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Coming at you hot. I don’t mean that was a cold noise. That was dumb. I’m sorry. I’m gonna I’m just gonna own it. Don’t look at me like that, like a disappointed dad.
I wasn’t even looking at you. You literally we were
we you look but then you look down like, are you having a rough day? No. It’s kind of like the kid that goes up on the T ball stand and he strikes out? Well, you don’t you can’t strike out in T ball.
But I think you can. Oh, really? I’m pretty sure it’s really sad. I’d like to Well, first of all, first of all, yes.
Yeah, I just I just want to say I think you’re really funny. Really? Yes. Funny. You’re witty you say really funny stuff.
See, that is not something this podcast knows about me, I think because I have to be you know, I have to be the counterweight to all of your squirrel moments and self deprecation. And so like, he’s really
dry. No. I mean, perfect example. When you said I mean like who really likes plumbing? And Britain’s,
like plumbers lovers. I made Brent funny. No,
it’s funny because it was just like, anyway, I was trying to I was trying to encourage and give you a compliment. Hey, thank you, man. You’re very welcome.
I appreciate it. Yep. So, you know, I want to talk a little bit today. First of all, Nathan, Good day to you. Good day to you. I’m Jonathan. Nathan Morris is you’ll die try. It’s a podcast between two guys who are trying to figure it out. And we’re doing it in a very public way. Hey, a very cool thing happened today. I had someone come to my office and I asked how they ended up there thinking maybe they’d been referred and they said well, from your podcast. That’s awesome. That lovely that’s awesome. I’m very grateful to that. That
is really awesome. We have yes we have our you’ll die trying coffee mugs care of Megan, who on a previous episode we were talking about. If you wish to send us letters, notes, swag and talk about your product you can do so by sending it to peal box 1160 Owensboro Kentucky 42302 attention you’ll die trying while she did that. And we got these awesome mugs here.
Yeah, so we are going to be having a giveaway for our 50th episode, which is coming up. It’s a big celebration. Really. More details to follow. This, however, is episode 46. Let us not get ahead of ourselves. All right, lots can happen between now and then. So looking forward to that I would like oh,
you’re gonna know I was just gonna say buckle up. Put your seatbelts on less row.
What’s up everybody? Okay, so I would like to talk a little bit today about relationships. Surprise, surprise. But big sigh Now, in a recent Psychology Today, episode, Episode, periodical. What do you call that itching issue? I’ve got issues. And it is a psychology today. Is it as a magazine that I take and have it in my practice? And it’s it’s really good kind of popular, pseudo academic journal that’s very publicly accessible, dealing with psychological issues and relationships, etc.
Do you cut out the address? Like they
do? No. No, because it comes to the doctors.
Okay, well, that’s good. Well, some people aren’t as smart as you know, they send it to their personal address. So silly. Anyway,
I wouldn’t have known that if my wife hadn’t told me. Have them sent to your office or you have to cut the thing. Oh, we’re just dumb guys. Don’t you hate when you go there? And it’s like, oh, this is good. This is a magazine from this from 1983. And it’s in that like plastic cover like that. So now prevent sneeze and bacteria,
but it’s totally real with sneezing. Absolutely. Do you actually get the flu by touching? By the way, I got my teeth clean yesterday. Oh, your teeth are white. They’re very good. Well,
thank you. Anyway, speaking of doctors offices, encountered magazines in that one. Okay, so relationships, there was an article called your relationship Bill of Rights. How cool, right? We never tend to think of what rights do we have going into a relationship, we think about rights when it comes to everything else. But when it comes to relationship as spaceships, especially as we begin them, we’re always putting our best foot forward, putting our best face on our Sunday dress, you know, we’re always it’s our best impression. And we end up giving so much of ourselves away, trying to ensnare the other person into a relationship. And then that relationship gets codified, maybe through marriage, or through exclusive rights or whatever. And then we realize, oh, wait, we’re still a person. And we still need things. And we are, we’re different than how we presented ourselves in relationships go to hell in a handbasket. It’s because we have forgotten a part of what our rights are as individuals in relationship. So I thought we would talk about today, relationships, Bill of Rights. Let’s do it. Alright, so number one, oh, gosh, we the couple. Now I’m just kidding, in order to form a more perfect union Exactly. So because we enter into long term relationships, we sometimes have a list of things that we would like to get from, and hopefully things that we’re willing to give to our spouse. But there’s recent research that suggests that there are certain gestures that are important for fostering success in your romantic relationships that are closely associated with long term success, things that you do practices that you commit to that make it more likely for your relationship to last. And collectively, it is said that these can be thought of as the relationship Bill of Rights. Number one. You have the right to your partner’s attention. Discuss.
Yes, that is important. Right to your partner’s attention is important. Yes, partners deserve to be listened to acknowledge. I mean, you don’t need to be watching episode 16 of season three of the Americans, you can hit the pause button and hit rewind and start over if you need to, if they deserve, if they need some of your time, they most certainly deserve it. That’s, that’s just a general. You’re welcome.
A 2017 study on relationship experiences that was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that on the days when their partners had supported them or said something that made them feel loved, people reported a higher relationship quality. So how do you get the other person’s attention if your partner is kind, but not necessarily naturally attentive, it may help to say what it is that you need, right? And then give positive feedback when you get it. I just clap and scream really loud in the house. And if they’re busy schedules, then you know, you have to engineer some other way to do it, like spending time together and actual conversation, putting your phones down, not having the TV on. And I have to say that, that joy and I have enjoyed recently some some quiet nights where there has not been TV or devices and we’ve just talked about whatever happens to come up. And I have to say it has been fantastic. That’s why you weren’t texting me back. Completely unscheduled, unscripted, you know, real conversations very calm, very kind. And, man, it makes you feel so much closer to the other person. I love it. So you have the right to your partner’s attention. That’s not only true of you, of your partner, it’s true of your partner of you, right? They have the right to your attention.
