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Oct. 30, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:08:46
1193 How To Know When You Are In Love - Conference
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Time Text
So, Ned, why don't you start us off?
Okay. Well, Rachel and I are very much in love and we've been talking about getting married and we're very excited about the idea.
And I wanted to chat with you and with the community.
And get your experience because I respect your opinions a lot and I respect your marriage a lot.
And I feel like it's sort of a tradition that may be missing for me of the father sitting down with the son and giving that straight answer.
So your goal in this call is to really help me feel young, is that right?
Well, back in my day, we used to sit on a Calliope, and we would play spoons for the women.
Sorry, go on. How about older brother?
Okay, I like that.
Okay. Sorry, go on.
So, I guess what I'm interested in, in this discussion, Rachel, unfortunately, couldn't join us for this one, so if it goes well, maybe...
We'll have another with her.
But I'm more interested in this one in getting your experience, getting your thoughts on marriage in general, on how it changes the relationship, what the joys and benefits and struggles and that sort of thing.
Just sort of the pre-engagement, not getting into any wedding things or anything like that.
How does that sound? It sounds great.
I mean, that's a, not to use a sexist term, but that's a fairly broad topic.
So if you could just kind of help me narrow it down a bit, like the more specific things that you have questions about?
Sure. Well, I haven't bought the ring yet, but I've been researching, so that's where I am right now.
And we are talking openly about it.
It's not going to be a surprise or anything like that.
We're both very excited about it.
I was wondering what your conversations were like about marriage with Christina prior to engagement.
I guess that would be a good place to start.
Right, right. Sounds like really loud.
Oh, that's better. Okay, thanks.
Well, I mean, I very much remember the time when I realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this woman.
It's when I saw what a nice condo she'd bought.
No, I'm kidding. We were on a hike, and I just...
What I felt was a very fundamental ease with Christina that I just never felt.
I mean, I've been in lots of relationships before, and those relationships always had a kind of...
It felt like there was a kind of conditionality to them, like...
Hello?
Can anybody hear me?
Oh, yeah, I'm...
Are you there? Yeah, I'm here.
I'm sorry. I think something cut out there for a second.
Okay, sorry. I'll keep going.
I'll just check all my connections here.
But there was...
I was just saying that there was a kind of...
I felt in other relationships there was a kind of conditionality.
Like it would be like, Steph, I really like it when you do this, the woman would say.
And then she'd say, I don't like it when you do that.
And it all felt like I was kind of navigating a kind of narrow and treacherous path to keep someone's approval, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it sure does. And with Christina, she wasn't that way, right?
So, I mean, I had a long-time relationship with a woman, and she was like, you know, I really like...
Your creativity, your intelligence, and so on.
But I don't like it when you're in company because I feel like you try to dominate the conversation or because she felt that people didn't listen to her and so I'm pretty engaging and tell a good story.
So she would say, well, I don't like that.
So when we would go to a social gathering, I would be self-conscious because I'd be like, well, I don't want to upset this woman by being too exuberant or too charming or too engaging, whatever it was that she disliked.
So in all my prior relationships, I'd really felt that there was a sort of buffet, like a pick and choose.
I like this, I don't like that.
I like this, I don't like that. And I found that fundamentally quite stressful.
And all of my relationships prior to getting married foundered.
on that basic problem of the pick and choose approach to relationships, you know, like I like this, I don't like that, if that makes sense.
Nick?
Yeah, I'm here.
Okay, sorry. Got a little robot-y there.
No, that makes a whole lot of sense.
That was sort of at that point when you realized that...
I guess the question then would be...
I understand that feeling very well and the desire to spend the rest of your life with that person.
I guess marriage for you was then the next step that you wanted to...
What did you see in marriage that would improve the relationship, I guess, is the question.
Well, I'll just go one step, which hopefully will answer that, which is that I felt with Christina, accepted for who I was, right?
And she is like, and of course you all can hear this in the Sunday show, right?
She is astoundingly not offended, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it does. And I mean, my jokes can be ribald and I could be considered inappropriate at times.
But the one thing that I never felt with Christina was that the sudden freeze that comes when you've gone too far or you've stepped, you know, that little click.
You step on a landmine and you're like, oh shit, right?
Right, right. I never felt that.
And it was really quite shocking for me to not feel that.
To not feel that there was these invisible landmines that I kind of had to map out.
And the problem with that, of course, is that those invisible landmines are always changing.
Because when I was younger, I sort of thought, okay, well, once I figure out what bothers the person, I'll stop doing that.
And then I won't, that won't be an issue, right?
But that never actually happened.
What happened was it would just keep changing, right?
So this, the girl that I had the long relationship with in my, I guess, 20s, I started off as a broke-ass art student and I ended up as a fairly successful entrepreneur.
And I remember this is sort of when it ended for me.
I was like, okay, so at the beginning I was a broke-ass college student and at the end I'm a successful entrepreneur and you still have as many criticisms of me as when we started, right?
And that's when it ended for me.
Because I kind of realized...
Well, and she had started as a broke...
Well, not a broke-ass college student.
Her family was pretty wealthy. But she ended up just doing clerical work and trying to sort of be a movie maker or whatever.
And so whereas my life had sort of progressed, had taken on new challenges, hers had pretty much stagnated.
And she still had the same number of criticisms.
So I got that it was just about the criticisms.
Like it wasn't... Because everyone says that they criticize you for X, Y, and Z. But then when you solve X, Y, and Z, you'll find that A, B, and C are now a problem.
And so when I sort of figured that one out...
So when I started dating Christina, I just never felt that I ran up against those prickly defenses, if that makes sense.
And that to me was...
Because once I felt accepted for who I was and respected for who I was, understood for who I was, appreciated for who I was...
