Dr. Annie Zimmerman - How to Know You've Found the Perfect Partner and Thrive in Dating

0:01I am so glad you could join us. I'm your host, Mo Gaudet This podcast is nothing more than a conversation between two good friends sharing inspiring life stories and perhaps some nuggets of wisdom along the way This is your invitation to slow down with us Welcome to Slow Mo

0:34Welcome back. We continue today my mini-series on love and romance, which if I had a choice would probably not be a mini-series. We probably need a season or two, maybe a few years to explain everything around it. But I'm trying to bring you a variety of views because it is a very complex topic. And we've oversimplified it to sort of dating techniques and pick up lines and all of that weird stuff that humanity normally does to just get a shortcut. Love and romance is really all about finding a relationship that fits. And my guest today is Annie Zimmerman. Annie is a PhD, a psychotherapist. She decided in 2021 to start sharing her insights from the therapy room on Instagram and on TikTok with a very clever name, I would say, at your underscore pocket underscore therapist.

1:35And really, in a very interesting way, she avoids all of the clever gimmicks of love, dating, and romance and really focuses on the psychology side of it. I am an avid follower of Annie's work and I love how she delivers the messages in a no-nonsense way, if you ask me. And so I asked her and she was kind enough to come and be my guest today on the podcast. This is going to be a conversation that might be confrontational for some of us because I'm not going to shy away to ask the tough question, but believe it or not, it's better to confront some of our issues than to end up in the wrong relationship.

2:15Annie, I'm so grateful that you joined me. Thank you so much. Thank you. Talking about relationships and love is my favorite thing to do. So I'm really happy to be here. It's my least favorite thing. No, it isn't. I actually love the topic. And I have to say it is, in my personal view, there's nothing more beautiful than finding the right fit. But also there's nothing more painful than being in a wrong relationship. And so if you'll allow me today, you know, I've been trying to write about the topic for quite some time. I'm on my seventh attempt. Wow. Yes. I never publish anything unless I'm convinced of it.

2:56So I wrote a book called Finding Love six times so far. I'm on my seventh attempt now. And I don't know if I'll ever publish it. But I feel that the main reason why we're struggling, of course, is because the market, if you want, is very different than what it used to be in the 60s and 50s and so on. But also, I believe it's because of wrong advice, because we get told to behave in ways that end up bringing us unhappiness, complexity, lack of fulfillment in our life. And so if you'll allow me, I will be asking the questions as a man, okay, knowing and clearly telling everyone that everything we talk about here applies, whether you ask it as a man, a woman, straight or gay.

3:43This is universal. Love, dating, and romance is universal. But I will start with the one question that puzzles me the most. Why do good girls date bad boys? I think every good girl will have a different answer but something that I've noticed from my own experience from the experience of people that I work with is there is a pattern when you are a good girl you are a people pleaser you're very careful about coming across in the right way and making sure that everyone's happy with you you're very attuned to performing and what people want from you and what people need from you. Because I think fundamentally you're afraid that people won't love you if you're messy or bad.

4:32This tends to come from a specific trauma pattern of not feeling like you can be your full self with your parents. You have to perform, you have to be good and well behaved, probably because you feel that your parents couldn't tolerate you being angry and upset and naughty. You must have worked out and cleverly adapted that when you're good, your parents treat you better and this means that then when we go into our adult relationships we end up doing the same performance and we have this core belief that people will only love us if we're good and then we are then often attracted to the types of people who are similar to that pattern in childhood who aren't giving us consistent love so when we say bad boys really we mean people who are emotionally unavailable who are inconsistent who sometimes make us feel amazing and then stop texting or ghost or treat us badly.

5:28And that inconsistency for a lot of good girls or good boys probably feels quite familiar. So we're drawn to that pattern because it feels like the kind of love we experienced as a child. Even though we might know on paper that it's not good for us, we're still drawn because on an unconscious level as humans, we're driven to repeat our childhood relationships until we heal them? We're driven to repeat our childhood relationships. That's actually quite interesting. Why do I frequently date women that are draining? What childhood relationship would that stem from? What draining relationships did you experience?

