The Art of Manliness - #349： Is This a Date or Not？ The Problem With Ambiguity in Relationships

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast dating has never

00:00:19.060 been more ambiguous than it is today people sort of end up with each other without explicitly

00:00:23.220 defining the nature of the relationship level of commitment or expectations for the future

00:00:27.660 what begins as hanging out slides into spending the night which slides into moving in together

00:00:31.720 while keeping romantic relationships ambiguous may seem to make them safer and less complicated

00:00:36.040 my guest today has conducted research that shows that's not necessarily the case his name is scott

00:00:40.020 stanley he's a professor of psychology at the university of denver and he specializes in

00:00:43.620 setting commitment cohabitation and marriage today on the show scott explains why dating has gotten

00:00:47.900 more ambiguous in the past 20 years and why that has led to people to slide into relationships

00:00:52.320 instead of explicitly deciding and committing to them he then highlights research that shows that

00:00:56.460 contrary to popular belief cohabitating before marriage actually increases the chances of divorce

00:01:01.080 when you do decide to get married and how living with someone makes it harder to break up with them

00:01:04.940 even when you realize you should break up with them we then get into what men can do to make dating less

00:01:09.260 ambiguous and more decisive and how being upfront about your intentions with women will make you

00:01:13.520 more attractive reduce drama down the road and put you in a better position for a happy and fulfilling

00:01:18.100 marriage he then shares what you should do if you feel like you've slid into a relationship and what

00:01:21.880 married couples can do to strengthen their marriage now whether you're dating thinking about getting

00:01:25.920 married or already hitched this podcast is crammed with research back advice and how to have better

00:01:30.220 relationships after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is

00:01:33.700 slash stanley where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:01:37.420 dr scott stanley welcome to the show hey thanks for having me on the show i'm excited to be here

00:01:47.000 so you're a psychologist who specializes in research on relationships particularly marriage and

00:01:52.980 cohabitation and dating i'm curious what's your story how did you get involved in that area

00:01:57.340 of psychology well i'm a bit older now and i i was way back when in college i was uh and i was an

00:02:03.520 accounting major of all things and after a couple years i was doing great at it uh but i decided this

00:02:09.320 is going to be really boring and i started to get interested in psychology i had a brother having

00:02:14.640 some serious mental health problems at the time and started taking classes in psychology and i ended up

00:02:20.100 uh taken a class with a guy named howard markman who uh he and i have worked together now i don't

00:02:26.080 even want to tell you how long it's it's like over it's decades and he's doing research on marriage

00:02:31.640 and how you help people do better in marriage prevent marital problems i got very into it and so

00:02:37.360 i've been very interested every since and that's been my niche in the field of psychology it's something

00:02:43.160 i really love okay so what i would love to do with you in this conversation is kind of

00:02:46.580 walk people through the various stages of relationship that starting from dating courtship

00:02:52.200 to marriage and you know and what you do when you're in a marriage right so let's start off

00:02:56.560 with dating you've written an article and published a blog post about this topic of how dating today is

00:03:03.640 much more ambiguous than it was maybe 20 30 years ago yeah i think here's what's here's what i think

00:03:10.100 happened in fact let me contrast so i'm old enough to go back to the day when let's say

00:03:16.420 back when i was in high school if you wanted to uh hang out with a girl you got super nervous and

00:03:24.300 got up the gumption to call her on the telephone or you mean you could do this in person that'd be

00:03:29.200 even more crazy uh you call her on the phone in sheer panic and terror and you ask her out on on like

00:03:36.220 a date like you got a plan i mean it could just be like going out to get a burger and go to a movie

00:03:41.980 but you you're making an offer and she gets to respond to that and if then if you're dating you

00:03:48.060 know if you're like going out for a while you know people sort of know it they kind of know you're a

00:03:52.140 couple people are talking and if that's going pretty well it wouldn't be very long before you would

00:03:57.740 talk to each other and the most amazingly brief conversation which would be something like hey do you

00:04:04.060 want to go steady yeah let's do that and then you're telling everybody you're going steady and that's

00:04:09.820 like the end of the deal it's like it was super clear it was super public you announced it it was

00:04:16.460 mutual everybody understood what that meant now you contrast that with today and especially i think

00:04:22.480 taking off over the last 20 years or so uh things have become more and more ambiguous there's fewer

00:04:29.700 steps and stages there's a lot more ambiguity and uncertainty about what things mean and about what

00:04:35.880 people are doing out there and i think the reason is this i think that it feels safer and and it feels

00:04:44.320 safer in a very particular way if i'm not having to be really clear and put it out there what i really

00:04:51.240 want if i'm not asking clearly if we're not talking if it's not getting totally clarified somehow in the

00:04:58.300 structure how people do things these days maybe it's not going to hurt as bad if it doesn't work out or if

00:05:04.840 we break up and i think that fear kind of comes out of all the you know the gigantic wave of divorce

00:05:11.200 that started in the 70s and moved through the 80s i think people just started to feel a lot of

00:05:16.520 instability about relationships about dating about being with people and i think people got afraid of

00:05:22.360 being clear i think people got afraid of putting it out there and now you get all this ambiguity

00:05:27.860 where people aren't even sure with what they're doing on friday night is actually a date because that

00:05:33.540 would mean something different than just hanging out and is this where you got the idea of you've

00:05:38.160 coined this phrase sliding versus deciding you know it it comes out of that mix but that let me give you

00:05:45.280 the detail on that so so we started doing research and i say we especially me and my colleague galena

00:05:52.260 rhodes also howard markman but me and especially galena rhodes started doing research a lot of research

00:05:57.700 on cohabitation uh 15 17 years ago and one of the things that was always true in the in the literature

00:06:06.380 about the research on cohabitation that was very puzzling was this and i'll give you the contrast

