Is Using ChatGPT Hurting My Relationship?

0:00I've been in a relationship for about nine months that is pretty emotionally intense. My partner is in recovery and can be very reactive and our conflicts escalate quickly. When they began, I found myself either over-explaining or getting pulled into circular arguments. I'd come out of a long, stable marriage where conflict rarely escalated, and this is my first relationship after that. So this dynamic felt disorienting and I felt totally out of my depth. So I started using AI. Sometimes I'd consult with it to help me understand what was happening, and sometimes I'd even use it in real time during conflict to help me regulate my responses.

0:36It kept me grounded, and it also helped me do my part to influence our interactions toward peace. It helped so much. I became less reactive, more clear-headed during conflicts, and I stopped participating in the loops. At this point, I'm no longer using it in real time, and I rarely even consulted about us because I've integrated most of the tools it taught me. But I don't fully know how to understand what happened because it's so novel. I mean, I did grow into somebody who could hold this relationship more effectively, but did I stabilize something that might not have actually held together on its own?

1:10He does not know I was using AI in this way, which is, for a fairly open person like me, questionable in its impact on intimacy. It did feel like private turbocharged self-regulation, which was incredibly calming, but my subjective experience had an objective prop. It definitely shaped our dynamic, especially in conflict, where I'd started using AI and suddenly break the loop before I knew how to do it on my own. So I'm curious where the line is between personal support and something that affects the integrity of a relationship and where intimacy comes into play. Thanks.

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2:26Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. So is there anything that you would like to add? Well, I think the biggest thing I'm grappling with is the ethical question, actually, of the one-sided use and the secret use. and whether that's, I mean, it's a brave new world, right? And AI doesn't have the kind of standards and practices that a therapist has, you know, with confidentiality and such. So I feel like in hindsight that I might've been breaking trust with him because literally Esther, I would copy paste our conversations from, you know, our chat into AI because I wanted to get it right.

3:17I didn't want to just, you know, describe my version of it. and then it would spit out a suggestion of what to say. And at first it was completely different than what I expected to have to say because it's just, you know, I was participating in the loops, like I described, and I'm really going to focus on myself in this conversation and my complicity in the loops. And that's where it really came in handy. But yeah, so what it was describing was different because I just, I hadn't, I'd never cultivated those tools. the relationship I came from was with a man with whom I shared a very similar background and my new partner and I have completely different backgrounds so I'm just I'm needing it just needing more you know more help so but you know but he's totally against AI he's not team AI at all so I just I'm not really sure where the line is there that's an important And that's an important statement, right?

4:13If he was Team AI, you wouldn't be asking me, should I share with him or not? I'm actually, I'm not sure if I'm asking, should I share with him or not? I don't plan to share this with him, but I am interested in the ethics behind it. Walk me back for a moment. Sure. How did you start using AI? What made you think AI could help you in that moment? give me an example of one of those copy paste what do you mean you copy paste you wrote it all down or you recorded your fights oh well i should actually clarify that our relationship is mostly long distance so a lot of our arguments take place over text okay so the source material landed itself completely what else do i need to know about that i'm so sorry about that no No, totally.

5:04There are questions about your relationship. There are questions about what AI represents for you here and what it represents to the relationship. So there are three different touch points just to start. There'll be others potentially that may emerge as we speak. But have you had a relationship in using AI for other situations and this just became one more? Was this a whole new ignition for you? How did it start? The first time I ever used AI, it was actually for work. I had to come up with a contract for a client. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I have to draft a contract. And this is going to take forever.

5:45And I only have a few minutes. And I had AI. I put all the terms into AI and it drafted me this gorgeous contract. And I was like, oh, wow. What do you use? ChatGPT. Okay. So in conversations with my therapist about this relationship, she had recommended a couple books to me. Stop Walking on Eggshelves and It's Not You. And then I thought to myself, there's this whole world of relationship books that I haven't really dug into. And I have this tool here that can access all of them and synthesize the information in such a way in real time that might be really useful for my situation. And I was in a place where our dynamic had gotten so volatile and I was at a loss as to what was mine to own and what I needed to leave with him to own.

6:38And so I asked the tool. and you know I actually said you know using this large language model neural network of all the relationship books you know here's the situation what do you think and it gave me this amazing answer it was a bit sycophantic but I'm emotionally supported enough in my life where sycophancy actually causes me to be suspicious so I found that I could train it not to be sycophantic as long as I kept reminding it. But it gave me this response that gave me so much insight into why we were the way we were together. And it shone a light on the kinds of loops that we were in. And it helps me disentangle the threads of validating him emotionally without meeting him in a loop.