6:09Draining, either being very needy, being very jealous, being very attention seeking, being unable to give me the space that I need. I mean, my life as a corporate executive was very demanding, but my life as a creative has that, has those peaks and troughs in it where you end up in waking up at 3am wanting to write something and that doesn't come with, you know, going to parties or whatever. So basically the demand on, on the change of my life so that I become a lot more available at times where I can't, not giving me the space, not giving me the, you know, I mean, it has been a pattern that was very clear for me in the past.

6:54I don't know what kind of childhood relationship would lead me to want that in my life. I guess I don't know your childhood relationships, but does it feel familiar in any way to something you experienced before of someone who was draining or who was demanding of you my parents were quite cool actually i don't i don't know i mean it could it could be it could be more of my i don't know i mean this is not a therapy session but i'm wondering what why because the other side of the question is why do men sometimes date difficult women or gold diggers or the b word or whatever right it's really difficult um i think we all have the propensity to get into relationships with someone who doesn't treat us well and often that's coming from the part of us that doesn't believe we deserve something better and something kinder something I've observed in my own life is that when I'm seeing somebody else is needy and demanding I actually am disowning my own neediness and my own sense of wanting connection and wanting things from people so often when that's a pattern we might select people like that because we're actually not owning our own ability to be the capacity to be needy that's interesting so so basically we are we are sort of we're sort of not allowing ourself to to need to to express our needs that that could probably be a bit of me in a very interesting way that i can be a lot more of a giver than a taker if you think about it right oh that's a childhood pattern there you go always a giver giver is a is a very big title there really how did you give I I always I mean I ask for very little in life but I always will give whatever I have I mean that's definitely and I don't regret that I don't ever plan to change that but even to people I don't know I think I'll probably receive 400 Instagram messages saying that they're saying I I need your money, whatever, you know, in the next week after this podcast.

9:02But I do, you know, get quite a bit of joy from giving, yeah? I think this is really common with people who are in a caring kind of role, that they are so good and get so much pleasure and joy from giving, but they don't know how to ask. And it's a really common pattern I see in like an avoidant. I don't know how much you know about attachment theory, but you have the avoidant who feels always demanded upon and denies their own needs. And then the anxious who has lots of needs and is quite demanding. And these two find each other because they are making up for what the other one lacks. And the avoidant person actually, it feels like when you're feeling avoidance, it feels like the anxious person is just demanding all your time and wanting so much more of you than you're able to give.

9:51but actually often they become more anxious by being with you because you're projecting your neediness onto them. So anything out of balance leads to relationship disharmony. So too much giving and not enough asking leads to an imbalance where you feel really demanded upon, but you're also not really getting anything back. Let's cover those attachment styles. I mean, I would be surprised if anyone doesn't know them, but maybe some of our listeners wouldn't. So there is avoidant there is anxious and what were the other two then there's um fearful avoidant which is a kind of combination of both and then secure exactly exactly so explain those a little bit so secure there is secure attachment styles and fearful attachment styles and then avoidant and anxious or how does it work so that so it's kind of on a spectrum like a cross yeah um one spectrum is anxious and one spectrum is avoidant um so if you're high in both anxious and avoidant you end up as a fearful avoidant um fundamentally attachment style is is really and this has been shown in so much research and evidence it's formed in your first kind of two to five years of life based on the way that you respond your parents respond to you the idea is that if your caregiver is always present emotionally and physically, you learn to predict that people will be there for you and you feel much more comfortable and secure in your relationships.

11:19And those people tend to go on to have much more secure adult romantic relationships and friendships. If your parent is inconsistent, so sometimes they're present and other times they're not. Sometimes they're really warm. Sometimes they're cold. That inconsistency creates anxiety for the baby and they learn that if they turn up their emotions a bit more and seek attachment more that they get their needs met so that's the anxious attachment someone who is a bit more clingy for example or a bit more needy we use that as kind of derogative but really it's a way of getting that attachment need met is to cry a bit more or to ask for things and demand more of the person.

12:02And then if your parents just really fails to show up for you and just really isn't present that much, you develop avoidance, which is where you basically just switch off your attachment needs because there's no chance of them being met. So you become hyper-independent. I don't need anybody. I can deal with this all on my own. I don't have any needs. But really underneath. That absolutely must be me. I remember my parents were constantly, wonderful in every possible way, I think. But I definitely am completely independent. You know, it would be wonderful to have someone around, but you know, yeah, I mean, it's not a big deal if I don't.