00:06:12.360 for decades i mean going back to the mid 90s people have believed like overwhelming percentage of people

00:06:18.860 believe that the number one thing you can do to make it more likely that your marriage will work out

00:06:25.700 is live together before marriage the funny thing is the problem is is the research has really never

00:06:32.960 shown that you can find the odd little study here and there that's like a one-off study but you know

00:06:38.380 there's scores of studies over like 30 35 years now on cohabitation and cohabitation before marriage

00:06:45.300 and the debate shifted a little bit and i'll explain that to you but basically uh the data used to show

00:06:51.380 that people that lived together before marriage were actually more likely to divorce more likely to

00:06:56.500 have higher conflict be less happy you know all these kinds of difficulties in marriage it shifted to

00:07:03.700 a place where it's a little more equivocal in the last 15 years and and i really want to explain that but

00:07:10.360 but essentially the the starting place of that story is this really interesting disconnect between

00:07:15.500 something that people strongly believe and just doesn't have any evidence of being true so even

00:07:22.440 if in the best case for somebody that uh is sort of uh pro living together no matter what to kind of

00:07:29.800 figure out the relationship the evidence just doesn't really show an advantage for that and there's a

00:07:36.800 lot more evidence of disadvantages now let me get to sliding versus siding because this this is uh

00:07:42.240 this is where the story i think it's pretty interesting and this is what people don't

00:07:46.360 actually get or see about cohabitation so i've studied commitment since the early 80s and one of

00:07:55.980 the things that that primed me to think about is this there's two different ways to think about what

00:08:01.520 commitment is in any relationship there's the force you could think of as dedication which is the

00:08:08.340 i want to be with you i want a future with you i want to you know share a sense of us as a couple

00:08:14.020 that's all that kind of good stuff there and then there's commitment that comes more from a force that

00:08:19.600 i like to call uh and others way before me called constraint so what are the things that might keep you

00:08:26.500 there when you might want to leave now hold that so put that thought aside a second so when we started

00:08:33.020 doing research on cohabitation uh i started to realize and then galena rhodes and i have really

00:08:40.720 been doing a lot of research on this and many published studies on this for some time is that

00:08:45.100 the thing that people maybe aren't seeing about living together before marriage or just living together

00:08:51.440 period is that when you move in with somebody you are making it harder to break up that's a really

00:08:59.460 interesting thing because all the people here in the media all the people here from most other social

00:09:06.240 scientists is no harm no foul there's no cost to living together in fact it might be good you might

00:09:12.080 discover something about the partner that you need to know uh but but let's even take that let's say you

00:09:18.140 do learn something that you couldn't have known some other way which by the way i think there's other ways

00:09:24.800 to learn things uh you've made it harder to break up already so i think so what we started to realize

00:09:32.420 is that uh that there's this inertia to cohabitation and essentially what a lot of people do is that they

00:09:39.340 increase that constraint variable before the dedication has really matured enough between the two

00:09:45.440 and the bottom line is there is we think some people end up marrying somebody that they wouldn't have

00:09:51.180 married if they hadn't moved in with them because they just made it a little bit too hard to break up 0.99

00:09:56.640 so that's the downside of cohabitation now here's where the sliding part comes in along about uh

00:10:05.100 late well in the 1993 in a series of interviews a researcher in australia named joe lindsey

00:10:12.920 did a remarkable paper with a very small group of couples and and she basically was uh interviewing them

00:10:20.100 and listening carefully to their story and how they uh began to live together and she realized

00:10:26.140 this is not like uh a clear transition people are just sort of describing that they were kind of doing

00:10:33.500 this and then they were kind of doing that and that it wasn't a clear thing and then sociologists

00:10:39.240 uh wendy manning and pam smock in 2005 came out with a paper based on more qualitative interviews with

00:10:46.100 people cohabiting where they they had a number of conclusions but the one that really stood out to

00:10:51.520 me was this that over half of the couples that were cohabiting said that they more slid into it they

00:10:58.800 more gradually came to be cohabiting than really talked about it made a decision and came to an

00:11:05.980 agreement about what they were doing so that's interesting so the reason let's go back the reason

00:11:10.580 why it's harder to break up when you cohabitate is because you end up getting an apartment together

00:11:15.200 half you is paying the rent the other half paying the rent so that makes it hard you might get a dog

00:11:20.380 together that says and what other what other constraints about you know living together makes

00:11:25.520 it harder to break up when you're cohabitating so so let's say you and i think you used my word

00:11:30.620 there cohabitating did you use that word or did you say cohabitating because i that's one of my

00:11:36.420 favorite phrases is cohabitating because cohabiting has become more part of the dating scene than

00:11:42.280 something leading up to marriage these days so so let's work those those three things and come right

00:11:47.200 back to your question now so what we try to focus on is when is a couple living together sharing a

00:11:55.360 single address because you're buying things together you start to bring you know your stuff over you

00:12:01.380 know maybe and and this is the sliding part by the way you know first maybe you've got a drawer

00:12:06.660 with some stuff you know first it's a toothbrush then you got a drawer and then maybe you've got part

00:12:11.600 of a closet or your partner gets part of the closet at your place and more and more the stuff's coming

00:12:17.140 over i like to joke that probably an important marker is when the guy's game console has moved in

00:12:23.820 but here you are you know you just you're buying stuff you're you've got a routine and now all of

00:12:31.120 that's going to be harder to unwind and what it is it's this process that's like the frog in the

00:12:38.640 proverbial pot you know that's heating up slowly doesn't really notice kind of what's going on and

00:12:45.060 that's what lindsey was saying and smock and manning were saying is that people really slide into this

00:12:51.320 and which we find too in our in our big national study on this uh we find out the people that

00:12:55.920 started the study that were cohabiting about well over half nearly two-thirds would say that they