7:29So does that make sense? Conceptually, it makes a lot of sense. But since relationships are lived in the details, I'll ask you to share an example that's more granular because the reason you kept coming back is not because it was vague and abstract. You kept coming back because it was extremely precise. It was extremely pragmatic and instructive. You could instantly go and try it out, practice, practice, and then see what happens. Yes. and come back with the next installment. Do you see each other in person ever or the whole thing is just on long distance? Oh, we see each other as much as we can.

8:15Yeah, I would say we probably spend probably about a fifth of our time together. Give me an example of... Of a time when I used it? Yeah, it's more like I didn't need it to be sycophantic. I needed it to be super useful. Oh, yes. And I needed to see myself transform in front of my own eyes by applying the instructions. Yes. And that became the power of it. So tell me more. So I am a woman who loves her male friends. And I've always had male friends in my life ever since I was little. And I really value the presence of them. They're a good balance for me. and they've never ever ever been a threat to my relationships my romantic relationships they're completely separate and he has background where he's actually been left for his ex-girlfriends male friends so he has that experience and he brings that into our relationship as a suspicion so that's I think that's fair but I also need to hold my own boundaries around that and and communicate those with him in such a way that doesn't allow him or just doesn't you know doesn't call my integrity into question so when I had a male friend who was traveling stay at my house and he was not there he had a really big problem with it and you know he said some things that were not true about the dynamic and I had to separate out his emotions you know his valid nervousness about it from he accused you of cheating yes yeah okay and so I had to separate that from the reality and from holding my boundaries and asking him to trust me, disentangling his emotions from the trust.

10:26And that's really tricky. I mean, my impulse as a very logical person is to describe my day with my friend and show him how I can't possibly be doing what he thought I might be doing with him. And even putting him on the phone, you know, I would, I put my friend on the phone with him just so they could meet, you know, on video call. And so that was, that was my impulse. It all backfired. Right, right. What was way more useful was... I could have told you that too. Yeah. Basically, you were trying to legitimize your actions, separate the truth from his fears, be defensive. And all of this was getting you nowhere.

11:17Right, right. And so, yeah, so ChatGPT was like a real-time coach, you know. And what I can do is I manage the situation much more effectively by just hearing him out and just not even not being available for him to call my trust into question and asking him to please meet me with more curiosity. You know, if you have a question of my behavior, you need to ask me about it. And then when you ask me about it, when I answer, I really need you to trust me. so separating those threads was was very useful for me and that's I think that all of our loops follow a similar pattern and I've been able to deploy these tools for them when I use it in real time I have to say it's it's much quicker and more efficient in breaking the loops than I I am on my own still, but I'm getting better.

12:17I'm getting there. So while you were trying to garner his trust, AI was also capturing your trust. Yes. And what allowed you to trust it? Not as in it gave me good advice, but as in I'm going to do what it tells me. I'm going to practice something different when I'm so completely wrapped into being stuck in this repeated loop. Where did your flexibility come from? It's beautiful. Good question. I have a pretty good level of discernment. And when everything it was telling me made complete sense and was challenging for me. but challenging in a way that felt true. So you knew when you derailed and you needed somebody or something to help you get on a different track.

13:20Yes, ma 'am. And did he notice your change? Is he aware that you've embarked on a different track? I don't know if he noticed a change in me as much as he noticed a change in himself because he noticed that he was seeking more self-awareness on his own part and holding himself differently in our conflicts. He actually remarked that his friends and family noticed a change in him that, you know, hey, it might be attributable to our relationship, But I have to say, I don't know that the dynamic would have been complete without my use of AI. Says you. Right. Says me, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

14:15So the loop is bigger. AI makes its recommendation. You put them into practice. When you change, he changes. because there's no better way to change the other than to change ourselves when we are in a loop. Because if I do something that instigates you to respond in a certain way, if I start doing something else, sooner or later, you're going to respond differently because I'm not giving you the expected repartee. So in loops, it is really the secret of how you change them. If you change you, you change the other. But the other doesn't necessarily think that you've changed. They notice their change.

