 Welcome back to Mental Health TV. I'm Amy Golding, Director of Psychology for the Workplace Mental Health Institute and I'm here with our CEO Peter Diels. Welcome back. Thank you. And so today we're going to have a chat about some of the things that have been in the news lately. Things related to mental health, psychology, well-being and things that impact all of us in this day and age. So in particular we're going to focus on a topic that is crucial for our mental health and well-being which is the topic of relationships. In particular, romantic relationships in particular, because they have such a big impact on people's well-being and mental health, positively and negatively. So this came about because there's an article out in today at the moment around all of the couples who have separated or divorced recently. So Kevin Costner after 18 years of marriage. Ariana Grande, I mean there were many but I didn't recognize many of them. This is the one that I remember. Ariana Grande after three years. Yes. And then who was the other one? Sofia Vergara, family. After eight years. There's some amounts of time together and people go into a relationship thinking this is going to be forever and no one thinks that at some point they're going to separate. And yet statistically the majority of people that do get married do end up divorcing. So what's going on here? Well actually it's interesting because falling in love is so amazing that I've seen people suffering from schizophrenia fall in love and the schizophrenia was gone for at least three months. Well they were still in the heightened sense of being in love. Well isn't being in love a little bit? Another kind of crazy. Kind of mental illness. Yeah. But it's a good one. It's a one that feels really good. And if you think about the dynamics of falling in love where you're in your best behavior both people are both people feel that they're fantastic because they have the attention of the other person and the other person seems to think that they're fantastic. So that's very addictive. But it feels very good for your self-esteem, for your confidence, you're walking on air. So what happens then after a while that stops being the dynamic? Because if we knew what it takes to keep that dynamic of being in a state where you're making the other person feel amazing and that person is making you feel amazing then you wouldn't have to divorce. I mean how can you divorce from someone that is making you feel amazing? I have a few theories on this. So number one I think in the beginning all of those lovely things you just described also take time and attention and we do that in the beginning but it's a sustainable over time and I think if you see a lot of people get busy with other things in their life they're kind of like alright well I've got to get back to paying attention to my work or family comes along and that becomes a priority and we get distracted and we don't give the same amount of attention and love and all those things that we did in the beginning over the course of time. That's one theory of mine. My life is not used to the same excuse not to do it. Everybody has got 24 hours and recently we went to my uncle and auntie's 50th wedding anniversary. 50 years married. So there's obviously still proof of people lasting a long time in a marriage. That doesn't mean that they're completely happy but they do seem to fall in love again after the years passed. Yes, they fall in love again. So there's something about that that can be regained and yeah time is something important but how much more time costly is a divorce. Especially when you're for kids. It's about making the conscious decisions. You get to do it. But I think one of the things that we start to forget about in relationships after we become familiar is we take for granted this idea that we're making the other person feel good just by us being there. My presence is over there. Look what I have to contribute. And that is a problem because making another person feel good. And notice that I'm using these terms which are not very popular right now. It's like, come on, you've got to make me feel good. I'm about me. I am amazing. Amazing. I deserve your attention. That is completely narcissistic. Completely and utterly narcissistic. In order for a relationship, I mean what works with me and you for me is when you give attention to me for no reason but because it's me. Yeah. And that makes me thrive. That's amazing. You know what I think? I was going to say expectations. I think that expectations again are doing generally change over time. In the beginning we go in just kind of discovering and everything's great. So then over time we start to layer on this, well, I expect this from you and I expect that from you. And now we're up to ante instead of coming from that mindset of isn't this person amazing. You have a good point because when we started a relationship, the priority is love always. Love. And when you have love as a standard, your demands of other people get lowered. What happens with time is become afraid for our own well-being, for our own stuff. We become really egotistical. Then fear takes over. Instead of putting love as a standard, fear becomes a standard. Now fear as a standard is ruthless. What if I'm not being respected? Yeah. What if questions? Yes. Yeah. What if I'm not being loved? All that stuff that you just mentioned, but the standards get heightened to a degree, no human being can meet them. Yeah. So the treat is that one, isn't it? In many ways we're trained socially as well to look for perfect. I expect perfection in my partner when that's not realistic. We would all admit that none of us are perfect. And yet sometimes we've got to consciously remind ourselves that this is a person with their flaws, with their faults, but I can still love them anyway. And it's the same thing with friendships too, to be honest. Yeah. That's what friendships are. Actually, I heard a friend recently say that, which I think is very true. She says, if you have somebody that you like and they do something that you don't completely like, you forgive them because you like them. Yeah. And that one you don't like did the same thing. You crucified them because you don't like them. Yeah. So that's loving actually. When you have love for a person, your standards get lower. You don't need them to be perfect. And yet that's the problem in our romantic relationships. We tend to demand more of that person than anybody else in our lives. Instead of that, in psychology we call it that unconditional positive regard, that commitment that you make to say, well, whatever happens, I believe this is a good person. And I want to reveal what I always describe it when I'm talking with clients, that every action you take is a step towards