The Art of Manliness - Did You Pick the Right Partner？

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

00:00:10.880 whether you've been dating someone for a short time or been married for years there's one

00:00:14.120 question that can remain perennially interesting did i choose the right partner my guest today

00:00:19.080 has some answers to that question that aren't based on crowd-sourced antidotes or biased

00:00:22.640 personal hunches but reams of scientific research his name is tai tashiro he's a professor of

00:00:27.580 psychology a relationship expert and the author of the science of happily ever after what really

00:00:32.220 matters in the quest for enduring love we begin our discussion with the difference between loving

00:00:36.540 someone and being in love with them and how the latter comes down to a combination of like and

00:00:41.240 lust tai shares the three elements that go into liking and how this liking piece is really the

00:00:46.080 foundation of long-lasting relational happiness even though it tends to get under-emphasized tai

00:00:51.340 then reveals the surprisingly low roi of factors like looks and income and relationship happiness

00:00:56.100 before unpacking the factors that do have an outsized impact and contributing to enduring

00:01:00.280 love we discuss which personality traits are predictive relationship stability and satisfaction

00:01:04.740 which have the opposite effect and why you need to ask your friends for their assessment of your

00:01:09.000 significant other's personality rather than only assessing yourself we also get into the importance of

00:01:13.840 your partner's attachment style which they learned in childhood and two red flags to look for in your

00:01:18.340 relationship these insights will prove super useful for those in the dating scene but will also be of

00:01:22.800 interest to those already in long-term relationships and either affirming the wisdom of your choice of

00:01:27.100 partner or helping you identify issues that may be sabotaging your relationship and can still be

00:01:32.260 addressed after the show is over check out our show notes at aom.is slash love

00:01:36.400 ty joins me now via clearcast.io all right ty to shiro welcome back to the show hey

00:01:52.660 thanks for having me back so we had you on back in 2017 to talk about your book awkward the science

00:01:58.860 of why we're socially awkward and why that's awesome that's episode number 347 for those who

00:02:04.040 want to check that out but before you wrote awkward you wrote a book about another awkward

00:02:10.700 thing that can or it can be awkward in life it's the science of happily ever after what really matters

00:02:16.880 in the search for true love so you're a psychologist and it seems like your area of focus has been

00:02:21.680 relationships social relationships how did that focus happen well i guess brett like a lot of

00:02:28.180 things in my life it happened on accident i've never been one of those guys who's great at

00:02:34.340 planning out the next five years or the next 10 years of his life and i went to graduate school

00:02:40.900 for psychology and i thought i was going to study trauma and i got to the university of minnesota

00:02:49.060 and discovered that some of the best relationship researchers in the world are housed in the

00:02:55.560 department of psychology there i didn't even know that you could apply the scientific method

00:03:01.020 to study something like romantic relationships or social awkwardness and so i was instantly taken

00:03:07.900 with this idea that maybe you could bring some order to these processes that seem so chaotic

00:03:15.280 and so unknowable and because of that certainly maddening at times and uh it was really remarkable

00:03:23.080 to learn that psychologists had you know figured out a lot of things about love when we fall in love

00:03:29.800 while we fall out of love and uh so i spent a lot of my graduate years studying that and researching

00:03:36.780 that and then uh when i was a professor at the university of maryland i taught a really fun

00:03:43.420 undergraduate course there on the psychology of romantic relationships and it just kind of covered

00:03:49.880 from the the time you first fall in love as a teenager until you maybe get married or have a life

00:03:56.480 partner uh and then through uh the end of life uh your later years what does the course of our romantic

00:04:03.980 relationship life look like and it was as you can imagine it was a really fun course to teach

00:04:09.800 and the students were really engaged and so i got so many great questions from from them and

00:04:16.160 that was actually the spark that got me interested in maybe writing a book about the topic someday

00:04:22.800 all right so this is all about romantic love um and you start out the book trying to define what

00:04:28.120 romantic love is because there's all sorts of different types of love uh the greeks are really

00:04:32.580 good about distinguishing different types of love there's like agape there's eros uh which is sort of

00:04:38.260 like passionate love um and you make the distinction there's a difference between i think people have

00:04:43.600 heard this in movies right um between loving somebody and being in love with someone you've

00:04:49.980 probably heard some you know romantic comedy movie where the lady is late the girl's like well i love 0.99

00:04:55.920 them but i'm not in love with them uh so what what is the difference what is it like how does has the

00:05:02.040 scientific literature sussed out that difference yeah well it's um there's had to be some

00:05:07.420 investigation because as you mentioned other languages have multiple words for the different

00:05:12.200 kinds of love and english is a little bit limited in that we just have this this one word but it can

00:05:17.720 mean so many different things when it comes to romantic relationships it turns out the word um

00:05:24.760 love by itself can be applied to a lot of things so you could love your dog or you could love chocolate or

00:05:29.980 um all kinds of different things but being in love that's a whole nother thing and it's this either

00:05:37.980 or kind of phenomenon you don't really hear people say well i'm kind of in love uh with her or i'm kind

00:05:44.900 of in love with him it's it's this either or process and one of the early research investigations of

