Angie Long, LMFT | The Surprising Reason Why Relationships Fail And How to Fix Them

I invite Angie Long on for a third time to discuss how friendship in romance is a defining characteristic of an enduring relationship and how to cultivate it if we don't have it. 

Angie and I put our brains together to develop a simple Journal template to facilitate regular introspection leading to deeper affection and connection with the people we love most. You can snag it for FREE here. Matt also will provide a short video tutorial to show you how he uses templates like this one regularly in his life with a journal application called DayOne.    

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Things Discussed In Episode:

• The Gottman Institute
• The Second Mountain by David Brooks
• David Brooks speaks at the Leo Hill Leadership Speaker Series at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Transcript

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Matt Boettger 0:00

Whether you are in a relationship right now, a romantic relationship, or you want to be in a romantic relationship right now, you want to listen to this episode, this has incredible big, huge value bombs. I bring on someone who was incredibly dear to my own heart to talk about a really difficult and beautiful topic. And that is love romantic love and how we actually have that kind of romantic love. And how do we can ground ourselves as something that it can weather about anything in life. So stay tuned and stay to the very end. We promise to give you something for free. That if you are struggling right now in any way with a romantic relationship and want to take it to the next level, we're going to give you a free resource to help you step-by-step to slowly move yourself into a more deeper and loving relationship. Okay, let's get going. Are you living the most real life possible? I ask myself this question all the time. Most of the time, the answer is I just don't know, but sometimes the answer is definitely not. This is why I have this podcast. I'm Matt Boettger and welcome to the show. Two small things. If you get a chance, please leave a review like on Apple podcasts and also check out my website, live in the real.com where I offer lots of resources on how to live the most real life possible now on with the show. Okay. So I bring on my sister once again, Angie long, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist who has incredible amount of years of experience to talk about a statement that I saw a couple of months ago. A statement about why marriages, why romantic relationships ultimately fail. And it's not because of a lack of love. So I bring on Angie long to talk about this, to see, to what extent she sees this in her own life and how we can better our most romantic relationships. We can get the most value out of them in thrive, even in the context of adversity. So here's my conversation with. Angie long. Okay. So I want to start with this SIS. So I got this like lecture about, I think it was in February and I was watching this. See you, what do you know, David Brooks, by the way,

Angie Long 2:24

I've read his articles. He's a journalist, and an author. And I've read one of his books.

Matt Boettger 2:29

He's a commentator on New York times. Right? I was acquainted with him with this book called the second mountain. Is that the one you read? I

Angie Long 2:34

think I read his book before that. And I've heard you talk about the second mountain before but I don't believe I've read

Matt Boettger 2:42

that battery. The number one. Okay. So number one, you have to read that. And everyone who is listening to has to read this book, it's a really, really good book, but that didn't come from the book. So in, I think February, March, the university of Colorado, Boulder had David Brooks come speak well, in a pandemic come speak means. Zoom. So, so the zoomed in and had to talk. And so I was listening to it. It was really, really good. I might have to send it to you and I'll put in the show notes as well. If anybody else wants to watch it as a really, I think a good he gave a good talk, but he said, there's one line that kind of provoked me. And I, and he said that I think it was out of the blue. Hadn't been some context, but he said most marriages failed because of a lack of friendship. Over that of a lack of love. And now I know I sent this to you a bit earlier and I found out, by the way, do you know that he's not the first one, the first person to say this? I'm guessing. You're probably thinking no, duh, but did you know that? I didn't know.

Angie Long 3:27

I pulled up. Yeah. Even a quote from Aristotle that I write. This is like ancient philosophers. I believe you just taught me

Matt Boettger 3:36

Aristotle. Totally. Yeah, that was way be fine to be before Tik TOK. So Aristotle apparently said this is important thing. So I want to start with this. I like that. Quote, what are you, first of all, what comes to mind when you hear that quote, do you think that's an accurate, maybe you've been in, this is another thing it's pretty good. Having siblings on. If you ever have a podcast, having siblings on a podcast is probably a good idea because you actually get to know them a little bit more because I realized, Oh you're a therapist. I've known that for a while. So that's. Not surprising, but the second thing, I don't know what kind of the therapist you are. So I was thinking, okay. So when you talk about marriages fail because of lack of friendship and love, I want to know What do you think about that? What have you experienced that in your own therapy and by the way, do you do marriage counseling? I have no clue. I just heard you just do like random,

Angie Long 4:20

random therapy, a new approach. No, I have worked with couples, but I don't do a ton of marriage counseling by choice. However, I'm a firm believer that individual accounts. When people come for individual counseling relationship issues are. Almost always present and certainly change can happen as a result of individual counseling. So I come through a lens of, or my experience is mostly individual, but I have worked with some couples. And where I see this, beyond working with the couples is with people in their twenties, who are trying to decide is this person that I've been with for two or three years? I don't know. How do I know when they're, if they're the one what is it supposed to be like? I don't know about marriage. And so this in individual counseling, this comes up with a lot of younger people that I work with in their twenties who are really contemplating this long-term relationship. Do I want to, are we taking the next step? And I wholeheartedly agree that friendship is something that people often they don't think about. There's some other idea about how you're supposed to know when you get married, but like this idea of friendship, it often comes up and I, wholeheartedly agree that it's huge of huge importance in marriages.

