Who counts as a significant other?

18:18Elias Weiss Friedman:They were struggling to make a blended family work. One partner had kids, the other one had never lived with kids before, and they moved in together after only knowing each other for three months.

18:33Elias Weiss Friedman:One time I went on vacation, and by the time I got back, they'd called off their wedding. But why? Their love was honestly, it was evident, and they were not cruel to each other. Their issue was figuring out how to continue building their romantic relationship while also figuring out how to raise teenagers who, to be honest, already had two very involved parents. They weren't really in need of a third. After a particularly big blow-up over chores and responsibilities, I finally asked a dangerous question. I said, do you think that living together has hurt or helped your relationship more? We took a few weeks to explore that question, and they decided to test it out.

19:18Elias Weiss Friedman:They got a short-term lease on an apartment nearby for the partner who didn't have kids. And we were really strategic. We made a contract. Let's talk about dates. Let's talk about expectations while you guys are living separately. And by the time they came back to me, I'd never seen them communicate so well. They said that they were looking forward to every weekend that they got to spend together, it felt like a vacation because they would spend the entire week planning their time together and savoring every moment they had together. They also found that their individual relationships with the kids drastically improved without the pressure of trying to transition them into an entirely new household dynamic, especially when they only had a couple years left in the house.

20:04Elias Weiss Friedman:So at this point, some of you may be asking yourselves, what kind of couples therapist recommends that couples live apart? That's a fair question. And to be honest, for a majority of my clients, the solution would not work. And that is the point. There's no such thing as normal when we're talking about two unique individuals with their own backgrounds and their own values.

20:29Rhaina Cohen:So when a couple comes into your office, what are some of the common issues they have? Is it, you know, we're worried that we're not compatible or we're arguing or where does it go wrong with the significant other?

20:45Elias Weiss Friedman:Yeah, a vast majority of my couples come in and they say we're having issues with communication. However, usually through couples therapy, we can identify more specific issues or lifestyle factors that are making it almost impossible to communicate about what you're actually needing. What do you mean lifestyle factors? So if you have, let's say, a difference in values, for example, if you're in a relationship and your partner is like, I'm having a hard time sleeping with you, and you hear that and you impersonalize that, you internalize it, you feel rejected. You feel like your partner is saying that they'd rather be sleeping with someone else.

21:27Elias Weiss Friedman:But what they're saying is that they've went 18, 20, 25 years having a bed to themselves, and now they're sharing a bed with someone who might sleep very differently than they do. They might have someone who moves a lot or needs all the cover or prefers it cooler or hotter. Small things where it's hard to talk about what could we do about that. And so sometimes I'll throw out a suggestion like, well, is it absolutely necessary based on your values to share a bed with your partner every night? Do you need to be in the same room? Do you need to be in the same house? Allowing yourselves to really consider alternatives to what you've always seen on TV or what you saw your parents do.

22:12Elias Weiss Friedman:Or really a lot of times the thing that we're competing with is the fantasy in our mind about what a relationship should look like. So what do you think you're giving couples?

22:22Rhaina Cohen:Are you just sort of saying, like, why are you making a big deal out of something that really is more like a logistics problem? Are you giving them permission to stop getting in the way of their own happiness in some ways?

22:35Elias Weiss Friedman:Sure. Sometimes it's permission. And sometimes also it's just floating the idea of, you know, your relationship seems really hard. I don't think your relationship should be that hard. You know, there are so many factors where we're trying to squeeze ourselves into something that doesn't work. And so I'll just ask them, you know, do you think this is worth your relationship? Because that's what's at stake here. There are some things we could test out and I always bring it up as an experiment. Let's just do an experiment. Let's see how this works. If we try this for a month, for two months, and you're still in the same position, maybe there's something bigger happening that we need to talk about.

23:19Elias Weiss Friedman:But in the off chance that we really are just arguing about the dishes or we really are just arguing about your bedroom, if we fix that, can your relationship be easy again? And a lot of the time, I see that it really can be. One conflict that comes up a lot of my work is the difference in values between arriving on time and arriving looking and feeling your best. Neither one is wrong, but I had a great model for this with my parents. When I was growing up, we drove absolutely everywhere separately. You know, if you're going to be a little bit late, you arrive with my mom, and if you're arriving on time, you go with my dad.