00:13:01.240 more slid into it than really talked about it so you're you're in this state where you've made it

00:13:07.900 harder to break up because you got all these things now to unwind maybe you've even signed a lease

00:13:12.660 etc you got all that going on you made it harder to break up but you hadn't really kind of decided

00:13:19.400 yet on a future together you hadn't really sort of talked through and decided that i want you and

00:13:27.740 you want me which is the epitome of one of my favorite phrases is what a lot of people are doing

00:13:33.900 now is they're giving up options before they made a choice they're actually really putting themselves

00:13:38.940 in a place that might be hard to get out of before they actually decided that's the place they want

00:13:43.980 to stay and so this goes back to the ambiguity of dating right yeah so let me come back to that

00:13:51.240 uh so many things are ambiguous ambiguous today i think it's the biggest change in romance dating sex

00:13:59.540 dating and mating in the last 40 years is uh and think of all the things that are ambiguous now

00:14:06.480 whether or not what we're doing friday night is it a date or not and and by the way if it were a date

00:14:13.180 then you can you can talk to people and you can see that that puts more pressure on it's like well

00:14:17.800 what does that mean so who's paying what are the expectations versus just hanging out hookups of 0.93

00:14:24.100 course you know that's a big thing these days to talk about hookups the whole point of the hookup is

00:14:29.560 that it's it's fundamentally ambiguous about what's going on you know there's some sort of physical

00:14:34.720 contact um but it's not clear what in fact on a campus it may even be clear that it's not

00:14:42.720 supposed to mean something you know we're not supposed to catch feelings but it's it's an

00:14:46.800 ambiguous thing breakups are really ambiguous now because if you think about it people don't just sort

00:14:53.720 of break it off cleanly these days partly technology comes in here as a difficulty because it's so easy

00:15:01.640 to sort of monitor somebody after you break up and people are very aware now that they have all these

00:15:07.560 sort of or they may have like a back burner sort of relationship well i might come back to you i might

00:15:13.860 not i'm monitoring this other person who maybe i never even broke up with but these other people

00:15:19.680 that i've broken up with you know i still see them on facebook they follow me i follow them so that's

00:15:25.980 ambiguous and then cohabitation and this is where i really started thinking the most about ambiguity so

00:15:31.500 this preceded all these other sort of changes it's fundamentally an ambiguous condition if if i meet

00:15:39.220 somebody at a party and they tell me well i got a partner we're living together what i like to tell

00:15:46.600 audiences is i'll say look from all i know right now they've just told me they're living with a partner

00:15:52.480 i know absolutely nothing about their level of commitment to that person i know that they felt good

00:15:58.660 enough at some point about the relationship to move in or that it was convenient enough financially

00:16:04.080 but that doesn't tell me anything about their commitment and in fact cohabiting couples are just

00:16:10.060 as likely to have sex with somebody outside the relationship you know they're just as likely to

00:16:15.160 cheat as couples that are dating and not cohabiting so it doesn't say much about commitment contrast that

00:16:23.020 with this if i meet that person and they say they got a partner and they're engaged i know a ton about

00:16:31.660 commitment because that's a big public signal of commitment and you don't get that wrong with a

00:16:36.460 partner if they tell me they're married i know a ton about commitment don't know if it's a great marriage

00:16:40.840 or not but i know a ton about commitment if they tell me they have a life partner i know a lot about

00:16:46.340 commitment that's a strong statement about where that person's at regarding the other person and what

00:16:51.660 they think they tell me they're living together i don't know much of anything and in fact if i

00:16:56.660 thought they were attractive and i was on the market i'm going to be likely to see them as still being

00:17:01.640 on the market okay so i mean that's interesting there's a lot of unpacked there one question i have

00:17:06.960 first so slide this ambiguity people do it in the dating scene because it feels safer yes less risky

00:17:14.100 less risky but like as you said cohabitation is sort of you know people slide into it with this

00:17:19.340 ambiguity that leads to it makes it harder to break up it's actually this you know it might

00:17:24.540 feel safe being but like how does you know dating ambiguously it feels safe in the beginning but

00:17:31.620 how does that does it even if you don't cohabitate right what's the downside of sort of keeping things

00:17:38.120 ambiguous you see what i'm saying yeah i certainly see what you're saying and let's come back a bit to

00:17:43.420 the cohabitation part too on the end of this because it'll it'll make a lot of sense then in terms of

00:17:47.680 what sort of changes that risk profile so here's where it gets risky you can sure see with people

00:17:54.360 being kind of freaked out about love and commitment plus people you know getting married later and later

00:18:00.080 and later so they you know they don't want to like get settled down too fast or whatever so they're

00:18:05.100 playing it cool with you know particular partner here's where it gets it gets risky

00:18:10.020 the problem with ambiguity is as a relationship goes on and and this could be the the man or the

00:18:18.300 woman uh or whoever you know as the relationship goes on it gets more risky because one or both are 0.52

00:18:25.920 really developing an attachment for that other person or else it wouldn't keep going i mean there's

00:18:31.500 somebody is at least and maybe both you know in the best healthy case they're both pretty into each

00:18:36.860 other and they're both getting attached and they're both you know kind of moving towards

00:18:41.400 greater and greater clarity and at some point maybe they're like conveying to others that you know this

00:18:45.900 is my boyfriend this is my girlfriend which is i think today's counterpart to go and study by the way

00:18:51.320 so but here's who it's risky for let's say somebody is really into their partner but as it turns out and

00:19:00.120 they don't know it yet their partner's not so into them the partner's pretty happy to have sex with

00:19:06.920 them partner's pretty happy to hang out with them pretty happy to go out with them maybe even happier

00:19:12.400 to stay in with them happy to move in with them but isn't maybe at all even thinking maybe it's even