And that I wasn't dancing around somebody's offense or upset or defenses or whatever.
And those people, you can never talk to them about their defenses because they project so much that you can't, right?
So for me, we were on this hike and we were just talking about...
I don't even remember what we were talking about.
We were climbing this hill in the Canadian woods and I was just looking up at her climbing and I was just like, this is a great place to lay my head for the rest of my life.
It's not going to get better than this.
She's attractive, she's intelligent, and she's calm, and she's relaxed, and she's open, and she's curious, and she's introspective.
It's not going to conceivably get better than this, if that makes sense.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
And that for me is when I felt a huge relaxation.
Because it's a huge question.
In your life, right? Which is, who am I going to spend it with, right?
Yeah, it sure is. For me, in past relationships, there has always been this sort of, maybe the grass is greener somewhere else.
It's always like, just a little bit of hesitation.
That is definitely not present in my relationship with Rachel, which I think is why these discussions have started and why they're so appealing to us.
Right. And we certainly did talk about marriage.
We talked about our values.
We talked about finances.
We talked about children.
We talked about careers.
We talked about work and family balance.
We talked about in-laws.
We talked about family relations.
We talked—I met all her friends.
She met all my friends. We—you know, so you— You can't talk enough about the future decisions that you're going to make before you get married.
Now, it doesn't mean it's not going to change.
Of course it might change, right?
But it's important to understand.
I mean, it was important for me to understand because she said on our very second date, she said, I don't, you know, I'm not interested in a fling.
I'm not looking for a player.
You know, I'm looking for a relationship that's going to lead to something permanent, right?
And she was open about that. And so we very early on talked about whether we wanted kids.
And what did we consider the good life?
And what did we really think was a good life?
And for both of us, it was, you know, having stimulating careers.
We're neither particularly money hungry.
And we're willing to make sacrifices.
I mean, we'd both like to travel more, but you can't be entrepreneurs, be having babies and, you know, traveling and all.
I mean, you can't do it all at the same time.
But, and we said, you know, that if we have kids, or when we have kids, that, you know, one of us will stay home, and I didn't particularly care who.
I thought it would be Christina, because her job was more flexible, and I at the time was sort of in a pretty formal kind of position.
But, as it turns out, it probably is going to be me, which will be great as well.
So, I think all of that stuff is You can't talk about your future life too much.
And it's not for the sake of setting things in stone or figuring out exactly how things are going to be.
And of course, you don't have to agree on everything either.
But it really helps you to figure out...
Because it's been my experience that when you have the same basic values, you actually end up with the same tertiary values, right?
So if you have the same basic values...
Then, I mean, we go through a furniture shop, like when we were looking to furnish our house or looking to furnish our office, and we'd stop at the same stuff and say, that's it, right?
And that kind of stuff, we like the same movies, we have similar tastes in music and so on.
Although she's a little bit more white bread, I'm a bit more eclectic, but she certainly likes the music that I've introduced her to, as is the opposite case.
When you have those basic values...
You tend to end up with very similar values in the tertiary areas and what can be confusing is if you can end up with similar values in some tertiary areas if you don't have the core values that you share then that can be confusing.
So that aspect of talking about how you want your life to look with your girlfriend or your fiance or whatever To me, it was a very, very essential part of figuring things out.
And of course, we were pretty quick.
Sorry, go ahead.
I'm sorry, Steph, you're breaking up a little bit.
I think that's an excellent point, and I think it's important to know that these big future discussions not only aren't foreboding, but at least for us, they're very exciting to make plans like that and to talk openly about our goals, about where we see ourselves and see ourselves together.
And I certainly understand what you're saying about that compatibility, even on superficial level.
It really is quite astounding how the ripples of those core values really, how far they stretch out as far as compatibility goes.
Right, right. No, that's very true.
That's very true. And, I mean, we figured it out within about three months, and then we were married six months later or so.
And, you know, we knew we wanted to get married quickly, you know, once it's right, you know, why would you want to wait?
I mean, I'm always a little suspicious of the couples who lurk around in engagement land forever.
So... No, that's a good point.
There are a lot...
For us, there's a lot of...
I don't know, pressures, but just sort of advice and things that even strangers will just tell us about, you know, oh, you're too young, oh, you need more time to get to know each other, all that sort of stuff.
Yeah, I don't believe in that.
I mean, if it's right, it's right.
And as long as you're having the honest discussions about values and there's compatibility, I don't think that youth is a particular factor, and I don't think that you have to know someone a certain amount of time I mean, as you know, I think we know people very quickly, right? So I don't think there's a huge difference between two years and three years or one year and 18 months.
You know, to me, that's a law of diminishing returns in terms of the number of truly shocking surprises that will come up.
Yeah, certainly. It certainly seems to be the case.
Now, sorry, where do you guys stand in terms of career, work, family, money, kids, all that kind of stuff?
Is that stuff you still are going to talk about?
Have you talked about that stuff yet?
We've talked about it a decent amount.
As you probably know, I separated with my family in September, which Rachel was a Wonderfully supportive and has been great about it.
She is going through preparing for the conversation most recently.
Career, we've had very frank discussions about what our goals are as far as career and money.
It's been really great.
There is that sort of When you were talking about in your past relationships, the kind of hesitancy to bring it up.
Is there going to be a huge defense here?
What am I sticking my hand into?
Every time that that's happened for me, as far as bringing up a topic, it's always just been...
An amazing response from her.
It's not only, yeah, let's talk about that, but yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up and here's my thoughts and, you know, what do you think?
So I think we have a methodology in place, at least, to discuss these, you know, even topics that we don't know about, Yeah, you know, you can't think of everything ahead of time.
So I think maybe more importantly is knowing that we have the honesty and the introspection and the methodology, you know, to go there.