24:04Elias Weiss Friedman:They had two minivans for only two kids, okay? We didn't go anywhere together. And one time when I was about 12 years old, one of my closest friends finally worked up the courage to ask me about it. And I could tell she was so nervous. Like, I was about to reveal to her that my parents were secretly separated and she just figured it out. You know, now that I think about it, I bet her mom put her up to this. what's interesting is that her parents did go on to get divorced and my parents stayed together for 23 years before my mom passed away now do i think that's due to them commuting separately of course not but i think it shows us two things first it shows us that any deviation from the norm can be met with curiosity and even judgment it also shows us that sometimes when we decide to do things a little differently, we can avoid the difference between having a really challenging day as a couple or a smooth day by simply accepting our differences not as a couple, but as individuals.

25:12Rhaina Cohen:This speaks to what you were saying earlier about people thinking that their relationships are quote-unquote hard, but if you remove the thing that's making it hard, it can go back to

25:24Elias Weiss Friedman:being easy? Yeah. So sometimes you have more serious discussions and I would consider children to be, that's a bigger discussion. So I have a couple who they both were very motivated to have children. And so they went through a round of IVF and it looked extremely promising, but in the end, they ended up having no viable embryos. Now, during that time, she had so much pain during that process. Her hormones were out of whack. And she was really at a point where she's like, I've made peace with the fact that I don't want, I can live without having kids. I don't have to have kids. I don't have to adopt.

26:08Elias Weiss Friedman:I don't have to go through the surrogacy route. I'm happy in our marriage. And her partner was very, very reluctant. So they kind of came to me to talk through this, you know, really to assess, like, can we make this relationship work? It really became clear that he felt like he was letting his parents down. You know, he's the only child. So some of it was just accepting that this is not your grief to carry. You know, this is grief that you're feeling on behalf of your parents, who if they understood the situation, probably would be understanding. And even if they aren't, you know, this is your marriage or relationship.

26:43Elias Weiss Friedman:So come to find out they were on the same page. They were trying to have kids for the sake of other people. If it would have been easy, they would have been great parents. But with the level of stress that it was putting on them individually and on the relationship, it just really wasn't worth it. Instead of trying to change our partners, what if we instead embraced their differences?

27:06Rhaina Cohen:There's a line in your talk that people loved and I really loved. And you said, it's okay if people are confused about your relationship.

27:17Elias Weiss Friedman:It's okay if people are confused about your relationship. It was never theirs to understand in the first place. You know, it's so funny. That was a very late addition to the talk. So I was very surprised by the response to that. But that is the truth. A lot of times we are so much more consumed with what people think about our relationship, people we haven't even met. You know, we're worried about how people are going to perceive things. You know, it doesn't matter if I invested 20 years into my relationship looking one way. If we decide that we want to do things a little differently now, that's OK.

27:54Elias Weiss Friedman:We have grown. We've evolved as people. And we want to explore something new. We want to keep growing and doing it on our terms. If we continue to accept the narrative that relationships are hard, then we'll continue to do nothing about it. If our relationships feel hard, I encourage us to reflect on what is hard about it. Is it really the relationship or is it external factors like our own personal trauma histories or work stress? If it really is your relationship, let's really think about what you and your partner are willing to do differently to enjoy it again. I want us to reject everything we've ever known about relationships and challenge ourselves to create a relationship that not only defies expectations, but honors the peculiarities that make us, us.

28:48Elias Weiss Friedman:Thank you.

28:50Rhaina Cohen:That was Stephanie Yates' Anya Buile. She is a marriage and family therapist. You can find her on her YouTube channel and watch her full talk at TED.com.

29:06Rhaina Cohen:On the show today, significant others. We have talked about spouses and friends. But what if the most significant person in your life is yourself?