00:19:18.780 already decided well you're not the one you're just the one that will do for now this person let's say

00:19:27.080 person a is the more committed person they're already deeply attached they've got some commitment

00:19:32.640 developing to this person with what ambiguity allows is for asymmetrical commitment to hide out

00:19:41.880 it allows it to sort of live for a long time because when you have something like a system where

00:19:47.940 people are sort of used to people announcing you're a boyfriend girlfriend you're used to saying hey

00:19:53.300 would you go steady again nobody does that anymore goes way back but you know when you have that sort

00:19:58.260 of system it's forcing sort of a timing for a put up or shut up moment of being really public and clear

00:20:06.860 without with the massive ambiguity we have now the person that's over committed is really running a

00:20:13.820 risk over time of getting burned because they're giving more and more they're also burning time on their

00:20:19.760 clock you know if they're really seriously looking for a life partner uh they don't know yet that

00:20:25.420 they're wasting time with this other person that maybe is never going to step up or never intends to

00:20:30.560 step up and the system makes it easy for that person to hide out who's less committed well so as you're

00:20:37.440 saying this it sounds like for a lot of men the ambiguity plays in their favor right like maybe they just

00:20:44.480 want you know a sex partner and they just kind of like but like to those guys who who say that like

00:20:51.220 what would you say is the downside of that like are they going to get burned eventually well here's here's

00:20:56.180 what yes i you're raising such an important thing first off despite the degree to which there's a lot

00:21:03.380 of people that would like to you know say there's no differences between men and women you know this is

00:21:08.440 one of the areas of difference between men and women there's just no doubt on average there's always 1.00

00:21:13.860 exceptions and i think these things tend to run about two to one so if we talk about this point

00:21:18.860 we should recognize that there's plenty of guys on the other end of that but but it is true that guys

00:21:25.500 on average are more willing to have a number of casual sexual relationships than women i mean there's

00:21:33.080 some ways in which that's changed there's some ways in which that's changing but that's historically been

00:21:38.960 true and there's a lot of evidence for that so it does tend to mean if this system of ambiguity

00:21:45.100 on average benefits anybody between men and women it benefits men a little bit more because it plays

00:21:52.980 to that avoidance of commitment of not wanting to settle down not wanting to be really clear or be nailed

00:21:59.700 down i remember a focus group study from 2000 actually put out by the the national marriage

00:22:07.740 project and it was so sobering it was it was really influential in a lot of my thinking about some of

00:22:13.180 these things because they interviewed all these guys about what they were looking for what they were

00:22:19.240 searching for in relationships and there was i don't know what the number is but there was enough

00:22:24.120 to make it a serious point in the report there was enough guys who were living with a woman who could

00:22:30.320 say to the interviewer i know she's not the one i'm just waiting till i find the one you know she'll do

00:22:38.260 and i read that and i thought gosh that's terrible you know how many of those women women know you know 1.00

00:22:44.460 and and the answer is a lot of them don't and that's part of the difficulty with ambiguity now does this

00:22:50.540 burn men here's the way i think about it um ultimately when somebody's ready to settle down

00:22:58.780 in marriage and i'll just give you one of the cards to play on this we can go deeper on this one if you

00:23:03.840 want uh when people go to settle down you know they're really ready now i want to be married i want

00:23:09.640 that i want that lasting love thing it does matter how much experience they've had in relationships

00:23:16.760 leading up to that point and and while experience is usually a great thing in so many areas in life

00:23:23.040 you know you want to be the experienced guy at work you want to be the experienced guy on a sports team

00:23:28.760 you want you know you want to be that guy in terms of relationships and marriage and romance and sex

00:23:36.280 turns out not to be great to have a lot of experience and there's a lot of theories glena and i have

00:23:42.840 written a lot about why that would be the case and there's there's a number of things that we talk

00:23:48.060 about but one of my favorites is is this one so let's say we got a guy named joe joe finally settled

00:23:56.280 down picked suzy four years into marriage they've got a kid maybe they got another kid on the way 1.00

00:24:03.320 well let's just say they got one kid let's keep it pretty simple so she's not pregnant at the moment but

00:24:08.640 you know the sex isn't like it's as exciting as it used to be and joe's like starting to

00:24:14.220 you know what what is it i wish this was better i wish this was more exciting i wish we did some of

00:24:21.140 the things we used to do it's pretty normal stuff in a marriage it's the stuff that married couples kind

00:24:25.800 of have to figure out well joe's getting a little unhappy now getting a little bit wondering about the

00:24:32.340 sex life so let's think about in fact let's let's have joe and bill let's say joe had 10 sexual

00:24:39.360 partners before marriage and let's say bill only ever had sex with his wife which is by the way a 0.59

00:24:46.080 lower risk pattern in marriage if you only ever lived if you're going to live with somebody before

00:24:50.660 marriage if you only ever lived with the one you married and if you only ever had sex with the one 0.59

00:24:54.940 you married those marriages tend to be doing a little bit better but way way better no but somewhat

00:25:00.180 better but let's go back to to to joe joe's a little unhappy sexually so he starts to compare

00:25:08.340 uh his wife starts to compare susie not even to just like one of those 10 i think what actually

00:25:16.520 happens is you can kind of start to form this image of the super lover in your head who's like

00:25:23.860 the average of the three best sexual partners of those 10 that you were with and now your

00:25:30.040 wife has to compete with that in your head i think that's pretty hard to do yeah okay that's 1.00

00:25:35.980 interesting i mean what's interesting about that is that the sex part though it's an important part

00:25:40.420 it's only one part of a marriage that's right absolutely right in fact that's you know one of

00:25:44.440 the most important things about the secret of doing well in marriage is understanding you know you're

00:25:49.580 making a different bargain now you're looking for something you you know you're looking for lasting

00:25:53.880 love you're looking for all the good stuff that comes from really being together and by the way

