[SPEAKER_02]: Today on the relationship renovation podcast, if you want to understand betrayal, and maybe even more importantly, if you want to understand the foundational errors that we make at the very beginning of our relationship, then stay tuned.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have Dr. Stan Taken, who is an expert.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe the expert in the field of relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello all and welcome to the Relationship Innovation Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Tara Kurwin.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my name is Eja Kurwin and we are excited, honored to bring back Dr. Stan Taken.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's for us just like a massive role model, an inspiration,
[SPEAKER_02]: He's the co-founder of the Pact Institute.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has written many books.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has just, you know, some refer to him as the mad scientist of love.
[SPEAKER_04]: Of love.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he is, he's just a guy who has a vast amount of information and an incredible heart.
[SPEAKER_02]: Terran, I've been lucky enough to go on actually one of his retreats in Spain and just an incredibly smart man and a person with just so wonderful heart.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're just blessed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Stan, for coming on our show again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you both, it's so good to see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to your doctor's stand tag can perfectly because his heart and all of the work you've done with couples and the support you give, like I just can't, I can't get enough of doctor's stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's your fourth time on our podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's the fourth time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's counting?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, so we want to get into the subject, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And the subject you have a particular way that you look at infidelity, betrayal, trauma that is unique.
[SPEAKER_02]: And let's just jump right in, like help us understand the way you look at it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, there are all kinds of betrayal and some are experienced as worse than others.
[SPEAKER_03]: The kind I find that is the most toxic, the most damaging, is the discovery or the reveal of information that one of the partners had a right to know, but it was withheld.
[SPEAKER_03]: and this gets into the importance of the free flow of information in any union of equals that are coming together based on terms and conditions which is what a couple should be.
[SPEAKER_03]: It really is the one thing, one of the biggest things that will take couples down and that is the omission.
[SPEAKER_03]: Commission of lying as well but omission of vital information that one of them had a right to know because it could have changed everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: The person was robbed of any agency because the other one decided to go under the radar.
[SPEAKER_03]: It could be for cheating.
[SPEAKER_03]: It could be for offshore accounts.
[SPEAKER_03]: It could be for any major.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had a couple.
[SPEAKER_03]: They were just married.
[SPEAKER_03]: And she knew he was older than she was, but she didn't know how much because he lied about his age and she found a document hidden away and that he was like 15 years older than he said.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was a shock.
[SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't that he was older.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was that that information was wrongfully withheld from her and now it causes what happens when we find out something that we should have known that changes everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: We develop PTSD symptoms, mood instability, problems with sleep, thoughts that won't go away, obsession of flashbacks and paranoia, not to mention questions.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the reason for this is simple, it is a brain issue, it's not a personality issue.
[SPEAKER_03]: The person has to fit this new data in to the entire time that they've known this person, because now everything's up for grabs.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't know you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't know what's true now.
[SPEAKER_03]: You've given me proof that you can do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know who I am now.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what we were.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything is upside down.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sleeping with the enemy and this doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_03]: Gender sex.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone will experience this unless there's something going on.
[SPEAKER_03]: People find out that their mother was their sister, John Lennon, people find out that their grandmother was their mother, Jack Nicholson.
[SPEAKER_03]: These caused a real problem for years of sort of being like I said upside down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, disoriented.
[SPEAKER_03]: Disoriented.
[SPEAKER_03]: The brain cannot be preoccupied and do its thing because of the information that was missing.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, make no mistake in fidelity.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think wrongly just applying to cheating sex, you know, having a ferris because infidelity really is as I see it, and not adhering to the couple's agreements principles.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's a bigger way of looking at it.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is, of course, rampant.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is our bright and butter, unfortunately, because of the human condition.
[SPEAKER_03]: Human beings, human primates, have always been known to be unreliable, always been known to be selfish and self-centered, and opportunistic, and moody, and fickle, and do whatever we want if the opportunity rise.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why I tell partners always to plan for their devils, not their angels.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because devils we are, if the situation comes up, if we're under enough load bearing, if we're in as much distress, or if there's an opportunity with nobody knowing, I mean, we may not like that word this way, but to ignore this is to be naive and to be putting yourself in jeopardy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's two things that jumped out of me right there and one is that I think couples really appreciate that reframing of betrayal, of infidelity as a trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that it's like it's something that scrambles your reality and one day you think your reality or one moment you think your reality is one thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the next moment, it's completely different.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it just like, then it's days, months, years of trying to piece your life back together.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it seems like that's one aspect of the healing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the other is the thing you said right at the end.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that like, what was the stress, the overload, the load bearing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a phrase you use.
[SPEAKER_02]: that led the person to move towards their devil and not their angel and that they but they try to sort of like solve those two or work through those two things in unison which is even more disorienting and even more confusing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, in my world, in the packed world, I see it a little bit different.