29:19Bella DePaulo:I'm Bella DiPaolo. I'm 71 years old. I have always been single and I always will be. And for the past several decades of my life, I have not only lived single, but I also study single people.

29:36Rhaina Cohen:Bella DiPaolo is a social psychologist and one of the leading experts on single life. She has published countless books, studies, surveys, and articles on the subject.

29:47Bella DePaulo:I write about what it means to be single in ways that reimagine single life from the stereotypes of how we're all sad and lonely and want nothing more than to unsingle ourselves to what I have discovered in my life and so many other people like me. We love being single. We are happy and flourishing because we are single, not in spite of it.

30:22Rhaina Cohen:Despite all the research she's done, Bella says she still needs to defend her findings that people who live alone can do so by choice. Here she is on the TED stage.

30:36Bella DePaulo:Even now, I keep getting reminded, get married and you will live happily ever after and you will never be lonely again. As children, we hear those stories in fairy tales. As grown-ups, we keep hearing them in all the novels and movies and TV shows that build up to a wedding. But here's the thing, that was never my story. I never wanted to get married. Living single was my happily ever after. but for the longest time I never heard of such a thing as living single and loving it. Positive affirming stories about single life would have resonated with me all those years ago but those stories have never been part of our lives the way fairy tales have.

31:25Bella DePaulo:I've made it my life's work to find the true stories of single life and stories no one is ever telling us.

31:34Rhaina Cohen:And you are still doing a lot of research, right, about these people who you call single at heart.

31:40Bella DePaulo:Yes. People who are single, not as a default because they were unlucky in love or they just didn't find anyone. But instead, they are powerfully drawn to single life for what it offers them, the freedom and the autonomy and the opportunity to be true to yourself if that's who you really are. I've gotten hundreds of emails and handwritten letters and social media contacts from single people, and they told me they never realized until they came across my writings that that wasn't something bad. that could be a good thing to like being single. It didn't mean they were weird or abnormal or unhappy.

32:41Rhaina Cohen:For people who know they are single at heart, Bella says her research has been a real validation. But if you're wondering whether you are suited for the single life, she has a quiz for you. Question number one. Sure.

32:55Bella DePaulo:The first one is, when you think about spending time alone, what thought comes to mind first? Is it, ah, sweet solitude? Or, oh no, I might be lonely. In the quiz, 98 % of people who are clearly single at heart say that they value their solitude. When people told me their life stories, they said things like, having time to myself is so important, it's like breathing.

33:35Rhaina Cohen:When we come back, more with Bella DiPaolo and her single at heart quiz. On the show today, significant others. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us.

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34:28Elias Weiss Friedman:Nearly half of the people who work for Border Patrol across the country are Latinos, a fact that confounds a lot of critics of immigration agencies like ICE. Why is it so hard to accept that Latinos who joined the Border Patrol truly believe in its mission? Listen to NPR's Code Switch podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

34:52Rhaina Cohen:It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. On the show today, significant others. And we were just talking to social psychologist Bella DiPaolo. She is an expert on people who she calls single at heart. And she has a quiz you can take to see if that's you.

35:11Bella DePaulo:When you are thinking about making a big change in your life, such as embarking on a new career are moving across the country, do you prefer making the decision with a partner, even if that means you do not pursue your favorite option? Or do you prefer making the decision that feels right to you without worrying about whether a partner would approve or whether your decision might stand in the way of a partner's goals. And 96 % of the people who are clearly single at heart say that they want to make the decision that feels right to them. Okay.

35:57Rhaina Cohen:And then there might be some people will say like, well, clearly these people haven't learned the art of compromise and that's why they're single. That's what being in a relationship is, is that you work together to figure out a path.

36:10Bella DePaulo:Yeah, but no one gets through life without compromising. You compromise with your friends. You have to compromise at work. So this idea that, oh, only married people have the skill of compromising. No, that's not true. Fair enough. Let's keep going. I'm loving this. What's the next one? When you have had some minor mishaps, such as a fender bender, how do you feel? Either you would be relieved not to have to explain to anyone why you messed up, or you would want to have a partner to go home to and tell all about it. And most people who are single at heart don't want to have to explain to anyone why they messed up.