00:05:52.240 this asked hundreds of people what are the essential components for being in love with somebody

00:05:59.640 and they got hundreds of responses and then some poor graduate student had to sit there and sort

00:06:06.660 these responses into different categories and then they read ran a bunch of other subsequent tests and

00:06:12.300 what they essentially found was that it came down to two simple ingredients it was do you like the

00:06:18.840 person and do you have lust for the person and if these two simple things are in place that actually

00:06:25.680 explains when people fall in love so it actually doesn't take that much to fall in love with somebody

00:06:32.040 but to get those two things to happen at the same time is the trick i think we've all experienced

00:06:38.460 instances where maybe we like someone a lot and we had a lot of affection for them but we just didn't

00:06:45.020 find them attractive in a physical kind of way there's other instances where we find someone

00:06:50.800 really physically attractive or sexually attractive but we don't like them that much which is a whole

00:06:56.620 other kind of problem so yeah you need both of those things in place but when you get those

00:07:01.500 then it kind of trips this uh a process to where you fall into love and okay so i think everyone's

00:07:07.940 experienced lust i mean if you're just physically attracted to that person but you they even break down

00:07:12.840 liking like what what constitutes liking and i guess there's like what three factors that contribute

00:07:17.200 to whether you like someone or not yeah yeah that's right so they there's these really kind of

00:07:21.960 heartwarming studies that have been conducted since the 1950s and they it really started with friendship

00:07:27.780 and so they're like you know what makes a good friend and that kind of answers the question of like

00:07:34.920 who who is somebody that you like and continue to like and kind of stubbornly the results kept coming

00:07:41.780 back with the same three factors which is is the person fair is the person kind so they're willing

00:07:49.980 to give a little bit more than what's fair and is the person loyal so when you don't have a lot to

00:07:56.080 offer the other person or things are inequitable will that person stick around with you and for kids early

00:08:04.620 on if you think about kids who are like two years old a lot of things are about fairness i'll give you

00:08:11.300 one thing you give me one thing and and we're good my sister got one thing i should also get the same 0.71

00:08:17.100 thing right as um they move along uh their kindness and their generosity really starts to blossom

00:08:24.260 and then it's not really until late elementary early middle school that loyalty becomes a really

00:08:31.540 important factor but once it does then now there's the recipe for for liking all right so okay being in

00:08:37.540 love with someone there has to be you have to lust after them and then you also have to like them uh

00:08:42.600 what happens all right so there's the lusting like you fall in love the other person falls in love with

00:08:46.800 you you get into a relationship what happens to lusting and liking long term yeah that's well that's

00:08:54.560 where it gets complicated you know uh because we all know the feeling of being in love and especially

00:09:00.040 early on when it's that passionate love stage and you have the thumping heart and the butterflies in the

00:09:06.540 stomach kind of obsessively checking your phone see if uh the person texted you back uh that's that's

00:09:15.040 actually a really great euphoric state to be in one of the things researchers have done is they've

00:09:22.300 tracked people over time so they catch them when they first fall in love and earn passionate love

00:09:27.020 and then they'll follow them for years or in the case of marital studies even decades to see

00:09:32.720 what happens to their relationship satisfaction but also what happens to their liking of the person

00:09:38.860 and and their love for the person now the good news is is this is that liking on average stays pretty

00:09:48.260 constant across multiple years or even multiple decades uh which is which is good because that's really

00:09:54.660 the foundational piece now as you might guess lust takes a bit of a dip after a couple of years

00:10:01.920 so once you get to about year three of marriage for example you see declines in in lust and you get

00:10:10.040 another decline around year seven in lust so that's something that's harder to maintain it's a little more

00:10:16.720 ephemeral and that's been one of the things researchers have been really scrambling to figure out

00:10:22.480 is how do you keep that sexual interest and that lust component alive and and burning and uh it turns out

00:10:31.580 to be trickier than we thought it would be sometimes people ask me like hey why can't i stay in

00:10:36.760 passionate love for forever why can't the pounding heart and the butterflies you know endure for for

00:10:43.220 decades and i have a really simple answer which is you would die like that's a that's not a sustainable

00:10:49.760 physiological state to be in a pounding heart that's another term for high blood pressure and those

00:10:57.400 butterflies in your stomach leave the trails of hormones that eventually would burn a hole in your

00:11:02.960 in your stomach so while it feels great and people should definitely enjoy the feeling of being in

00:11:08.940 passionate love i think rationally we all know it's it's going to fade at some point and it's not to say

00:11:14.560 that that means a relationship can't be great and grow in other ways or that passionate love won't

00:11:20.020 come back oftentimes during the course of a long-term relationship but when we have that as the sole

00:11:26.640 criteria or one of the few criteria for why we choose somebody you know that's not really a great place

00:11:32.840 to put emphasis because that's going to morph and change as the relationship goes on but the takeaway there

00:11:38.300 is if you want the relationship to last you have to make sure you've got that liking a lot of people they might

00:11:43.460 get into a relationship and it's primarily lust oh yeah right and then that dip that goes off that

00:11:49.100 goes off the the diving board year three year seven and if you don't like the person well that's when

