Love 2.0: How to Fix Your Marriage, Part 1  ## Metadata - Author: [[Hidden Brain]] - Full Title: Love 2.0: How to Fix Your Marriage, Part 1 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/e89d14fd-876d-497b-a922-f6c01c774db6 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Boots, Teasing, And A Misread Moment** - James Cordova shares a Santa Fe boot-shopping moment where his joking hurt his wife's feelings and she pulled away. - His instinct to keep joking failed and revealed how teasing clashed with her tenderhearted nature. Transcript: Dr. James Cordova For what happened and what happened, James. Oh, absolutely. So we were in the process of shopping for a new pair of boots for her. And one of the things that we have is sort of like an inside joke between the two of us is that she has an exquisite taste. So way more often than not, when we're shopping for something, she makes a beeline for the most expensive version of whatever it is that we're shopping for. And it's an ongoing sort of running joke between the two of us. So we were having a good time shopping for boots and we're heading into this like small kind of boutique boot store in Santa Fe. And so as we're walking in, I call out to the proprietor and I say, can you just go ahead and show us the most expensive pair of boots in the store and save us some time, which I thought my wife Would find hilarious, but clearly in the moment did not. What was her reaction, James? So, you know, when my wife is hurt, she gets quiet, right? So there's a very distinct shift in tone from the sort of playfulness and lightheartedness that we were experiencing as we were walking in the door to you can just sort of feel her pull Shankar Vedantam Away. I'm assuming at that point you realized that you had put your foot in your mouth. Oh, yeah. I'm not an idiot. Yeah. Dr. James Cordova I can tell like something happened. And it's interesting because like my instinct is still to see if I can maintain the momentum, right? So, oh, we were having a good time. We were feeling jokey with each other and something happened. But maybe I can just like keep going with the playfulness and it'll just wash away. ([Time 0:07:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4fadb028-b935-4ea6-a8c1-44f9fc083659)) - **Perpetual Problems Drive Relationship Distress** - Perpetual relationship problems arise from stable, natural differences between partners that won't fully disappear. - How couples relate to these differences, not the problems themselves, predicts long-term relationship health. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Things that one person does or doesn't do drive the other person bonkers. At Clark University, psychologist James Cordova has studied the science of behavior change, when it works, when it doesn't, and what we can do about it. James, you say that for a long time, the emphasis within the field of couples therapy was on helping couples change their behavior. Now, this must have fit with the assumption that most couples themselves have, which is that the problems in their relationships would disappear if only the other person would change. Dr. James Cordova That is our natural instinct, right? Like, I'm feeling uncomfortable. I'm feeling some distress. And you're the problem. And if you would change, I would feel better. And so, yeah, of course, that's the way couples come in. That's what they're asking for. And, you know, warm-hearted, beneficent therapists tried to meet them right there in the thing that they were asking for. Shankar Vedantam And I'm wondering, there must be times when, in fact, this approach does work. Of course, you know, couples are coming in and presumably they're trying to recruit. Each of them is trying to recruit the therapist onto their side to tell the other person what they're doing wrong. But there must be times where therapists, in fact, are successful at getting couples to change their behavior. It's true. Dr. James Cordova I was originally trained in what was called behavioral marital therapy, which was very much a change-oriented approach to doing couple therapy. And the changes that we would work on with couples is increasing the frequency with which they were doing nice things for each other. We called that behavior exchange, teaching them how to communicate more effectively, teaching them how to problem solve more effectively. But as it turned out, even though it is a therapy that has demonstrable effectiveness, none of those skills would follow couples home. So there is some change happening, but it's difficult for couples to sustain it. Shankar Vedantam Couples, of course, do solve problems all the time. That's because many problems have an easy solution. Dr. James Cordova When we first get together, we're adjusting to each other. And the things that are easy to adjust to, we adjust to so quickly that we almost don't even notice that we've done it. Like, which side of the bed are you going to sleep on? Which side of the bed am I going to sleep on? Not usually an issue. And then just above that are what I think of as like mezzanine level problems that we might have to struggle with a little bit. Sometimes they take weeks, months or years, but we do eventually solve them and then we're good. Shankar Vedantam There is another group of problems that comes after this, and they are more intractable. We're going to spend most of our time