36:58Rhaina Cohen:I guess for me, like, my husband is a shoulder to cry on, but he also deals with our insurance.

37:05Bella DePaulo:Right. I will concede that there are things I miss not having a partner. So I would love to have someone who took care of my card or someone who fixed my computer when it misbehaved or who swooped in and cleaned up the dishes after dinner. But then I'd want them to leave.

37:30Rhaina Cohen:it's funny i'm the most recent statistics say that over a quarter nearly a third of households are single person households and when people usually say that they say these are people who are living alone and it's almost like in the tone that they say it yeah more and more people are

37:48Bella DePaulo:living alone yes and what they seem to say often explicitly right after that is that's why We have a loneliness epidemic. And the irony of that is that it may be the people who are single for a long time, especially the single at heart, who are least likely to end up alone. When psychologists actually started studying the real lives of single people, they found it's the single people who have more friends. It's the single people who are doing more than married people to stay in touch with their siblings. It's the single people who are more often tending to their parents, exchanging help with their neighbors, contributing to the life of their towns and cities.

38:44Bella DePaulo:In contrast, when couples move in together or when they get married, they tend to be more insular. And they tend to do that even if they don't have kids. So they can't blame it on the kids. So the story we're told is that married people have the one. The untold, more revealing story is that single people have the ones.

39:14Rhaina Cohen:How do we know? Because I think there are some people who, yes, the most important person in their lives maybe is themselves. And they're very committed to living a single life. But maybe for people who it just didn't happen for them that they would like to potentially be paired up with someone. Right.

39:32Bella DePaulo:If you look at single people in general, not just the single at heart, what you find is that women take to single life better than men do. They are more likely to be good at maintaining friendships. They are actually more likely to value having some time to themselves. Right now, if you look at people who are having a hard time being single, it often includes older men who have previously been married. And they have gotten used to having a wife who makes sure they have a social life and make sure there's food on the table and all the rest of it.

40:21Rhaina Cohen:Okay, let's go on to the next question, which is about indulgences.

40:25Bella DePaulo:All right. When you are tempted to allow yourself your favorite indulgence, such as eating junk food or watching trashy TV, how do you feel? Either delighted to do exactly as you wish with no one else around, or you prefer to have a spouse at your side, either to join you in your sloths or badger you to exert more self -control. And the single at heart are delighted to do exactly as we wish. What you hear most often is that it only goes one direction, that married couples help each other to stay healthy and do the right thing.

41:10Rhaina Cohen:When in fact, it could go either way. That's interesting because I had always heard that research had shown that people who were married had longer lives, longer and healthier lives. Yes.

41:25Bella DePaulo:So if you look at the kinds of reports you will see in the media, they'll say, oh, married people have better blood pressure or whatever their metric is. But they only look at the people who are currently married, compare them to the people who are single and say, oh, look, married people win. But they're ignoring the people who got married and then got divorced and not because marriage was making them so healthy and happy.

41:59Rhaina Cohen:I can only guess that there are some people listening who think, well, you know, Bella's cherry picking the data to make her case about singledom because she's an advocate. She speaks for the other people who are happy to be single as well. But I think what you're also saying is that the data we're using to back up marriage or claims of loneliness epidemics are also cherry picking in some way or defining health by, I guess, assumptions of what is good in society. Yes.

42:32Bella DePaulo:What we think we know about single people is very much biased by what social scientists have chosen to study. So, for example, they have chosen to study loneliness, but only recently are they also studying solitude. And if we looked at people's comfort with being alone, that would change things.

43:05Rhaina Cohen:Okay, so let's go to the last question about what happens when you go to bed at night.

43:11Bella DePaulo:Let's see. Think about the possibility that when you go to sleep at night, there might not be anyone else in bed with you. How does that make you feel? And the people who are single at heart mostly say they are fine with that. In fact, some of them effused about it, saying how much they love getting to sleep in their own bed with no one else in it.