[SPEAKER_03]: The load bearing is no excuse, nor is trauma in the past, no as addiction, no excuse for acting in a pro self only way.
[SPEAKER_03]: That destroys relationships, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: In the individual therapy, we languish in reviewing and examining with another person our mind and our history to find out the wise and the what's that, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: But in couples it can't work that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: The couples have to operate the way the real world operates according to principles of fairness and justice.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so when that starts to happen, when I'm burning the house down, it doesn't matter why.
[SPEAKER_03]: It matters only that I'm burning the house down.
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't matter why someone withheld vital information.
[SPEAKER_03]: The fact is they did, and that is an injustice that is felt to be that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a violation of another person's rights, you see.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, therapists make them a stake sometimes about not seeing this aspect of human behavior and working with that and not the underpinnings.
[SPEAKER_03]: Underpinnings are fine as long as people are actually getting on board with what is right.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if they're doing things that are only pro-self in a relationship, that they cover it, that they value rather, they're going to lose the relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't matter why.
[SPEAKER_02]: But aren't therapists in some ways just like following the cues of the client in some ways?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I mean, that's like the big question always is like, why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why did you do this?
[SPEAKER_03]: The answer is that always the answer at the top is because I could.
[SPEAKER_02]: Huh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Always.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell us more about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because it's a choice.
[SPEAKER_03]: I made a choice to go under the radar to do something without your knowledge.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I didn't have the guts, the maturity, the character, to tell you first.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, if I told you, you know, I'm going to go out and I'm going to have sex with someone and have a good night, that's not cheating, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because in order to cheat, I have to lie.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to withhold information, you see.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the problem is actually in the commission or omission of information that you had to write to know, that does the damage.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is that, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: because I left you out of something you had to write to know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd prived you of agency.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd prived you of being able to make a decision based on my decision, what you're going to do because of it, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't, because I'm doing what I want.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't do anything about it, because I'm not letting you know what it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's the violation, and that is, we could call it cowardice, we could call it a corruption, we could call it being opportunistic, it really doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_03]: This isn't to vilify that person because this has been throughout our time on the planet, people lying and cheating.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we know it's part of the human condition.
[SPEAKER_03]: So vilifying does no good.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if we look at whether a couple can survive this or not, the answer is no, unless they put this together correctly.
[SPEAKER_03]: And unfortunately, most people are not going to do that because it requires being in pain for a long time suffering, both suffering.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's the suffering?
[SPEAKER_03]: The person who is the discovery partner is going to be out of commission for at least a year.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the discovery partner is going to be in the condition, as I said, they're going to show signs of PTSD.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not their problem, they're acting normally, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody will act this way.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is not, like I said, a them, a him or her problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, we want her why somebody isn't exhibiting these symptoms if this is the exact case of one person with holding
[SPEAKER_03]: the discovery that was a problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the discovery was the result of withholding information, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And so things change when the conditions were different.
[SPEAKER_03]: I came to you right away.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's not good.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's better than I didn't tell you for a year or years.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is better than my lying to your face when you ask me straight out am I having an affair or I'm lying to your face about where I was.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a step worse.
[SPEAKER_03]: It gets even worse when I gaslight you and I blame you.
[SPEAKER_03]: You are crazy.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have the problem or I blame somebody else.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that's a human thing that to do, we're trying to keep what's ours.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't want to lose it.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't want to be in trouble.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll do whatever we can to throw the other person off the trail.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's pernicious and it's harder to forgive because now we're going further to cover up the lie.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, we've all talked about politicians doing something bad, but what do people really complain about the amount of lying that follows?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It reminds me almost of like a court case like the discovery phase that it seems like there is some importance in facilitating completely like everything on the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, as it seems like like we can't rebuild
[SPEAKER_02]: until everything is out.
[SPEAKER_02]: The tough thing, like, for therapists and for the person who's deceived is one, like, how do we know if it's all out?
[SPEAKER_02]: And two, can you ever really truly get everything out?
[SPEAKER_02]: They'll always be some fact that wasn't, oh, I didn't tell you that we did it this way at this place this one time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: What it opens us up to is what don't I know?
[SPEAKER_03]: which is always there, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always there.
[SPEAKER_03]: when trust is breached this way with proof.
[SPEAKER_03]: Once there's evidence, the other person's screw, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Suspicion does not make a betrayal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Evidence does.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything's based on evidence.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you hide your phone, even one time, 30 years ago, when you were getting a text from somebody and you withheld that information, even though it was very much in the beginning and I saw you hide it and you admitted you hid it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I say, what are you hiding?
[SPEAKER_03]: And the other person says, why aren't you trusting me?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because they've provided evidence.
[SPEAKER_03]: We remember harm because of our survival instinct.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're biased towards the negative, especially in the experience that harms us, in the experience of injustice, unfairness, or harm.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to, for survival.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you can bet that stays in memory.