12:41And how does that impact your relationships, do you think? Yeah, I become very picky. At the beginning, I mean, remember, my love story started with my marriage, 27 years to a wonderful woman. And then, you know, you go through those phases where you have no experience whatsoever. And so you end up in a very tricky place, very quickly, very often, very repeatedly. And yeah, and then with experience, you start to learn to be very picky. So most of the time I break up before I even date. So, you know, it's like, oh, you're wonderful. oh my god you're so sexy but not for me right and i think that kind of um i don't know i think i prioritize my sanity over my uh need for a companion if you know unless i find the right companion which every now and then happens it's really not worth my uh my effort basically so what is it are we doing therapy in front of hundreds of thousands of people i think we are only if you want me to maybe you should be asking me the questions i fall too easily into i just get really interested um are you gonna charge me at the end annie oh yeah good good i like that no this is free for you are we are we saying that it's always a result of childhood i don't like to be a cliche as a therapist um because i think our present experiences are just as important as our childhood experiences and some people come to therapy and they need to talk about the relationship they're in um but almost always you can map back patterns eventually to things that happen in those early years, they might not be hugely traumatizing.

14:39They might be very small things like mom going back to work. You know, that's a very normal thing that happens, but for a baby, they lose their primary attachment figure. So it doesn't always have to be a big trauma, but often, more often than not, I believe that your childhood patterns absolutely shape your adult relationship. So in order to understand what's happening in your relationships, it's so helpful to map back and to understand where it's come from because then you can realize unconsciously what it is you're drawn to why and then how to do something differently so give me a few examples so we spoke about you know the attachment to the parents lead to the attachment style as an adult what other childhood experiences should people reflect on to try and understand how they behave in a relationship yeah that's a really good example i think um your role in the family system is the really good one um so we talked about good girls and bad boys um but you know you have often in sibling roles as well you have the good one and the bad one or the the responsible one and the misbehaving one or if you had to look after your parents feelings quite a lot you might end up going into relationships looking after everybody else um which means you don't necessarily get looked after and you can't take up space or you might have taken up you know you might have been the golden child and taken up a lot of space and then you have to learn to let other people kind of come in and have their feelings and learn to make yourself a bit smaller to create space for somebody else so I think knowing your role in the family is really helpful and and really just understanding how you learn to communicate so you know we talk a lot about communication and adult relationships but if you come from a family where nobody ever talked to each other that's going to feel really terrifying really scary and you're not even going to know how so it will be a big part of your growth and healing is to learn how to just tell someone how you're feeling or do that in a kind way or if you grew up with parents who just argued with each other you know observing your parents relationship or any kind of significant relationships you were around as a kid that is your blueprint for how relationships happen and often we just model our parents relationships so I see this a lot with people who yeah who are big fighters and big arguers if you come from a household where everyone just screamed each other and that's how you communicated you're gonna go and do that because that's what you know and you're gonna come up with a bunch of problems because you don't actually get to resolve problems you were never taught how to repair ruptures that happen in a relationship which is i think one of the essential tools of a healthy relationship yeah how do we use this knowledge do we use it to work on ourselves or do we use it also to to select a partner I mean it's quite interesting when you think about when I'm writing I do a lot of informal surveys among friends and people I meet and readers and followers and so on and and you know when I ask a lot of people what are you looking for right so my my current attempt on the book is is a is a dating guide for straight women right it's not because I you know I attempted to create a general thing many times and it it just didn't work and you know it's very difficult to include all the different intricacies and so you know when I ask women what are you looking for I will tell you openly I've never had someone that told me I'm looking for a partner that doesn't have childhood traumas but but it seems from what you're saying that probably uh regardless of the color of their eyes and their height and their financial income and what have you just not having childhood trauma solves the whole thing yeah i think so but you know there are also people who've faced immense trauma and who've been able to grow hugely from it and who might even be a better suited partner because they're able to, they know pain and they're able to empathize with you and they're able to share and be vulnerable.

