Why 80% Of Relationships Fail & How You Can Save Yours | Esther Perel EP 764

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:13I think there's a number of things in a relationship that become the cornerstones of the demise, okay? Indifference and contempt and neglect and violence are probably the four most important. I'm not talking about big violence. Microaggressions are plenty. Indifference, when you start to feel like the other person fundamentally is not really caring about you anymore, or you don't care about them, what they feel, what they think, who they are, what they're about. You just don't care. You've lost interest. But it's more than losing of interest. It's also when you are indifferent, you degrade the other person.

0:48They're less important to you. They don't matter. And ultimately what we feel in relationships is that we matter. That is the essential reason for connecting to people is that we are creatures of meaning. I matter to you. I'm someone. You care about me. You're proud of me. You want good for me. You're benevolent. All of that. When you are indifferent, that whole thing goes. And then you start to, there's that coldness that creeps in, that sense of estrangement, that complete disconnect. That. The second one is neglect. Neglect. When people just basically take each other for granted. You know, they take more care of their car than of their partner.

1:26Their dog. Or their dog. Anybody. Anything. Their yard. Anything. Anything gets attendance. Their business. Their business for sure. their business for sure you know everything gets priority everything gets reviewed evaluated attended to 360s you name it you know new input you know my god it's like people have this idea that they put it all in when they were dating and then once they seal the knot it's like as if they tie the knot it's like now they don't have to do squat anymore and they go into this kind of complete sense of complacency and laziness it's an amazing thing they think this thing is just going to live on its own.

2:03Right. Like a cactus. Right. Violence, violence, the abuse, the level of, of disrespect. I mean, most people talk nicer to anybody else than their partner when a relationship degrades. Why is that? Because you can't get away with it. Because if you talk like this at work, you're gone. Because if you talk like this with the police, you're gone. Because if you talk like this on the street, you're being punched. But with your partner, you have that sense that they're going to be there anyway. They're just going to take it because it's family. And family is this kind of, this thing that doesn't dissolve so easily.

2:36So you can just lash out at them and talk to them with a tone and a dismissal that is phenomenal. So that kind of violence, I'm not talking physical violence and all the other big, big things. You're talking about aggression or resentment or all of that, all of that, you know, passive aggressiveness. Contempt, I think, is the top one. Contempt is the killer of them all. Because in the contempt, there is a real, there's the degradation of the race. It's that complete, you're nothing. You're nothing. I can kill you with that one gaze, that one eyebrow that goes up. There's only two relationships that resemble each other.

3:16The one you have with your parents or the people who raise you and the one you have with the people you fall in love with. people can sit in my office all the time and say i have this with no one else i don't have this with anybody at work nobody among my friends ever thinks like that you're the only one who speaks like this or thinks this about me or with whom i do this no you're the only one and now we go back in history and i'm sorry to be the psychologist but that's really right it is the place where we often learned about closeness, trust, loyalty, commitment, sharing, taking, receiving, asking, all these essential verbs of relationships.

3:57We learned that at home. We also learned jealousy and all these other things. Possessiveness, vengeance, you name them. The beauty and the not beauty. Yeah, we saw it all as children, right? We saw the fights. We saw the love. We saw the, you know, we saw the coldness, the lack of intimacy, the intimacy. Yes. And we bring that with us. And we often promise ourselves, I'll never be this one. I'll never be this way. I'll never talk like this. We find ourselves often much closer to the apple. And then resenting ourselves. We resent ourselves. We're like, how do we do that? Well, why did we get to this place?

4:29And then we feel ashamed about it. And since we don't like to feel ashamed about it, we hide it. And one of the way we hide it is we blame the partner. if you ask people a question that goes like this i turn myself off when i turn myself off by not you turn me off when and what turns me off is you're gonna hear i turn myself off when i do emails when i spend too much time on the phone when i overeat when i don't exercise when i have bad days at work, when I don't feel confident, when I numb myself, when I feel dead, when I don't feel thriving, when I'm not alive. You will really hear that it has very little to do with sex.

5:13And when you ask people, I turn myself on when or by, I awaken my desires. Not you turn me on when and what turns me on is, which is you're responsible for my wanting. What people will talk to you about is when I'm in nature, when I'm connected with my friends, when I get to do my sports, when I play music, when I listen to music, it's stuff that gives me pleasure, that is alive, that is vibrant, that is vital, that is erotic in the full sense of the word as life force. The biggest turn on is confidence. Confidence. You ask people, when do you find yourself most drawn to your partner? Every description has to do with when they're in their element, when they're on stage, when they're doing their sport, when they are radiant, when they are in their studio, on the piano, on the horse, you name it.

6:05It's when they are in their element, i.e. they don't need me to take care of them. They're not depressed and down and lonely and sad. They're not needy. They don't need me because desire is about wanting you. Love is also about needing you. Caretaking is a very powerful experience in love and it is a very powerful anti-aphrodisiac. It's the same as when you walk. You have to move from one foot to the other. A balance is not about staying on one side. A balance is the ability to see. Right now, we don't need caretaking. We can be mischievous. We can be naughty. We can be playful. We can break our own rules.

6:43We can stay home and not go to work at eight o 'clock. Now we are feeling that we are bringing our own little transgressions home we are alive we're not just being dutiful responsible good citizens right it's that it's very small you know I always think when I go and I see people at lunch and you see them talking and they're well dressed and they're awake and all I seen who is here with their partner you can see them they're engaged they're giving the best of themselves that's erotic no the majority are not there with their partner they're not with their friends with their colleagues their partner is gonna get the leftover when they come home at night.

7:19Sorry. You know what? Forget the night date. Meet at lunch when you actually have energy, you know, when you, and, and in the middle of the day like that, when you're awake, when you have something to offer, it's a very small thing, but they don't do it. They don't do it. And you say, why not? Why not? Why don't you stay an hour extra at home in the morning? And not just because when you have a headache and just say, this matters to me, we're going to take this hour. And there's nothing else that matters in this moment, but just you and I to be together, to check in.

8:16Motivation Show.