Matt Boettger 5:35

So then. Okay, so that's the w I think, I think I really, really agree that friendship is pretty indispensable. Part of love and relationships. We can go down a lot of paths, you and I about where we establish friendship. But I just want to start with idea what is friendship? Because. In my mind, it's it can be different. There's people, I hang with that, like a set of like dudes that I hang with guys, and their idea of friendship is just hanging out, shooting the breeze. And there really is no emotion involved with it. At least there's no overt emotion. And because when I think of what we're going down a path with, if, with, with David, Brooke saying that friendship is indispensable for a good marriage, then the first thing I think about is emotional, like connection. And maybe that's not right, but like emotional connection, because I think I, men Tennessee have a tendency not to be so emotionally, maybe involved in a relationship. So maybe that's the cultivation needs to be happening. But when you think about friendship, I'm like, wait, what do we mean by. Cultivating a good friendship in the context of love, I think

Angie Long 6:34

affection. Right? So even though what you're talking about is maybe you get together with these friends and maybe you're not like talking about a bunch of emotional stuff, but my guess would be is that there's some affection you have for one another, right? Like that you show up and you maybe enjoy maybe even some oftentimes, I think there's this, like holding someone else in maybe like a high esteem. I think those can be factors of friendship and maybe emotional trust, and sometimes there are, I've sometimes there's Outward circles of friendship, right? And sometimes the smallest circle of holds all of these things. And then there are varying levels of this. But I just think of a general, like a wanting the best for one another and being on each other's side, it doesn't have to be, I think some people think, Oh we don't like to do the same things. I actually don't think that particularly matters. I think it's about how you respond to one another that's most important. And there's a John Gottman is a famous sort of researcher in marriage. He's a, I think he was a therapist, but he does a lot of research. He has a marriage lab up in the Seattle area and he. Essentially done research that says he can predict with 90% accuracy who will divorce and who will remain together in marriages after he has them, come into this marriage lab and he has them talk about some area of conflict and then observes how they respond to that. And so he is come up with it. And I think this ties in well, because he has said there's four sort of deadly horsemen for marriages and that's contempt. Criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling. Now a brief quick stonewalling is what it sounds like. I'm literally like putting up a wall between you and I, and it comes out of maybe because I'm overwhelmed and I'm just withdrawing, shutting down, not engaging with you. So that's what stonewalling is. But, I think this is a nice example because he's found out these things are huge detriments to marriages lasting often lead to divorce when they're most prevalent. And so I think you can flip that and it connects with what friendships is. Like you often don't have contempt and criticism for your friends, or you're probably just like they're going off the friends list. It's just,

Matt Boettger 8:49

it's a lot easier that way. You can. That's why it's hard to it's like we're alone with a friend. Maybe that's not the right thing to do, but this is where I think not to go down like a really deep rabbit hole of trying to make terms be everything. But one of the books I read a long time ago, relationships talk to that idea about sympathy. I don't know if I put this one in the notes, but by the idea that there's sympathetic relationships, which is a real, what he calls it like a raw material of love, but it's just a raw material and sympathy is just basically like mutual experience. It's so Hey SIS, let's go to a Marvel movie and we're like, okay, let's go. So we go and we both have a really powerful fun experience. We both experienced passively a really good movie. We bond over the experience. And so then we end up thinking that we're bonding and we are, but it's very immature. It has nothing, there's nothing active about it. It's just us. We both happen to be in the same environment. Same time, both enjoy the same thing. And that was the bond. It's still a bond, but it's not active. It's not like one pursuant another the person. And I feel like sometimes we get in this road of Oh, we experienced somebody. We both like each other, like all of a sudden we're like, Ugh, You feel icky and then you just dismiss them and move on. You go, you find a new friend, so it seems like it's an easier reality to deal with friendship in that way. But then my fear is when we treat freshmen like that way, then we get into relationships that are love. But then we feel like we have to stay in it. But then we don't bring our a game. We sit in this ah, you're icky, but then, and then we just stay in that mode. And I'm guessing that is probably one of the elements of that prevents us from moving from a deeper relationship and a friendship, which so I'm wondering, like, how do you like build a friendship with in those situations where you're feeling really rubbed and in, in your go-to is maybe the Stonewall, or I don't know what the other ones, you said, the other ones where that's your defense mechanism, that's your safety mode, right? Or your self preservation defensive, but now you're in this relationship. Yeah. And now you want to like, try to move into a place where ah, I don't. I can't cut this person off or objectively. I don't want to cut this person off, but but my constant thing is going to these particular. Traits that aren't helping. How on earth do I get myself out of that? If in one of those relationships and begin to lean into possibly a friendship, which you said has like affection affection

