The Art of Manliness - #379： How to Spot Red Flags in a Relationship

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast where research

00:00:18.340 has consistently shown that a good marriage can significantly improve a man's happiness

00:00:22.080 and quality of life but a bad marriage that can make you utterly miserable and even ruin

00:00:25.900 you financially while many men chalk up successful marriage to the luck of the draw

00:00:29.140 my guest today argues that by looking for certain red flags in a relationship as well as certain

00:00:33.040 positive attributes you can avoid getting involved in a draining marriage and instead marry someone who

00:00:37.160 will make your life better his name is sean smith he's a clinical psychologist based in denver and

00:00:41.400 the author of the book the tactical guide to women how men can manage risk in dating and marriage

00:00:45.980 today on the show sean and i discuss the risk and rewards of love and the mistakes he's seen men

00:00:50.040 make over and over again in his counseling practice when it comes to dating and marriage sean then

00:00:54.120 shares the script most men follow to find a partner why that script can backfire in them and then

00:00:58.020 provides a better alternative script men should use to help find a compatible mate sean then walks

00:01:02.460 us through the character traits men should be looking for in a woman and the changes men should

00:01:05.640 make themselves to ensure they have a fulfilling marriage he then explains why happy wife happy life

00:01:09.980 is terrible marital advice and what to do if your marriage isn't doing well right now after the show's

00:01:13.980 over check out the show notes at aom.is slash red flags sean smith welcome back to the show

00:01:30.980 brett thanks for having me so we had you on man it was about a year ago i think to talk about your book

00:01:37.600 how to survive aggressive people you got a new book out the tactical guide to women how men command

00:01:43.960 risk in dating and marriage and this is based on your work as a clinical psychologist and

00:01:48.440 doing family counseling and helping men and women with the relationship problems so let's talk about

00:01:54.380 that subtitle the book how men can manage risk in dating and marriage what are the risks that

00:01:59.760 men face in the dating and marriage game well the risk with bringing the wrong person to your life is

00:02:05.720 is that you put basically whatever is most important to you at risk potentially i had this teacher a long

00:02:10.880 time ago who who said he had this quaint little saying that he who walks through poopies gets poopies

00:02:15.880 stuck to him and it was just a warning to be careful who you run with and and the people that you bring

00:02:21.580 into your inner circle you know they they have the potential to really add to what's important to you

00:02:26.620 or to really take away from it can i tell you a quick little story yeah this book has a hundred

00:02:31.240 different backstories this is one that didn't make it into the book but it's always been kind of

00:02:35.080 emblematic to me of why i wrote it this was a guy named dave who was in his late 30s and he had been

00:02:40.660 really smart about business and he'd built this business for himself that was probably never going

00:02:44.940 to make him rich but it was always going to sustain him gotten to the point where it was running itself

00:02:49.400 and was generating a decent little income and late 30s he decided that he had been neglecting the

00:02:55.280 personal side of his life and he wanted he wanted to get married he wanted to have a family have kids

00:02:59.000 and so forth and so for the first time he really started in earnest looking for a woman and the

00:03:02.640 first woman that he came across they were instantly smitten with each other and very very taken by

00:03:08.560 each other physically and they seemed to click right off the bat and within about six months he

00:03:14.020 moved this woman into his house which he owned because you know he again he'd been smart about

00:03:18.820 his money and no no payments there and um things were going okay for a few months but she was struggling

00:03:23.440 with her career and so he decided to bring her into this company that he had built so within about nine

00:03:29.880 months he had brought this woman into his house into his home that he lived in and into his company

00:03:35.260 that he had built up and you can probably tell where this is headed it's not headed in a good

00:03:39.860 direction she after about a year started to show some different sides of her personality and he started

00:03:45.980 to notice that she was getting kind of abusive and and very um confrontational and eventually even got

00:03:52.820 physically abusive and so about three months after that probably 15 months into the relationship he

00:03:58.760 decided he needed out well she was not she was not down with that she didn't want to go quietly she

00:04:03.200 didn't want to break up and then she decided that she was going to get litigious about it and so he

00:04:07.520 eventually she put him in a legal spot where he either had to liquidate his company to get rid of

00:04:13.620 her or liquidate his company so that he could fight her in court because she had she was making the case

00:04:18.280 that this was now hers his home and his business and of course it wasn't but it didn't really matter

00:04:24.640 the point was that he had to invest all these resources in in getting rid of her and it decided

00:04:28.500 he decided under counsel of his lawyers to just settle which meant that he had to basically liquidate

00:04:34.560 a huge piece of his company and start over so this is a guy you know getting back to the original

00:04:39.160 question what do you put at risk this was a guy who had always valued his freedom and his autonomy in

00:04:43.120 the world and by bringing this woman into his life so quickly he put all of that at risk and he

00:04:48.740 actually lost a huge chunk of it not permanently because he couldn't rebuild it but he lost that

00:04:54.180 thing that was so important to him that's great and they weren't even married right no no and you

00:04:58.180 throw in on top of that you throw in had he married and had kids and you throw in the family court system

00:05:03.720 which to this day is still pretty heavily biased against men you know women get 96 to 97 percent of

00:05:09.380 alimony payments and six out of every seven or no five out of every six custodial arrangements go to