[SPEAKER_03]: which is the problem for the person who proved it to fix, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: The only way memory can be fixed is by changing the future.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the only way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Pology doesn't change it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you're right, we have a ton of couples that are coming into our center every week around betrayal, boundary crossing, infidelity and
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the first thing I always try I'm always, you did a wonderful podcast years going betrayal trauma, not with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was on somebody else's.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm always like, listen, Dr. Stan has amazing information about what betrayal trauma is and the nervous system.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always give them that as a resource.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I,
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, they come in and it's like whether it happens seven weeks ago or seven months ago or seven years ago and they're just addressing it like they're both in so much pain.
[SPEAKER_03]: Same thing happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the first thing I try to do is just like the psychoeducation piece like it's not, this is not going to be fixed in three months or six months and I know that you really want it.
[SPEAKER_00]: to be fixed quickly, but that's not what this is about.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, how do you, you get a couple in despair.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I can't believe this just happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have one of the partners that for sure has the PTSD symptoms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the other partners just full of shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, do you just give them a pretty good lens of like, hey, guys, here is like, just what you can expect over the next so many years?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how do you do it in Dr. Taken's language?
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is hard on therapists, by the way, because the therapist has to also experience being in the thick of suffering, and that's unpleasant for all three.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, but the therapist is the responsibility, though, to do what will work, not what feels good, but everybody wants to feel good now.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the danger with partners where there's betrayal in the face of further loss.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're likely to cut corners and ignore the fact that there's an elephant here in the room that cannot be dismissed.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the gift that will keep on giving if it's not done properly.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they have to suffer because only regret leads to our learning not to do something again without regret.
[SPEAKER_03]: We will do it again.
[SPEAKER_03]: the secret keeper has to lose without question.
[SPEAKER_03]: Otherwise, it's in the signal that they can do it again.
[SPEAKER_03]: So how do they lose?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the discovery partner has to be propped up as the one who has all the power by the therapist, we're casting them.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're telling them we're casting them because we're actually advocates for both, you know, no angels, no devils, where there's one, there's the other.
[SPEAKER_03]: They both must reform.
[SPEAKER_03]: They cannot go back to business as usual.
[SPEAKER_03]: They have to grow up from this and they have to become wiser and they have to be there knowledge of themselves, but particularly for the secret keeper,
[SPEAKER_03]: They have to have a sea change, and that can only be done if the discovery partner throws down and says you're out.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's over.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now it's possible that we could come back together again, but I don't have a burden here.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have the burden to prove to me beyond a shadow of my doubt.
[SPEAKER_03]: that I can ever trust you again.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's going to take some time.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what's the buy-in for anybody who's been betrayed, whether you're a business partner, a sibling, a parent, anybody who's been treated unjustly by someone who violated their rights?
[SPEAKER_03]: proof.
[SPEAKER_03]: I need to see that you are a different person.
[SPEAKER_03]: The alcoholic is now the walking talking poster child for alcoholism.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're no longer ashamed.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're proud because they've overcome it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They've understood how they do such a thing, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They're a different person.
[SPEAKER_03]: They demonstrate it because they did do diligence for themselves to
[SPEAKER_03]: Because unless and until I understand that I'm going to suffer the same loss again and again because nobody else will tolerate this, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll go on doing this, getting away with something that harms the person I want to protect and want to protect the relationship because I keep doing this.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I have to lose.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to lose in order to see that I did something self-harming.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did something to myself, not to the other person because that leads me to do all sorts of crazy stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: I never do that again.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm reformed.
[SPEAKER_03]: All sorts of things that really lack getting it.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are reasons why we go under the radar and good ones.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're usually very early in development.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they usually come from in an attachment world and neglect from parents who didn't carry attachment values.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can trace it there.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can trace it there as a manner of self-care with a child who was in a distancing environment with parents who did not value attachment values such as attention, presence, being responsible parents, being available.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then also a lot of other things, touching, holding, eye contact, sustained interest,
[SPEAKER_03]: All these things are what makes us secure an infancy and then on going to trial it.
[SPEAKER_03]: This group of distancing people didn't have that and so their trajectory is amazingly predictable and they're the most likely to do things like this because they have parents who expect them to be something for them, the parents they don't care about who their children really are because
[SPEAKER_03]: they are to pro-self themselves, not pro-emission-gen.
[SPEAKER_03]: This gives these children an ability to act compliant, but then do things without parents' knowledge because their parents are not hands-on, they're not paying attention, and that's how it starts.
[SPEAKER_03]: Commonly, I'm not saying that's the only situation, because there are bad actors.
[SPEAKER_03]: Most people are not bad actors.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're doing what they've always done.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: and it's been pro-self only and not pro-relationship and pro-self.