Right. And I think that the non-volatility is so important in a relationship.
It doesn't mean you never get upset or anything like that, but there has to be, at least in my experience, there just has to be fundamentally a commitment to non-volatility, right?
To non-offense.
I mean, the offense card is so easy to play in a relationship.
Someone says something, it's like, oh, I'm offended or whatever.
That simply can't work in relationships.
It simply cannot work.
It doesn't mean... I don't know.
I mean, I don't think Christina's ever said anything that offends me.
I don't think I've ever said anything that really offends her.
But that question of offense is so important and it's so common in relationships that people just get, you know, they get offended or they're upset or they fundamentally disagree with the way that someone lives, their partner lives or whatever.
And I think that that to me was the big differentiation was the fact that Christina was not...
Someone who took offense.
And again, it doesn't mean she doesn't have value.
She's a very strong person.
But she doesn't, at least with me, she does with other people perhaps.
In fact, I know that she does. But with me, she never took offense.
She never played the offense card.
And she never played the you're wrong because I feel bad card.
And that to me is so important.
Because there are times in relationships where...
Your actions will cause the other person to feel upset, and that can happen inadvertently, but in our case, more commonly, it would happen advertently or consciously, where I would say, you know, like when we would go over to her parents' place and she would completely space out, I would say, okay, so this is an odd situation where I'm upset.
Hanging around with these old Greek people I barely know while my wife stares into space.
And that caused her upset, but she never pulled the I'm offended card.
And I just say that is very, very fundamental to a relationship.
I completely agree.
One of the, I guess, corollaries to that that has really helped us recently is the concept of whispering.
You know, if you're in such a Not literally whispering, but if you're in such an intimate relationship with someone, you don't need to give any sort of...
The idea of being that manipulative is just so outrageous when you're that close with somebody.
It's such overkill.
Right, right. And offended people will always try to get you to do, you know, is it A or is it B? Is it X? Is it white or is it black?
And of course, these things in relationships are all very complex.
And I used to say to this woman I was going out with before, you know, you bruise these delicacies.
You just come charging in and say, well, it's got to be this or it's got to be that.
And it's like, it's complex, right?
And holding the ambivalence and the complexity and so on, and treating each other with Supreme tenderness.
When you give your heart to someone, you open yourself up completely.
If they are like a bull in the china shop of your soul, then they're just dangerous people.
It's impossible to keep yourself open when you feel nervous, when you feel that the person may be careless with your heart.
That, I think, is something that I always felt that...
She has such a strong capacity for love and attachment, certainly outstripped mine, my cynical, scarred, beaten-up Dayton heart at the beginning, and that bond, right?
If you feel that bond and you feel that your heart is going to be taken care of and protected by this person, and they're going to watch your back, right?
Christina would say to me, You know, after I would see my brother, you know, you seem to be upset.
You seem to be like, tell me what's happening, right?
So she, when I was unconscious of things that were harmful, she would watch my back and help bring it out.
Not with an agenda, but just to sort of understand, right?
And if she had a scary dream about her mom, we would talk about it.
Or if I noticed that she was not emotionally present, we would try and figure out the cause.
And so it's helping the other person to see themselves, because we can't see that easily from inside, right?
This mirrored maze of the self, but it's much easier to see from outside.
And people can use that vulnerability for good or for evil.
Because we can't see ourselves, we end up, in a sense, when we're in a relationship, we gain a fair amount, if not sometimes the majority, of our self-image from how the other person sees us.
With a girlfriend, this girlfriend who thought I was anxiously dominating conversations because of my insecurities and my desire for attention and blah, blah, blah, blah.
So then, when I was in company, I would feel that way.
I would feel like I want to say something, but ooh, I don't know, am I just wanting attention or whatever, right?
Whereas Christina takes delight in my conversational abilities and has always enjoyed my storytelling.
She's not as naturally outgoing.
So when you're in a relationship, you give, whether you want to or not, you give large chunks of your self-esteem to the other person because they can see what you can't about yourself.
And so you will end up seeing yourself the way they see you.
It's sort of unavoidable, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, it does. I think I've visualized it as sort of a mirroring where how you experience the other person is actually a lot to do with how you are expressing yourself, which I think is related.
Right. If that makes sense?
It does, but I think that ends up with two mirrors facing each other, and so it kind of bounces back and forth, that image for me.
Right, right. Yeah, no, that makes sense.
I think certainly we can be intolerant of things in others which we are intolerant of ourselves, but of course if you have the commitment to toleration, then that doesn't drive your behavior.
You just notice it and talk about it, right?
Because it's all about the commitment in a relationship, right?
The commitment to curiosity, right?
The commitment to honesty, the commitment to vulnerability.
And... Sorry, go ahead.
I mean, it's a matter of, you know, even if you may be exhausted, you know, any emotional issue that comes up, you're willing to, you know, stay up and, you know, be totally committed to your relationship.
Right. And this, to me, comes down to the rule book.
And again, this is nothing formal, but it's really important to have things which you can appeal to, right?
So one of the foundations of what I'm trying to do in terms of philosophy is to create a rulebook called UPB, which we can refer to when it comes to conflicts, and also psychological understanding, self-knowledge, and so on.
So the rulebook is something that you refer to in conflict, right?
And the rulebook is, you know...
Curiosity is very important, and that's something we talked about even before, or I guess I talked about because it was one of my core values, but before we got married.
And so what happens is, if you get into a conflict, and if I'm not being curious, Christina can say, I don't think that you're being curious.
And because we have a rulebook which says curiosity is a value, I then have to alter my behavior based upon the standards that we have, if that makes sense.
That does make sense and I'm sure there's obvious ones in there like no yelling, you know, things like that.
Are there any sort of less obvious, more subtle ones that maybe you would recommend maybe that came out of experience or were hard won?