00:05:16.180 women with the children and women get child support when they have primary custody 23 percent more often

00:05:22.440 than men get child support so you throw all that into the mix and you know it can get really ugly

00:05:27.920 right and that's not just the financial stuff which is just can be terrible but just like the emotional

00:05:32.940 strain as well can i imagine just is no fun at all yeah and it's harder on men the emotional

00:05:39.040 stuff it's been well documented that divorce is more it affects men more negatively than it does

00:05:44.220 women they tend toward more substance abuse more social isolation more mortality and women generally

00:05:50.240 have more of a social network that's our fault not theirs you know it's men's fault that if they don't

00:05:54.980 have a a social support network but women fare better emotionally and physically after divorce too

00:05:59.820 but what's interesting so there are there's a huge amount of risk right and that's that amount of risk

00:06:04.960 you know for a lot of men that's like i'm not even gonna do that i'm not even gonna date women i'm

00:06:09.900 not even gonna marry them but that's not the case you're making in your book you're also arguing okay

00:06:15.060 marriage comes with a lot of risk but if you do dating and marriage right it can be one of the

00:06:21.000 biggest boons to your life well absolutely and that's that's been pretty well documented too that

00:06:25.160 men who are in happy marriages they live longer they're healthier they make more money they have more

00:06:31.100 sex life is just life is better for men when you're in a good relationship but it's a lot worse for men

00:06:36.980 when you're in a bad one all right so the whole point of this book is to help men steer clear of those

00:06:42.720 risks yeah and then really develop a relationship that's strong good and healthy yeah and you alluded

00:06:47.480 to this community this big you didn't say MGTOW but there's this men going their own way community out

00:06:52.260 there that these guys who've decided that women are just not for them because this is too risky and

00:06:57.560 yeah i get it and i sympathize with them but yeah this book isn't for those guys probably it's for

00:07:02.120 guys like me who actually want women in our lives i've been married for 18 years and it's great i love

00:07:07.320 my wife and daughter i just can't imagine life without them so in your clinical practice what are the

00:07:12.440 biggest mistakes you see men make over and over and over again when choosing a woman to date or to even

00:07:19.800 marry well let's talk about the the sort of the psychological side first that the biggest mistake men

00:07:26.420 make psychologically is just not knowing their history knowing where they come from and what i

00:07:30.060 mean by that is really understanding what they learned from their parents their role models about

00:07:36.020 relationships because men are not we're not as attuned to that as well i think we're getting better

00:07:41.800 but we don't pay as much attention to our past and what drives us as women do and so i see so many

00:07:48.920 guys who come in and they just repeat the old mistakes that their parents make or they're doing the same

00:07:54.840 thing over and over in their relationships and wondering why it's not working that's that's

00:07:58.640 really the biggest mistake but the biggest tactical error by far is letting a relationship progress

00:08:05.140 unintentionally so basically i think you've had these authors on your show the authors from the

00:08:10.600 university of denver who talk about sliding into relationships right stand making yeah yeah they talk

00:08:16.600 about not making conscious decisions you know the the woman or will start uh sharing an underwear drawer

00:08:22.600 maybe she's got her tampons under your sink and the next thing you know you're moving in just out of

00:08:26.480 convenience and then you're getting a dog and you're getting a lease and and pretty soon these guys end up

00:08:31.500 essentially married and they're like that the proverbial frog that's in the the boiling water the frog

00:08:37.140 doesn't know that it's getting cooked to death and these guys don't know that they're essentially getting

00:08:40.740 married to death by making these little decisions along the way out of inconvenience and by the way

00:08:45.620 there there was some other research out of australia where the researchers asked couples who are

00:08:51.020 cohabitating how did they end up living together and a huge majority of them said it just happened

00:08:56.880 as if this thing you know this thing just befell them moving in with something this is the most

00:09:00.720 momentous decision far-reaching decision of your life and it just happened that's that's not really

00:09:06.280 the way to go about it yeah and going back to the the research from the university of denver and

00:09:10.420 stanley i thought it was interesting the thing that he mentioned when people do that sliding into

00:09:14.380 relationship it actually makes ending the relationship much more difficult than if say if you were very

00:09:20.500 intentional and say okay now we are we're dating now we are getting married etc where it's there's a

00:09:27.140 much cleaner break if you need to do that so it made me think of that story you started off with

00:09:31.400 the guy who just sort of kind of slid into this relationship didn't even get married didn't really

00:09:35.300 have any definition for it and as you see i was really messy for him to get out of it yeah absolutely

00:09:40.860 and the research on moving in you know i don't take any moral stance on on living together i think it

00:09:45.980 can be a useful thing but the thing that the variable that really matters is intentionality

00:09:50.620 because there's been some research that shows that if you move in with the intention of a longer plan

00:09:56.080 and this is just one step in your plan to build a life together then it doesn't have any bad outcomes

00:10:01.240 on on um the marriage but it's the unintentional sliding into the relationship that has terrible

00:10:07.720 outcomes and yes it is very difficult to extricate yourself as that as dave's story showed us

00:10:13.200 so you talk about there's a script that most men usually follow when choosing a mate

00:10:19.620 um how does what is that script and how does that script lead to trouble well there's a script that