[SPEAKER_02]: So is the only road to recovery and change and becoming that different person for the betrayer in some ways is it getting caught?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then from there, like getting caught, like what is the space that has to be cultivated for them, where they just don't repeat it, but they actually go through the transformation to be a person who does not.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's start at the top.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why does lying in cheating happen and is repeated?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because the design of the relationship sucks.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to look at this realistically.
[SPEAKER_03]: These are two adults that are strangers.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not family.
[SPEAKER_03]: Even though there's a tendency for energy conservation nature, the biological law of energy conservation, to make us twist and turn relationships into family.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that's why we lose our formalities very soon.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why we take each other for granted because we think we know each other, but we don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: The brain is always automating everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that's something we have to fight against.
[SPEAKER_03]: But make no mistake.
[SPEAKER_03]: You and I get into a relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: it's a made up invention.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is what is made up.
[SPEAKER_03]: It does not exist in the physical world.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a design.
[SPEAKER_03]: We take a picture of people together.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't know if they're in a relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: You just see people together.
[SPEAKER_03]: A relationship is a construct.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's something of the many things we invent to create meaning in our lives, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: But how many people couples are taking responsibility for the invention?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hardly any, if any, what are they doing?
[SPEAKER_03]: They're doing what they know and what they know is what they experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're designing their relationship according to their family of origin.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is not by two adults coming together and creating something unique, bespoke to the two of them that is fabulous by social contract.
[SPEAKER_03]: We agree, we're going to do this and we're never going to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We create safety and security because we can by agreement.
[SPEAKER_03]: And not doing that has consequences.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yet we have people who are not doing this in couples.
[SPEAKER_03]: Business people don't do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: People joining a band in adulthood don't do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: You would never join a band without a shared purpose or a vision of what's the point, where are we going?
[SPEAKER_03]: Couples don't do those things.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they discover how we are human beings are actually in reality.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the horses are already out of the barn.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was no protection, there was no governance, there was no plan for their devils, there was no prevention of anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it's a design problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: If the relationship is designed and the safety and security system is locked down by the two legislators, the two gods, the two people who are in the inventing this things by looking, what could go wrong?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very hard for affairs to happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: because there are too many checks and balances.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are too many other things that are in place.
[SPEAKER_03]: But most couples have no design.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're flying a plane that's hardly built.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, and based on a lot of expectations, assumptions, and then they're always disappointed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then why did you have to?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're supposed to be the one person that I could just count on?
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't count on somebody unless you, unless you explicitly declaratively say what the guard rails are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what's interesting, Dr. Stan, with all of the research out there with divorces and separation, like almost 49%.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would think people would be like, maybe we should do more work before we do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we notice 80% of our couples is because they're in crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pre-marital or newly committed programs and workshops we've tried, they don't catch power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's like, there's that feeling of like, no, we're totally good, we're so in love and it's like not having those skills and agreements and all of the things that you've developed and researched, it's like people just, why I get it, we're human and we wait and for like the, you know, the road to get swept up from my end energy conservation dictates.
[SPEAKER_03]: that living things do the least necessary to conserve energy.
[SPEAKER_03]: That means where we spend our energy is very specific to what must be done now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Therefore, we don't look ahead.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't where the only mammals we know of that can actually predict the future based on the past can actually predict the future by collecting data and imagining what could happen, but for prevention, not paranoia.
[SPEAKER_03]: and yet we don't use it.
[SPEAKER_03]: The military, hopefully does.
[SPEAKER_03]: Medicine does, otherwise we keep killing each other, killing our patients, science does, people who are handling dangerous material have to.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're mostly asleep.
[SPEAKER_03]: because nature compels us to do so, to conserve energy.
[SPEAKER_03]: That makes us chiffless.
[SPEAKER_03]: That makes us have poor judgment.
[SPEAKER_03]: That makes us do things that are penny-wise pound foolish by not looking at downstream effects of our actions.
[SPEAKER_03]: We could easily prevent these things from happening, by expanding the effort ahead of time.
[SPEAKER_03]: but we don't do it, we include it.
[SPEAKER_03]: When we start to do this, that's when we take control of what we have control over and that is the relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what I'm hearing you say, and betrayal and infidelity is just one of the myriad ways that a relationship finally has the wheels fall off because of that, those lack of agreements, yeah, yeah, that's a design problem that this is just one of the ways that it goes to shit.
[SPEAKER_03]: So here's back to what they should do and how are we casting them.
[SPEAKER_03]: For the time being in the first phase, there's a phase, there's a first second and a third phase, it seems.
[SPEAKER_03]: First phase is desperate.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to see you or I can't look at you.
[SPEAKER_03]: The therapist has been very sensitive to this because we're dealing with someone who is fresh out of this discovery.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they are a loath to sleep in the same bed, fine, good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Loath to now be pushed together in a couple of therapy.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, a made eye contact.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And we have to respect that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And wait for that to blow over by just scaffolding the couple in more often at shorter lengths of sessions.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's not much it can be done.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're basically letting the dust settle.