00:11:55.060 breakups and divorces start happening yeah yeah the likings the the foundation and and you're totally

00:12:01.300 right you know what what can happen to the best of us is that lust is so powerful and so primal and

00:12:09.720 you can actually watch in brain imaging studies how it just kind of takes over the brain and so

00:12:15.360 people are not thinking very clearly they're overcome by lust and yeah sometimes they'll sacrifice

00:12:21.460 things like fairness or kindness or loyalty and carefully assessing that in a person

00:12:27.580 and now they get years into a relationship or years into a marriage and and now you're really in

00:12:32.980 trouble because those things that tend to be more constant and sustaining weren't there in the first

00:12:38.700 place uh and then if the lust starts to fade yeah now now you got a lot of problems and so the case

00:12:45.580 you're making in this book is helping people focus on the factors in liking that will uh help a

00:12:54.480 relationship you know last for for a long time and what you're saying is you're saying the lust you're

00:12:58.860 not saying the lust part isn't important that's an important part of romantic love but for long-term

00:13:04.220 um relationship stability and satisfaction you have to make sure in that early part of the relationship

00:13:09.240 you're focusing um you know more on that liking part because you know just naturally you've got

00:13:15.040 you're going to be lusting right that's just like the right that's going to be happening already you

00:13:19.360 don't have to worry about that but you have to kind of be a little more thoughtful intentional about

00:13:22.480 the liking part yeah it's kind of an overcorrection right so the the lust is super easy

00:13:28.060 because you don't have to put any effort into it uh if you find someone you know really physically

00:13:34.040 attractive or sexually attractive like that's just reflexive that'll happen for you and the

00:13:39.760 heart starts beating and the butterflies start flying and and you're good to go but the liking

00:13:45.640 yeah that um that takes more attention because we might overlook that in the first place and then

00:13:52.820 it takes more work to sustain that uh over time so that's why you want to give it give it more

00:13:57.480 attention and and you're right like you know i'm not saying that looks don't matter or attraction

00:14:03.140 doesn't matter it certainly does uh our romantic relationships one of the things that makes them

00:14:08.320 unique in place in cultures like the united states is for the most part unless you're polyamorous

00:14:15.140 there's only one person you can be in romantic love with if you're in a committed relationship and so

00:14:20.880 that means there's one person who's the object of your lust or your sexual desire so you want to have

00:14:26.520 that in in place um but i think what happens a lot of times is that people just overemphasize

00:14:34.420 and over prioritize the looks at the expense of things like liking and and other things that would

00:14:41.240 be more important for a long-term relationship yeah i can see this overemphasize on looks being even

00:14:46.420 more heightened with online dating because there you're deciding on who to swipe on based only on

00:14:51.600 the person's profile picture or maybe a little bit about what they do for a living uh in their

00:14:56.340 profile and that's it so you could be swiping away a ton of people who you could really like

00:15:01.760 and have a great relationship a long-term relationship if you got to know them in real life

00:15:06.180 but you're not going to have those relationship because you're they don't meet those superficial

00:15:10.400 things initially yeah it's so the you're totally right about that brett the app kind of sets you up

00:15:16.740 by interface to uh be your worst possible self in in some ways where you're making these decisions

00:15:25.060 based on the looks or based on the occupation and one of the the studies i cited in this updated

00:15:31.420 version of the book was a cool study with hinge and they asked this question i was waiting for somebody

00:15:39.100 to research which was how long do people spend looking at a profile before they swipe on it

00:15:44.980 and of course they found what you think they would find which is people only spend a couple seconds

00:15:50.860 looking at a profile before they swipe right or swipe left and they kind of then said well based on

00:15:58.620 the interface what would you be able to glean from the person's profile and this is it's exactly what

00:16:03.360 you said you could get physical attractiveness and you could get their occupation which is a proxy for

00:16:10.300 socioeconomic status and uh while it's understandable that you want to be attracted to somebody and you

00:16:16.260 want somebody who has a certain amount of education or a certain uh kind of career those aren't high

00:16:23.460 return on investment kinds of variables we can talk about that a little bit later but um those aren't

00:16:28.500 the two things you should be emphasizing the most well and that's the yeah a big thrust of the book the

00:16:33.540 argument you make is that we think we know what we want right like uh generally men prioritize

00:16:39.740 physical attractiveness women also prioritize it but it's not as much as men and then women generally 0.93

00:16:46.060 uh prioritize uh socioeconomic status right or even just the capacity to have a good living uh so

00:16:54.680 that's we think we want that we say we want that when people when you know psychologists like you ask

00:16:59.920 normal people like what do you look for in a mate uh but then you make the case that those things like

00:17:05.660 wealth and looks they might be good part of like the initial attraction but they're not like you said

00:17:11.940 a good long-term investment for the long-term satisfaction of the relationship can you talk a

00:17:16.220 little bit about that research you've done sure yeah yeah uh well you know it kind of starts with

00:17:21.880 a thought experiment and so one of the things i would do with my students at the university of

00:17:27.860 maryland uh is i would i would say write down what you want in your ideal romantic partner

00:17:34.100 and so some of your listeners if they want to they could do this right now it's actually kind of a fun