00:10:25.680 humans follow and men and women do it a little bit differently but it's basically the same thing and

00:10:30.600 we all know what it is there's nothing particularly surprising about this but there has been some

00:10:35.060 research out of evolutionary psychology that confirms it that men tend to size up women based on

00:10:42.620 appearance first and then goodness of fit second and women in general they tend to size up men based on

00:10:49.460 provisioning ability first and then goodness of fit second and this leads to horrible relationships you

00:10:56.900 know when when you're picking basically the most the person who fits best out of the pool of women who

00:11:03.540 are most attractive you're not getting the best fit for you and so what i suggest in the book is a better

00:11:08.240 way to go about it is to find the most attractive person within the pool of people who are a good

00:11:13.900 fit for you and i'm not suggesting that men should date women who are physically unattracted to them

00:11:18.420 because that's a recipe for disaster too but we can make just a a slight little change to this recipe

00:11:23.300 and put goodness of fit before attractiveness gotcha yeah i think it's interesting we've had people on

00:11:28.280 who've like specialized in jane austen and like jane austen the 17th century little uh she's a you know

00:11:34.440 spinster basically did what did never married her whole point of some of her books was like

00:11:38.580 you marry for fit first and then provisioning later a lot of the characters in her books they were like

00:11:44.400 going for the guy who had the status the prestige the money and they end up miserable and she was

00:11:50.440 arguing her heroines are always the ladies who found the guy that was really great but also could

00:11:55.640 provide for them that was this afterthought i you know i know nothing about jane austen so i'm gonna

00:12:00.000 have to check her out now but i'm glad to know that this isn't a new idea so okay let's talk

00:12:03.940 about fit okay so all right so we're going to start off with looking for a partner who fits us

00:12:09.840 well and then from that pool we're going to you know choose someone we're physically attractive

00:12:14.760 because that's important so how do you how do you figure that out what is fit how how do you know if

00:12:19.840 a woman is is a good match for you well let me give a little little structure of the book i spend the

00:12:24.160 first last two-thirds of the book are about what kind of woman is is um has what it takes to succeed

00:12:30.440 in a relationship and how to avoid just the basic tactical errors and and don't screw your life up

00:12:36.320 by bringing the wrong person in but the first third of the book is really about you the the male reader

00:12:41.500 of this book and getting a few things um making sure that you have a few things in order before you

00:12:46.680 even start considering settling down with a woman and one of those is values and values being the things

00:12:53.140 that drive you in life like remember i was talking about dave one of his biggest values in life was

00:12:57.060 freedom and autonomy and so he built that into his life and unfortunately he he lost that temporarily

00:13:01.920 but when you have a good sense of why you're on the planet what your purpose is what gets you up in

00:13:08.500 the morning where your values lie you have to have those things in order in order to get the right

00:13:13.920 woman into your life because otherwise how do you know she's a fit and how does she know that she's

00:13:17.500 a fit for you and so how do you figure that out it's just sort of self finale you just ask

00:13:22.680 yourself certain questions what do you do um there's a lot of well first of all there's a

00:13:27.860 couple of lists that i give in the book specific two different lists of 10 specific values domains

00:13:33.700 and one is sort of philosophical it comes from the social psychologist named shalom schwartz and

00:13:37.700 he looks at things like uh self-direction and achievement and security and freedom and gives you a way to

00:13:46.140 think about all right what are the big philosophical things that matter to me in life and then there's

00:13:51.280 another list that comes out of just clinical behavioral work that a lady named joanne doll

00:13:56.180 well not she's she's the one who sort of encapsulated everything but it comes out of this behavioral

00:14:00.100 clinical work where behaviors look at all right what are you actually doing in the world uh what are you

00:14:06.120 doing with your cure what are you doing with your leisure activities your religion your community

00:14:10.380 involvement what do you see yourself doing that really matters to you and and there are some

00:14:15.180 questions like you can ask yourself like all right if no one was watching and if money wasn't an issue

00:14:21.100 what would you be doing with your life so i give these two lists and and some ways to think about

00:14:26.580 how to pin down where you sit and then i add a couple more to them sex and money because those

00:14:30.680 are the things that their couples really uh can can get after each other about and so getting really

00:14:37.100 clear what are your values about money what does it represent to you like for dave in the beginning of

00:14:40.880 the story or the beginning of this talk money for him represented freedom so that's what it represents

00:14:45.940 for some people but for other people it represents security for other people it represents

00:14:50.080 the ability to have leisure time security and then sex you know what what is your appetite and what

00:14:55.720 is her appetite and what do you like and what is she like and what kinks do you have and what kinks

00:14:58.980 does she have because these things can really um they really can become a bear in relationships

00:15:04.140 and so getting these things sorted out in your life really helps you know who's going to fit in

00:15:08.820 so besides money and sex what are some of the other values that cause the most conflict in a couple

00:15:14.320 when they're not lined up it's it's i've noticed in my practice it tends to be the big philosophical

00:15:20.240 stuff like i told the story in the book about chris and sophie and i'll give you a real quick

00:15:24.740 pricey of that that chris was this really motivated very motivated political science student in college

00:15:31.440 and sophia was she was kind of finding her way so it wasn't didn't really have any passions in college