15:10Or sometimes they may say, I'm different because she's different. So in effect, what I'm telling you is that you didn't just use AI for you. AI wasn't just coaching you. AI was coaching the relationship. Yeah, that feels accurate. Yeah. Did you read some of the same things in the books that were given to you? I did. Yeah, they were very similar to what the AI was coaching me to do. Or the AI learned well. Right. The large language model. Yes. The error goes in a different direction. Yes. So chat GPT is regurgitating in a very efficient way what it has taken from, as you said, all the books that I couldn't read.

15:59Yeah. You know? And has there been moments when it said something and you said, I'm not doing this? Do you argue? I do. I argue with it. You know, sometimes, yes. I have to say sometimes it's a little bit inhuman. Maybe it was right and you were wrong. That's true. That's true. But often its recommendations are so cold, you know, and they're inhuman. and I'm a very warm... Oh, okay. Let's see here. I don't know you. So if you tell me warm and cold, I don't really know what that represents for you. Okay. So I'm not just nosy for the sake of nosy, but in the examples, I get to experience more of you on a granular, sensitive level.

16:49Yeah. Would you mind if I look something up real quick? Go ahead. Let's see, I'm just going to look at my phone. Yeah, I'm just going to look at my phone and see if I can find real quick a recent recommendation that I thought, oh, man, I can't say that because it's so cold. So let's see here. So something I was trying to draw a line about some assumptions he made when I called him. And the AI suggested that I said, you can have your reactions, but I'm not the place you discharge them by assuming things about me. and that to me reads as a little bit combative. What it does though, what I think ChatGPT is really good at doing is giving me different options and letting me choose from them or synthesize them and then I can look to see the different angles it comes from so that I can do something and then add my voice and add a little bit more personal context.

17:58We have to take a brief break, so stay with us and let's see where this goes.

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21:32Tell me more about your relationship now. Interestingly, at this point, I know more about your relationship with the chat than I know about your relationship with your boyfriend. Yeah. Okay. So it's the kind of dynamic where we have very high highs and then the lows suck. There are lows that I've never had in a relationship before. Or if I have, it's been a very long time, you know, back maybe in my early 20s. And the same is true for the highs? Oh, yeah. Yeah, most definitely. I've never experienced this kind of high before in a relationship. and I don't mean like a high as in like a drug high, but just the kind of, just our connection is just so beautiful and so meaningful to me.

22:21It's woken me up in ways I've never been awake before. In what sense? Well, I see the world through trinities, the mind, body, spirit, head, heart, hands, et cetera. And, you know, I've always been very good at cultivating my trinity individually, my mind, heart, and body. But I've never really cultivated a connection between my heart and my body. And that is a connection that it's really woken up in this relationship. Our dynamic has really activated that. And it's not just in our relationship, but it's the kind of thing where I can feel gratitude more in my body now. I can feel joy in my body now.

23:04I can feel sadness. I haven't, like before meeting him and having this relationship, I hadn't cried since I was probably 10, except at my grandma's funeral a few years ago. And now I'm an emotional person. Now I cry. It's wonderful. And I absolutely credit our relationship with waking that up. So it's very precious to me. Now, I'm sure that the connection was always there, of course. It's just now it's awake and he's really helped me realize that. So I know it's meaningful to him as well. And it seems only to be getting better, you know, especially now that we can have more healthy conflicts. I was for 10 years before this in a relationship that was stable that may have been more distant more conflict avoidant no highs no lows steady temperature I don't know why you left or why it ended or why they left for that matter I don't know the end of that relationship.

24:18But I find myself, or you find yourself, in a new relationship that has all the passion that the previous one lacked. But the passion comes with an erotic intimacy, an erotic charge, and also an erotic wrath. And it goes from heaven to hell and very fast. and if we don't find a way to not drop so low slowly but surely the highs will erode

24:55so I needed to find something fast and effective and you did something that is quite wonderful which was to say I'm going to focus on me because it's very easy in a dynamic like this since it's part of the core of the dynamic to be a blame fest. You do this, you do this, I do this because you, I wouldn't do this if you didn't. It's a whole blame fest. Yes. That's part of the loop. So you decide, I need help. I need to change this. What can I do? I don't want to be in this place. I don't want to say what I say. I don't want to feel what I feel. I don't want to do what I do. How do I step out of this?