each other or a step away from each other. And which is it going to be? Even if they've done something that is hurtful or isn't perfect, but they haven't disappointed you, it's going to happen. But can you keep taking those steps together towards each other? Yeah. So I mean, we're talking here from three angles here. One is we're expressing psychology and relationship is part of that psychology. The other one is we are therapists. So we've held a lot of marriages and couples stay together. And in some cases, separate. And the other one is we happen to be married and that we come from personal experience. So what would you say there are some of the things from a female perspective that need to happen in relationship to make sure that the relationship is healthy? Everyone will say communication, but it's true. But it needs to be good communication. And I think that that's lacking because no one teaches you anywhere. You know, there's no subject in school saying this is how you do it. Well, how is communicating in a marriage different from communicating normally? Exactly. I think it's more and it's more specific. It's more vulnerable. Like, in order for communication to happen of good quality in a marriage, you have to be make yourself vulnerable. You have to talk about your fears. And that's very hard. Especially for guys because most of the time we're not aware of our fears anyway. And also understanding those differences in communication styles that are going to exist between any two people because we're not the same. So, not just understanding it, but being able to make requests for, you know, this is what works for me. This is what doesn't work for me. Particularly, for example, in the area of conflict where there's been a disagreement about something, how do we communicate in a healthy way around differences of opinion? How do we handle conflict? Conflict can be a healthy thing. If two people you're not going to be exactly the same, it's going to be serious. You have to blow up sometimes. But you have to blow up in love, not blow up in hate. And have those conversations about when we're in that moment, we have the conversation outside of the moment about when we're in one of these moments, what are our rules for fighting? What are our agreements that we won't call names, for example, or if someone needs a timeout, we'll respect that, but we will definitely come back to it. We have a little one in which we remind each other, I'm just fighting as they love you. I still love you. So these things are some of the micro-strategies that you can do. Reminds me what one of our relationship coaches once said to us, focus on the intention, not the words that are being used. What's the intention behind it? That's been very useful. Because when you focus, what are they trying to do here? If they're still fighting with you, they're still fighting for the relationship. So that's a good thing. Even in fighting, they still care. Because we know as therapists that the moment that apathy sends in, apathy means people don't give a shit, one of them don't give a shit, then it's lost because that person is out of the relationship. So while we're still fighting, they still hope. And we also know that whenever there is one of these intense moments, there's always fear underneath. It's come back to what you said earlier. There's always a fear underneath, usually on both sides. So if you can have that empathy for the other person and find that compassion that you have for them in that moment and remind yourself, okay, there's a fear here. That's all it is. This person is afraid of something. And so that kind of immediately softens your perspective on them. And you can... I think oftentimes it takes one person to be the person who can step up in that moment. Sometimes there'll be one person, sometimes there'll be the other. But there needs to be someone who can be the... who can kind of rise above the present moment and do what's needed for the good of the relationship. And sometimes it's me and sometimes it's you. It's not about who's the guy or who's the woman. No, no, no. Sometimes the one that is feeling it, the least as a threat, needs to step up for the relationship. So that's an important difference I've learned over the years. You don't do things for your partner. You do things for the relationship. And as that, the side effect is that your partner gets all these goodies. But that's an important one. Do things for the relationship. So what would you say that some of the common fears would be? Well, I mean the biggest fear I think that people have is, am I going to be abandoned? Am I going to be rejected? Am I not going to be loved and appreciated and seen for me? Am I going to be left behind? I think there's a question always, am I still special to you that people have? Which in the beginning we don't have that question. Of course I'm special. Amazing. Well, we can tell the person all the time that they are demonstrated. We do a number of things. And attention. They get a lot of attention. They get a lot of attention, even hanky-panky. They get a lot of hanky-panky. In fact, that's a good thing to say to people if you are going through a dry spell in your relationship, try having sex every day for a month. Is it the process in therapy? Yeah, there's a process in therapy. It's kind of like a homework past for people. Even if you don't feel it, just commit. Connect every day a little bit. Going to go there. So, good. I'm just interesting. What would you like to know about this topic? Is relationship something important to you? Because I mean, divorces are at an old-time high. We know the impact of divorces not just on the couple, but also on the kids, on the grandparents, on the whole family. And communities. Going back to the celebrity couples that were originally talking about, all of us, I think, have couples in our lives that we think, oh, they're doing really well, they're great, I admire them. And then suddenly when something happens, it can really impact the whole community. And we do see the domino effect, don't we? Somebody gets divorced and then all of a sudden two or three of their friends get divorced. There's that domino effect. There's a group happening, it makes things difficult. So what do you think? What are your thoughts on this subject? Are relationships important to you? Do you think being in love is something worth fighting for and spending the time on or not? This is about you. So I hope you have enjoyed our chat today. Yeah, this is an area of passion of mine, of course, because I've seen how important that can be for people's well-being. So with that, we'll leave you to it. We look forward to reading your comments and keep this conversation alive. Bye now. Look forward to hearing your thoughts. Take care.