[SPEAKER_03]: and scaffolding.
[SPEAKER_03]: Once that is done, and therapists can tell because there is far less reactivity in the room with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then we can start to set the structure out properly, although we do that in the beginning too.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll say to the secret keeper, unfortunately for you, that this happened, you're not alone, people do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: However, if you want this relationship, I'll help you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not going to be easy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to tell you right now, you are going to be in the position of be both healer and villain.
[SPEAKER_03]: and neither of them are easy in your case, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: In this system that we're constructing here, you do not have any leverage now, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You spent all the leverage when you created a treasonous situation of betrayal.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no moral equivalency for what you didn't unless there's rape or murder, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So you cannot blame your partner.
[SPEAKER_03]: You cannot complain that they didn't give you sex.
[SPEAKER_03]: You cannot bring your partner into this as causal at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because that is unfair.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's called injustice to your partner.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that will extend the time he or she is in a fizzy, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because you are not safe now, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You couldn't be.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is not personal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone fills this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone experiences this, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You would, too, if you were the recipient, are the very same.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And that you aren't the recipient puts you in a unique place of not understanding the damage you've done to the person you love, that they can't do anything about their paranoia.
[SPEAKER_03]: They can't do anything about their questions at our end, unless they can't do anything about their suspicion.
[SPEAKER_03]: They can't do anything about their waking you up at two in the morning and saying, where were you?
[SPEAKER_03]: they could they would.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is their compelled by nature by their brain, which is now messed up.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you have to accept that, understand that.
[SPEAKER_03]: They can't do anything about this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Only you can help them ill because you created the trauma.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're the best person to do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: it's going to be hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I have to, I have to cast them in order for them to do the right thing during this period.
[SPEAKER_03]: All this person can do is fall on their sword.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was terrible.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have every reason to not trust me.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have every reason to be angry with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do what you will.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have no excuse.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to be put on my heels to answer why I did this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why
[SPEAKER_00]: When you have a couple where they want to know everything that happened, are you encouraging the betrayer to share, like transparency is huge for you, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We just every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what comes along for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So therapists, you cannot take responsibility for the gating of information.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is what caused the problem in the first place, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't have the same process go on because that's would tank the relationship, the free flow of information.
[SPEAKER_03]: Therefore, we have to let the discovery partner ask away.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the secret keeper, if they know what's good for them, has to answer without hesitation, with our arms open, and now there are an open book, no locked boxes, no hidden accounts, no secrets, no locked phones, should have been that way in the beginning for either of them, because that's what caused the problem in the first place.
[SPEAKER_03]: So therefore, the discovery partner
[SPEAKER_03]: because there was a violation of information they had to write to know.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you think that way, we're in the justice area, you're not the psychological area, you have to understand how human beings actually operate in the real world.
[SPEAKER_03]: Look at the justice system, you'll understand what's forgettable and how you get out of jail.
[SPEAKER_02]: So total accountability lowers your sentence, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes, contrition, self-knowledge, proof that you've been acting and behaving in a way that doesn't even smell of the same thing ever, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know exactly what you did, and so all of those things have to be in place in the real.
[SPEAKER_03]: world, no different than in a relationship of love because love has nothing to do with it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Relationships have to be purpose driven, not feeling driven, or you're asking for a trouble.
[SPEAKER_03]: Love is not enough.
[SPEAKER_03]: Besides people do terrible things in the name of love.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what's the transition from justice to what?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's after justice and how do you make that transition?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a process of evidence proof.
[SPEAKER_03]: As a secret keeper, I am proving day to day that I am not doing anything that's sketchy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not doing anything that reminds you of anything that I did before because
[SPEAKER_03]: what I did cause is a crater of memory and threat cues, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: The brain is doing what it must for survival, our survival instinct is always on.
[SPEAKER_03]: You do me great harm.
[SPEAKER_03]: My memory of everything surrounding that harm is now included.
[SPEAKER_03]: The colon or perfume you are, how you're talking, the excuse you just made, where you're going and how you say it.
[SPEAKER_03]: All these things are now in my memory.
[SPEAKER_03]: you did that, that's not my fault.
[SPEAKER_03]: My brain is keeping me alive even though it's misleading me at times, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: But hey, then thems the brakes.
[SPEAKER_03]: For now, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I have every reason to be suspicious.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you have no reason to be offended or take on-bridge because that's a guilty person that does that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you want to remain guilty, just do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: This will not go away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if there's infidelity on both parts throughout the years,
[SPEAKER_03]: Look, I'm going right now after I'm now being somewhat hard on the secret keeper, but the real real crux of this problem is the discovery part.
[SPEAKER_03]: The discovery partner now is on notice because they have to act.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is not a time, anger doesn't do it, crying doesn't do it, threats don't do it, only
[SPEAKER_03]: is to opt out.