Yeah, one of the more subtle ones is your partner is always right.
That's brilliant. When it comes to When it comes to seeing the things in you or about you that you can't see yourself, your partner is always right.
At least that's where you start from.
It may be the case once in a blue moon that they're not.
I can't think of any, but it's possible, right?
But if you start with the premise that your partner is always right, so if I say to Christina, you seem distant from yourself or from me or whatever, right?
The natural impulse for most people is to say, no, I'm not, right?
Right. And where do you go from there?
Okay. There's nothing you can say from there, really, right?
Unless you want to start building evidence and making the case.
I mean, that's exhausting, right?
Yeah, definitely. So, with our marriage, if I say to Christina, you seem to be distant from yourself, she will say...
Okay, I'm going to assume that's true.
She doesn't say it formally, right?
But we assume that that's true and we explore it.
We don't start off even with plausible deniability, right?
Right. So if she says to me, Steph, you feel sad to me.
It seems like you're sad.
Even if I don't feel sad, I will go, I'm sure that I'm sad.
Let's talk about it. And that saves us a huge amount of time and conflict.
Yeah, that's brilliant. I love that one.
It actually came out of improv, right?
In improv, you have to always say yes, right?
If you're in an improv and someone says, there's a bus heading to us at a thousand miles an hour, then you have to dive to one side.
You can't say, no, there isn't, because the whole improv dies, right?
Right. So, if we can manage it with an improv partner, I'm sure that we can...
Manage with our true love of our life, right?
Right, right, yeah. So the eternal yes to what your partner is saying is so essential.
And it doesn't mean that you substitute their judgment for your own or anything like that.
But that's where you start.
And you may not end up in that exact place, but I always start with, you're right.
And I always offer that to Christina.
She always accepts that for me.
That saves so much time.
That it's like you get to be married for 200 years or something, right?
Because so many people get stuck in that, right?
You feel this. No, no, I don't, right?
And then you got nowhere, right?
And the resentment builds and blah, blah, blah.
So I would say that is a more subtle one for sure.
Yeah. No, that's excellent.
And, of course, I'd be very happy to hear about any others that you can think of.
I don't want to put you on the spot, though.
No, no, that's fine. Look, I mean...
I don't mind being on the spot.
That's right. I live on the spot.
I am the spot. Well, I mean, an often overlooked one is rank and obsequious appreciation.
I don't know.
How do you guys separate things like chores and finances and stuff like that, cooking, and how does that work?
Yeah. Chores and cooking and that sort of thing usually goes by who Who's got less going on at the time?
It's usually shared equally, honestly, and nothing formal has to be done in order to get there.
There's no list on the wall or anything like that.
Finances, I tend to handle just because I enjoy it and have a brain for it.
That's how that goes.
I was listening to one of your conversations recently and a point that struck me was the situation got brought up that's all too common in Relationships of one person nagging the other as far as cleanliness and,
you know, the house is a mess, something like that would be done, which is so absent for us that it was kind of cool to hear that.
You know, we're so compatible with our comfort, I guess, of cleanliness that when something needs to happen, it just happens, I guess.
Does that answer your question?
Yes, it does. Now, have you made decisions about children?
We haven't made decisions...
I mean, about the goal, not, you know, tomorrow, but, you know, the general idea.
Right. I mean, we're not looking...
We're not interested in having...
Neither of us is interested in having kids at least for 10 years or so.
How old is she? I'm 24 and she's 23.
Okay. So it's something that we've discussed, but it seems kind of far off at this point.
Sorry, no criticism about your decisions.
I'm just curious. Why ten years?
Why so long? You know, five to ten.
And sorry, the reason that I'm saying, I know that I'm leading with too long, why so long?
It's sort of like saying, well, I want to go back to school in 10 years.
And I'm just curious why, and again, I'm not saying tomorrow, I'm just curious, why the 5 to 10 years?
What is it that you want to do before and so on?
Before, we want to totally self-actualize.
We're both in therapy, we're both, you know...
We're still new to our...
Are you still there, Steph?
I am. Sorry, I heard somebody drop.
We're new to our relationship.
We want to be the best we can be, and we want to be the best parents that we can be.
It's definitely a fear of ours that we're going to...
Mess up our kids, as rational or unrational as that is.
Oh no, it's a rational fear.
I mean, we all have it.
We all have it, right?
So at this point, I guess it's not on the radar, I guess, if that makes sense.
It's just sort of, there's so much that we want to do and experience together before we bring somebody else into it.
Right. Now, another thing—and I'll go back to the original question, but I just wanted to mention something else while it's on my mind, which is that life is never a straight line, right?
God knows that would be boring as hell, right?
Right, right. And so one of you—and I found this important to talk about with Christina, right?
Because, I mean— Lord, lover, Christina's got a challenging spouse, right?
It's like, I'm a writer!
No, I'm an executive entrepreneur, a software guy!
No, I'm an internet philosophy guy!
No, I'm, right, I mean, I don't know what am I gonna be next, like a mime?
I don't know, right? So, you know, I said, well, yes, one of the things I said to her before we got married was I said, look, there's three things that I want in my life, and I can't have all three.
So I want an artistic life, a novelist.
I want a family and I want a career.
Because at that point, having spent 20 years not selling any writing, knowing that it was still always going to be a part of my life, but that it wasn't going to be an income.
So I said, okay, well I can work and I can write.
I can have a family and And I can work.
Or I can have a family. But you can't have all three.
And I said, I don't know what constellation that's going to take in the future.
Obviously, if we get married, the family will always be front and center.
But I don't know how these other things are going to fit as yet.
And the reason that I'm saying that is that it's good to have plans, but it's also good to talk about how you might approach it if the plans change, as they inevitably will.
So, one day...