00:25:59.360 and you you probably know that the data on this um you know married guys have more sex than other

00:26:05.000 guys i mean so you know marriage uh there's there's marriages that don't turn out well there's marriages

00:26:10.620 that are really painful and difficult but on average people do really well you know over life in marriage

00:26:17.060 but it's not like a party every day and it's it's not always scintillating and one of the ways i'd like

00:26:24.840 to think about this now for people that want to if you want to really want to do well in life in terms

00:26:29.340 of the family and marriage thing you want to be careful you you want to look around you want to do a

00:26:34.560 good search and you want to make a good choice in a partner you don't want to move in before marriage

00:26:39.560 or by the way just to complete this loop you don't want to move in at least until you're engaged

00:26:45.100 because if you go back to everything i said about cohabitation and galena rhodes and i have

00:26:49.380 published study after study on this now the people that are already engaged before they get married

00:26:56.500 or married or before they move in or married before they move in don't have that higher risk thing

00:27:02.980 that's related to cohabitation before marriage the group that's at higher risk is the people that live

00:27:08.160 together before they made the future clear and that fits everything that we're saying about inertia

00:27:14.360 and the difficulty for some people with cohabitation is you might be more you know you might be making

00:27:19.520 it more likely that you're going to you know be with that person and that's maybe not who you chose

00:27:24.220 but in the best case you know you do all that well you don't get locked down too soon and you make a

00:27:30.360 good choice and then what's going to happen is you know life's up and down you're going to have some

00:27:36.200 days you're not so happy you're going to have some years you're happy you're going to have some years

00:27:39.640 that are tougher that's normal but what you have is this understanding and this commitment together

00:27:45.460 that we're doing life together and that's the really good stuff when people can really develop

00:27:51.340 it and have it and keep it that's like a powerful thing so how can men make dating less ambiguous 0.82

00:27:59.000 because usually you know it's still the day men are typically expected to do the asking and kind of

00:28:04.380 you know lead the the relationship forward and sort of take the initiative in that aspect so how can

00:28:09.480 that guy do that without freaking women out because i feel like now there's the expectation where it's

00:28:14.120 like okay he's asking me on a date right like yeah that yeah that means a lot so like what can you do

00:28:20.360 to make it more of a deciding you're deciding in the relationship instead of just sort of being

00:28:25.280 ambiguous about it so here's an idea and i don't know you know i'm not in the dating scene but

00:28:30.900 this makes some sense to me uh and it beats the heck out of something like you know texting or

00:28:36.600 saying you up you know i mean it's i think a guy can uh in person or on the phone i mean you could do

00:28:49.000 this in text but text is so i just read a big study yesterday that there's so much more information in

00:28:55.540 voice tone than there even is in face facial expression so imagine how much less information

00:29:01.980 there is like in texting or emailing or messaging on facebook or whatever this would be a gutsy move

00:29:09.580 but it's hard to imagine that a woman wouldn't be responsive to this i mean what would it be like

00:29:17.200 to actually call her up and say hey i'd like to take you out friday and then instead of leaving her

00:29:24.880 in a mound of ambiguity about what that means what is he expecting what's that going to be

00:29:31.600 do what people try doing what people used to do here's what i would like to do i'd like to take you out

00:29:36.680 to dinner here and then there's this concert there's this show there's this something that's you know

00:29:44.400 there's something to do afterwards or i'd like to walk along the river whatever might make sense

00:29:50.640 or it could be a you know a bike hike you know hey let's let's go this let's go bike down there and

00:29:55.620 let's go have dinner by the water and then let's bike back ask her out and have a plan i think one of

00:30:03.620 the things that could really work well for women about that and it used to work pretty well is you're not 0.97

00:30:09.720 only you're taking a lot of ambiguity out of the mix for her right off the bat because you're

00:30:17.420 declaring that you're actually interested in taking her out yeah that's a little freaky and we live in

00:30:23.420 a culture that's extra freaky but i kind of think that the the guy that does that for a lot of women

00:30:29.020 is going to look pretty impressive okay because because they know that that takes some guts and it's

00:30:34.540 it's not an easy thing to do and then the fact that you actually say clearly here's what i'm

00:30:39.600 thinking and i'll have you home by 11 i mean you could even say something like that if you want to

00:30:44.140 really put her mind at ease about well if we're going out to dinner what does that mean you know

00:30:48.860 what you know if you have a plan and you be clear i think you're taking a lot of anxiety off the

00:30:56.640 table for her at risk to yourself that's because that is what if you're going to really get rid of

00:31:02.560 ambiguity somebody's taking some risk to be declarative about being interested and so as

00:31:10.000 the guy if you're taking that lead and willing to do that i mean women can do this too by the way but 1.00

00:31:15.840 if you're willing to do that i think it's a pretty strong thing to do in terms of showing a woman 0.99

00:31:20.960 that you're serious and that you're interested and you'd like to to know more about her right so

00:31:26.060 you gotta take a risk yeah you gotta take a risk manly to take risks it's manly to take a risk i think

00:31:31.320 it's a it's a good thing to take a risk going back to the benefits by making it less ambiguous you're

00:31:37.380 going to save yourself a lot of heartache in the future a lot of just mental bandwidth emotional

00:31:42.720 bandwidth dealing with you know getting out of something that you sort of slid into yeah and you

00:31:47.580 know what this is a great question just about let's think about what are you actually risking okay so

00:31:56.900 in the moment and this is always scary who's ever asking somebody out you know it's a scary thing

00:32:03.080 because in the moment you are risking because you're saying you want something and what you want in this

00:32:09.820 case is to get to know this person and have more time with them so yeah you're willing to take that

00:32:14.040 risk but you're also going to get pretty valuable information you're not only giving them information