43:40Rhaina Cohen:I mean, not to be morbid, but the chances of someone who is partnered ending up in a bed alone are, I guess, 50-50 in some ways.

43:52Bella DePaulo:Right. So if you marry, you have these options. You could end up divorced, you could end up widowed, or you could be the one who dies first. And in fact, some people say, no matter who is beside you, you always take that last step on your own.

44:18Rhaina Cohen:Do you feel that in some ways you're doing a service to people in that if you can take the fear out of being alone? I feel like that's what I hear all the time is like, oh, well, I just don't want them to end up lonely, to end up all alone when they're old, like by themselves. That is the number one thing I hear from people like, well, I just don't want her to be alone when she's older.

44:42Bella DePaulo:Yes. One thing that would save us from feeling so lonely is if we were more comfortable in solitude. And maybe we shouldn't be worried so much about the people who spend time alone and love their time alone. And we should be more worried about the people who can't be alone. Because being comfortable in solitude is a wonderful and underappreciated skill.

45:25Rhaina Cohen:That was Bella DiPaolo. Her new book is called Single at Heart, The Power of Freedom and Heart-Fulfilling Joy of Single Life. You can see her talk at ted.npr.org. So this hour has been about significant others, our closest human companions. But what about man's best friend? I have to admit that I was never a dog lover until a few years ago when I finally capitulated and got my kids a pup. But that pup decided that I was her special person. And now I finally understand why dog owners are so passionate about their canine friends. This is all I need in life. And the love they give them. It's unconditional, right?

46:09Rhaina Cohen:Right, Rue?

46:10Elias Weiss Friedman:Yeah, what would you say your favorite thing about having a dog is?

46:13Rhaina Cohen:The other day, I spent an afternoon with a TED speaker who has made a name for himself documenting dogs.

46:20Bella DePaulo:Yeah, that's good.

46:21Rhaina Cohen:And the humans who love them. Rue, you be famous?

46:24Bella DePaulo:Yeah.

46:25Rhaina Cohen:He's like this famous bring treats.

46:26Bella DePaulo:Yeah, I could get down with his fame thing.

46:28Rhaina Cohen:Elias Weiss-Friedman is known as the Doggist to his over 7 million followers on Instagram, where he posts photos of dogs he meets on the streets.

46:39Elias Weiss Friedman:Black Lab, walking that way.

46:40Rhaina Cohen:Since he started doing this over a decade ago, Elias has taken pictures of over 50 ,000 dogs.

46:47Elias Weiss Friedman:Excuse me, excuse me, may I take a photo of your dog? May I take a photo of your dog? May I take a quick picture of your corgi before he jumps in the car? Are you a dog? Yes.

46:53Rhaina Cohen:In certain neighborhoods in New York City, people recognize him.

46:58Elias Weiss Friedman:You know who I am?

46:59Rhaina Cohen:But he has become the slow, soothing voice of dog lovers everywhere.

47:03Elias Weiss Friedman:He's also been patient.

47:05Rhaina Cohen:And even people who don't recognize him are thrilled to talk about their beloved doggo.

47:09Elias Weiss Friedman:Any funny personality quirks about him?

47:12Rhaina Cohen:People like Jason and Lauren Schneider. He's an aggressive kisser. He will pin you down on the couch and not stop.

47:20Elias Weiss Friedman:He's extremely loving you.

47:21Rhaina Cohen:Yes. After a quick chat with their humans, the doggist gets down to business, making all kinds of noises to get Dash's attention. And the shot that will get them both thousands of likes and comments.

47:36Bella DePaulo:Oh my god, he's so cute. Look at those lashes.

47:41Rhaina Cohen:So 50 ,000 photos that you've taken of dogs. do you ever feel surprised by what people tell you about why they love their dogs so much?

47:52Elias Weiss Friedman:The stories can be a little bit surprising and funny. They were like, he ate a$100 bill and pooped it out intact. You're just sort of like, even if a person were to do it, you would never tell that story. But because it's a dog, we just have this candid openness that we can just be funny and share these things and revel in it. and I feel like dogs are furry icebreakers. If it weren't for dogs, then how would I talk to people?