And it might be three years from now, or two years.
Might be tomorrow. Rachel might wake up and say, you know what?
I saw kids in the mall yesterday, and gotta have them, right?
Right. Right, so talking about what happens...
That's probably more something that I would do, honestly.
It could be, for sure, for sure.
Or it could be, I'm packing all the pounds, I need you to get pregnant to make me look thinner.
I mean, lots of that's horrible, right?
Right. But it's important to have a way of negotiating.
So what I said to Christina was, I said, I don't know what shape it's going to take, but I will commit to you this, that I will never put our family's financial security in significant jeopardy to pursue my dreams.
I can't guarantee that I'm going to work as a software executive for the rest of my life, but I do guarantee you that I will not threaten our family's financial security And put an undue burden on you to write books that won't get published because that would be unfair, right? So there's ways of negotiating how you're going to negotiate in the future, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I think I understand.
It's... I mean, does it have to do with the...
I mean, would that be like sort of a rule in the rulebook?
It would be like, you know, we're making this decision, but, you know, we have this premise of, you know, financial security that we have to work from.
Something like that? Yes, for sure.
And once Christina knows, once Christina knew that I was responsible for and committed to financial security, Then she could trust me and actually encourage me later when I said, I think I can make the leap to FDR. Right.
Because she knew that I was really committed, so she could trust that I wasn't just saying, okay, you pay for the bills, I'm going to yell at cameras, right, for a living.
Right. And so I would say it's important to say, yeah, five to ten years to self-actualize and pursue your career goals and travel or whatever.
But, Rachel, if you wake up tomorrow and you want kids, it's on the table.
We will do it. Yes.
So it's about commitment to each other and commitment to each other's happiness, not to specific plans, if that makes sense?
Yeah. No, I like that a lot.
It's sort of been a...
No, it definitely has been a...
Premise that we've worked on that we're going to pursue our relationship in the direction that makes sense for us.
So, I mean, that sounds so dumb when you say it like that, but it's like saying, you know, it's like, yeah, we're talking about engagement because that feels right for us, you know, whether somebody else has an opinion on whether it's good for us or not, this is what What feels right for us, right?
So, you know, moving in together, that was a decision like that.
I think it's a commitment to our happiness and our relationship over everything else.
Right, right, right.
No, and I think that's essential, right?
Because if you commit to your partner's happiness, your partner, if she's the right woman, will commit to your happiness.
So with Christina, when she was unhappy at the hospital, you know, I just began to say to her, look, I don't like the fact that you're unhappy at the hospital.
I don't like the way your boss is treating you.
I don't like the way the doctors are treating you.
So we're going to make a plan to get you out.
Because you can't, you know, you can't change a socialist health care system.
You can't, right? It's going to be abusive by its very nature.
So we worked very hard to get her out, to get her set up as an entrepreneur, starting her own clinic and so on, right?
And that was never really part of the plan.
Right. Yeah, I mean, there's absolutely no way you can.
I mean, that's sort of, I guess, why the decision seems so monumental, is that there's no planning, really.
It's got to be a methodology.
It has to be fundamental core values and commitments that drive the decision, because there's no way that you can Anticipate, you know, half or more of the big life events that are going to happen.
Yeah, I remember we also talked and said, okay, like 15% of couples have fertility issues, right?
So I said, okay, well, what happens if we can't have kids?
You know, what does our life look like, right?
And so we had that conversation.
And our life was then going to be composed of less work and more travel, right?
Because we love traveling together, right?
There's lots of different paths and options that you can look at.
Now, let's get back to this...
Sorry, does that sort of make sense to you?
Yeah, it really does. Thanks.
Now, this question of appreciation...
So, let's just talk about that you handle the finances, right?
Yep. Now, how many hours a week does that take?
Um... I have a lot of it automated so like I'm starting a new job Monday and it's gonna take me some time to reorganize things because it's a different pay schedule but you know for the most part month to month it doesn't take hardly any time because you know I got the automatic bill pay I've got just stuff set up like that to make it easier on myself right but there are financial decisions there are what the 401k I think they're called as taxes so there's lots of stuff that floats around that comes and goes right Yeah,
that's right. That's an area that we've discussed, but we haven't had much experience working at that together.
Rachel hasn't until recently.
She was in school for the beginning part of our relationship and looking for work and things like that.
So it's something that's a little uncharted, if that makes sense?
Oh, totally. And one of the great benefits that sounds cold to talk about, but one of the great benefits in a marriage is the division of labor.
And we have found over the course of our marriage That that has not narrowed but widened.
In other words, we have become more specialized at the different things that we're good at in the marriage because it just makes fundamental sense.
So, for instance, Christina does the cooking.
It's not that I don't cook, but it's rare.
I'll cook maybe a meal or two a week.
And the reason for that is...
That she has all these vegetarian recipes, so rather than teach them all to me and have me mess them up for six months, she does them.
And because she does the cooking, it makes sense for her to be in charge of the groceries.
And that doesn't mean that she doesn't give me a list and I go do the groceries.
But because she's cooking, it makes sense because she knows what's in the fridge, she knows what's in the freezer, she knows what's in the cupboards, right?
So she knows because she's cooking...
When things are running low and when they need to be replenished and what we're going to eat next week and so on, if that makes sense.
And the same thing is true of laundry.
And again, I will do my laundry sometimes, but for the most part, she keeps that cycle going.
I'm trying to think what I do. Anyway, we'll come back to that.
And that's also because she's got like freaky girly things that require bizarre prayers to Aztec gods and chicken entrails and things that go in bags and things that don't go in bags and things you have to put on different settings.
I mean it's all rocket science to me and I don't really understand much of it at all.
I can do the whites or I can slowly blend everything into one color but that's really about it.