18:44Come on, I had hope for a second, Annie. Now you're saying no, that wouldn't work. I, as a therapist, I'm not supposed to give any rules or I don't feel it's right to give rules. That's the part about therapists I like the least, by the way, because you know the answer. So you might as well just throw it out there. I'm not going to sue you. I don't yeah I do I know the answers I know how to ask the questions um I don't think there are any answers I think you could find someone with the perfect childhood who's not well suited to you and you could find a very traumatized person who's an excellent partner um so I think you know asking on a first date oh did you have a childhood trauma and that means exactly

19:29actually why why first date at all I just I should just send her to you you know Yeah, exactly. To be honest, one criteria is have you had therapy, which I think for a lot of people is a sign that someone is open, that they've worked on themselves. That might be a good start if you're looking for the kind of partner who's able to be self-reflective and communicate. So let's keep in that space of what we're looking for. What should we look for? it's an impossible question for me to answer because i think there is there's what we're consciously looking for and there's what our unconscious is looking for and these two often aren't looking for the same things they're often in conflict so a lot of people that i know are looking for a big love right they're looking for a healthy relationship with someone who chooses them who has the same values as them who they're attracted to who they can share a life with and then what they actually keep going for is someone who doesn't text them back or sometimes ghosts them or treats them badly or makes them feel small or you know doesn't have the same values as them and has a different plan for the future from them so I think what you're looking for is all well and good you know we all come with these lists of green flags and red flags and you can be really intentional with who you're looking for if your unconscious is much more powerful than your conscious if your unconscious is trying to look for um a partner who resembles your parents or or is looking for some sort of pattern that you keep going for over and over again um it's much more interesting to me to try to understand what your unconscious motives are so that you can start to change them and then you can find a partner who's in line with what your conscious mind wants does that make sense yeah i mean it's it's almost impossible because it is called subconscious right you you don't you don't really know i mean one of my my best best friends and who was a guest on this podcast and incredibly successful attractive incredibly purpose-driven and intelligent woman, yeah, she ends up in horrible relationships, you know, and she spends money on them.

21:56And, you know, they're like truly bloodsuckers in every possible way. And then every, almost predictably every few months, she will text me and say, Mo, I can't take that anymore. And I'm like, yes, darling, that you should have never taken it at all. And, you know, and that keeps repeating in a very interesting way. And she's aware of it. And most of my dear friends who struggle with relationships are aware of it. I am aware of I should not be with someone that drains me, right? But then, you know, it's very difficult to get a step deeper and say, oh, hold on, here is my exact siffing criteria.

22:39And here is my exact list of mistakes that always put me in that corner. can you start to kind of question what your unconscious motivations might be for picking someone if that's a pattern i think for most of the for most of my friends they end up with the answer of like you know it's a it's a very vicious cycle right you you get into a relationship it's all very exciting chemistry plays a very big role then you know you find someone who's really at the beginning, romance and passion simulate what love is supposed to be. And then you end up drained, drained, drained, and then you end up in a breakup and then you take a few months off.

23:26And after a few months off, you feel a little lonely. And so you jump in again and you get, you start the same pattern again. I mean, one of the most eyeopening experiences of my life was when I became a monk for nine months, hoping to do it again, hopefully next year. And it was really amazing because I don't follow rules, right? So it's not like I went to a monastery and wore robes and so on. I became a monk by defining a few things that I will remove from my life and a few things that I will add. And one of them was, you know, basically sexual encounters in any form. And I went on platonic dates and oh my God, the clarity I had at that time was just incredible.

24:12What was the difference? The difference is I had no expectation whatsoever, regardless of how attractive and cute and I mean, you know how wonderful you women are. So, you know, you end up in front of someone. And I think the reality is when you're in that dating situation, you're sort of looking for everything wonderful about her, you know, ignoring the red flags because there is so much wonderful to enjoy. and then and then you know when I when I was a monk you know June was the time frame so yes I would still I would still be looking for the wonderful things about her in the first couple of times we meet but the but by the third time because June is still several months away I go like oh my god I how could I have ever lived with those red flags right and it's quite interesting when you remove that idea of, yeah, I need someone in my life and replace that with, I need the right one in my life and I won't accept any other way, that you become a lot clearer around who you can let into your life.