Angie Long 11:00

for someone, right? It starts with. You talk about this a lot. I think like discovery, right? Like I use the word introspection, like it starts with awareness. Well, to go, okay, how am I relating to this other person? And just, you can take a few days or a week and kind of figure out how, Oh, wow. As criticism in that remark, I just said it might've been contempt. Or we got a little defensive there or I would drew like you can, self-assess pretty easily now what? And just a little. Sidebar is that oftentimes what couples, when they show up in therapies, they want to tell me what the other person is doing wrong. And I encourage them not to go, don't go keep track of what your spouse is doing wrong. That is a dangerous road. That's about blame that's contempt criticism right there. And so it's about, becoming introspective and going okay. If I, why don't I look at this? How am I responding? Especially around areas of conflict. And then once you recognize that one, that in itself is powerful just to go, Oh my gosh. I didn't realize all the ways this is showing up in my relationship and what I'm saying. And then you have to intentionally cultivate. Something new. Can I, when I noticed that arise, I can choose not to act on it. I don't have to say the critical thing. I can, pause, be with that and choose to say something supportive. And what we know is about change in general, like the best way to change is through little frequent practices. It's little and often it's. Okay. So it's not like I need some big insight or some big intervention. It really is about going. I'm going to bring my awareness and my chin to this. I'm going to look at myself rather than through a lens of what the other's doing wrong and then go, what do I want to invite in? And inviting in. Affection for the other is something you can do. And, we're designed to believe what we tell ourselves. So when you start talking differently and start thinking differently, you start feeling differently, you start acting differently. All these things are connected and influence one another. So even if you don't feel it, you can start the action and you'll get to feeling at some point,

Matt Boettger 13:05

this doesn't happen overnight. Like a switch a couple things right. Racing through my mind of this idea of, well, okay. Whenever I get triggered. I'm going to default to my most basic instinct, which is probably not, for some people, it might be a virtuous instinct for other people's. It might be. I go back to my defensiveness. So usually when I tell people about trying to practice a better sense of relationship or leaning into someone that practicing in a moment of a trigger. Is absolute futile and never works to your advantage. So get to practice continuously outside them in safe zone of practicing, cultivating the sense of in the same way that I probably got here, or we got here in a certain way, in a relationship, not because of particularly the unique. Relationship, maybe that's part of it, but also a lot of things that predated that go from your whole history and your past. And so get this question of like, when it comes to facilitating relationships and deepen relationships, you said a Gottman can predict 90% accuracy, whether a marriage is going to fail. Now, where does that stuff come from? How much of is it, how much of it is nature and how much of it is nurture? Because I think we, I feel like we live in this gap, at least me and you, I don't know about like generation Z and that kind of stuff, where. There, we lived in a transition period of our, the ideas of marriage began to shift and change. And the values you mentioned this time, how like the emphasis on friendship and marriage, it sounds weird, but isn't it a relatively new concept?

Angie Long 14:27

I think it would be, I think it could be because I think there are generational things and I'm thinking about parents, say our parents, our grandparents, and maybe what they learned about marriage. And just the realities that, that they experienced. I think for some sometimes I think maybe they maybe looked more towards like I'm thinking of the woman in the marriage, looked more towards female friends for friendship, sort of things. And also another factor that I think contributes is. Our parents and our grandparents, for example, got married, much younger ages and we did. And so, they were, I wonder how that just impacts your view of a marriage. I can't even imagine, just finishing, being a teenager and then you're, you're married and how you navigate, what are my beliefs and ideas about who my spouse is and how that's supposed to look versus. Friendship. And so I think that there can be, and probably is some interesting information out there about sort of general generational differences about it, and if, I think if you go back, I'm just thinking, you have the fifties family what was, you almost said stereotype, but it was true. And so I'm just wondering if. If people who are in those kinds of marriages, where maybe you're not happy and maybe you don't have a lot of choice to make changes, then you know, I don't know how friendship gets brought even into that. I think back to when women couldn't really work outside the home or couldn't have their own credit card, this was like, Yeah, around when I was born, like this was, so this isn't that long ago. Okay. And how would that impact, your view? Because there was a power differential, and so how does that impact friendship in marriages that, that, that. Existed or in let's still exist today in many I'm sure.