[SPEAKER_03]: The nonviolent protest is to say it, I'm out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because it's a good faith effort for reform, reformation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Only demonstrating that this will not stand, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: This was terrible for the relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: That for me and it's actually bad for you, fool.
[SPEAKER_03]: And therefore I'm going to take a stand.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is right?
[SPEAKER_03]: This cannot stand and I'll show you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not just going to tell you.
[SPEAKER_03]: which means you lose.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, we both lost.
[SPEAKER_03]: We both lost.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you lose.
[SPEAKER_03]: The only way I can tell you this cannot stand is to opt out.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can acclimate to your anger and still do things, but it's very hard for me to do that when you've gone missing, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So here's how it works.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our attachment system is nature's glow.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the I can't quit ubiology.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's what keeps us herd animals.
[SPEAKER_03]: It keeps us interdependent, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: but it also has a dark side, has a bug.
[SPEAKER_03]: It keeps us in relationships when we shouldn't be, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And that sends a message that you can do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: The only thing that stops you from acting out against the relationship is me.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I'm not willing to throw down, I'm tacitly saying do it again.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm giving you a sign that I care less about what's right and more about losing you.
[SPEAKER_03]: You now know you can take advantage of me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am willing to lose respect for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And now you can tell yourself, and this is true, people don't admit this, you deserve it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because you didn't stand up to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Kids!
[SPEAKER_03]: you let them do things because you were tired, they wore you down and you said yes to something that was not good and up because you didn't do due diligence, give a mouse a cookie, now they win, but they lose because you parent and do your job.
[SPEAKER_03]: You didn't show them that they can't and that's not a winning experience for your children, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They lose respect for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So is there a way to do that without actually leaving the house because so many couples go through this healing process and continue to cohabitate?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a problem, the worst is that they're still sleeping together and because what they're exposing themselves to is the reactivity of the discovery partner, which has an effect on the
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they're likely to get caught in loops, threat loops, because we're threat animals, we're memory animals, we're operating by memory most of the time, and so they're going to threaten each other because they don't trust each other now.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the separation is necessary to gather your senses, to think about and to contemplate what you did and what happened and
[SPEAKER_03]: And to give time for the dust to settle, otherwise they're going to make it worse most of the time, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Or they'll level themselves into some fantasy and ignore it.
[SPEAKER_00]: or the reinforcing of all the PTSD.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's unfortunate.
[SPEAKER_03]: They can move to a backyard.
[SPEAKER_03]: They can move to the shed.
[SPEAKER_03]: They can stay at a hotel.
[SPEAKER_03]: They can, you know, some people, if their upstairs downstairs, move upstairs.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the proximity is harder in the beginning because a social contract, even though implicit, was broken, that can't go on and answer, you see.
[SPEAKER_02]: Does it matter who moves?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the person who did the crime should leave the house.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now the people are legal oriented.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're concerned about leaving the house and what that doesn't go worse.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you got, you know, the cake or death.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to keep my relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to keep myself protected.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I were you, I'd keep the relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what you did do in the first place.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so there's the law and then there's good faith.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, so often there is at least what we see is there is a desire for one or both mostly both to make it work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good, you know, so I, I mean, I think that's the that is like the good faith element of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But here's the good thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I say something, Eugene?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I didn't finish the last part.
[SPEAKER_03]: As the discovery partner, I throw down and I don't have to even be angry about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because you broke it, you fixed it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not my job.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't do anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you think I did something that led you to be a liar.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I didn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: You had every option to tell me the truth.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you could have taken up with me the fact that I haven't been sleeping with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no moral equivalency for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You did.
[SPEAKER_03]: You cannot do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you do that, more injustice, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't do it there.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it is what it is and has to be played as it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so in order for me to be contributing to possible reform, I have to do my part as discovery partner and I have to say this will not stand no deal.
[SPEAKER_03]: I opt out, we're over with the implied or
[SPEAKER_03]: you could perhaps get this relationship back.
[SPEAKER_03]: But here's the only thing you can do, and that is, as I said, you have to prove from me beyond it, reasonable doubt.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the same thing to do, and that changes people.
[SPEAKER_03]: What am I doing as the discovery partner by taking this action, which is appropriate?
[SPEAKER_03]: I am putting my money on that you, because of the attachment system, the I can't quit you, breaking up as hard to do song, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I have faith that you don't want to lose me any more than I want to lose you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Therefore, you'll do the right thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: If that's not true, I shouldn't be in the relationship of anyone, because I don't have somebody who has stuck in this thing as I am.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it is the proper saying, appropriate thing to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's hard, yes, but you're protecting your future.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anything else is putting your future in jeopardy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you just going back the three stages, the first stage, like you said, it's trauma, it's PTSD, it's, you know, the discovery partner, like really like laying down the line, phase two, it's like, oh, there's this softening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just what's justice?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just us, so you notice stage two's happening and there's more trust being builder agreements, but what is stage three, or take us from that transition?