25:41And in that sense, you're using this AI, this machine, in a very pragmatic, tool-oriented way. Yes. And part of your question is, is this a tool? Is this a legitimate tool? Is this a transgression? Yes. Which is no longer a tool? Is there a breach? Am I violating something? Is this an ethical dilemma? Or is this simply, I couldn't read every book I wanted to read, so I found a very good reader's digest. That's so true. Okay? That's why I want to know about the relationship. Because what happens when you say to me, no, I don't plan to share any of this. Okay. I mean, not that you have to, that matters to me.

26:36But what you did say is he is not into this. No. So that is where it taints or tints, maybe is a better verb, the secrecy a little bit more. Yeah. It's like whatever he would not be into that I'm doing behind his back. And not only am I doing it behind his back, but on top of it, I'm bringing it into a relationship. And little does he know. I know. And I have to tell you, though, I think I justify it because if the tables were turned and he were doing this, if you were using AI, I would absolutely celebrate it. I would love for him to get a second opinion, as long as he was using what I was really saying and not his version of it, you know, if that makes sense.

27:25Right. But what I'm saying is that your ethical dilemma takes place in the context of a particular relationship where your partner has strong opinions about the very thing that you're questioning. Yes. And you can't ignore that. Yeah. And I honestly, when I say it doesn't, it's not what I think here because I have no answers to some of your questions. These are no questions for many of us. but the question about is this a tool or is this a transgression i want you to think about for a moment as you experience it yeah i think that you made a really good point a while ago when you said that um you know when i was describing our the granular conflict and you said i could have told you that you know i mean i meaning you and so i think what if I were in a relationship where I needed support and I were to seek out the help of a therapist and my partner would say, I don't like therapists.

28:33I don't believe in therapy. I think they're a lot of bunk. Yeah. So is this parallel? I don't know. So I have been in situations where one person comes to therapy and the other person is a convinced skeptic, thinks the whole thing is useless. And the question is not about what people think about therapy, in my mind, or what people think about the AI for that matter. I mean, not that they are irrelevant, but I would put another one on top of it. You can't sleep and you decide to take melatonin and the other person thinks melatonin is useless. you want to eat a certain way and you change your entire diet and the other person thinks it's stupid it's what is the level of differentiation in the relationship how much does one person live side by side with another person who thinks differently about certain things does different things practices different things without thinking, if I don't like it, if I don't agree with it, if I don't believe in it, if I'm not a convert, you shouldn't be doing this.

30:00Or I'm going to tell you on a regular basis how poorly I think about it. Which I'm saying to you is that the process, the dynamic, is more important than the particular issue. If the issue is drinking, taking melatonin, going to therapy, doing the AI, they are not the same. But the dynamic may be the exact same one. I see. And the dynamic is you shouldn't do what I don't like or what I don't believe in or agree with. Right. differentiation is about the acceptance of otherness inside a relationship without reactivity yeah i see what you're saying which is in effect what the ai counseled you on it didn't just counsel you about how to not get engaged and get angry and be in a fight It told you how to be able to listen to him without agreeing with him.

31:07That's differentiation. It told you about how to elicit curiosity toward you, which means engaging with the otherness. It didn't just say, let me show you the guy that's staying with me so that you can see that I'm not sleeping around and I'm not cheating on you because that really wasn't doing it. it showed you how to have empathy without having to first constantly being into self-legitimization that's differentiation so one thing i say to you is when you get advice from the chat it's useful to know what is the advice you're getting yeah what is it actually coaching you on it is coaching you not just on reducing conflict it is coaching you on tolerating difference and introducing the tolerance for difference inside your relationship.

31:58Yeah, that's really beautiful, too, because we are so different. Oh, man, our backgrounds are different. We are different. And our outlooks on the world are different, you know, politically different, all the differences. And I think, you know, I love us and I love people who are different. They expand my world. but being in a relationship one is certainly fraught with a lot of friction and I'm just I'm so grateful to this tool for helping me navigate that friction in a way that has made it work I'm not sure it would have worked otherwise to be honest with you because I would have felt attacked

32:42unjustly yeah yeah attacked and stressed and questioning myself all the time and questioning my sanity, I guess, bending to contorting too much, contorting myself too much in order to match what I felt like he was demanding of me, you know, rather than holding my own and respecting my own boundaries and being able to, to stand solid in myself and to really celebrate our differences as, you know, as I want to, because I love the way that he's the ways that he's different from me. You know, he, he pushes me, challenges me. And I just, I love that about us. But as you know, it comes with this other side that I'm navigating.