48:21Rhaina Cohen:So I read this crazy statistic that over 40 % of U.S. households now have a dog, and that that number, the number of households, that has doubled over the last 30 years. What is it that you think people need? Why do they want a dog in their life so much?

48:39Elias Weiss Friedman:people are having children later and so dogs are like a bridge to children or a test also i think we recognize that we're in a stressful time things are very divisive politically and dogs don't have any of that baggage and they they give us a sense of love and appreciation non-judgmentally i feel like on instagram you scrolling through your feed everything either makes you jealous, upset, stressed out. And I think my project, the Dog Us, was to try and be an antidote to that, where it's like sharing pictures of dogs. I'm spreading joy and it's non-polarizing. Dogs are the one thing we can all agree on.

49:22Elias Weiss Friedman:But yeah, enough about me. You showed me

49:25Rhaina Cohen:a picture of your dog, Lottie, who's Havanese, kind of a rare breed.

49:29Elias Weiss Friedman:How has Lottie changed your life?

49:30Rhaina Cohen:Well, my kids joke that we're turning into the same person, human, dog, that we are turning into the same thing, which I think is true. I think she's made me nicer actually.

49:41Elias Weiss Friedman:Do you remember the person you were before Lottie?

49:43Rhaina Cohen:I mean, I didn't have all those tummy rubs in my life and like the soulful looking into my eyes and just feeling very understood. No offense to husband, children, parents, siblings, humans in my life, but she's got my number and it's a, it's almost It's disconcerting in some ways, but also just so great to come home to at the end of the day.

50:07Elias Weiss Friedman:There's something a little bit more pure about your dog's relationship. You can't stay mad at them. They cut through all of your self-consciousness and apprehension and doubt, and they just run in at first.

50:22Rhaina Cohen:That disarming sincerity is what makes dogs so easy to connect to. But their support and companionship can also save lives, especially for people with service dogs. Elias interviewed Kristen Sells, a veteran medic in the U.S. Army.

50:38Elias Weiss Friedman:I'll cry if I talk about him too much. He saved my life.

50:40Rhaina Cohen:And he met her service dog Ziggy, a black lab who helped Kristen through her PTSD.

50:46Elias Weiss Friedman:In what ways do you think he's saved your life? I mean, his love of life. I still have my bad days, but he makes my bad days way better than they were. I love his eyes. That's what I noticed about him as well. Was it like intimidating when you were trying to decide whether or not to reach out for a service dog? Absolutely. I thought other people needed one more than me. People that had gone through worse things. When I was on more medications than I could remember to take, decided that it was time to give myself help. I lived for years just getting up and going through the motions, and now I feel again this amazing dog.

51:18Elias Weiss Friedman:I'm experiencing life again. Thank you for your service. Thank you. And thank you for sharing your beautiful service dog.

51:26Rhaina Cohen:Elias Weiss Friedman is the doggist. You can find him on Instagram and see him on the TED stage at TED.com. His book is This Dog Will Change Your Life. Thank you so much for listening to the show this week and for listening all throughout the past year. We are so grateful. If you like what you've been hearing, get something out of it, want something more, different, email us at ted radio hour at npr.org we read every message we love hearing from you this episode was produced by katie monteleone james delahousie harsha nahada and fiona gieran it was edited by sana's meshkin poor james delahousie and me our production staff at npr also includes rachel faulkner white and matthew cloutier our executive producer is irene noguchi Our audio engineers were Tiffany Vera Castro, Jimmy Keeley, Zoe Vangenhoven, Patrick Murray, and Robert Rodriguez.

52:27Rhaina Cohen:Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablewe. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Hilash, Alejandra Salazar, and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

52:42Elias Weiss Friedman:This week on Sources and Methods. What a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran might look like. Just how similar would it be to the Obama administration deal that President Trump ripped up? If Trump allows some enrichment, which is what the Iranians demand, then everyone's going to be saying, well, wait a minute, how is this different from what Obama had? Plus, more of the week's biggest national security news on sources and methods. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.