25:26Yeah, I think you're right. And I think one of the things about modern dating is there's so much fear that stops people being able to act on and really hold that question of, but is this person the right person? Because they're so afraid of not finding anybody at all. So they end up, you see the red flags. How can that be? I mean, when you really look at the dating environment, there is so much on supply. But we're in a scarcity mindset, I think, where the way that dating apps have been set up, although it feels like there's this almost infinite pool of people it also feels um that you are completely you can just be tossed away um so the stakes feel higher people are much people are settling less and i think that creates the scarcity because anyone you're with there's a fear that this person is just going to go out and find someone better because there's an infinite pool out there so i think that creates a real fear of abandonment and a fear of rejection also that you're just going to be left and they'll find somebody else so so what does that trigger it triggers uh like that idea of it's not june i need to lock them down within the next three days exactly yeah like oh i found somebody with one with some wonderful traits there are some red flags my intuition is saying maybe they're not going to be right for me but i need to cling on because they might leave me they might find somebody else and i might not find it's really also about that self-esteem and that that in a knowing that you're going to find somebody a lot of people are just so terrified that they're not good enough that no one will ever love them that as soon as someone with some wonderful traits shows them interest they kind of settle out of fear of not finding anything better or not not like holding hope for themselves of a love that really is meeting all of their needs yeah believe it or not that was the core of what i'm building my book on finding love basically the economics of it the economics of it is that the almost certain way to not find someone is to extend your cycle time from one date to eight months.

27:38Right. So, so because in reality, if, if you just take the, the randomness of throwing the dice as, uh, as basically what you're going to get on the next date, the idea is that you're eventually going to get double six, but you have to throw the dice enough times. And if the cycle duration of every time you throw the dice is eight months, which is, you know, we meet, we go on dates, we fall in love, we, you know, we break our hearts, we separate, we take some time for quarantine, and then we start again, that eight months is optimistic, then by definition, how many eight months do you have in your life?

28:18And how many eight months later will you be you know deflated and disappointed and you know and settling or or angry it's a really it's a really interesting point and i'm gonna ask you or talk about something maybe this is my podcast i need this is my podcast i should be asking go ahead it is but i have i um it made me think of your I guess theory or ethos of playing video games and playing a video game not just to get to the end and reach the goal of winning but to explore and to to improve your skills and to be curious and to play and I think if we go into relationships thinking okay I have to find the one the end goal I'm just going to go on lots of first dates yeah whereas okay the eight months yes you're losing time but in that time you may they enjoy yourself you might also learn some things you might experience different people but in a deeper way and and learn what you don't like so i think sanity at last sanity at last did you guys hear this okay so so so i'll say this again, one of the biggest challenges in my view, and Annie has just confirmed that, is that we are treating love and romance as what we see in Hollywood, that success is defined as I found the right one and he or she stayed for a lifetime.

29:55And we, you know, we held hands when we're 73. Yes, we're done. Objective achieved. But, you know, could it be that the objective of love is to love? Could it be that the objective of dating is to date? More interestingly, and you're so spot on, could it be that the objective of frequently meeting many people is to know exactly who you are and what you're looking for? And could it be that there is a skill that you need to learn so that when the actual right person shows up you manage to keep them you manage to understand what they need okay i summarized what you said now expand on it annie please well no i i'm completely agree with you and i think i talk about this in my my book it's about reframing what success january 11th january 11th yeah it's your pocket therapist one one one one And was that a deliberate choice?

30:59No, it wasn't, but that's an angel number, isn't it? It really is an angel number. It's lucky. And is it available to pre-order now, by the way? Yes, it will be at the end of September, yeah. Yeah, okay. So we're recording a tiny bit before end of September, but by the time you guys hear this, it probably is about time to pre-order. So look for your pocket therapist. I think it's very, very interesting. Yeah, but it's all about a guide for mental health, but also for relationships and dating and really condensing kind of deep and complex topics into a kind of pocket-y, bite-sized, easy-to-digest way.

31:37And I talk about what failure and success look like in relationships. And because, as you say, this Hollywood, you have to find the one, you have to get married, you have to have kids and be with them forever. That's success. And anything else is a failure. and I think we have this idea that if you date someone for eight months or a year and then you break up you failed because you haven't achieved that long-term love but it's not a very present in the moment way of living life because you've loved for a year and yes sometimes it might have been painful and they might have not been the right person for you long term but in that year I'm sure there were lots of beautiful cherishing moments and you might have just learned a lot about yourself and what you want.