00:17:39.180 activity i give them about you know three or four minutes to do it and in those three or four minutes

00:17:44.680 they generate about 20 characteristics that they want in their ideal partner and then we'd have some

00:17:51.360 fun kind of reading people's lists if they've all volunteered them now what happens though is

00:17:57.820 for every characteristic or trait that you want in a partner you're gonna lose people who don't

00:18:03.300 meet that criteria so imagine for example there's we have a bachelorette and she has 100 eligible 0.99

00:18:12.040 bachelors and let's say one of her criteria is she wants someone tall and to her that means someone's 1.00

00:18:18.320 six foot or taller well what would happen with those 100 bachelors is that 80 would walk out of the room

00:18:27.460 because in the united states only about 20 percent of men are six foot or taller so you've really

00:18:33.500 dramatically reduced your pool and now let's say she wants someone who matches her political affiliation 1.00

00:18:39.700 well about 16 more guys of the remaining 20 will walk out of the room so i'm sorry about uh

00:18:48.940 14 will walk out of the room because only about 30 to 40 percent of people will match your political

00:18:54.380 affiliation and as you can imagine whatever other wish you make is going to leave you with only one

00:18:59.500 option or a fraction of a person which often happens and so then you gotta go back and say well was it

00:19:05.820 really important to me that the person was tall for example so if people are spending their wishes for

00:19:13.800 traits on looks and on money or socioeconomic status then they're losing a tremendous number of people

00:19:22.300 who are in their pool and so then you want to ask well what's your return on investment for getting

00:19:28.380 someone who's like a hot partner partner for example and they do have some nice studies that show

00:19:34.920 your return on investment for a physically attractive partner is about zero so you're no better off

00:19:42.580 getting someone super hot versus someone who's cute versus someone who's who's average looking

00:19:47.580 and even for women for heterosexual women choosing a guy who's hot is actually negatively associated

00:19:55.940 with their relationship stability so they're less likely to have a stable relationship and that's

00:20:02.900 because that guy is not just hot to them that guy's hot to a lot of people and which increases the

00:20:10.140 risk for a cheating and and instability the same thing with with money money is a little bit more

00:20:16.300 complicated and that you want someone who's a bit above the poverty line and then there's a

00:20:24.960 diminishing return on how wealthy the person is after that so once you get past let's say

00:20:30.620 forty thousand dollars there's really a diminishing return and when you get seventy five thousand dollars now

00:20:36.620 there's a it kind of goes flat at that point so there's really no difference between someone who has

00:20:43.040 let's say seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year in income versus seventy five thousand dollars

00:20:48.380 a year in income you might have some nicer things but you're not going to have a more satisfying

00:20:54.300 relationship necessarily we're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:20:57.980 and now back to the show all right so those things looks and money socioeconomic status

00:21:06.700 doesn't provide a lot of long-term return on investment in your relationship so what factors

00:21:13.640 do like when your research like if when someone's like looking at their budget of like traits they're

00:21:18.820 looking for in a potential partner what are the things they should i'm not going to say should

00:21:23.640 because everyone's got their different interests and tastes but like what are some things that you

00:21:27.860 recommend prioritizing based on your research yeah well uh you know that was that was part of the thing

00:21:34.720 that got me i guess before i before i started writing the book is there were these studies that

00:21:39.960 show well there are variables that do have a huge return on investment and i thought well that seems

00:21:47.640 like kind of common sense some of these factors um and so then i was like well so why aren't people

00:21:53.080 emphasizing these things more um we kind of looked at three different categories of things one was

00:21:59.460 personality a second category was uh attachment or relationship with caregivers and the third was

00:22:07.420 the things going on in a current relationship that would be red flags i think personality is probably

00:22:12.920 one of the easier ones to do you know personality is just kind of what are the traits that describe

00:22:19.980 how somebody usually is or or how they are and uh one framework you can use is the big five so

00:22:29.680 extroversion openness to experience which is kind of open-mindedness agreeableness which is how kind

00:22:37.600 how nice you are conscientiousness how much do you have your act together and neuroticism which is a lack

00:22:45.560 of emotional stability and kind of mooding moodiness and so there's been a lot of studies large studies

00:22:51.380 with thousands of people and they'll look at how do these five characteristics predict long-term

00:22:57.760 relationship satisfaction and and stability and what they find is that extroversion introversion

00:23:05.460 doesn't really matter that much and even matching somebody on extroversion introversion doesn't really

00:23:11.680 seem to matter same thing happens with conscientiousness conscientiousness isn't really a huge deal but

00:23:20.380 neuroticism for example is strongly predictive of how satisfied you'll be in a relationship or in a

00:23:27.240 marriage not just at the current moment but also like 10 or 20 years later it's really strongly

00:23:32.960 predictive of less satisfaction and less relationship stability one study i really

00:23:41.060 like looking at neuroticism and relationship stability found that if partners were mismatched

00:23:48.540 so one partner is not neurotic another partner is neurotic they asked who is the person who breaks up the

00:23:56.380 relationship and what they found was it's the neurotic person who's more likely to end the relationship