today talking about those very hard problems. ([Time 0:17:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e5ba3611-3788-44bc-9c1a-7f32a8941dd6)) - **Collaborate To Solve Mezzanine Conflicts** - Approach mezzanine problems with compassionate curiosity to find practical compromises. - Collaborate to craft technical or behavioral solutions that honor both partners' needs. Transcript: Dr. James Cordova There actually was a lot of push and push back. I was trying to get her to change, to just be much more accepting of my cycling. And she was trying to get me to change, to do something less dangerous for your exercise, please. The willingness to collaborate, the willingness to compromise for us came out of really compassionately understanding where the other person was coming from. For me to really deeply compassionately understand how scary it was for her when I was out on the road. So I'm out on the road having a great time cycling, and she's at home terrified that I'm going to get hit by another car, that I'm going to get hurt, or that I'm going to get killed. And for her to compassionately understand how important cycling is for me, both for my physical health, but mostly for my mental and emotional well-being. And from that place, we were better able to think, well, what might a compromise be? And the compromise that we actually worked out, which I find so beautiful, is that she bought an e-bike. We're both quite delighted with the e-bike that she bought. And so she goes cycling with me uh and and that helps both of us she's with me and she's able to feel like she's got some uh some influence some some control over what's going on on the road And I get to go out and go as as fast or as long as I want because easier for her to keep up. ([Time 0:21:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d87325b9-08e4-4bb9-8e2e-3085b79cd763)) - **Toxic Climate, Not Skill Deficit** - Couples often have the communication skills but stop using them because the emotional climate becomes toxic. - Hostility or rejection blocks collaboration, not a lack of ability. Transcript: Dr. James Cordova When you have a conflictual couple together in the lab, it looks like they're terrible at communicating. And it looks like they're terrible at problem solving. Like they actually have a skill deficit. But if you take those two people and pair them with two strangers, suddenly they're really good at communicating and really good at problem solving. And so the implication of that isn't so much that they lack a skill. It's that the emotional environment in their relationship has become so toxic, so poisonous, so conflictual, that they're not actually willing to collaborate. They're not willing to use the good communication and problem solving skills that they actually have. Because I don't want to problem-solve effectively with you. I'm mad at you. Shankar Vedantam I'm assuming you must see this all the time in your practice, James. Dr. James Cordova It is the most common way that couples come into therapy. Stuck in this, it's almost like one of the analogies we use is it's like a Chinese finger trap, right? ([Time 0:26:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e63e3308-dc61-4a66-b55e-8339f54c95eb)) - **Acceptance Transforms Friction Into Intimacy** - Orienting toward acceptance can convert recurring friction into deeper connection instead of coercion. - Acceptance changes the relationship's emotional tone and opens new possibilities. Transcript: Dr. James Cordova And again, the discovery that what is left are the things that arise out of naturally occurring differences between people. And it became clear that in our studies of different types of couples, that it's really not the presence of unsolvable problems that is the problem that is corrosive, but how couples Approach and relate to those perpetual problems. And for some couples, they can bring a kind of sense of humor to their perpetual issues, and they can maintain a sense of hopefulness as they confront yet again, what are we going to do On Friday night? And for other couples, they get stuck in a place where they are trying to coerce each other to change. And the coercion just becomes more and more exaggerated. And rather than collude with the couple in their ongoing efforts to change each other, we began to shift towards what does it look like to accept these naturally occurring differences Between partners? What does it look like to become intimate with the parts of our relationship, the friction points in our relationship, usually make us turn away from each other? Can we actually find a way to use those points of friction to create deeper connection rather than disconnection? ([Time 0:30:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/873af451-fb1c-45c2-8d94-e0d8621a9614)) - **Seek To Understand First** - Prioritize understanding your partner's perspective before insisting on being understood. - Cultivate compassion first to make collaboration and helpful change more likely. Transcript: Dr. James Cordova What does it look like to become intimate with the parts of our relationship, the friction points in our relationship, usually make us turn away from each other? Can we actually find a way to use those points of friction to create deeper connection rather than disconnection? Shankar Vedantam Music So once you started exploring the possibility that couples could work on accepting each