So her sort of shuttling that stuff sort of makes sense.
She's also very good at the finances.
She grew up, and she runs the finances, so again, I sound like a completely pampered cat here.
We'll get to my stuff in a bit, but she grew up in a very organized household.
I grew up in a highly disorganized household.
So for her to run the household, because it's like, I mean, I never learned how to cook.
My mother was a terrible cook, and I never learned how to cook.
I mean, it doesn't mean I can't cook, but in terms of The planning, the execution, the nutrition, and the balance, and all that.
It's just something I didn't learn.
Whereas she learned all of that stuff for years at her mother's apron, if that makes sense.
So household management, laundry, and so on, all of that is stuff that she just knows.
So the cooking, the groceries, the laundry.
She's got all of that skill set built in, right?
So it just makes sense for her to do it, because it would take me quite a while to get up to speed, so it just makes sense for her to do it.
Sure, and those are more like the skilled tasks, right?
It's not like, you know, general cleaning and things like that.
Right, right. So when it comes, like, so I do the stuff that's retarded, right?
Because that's where my skill set is, right?
I mean, I do the stuff that takes like three brain cells if you're lucky, right?
So I'll do the vacuum.
I'll clean the bathrooms. I will mop the floors.
I will mow the lawn.
We have this huge lawn that's ridiculous, right?
So I'll do all the stuff that's completely retarded and she does all the stuff that involves skill because it just makes sense, right?
I mean, otherwise, it would be like if she has to do therapy, it's like if she has to speak Greek to someone, it would be like me learning Greek and not her using the Greek she's already learned, right?
No, yeah, yeah. And I am more emotionally sensitive to the fluctuations in intimacy within our relationship, so I tend to keep us on an even keel emotionally.
I know that that sounds shocking, perhaps even incomprehensible, but that is in fact how it works, that I run the emotions, she runs the household.
And that, because I have developed those emotional skills, I mean she has, as a therapist of course, much, much better than I am, but a A marriage is not a therapeutic situation.
So, I mean, I've done all the stuff on RTR, which I was thinking about long before I met her, and I've gone through a lot of therapy, and so I'm just more in tune with that kind of stuff than she is.
Plus, it's her job, so she doesn't want to necessarily come home and do the same thing, right?
So, as far as the division of labor goes, the skill sets that we've built up Things tend to fall in one camp or the other.
And that division of labor is essential and it grows when you get married and it grows even more when you have children.
At least that's what I believe or what I'm expecting, if that makes sense.
No, that makes total sense.
I guess to...
If somebody asked me to write down the list of You know, on a piece of paper, sort of diagram this division of labor, emotional health of the relationship wouldn't be...
It wouldn't have come to my mind.
I mean, that might just be...
Short-sightedness on my part, but how did you develop this sort of...
I know it's skills that you both innately are drawn to or have from childhood or have developed, but is it sort of that was a personal...
what your relationship needed, so you both just sort of gravitated towards them?
I guess the question I'm not asking is...
What list are you working off of as far as, you know, where does...
I see where laundry and cooking and cleaning and then emotional health is just sort of a bit surprising.
Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it does.
And it was surprising to me as well.
But I just...
I would notice these things which she would not notice, right?
And so...
So because I would notice that we were not as close as we were, say, that morning or the day before, then she wouldn't notice it, but I would, right?
And that's just because we're different people, right?
And so we did a lot of trial and error, right?
So we did this thing where I would point this stuff out, and you don't like to point it out, because it almost always is completely minor stuff that bothers you, right?
So if I feel irritated at something that she's done...
I don't like to bring it up because, you know, it's always a little thing that's completely...
But it always ends up being something that's important, if that makes sense.
So, Steph, if I'm hearing you correctly, Christina does all the skilled work around the house and you complain?
Is that right? I think it's more wine.
I think complain is too assertive for me.
It's more wine. But I'm sure there are elements of complaining in there, for sure.
And so I would say, hey, that seemed a little off, what just happened.
You know, where are you?
And so I would notice things and they would turn out to be important and they would turn out to be relevant.
And if I didn't, if I decided not to say them, then, you know, things would get less pleasant or one of us would have a dream that was really bad, right?
So I learned to speak up even when it felt ridiculous, right?
Right, that makes sense.
And it's to the point where she's cooked me a lovely meal, and then she says something mildly snappy, and you feel like a total jerk bringing it up, because it's this beautiful meal and whatever, right?
But it always turned out to be important.
Right. Now, we did try having her do this.
Right? Because I said, you know, I feel like I've constantly got to watch the relationship and I don't want to do that.
And, you know, I always feel like the onus is on me to bring stuff up.
So we tried having her do that.
And it probably, it had about the same level of success as if I had to do the laundry.
Right, right.
So then, I mean, that's important, though, because then you both got to see why you do that, and you're both happy that now you're in charge of that, right?
Right, and I said, look, once I realized that she just did not have the skill set to do this.
Right. And, of course, I'm sure she could have developed it, but the problem is, if our relationship is deteriorating while she's learning these skills...
Kind of a dicey game, right?
It's like, you can track this bridge up before we fall into the canyon, right?
You'll learn that engineering, right?
So that turned out to be two high stakes a game for us, if that makes sense.
So we just went back to me doing it, and I said, look, I'll do it.
I will take it on, but I need something from you, right?
So I will take on the emotional health of the relationship, but I need to always be in the right about it.
In other words, don't fight me.
If I'm going to do this, then you have to accept that my instinct...
And I wasn't saying this without credibility, right, because I had been right for six or months or a year since we got married.
So I said, let's just assume, we'll assume that I'm right, and I will take on watching the intimacy and making sure that the communication channels stay clear, if that makes sense.
Yes. Yes.
So that was... I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, please. Well, and so, this is the thing that is so important in relationships.