00:24:03.580 and i was thinking to myself well why did you do that because for the neurotic person this is exactly

00:24:11.520 what they need somebody who's emotionally stable who's consistent who's going to be patient

00:24:16.500 but it's kind of like they can't stand the success and so they were more likely to to terminate the

00:24:22.260 relationship you know the other two are agreeableness so how kind somebody is how nice they are

00:24:29.400 actually kind of gets a bad rap in our culture if someone says your partner was a nice guy or a

00:24:34.740 nice gal it's almost a little bit insulting that that was the the first way they described your

00:24:39.440 partner but of course kind people are generous they're more empathic they're more giving they're

00:24:46.160 less likely to keep track of things so they'll just kind of freely give to you emotionally and of time

00:24:54.180 and in deeds without necessarily keeping track of how much you're giving back they just trust that things will

00:25:01.380 work out over time and so that's good for satisfaction and stability agreeableness is also associated with

00:25:08.180 more sexual satisfaction and that's in part probably because the person is more attuned to your sexual needs

00:25:14.480 and so you get an unexpected benefit in that way from that trait one that i i like because it's a little

00:25:23.580 counterintuitive is novelty seeking and novelty seekers are the people who are exciting they always are

00:25:31.200 doing something new and and different and people high in novelty seeking are really fun to date so

00:25:38.280 they'll be spontaneous you'll do all kinds of exciting things together they get really absorbed in things

00:25:45.020 so they'll get really into you and they'll really really like you and it's a kind of a real exciting

00:25:51.740 kind of relationship to be in but people high in novelty seeking are also more likely to get bored quickly

00:25:59.160 uh they're more likely to engage in risks that are detrimental to the relationship like substance abuse or

00:26:05.900 cheating and so here's an example of a personality characteristic that is really attractive at the start

00:26:13.540 but if you're thinking in a long-term mindset you can kind of easily see how that come back it can

00:26:19.640 come back and get you gotcha all right so conscientiousness and um extroversion introversion

00:26:25.300 like not a big doesn't play a big role in relationship satisfaction uh neuroticism that can have a

00:26:30.880 detrimental impact you said like that's the one factor you'd be like try to avoid highly neurotic

00:26:36.740 people how do you how do you assess that like a personality out without you know handing them a

00:26:40.640 a personality test on like the second date like how do you figure out like is this person neurotic

00:26:45.620 like and is this going to be a problem how do you figure that out i had a woman one time

00:26:50.760 come across this folder i have it has all my personality assessments in it from graduate school so

00:26:56.420 that was a unique opportunity to see whether someone was neurotic or not but um you're right usually

00:27:02.140 that won't be available to folks and so you know usually we're pretty good at picking up on

00:27:07.660 personality pretty quickly actually but one situation where we're not good at it is when

00:27:15.180 we're in lust with somebody that kind of clouds our judgment and someone gets a halo effect as we would

00:27:21.440 say in social psychology and we can't see the negatives in them very clearly so one of the things

00:27:28.560 i recommend folks do is at some point if you're dating somebody there will be uh what my friend

00:27:37.380 sarah calls the initial public offering of that partner to the friend group where they get to meet

00:27:43.160 that new partner for the first time and at some point your partner will go to the restroom or uh

00:27:50.240 you know excuse themselves for a second to get a drink or something and then you want to ask your

00:27:56.020 friends like hey be honest with me uh what do you think of this person and your friends aren't

00:28:04.460 clouded by lust and so if you get for example three different friends to give you feedback about

00:28:12.420 this person's personality and you were to average those together in your head that actually gives you

00:28:18.560 a pretty accurate impression of what this person's personality is like gotcha and what do you do so one

00:28:25.140 thing about personality is that um it's pretty stable across the the lifespan of a person right it's

00:28:31.500 hard to change your personality what do you do if you're like you're the neurotic and yeah that's

00:28:36.860 that's getting in the way of you having a healthy long-term relationship anything any insights from your

00:28:41.840 research yeah you know that's been one of the things that has been a delightful surprise for me

00:28:49.580 since this book came out was uh when i go to speak about it or there's you know people there who have

00:28:59.140 read it i'm surprised at how often people will bravely raise their hand in front of other folks

00:29:05.140 this is back pre-pandemic days i guess and say hey so i'm kind of neurotic i'm the neurotic one

00:29:11.340 and what can i do about that well it's it's a continuous variable in other words it's a matter

00:29:19.160 of degree or there's gray areas so you know you if you're at the 99th percentile of neuroticism

00:29:26.000 or the top one percentile you're probably in some trouble anyways in a lot of different ways but usually

00:29:33.340 you know some of us might be like at the 70th percentile or the 80th percentile so you're a little

00:29:38.800 bit neurotic but you kind of have to assess where you are on the continuum i think that would be the

00:29:43.480 first thing the second thing is you know i'll tell folks who ask that question i would feel really

00:29:51.160 optimistic about you because you have the self-awareness and the security in yourself

00:29:57.480 to have insight into the fact that you're a bit neurotic and two you have the security to say hey i want

00:30:03.940 to do something about that and not rationalize it away so you know i think that's kind of the second