other rather than trying to change one another, you found that the practice of acceptance Came with a lot of benefits. And one of them was that the emotional climate of relationships was often immediately improved. How so, James? Dr. James Cordova The toxicity in the relationship arises right out of that sense of you're trying to change me in a spot where I can't change. And that feels like a fundamental rejection of who I am as a person. And so I fight back by trying to get you to change so that you can just love me the way that I am. And you're wanting that change and my rejecting that and validating that is in some ways also a fundamental rejection of who you are as a person. So we end up feeling rejected by each other. And our, again, our reaction to rejection is some version of fight or flight. We either fight harder or we just start to give up. Shankar Vedantam We talked about how, James, when couples are trying to change one another, it creates so much toxicity that they're often not able to then collaborate with one another. Does moving to an orientation of acceptance increase people's collaborative skills? Dr. James Cordova It does. It is so challenging because the trick, if it's a trick, is to seek to understand more than to seek to be understood. And that is needed in a moment when the thing we are most desperate for is to be understood. But if we can, if I can take a deep breath, hold my own wanting with some compassion for a moment, and prioritize understanding what you're asking of me and prioritize empathizing with What you're asking of me, then what naturally occurs is that I start to feel more compassion for where you're coming from. And when I start to feel more compassion for where you're coming from, then I want to help. ([Time 0:31:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/410ff5c5-b639-4a7e-b570-be66dc08550d)) - **Cactus And Fern Metaphor Unlocks Relief** - Cordova describes a 'cactus and fern' couple where one needs attention and the other needs independence. - Once they recognized the pattern, they laughed and found relief, then learned to love each other's plant type. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Tell me about this couple and an analogy you use from the world of botany to explain their behavior to each other. Dr. James Cordova There seems to be oftentimes a fundamental difference between partners in terms of our need for interdependence, interconnection, and our need for independence. And we all need a little bit of both and the the botany metaphor that we use is some people are more like cactuses and some people are more like ferns so some people are more like desert plants And some people are more like rainforest plants. And in this metaphor, humidity, water, rainfall is attention, time together, and all those things that are dimensions of interconnectedness. And so for some of us who are more like ferns, and this was what's true in the couple that you're asking about. So in that relationship, the wife was more of a fern and really thrived on lots of time together, lots of verbal and physical affection. And the husband was into a lot of independent activities, really into his work, really into independent hobbies like carpentry and cycling, that, you know, sort of exercise kinds Of things. And they would have, you know, terrible fights about her calling him selfish and him calling her clingy. And this was the tight knot that they came into therapy with. As we discover this in our work together, oh, what's happening here is you've got a cactus and fern pattern happening in your relationship. You're more like a cactus. You're more like a fern. And when you try to make the cactus happy, the fern just drying up and dying. And when you're trying to make the fern happy, the cactus is feeling like overwhelmed and rotting. Plants, then you can actually collaborate on being good and loving each other skillfully. And what I find over and over again, and this couple in particular, is like, oh, I think you guys might be like, you're more like a cactus and you're more like a fern. Their eyes just lit up and they started laughing, right? Because they recognized themselves in the metaphor. Like that is us. You are like, she's like slapping his shoulder. You are like a cactus. And he's like, you are like a fern. And there was a delight in the recognition of that pattern in their relationship. And you could just feel the release from the conflict. Oh, like, I'm never going to win a battle to turn my fern partner into a cactus. And I'm never going to win the battle to turn my cactus into a fern. But I can learn how to love a cactus and I can learn how to love a fern. And we just didn't see it before. ([Time 0:40:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/58e0238f-caf2-4717-b786-024ad4d24ad0)) - **Name The Problem, Not The Partner** - Name recurring conflict patterns and label them as an external 'it' to reduce blame. - Use that shared label to take compassionate actions that address partners' fears and needs. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam You say that if we are to move forward in our relationships, one way to increase our acceptance is to label the problems that we have in our relationship as inanimate, to call them an it. What do you mean by this, James? Dr. James Cordova So the it can be the pattern that emerges out of a naturally occurring difference between the two of us. Like it's not your fault and it's not my fault. It is this emergent property's fault. So I alluded to this pattern of the expender and saver earlier. And in that pattern, one partner realizes that what I want so desperately is I want to feel like I'm not living just to work. I want to be able to take the money, the resources that I earn to feel abundance in my life. And the other partner, the saver partner, feels more like the emotional meaning of money is a safety net. And in these relationships, when the spender partner, the partner who is seeking a feeling of abundance, goes to the store to buy something that feels yummy, it feels to the other partner Like they're pulling strands out of their safety net. And they panic and say terrible things about, you know, how much money they spend and how they can't control their budget and can't they do math. And when the other partner, when the saver partner is, you know, taking the money that they have and squirreling it away in a soup can in the backyard, the spender partner feels like, Oh, we're just in this dark little where no light or color ever gets in. That kind of pattern can create so much distress and conflict between partners. But when we can recognize that for one partner, it's driven by fear. And for the other partner, it's driven by a sense of lack. Then we're in a better position to be able to like, well, how do I take care of my partner who's a little bit afraid? Let me compassionately, generously money in our savings account to show that what scares you matters to me. And when I can compassionately understand that my partner needs that color, needs that feeling of abundance, then I can compassionately be generous toward my partner by making sure That we are spending some of our money to do things that are making memories and having joyful times together. ([Time 0:45:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/73219f08-fb2d-4b43-bc4a-8639f6ce6adb)) - **Pace Passion To Avoid Burnout** - Treat major projects as sprints or marathons and pace accordingly to avoid burnout. - On intense high-passion days, conserve energy to preserve passion for tomorrow. Transcript: Jan Yachimovich Because if it's a sprint, then it doesn't have to be sustainable. It is totally fine if for a very short time period when you feel really passionate about something that you truly do give it your all and where perhaps life feels a little unbalanced, Where the famous work-life balance doesn't exist and it fully tilts toward what it is that you're working on. But I would argue that more often than not for many of us, the things that we are passionate about are not like sprints, but they're more like marathons. They're very long-term things that might take days, weeks, or even months and years to accomplish. And for that, I think the question that we need to ask ourselves is not how can I give my all today, but what can I do today to make sure that I'm still as passionate tomorrow and the next day And the next day. We find in one of our papers that on any given day, the more passionate people are, the longer they work, that is fine. That's wonderful. But on the next day, they are more emotionally exhausted. And that makes it harder for them to actually muster that passion again, because we require those emotional resources to feel and experience that passion day in, day out. So perhaps a little counterintuitively, on our most passionate days, we should be most careful in how much of ourselves we give and perhaps even take a step back. ([Time 1:06:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c7771bbf-1ab8-4ef1-bb28-15faa6e1da53)) - **Money And Timing Shape Passion Choices** - Socioeconomic constraints shape whether people can pursue passion in work and when they can switch careers. - People often underestimate future change, making later career switches harder than expected. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Is there a link there? Jan Yachimovich I'm so glad Nancy brought that up. It was the main criticism that my wife had after our episode as well. And I didn't talk about the socioeconomic component. The truth is that many professions that allow someone to pursue their passion do not pay well. If we think about the canonical example, the artists, the chefs, the musicians, a lot of these professions don't pay well. There's some evidence also that seems to suggest that people can be exploited for their passion, meaning that if you ask somebody, oh, there's this additional task that needs to be Done at the office, who do you give that task to that you're more likely to give that to the passionate person because you think, oh, they'll do it for free. And there's also research showing that when people care very deeply about something, that they are less likely to want to bring up money in a salary negotiation because they worry that If they bring up money, other people might doubt how deeply they care about that. So all these things seem to suggest it can be really challenging to bring money into the mix. The broader evidence, however, is inconclusive. When you look at broad, large-scale correlational studies, the relationship between people who pursue work that they're deeply passionate about and their salary is sometimes flat, It's sometimes positive, sometimes negative. There's one paper by Yoon Na Cho and Winnie Jung who suggests that one of the reasons why