Matt Boettger 16:22

Yeah. In different ways. No, it blew my mind now. I might pretty taken this too far, of course, but I haven't tended to exaggerate anything because for the sake of simplicity, but it reminds me of Kate. We live in this era now by which, Oh my gosh, women have a voice and it was so much simpler, epics and quotation. When one person didn't have a voice. And the other one, did you know how much easier to keep stability in the marriage? And now when you have two people who are actually human beings equals come into relationship, no wonder divorce is maybe like increasing because now it's harder because now you actually have to deal with a relationship versus a power struggle. And that's the beauty of it right now, we have to learn. So I feel like we're late to the game there we're actually at the cutting edge is believing that we're both equals. In the relationship. And so how do we come together and not feel okay. When we're in a household we can disagree. But as soon as we disagree, the man's decision overtakes, I've heard these traditional models, right? Well that, that's an easy way of doing things, but now when you're coming together and no, we work together and we find a solution it's a lot harder. It's a lot harder to be able to navigate this train and having we need all the more we need resources because this is the opportunity to cultivate. Like a real friendship, and, and lean into each other's worlds versus one person's world becomes the other person's world, which I feel like that has a tendency to be the case.

Angie Long 17:41

Well, if that was your model and then you're in something different, you get You bump up against beliefs that you never really looked at very closely, right? Oh, I realized, I assumed this, I thought this, or I have this belief about this. And so that, that shows up and again, if you're willing to. Give it time and attention and explore it. That's the opening, the gap. I'll use your word. That's the opening for change for introducing something new.

Matt Boettger 18:12

And it just really is a kind of like I tell people over and over that it wasn't until, marriage that I realized My inability to have really intimate friendships. I think I realized, Oh, because of marriage. Cause it keeps you in a position where like you're forced to be able to be with someone and you have to be vulnerable or there has consequences. If you just keep, if you give your a lock of vault, there's just consequences that are unhealthy. It's easy. It's like I said, to be able to be in a friendship and ah, it's just not working and then you leave, but this is a friendship you're trying to cultivate. You just don't leave. And so then it really opens up your the lack of friendship, the lack of vulnerability and prevents new opportunities to really grow in friendship. So get into that you were talking about before we got on about models. So I don't know how much you got into Gottman that because I'm curious. Cause he talks about You can, if he can, if he keeps any 90% accuracy of determining which relationships fail and which ones succeed, like what are some of the common denominators that cultivate a really healthy. Romantic relationship.

Angie Long 19:09

So what he's saying, what he's looking for, so he would have them talk about an area of conflict and a quickest side. These are like, what do you call it? I think I'm not sure the word to use. It's perpetual conflicts, a lot of conflicts in marriages. Aren't solvable. They don't necessarily go on and on and on. And so it's not that you have to solve the conflict. I think that's sometimes, I just want to put that out there that these often are recurrent arguments or conflicts. So it's about how they talk about him. And he said in stable marriages that there was like A positive, there was some sort of positive effect. So there might be humor. There might be understanding, showing up there's empathy. There's just a positive, a way of interacting that doesn't involve contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling. And he went so far as to say in stable marriages, that, that ratio, he does this, the ratios is five to one. So for every criticism. There's five positive interactions and by positive I'm meaning, just this okay, I'm trying to understand doesn't mean I'm not mad and I'm all happy, but maybe it just means I inject some humor into it, or I try to understand what the other person's saying, or I reflect that back to them. But so it's a very different feel. And then he said an unstable marriages. That ratio is 0.8 to one. You're talking about almost equal, negative to positive sort of interactions. Again, talking about almost equal criticism, as opposed to a positive reference towards your spouse in some way. That's a big

Matt Boettger 20:53

difference. Framing this for our listeners, they're like, okay, there's one set. There's those who aren't married in it, not a romantic relationship. In many looking to be in a relationship and they want to have a successful relationship, which we're saying that, okay. According to Brooks court, in each acorn, Aristotle accord, that friendship is, it's like the foundation stone to really cultivate a good romantic relationship. I was thinking about this idea. Now I'm throw his pass. I like, I love imagery. Of this idea of, okay, well there's raw materials are all relationship. There needs to be desire. Like you need clearly any relationships needs to, you need a desire to want to be with the person that's your own kind of desire, your own self-interest the other side. And the raw material is Goodwill, like actually wanting their wellbeing. And then there also is sympathy by having a mutual experience and it's powerful. So all of these kinds of things are the raw material. And I feel like romantic love is like the reason why we've been making homemade bread lately. So it's like that yeast, like the, they put in the raw material, like particular material, they make it rise and make it really bigger than the sum of it. Parts, right? Because romance is a pretty profound and a big reality that it feels almost, it feels almost mystical at times. There's such a connection. So deep spiritual that really transcends any kind of friendship that you have. And all of my only best equivalent is that it's not like romantic relationship because this is where I want to make this caveat, because I feel like working in a college level, I feel like sometimes they treat. Really romantic relationships is something other it's my friendship. And then there's something other as if it has its own criteria by which to measure something, because sometimes they skip the friendship and go right into the romance. The at least it'd be simultaneous at the friendship is so powerful and needed and that romance is that yeast or whatever that 11th, it makes it. Big and profound. If th the question is how then in one context of people who are looking for a bromance in their life, how can they build good habits to be able to have a good, solid friendship, or at least try to pursue that in the midst of the romance? Because. I know this, like when I first started dating Jean, my world revolved around Jan, I left all my friends, all my circumstances, and every waking moment was about hanging out with her, which of course is normal. It's infatuation. That's the first step. But some of that can be a little bit of a slippery slope because then you don't get that chance to really cultivate maybe a deep friendship right on, because you're not introducing them to your world. That was before Jan or before, which is part of your life and vice versa. So you don't get that chance to commingle with all these other life circumstances and be like, Oh, that's cool. That's neat. So in the context of single life, what are some good habits that we can take to really strengthen their capacity, to build a good friendship in the context of romantic