32:20And you might have experimented with communicating or learned that you need to learn to communicate. And anything that happens in that year of failure is actually growth and is actually probably been successful in some ways if you reframe what success in relationships means. Yeah, it is. That's such a beautiful way of looking at it. So I actually openly, I wrote that in one of the drafts of Finding Love that I've married Nibel and, you know, loved Nibel for 27 years as my plus one, if you want. And, you know, does that count as failure that we broke up? Absolutely not. You know, I recorded my episode with Matthew Hussey with Shelley in the room, which is truly a soulmate for me, an ex now, but a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful experience in my life, wonderful view of a world that I never understood, you know.

33:18And it's really quite interesting with everyone, I wouldn't want to mention every name, but almost everyone that came into my life made me the person that you know today, right? Made me realize things about me, made me realize things about others, the people that I attempt to teach made me realize something about love itself. And isn't that amazing when you really think about it. But the problem is that especially women, probably more than men will say, but hold on, you know, I have biological clock, I have pressure, I need other things, and I need a child, and I need a family, and I need security, and life is annoying.

33:59And, you know, someone needs to be there so that when things go wrong, and change the light bulb and all of that stuff. So what would be your answer to that? I guess that if those things are your priority then it's absolutely right to date with those intentions but I guess and I guess it depends on your age and stage I know that I've been desperate to find my long-term partner father of my kids since I was 18 and I've been in this fear space even when I was in my early 20s because I was so terrified of not finding the one And I think those those those longer term goals of I need to find someone you need to settle down can really stop you from just enjoying yourself and experimenting and playing the video game in the way that is more playful.

34:53however when you get into your later 30s for example and if you want to find someone to have a child with your perspective absolutely shifts so I don't think it's right to say oh everyone should just you know date and be in the moment because there are realities of life and I understand that panic and that fear that I guess especially women of a certain age have however I also think that there's nothing scarier than being in the wrong relationship and staying in it and that as well as exploring with different people it's also really important to know when to leave even if that is in conflict with your longer term desires i see a lot of people in their late 30s who are staying in relationships that aren't right for them because they are so desperate to have a child which i totally understand um but they're not happy so i think happiness should prevail over everything and if ultimately you end up doing things at a later age from what you want but that's enabled you to find a relationship that's better for you then we shouldn't be motivated by these time frames because i think they can really hold us in a kind of prison did you believe that so you said happiness is is the primary target in a relationship or one-off i i know that you probably mean one off, but, but let's talk about happiness itself.

36:13Do you believe that happiness is sustainable over a long time? I mean, one of the things I wrote about again, and didn't publish is that the idea that the dream that Hollywood and Bollywood and Disney and establishment that I refer to in my work as Dizzy Wood, the dream they sell to you ends at the first kiss. And it's quite interesting when you really think about it, because everyone who's ever been in a real relationship understands the real work starts after the first kiss right right and and so the question then is is it an achievable target at all to find someone that you can be happy with over the long term i don't know happiness is a feeling isn't it it's it's something that can be fleeting i don't think that a relationship can be the sole source of happiness in your life if you yourself are not content in who you are and in your your aspirations and your daily life I think we need to be you know Esther Perel talks about this she writes a lot about love and relationships and she talks about how one of the struggles with modern dating and modern love is that we're looking for one person to fill all of our needs that used to be filled by community and a village and now we're looking for one person who can be both our you know our best friend and our financial partner and live together and talk to her about all of our problems and hang out with all of the time and have sex with and raise a family with which used to be needs that were split into different people in different communities but now we now need one person for that which is an impossible ask so I think when we think about happiness in those terms we need to find happiness in our own lives and it's such a cliche you know you can't love someone else before you love yourself which I don't necessarily agree with because I think we do heal through relationships too and I think relationships can provide a huge amount of happiness and security which is really a lot of the things that relationship provides that other things can't is that security and stability but ultimately we need to be content in ourselves in order to be able to take nourishment from a good relationship.