00:15:36.860 chris on the other hand was very passionate about what he was doing wanted to be a political

00:15:40.840 fundraiser a politician whatever he's doing he was going in that direction and so she saw him and

00:15:46.320 she saw this guy who was really directed and she just fell in love with that and he saw her and she

00:15:50.020 saw this girl who was who would go along for the ride basically and support him and so they were

00:15:54.900 doing his political stuff and they were going all those fundraisers and even in college he was a he was

00:15:58.920 working at a think tank as an intern and she was always with him at the functions and so forth

00:16:02.760 and they got married down the road a little ways she started to come into her own and her values and she

00:16:08.840 started to figure out that she was getting really tired number one of talking about all the politics

00:16:13.120 all the time it was interesting up to a point but it's starting to wear on her and also she was

00:16:17.920 discovering that she was more of a homebody she had a nice stable job and she just kind of wanted to

00:16:21.880 stay home at night and watch some movies and have a circle of friends around her he wanted to be out at

00:16:26.520 fundraisers and events and doing stuff and so they eventually because they hadn't really pinned this down

00:16:31.680 their their differences in values at the beginning and because they didn't really have a language for

00:16:37.320 talking about their values they just started getting angry at each other and they eventually

00:16:41.480 got really resentful and had this terrible ugly divorce that cost them a lot of money and it was

00:16:47.720 just a case of not being clear on what they wanted because they're a wonderful fit otherwise but these

00:16:52.900 big philosophical issues really tripped them up because let's say you spend the time figuring out what

00:16:57.780 your values are how do you figure out what a woman's values are because you know when you first do that

00:17:04.420 initial date you know the first few dates that stuff doesn't typically come up i mean you usually

00:17:08.720 try to keep it light you don't go right to like so tell me about your life's philosophy when you're

00:17:12.880 at you know chile's uh you know you need an awesome blossom on your first date so how do you go about

00:17:17.900 that and how how long does it usually take before you get a really good idea of what her values are

00:17:22.380 and if they line up with yours would you really eat an awesome blossom on the first day that sounds

00:17:26.800 a little dangerous to me because that's my my first day with my wife i took her to chile's

00:17:31.420 and uh we had an awesome blossom but that was you know back in college all right when chile's was

00:17:36.380 it works out right it worked out good yeah how do you get to know yeah you're right you don't jump

00:17:41.060 into this stuff it's just it's weird and creepy to start asking those really intense questions right

00:17:45.400 off the bat so i'm going to jump ahead to uh one of the most important tactical strategies you can

00:17:52.400 have with a woman is to date her for a good long time number one and then number two don't hide who

00:17:58.380 you are because we tend to us guys you know we tend to be a little bit chameleon like with women

00:18:03.080 where we want to be what they want us to be and we can't do that you've got to show them right off

00:18:08.620 the bat through our behavior not our words like what's important to us at work and how are we living

00:18:12.820 our lives you know they're watching us women are very good at watching how men move through the world

00:18:16.980 so if we're honest about how we're moving through the world then we're not selling them a bill of goods

00:18:21.340 but getting back to that idea of dating somebody for a nice long time um can i talk about the

00:18:27.480 honeymoon period for a minute yeah no go ahead right all right the honeymoon period we all have

00:18:32.300 this this vernacular idea about what it is and we all know what it is it's that period where you're

00:18:37.400 just infatuated with each other and things are going great and nothing the other person does

00:18:41.660 bothers you they're just perfect and all their little quirks are adorable and so forth and this is a

00:18:47.000 tough thing to pin down biologically but there have been some studies where people have looked

00:18:53.140 at serotonin signatures in the blood to determine to try to get a sense you can't really determine

00:18:58.700 this but to try to get a sense of how our neuro neurobiology deviates from its baseline when we're

00:19:03.760 in this infatuated stage and it turns out that there is there are some chemical changes and again it's

00:19:12.280 really hard to know exactly what they mean but there are some chemical changes that deviate from baseline

00:19:16.420 for about somewhere between 9 and 18 months and during that 9 and 18 months we're basically

00:19:22.840 operating under the influence we are not seeing the world the way we normally see it and we are not

00:19:27.360 presenting ourselves to to the other person the way we normally are and so during that honeymoon

00:19:32.840 period is a terrible god-awful time to start making decisions about long-term relationship stuff

00:19:39.800 like getting a dog together and you know we want to move in that's what your brain wants to do like

00:19:44.380 you want to you want to get the relationship moving quickly but you got to rein that in and to some

00:19:48.680 degree i i think it's as maybe a little sexist to say but i think it's up to us men more than women

00:19:54.520 to to really slow that down because women traditionally are wanting to push it along and it's up to us to

00:20:00.820 say no no we got it we got to get past this honeymoon period and so getting past that honeymoon period you

00:20:06.140 know that you're past it when the other person starts to look a little more human to you like all those

00:20:12.500 little quirks that used to be adorable now they're starting to get a little bit annoying not hopefully

00:20:16.800 not to the point where you can't live with them but you're starting to notice that they're not on

00:20:21.740 a pedestal the way they were during that first 9 to 18 months and the other parts of your life that

00:20:27.660 receded start to come back into importance so when you're in the honeymoon phase and you two are really