Angie Long 23:28

love, the friendship? Has to come first. It can be that those romantic love strong feelings are the initial attraction. And that makes sense. I'm just thinking about oftentimes like one hallmark of adolescence is intensity of feelings. And so and there's that same intensity when you're meeting someone and falling in love. And so these one, if we're younger, when that happens or that's just how it works. And so it doesn't mean I should be friends first. That's certainly a very solid foundation to have, so I wouldn't discourage it, but I don't think it's necessarily a negative or some sort of predictor if it's really romantic love. Initially, because that's often how it looks and what happens. I think what comes is. I think a way to think about this. One thing I think is how you navigate areas of conflict is this is where this could show up, right? Because that's where a lot of these, I'll just say the uglier stuff is going to present. It's going to present itself. And so being able to almost consider how to do that intentionally and to how to. To have in the back of your mind that it's, there's, it's not either, or it's not romantic love or friendship, but maybe both. And these are not mutually exclusive. And shouldn't be as what we're saying that, bringing in and thinking about, having a friendship and in addition to a romantic love, it's like a foundational piece, since Things change. We don't maintain that intensity of feelings in those early stages of dating and meeting for 50 years, I would personally argue that what develops is a lot more powerful in a lot of ways, like a deeper, more intimate love or someone sees. All of you, even the not so pretty stuff and loves you anyway and loves you with all of that. I think that's more powerful, but and so this, recognizing okay, there's something here I can tend to and pay attention to, which is, friendship. And when I think of that it's this Positive sort of in your corner affection, trust of one another. And, and to bring that in around differences, or for example, what you said earlier is like, when you're triggered, that's hard, but if you start to know what triggers you and those early signs of being triggered, there's an opportunity there. To do something differently. Whether it's simply okay, I'm having a strong reaction right now and I want to be supportive and I'm just going to go take a 10 minute break right now. You know that's an option

Matt Boettger 26:08

call to mind this, again, working on college scenes is this idea where. There's a, there's a false reality that somehow romantic love will eclipse all the shortcomings that I'm dealing with life. And I think that's one of the things I'm like where I've, I felt I've fallen prey to this in my own life where you just, you have such a romantic version of romance, which is great, but. It's a powerful reality, but it doesn't overcome your weaknesses just by default that you still bring your weaknesses with you. But in fact, believe it or not, it's going to magnify them down the road. It's going to magnify them in one way or another. So working on a deep sense of self-awareness I think what you were saying is so incredibly important that if your tendency is to deeply avoid conflict to deeply, to not really share your feelings, if that's your default. You're a gravitational force. It's really good to be aware from that because it's not going to go away. When you enter into a romantic relationship, now it'll be ignored because the romance is so intense and so wonderful. You'll forget about it. You'll be all the more agreeable. Oh, whatever you want to do. But then eventually your own humanity is going to take hold and you're gonna be like, Oh, I want to be seen too. Not that it's anybody's fault. It may be just the environment of the romance, but then great. Guess what? That baggage that we all have. It's still there and it's going to be magnified. It has been magnified in the dating and a magnified if you get married tremendously, because now, cause I'm thinking of Renee Brown. Of course we had to bring her in because she's wholeheartedness I broke it down to these two areas that this is, I feel like there's two areas of wholeheartedness in my brother's tenderness. And then there's vulnerability. There is a tenderness which has me working to be my response to somebody else's with tenderness. And that means, not Stonewall in judging that kind of stuff. Can you be tender with someone when it's painful, right. And be with them and take on their realities to, to help them and assist them without losing your own. And then the other side is vulnerability. That is like me showing up and bringing my stuff to the table, even though it might hurt. I think that is the strong cultivation that needs to be practiced. Outside the context and inside the context, but at least be aware of I have this tendency, it can vex well, anything. Any friendship, definitely romance that if you can't come to the table and bring your true colors, or at least begin to show like, this is how I really feel, because I'm afraid of being judged. This is not going to go away in romance. This is going to be double.