00:32:20.760 right off the bat which is a pretty great thing for them you're actually going to get information

00:32:26.940 because let's say this is a woman you were pretty interested in and she just says flat out right there

00:32:34.820 on the phone you know not she friend zones you you know i'm just not really interested in that that's

00:32:41.400 it's not what i'm up for it's not where we're going by the way this could be like an online thing too

00:32:45.860 you could be online dating but you know forming into it like a real request which could be for

00:32:51.020 coffee by the way for a first meeting but either way you know you're taking the risk you're asking

00:32:54.900 but you're going to get some information because if she's like uh well i you know i i'm you know i

00:33:02.680 think there's a shower with uh for my pregnant girlfriend friday night i gotta check you know if 1.00

00:33:08.660 that's pretty valuable to you because do you want to actually start spending a lot of time in a vague way

00:33:14.680 trying to figure out something with this woman over the next two months that maybe you could know

00:33:22.600 within the next 15 minutes by asking her out in a clear way not saying you're proposing marriage not

00:33:28.780 saying you're asking her to have your baby you know and have a life with you it's like hey how about

00:33:33.240 saturday night i got this idea would you do that with me and as the relationship progresses you want

00:33:39.600 to be you want to have like those decisive moments where you're not just sort of sliding into it

00:33:43.320 yeah so let's come back to cohabitation for a second so let's say somebody says

00:33:47.420 to me and again keep in mind you could you could hear all sorts of social scientists these days say

00:33:52.560 well there's no risk to cohabiting it's just not that's only true let me come back to this and then

00:33:57.380 come back to deciding that's only true if you cohabit only after you're engaged or you don't already

00:34:04.400 have a child together or you're and or you're over the age of 23 and you only ever cohabit with that

00:34:13.980 one person that you marry so think about that for a moment because people see this headline in news

00:34:19.960 articles that there's no longer any risk to cohabiting before marriage it's not true for most people because

00:34:25.360 most people are not going to fit all those criteria so here's why the deciding part so let's say

00:34:30.660 you're you're you're growing in the place where you you know you really want to marry this person

00:34:36.820 well i am suggesting to people you're adding some risk if you slide into moving together before you've

00:34:44.920 really clarified a future some people are going to decide from values maybe religious beliefs uh they're

00:34:51.020 going to wait till marriage uh that's that certainly looks great on paper by the way but i always

00:34:56.560 encourage people at least you'd want to know what's the future and one of the biggest future

00:35:01.480 questions you could ask is do we have a future are we going to get married will you marry me if that

00:35:07.740 question's like mutual and determined you could struggle in a lot of ways in your marriage but

00:35:12.840 because you've decided that before you moved in together you're not likely that couple that we're

00:35:19.460 concerned about who ends up marrying somebody just because it got too hard to leave so you could be

00:35:25.500 making i think of it this way anytime there's an important relationship transition that could limit

00:35:31.780 your future options you should be making a clear decision and not sliding and seems like something

00:35:39.980 needs to be connected with that is maybe public declarations that seems to be an important aspect

00:35:44.420 of that yeah thank you for picking up on that because it's it's one of the things i think the most

00:35:48.500 about now i think it's a crucial thing one person being committed to the other in this context in

00:35:58.340 terms of trying to lower risks and making a good choice the one person being committed to the other

00:36:03.000 doesn't mean a lot because somebody can be telling themselves well and i think people do this all the

00:36:10.000 time well i know i'm i really like him i want to be with him i'd like to marry him i know it's going

00:36:20.180 to freak him out if i bring up the m word so i'm just gonna kind of maneuver things or hope that we

00:36:27.920 start living together which is again so easy to do since the paradigm there is this sliding thing where

00:36:34.500 we're just sort of gradually there and then somebody's leases up and like oh yeah hey why

00:36:39.580 don't you just be here that's not much of a discussion about what it means and about the

00:36:44.380 future so since that's such a common thing i see people sort of thinking well i can just sort of reel

00:36:49.960 that person in and that's just a bad play it's just it's high risk because getting married once

00:36:56.480 you're already constrained doesn't do the same thing as getting married when you're not constrained

00:37:02.920 and the signal thing that's coming back to that that one person can be very committed to marrying

00:37:08.860 their partner but if there's not like a public declaration together about who we are and what

00:37:15.160 we're doing then they might be just fooling themselves about what the relationship is they

00:37:21.640 might be reading into it stuff that's not there and it's got to probably more than just like a facebook

00:37:26.000 status it's got to be something heavier probably yeah and you know facebook status i was pretty excited

00:37:30.920 when that that got to be a thing because i was already you know 20 years ago i was starting to

00:37:36.740 pay a lot of attention to this sort of loss of steps and stages and this loss of ways people had to kind

00:37:42.620 of signify to other people that were a thing that were a couple and then facebook came out i don't know

00:37:49.980 what would that be 10 years ago or so and i thought well that's kind of cool but that's become passe now

00:37:55.020 and i don't even know how much people are doing it you might get a little bit more information these

00:37:59.360 days out of whether somebody will post a picture of them as a couple versus them as an individual

00:38:05.340 i mean there is some information in those things that sort of is replacing a little bit what used

00:38:11.760 to be there if you really want to know you want something that's a public signal that we're a couple

00:38:18.240 with a future that everybody that matters to you and your network gets and understands because then

00:38:24.660 you're not going to be misunderstanding each other so let's say there's a guy listening to this podcast

00:38:28.600 and like he realized like he's listening he's like man i've slid into this relationship that i'm in

00:38:33.100 right now what's their next step like what what should someone do if they've slid into a relationship

00:38:38.980 they're not happy with it they're feeling constrained well i think if if somebody recognizes

00:38:44.520 themselves in that so so let's answer your question for two people and this isn't exactly the right answer