00:30:09.700 step is to have the insight and then to say okay this is the thing so what i want to do what do i want

00:30:15.580 to do about it and then people can take a lot of different routes i'm sure you've interviewed people

00:30:21.180 on your podcast who you know talk about mental health or talk about emotional stability or thriving

00:30:30.040 or happiness or mindfulness these are the kinds of concepts that help people develop new responses

00:30:38.500 to situations or new attitudes that can actually diminish their neuroticism over time so something

00:30:47.060 like neuroticism is stable over time because most people won't have the insight or have the will

00:30:55.780 to try to change it but if people have the insight and the will and the persistence you actually have

00:31:02.880 a good chance of of moving the dial on personality traits that aren't ideal gotcha all right so take

00:31:10.000 away from personality traits um avoid really neurotic like avoid un unselfaware neurotic people um find

00:31:18.340 people who are agreeable and kind make you feel better about yourself being around them and then

00:31:22.660 possibly avoid people high on the novelty or openness to new experiences because that could

00:31:28.080 lead to relationship problems down the line long term yeah right exactly and you know just to you know

00:31:34.880 tie that all up if people do that and they get someone who has that constellation of personality traits

00:31:42.500 they go from like you know a 40 43 chance of having a satisfying stable relationship to over 70 chance of

00:31:53.700 having a satisfying stable relationship so so just you know turning the dial on those three variables

00:32:00.120 dramatically impacts the likelihood of your future relationship gotcha all right so that other factor

00:32:07.360 that you've you look at in the book that contributes to long-term satisfaction is attachment style uh for

00:32:14.160 those who aren't familiar what is attachment is attachment style and how does that play out in our

00:32:17.760 relationships yeah yeah so attachments is just kind of the uh relationship and the feeling you have

00:32:24.280 towards your towards your caregivers and so we oftentimes look at that within the context of

00:32:30.340 babies uh or young kids and their parents and there's three different types so you have kids who are

00:32:38.660 securely attached and that means they have a good relationship with their parent they can trust

00:32:44.060 that their parent will care for them and look out for their best interests uh and because they

00:32:50.460 trust their parent and feel secure with their parent they're actually then liberated to

00:32:55.420 kind of explore the world and um and venture out because they know that their parent will be there for

00:33:02.620 them and about two-thirds of people are secure which is which is great now there's two insecure types

00:33:09.760 there's anxious types and avoidant types so anxious kids don't have a secure attachment with their

00:33:17.860 parents so they don't trust that their parent will be for them be there for them in a way that's

00:33:22.500 reliable and consistent and the reaction to that is if you watch uh little kids with a parent and the

00:33:31.960 kids anxiously attached they'll alternate between physically grabbing onto the parent latching onto the

00:33:39.360 parent and then pushing away from the parent or even hitting the parent and it's there's this push

00:33:45.860 pull clingy uh reject kind of mindset that the kid develops the other type is avoidant uh avoidantly

00:33:55.240 attached kids also don't trust uh that the parent can be relied on maybe the parent's been absent um or

00:34:03.540 unavailable and so what the little kid kind of resolves in their mind is well fine i don't need you

00:34:10.680 i'm gonna do my own thing and so they avoid intimacy or uh emotions or even physical proximity

00:34:19.700 with the parent if you watch a kid who's avoidantly attached they'll actually sit a ways away from their

00:34:26.380 parent and not make eye contact with them for long stretches of time now what we know about attachment

00:34:32.660 is that attachment tends to stay stable from childhood to adulthood remarkably stable and as your listeners

00:34:41.620 might be able to imagine already if they've dated someone who's anxious or avoidant as an adult

00:34:47.920 um that obviously doesn't play out very well in a romantic relationship uh you get the stage five

00:34:54.300 clinger with the anxiously attached type of partner um and that oscillates with uh pushing away or getting

00:35:03.600 angry with you the avoidant partner is somebody who is distant and you can never really form an emotional

00:35:12.120 connection with that person you're always wanting more from them and that doesn't make for a great

00:35:17.500 relationship either so you want to choose someone who's securely attached if you get the securely

00:35:23.660 attached adult as a romantic partner that's someone who is trusting in a relationships uh they're very

00:35:32.040 even uh about the turbulence natural turbulence you experience in a relationship and they can easily form

00:35:40.280 the kind of bond and the kind of intimacy that you need in something like a romantic relationship

00:35:45.740 and the good news i think for people is that two-thirds of people are securely attached so that's a

00:35:51.160 the odds are in your favor for getting someone with that uh attachment style what do you do if you

00:35:56.320 have anxious or detached attachment style yeah so there's a uh it takes a while but it's it's not

00:36:03.740 you know it's not hopeless that i guess that's why i tell folks you know uh there's a great book actually

00:36:11.560 that i really like called attached and it's a good overview of this research literature and

00:36:17.220 and some things people can do there's a type of therapy called emotion focus therapy that is based

00:36:24.260 on attachment frameworks and it's really effective for depression anxiety also couples therapy and it

00:36:33.140 helps people kind of reformulate like hey so this is the relationship you had with your with your

00:36:39.620 caregivers or with your parents growing up but that's not how everybody is going to relate to you