Angie Long 28:34

I'm just thinking like, how can you be vulnerable? Yeah. With someone, if you're getting more criticism back then kindness, so to speak. And so that's part of being vulnerable. Is there needs to be some emotional trust. I won't, that person will hurt me with this. They won't criticize me. I won't be shamed or judged or and so in order to bring that. In order to be able to like, bring that cause it takes an act of courage, I think, to be vulnerable with one another in it. And personally I'm not vulnerable with people who I know very vulnerable with those people who I know are ready to experience are going to be critical or turn it around on me in some unhelpful way. And so if you're, that tenderness and vulnerability, it's if one's. Being vulnerable than trying to meet whether you use tenderness or just, trying to at least maybe, maybe the, if you have a tendency towards contempt and criticism and thing, and these things, then maybe the first step is how do I. Respond neutrally, so I'm not, and then from there I can maybe start to add in, Oh, how do I respond in w that is an empathic response? How do I respond in a supportive way? Can I bring humor in it? Can I show that I understand. Stand in these statements. And there's, if we look at things on a continuum, there's a lot of space for movement and maybe the best first step is okay I'm just going to try to respond with, with, I'm going to leave this and just try to be neutral if it's too great of a jump to get all the way over here, even that could make a difference in movement and momentum. But, I think it's powerful to, be vulnerable there, there needs to be some trust that I won't be. Like hurt back, and again, if it happens occasionally that's not, it's not like this can never happen. It's that if that happens, what Gottman is seeing that predict stable marriages is that there's five other positive interactions that it's like covering it or surrounding it with love. You know, if there's this one hurt, but the rest of it is all affection, friendship, love, tenderness, whatever we want to call it, that doesn't become the dominant narrative of the exchange or even the

Matt Boettger 30:48

relationship. That's great. It reminds me of that. I just show you that pyramid that I created. I don't have that. I put it into one of the notes that I gave to you, but I called the behavioral pyramid where it really is like, there's the result. It's a great way. I think it's helped me to reflect a little bit more of like I had these results in my life. The things that I have, the maybe the not so good things in my life, like where are they coming from? Why do I end up being in these situations and having these kinds of results? And that comes from my actions, but of course my actions come from something else. But come from those beliefs that I have. But those beliefs come from my thoughts and my thoughts come from my emotions and my emotions come from the base layer, which is the experience. And that experience is the foundation by which we live our life for better, for worse. And so when we think about man, my relationship is not where I want it to be. It's not maybe the ideal, that's the result, that's the outcome. But then where did it come from? There's lots of good resources that you're saying providing, but at the same time, There's that experience and that experience as if I'm in a relationship, experience of level of criticism that's disproportionate to then you're just not going to feel safe. So then the result most likely that you'd be in to close yourself up and that's not the right way to go. So my question to you, as we begin to close this up is, two things. If you have a tendency to be that person. That Stonewall, that judgment, that criticism. What's one thing that somebody can do starting this week to begin to open their heart a little bit more, to be able to be a little bit less stonewalling, a little bit less judgmental towards that person. And then the other question is, but if you're on the other side and you're a victim of that, and you're the one being stonewalled being criticized. So now you're in this vulnerable situation at different level, what's one thing they can do to help them get a sense of creating a safe environment, which I think is the most difficult, because this is the where you're more the recipient of something to begin to create an environment, help create an environment. To provide better trust and friendship.

