 So recently I did a video talking about addictions. These addictions included alcohol addiction, it included drug addiction, included porn addiction and include sex addiction. But I realized I was missing the most important addiction out there today. So I brought back my addiction specialist, Mary Beth Shredder, if I said her your name, right? I always put, I butcher your name to talk about the number one addiction as it relates to men and women. And in particular, when you, when this happens, oftentimes ladies, I'm speaking to you, you can be used by men. So Mary Beth, welcome and share with us the number one addiction most people are faced with. It is relationship addiction. Relationship addiction. Yes, codependency, people actually are coming to me, they're addicted to people. And like that video we saw Jonathan, they were talking about, you know, just being preoccupied with someone doesn't mean you're in love with them, it could actually be an addiction. Like if you're constantly thinking about someone, a lot of people mistake that for love, when it's actually a bond. Can I get your perspective on something? I'm really excited to dive into this, but during a recent video, I said that butterflies in the stomach doesn't actually mean you're experiencing love with another person. You're actually most likely experiencing some level of anxiety. Some need isn't being met and it's stirring up inside of you. And while yes, we all can feel excited when we meet someone new and we're looking forward to them. But if you're feeling actual pain, which a butterflies in the stomach could indicate, it's actually an unhealthy experience versus the belief that this is like your soulmate, the person you're meant to be with and making up stories around this. And if you're not, and the other thing is if you're not feeling butterflies that's something wrong. And I think that's the complete opposite and I'd like your take on that. Well, you kind of are reminding me of the trauma bond versus like the healthy relationship. And one of the main differences is the trauma bonds. They're gonna start out, number one, they're due to an insecure attachment style. And I know you know what that is. I've heard you talk about it in videos. But they're gonna start out intense at this fast rate, right? And you're gonna be thrown off balance. And I know you talked about with Marie, it wasn't as intense. Like you kind of were more stable. You were getting to know each other. And that's healthy to start out. Like when everything's rushed and you feel like you're swept off your feet, you don't wanna be swept off your feet. You wanna be stable. And to answer a question about the butterflies, a lot of times I agree with you. That's an indicator that something might be, your nervous system might be a little bit dysregulated. And that's an indicator that maybe you need to slow it down and take your time. So something occurs to me, because this relates to addiction and whatnot. When coming back to Marie, and I remember our first date, I felt a strong connection for her. I really did feel like I liked this person. And then the next morning after the date, I kind of pulled back a little bit. And I pulled back partially because there was this distance between the two of us. And I'm like, do I really want to engage in a long distance dating dynamic? And then, but the next morning I woke up or like later that day, I'm like, I really, I didn't miss her. I was feeling appreciation for her. Okay, why am I talking about this? Well, it's because I didn't feel anxiety. I just felt a sense of calm. And as our relationship progressed, it felt calm. That was confusing to me because first I believed in the past, if I wasn't experiencing this anxiety, then I must not really like this person. And so I witnessed this with so many clients. They're looking for the high, which is almost addictive. I need to feel butterflies in the stomach or I'm not experiencing chemistry, right? And a lot of people associate that with chemistry. I'm like, no, it's quite the opposite. Absolutely. And what you said was like exactly the addiction to drama. Like a lot of people, they say the hardest relationship is your first healthy relationship after you've gotten out of a dramatic type codependent relationship because those have those really extreme highs and really low lows. Now, even a healthy relationship is gonna have dips in it, right? Like a healthy relationship, you're gonna argue, every now and then there's gonna be dips, but you're not gonna have those really high highs and really low lows. That's what's addictive. There's actually the adrenaline, dopamine, oxytocin, you're gonna have all of those, you get addicted to those neurotransmitters in your brain. It's the same as drugs and alcohol and people don't realize that. They're actually addicted to the chemical going off in your brain. So like you need that person, just like you need a drug, just like you need that fix. And it is very interesting. So like with Marie, that respect, that admiration, you kind of had time to sit back, you weren't just like, you were thinking, you were using your brain, even though you probably did have the chemical haze that you have, because you liked it, right? You still had the chemical haze, but it was a more balance. It's not as extreme. And that's how you can tell the difference is you weren't kind of like freaking out about it and feeling off balance with your nervous system being just right. Yeah. You know, it reminds me, Mary Ann Williamson in her book, Return to Love, and she narrates it if you get the audio version of it. She talks to the audience about what happens when you have a date and you have amazing chemistry. And she talks to the audience and says, what do you do when you have amazing chemistry with someone? And the audience regurgitates back what she said previously. She says, you pray. And the prayer is to regulate your nervous system because you are about to fall into a hole, if you will. And a miserable hole, if you give into, it's like giving into a drug. The minute you give into this fantasy of chemistry, this fantasy of butterfly, and not to suggest chemistry isn't real, but the exaggerated version of chemistry. And so, okay. So with that said, we started this conversation talking about the number one addiction is, it's not love addiction, it's relationship addiction. Is there a difference between the two of love and