Again, this is all just crappy opinion, but I hope it's helpful.
And that is, it becomes very easy to start to take the division of labor for granted.
And that is where resentment will occur, right?
I mean, we all know this, like, electricity comes to our house, and we totally take it for granted, right?
And then when there's a power outage, we are outraged, right?
But we don't phone up the power company and say, you know what?
Great power today. I really appreciate it.
And this is where that rank admiration comes in from earlier, right?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I must at least two or three times a week say to Christina, thank you so much for these magic draws.
Where everything gets cleaned and pressed and nicely folded and put back in.
Because I know. I know she's got to herd all that stuff downstairs.
She's got to laundry it. She's got to fold it.
She's got to herd it all back upstairs.
Got to put it away. That's all time consuming.
And I am so grateful to not have to do that.
That I at least...
I certainly know I've done it twice this week already.
Thank you for making the bet, right?
Because she's one of these people who doesn't get that you unmake it at the end of the day.
So this is a fetish.
Yeah. So, you know, this is a man-woman thing, right?
And the finances and, you know, the fact that she takes care of these things, it's so important to constantly be aware of that and to constantly be aware of all of the ways in which your partner lubricates your way through life or makes your passage through life easier.
The maintenance of that as something that is a goodwill gesture, as something...
She doesn't have to do it.
She could wake up tomorrow and she could say...
You know, I'm sick and tired of handling your tighty-whities with salad tongs and burning them in the backyard or whatever, right?
She could totally say that, and there would be no reason for me to get upset, because it would be like, hey, I cashed in for a long time, and now we're done.
So I want to make sure that she knows that I see everything that she's doing, and I appreciate so much everything that she's doing to smooth our passage through this world.
Yes. And in the same way, you know, she also appreciates what I'm doing.
And now she's a little bit more forgetful because, you know, I end up running the emotional stuff.
So she doesn't often initiate it, but certainly she will appreciate stuff.
I mean, I will literally say to her two or three times a week, thank you so much for this amazing life that we have built together, where you work ten minutes away, and I can do these amazing things in philosophy, and we're both helping the world.
Thank you so much for helping me build this absolutely incredible life, and thank you so much for everything that you're doing to make it all of the work.
I notice everything, and I do.
I notice everything, right?
I mean, when the coffee cups go from My desk to the dishwasher, I notice it, and I say thank you for taking down my coffee cups, right?
Right. That appreciation, I think, is really essential.
Yeah, no, I agree.
That's beautiful.
All right.
I'm not sure...
I have a list here, but I think we've covered everything.
I don't know... Yes, everything has been covered.
Where do you guys like to vacation, or do you have preferences for vacations?
We've only gone on a couple together, and they've been sort of road trips away from Chicago.
We're planning one for the holidays, thinking about a cruise.
I have all these Frequent flyer miles that I had built up in my previous job.
So we're thinking about blowing all of them and doing something amazing.
Why do you ask? Well, I mean, these are just the kinds of things that are important to have conversations about.
Not because, again, not because you want to write a rule book for everything in the future.
But just you need to practice those kinds of decisions for when you get married, right?
There was an old Mad Magazine story.
This is from God when I was a little kid.
And it used to say something like, it's infatuation when, it's love when, it's a relationship when, right?
And these three stages of a relationship.
And I remember one of them very clearly.
It said, it's an infatuation when you don't care what you do on vacation as long as you're together, right?
And then they said, it's love when, you know, he wants to go to the mountains, she wants to go to the beach, So, one of you sacrifices and goes with the other, right?
Right. And then number three was, it's a relationship when he wants to go to the mountains and she wants to go to the beach, so he goes to the mountains and she goes to the beach, right?
I mean, that's the relationship.
Now, we've never come to that, and I'm sure that we never will, because we really love vacationing together.
But, I mean, last summer, Christina wanted to go on this driving tour of the east coast of Canada.
Yeah. Now, in my top 20 list of least favorite places, least favorite vacations, that would probably be 1 through 18.
But it actually turned out to be a lot of fun, right?
But we sort of, you know, I asked her why she wanted to do it, what she wanted to do it, and so on.
And we ended up going and doing it and having a lot of fun.
But, I mean, we generally really like the beach vacations and the active vacations and so on.
But, you know, those kinds of things, you know, where do you want to go in the world?
You know, do you see, how do you like to travel?
Some people like to backpack.
Some people, like Christina, who's like, you know, five stars is barely good enough for Her Majesty, right?
So these are all important decisions to make because it influences how many vacations you can take and so on, right?
So, again, these are just conversations to have about, you know, what is the perfect life and how would you like to spend it?
Sorry, let me just say one last thing and then I'll shut up and you can ask anything else you want.
I think it's also important, and this is going to sound kind of weird, but I think that it is important.
I think it's important to say, you know, so Rachel, at the end of your life, how will you look back and know that you have lived the life that you want?
What needs to happen?
In an ideal world, for you to look back and say, that was the life.
Because life is like a dripping tap, right?
I mean, it's like the days, just blink, blink, blink, right?
They go by, and it's really hard to assemble them into something coherent, right?
Right. So, I think if you're going to plan a life together, obviously, you want to have a successful life together, right?
Right. And obviously, you want to get married because you will add to each other's success, right?
Right. And I mean, that's certainly been the case with Christina and I, somewhat due to risk-taking chance and somewhat due to chance.
But when we met, we were both living in rental apartments and And she was working at a job that she was highly ambivalent about, and I was a writer not getting published.
And now, you know, a couple of years later, she's running her own clinic with a number of employees, and she supervises a bunch of people.
And I have this life in philosophy.
And we couldn't have done that in isolation.
We couldn't have done that alone.
So we get married because we wish to have a more successful life Because we're getting married, right?
