Why Love Isn't A Problem You Can Solve And How To Stay In It | Arthur Brooks

0:00Let's get to love. Uh-huh. My favorite topic. My next book is called Falling in Love and Staying in Love. It's coming out in two years. Wow. This is what people, my students, would have me on this topic the whole semester. Really? Yeah. My average age student is 28, and they're really good at business, and they're baffled by love. I think everyone's baffled by love. Yeah. And part of the reason is because business is a left hemispheric phenomenon. it's analytical and love is a problem you can't solve it's not a solvable problem it's only something you can live and understand deeply through experience and people who are highly analytical they struggle with the things the problems you can't solve my car is a this is hemispheric lateralization meaning the two sides of the brain do different things the great neuroscientist Ian McGilchrist who would be a good person for the show from Oxford He's a emeritus professor at Oxford.

0:58He lives someplace way up on an island, so he might be hard to get. We need to get him in. I think it's like 13 hours to London for him. But the left hemisphere deals with these complicated analytical problems, like my car. But the right hemisphere of the brain deals with these creative and these mystical problems that don't have solutions, like my marriage. I've been married 35 years. Congratulations. Thank you. I have not solved my marriage. I will never solve my marriage because it's not a solvable problem. It's why I love my marriage because it's dynamic and it's human and it's changing and I'll call her when we're done and she might be super happy and she might be really mad at me.

1:37I don't know. I don't know, Sarah. I mean, I know if my car is gonna work but I don't know if my marriage is gonna work this afternoon because it's a living thing. But you've stayed married for 35 years. So what's the secret to that? Yeah, that's an easy one. That's like two sentences. But part of it is actually treating it like a complex problem, not like a complicated problem. It's like fostering it as something that you actually live with, as something that's truly beautiful and dynamic itself. That's what it really comes down to. And one of the problems that we have today, and one of the reasons that dating and love are getting more and more difficult for young people is they're trying to treat it like an analytical problem, largely through algorithms.

2:21through the way that they use apps, for example, which is the different kind of problem. It's like basically, I want a cat because I want companionship and it's alive. Here's a mechanical cat. I don't want that. Why not? It's better. It doesn't go to the bathroom. It doesn't tear up your couch. It's a mechanical cat. It looks just like a cat. It's not alive. It's not real. Yeah, exactly right. And so how do we maintain that? We're conscious of it. Now, we do have actual love protocols that are based on science. Which are? You want the love protocols? Yeah. So this is a science-based approach to maintaining love in a relationship that's long-term.

3:07Okay. Okay? This isn't the absence of abuse or abandonment or big, big structural issues. These are people who want to stay in love. So my wife and I, we work with couples who are about to get married. We work with couples who have long been married. We do retreats for people who want to stay in love. And there's a lot of things that you can actually do to fall back in love and stay in love. Let's start with the neurochemistry. When couples are in love, they have a huge exchange of a neuropeptide called oxytocin. You've probably heard of this. It's a neuropeptide, functions as a hormone in the brain.

3:40Now, human beings have a lot of this to bond to each other. You know, so when you have a baby and the baby, when the baby is nursing, the baby will, When you have a baby, you'll see the baby will stare into your eyes while it's nursing. It's a little tiny baby. And when you do that, there's a huge amount of bonding, oxytocin exchange, like the 4th of July. It's intensely pleasurable. Yeah. You really, really need it. Now, this is how you know that somebody's your kin. And so lovers will do this because you're supposed to be attracted to somebody who's not physiologically related to you, who's not genetically related to you for the health of your offspring.

4:17but we're not in the ancestral environment we're suspicious of people who are not genetically related to us and so we adopt them and the way that we adopt them is with oxytocin exchange. Now how do, so when you get married how do you get that? Well lots of ways, touch for example but another way you get that is with eye contact is by looking at each other deeply and when you're falling in love and you're sitting across from each other on the first date at the restaurant you're like I feel like this conversation is really interesting we really have this deep connection and it's just because you want oxytocin.

4:49You're like, this actually might be my family member, a.k.a. my husband. Quick first date. Yeah, first date. Let's go. First date, first date, boom. You get a lot of oxytocin exchange on this. Okay, couples fall out of that. That's like the honeymoon period, right? Yeah, but it's even longer. But 5, 10, 15, 20 years, they might not have looked deeply into each other's eyes for a long time. Why? Well, because life passes. And so now women have three times as much oxytocin as men, which means that women need this more than men do to fill their proper oxytocin levels. To drug them up. Yeah, yeah.

5:30So one of the things that I recommend, especially to husbands, boyfriends, is every time she's talking to you, stare at her in the eyes. And she'll be after two weeks like, I don't know why, but I feel a lot closer to you. And she'll never figure it out. Unless she listens to this podcast. Unless she listens. This is a really popular podcast. So the cat's out of the bag. So number one is eye contact. Number two is touch. Men need more touch than women do, especially non-sexual touch. Really? Yeah. So there's a vasopressin, which is a cousin neuropeptide. Men have more than women. Wow. And you get it from touch.

6:04Now, when you're with your beloved and you hook your arm into his as you're walking down the street, he gets like seven feet tall. vasopressin makes you want to defend your tribe. It makes you want to protect your beloved. It makes you feel strong and capable. And the way that you get that is when she holds your hand, when she, you know, that's how you get it. And so every time you're sitting together, ladies, touch his hand, hold his hand. When you're in the movie theater, hold his hand. Touch, touch, touch, touch. Now some guys like it less and some guys like it more, but they all need it more than they think.

6:38Non-sexual touch, right? Number three, have more fun together. One of the problems that couples who are in trouble that they do, one of the problems is that they're trying to solve their problems and all they talk about is their problems. You don't go to a marriage counselor and say, we're here just to let you know that it's just going great. You don't go to the cardiologist and say, you old ticker. I'm fine. You're so good. I'm just here to tell you, doc. That's not what you do. You go there because you've got a problem, so you talk about your problems. And pretty soon a lot of couples will get in kind of this, let's talk about our problems again, talk about our problems again.

7:15They forget to have fun. I mean, fun is the basis of the relationship per se. I think we forget about that in all elements of our life. Oh, yeah. Work. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Romantic love. But you really want to bond around fun. Yeah. Because if your relationship isn't fun, by the way, if your romance isn't fun, you're going to find fun someplace else. And that's a bad thing. This is one of the reasons that 30 to 80 % of extramarital affairs start at work. And we don't know if it's 30 or 80, which might as well say between a 0 and 100 % of affairs start at work. Whatever. Lots. I believe the 30 % number, but that's a lot.

7:57And one of the reasons is that they go to work and they have fun with somebody to whom they might theoretically be attracted. And you also spend way more time at work sometimes than your home life. Yeah, looking into each other's eyes. Exactly. Talking about deep things, oxytocin, et cetera. Solving problems. So have more fun. I mean, it's like stop talking about your problems and go ride your bikes, right? Go have fun for Pete's sake.