00:38:51.620 for everybody but but these two are pretty common so let's take the first situation it's somebody that

00:38:58.300 means eventually to be married and plans to settle down but they're not married yet they don't have a child

00:39:04.240 together so it's relatively simple situation and they've figured out i have slid through this and this

00:39:11.120 and this and this isn't the person i'm constrained i'm feeling that i'm feeling like the constraints are

00:39:17.220 are higher than the dedication you got to find a way to break up i mean why wouldn't you break up

00:39:23.340 that's that's like if you're living together i think that is the couple that before marriage

00:39:29.960 would benefit from moving out and then you know if there really is something there you know they can

00:39:35.140 get back together they can figure that out they can they can make a decision they can sort of put the

00:39:39.760 things in the right sequence then if they want but i think you got to give yourself a way

00:39:45.040 to get out and you have to push it because otherwise the inertia is just going to keep

00:39:51.220 going you're going to keep doing things that will make it harder to eventually leave one of the biggies

00:39:57.480 of course is that you're assuming you're you're sexual you you might just have a baby coming along

00:40:06.560 one time here and now you're you know you're really in it because even if that relationship doesn't

00:40:10.960 make it you're a parent with that person for the rest of your life and and so if you recognize that

00:40:17.100 you've slid so far and you're not married and that's the future you want you find a way to break

00:40:22.140 up i think it's a more challenging question now for the person that's married uh and and by the way

00:40:30.540 some people have slid all the way up to a certain point in marriage and it's still the same person they

00:40:36.220 would have chosen it's just they got there by sliding so i might even be talking more to that

00:40:41.240 person now uh because i think these people are i think that person's pretty common what i think that

00:40:46.340 person can do is to recognize it's time to make a choice that you're in this marriage and this is what

00:40:51.780 you're doing and that you are choosing this partner yeah you walk the aisle yeah you had a wedding but

00:40:58.600 you were all so constrained by that time uh the choices people make when they're really already

00:41:05.040 constrained just don't tell you as much about what they really want so for the person that's like

00:41:09.380 slid far along and it's committed it's married maybe they've got a kid and it actually is going to be

00:41:17.180 for many of these folks their better life to make that work that and that may be the very same person

00:41:23.540 they would have chosen if they were making decisions all along but they never really anchored

00:41:28.280 their commitment in choosing this person because everything was a slide so what i say to that person is

00:41:34.460 time to look yourself in the mirror and decide you know really like challenge yourself to say you

00:41:41.060 know i'm not just gonna like hang out and you know it's kind of a gut check thing where you decide

00:41:47.220 i'm choosing this i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna invest with her and make this the best life we can

00:41:53.320 have together instead of hanging out and just sliding all the rest of the way and do you do anything

00:41:58.380 like a public declaration or is it just sort of a you know between you and your the other person

00:42:03.500 you know this is a that's a great point if you had two people this would be a little

00:42:09.000 this happens um i don't know how often it happens it happens often enough if you have two people that

00:42:15.620 sort of recognize that moment together i think you could make it a public thing sometimes people will

00:42:20.640 like retake their vows they'll they'll do another ceremony that would be more typical in certain

00:42:28.460 religious settings where they you know they might sort of uh have a recommitment ceremony um but

00:42:35.420 even just as a couple two people that recognize that together and they sort of yeah you know we kind

00:42:41.440 of slide slid all the way here but we want to do this let's do this right i i don't know if it has to

00:42:48.720 be like to be hard to say what you're going to tell your friends hey you know suzy and i you know

00:42:54.980 we've been married for five years now we finally decided we're going to really be married i i don't

00:42:59.420 know how you say that right i don't know i don't know what you do but you could sure say it to each

00:43:03.600 other now i i think it's very common that you might not be doing that as a couple and it might just

00:43:09.820 be you and you might just be thinking yeah i'm a slider but you know this is a pretty good person

00:43:15.560 and this is a pretty good deal and i want to make it work i'm deciding right now to do my part and

00:43:22.380 give my best to my partner okay so just to recap uh basically don't be ambiguous with your dating if

00:43:28.700 you are in the dating scene because it'll save you a lot of trouble later on um and this is going to

00:43:34.900 take like some guys don't plan on getting married until 30 mid 30s yeah this is going to require them

00:43:40.800 to you know have some i don't know restraint you know and not just go with the flow and that's kind

00:43:45.580 of hard sometimes when you're in your 20s right because the whole culture is going you know everything's

00:43:50.060 going a certain direction and anytime you decide to do something a little different um in fact you know

00:43:57.340 this is a great sort of implied question let's say a guy really sort of shifts his deal a bit and

00:44:03.760 starts to be much more intentional and less ambiguous uh he'll have to make some decisions

00:44:11.320 within himself because i actually think what's going to happen is he's going to get more women

00:44:14.740 interested in him i think there'll be women that are going to pick up on that and say well this this

00:44:20.100 is a serious guy you know this is a real deal and so i think a guy that decides that he's going to be

00:44:26.060 less ambiguous uh may become sort of uh more attractive to more women and going to have to 0.99

00:44:35.100 decide what he's really about yeah we've had you know relationship people on the podcast before and

00:44:39.660 they said like the one thing women want like as you said they want security yes so just being explicit

00:44:44.840 about what you're doing with the relationship that eliminates so much of the anxiety when that's

00:44:49.960 going to make you more attractive yeah be explicit and be genuine i mean obviously

00:44:53.740 people could use this as a way to game people that would be pretty tragic but you know there's

00:44:59.480 those people out there but for the guy that really wants to be genuine and serious women tend to like 1.00

00:45:04.940 that a lot okay so uh let's say that was that was really useful we unpacked a lot there let's say we

00:45:11.160 we followed everything the guy was um he decided he was very upfront explicit not ambiguous