That’s what my example was, but I most certainly have every right to say hey,
let’s talk. Okay, good. Number two, you’re ready. I’m ready. You have the right to a partner who will try to work out your differences. Okay. That’s it. That’s all you got for me. Yep. Right there. Okay. You know why this is so important? Yeah, cuz
you don’t want to change them. Yeah, they’re not they don’t need to change. They’re different. They’re not they’re their own. I was sitting there in silence thinking about that because we always want to change people. Whenever you have a conversation you know, people always want to fix it and always want to you know, have a have an answer whatever just know, like, embrace the statement. It is what it is listen be in the moment. Don’t try to change me my thought my feeling my action. I mean, within reason of course, but I Nathan Morris am always going to be excitable, hyper energetic. Don’t say don’t try to sniff out my flame. And I as my relationships my promised to you Dr. Carlos, I will not, you know, try to change you or Megan are I? Am I answering that? I mean, I’m not telling the way that I need to address it. Yeah, no, there’s no right or wrong. My point is, is I hope I’m making sense.
Yeah. And remember, differences, themselves have dignity, right? The goal is not conformity, uniformity, or similarity. The goal is authenticity and individuality.
That took me a long time to figure that out. The goal is not
to have someone who is just like me, even though our narcissistic tendencies that have come very naturally create a romantic attraction to someone on the basis that they remind us of ourselves. In match, we end up expecting them to remind us of ourselves for the rest of our marriage. And we realize, oh, no, they’re individuals, they have their own self. And it’s distinct from mine in very important ways.
And we ended up making a shift out of dried up playdough.
That was funny. So there’s a there’s a band called Ben’s brother. They have an album called beta male fairy tales, on which is a song called I am who I am. And in that song, the lyricist writes and the singer sings. I have to change so that you get to remain the same. Very powerful, awesome, great lyrics. Yeah, I’m all about lyrics. For me, it’s the thing of course, with words, I just love it. But it’s so true that in so many relationships, one person is expected to change, affording the other person the privilege of getting to stay the same. And that is neither fair nor healthy. So you want a spouse who will be willing to be self critical, self reflective, and you have the right to a partner, who will be willing to try to work out your differences, not to agree, and not even agree to disagree. I don’t even know that means that
doesn’t even make sense. I’m never I’m just gonna agree to disagree. No, no,
it doesn’t. We’re not, we’re not going to agree to disagree, we’re just going to disagree. And I didn’t understand that code. But I’m not I accept that we disagree on that. That’s okay. And I’m not going to try to convince you otherwise. But your partner has the right to someone who’s willing to try to work out your differences, too. So it’s not just about the other person, this always implicates us as well. Ready for the next one, I think you have the right to a partner, who will share the load. Probably doesn’t need much more said about
that. No.
Discuss your expectations, make expectations known, then quickly reduce them. That’s my, that’s my advice. That’s awesome. Reduce your expectations. Because the more expectations you have, the more margin there is for frustration and disappointment. Reduce your expectations, and have the conversation, write down things that you know that you have to do things that you have coming up, divide them and try to track their completion. So that together, you are not competitive. But you are working as a team to accomplish everything that needs to be accomplished.
You said margin for frustrations and not margins for error. That’s interesting. Take note people. I like that.
The next one, you have the right, to honesty, about sex. Yep, what our partners entitled to in the bedroom, as you will probably know, and certainly surmise, sex is a language. It is a way that we communicate what is going on in the relationship. What’s going on outside the bedroom, in healthy relationships is almost always mirrored with what’s going on inside the bedroom. And vice versa. So if there is very little emotional connection, very little team based collaboration on completion of tasks, co parenting, shared responsibility, mutual affection, then that’s going to wound what happens inside the bedroom. And there are some couples that where this is not true. There might be a very active sex life and they have very little emotional connection. But there are probably other kind of pathologies that work there. In a healthy relationship, the one mirrors the other and all of it is language. You have the language of service by assisting with the load you have the language of attention by taking notice of your partner and really listening to them. You have the the language of being willing to work out your differences. And, you know, that’s all of that is emotional intimacy. Everything else that we’ll talk about is emotional intimacy. And that is the fuel that sexuality runs on especially when you’ve been together a while. And those early days of mating rituals have gone away. Evolutionarily speaking, we’re no longer trying to capture one another by charm and romance. But now we’re in real everyday life. And we have jobs. And maybe we have children, and we have bills. Sexuality, of course, takes a different form. It’s not sustainable to have that same level that we did when we were first together. But it’s always going to be indicative of what kind of relationship we have going on outside of the bedroom. So if you want to enrich your sex life, you should enrich your emotional intimacy. And you have the right to be honest about all of it, and so does your partner. So I would encourage people to talk more about sex. It’s something that a lot of couples don’t talk about. And they just get frustrated when there’s not enough or when it’s not satisfying. And they wonder why it doesn’t ever get better. And then when I asked in my practice, what would happen when y’all talked about it? Oh, we know we would never talk about that. That might be a problem. But if you never talked about, you know, the fact that your kid isn’t doing well in school, or that your dog, you know, ran away and now has rabies. What if we just never talked about it? Let’s just pretend it didn’t exist.