[SPEAKER_03]: A stage two includes the therapist looking to the future.
[SPEAKER_03]: It becomes a contingency case, a do we don't we?
[SPEAKER_03]: If you were to entertain the idea of going forward, what are the terms and conditions?
[SPEAKER_03]: What now must this be?
[SPEAKER_03]: Since this is voluntary,
[SPEAKER_03]: this should be the best deal in town that you can possibly make, this is not, and you know, setting the bar low because we're all going to be dead soon.
[SPEAKER_03]: You are determining the quality of your life and the life of your children, the life of all the people that you affect.
[SPEAKER_03]: by not standing by the things that must happen for you to be absolutely positively guaranteed to safe and secure at all times that will be your partner's job.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that happiness by design is guaranteed by design and governance.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that has to be, it should have been, now it has to be, unless you want to substandard relationship in which case there will also work
[SPEAKER_03]: How can it be awesome by a agreement?
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone's been doing that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been done through the beginning of time, civilization that is.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've always been able to broker deals to keep peace, to gain prosperity because we're different people, but by agreement, we can protect each other from each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what you two have to do now.
[SPEAKER_03]: and so what are the terms and conditions?
[SPEAKER_03]: First phase you can't really go to the future because who was thinking of that, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: But the tendency for people to only be in the past is a problem for happiness and a problem for reform because the only the future can change the past.
[SPEAKER_03]: Only the future.
[SPEAKER_03]: The future has to be different by proof, by evidence, and repeated, which takes a little time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's where it gets hard for the therapist.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're holding them in pain because we must.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because as soon as that pain goes away, whichever one wants, they go back to doing the same things.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is a recipe.
[SPEAKER_03]: On your watch is a therapist for them to repeat, and that's bad on you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have a duty, but it's very stressful, because we know how hard it is for both of
[SPEAKER_03]: If you can't identify with both partners, you have no business being in that field, because it's not easy for either of them, and we tell them, you discover a partner.
[SPEAKER_03]: you have every reason to jump off the source and nobody would ever blame you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's gonna be very, very hard, but if you want this, I will support you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Secretkeeper, yeah, that did a bad bad thing, but hey, nobody would blame you because where you're gonna go through is not easy, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the hero's journey.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't think anybody would blame you for just getting off this wagon.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if you want to keep this, I will support you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything I do is to support both partners their own self because if that's not taken care of, they can't possibly work together.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we have to understand that this thereby the grace of God go we, but we just have to sit in the soup with him, which is like being in a sad movie all day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there an element with the betrayer too of like, in that choice that you're giving them of like, but if you don't like, what are the chances you're good luck not going to do it again?
[SPEAKER_03]: Good luck.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm telling you, this is not my first rodeo.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know how this works and I know what does work and I know I know what doesn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can trust me or I can fly by the seed of your pants.
[SPEAKER_03]: But here's what I'm going to predict because you're human like me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so this is the way of the human world.
[SPEAKER_03]: You cross me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't trust you.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I were to ever trust you again, you have to win that trust back.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the way everything works.
[SPEAKER_03]: Except love, love relationships.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's most unfortunate because that's why people end up unhappy because they didn't do the job.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll tell you every time we talk to you,
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like we get better at helping these people.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's just something, I mean, you make sense of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very logical, you know, which is crazy in such a heightened emotional thing, that it's like this all just makes sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just, it doesn't follow social code.
[SPEAKER_02]: It follows human biology of conservation, you know, it's just like, it just all freaking makes sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: and human nature, and when it comes to fairness and justice, which is, by the way, as universal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Universal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And can I share something to you, Dr. Stan?
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have about 130 couples that come through our door every week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can assure you that they all know, predict, plan, prepare the triple piece by Dr. Steegan.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's on our little like bulletin board.
[SPEAKER_03]: what could go wrong, pray for it by doing if thens, take anything off the table that could go wrong ahead of time and prepare just before you walk in that door, then revise or repair as necessary, because things change.
[SPEAKER_03]: You cannot go wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot go wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has helped us so many times, especially with our blended family, with the transitions of the boys back and forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, Dr. Stan, you're just amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we, like, literally, we, even though we only get to have maybe one podcast a year with you, like, you're, like, a heart in soul at our center with all of our therapist, all of our couples know everything about you because we talk about you, all of the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: They know everything we know about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, you know, my, my jam is neurobiology.
[SPEAKER_03]: These are the facts, just like nature.
[SPEAKER_03]: You betray them, you betray yourself because you're doing something that is not in our nature.
[SPEAKER_03]: It can't be done.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you the respect it or you pay the price.