Right. A happier life, a richer life, right?
Right. And so I think it's important to define what that is.
Right, and I said very early, I said, I want to do something, I don't know what the hell it is, and I'm having my doubts about fiction writing, to say the least, right?
But I definitely want, I know I have the skills to really help the world, and I don't know how the hell it's going to happen, but that, to me, would be a successful life, is to strain every fiber of my being to bring philosophy and happiness to the world.
Because I didn't have a clue how the hell it was going to happen, you know, way back then.
And I said, if I can do that, you know, whether it's emotionally through art, intellectually through philosophy, I don't know what, right?
Or maybe it's just founding a company and growing it so that it's a rational and happy place to work.
I said, I don't know. But to me, a successful life will be that in which I use the skills and gifts that I have to the utmost to help the world.
That, to me, would be the most satisfying and happy life, right?
And so when I look back and I say, when I'm on my deathbed and I look back and say, well...
I did everything I could to try and bring as much truth and reason and happiness to the world.
That to me would be a successful life, right?
And she said, my successful life would be to manage somebody else's mad grandiosity for about 40 years.
So it actually meshed, as you can imagine, very, very well together.
To administer morning doses of lithium is pretty much the best and acceptable way that I could spend my time.
But her goals, she said, I'd like to have a clinic.
I'd like to have kids. I'm not as ambitious as you are.
I'm not as interested in being as public a figure as you are.
And those are the things that I want.
And so those were life goals that we could measure our daily decisions against.
Because if you just make daily decisions, it's like Brownian motion.
It's a little random. But if you have...
You know, what is the success we're going to have called our marriage?
And how is that going to make us more successful as people?
It doesn't mean you get a straight line to get there.
And it doesn't mean you can't change your goals, right?
I ditched fiction for philosophy and, you know, wisely so in hindsight.
Actually, I shouldn't really say it's wise if I spent 20 years doing it without success.
But, you know, when the opportunities opened up, and in hindsight it makes much more sense since fiction is derived from philosophy, if the philosophy of the world is wrong, the fiction won't be appreciated.
But I think it's really important to have those monster discussions, the life arc discussions.
How is it we're going to know that we're successful at the end of our lives?
What is going to have to have been achieved with our lives in order to feel that they're worthwhile?
Meaning is not given to us.
Meaning is something we have to define and create.
That's why people get so annoyed by philosophy because religion will give you a prepackaged bullshit meaning.
And you don't have to go through the process of authenticity and self-definition to figure out what gives your life richness and meaning.
But obviously you guys aren't taking that course.
So I think that, and I wanted to end with that because I think that's the biggest thing to talk about in terms of marriage.
It's the old thing. You know this about project plans, right?
If you don't have a goal, you'll never know if you've succeeded or not, right?
Right. And I think that's a great perspective to have on conversations like that.
It really gives purpose to those conversations when you have a context of the relationship and of, you know, your partner being completely supportive and looking out for you like that.
I know we've had a couple conversations that are, you know, that scale, but I think it would be really interesting to look at it from that perspective of our decisions are now in the shadow of these life goals that we have for each other and for ourselves and us together.
I think that's wonderful.
Right. And you really can't do anything grand, if that makes any sense, Without this life goal thing, right?
Because you can't make decisions in the context of, right?
I mean, to take the stupid example, when I get a troll on the board or whatever, I measure that relative to the goal of creating a safe and positive environment for the discussion of philosophy, right?
And if I'm just like, do I like this guy or not?
It's kind of random, but it's all relative to a larger goal.
That's how I try and sort of organize my day or my week is, you know, does this advance?
The general goal. And it doesn't mean it will, and it doesn't mean my goal can't change, but it is in that context, I think, that marital decisions are fundamentally made in the best way.
That makes all the world of sense.
Excellent. That's...
It was very, very helpful.
I really appreciate your insights.
I don't have anything else to cover.
Is there anything that you had thought of that we didn't get a chance to cover?
Did you hear that tentativeness?
Is there anything that you know?
Anything. God, please, no.
No, I don't have anything else to add.
Obviously, I could go on and on, but there's not much point for that.
I don't know if anybody else who's on the call has any questions or comments or things that they'd like to add.
I think not.
Okay, well, I guess since I asked you beforehand, you don't particularly mind if this is a podcast.
I think it would be enormously helpful to other people.
I certainly do appreciate the questions.
And of course, I hugely appreciate the care with which you're making this decision.
And I think it's entirely wise because, you know, marriages that go wrong can ruin lives, right?
I mean, it's a high stakes thing.
And of course, we'd never go into a lifelong business venture with someone without Well, thank you.
Thank you for all the great insight that you bring.
I hope as we go further into this process that we can chat again about it.
Oh, absolutely, yeah. And look, I mean, there is every possibility that you'll end up with an absolutely fantastic marriage.
I mean, you're starting young. You've obviously been involved in philosophy and psychology for some time now, FDR and floating.
You are working to keep malign influences out of your marriage, which certainly was not as, you know, we kind of had to You know, bolt the wings on the plane while it was getting off the runway as far as that went here.
So I think that you're light years ahead of at least where I started from, and I think that the success will be even greater that much thereby.
So I think it's fantastic to watch, and I'm completely thrilled.
Anything I can do to help, of course, just let me know.
Thanks, thanks. I really appreciate that.
I'm very excited, and even more so after this conversation, so I thank you.
And I'll give you one last sentence, which is a deal closer, which will really help you close the deal when you do actually propose with the ring.
All right. And the sentence is this.
For heaven's sakes, don't bite down too hard on that Twinkie.
That is... Ultimate Deal Closer, and I'll just leave you with that as a way that the Earth gets repopulated.
Thanks for that. All right, take care.
Bye. Thanks, you too.
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