Esther Perel Reveals Why Dating Is Broken and How to Heal Your Relationship Patterns | EP 941

0:00There are two big things happening at one time that I've never done before. I'm going on a book tour for my new book, Make Money Easy, and I'm doing a podcast tour at the same time. It is going to be big, and I'm going to seven cities in 10 days. Get your friends, get your family, bring everyone you know to these cities. I'm coming to Austin, Texas, New York, Boston. We're going to Nashville. Then we're going to Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. Make sure to get your tickets right now. go to lewishouse.com slash tour again bring everyone you know if you're looking to create more financial freedom and abundance in your life and you want to see a massive guest live on the school of greatness show get your tickets i can't wait to see you there hi my name is lewis house and welcome to the daily motivation show

1:00What about the single people who have maybe struggled in previous relationships or who maybe took time for themselves, but now they want to attract and create a healthy relationship? How can they do the work for themselves so that they can really see when a person is in front of them that, oh, this is a healthy human being. Let me explore this and not just get into old, similar patterns. Right. Right. I tend to not like, first of all, the concept of single and coupled. Because today you're single and tomorrow you're not. And today you're coupled and tomorrow you're single. There's a lot much more fluidity these days.

1:41But what I do know is this. If I, We live with belief systems. Relationships are stories. Everyone here has a story about your relationship. And we sometimes hold on to our stories so tightly that we confuse them with the truth. If I say there are no good men out there, if I say all people are out to get you, if I say I'm a pathological pleaser, if I say people have never cared about me properly, these stories become belief systems that become a part of my confirmation bias. And when we have confirmation bias, it means that I'm now going to look at you and see to what extent this is going to reinforce my belief.

2:25And then I'm going to disregard evidence of the rest. So check your assumptions. That's the first thing on the chain. What are your fundamental beliefs with which you enter relationships? and to what extent do you find yourself busy proving that they're true, which doesn't serve you much? Right, right. Number one. Number two, when you go out on a date, don't turn them into job interviews. They've never seen something less interesting. I mean, people ask questions and then they look to see if they have butterflies. How can that work? It's the most dull, dull kind of encounter. This weird thing that I see has happened.

3:11But you go out to date, as this is if you get a date, you know, because they're that other experience. And then you have to come back to your life to tell them if you won the lottery or not. And you come back with your shame or with your emptiness. It's dreadful. You know, there was something useful in the other model, the old model. You date, you meet somebody, you bring them to your life. You meet them with your friends. You'll have a thousand data points. Far more interesting than sitting in some noisy bar and trying to ask questions. And this integration, if the date doesn't work, the date is gone.

3:49And the friends are here and you continue your life. Wow. So this is not about the building of the relationship, but it's about the dating itself. The next thing is that we have a thing in relationships that's very interesting. It's called fundamental attribution error. Fundamental what? Attribution error. Fundamental attribution error. Yeah, it goes like this. I am complicated and complex. You are simple. When you come late, it's because you don't care. When I come late, it's because there were circumstances in my life to explain why I am late. Mine is circumstantial. Yours is characterological.

4:33You don't care about me. You're just a slob. You're just a this. You're just a that. It's a fantastic way we have to organize the world. So that is one of those nasty things that really make relationships not thrive. Wow. Name calling the other person the whole thing. And then I'll ask you one other one that I think is really crucial. When you fight, because fighting is a major piece of relationship. It's intrinsic. Conflict is part of love and relationships, all relationships. But don't think that what matters is what you're fighting about, but always ask yourself, what is it that I'm fighting for?

5:13What people fight for when they fight is usually three things. You fight for care and closeness. You fight for respect and recognition, and you fight for power and control. Who makes the decisions? Whose priorities matter more? Caring power and control. Caring closeness, do you have my back? Can I trust you? And respect and recognition, can you value me? Most fights you will find are about one of those three things. But that's not what we say. what we say is why did you leave your shoes once again you know in my my in my tour I have this this couple and they talk they fight they fight about the cat closet the litter the cat box the you know and I'm thinking seriously we're gonna talk here about cattle I mean this is an important session and then I understand that when she says why didn't you close the closet it has nothing to do with the closet it has to do with his father who told him all the time what to do, who stood with his foot on his neck, who never let him breathe, and this guy grew up saying, nobody's going to be the boss of me.

6:26This is what he's saying when he says, why shall I close the closet? That's power and control. And then she grew up all alone, taking care of the whole family, really miserable situation. And when he says, why shall I close the closet? You close the closet. What does she hear? I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. I've always had to do it for everybody. I took care of everyone, and this is going to continue no you know this is but this is the underlying thing but people will get so caught in the closet and the cat litter it's phenomenal thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day.

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8:00Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show. Thank you.