38:27Otherwise, it will never feel like enough and it will never fill that void and that hole in us if we're using the relationship like a vampire to feed off. So I think happiness is maybe the wrong way to think about things. I guess a relationship should provide a sense of safety, first and foremost, and security and together and connection and vulnerability. and if you have those kind of fundamental foundations you can co-create a happy life I think largely happy life but my question would be would that last forever I'm trying to assess as an as an annoying blunt engineer if the dream is actually valid to start what long love that lasts forever I think love lasts forever I think love lasts before you before you meet and after you leave.

39:20But, you know, that was one very complex chapter that I had to scrap from attempt number five, which was what I call the spiritual field theory, an analogy between quantum physics at a very deep level of understanding of quantum field theory, to try and say that love existed even before you were born. Your love for everyone that you were going to love always existed. You just tuned into it at the right moment. And it will always exist, even if you try to shut it down. Love always exists. But I think relationships, I mean, I openly say that I fell in love with Nibel, my ex-wife, many times, six times to be very specific, right?

40:02But I fell in love with a different person every time. And it's, you know, it's almost, and we broke up when the seventh time didn't work, right? But the idea is that, is it even possible to keep renewing that lease over and over that way? I think it is for some people and it isn't for others. I think a lot of people stay in relationships for their whole lives and they're miserable. Correct. And we call this success. And then other people get divorced and remarry and remarry again and remarry again and find different loves. And we judge this, don't we? We call this failure. So I don't think rules or any sort of time scale for a relationship to, you know, it doesn't matter how long it lasts as long as it's giving you something that you're benefiting from right now.

40:56You know, if you break up, if you get together at 20 and you break up at 60 and you end up divorcing, obviously that's really painful. But that doesn't mean the relationship wasn't worth being in for that time. Yeah. I mean, Esther Perel herself also speaks about that, the two sides of us, you know, the need for adventure and the need for stability and how those two compete. And yeah, and the idea that once again, I mean, I think the reason why I kept cancelling Finding Love is because I'm so blunt that it upsets people who are fragile. and the idea honestly is that we have to admit that each and every one of us goes through that flip-flop of I want someone for a long term in a stable relationship it doesn't have to be too exciting but it can it should be safe and reliable and so on and then oh look at that one she's cute you know I want I want adventure I want to go and feel that romantic rush once again right and by the way, when I say she, it also applies to many of my lady friends, you know, my women friends who will tell you, yeah, you know, I love my partner or I love my husband, but I think, you know, I'm in my early thirties or mid thirties and I want to live life and I want to explore and I want to see this and all right.

42:13And, and it's quite an interesting struggle almost by design of our DNA that we just keep flipping back and forth, which sort of at the beginning sort of felt like a Gemini for me because I'm a Gemini. And then I realized, no, that's almost everyone. Yeah. It made me think of polyamory. And I guess previously there's only been two ways to do a relationship. You're either together and you're monogamous or you're having an affair basically um and you're not together or eventually you're not together i think polyamory and there are many different arguments i'm not entirely sure where i my stance is yet um but it can provide a different solution to this problem where you can have security you you they'll attack you like they attacked my early readers attacked the book but keep going oh well yeah and i understand it's threatening.

43:10And I understand for a lot of people, it's very triggering, the idea of being in a polyamorous relationship. And it's not for everyone. But for some people who really struggle, who want the security, but also really struggle with commitment and struggle to choose only one person, there is a different solution, which is something a bit more flexible. And that can be different for everybody. But something where both of those needs can be met, both security and adventure as you said you'll be amazed how many of those models are out there so again just because i'm a hyper organized engineer i i searched right and it's so interesting that the same people that will tell you oh i'm i'm disgusted that someone would even be able to touch me and then touch someone else you know hooked up with 20 people when they were in their 20s right and and And I don't mean that, by the way, hooking up is a bad thing.

44:04If your objective when you're in your 20s is to explore and learn and find out about yourself, great. If your reason is insecurity and constant need for reassurance, then hold on, something is wrong. There's nothing inherently right or wrong about any relationship style. But I listed the number of relationship styles that are highly acceptable, believe it or not, more successful than the traditional model. And it's staggering. It's staggering how, I mean, so think about it this way. Statistically, people under the age of 30, 75 % of the people under the age of 30 had some kind of a friends with benefit relationship that they considered successful.