00:20:32.040 focused on each other you start to you exclude things you exclude friends and family a little bit

00:20:36.780 some of your activities a little bit and when that stuff starts to come back online and you're seeing the

00:20:40.900 other person is human that's a pretty good indication that your neurochemistry is starting

00:20:45.400 to return to baseline and you're getting beyond that honeymoon phase and that's when the real

00:20:50.420 trial begins that's when you get to see all right for a year or so do i still love this person is still

00:20:55.660 the person that i want to be with now that i'm not drunk with neurochemicals so basically you're

00:21:01.340 arguing bringing back the the idea of courtship exactly yeah and this is it's this very old term it

00:21:06.760 sounds ancient it sounds victorian but man it can save your life right well and so let's say you

00:21:13.120 get through this honeymoon phase and you you've discovered that not all your values are absolutely

00:21:19.480 lined up is that a is that a deal breaker or no no okay no absolutely not conflicting values are a

00:21:26.520 deal breaker so if you are yeah i don't know if you're if you're a if one partner i'm not going to

00:21:31.980 say the man or the woman but if one partner is a 40 year old computer programmer with a master's in

00:21:36.560 computer science and a minors in philosophy is dating somebody who's 22 and is a high school dropout

00:21:44.280 and working the drive-through window window wendy's those two people might have a huge attraction to

00:21:50.440 each other but they might not fit philosophically they might have conflicting values conflicting goals

00:21:57.280 conflicting everything that's a bad situation and and some i guess some more realistic examples

00:22:03.600 of that would be somebody who is passionately republican dating somebody who is passionately

00:22:08.100 democrat that's really a tough thing to navigate it can be done certainly people have done it but

00:22:13.720 you know there's there's probably someone out there's a better fit so conflicting values are bad

00:22:18.420 but differing values they can be great you can actually bring different things to each other if one

00:22:22.980 person is kind of into politics and the other person is kind of into religion or family or whatever

00:22:28.220 then you can add to each other and your different values become an additive thing rather than a

00:22:32.620 subtractive thing so continue on this thread about uh personal values and their importance in a

00:22:38.300 relationship and you you talk about in the book that one of the most common complaints you hear from

00:22:42.240 women when they come to counseling with their husbands is that or their boyfriends that that the man

00:22:46.880 changed what do women mean by he changed what they mean is a couple of things usually it's this

00:22:55.160 surface level issue where he stopped being affectionate he stopped pursuing her and stopped doing a little

00:22:59.780 romantic things that he did when they were dating and so my my thought on that is just don't stop

00:23:04.900 doing that stuff that stuff is fun keep doing it keep telling your wife that she she looks great and

00:23:09.240 keep buying her things and keep taking her places and treat her nicely that's that's a really easy fix

00:23:14.160 the harder fix is when we aren't presenting ourselves accurately to them throughout the courtship and

00:23:21.420 then they marry us or they you know we take it to the next level whatever that means for you and then

00:23:26.760 suddenly they start to see who we really are like maybe we weren't as motivated as as we portrayed

00:23:32.660 ourselves during the courtship and we've sold them a bill of goods and you can imagine how disrupted this

00:23:38.540 would be if you commit yourself to somebody you know this is a big decision for women too and you commit

00:23:43.400 your life to somebody you start making all these changes and all these plans and then you wake up next to

00:23:47.480 them one day and they're a different person than you thought they were very disruptive

00:23:52.340 so you talk about the books like women are attracted to men who know what they want in life and go after

00:23:59.400 it yeah there's this movement i don't know if you've noticed it brett but on college campuses for example

00:24:05.540 right now it started out in one ivy league school but it is sort of trickling down to other schools where

00:24:10.760 you can take classes to cure yourself of your toxic masculinity and so this is not what healthy

00:24:19.680 well-adjusted women want they don't want heterosexual women they don't want to date a

00:24:25.180 girl they want to date men and this is again this is common sense we all know this but if as if we need

00:24:30.720 confirmation of common sense there is some there are some studies that are starting to come out that

00:24:34.840 say you know actually surprisingly to us academics women tend to like masculine qualities they like

00:24:41.140 strength and protectiveness and and those things that this other group of malcontents is calling toxic

00:24:46.960 so what do you tell a guy who all right when he was dating his wife you know had that motivation had

00:24:53.540 that drive but now he's lost it several years in relation and the wife's not happy how do you how do you

00:25:00.400 get that mojo back where you you reconnect with your values and you start acting on them that's an

00:25:06.380 interesting question i do meet a lot of guys in my practice who a few years into marriage they get kind

00:25:13.760 of depressed and i think it's a little bit different for every guy but yeah i really if there's a common

00:25:20.280 theme in any of it in all of it i think it's that men need to be very careful after they've committed

00:25:25.940 to a woman that they maintain their connection to other men that they may maintain their connection

00:25:30.360 to their purpose in the world and that they find that balance between all the competing interests so

00:25:37.680 so if you've got a woman in your life who's very important to you she's going to want your time

00:25:41.500 but then if you're a man who's doing something in the world you've got this team over here on the

00:25:45.400 other side that that needs your time and your commitment so you have these competing interests

00:25:49.100 and i think men who lose that balance you know that involves saying no a lot involves sometimes

00:25:55.740 saying no to her sometimes saying no to your team but men who lose that balance and that ability to

00:26:00.920 keep everybody happy but also make sure everybody understands that you've got other commitments

00:26:05.360 that's a huge contributor to men sort of getting lost in marriages right and you talk about in the book

00:26:10.900 that you know that advice you hear a lot of men spout off like happy wife happy life that's actually

00:26:15.640 probably bad advice uh drives me nuts that's just the worst relationship advice what guys mean by that

00:26:23.300 is that in order to keep your wife happy and essentially to keep her from chewing on your ass

00:26:28.960 you need to just do what she says and don't argue with her and don't don't complain and just follow

00:26:35.380 along and that's terrible advice the advice is basically shut up and give her her way so that she

00:26:40.500 doesn't punish you and i can't imagine any scenario where a woman would where women would say that to

00:26:46.940 each other just shut up and do what your husband tells you so that he doesn't punish you because

00:26:50.640 women are smart enough to say hey that's an abusive relationship girlfriend you need to get out of

00:26:54.840 that but we we give this advice to each other and we're trying to help each other i think we're

00:26:59.000 trying just to you know if i said that to you brett i'd be trying to i guess protect you from

00:27:04.880 have an angry wife but the problem with that is that obviously we and the men are going to get

00:27:10.800 resentful of this woman who we have allowed to control us and they're going to get resentful of

00:27:16.340 us for a couple of reasons number one we're not giving them who we really are if we're just bowing

00:27:20.740 to them all the time but um also women typically don't like men who've allowed themselves to be

00:27:27.480 emasculated right so all right don't do that so yeah stand up for yourself never give up on your

00:27:31.620 values i mean you don't have to be a jerk about it people oftentimes when they there's a lot of

00:27:36.000 guys i know who they were kind of you know they grew up stereotypical nice guy and they think to

00:27:40.420 counter that they have to become an a-hole basically yeah like you don't have to do that to be assertive

00:27:45.180 no and that's that's really not what women are looking for i did some surveys on this a few years

00:27:50.140 ago and i was i was really interested in this nice guy problem because there's this false dichotomy and i

00:27:54.500 think men create this i don't think women have created this where we believe that we have to be this

00:27:59.280 nice guy who just lays down and gets run over or we have to be this big jerk who throws our weight

00:28:04.420 around and turns out that women really aren't interested in that what they're looking for is

00:28:08.600 assertiveness and a guy who can defend his values and you can be the nicest guy in the world and be

00:28:14.660 assertive you don't have to be a jerk about it that's really what most women are looking for

00:28:18.940 all right so the first thing we got to do let's recap what we've talked about is figure out what you

00:28:22.560 value in life and that's going to do two things first i was going to make you more attractive

00:28:26.280 to women because women like a guy who knows what they want in life and goes after it absolutely

00:28:30.840 and then also and then second it allows you to filter for women who line up with your values and

00:28:36.880 have the same values as you so find a good fit yeah all right so let's talk about so we we've got

00:28:43.280 our values we've talked about courtship and dating to figure out if a woman's values line up with ours

00:28:47.960 what are some like the other attributes we look for in the women you talk about this thing what you

00:28:52.840 call the bright triad it's sort of a play on this the dark triad i'm sure people have heard of so

00:28:57.760 what is the bright triad and and how can you determine if a woman has traits from the this

00:29:02.260 triad the bright triad is just something that that i came up with you know i was looking at this um

00:29:07.060 the dark triad is people that you don't want in your life they're manipulative and they're

00:29:10.720 machiavellian and they're they'll use you and so forth but that you know knowing what you don't

00:29:15.420 want is only so useful so what do you want and i started looking through the literature

00:29:19.020 and looking through my own clinical files and just finding you know looking for qualities

00:29:24.820 that women possess who are successful in relationships and i boiled it down to clarity

00:29:30.920 stability and maturity so that first one clarity has to do with communication we we assume that

00:29:36.940 women are the best communicators on the planet that's that's not necessarily true it's true in

00:29:42.520 some ways it's also true in some ways that men are better communicators in other areas

00:29:46.400 and then stability just uh how does she handle her mental health it doesn't mean that she

00:29:51.200 can't have any mental health problems like depression or substance abuse or so forth but

00:29:55.760 she has to be willing to address them that that's just a deal breaker if she has some mental

00:30:00.440 problems or emotional problems that she's not dealing with the relationship simply can't progress

00:30:04.760 and then emotional maturity just how does she handle life and how and what are her coping skills like

00:30:10.360 because you're gonna come across some bad times and you want somebody in your corner who knows how to

00:30:15.960 handle herself emotionally well so let's talk about those emotional skills you talk about there's

00:30:19.820 five you think utterly non-negotiable emotional skills that any potential mate should have what

00:30:24.000 are those yeah again i went through the literature went through my own files and boiled them down to

00:30:28.280 boil down a whole lot of qualities to these five and we can i'll list them out and then we can do

00:30:32.900 whatever you want with them insight which is the ability to know what makes her tick and what makes

00:30:37.380 the relationship what makes you tick intellectual nuance which really boils down to her ability

00:30:43.980 to see the world and people as a mixed bag so she could if she's upset with you she has the ability to

00:30:51.080 say i love you and i'm angry with you rather than i hate you or i love you third one is resilience

00:30:57.640 what it sounds like the ability to handle hard times get through life internalization i think is probably

00:31:03.640 the single most important ability that anybody has in a relationship and that's the ability to

00:31:09.260 take responsibility for the relationships that you're creating and the outcomes of your behavior

00:31:16.280 and then number five is self-maintenance just the ability to get your sleep your diet your exercise so

00:31:21.660 that you're bringing your best self to the relationship all right so i would imagine that if a woman isn't

00:31:27.060 displaying any of these things like it should be a red flag huge red flag yeah any one of these

00:31:33.180 so going back to this idea of stability uh you brought up emotional and mental disorders and

00:31:37.860 you have a section in your book about that what do you are there some common mental and social

00:31:42.500 disorders that can cause relationship problems why whether the man has it or a woman has it yeah

00:31:48.500 i listed four in the books there are just your garden variety mental health problems like anxiety and

00:31:55.200 depression chances of divorce double when somebody has untreated depression and i'm not saying

00:32:01.240 depression i'm saying untreated depression so it's important that she's willing to number one

00:32:05.260 acknowledge that that problem exists and then number two gets treated and take responsibility for

00:32:09.640 for handling it then there's substance abuse and compulsive behaviors and over the last few decades

00:32:15.020 men traditionally have far outpaced women on substance abuse in fact our substance abuse kind of mirrors

00:32:22.180 their depression so for every woman who's depressed there's a man who's abusing substances and it could be

00:32:27.260 that we're depressed and we're just covering up with substance but anyway women are catching up in the

00:32:31.300 substance abuse department unfortunately uh particularly prescription drugs and and pot and compulsive

00:32:37.780 behaviors like eating disorders and so forth number three there's unresolved emotional injury so

00:32:42.800 the the injuries that she experienced in her development that she never came to term with and she is

00:32:50.880 either protecting herself from in in all of her adult relationships or she's more likely

00:32:56.540 recreating and seeking out in her adult relationships and even if you're not the guy

00:33:01.200 who's abusive or who gets angry at her or whatever i don't know that a woman can make you abusive but she

00:33:07.440 will in women and men will tend to recreate in their partners they'll turn their partner into the

00:33:13.280 person that mistreated them if unless they learn how to come to terms with those unresolved emotional

00:33:18.660 injuries and then finally the big one is personality disorders and these are particularly troubling

00:33:24.360 because there are some personality disorders and and let me define the term this is basically a

00:33:29.320 personality style that has serious trouble getting along with other people maintaining relationships

00:33:35.460 that are free of chaos and conflict so the personality disorders i go through several of them but the main

00:33:40.780 ones that are really dangerous are ones like borderline personality disorder narcissistic personality disorder

00:33:45.400 and the reason they're so dangerous is that these folks men or women they they tend to be very

00:33:51.660 charismatic in the beginning and they can make you feel like you're just walking on clouds and they're

00:33:56.280 wonderful but then there comes a point someday where everything flips and now you're the bad guy and

00:34:02.740 suddenly everything is chaotic and and it's just terrible so it's really easy to get drawn into these

00:34:07.840 folks what do you do if you know you're dating someone you find out okay they've got this this issue or

00:34:15.180 maybe you're married and the issue pops up you know yeah later on in marriage do you just and it's causing

00:34:21.020 a lot of strain what what's the next step for a man there well it's really important to know what line

00:34:28.280 not to cross with with that sort of thing so if you know if your wife develops some kind of if she

00:34:33.400 develops depression or substance abuse or something like that your job as a man is to really advocate for

00:34:39.480 her be in her corner help her get treatment but not to be a white knight about it like you can't

00:34:45.180 rescue you can't treat somebody's depression in your living room anymore that you can fix their

00:34:49.060 broken arm in your garage it's really your job to help them get the help they need but then it's their

00:34:54.580 job that's where it stops that's where your job stops it's their job to participate in treatment and

00:34:58.880 take responsibility and and participate in the help you can't make them do that so yeah if they're if

00:35:05.260 they're not doing that you know at for a continued amount of time that'd be something where you like

00:35:09.640 you might have to consider ending the relationship yeah and this is where i give my i'll give my

00:35:15.400 personal opinion which may or may not correlate with the data i don't know but my personal opinion is

00:35:19.880 that if you've done everything reasonable to try to get somebody help then it gets to a point we got

00:35:25.780 to give them a choice i don't like ultimatums i don't like saying to somebody do this or else i don't

00:35:30.040 like it when women necessarily say hey marry me or i'm leaving you know that that sort of thing

00:35:35.200 and i don't like saying to somebody get help or i'm leaving but you can give them a choice and say

00:35:39.020 hey look i have to make a decision i'm the one that needs to make a decision here so if you're not in

00:35:43.960 treatment by such and such a date then i'm gonna know that you've chosen your substance or your

00:35:49.260 depression or whatever it is over me and i'm gonna have to leave and it'll break my heart but i'll

00:35:54.140 know where you stand and so you're giving them a choice it's a little softer it's basically an ultimatum

00:35:58.580 but it's a much softer ultimatum and it's putting power in their hands rather than taking power away from

00:36:03.120 them right and i think it's gonna fall back to the guys to have these problems you know understand

00:36:07.500 that you have a role like don't don't use your depression or whatever as an excuse for the bad

00:36:11.940 relationship uh you can still take steps on your own to to solve that or to manage it well hey i'm

00:36:17.580 gonna go back i should have done this so let's say you're in a relationship you're married and you

00:36:23.300 discover that the values you have conflict with your wife's values what do you do in that situation

00:36:30.400 and it's causing strain yeah this this comes up and people's values change over time too you know

00:36:36.320 people mature and they change and they develop new philosophies but all right so what do you do when

00:36:42.380 somebody when you discover that your values are diverging or discover that you marry somebody with

00:36:46.240 very different values and the problem that a lot of people run into is that they already have kids

00:36:52.740 and they already have this family they always have or they already have some reason for trying to

00:36:57.160 stay together and maintain their relationship if there's nothing there and your values are

00:37:01.480 absolutely conflicting there's no kids or anything to worry about then yeah maybe maybe you go your

00:37:05.700 separate ways and you try to remain friends or at least respectful to each other but if you have

00:37:09.040 some reason for trying to stay together i think number one as the man take the lead and and put it out

00:37:13.860 there that look we're we have developed some different values we probably care about the same things

00:37:20.040 like we we care about our kids but maybe we care about them differently and so having that

00:37:24.400 conversation and just acknowledging that it's out there but then as far as actual techniques that

00:37:28.400 you can use one is just to embrace the other side of the coin and what i mean by that is there were

00:37:33.800 probably some qualities that you found attractive to her in the beginning that were maybe irresistible

00:37:41.760 to you in the beginning but now it has uh it has flipped and those values have become or those

00:37:47.940 qualities have become annoying and there was actually a study on this i can't remember the name of it but

00:37:51.840 it had a clever name like um from attractive to a repulsive or something like that and this woman

00:37:57.320 looked at this researcher looked at qualities that people found attractive initially like a

00:38:02.880 freewheeling person became flighty and so that that flipped for the person or a person who was funny

00:38:09.660 became flaky or a person who was philosophical became irresponsible so one thing you can do if you

00:38:18.120 find your values are diverging is to remember that hey this thing that i don't like about this person

00:38:22.300 is actually another side of that that i really do like and stay in touch with that another thing you

00:38:26.620 do just in in terms of communication is agree to disagree on some stuff and agree that some things

00:38:31.900 are just going to be you choose not to talk about them because you're you're just not lined up on it

00:38:36.720 but there's all this other stuff that you are lined up on it you can talk about and talk about things

00:38:41.820 up to the point of diminishing returns when it gets to the point where you're rehashing old stuff

00:38:46.440 maybe you both decide all right this one's off limit here's a question i can imagine there's a

00:38:51.700 you see this a lot with couples you counsel is that the the couples fight about something really

00:38:57.080 stupid but there's an underlying bigger issue how do you figure out that underlying big issue is when

00:39:04.080 when all the focus is on this like really dumb trivial thing yeah these rabbit holes that people get

00:39:10.640 drawn into i had a couple that came in and they were wanting to know what to do with their son

00:39:15.980 because their son and their son i don't work with kids but they they wanted some inside out

00:39:20.520 their son had started to have all kinds of problems in schools grades were going up and down he was

00:39:24.340 having a little trouble getting along with folks and as i talked to them it came out that they both

00:39:31.280 had been sort of veering in and out of alcoholism for years so what they came in with was this rabbit

00:39:38.020 hole discussion of their son that they had been bickering over the son wasn't the issue the alcohol was

00:39:43.080 the issue and it's tough to spot those things sometimes but i think when you find yourself

00:39:48.180 having the same arguments and conversations over and over again you're not getting anywhere i forget

00:39:53.400 who said it but some clinician said if you haven't solved something by the third or fourth time you're

00:39:58.400 not going to solve it on the 30th time so step back and try to figure out exactly what's going on

00:40:02.800 there's a really thing to look for is just patterns and arguments and things that aren't getting

00:40:06.280 solved and then exploring what might be behind that awesome well sean this has been a great

00:40:10.040 conversation where can people go to learn more about the book well the book is in all the usual

00:40:14.440 places and you can find me at doc smith.co and i just posted a a blog post on how to talk to

00:40:21.520 girlfriends about prenuptial agreements and so if you're a guy who doesn't need that right now maybe

00:40:25.560 you know somebody who does all right well sean smith thank you for your time it's been a pleasure

00:40:28.960 thanks brett my guest there was dr sean smith he's the author of the book the tactical guide to

00:40:33.160 women it's available on amazon.com you can also find more information about his work at

00:40:36.520 doc smith.co also check out our show notes at aom.is slash red flags where you find links

00:40:41.520 to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:40:43.600 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:40:53.040 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com also check out

00:40:56.540 our archives we've got over 300 episodes there and it's all evergreen still relevant go to

00:41:00.460 art of manliness.com slash podcast to check that out and if you enjoy the podcast i've got something

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00:41:11.840 someone you think you would get something out of it as always thank you for your continued support

00:41:15.080 until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay madly

00:41:17.940 you

The Art of Manliness - February 13, 2018

#379： How to Spot Red Flags in a Relationship

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