the relationship might actually be positive is that other people respond so positively to people Who are passionate for what they're doing. I mentioned earlier research showing that people want to exploit others who are passionate. But in the same breath, I should mention that there's a lot of work that has shown that when we see someone who's really passionate for what they do, we also admire them more. We want to help and support them more. So there's this underlying conundrum. What does it actually mean and look like? There is one more thing I want to add to Nancy. And I'm really glad, Nancy, that you went back to grad school after 25 years of banking. ([Time 1:11:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d5eaf9b3-b449-4abe-bc2a-8b9ad251d322)) - **Embrace The Shake: Phil Hansen's Turn** - Artist Phil Hansen developed nerve damage that ruined his pointillism and quit art school in despair. - His neurologist told him to 'embrace the shake,' which led him to invent new art using squiggles. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam A few years later, Phil visited a neurologist about his problem. The neurologist looked at him and said, why don't you just embrace the shake? Phil shared what happened next in a TED Talk in 2013. Dr. James Cordova So I did. I went home, I grabbed a pencil, and I just started letting my hand shake and shake. I was making all these scribble pictures. And even though it wasn't the kind of art that I was ultimately passionate about, it felt great. And more importantly, once I embraced the shake, I realized I could still make art. Jan Yachimovich I just had to find a different approach to making the art that I wanted. ([Time 1:34:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/786fce2f-8ff8-4609-949f-6c5c04132141)) - **Experiment To Rekindle Passion** - When a passion falters, experiment with new methods and revisit why the work mattered to you. - Let process-focused exploration replace rigid outcome fixation to find fresh pathways. Transcript: Jan Yachimovich It sounds to me like what Phil is doing is finding out why he cares about art so much, what it is that through art he wants to accomplish. But I think more broadly, it highlights this distinction between the outcome that I think we become very fixated on. I want to become X person. I want to do Y thing versus the process. Here is how I'm going to go about developing and experimenting. This is a way in which I'm going to figure out who I am and what I care about. And it might ultimately lead me toward a different journey, toward a different end. ([Time 1:36:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f1d47751-de4b-46a7-bbbe-f6234c0be34e)) - **Learning Keeps Leonard's Passion Alive** - Leonard left the Navy, found acting therapeutically, and sustained passion by continuous study and curiosity. - He credits ongoing learning and staying on the cutting edge for keeping his passion alive. Transcript: Dr. James Cordova I got into acting after a career in the Navy and having lost my wife to breast cancer. I got into acting for therapeutic reasons primarily, but developed quite a passion for it. I was in LA for a couple of years and actually got a couple of small roles and had one film with Clint Eastwood I was fortunate enough to be in. But what I've realized is that in order to pursue the passion, in order to keep it sustained, what works for me is to study, is to continue to be involved in training and to continue to try To learn and have an intellectual curiosity about what the sense of the cutting edge of the field really is. You don't really think about acting as having a cutting edge very much, but in fact, it very much has one. And trying to understand that and pursue that and recognize that even at the local level, I think, is tremendous for having the ability to sustain your passion. Shankar Vedantam Jan, what do you make of Leonard's story and his assertion that curiosity is a key to keeping passion alive? Jan Yachimovich I love that story, Leonard, and thank you for sharing that. ([Time 1:37:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/145744d6-86db-46b6-b85b-81e3676ca2a5)) - **Try Provisional Selves Before Big Switches** - Use sabbaticals or experiments as 'provisional selves' to test new identities and get real feedback. - Practice the new role and observe both self-feelings and others' reactions before committing. Transcript: Jan Yachimovich And I think it's this practice component that we often underestimate. I think a lot of people are very happy to do the kind of self-exploration that Lynn talked about. But the second step is then to apply that and to experiment, to practice. What would it actually look like to then act on that information? And what sort of feedback do I then get? Erminia Ibarra calls that a provisional self. It's kind of like putting on a jacket and you get two sources of feedback when you put on a jacket. The first is you get to wear it and you get to look in the mirror and you get to ask yourself, do I like how I look in this jacket? Do I like what it says about me? But you can then also go to a dinner party or you can go to the office and you can see how other people respond to you. And you can say, do I like how other people see me? Is this how I want to be seen by other people? ([Time 1:42:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cdb68665-4808-4270-8ccb-2cfde1daa4b4))