Angie Long 32:41

If we start with the person who feels like I'm criticized, I just want to acknowledge, there are some situations where I don't know that it would even be the best first step to try to change this. If there's like substance abuse problems or actual. Emotional violence or physical violence. Let's you know, I w I want to acknowledge it, that there, it could be that that's the truth. This isn't a safe relationship. And then that is something that is, I would encourage someone to get some help for so that they can navigate that. So if we take out that that's not the case, then how might you. If your spouse is potentially open to it, you might say, I feel criticized, given examples, when you say this I, messages sharing a feelings, make a request, very basic, communication. And, I'd like you to be more aware of, w when you're criticizing me and not do that so much. And then there's this, so there's feedback of course, and sharing, and then there's this. If I make a change, like if I even started to look at, if I was on that side of the equation, I started to look at well, am I, where can I. Increase friendship. Where can I offer that? Sometimes that, individual changes have an effect on bigger, institutions. They have a a, can change it because when someone's meeting you differently, it does change one's behavior. So again, if it's a safe yeah. Place that, these other sort of more extreme things are not present where you really are unsafe. Then I think it's starting with getting feedback. Maybe go into counseling, getting some support, whether that's couples or individual, and also starting to go, okay what if I respond in new ways often that starts to create a change. Now don't just do it once and then go. It didn't work. This happens it's again, little and often. Small changes that are sustained over time, that can have an impact. So that's what I would suggest for the person on that side of it. The person on the other side has to one, the first step in change, you gotta acknowledge it's a problem. So you got to recognize your own, what's coming across in, in how you're communicating and decide to work on that in order to make a change. And, you can do simple things like even. Yeah. As long as you can put like something little in your pocket, maybe you have a little stone or something, or in every time you touch it, that's a reminder to say something kind to your spouse. Or like your child, for example, you if that's what you're working on, so you can create some sort of physical. Reminder where, Oh, every time. Yeah. I, I have this reminder that's in my pocket and I put my hand and feel it. Yeah. It's my reminder to say that. And so you just practice it and don't wait to practice it in an argument, because like you were saying, when you're triggered. No, no, no. It's way harder to access doing that. And get there, but you can just say, I'm going to, try shoot for five things today to say that express friendship, affection, like a positive regard for the other person. And I'm just going to practice that behavior. And that's powerful because over time one, it will change what happens between the two. Of you and two, it will create this new habit and likely crowd out the older habit of contempt and criticism and those sorts of

Matt Boettger 35:58

things. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I think it's just it's all going back to the discovery. I think, like you said, we started off this idea of Prance it practicing discovery where I think where we fall prey of losing friendship, as we begin to determine who they are and say, this is who they are to me is like the sense of polarity of this is who I think they are. This is what they stand for. And in putting these not boundaries, but like these walls, like the stonewalling. But flipping it into the sense of discovery of like always looking to like, what's beautiful about them. What's great about them. And then not just allowing that to be your own treasure, which I think sometimes we can fall prey to, we think about it. We don't get beyond that, but then they'd be bold and share it with them. And tell them, this is why I love you. This is why I appreciate you. This is what I see in you. And it's a small things. And I think, one thing you and I were talking about that, I think it'd be fun. So we'll commit to, this is I'm a big journaler. I love journaling. And I think it's fun. It's been really. It helps me to get into a routine. Like I said, I think it's the small habits you were saying that build over time is something great. This small things alive to lead to transformation. And in my life, unless I have some system in place, I just end up not, I don't do it frequently. I do it here and there. It's like a vacation, but I'm not, it's not part of my rhythm of life. If it's not on the calendar, it doesn't get done. So having a little template and then maybe you and I coming together, create a small little template of a few questions to ask to provoke, wonder and curiosity in discovery about the person, your child, your spouse, your girlfriend, your boyfriend may be to help facilitate. Discovering that really beautiful person in front of you to cultivate a diff more profound friendships. I know some people can be in so deep. They're thinking they're listening. I can't see anything. I don't hear anything. I don't see anything I give up. But don't give up. It's there. And there's nobody on God's grace, outside of the, what you were saying says violence, these kinds of things. That's a whole different territory, but in a neutral terrain of just dysfunctional people, trying to work together and build a relationship. It just takes habit and sometimes asking the same question over and over and in lean discovery. The first few days, weeks, there may be very little on that paper, but one day the font is going to be open and you're going to see things like, Oh my gosh, I didn't recognize that small thing. She, every day she makes the bed. I never do it and I never once thanked her for it. That's it's a little, it's a little crack that begins to form and turns into this huge, beautiful crevasse of like really good, beautiful things you see in another. So you and I will commit to it. So if you go to living the real.com/friendship, You'll be able to get that little download. We'll do it as soon and get it small little template going to give

Angie Long 38:33

to you. Add something there because I like what you're saying. It's it's easy to notice the faults and others, or what's, what's wrong and intentionally placing your attention and looking for the positives, what you value, what you appreciate, what you enjoy is what I hear you talking about. And I think. Like this template, I would almost encourage it to be more introspective and yeah. How do I show up as a friend? How do, how does that person sitting across from me, my friend, while we're eating lunch, view me, what do I think they value? And is that what I want to convey? And so it is about one, can I appreciate the other instead of focusing on their fault and the introspective part is what's my Either intention or values around friendship. And am I showing up in the way as a friend that fits for me with all of that? That's great.

Matt Boettger 39:33

This is why we, this is where we have you on. We're going to do that. It's great. So we're but add introspection a little of both. It's going to be awesome. I'm going to start using it as soon as created. So I'm excited. So good. Live in the real.com/friendship Snagit. My last question to you, this is, we didn't talk about this, but this is like the middle ground. I'm just curious. I had. Somebody come talk to me about this. And I think this is more common than the other things we talked about, and that is your inner relationship by which it's a good relationship. You feel good, except for the husband, just doesn't like to share their emotions whatsoever. They just don't. But they feel like they're in a good relationship. They wish they could have that, but they're okay. Letting it go because that's just how he is now. Is that okay? And what do you do in those situations and be like it's a good relationship, but I wish I had that. And I've asked him a couple of times to share, and he just says good or whatever. He doesn't say anything. And he just allows it to be that terrain. Is that just okay? Or do we, like, how do we help someone like open that door a little bit? It's a good relationship.