00:36:46.040 and so let's modify your framework or your viewpoint of how relationships work and in the context of

00:36:56.060 dating or couples you know there's some poor unsuspecting partner sometimes who is getting a 0.96

00:37:04.780 anxious framework or you're getting an avoidant framework from their insecure partner when you know

00:37:12.060 maybe they don't deserve to have their behaviors or their interactions treated that way so that can be

00:37:18.340 a really powerful way for folks to to shift their their viewpoints and it it takes some practice but

00:37:24.160 over time uh the studies show that people can shift into a secure attachment style but once again it doesn't

00:37:32.760 just happen naturally it requires insight and requires quite a bit of persistence and then on your

00:37:39.300 partner's part requires quite a bit of patience and loving all right so find someone with secure

00:37:44.900 attachment if you don't have secure attachment you can change it's gonna take some work so that third

00:37:49.460 thing you talked about is red flags in current relationships or past relationships what what does

00:37:54.360 that look like well uh yeah if it's kind of fortunate to be in a relationship because now you get real-time

00:38:01.780 data right about how the person might be so instead of extrapolating from personality traits or

00:38:08.540 extrapolating from attachment style um you get to see how is the person in a relationship there's a few

00:38:15.800 different ways you can you can look at it i broke it down into what's a action or behavior pattern that

00:38:23.280 would be a red flag uh what's a thought pattern that would be a red flag and then there's a third

00:38:29.440 category we can talk about um as as well but let's do the first two here so one of the hallmarks of

00:38:37.340 dysfunctional couples and couples that will be unhappy and unstable is what we call demand withdraw

00:38:43.980 pattern and that means that one partner is demanding in a very intense kind of way that's something from

00:38:52.280 the other partner the other partner withdraws um or kind of stonewalls the request from the from the

00:39:00.280 partner and you can kind of imagine how this plays out so you have someone raising their voice or

00:39:06.480 being really intense about demanding more things from the relationship the other partner is blowing

00:39:13.340 them off and it only gets worse and worse so the voice raises even higher maybe the person who's

00:39:20.040 withdrawing even storms out the door and just removes himself from the situation so if you have

00:39:26.480 someone who's a demander or if you have someone who's a withdrawer that's a red flag uh for the

00:39:33.260 interaction that you have when it comes to thought patterns the hallmark of a partner who's going to

00:39:43.020 provide for a unhappy and unstable relationship is somebody who blames you for everything so it's what

00:39:50.620 we call attributions so something goes wrong i could blame myself for it i could blame you for it i could

00:39:58.840 blame our interaction maybe there was just a misunderstanding or maybe we just have some

00:40:03.760 differences or we could say something external uh we didn't have enough time or someone else got in the

00:40:10.080 way of us trying to accomplish something but in unhappy relationships the large majority of

00:40:18.040 attributions are blaming the other partner and it obviously makes people more angry you know when

00:40:25.260 you blame somebody else you're lazy uh you're uncaring uh you're not good enough and when people

00:40:32.940 vocalize that it obviously goes really poorly on average because someone's making a generalization

00:40:39.920 or a stereotype based on just one instance of something so you know for red flags those are two

00:40:47.200 things i would watch out for watch out for demand withdraw patterns and then if someone has a

00:40:53.160 reflexive tendency to blame you for everything i'd probably get out of there get out of there pretty

00:40:59.280 quickly what was that third one that you mentioned oh the the third one is actually a heartening

00:41:05.560 positive kind of situation still this isn't so much a red flag is as a good thing to look for so

00:41:11.980 there's this new line of research just started about uh i don't know 15 years ago 12 15 years ago

00:41:18.160 and it's called capitalization and what happens when people capitalize is your partner when they come

00:41:27.100 home from the day when you see each other at the end of the day uh researchers have found that the

00:41:33.180 majority of the time over 80 of the time they'll share something positive that happened during the course

00:41:38.360 of their day just as you're sitting there talking at the dinner table or whatever else now that's

00:41:43.840 actually a great opportunity and you have a chance to capitalize on that by empathizing with them so

00:41:51.920 saying hey that's awesome that you finished the project today and got such great feedback from you

00:41:58.680 know from your manager not only do you verbally say that but your emotion level genuinely matches

00:42:04.860 their enthusiasm and when partners capitalize on the good news that their other partners brought home

00:42:13.640 that has a downstream effect so it really strengthens the relationship for that moment and for that day

00:42:22.440 but even three days or a week later you still see the positive effects of what was really

00:42:29.100 empathizing about a positive experience and if partners fail to capitalize on that so let's say

00:42:35.480 the partner shares some good news the other partner keeps flipping through the channels and doesn't even

00:42:41.040 make eye contact doesn't really say much that's a real missed opportunity and actually really hurts the

00:42:46.720 relationship so there can be a tendency sometimes i think among psychologists like me to focus on

00:42:53.360 things that need to be fixed or red flags but you know i just wanted to also emphasize that there's a lot of

00:42:59.620 great things that can happen in relationships and so people should keep their eye eye open for these positive

00:43:05.720 habits that partners have that they could really see being a beneficial thing in the long run all right so we