00:45:17.800 gets married didn't do the cohabitating thing what do you what can that guy do to maintain that strong 0.95

00:45:25.100 marriage or you know those moments when the marriage gets weak what can he do to strength help strengthen

00:45:29.320 it great so so let me give uh one piece of advice that's just to him and then another that's sort of

00:45:35.500 to him and his wife so just to him one of the things that i love to talk about and it comes out of the

00:45:42.280 the work on commitment and the theory on commitment one of the things you see when somebody's really

00:45:46.640 committed to their partner is that they more freely willingly and without grumbling about it

00:45:53.780 do little things that are kind of sacrifices for their partner they're not giant sacrifices

00:46:00.580 they're little sacrifices where you know sort of like she's going to like it better if i do this i

00:46:06.240 know if i do this for her today it's going to really help her a lot i know i like she likes it when i do

00:46:11.500 this and the way i like to put it to to anybody uh male or female about their their relationship is

00:46:18.060 is this you know you probably know unless you're not paying any attention to your partner you know we

00:46:24.380 all know a few things that just are always appreciated by our partner you know maybe not

00:46:31.140 every day recognized but uh there's some things where we know she really likes it when i do that she

00:46:37.780 likes it when i do that and she likes it when i do that and here's my favorite way to construct this

00:46:41.800 list construct that list but make it this way it's those things that you know that you can do that are

00:46:48.400 easy to do you know she likes it and this is the best part you know you're really not really likely to

00:46:55.600 do any one of those three things today in fact you're not really very likely to do any one of those

00:47:00.080 three things this week but you know that list you know what it is you can do them they're small

00:47:05.500 you know she likes it and you're not likely to do them and then make it a regular habit of yours

00:47:11.100 a couple times a week to do one of those things it's not rocket science because you're just acting

00:47:17.280 then on your commitment you're pushing yourself to do that little bit extra and i think people i think

00:47:23.480 it's a very strong play for the quality of your marriage for your for your relationship because

00:47:28.980 it really signals that you thought about them it's a little more likely to stand out to them

00:47:34.120 because it's the right list it's stuff you know that they tune into and you know that they care

00:47:39.520 about not all the time but most of the time so that's to the individual and that's a general you

00:47:45.780 know if it's specifically the general you know do your part to the two i think the one of the most

00:47:51.100 important things that we emphasize in all the stuff that we've done with couples over the years and

00:47:56.300 the things we do about preventing declines in marriage and keeping marriage strong is keep fun and

00:48:02.620 friendship alive people just slack on that it's another form of sliding we just sort of let it

00:48:07.460 slide away as opposed to just kind of deciding together 15 minutes two hours at a time whatever you

00:48:16.460 can do whatever can work to preserve times together a time or two a week where you're together and

00:48:24.500 you're not working on anything you're not trying to fix anything you're not talking about money

00:48:30.260 like you don't bring any of that stuff up but you're doing something that you both like to do

00:48:35.300 together that could be taking a walk taking a hike taking a bike ride watching you know binge watching

00:48:41.060 on netflix whatever it is you're making the time for that and all the world all the rest of the world

00:48:47.820 all the noise problems off limits maybe even mobile devices out of the room or not with you or tucked

00:48:55.920 away because those are really distracting so preserve fun and friendship and then the other one is this

00:49:02.060 if you're really struggling with communication and conflict that's something you can learn to do

00:49:07.920 differently and it's a common thing in marriage so i encourage people uh you know we have a online

00:49:13.960 program where people can can really work to communicate better if they want books we got books

00:49:19.680 all kinds of books out there there's different ways people can learn you go to a therapist go to a

00:49:25.180 counselor go to a relationship education workshop do something to learn how to handle conflict better

00:49:32.120 so that it's not damaging your relationship because when you have the the conflict regularly not being

00:49:38.760 handled well which can be pretty common it's like acid on that good stuff that positive connection that

00:49:44.960 you're building by doing the things around commitment and fun and friendship that's great well scott this

00:49:49.800 has been a great conversation we we really unpacked a lot i feel like yeah we cover some ground but

00:49:54.620 there's a lot more people could investigate where can people learn more about your work so the if

00:49:59.520 people want to read a lot about this sort of dating mating stuff cohabitation i write a lot about the

00:50:05.260 things that we do research on and the things that we publish research on on my blog which is sliding

00:50:11.000 versus deciding.com and spell it a number of ways or just search for my name and the blog but

00:50:17.540 sliding versus deciding.com they can read all kinds of things about the very things that we just everything

00:50:22.580 we just talked about i've written a lot about on that blog if they want to go further if you got

00:50:27.080 a couple like a married or premarital couple trying to sort of figure out their deal and figure out what

00:50:32.020 their future is they want to do something like an online program we got a really great one that's

00:50:36.580 it's just it's only 25 bucks and it's at love takes learning.com it's a program called e-prep at

00:50:43.340 love takes learning.com they can do that they can work through some of the kinds of things that we teach

00:50:48.340 couples in our workshops and in our books to strengthen their marriage to strengthen their

00:50:52.820 relationship awesome well scott stanley thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure

00:50:56.300 thank you really appreciate it my guest there is dr scott stanley is a professor of psychology at the

00:51:00.380 university of denver and you can find out more information about his work at sliding versus

00:51:03.860 deciding.blogspot.com also check out our show notes at aom.is stanley where you can find links

00:51:09.240 to resources we can delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of

00:51:24.020 manliness podcast for more tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website

00:51:27.520 at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy the podcast i've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate if

00:51:31.280 you take one minute to give us a review on itunes or stitcher helps that a lot also share the podcast

00:51:35.020 with a friend the more the merrier here as always thank you for your community support until next time

00:51:38.920 this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - October 19, 2017

#349： Is This a Date or Not？ The Problem With Ambiguity in Relationships

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript