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:01.159 A boyfriend doesn't like his girlfriend's friends, and now he's 313 00:17:01.159 --> 00:17:04.640 controlling a girl from once more quality time and she's codependent. 314 00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:07.839 A spouse has flaws and suddenly they're a narcissist. You 315 00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:12.880 see what's starting to happen here. We're replacing observations with diagnosises. 316 00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:19.200 We've stopped describing behavior and started assigning identities. There's a 317 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:23.000 massive difference between saying my husband interrupted me and saying 318 00:17:23.079 --> 00:17:27.160 my husband is emotionally abusive. Those aren't different ways of 319 00:17:27.200 --> 00:17:31.119 saying the same thing. They're completely different claims. One identifies 320 00:17:31.160 --> 00:17:34.480 a behavior, the other assigns an identity. One says we 321 00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:37.319 have a problem and the other says you are the problem. 322 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.599 Once we cross that line, something changes inside of the relationship, 323 00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:44.519 like you can't recover from that. When you start telling 324 00:17:44.519 --> 00:17:47.000 your part person that they're a narcissist, or that you 325 00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:49.640 know they gaslight you, or they're emotionally abusive because they 326 00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:51.319 interrupt you. When you guys are in a heated argument, 327 00:17:51.400 --> 00:17:55.160 you are changing the way that the person questions their 328 00:17:55.200 --> 00:18:00.599 own identity, and it becomes very problematic. Very few people 329 00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:03.319 know how to respond when being diagnosed by their spouse. 330 00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:05.920 If my wife tells me I interrupted her, we can 331 00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:08.640 have a conversation. If she tells me I'm an abuse 332 00:18:08.680 --> 00:18:11.759 of narcissist who is gaslighting her, I'm no longer entering 333 00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:14.240 a conversation. It feels like I'm entering a courtroom or 334 00:18:14.279 --> 00:18:18.079 a battlefield where my primary objective is to defend myself. 335 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:21.400 The goal is no longer understanding. The goal becomes proving 336 00:18:21.480 --> 00:18:26.640 my innocence. This is where communication begins to die. How 337 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:28.799 can two people work through a problem when one of 338 00:18:28.839 --> 00:18:32.279 them feels they've already been convicted. It's even more difficult 339 00:18:32.319 --> 00:18:35.079 when these words have become so overused that they've drifted 340 00:18:35.119 --> 00:18:39.720 far from their original clinical meaning. Once every conflict becomes pathology. 341 00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:43.319 There isn't much room left for ordinary human growth. We've 342 00:18:43.359 --> 00:18:45.880 watched this happen in coaching more times than we can count. 343 00:18:45.880 --> 00:18:49.000 A husband will say something insensitive, and instead of addressing 344 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:53.039 the insensitive comment, the conversation becomes about emotional abuse. A 345 00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:56.400 wife becomes defensive, and instead of talking about defensiveness, she's 346 00:18:56.440 --> 00:18:59.839 labeled as a narcissist. Someone forgets an anniversary and instead 347 00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:04.279 of talking about the disappointment, they're suddenly emotionally unavailable. Everything 348 00:19:04.319 --> 00:19:08.200 gets escalated, everything becomes clinical, and in everything becomes permanent, 349 00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:12.680 and the possibility of growth starts to disappear. The tragedy 350 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:15.519 is that people can grow. People can mature, they can 351 00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:18.440 become less defensive, they can learn empathy, they can improve 352 00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:22.799 their communication, become more emotionally available. But it is incredibly 353 00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:25.640 difficult for someone to grow if you've already decided that 354 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:31.880 they are fundamentally broken. Language matters because language determines whether 355 00:19:31.960 --> 00:19:36.000 we see another person as capable of change. This is 356 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:37.799 one of the reasons why we're such big fans of 357 00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:40.440 Alfred Adler. Adler was one of the founding figures of 358 00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:44.400 modern psychology, alongside Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung. But unlike Freud, 359 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:48.920 who believed everyone was largely driven by their past, Adler 360 00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:52.599 believed we were primarily driven by the future that we 361 00:19:52.599 --> 00:19:55.680 were trying to create. He taught us that every behavior 362 00:19:55.720 --> 00:19:58.640 serves a purpose, and even when we're not consciously aware 363 00:19:58.680 --> 00:20:02.559 of ita asking what happened to this person? Adler encourages 364 00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:06.000 us to ask what is this behavior? Trying to accomplish 365 00:20:06.359 --> 00:20:09.400 that question changes the way that we see conflict, relationships, 366 00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:13.519 and even yourself. Adler understood something that many people miss. 367 00:20:13.960 --> 00:20:17.119 Human beings don't simply react to life. We move towards goals, 368 00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:21.000 often without realizing it. Sometimes the goal is connection, Sometimes 369 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:25.680 it's safety, sometimes it's significance. Sometimes it's simply about protecting 370 00:20:25.759 --> 00:20:27.920 our ego. We're going to get into the ego pretty 371 00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:31.640 hard here. If you call your spouse selfish, instead of 372 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:35.440 asking why they're acting selfishly, you stop trying to understand them. 373 00:20:35.839 --> 00:20:39.000 When you label someone a narcissists, you stop looking for complexity, 374 00:20:39.279 --> 00:20:43.319 and you've stopped asking what fear they're protecting, what wound 375 00:20:43.400 --> 00:20:46.279 they're carrying, or what skill they're missing, And you've convinced 376 00:20:46.279 --> 00:20:49.359 yourself that you already know exactly who they are. This 377 00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:53.799 is a fucking problem. People are almost always more complicated 378 00:20:53.799 --> 00:20:56.079 than the labels that we assign to them. One of 379 00:20:56.079 --> 00:20:58.839 our biggest problems that we see in relationships today is 380 00:20:58.839 --> 00:21:02.680 that we've become incredible skilled at identifying pathology and our 381 00:21:02.759 --> 00:21:07.960 partner while becoming increasingly blind to our own. I'm gonna 382 00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:10.720 read that again because that's such a fucking prominent statement. 383 00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:14.279 One of the biggest problems we see in relationships today 384 00:21:14.440 --> 00:21:17.799 is that we have become incredibly skilled at identifying the 385 00:21:17.799 --> 00:21:21.880 pathology and our partner while becoming increasingly blind to our own. 386 00:21:22.359 --> 00:21:24.839 We know all the words, all the diagnosis is, we 387 00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:27.000 know all the red flags, but we have forgotten one 388 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:30.039 of the most important relationship skills there is, and that 389 00:21:30.200 --> 00:21:33.960 is describing what happened without assigning someone else in identity. 390 00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:38.480 Instead of saying you're emotionally abusive, you can try saying 391 00:21:38.599 --> 00:21:42.160 when you raised your voice, I felt afraid. Instead of 392 00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:45.200 saying you're a narcissist, Try saying I don't feel heard. 393 00:21:46.079 --> 00:21:49.559 Instead of saying you're gaslighting me, try saying my experience 394 00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:53.839 feels dismissed. Those statements don't minimize your pain, they make 395 00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:57.319 it easier for someone else to actually hear it, because 396 00:21:57.359 --> 00:22:03.599 the reality is, every disagreement isn't abuse, Every mistake isn't trauma. 397 00:22:03.720 --> 00:22:08.880 Excuse me, Every selfish act isn't narcissism, Every misunderstanding isn't gaslighting. 398 00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:12.200 Sometimes it's simply two imperfect people trying to love each 399 00:22:12.240 --> 00:22:15.440 other with what skills they were taught. When do you 400 00:22:15.480 --> 00:22:18.599 guys think about that? Most of us weren't taught how 401 00:22:18.599 --> 00:22:22.359