00:43:12.600 talked about three things to look for uh in a relation in a partner for a long-term relationship

00:43:19.360 satisfaction so personality uh attachment style and then like these red flags that we just talked

00:43:24.360 about so let's tie this together like so let's say there's someone who's listening to this podcast

00:43:30.360 there are they're in the dating world and they're trying to figure out who would be a potential you

00:43:36.280 know marriage partner how would you like recommend bringing in this stuff um while also bringing in

00:43:43.500 that lust while taking into account that lust part like how do you balance that stuff well uh i think

00:43:49.300 one of the just kind of pragmatic things that folks can do is do that exercise that i would do with

00:43:57.140 my students and so just sit there and write down what are the things that are important to me

00:44:01.040 in a romantic partner and you don't want to you know you don't want to kind of have social

00:44:07.600 desirability with yourself and only put the things you think you should put down i would tell people go

00:44:12.540 ahead and put the shallow things as well uh put all the stuff you want in there if they need to be a

00:44:17.680 philadelphia eagles fan well go ahead and put that on your list knock yourself out get that big long

00:44:24.000 list and then at the very least just spend some time now prioritizing it so from if you wrote down

00:44:31.180 20 things from 1 to 20 what would be the things that would be most important to least important to you

00:44:37.260 in in a relationship that's a great start that's a step most people will never do but you could

00:44:43.120 certainly see how that would be helpful i would then take the top 10 out of that list and i would

00:44:50.300 post it somewhere maybe not where future dates can see it but where you can see it and you'll

00:44:55.400 consistently see it just to remind yourself about about what's what's important um i think the other

00:45:02.060 thing folks can do then is if they're on apps or whatever environment they're in for uh meeting people

00:45:09.020 you know really kind of think about how do i want to handle the information that's presented to me

00:45:15.540 especially with apps as we talked about with just the picture and the job being the first things people

00:45:21.220 might look at and the only things people would look at i mean one small thing you could do is say

00:45:27.480 i'm going to read every single person's profile if i don't find them really unattractive let's say

00:45:35.020 uh and that would be one small step that would actually broaden the pool of people that you

00:45:39.840 consider and would actually broaden your thinking about how you're thinking about people you might

00:45:44.340 want to you might want to meet uh you know and then the third thing people could do is if they

00:45:49.560 want to get really specific about it then you know they could assess things like personality or assess

00:45:56.140 things like attachment style using some of the tools i have some tools on my website for example that

00:46:01.120 are free folks could could use and uh yeah and then go through and kind of think about all right

00:46:06.900 this is uh this kind of person i want in that process you can also look back on what were the

00:46:13.100 personality characteristics or attachment styles of the last three people i dated and kind of average

00:46:19.920 that out oftentimes what people find is i've been dating the same person with the same problematic

00:46:28.060 characteristics uh over the past you know a year to two years and that's a nice point of insight to

00:46:35.000 say okay so then how does that fit or not fit with these priorities i've laid out in my in my list of

00:46:42.500 the top 10 things that are actually important for me awesome so so i guess the takeaway uh think about

00:46:47.860 what you want but then you have to start thinking about prioritizing uh instead of just you can't have

00:46:51.860 everything basically so you gotta figure out what you really want in life yeah right i think sometimes

00:46:56.320 people say well well am i settling if i've you know take this approach and i don't think that's

00:47:03.040 what you're doing at all um it's in fact saying i'm just actually making sure i'm getting the things

00:47:09.400 that are most important to me and because we none of us get every single thing that we want in a

00:47:15.680 partner and that's all right that's just life right um but if you get the things that are actually

00:47:20.880 the most valuable to you that's great right and then you'll get other things then that are pleasant

00:47:28.260 surprises that you didn't even know you needed and i i love when i talk to couples that have been

00:47:35.220 married for five or six decades and they're just interested in the topic area of research on romantic

00:47:42.300 relationships and we'll get to talking and that's one of the great things that always comes up in

00:47:47.180 these conversations is is they'll say hey there were characteristics my wife or my husband had 0.87

00:47:52.620 that i never even knew i needed um but they manifested over the years in our relationship

00:48:00.480 or we grew into those things and so i think that's a an upside that people can look forward to as well

00:48:07.600 well ty this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book in your work

00:48:11.340 well uh the book's available where where books are sold and uh they can also go to my website

00:48:16.880 which is ty to shiro.com and uh there's a few tools like personality tools and partner selection

00:48:23.840 tools there they can tool around with if they if they want but uh i appreciate you having me on

00:48:29.820 brett it's been a fun conversation again my guest today was ty to shiro he's the author of the book

00:48:34.140 the science of happily ever after it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find

00:48:38.080 more information about his work at his website ty to shiro.com also check out our show notes at

00:48:42.260 awm.is slash love where you can find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:48:46.340 well that wraps up another edition of the awm podcast check out our website at

00:48:53.040 art of manliness.com where you can find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles written

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00:49:25.600 the continuous support until next time this is brett mckay reminding you not only to listen to

00:49:28.840 day one podcast but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - May 10, 2021

Did You Pick the Right Partner？

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