Angie Long 40:29

I've heard that a lot. Yes. Where maybe one doesn't really. Talk about emotions and it tends to be associated with men more than women. And so I think there's a balancing of acceptance, like knowing who this person is and meeting them there. Well asking for. Changes if those really are, would you think benefit or valuable? And so I don't know that it's an either or answer, or I would say bringing some of those and not in a giving up acceptances in the giving up okay, it's about going, I know this, my partner loves me and accepting that, this is how he engages. But it's also, there are also things you can do again, it requires both people to want to change this. It that can maybe lead to more comfort. One thing we did as a family that our son who's now 18 w has always loved is at some point we just started doing our highs and lows around the dinner table. And you just say okay, what's the best part of your day? High, the low and. I just did it once or a few times, and then our son just loved it and we had to do it all the time. He still does it after vacations. What's high and low for you guys, just so we all know, but it's interesting. Like even that in where we all are all talkers in our family and we share this is not an issue for us, but what I learned things and I learned things I wouldn't have. Known if we hadn't had this, because you forget, it's dinner time now, and that happened at 9:00 AM and I'm actually over and done with it. But when you reflect back, so I do think there are practices that maybe don't feel quite as. Maybe frightening to someone who's not used to sharing that you can start to build a practice and a language around sharing. In other ways. There's games now, questions that have question prompts that you can pull one Oh table topics, right? You can have that on your dinner table and pull on and just, maybe especially if this is something that person wants to change and is willing to change. Can join in. So I think it's a balance of, accepting bringing acceptance and then being able to go, is this something we can look at and try to create some change in? And ideally both people say yes in that or get to that and then maybe find out how to go about doing that.

Matt Boettger 42:54

Yeah, I love it. Rejoice in the crack, you know, not to cry. So people get a lot of confused about what crack we're talking about, but rejoicing the crack. And there's this one thing I sent you in, in, on this, that this one part. It said ego based relationships. I love this. He must love me in the exact way I need heart-centered relationships. I learned to honor your unique ways of loving me. Now. I think there's room for there obviously room for both of these things that there's people who have needs and you need to help fulfill those needs. And that also looking by with, the unique ways by which people are loving. There was this one, Facebook post from some girl from high school. I loved it. She said for decades and decades, she has been looking to have her husband fulfiller and all of her needs. And it wasn't until there's a handful of years ago that she began to see, Oh my gosh, I'm thinking of this wrongly, all the along. She's been loving me in these tremendous ways that have been just not seen. And they just didn't fit my little cliche, my little bubble of what it means to be loved. And now her heart is just blown open. So again, lean into discovery, finding those ways by which people really do love you. It doesn't mean that's the exclusive way, but it helps to find that little crack to open up and find the beauty in that person. And then allow that to expand bigger and bigger, hopefully for a more profound and beautiful creation. Yes. All right.

Angie Long 44:14

Thanks. Thanks for having me on, I was talking about this stuff with you. Take care. All right. Thanks for having me.

Matt Boettger 44:22

I really hope you enjoy this episode with Angie long and myself and his conversation about how we can establish deeper foundations of friendship in the context of romantic love. I know I needed this and I'm sure at least a handful of you really needed this episode as well. And I. Really hope you snag this free template to be used as a way to cultivate a recurring sense of awe and wonder with the people around you that you love most dearly. Now, of course, this is excluding those difficult situations where you're involved in relationships that revolve around substance abuse and physical violence. And for that, I ask you to please seek professional help. But for the other circumstances in life, by which we just have a tough time seeing the people in front of us, seeing that real person being stuck in regret and resentment and frustration and judgment. But overcoming that and seeing the profound beauty of the person before us. I hope I hope this helps you to have a more deeply, real relationship with the people you love most. Oh, and by the way, if you could hear a little rug rats in the background of the episode, I truly apologize, but that is my real life. And sometimes the middle of the conversation. Our little boys get out of their nap times and they run downstairs and we have beautiful hardwood floors, and I record in the basement. So there you have it. You heard probably a number of sounds. I hope you enjoyed them and we'll see you next episode. Or without the Rugrats take care. Bye-bye thank you for listening to this episode of living the real. If you want to check out more information, go to living the real.com and sign up for my newsletter. If you want to support this podcast, you do that at patrion.com/ltr as well as one time. Payments at Venmo and PayPal in the show notes. See you all next episode. Take care. Bye.