[SPEAKER_03]: Repetition is not your friend.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anything that repeats that is unpleasant for even one of you has the danger of increasing tenfold as snowball effect that runs and gets out of control to the point where people can't undo it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you do not want repetition of harm experienced.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't care whether you think we did harm if you're partner felt it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You did it Right or good luck because that is a thing that that gets out of control and that's why relationships on the whole do not last Because we are human primates Means were assholes folks yes somewhere sometimes if you think you're not
[SPEAKER_03]: You're, you're, I don't know where to lie into yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll never forget, Dr. Stan, when we were, when we were in Spain and we had like the first couple of days of your amazing workshop.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, you know, each and I were back on like the hotel room and some, we were talking, starting to argue about something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, you are not, you're supposed to say was I just an asshole.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I felt hurt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Terrell loves that line, man.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have to do still threatened.
[SPEAKER_03]: And how much you feel threatened in any given day by our closest people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have to keep track folks.
[SPEAKER_03]: You are threatened by a look on the face, the sound and the voice, a volume, a movement, a gesture, words and phrases that you in our fully use, we're reckless, and we have no idea what we're dealing with here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a couple's listening right, and they're going through the betrayal, trauma, infidelity, you name it, like realistically, and from your expertise and all of your research, like a timeline, if they are gonna make it work, if they are going through it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've seen it, and those couples are better than they ever were, because it has to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the point.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're gonna go through this shit, get something from it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yeah, be mentor a couple that shows we almost killed the relationship and this is how we actually did it Couples don't do that because they're ashamed of these things Well, they're ashamed because you didn't work through it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You didn't do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You didn't overcome it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You didn't do the right thing because it was too painful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, would you say one to two years?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, if you had to, like, give it a one year.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, if the secret keeper is doing their job.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the secret keeper is doing their job, that's huge.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was some good guidance.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: If the other person, the discovery partner is still fired up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Somewhere, the secret keeper is either resisting, rolling their eyes,
[SPEAKER_03]: same things or implying, when are you going to get over this?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's so insulting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So insulting to the person who didn't have to suffer this.
[SPEAKER_03]: So insulting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is hesitating or is doing anything that suspicious because they're protecting themselves, they're causing the length of time that extends.
[SPEAKER_03]: They are.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are some rare instances where a discovery partner
[SPEAKER_03]: that is keeping themselves ginned up, and the therapist has the responsibility due diligence for rule out the most likely.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the most likely is the secret keeper is doing something to to keep the flame of suspicion and fear and threat alive, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the most most common.
[SPEAKER_03]: Occasionally, there could be someone I don't want to say what it is because I don't want to
[SPEAKER_03]: But that is rare.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then we confront that person.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then we deal with that person who is not allowing this to move.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are very, very strong signs and symptoms that that could be true.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the therapist has to really know what they're dealing with.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is not like therapy.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is about making right a wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is basically a fatal, in most instances.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, Dr. Stan, thank you once again.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been in another amazing interview.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will point people in our show notes to the packed Institute to some of our favorite of your books.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there anything you want to throw out there today, Dr. Stan?
[SPEAKER_03]: I do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just if the audience remembers anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: everything I am talking about is preventable.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're thinking, if you're planning, if you're predicting what could go wrong, do not rely on love, do not rely on any, even yourself saying, I would never do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: that's not true, expect that you can do all of it, put things in place so that neither of you could by finding all the ways you could given any number of circumstances, even though you think it's outside your realm of reality.
[SPEAKER_03]: do not underestimate the human capacity to damage relationships, to do bad things because look around, read your history, that's not a disk, that's a reality, okay?
[SPEAKER_03]: If we're good and we're feeling good, when we're not feeling good and threatened, watch on.
[SPEAKER_03]: because now now it's survival.
[SPEAKER_03]: So don't underestimate this predicted plan for it, put measures in that give you both permission to enforce with the idea that one enforce or one reminded the other person must cooperate or nothing else will do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't underestimate our capacity to be selfish, self-centered opportunistic, exploitive, and racist because that's our nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love what you say become an expert in your partner and you know we're in this foxhole together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why we have to make it work.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's just so many statements you've said in the past that I like resonates so much with today and when I'm doing my work with couples.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_03]: You can control the world, the world is a dangerous place.
[SPEAKER_03]: Always has been always will be people are indifferent to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And different, just watch when they're scared.
[SPEAKER_03]: You'll see what they do.
[SPEAKER_03]: By, you can't count on anybody else.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't count on each other by arrangement and agreement because you can and because the alternative is horrible.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you can do it, do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lock that system down, that safety and security system.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because without that, there's no thriving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Stan Tattkin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, everybody, listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will, again, put all that stuff in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can do it, do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those are like the words of wisdom of Dr. Stan Tattkin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: As always, take care of yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care of each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye-bye.
[UNKNOWN]: Bye-bye.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me and you just sing, and I'm a train.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me and you, listening to the rain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me and you, we are the same, me and you.