relationship, or are they the same? Well, when it comes, if we're talking about love addiction, it's probably not love, if it's an addiction. Do you know what I mean? If it's healthy, you're gonna have the good communication and a trauma bond where it's a codependent thing, it's gonna always be someone has power over the other, usually, and it's gonna be more like they want, it's like they rescued you. And the person who is being rescued kind of is, I don't wanna call them in a victim situation, but in a way they're like, if someone has power over you, you're kind of, they can also control you, they can manipulate you. Let's like talk about like, if a man has a lot of money and a woman doesn't, and then they end up married, well, he might use that as a way to control and manipulate her because he's got power over her because if she leaves him, she's broke, right? Like maybe she's a stay at home mom and she doesn't work and she's kind of trapped in that relationship. And if someone's not healthy, I mean, that's fine. That's a fine dynamic of you're in a healthy relationship. It's okay for the man to take care of the woman or however you want it. But if you're with someone who uses, abuses that power, abuses that, then that's a dynamic that is gonna cause a lot of anxiety for the person on the other side. So I've oftentimes said, women give their power away in a relationship. I wonder if that's almost somewhat instinctual. And let me say where I'm coming from here. But when I say extingual, there's a narrative is that men are the provider protectors and women are the nurturers, okay? Let's put that in the box for a moment. And I know many YouTube creators will shoot videos how you just sit there and lean back and let the man lead the relationship. Men are supposed to be the dominant. Men are supposed to lead the relationship. What happens is that puts a woman in kind of a subservient role at the same time almost dependent upon that expectation. Now I always say to my audience, ladies, you're giving the job to the wrong person when you make them the leader of the relationship, you are in charge of your destiny. But is there almost, particularly between men and women dynamics, is there almost this innate, this instinctual giving your power away or, I'm not that with me. Yeah, that's society and what you want. So instead of codependence, we want interdependence. Like don't you feel like Marie is your equal? Like you want that. You want to do something who respects and admires you and vice versa. You both want to feel like you're so lucky to be with the other person, right? That's interdependence. You don't want someone who's fiercely independent and you're fiercely independent. And then you don't even need each other. You want to feel lucky. You want to look at that person that you're with and be like, man, I'm so lucky to have you and it's an equal thing. Not someone holding power over you and manipulating or using that power to gaslight you, manipulate you. A lot of times there's that dynamic when one person feels like they're a little bit better than the other person, or they have something to hold over their head, so to speak. But there's not a lot of communication, good communication in those relationships when there's power over. In a healthy, real love bond, you're going to have open communication. When it's a trauma bond, a codependent, there's going to be someone who's afraid to talk. When they try to talk openly, they might be told you're being dramatic or you're being negative. Or just they're dismissed, they're minimized. They don't feel comfortable if they're... They bring something up to actually a valid point, a valid concern with the relationship. They might just be shut down and then eventually over time, they're afraid to speak up. They're afraid to go to their partner and then they kind of lose their identity over time because in order to avoid that conflict or they've been shut down so many times, they just quit standing up for themselves. And that's the number one way people lose their identity in a relationship is they just give up to avoid conflict. They become people-pleasers instead of speaking up for themselves and their needs and what they really need standing up for yourself is so important. So, and thank you for that. I really appreciate that. It just occurs to me, roughly 50% of marriages end in divorce, whether here at least in the United States, what that's true, exact. I mean, it's pretty close to that. What occurs to me is though, the other half that are still married, I'm gonna bet half of those aren't really happy in their relationships. I would agree. And I think it's because there's an attachment to another human being and so they're fearful to stand up for themselves like what you're just talking about. And there's this almost dependency happening but also the dependency of not like a financial dependency that at some point they've become so accustomed to the unhealthiness of the relationship that it's not an addiction per se, it's an attachment for fear of standing up for themselves. Yeah, exactly. It seems like the hardest thing humans are capable of doing in relationship is really standing up for themselves. Now, I know, and the other thing is most everybody hearing this is, no, I can stand up for myself. And yet I suspect 97% of people have not ever stood up for themselves. You know, I can admit to being in a relationship like this where I was the one who didn't stand up for myself and I had really weak boundaries. You know, and so I had to learn that. You know, I was definitely a people pleaser and you guys, people pleasing is being inauthentic. Think about it. You can't train people how to treat us, right? So if you aren't being sincere, if you're not being your true authentic self, you can't even blame the other person because you're not even expressing your needs. You're not communicating your needs and you're just trying to avoid conflict, make them happy. That's not being genuine. You're not even bringing your true self to the relationship. So that's something I had to learn. I just wanted everything to be peaceful. So I didn't stand up for myself. And then I went the other direction, Jonathan, then I went too crazy and started to like, instead of boundaries, I built walls. Walls for a long time, right? I didn't want to be controlled again. I didn't want to be manipulated. And then I got too far the other direction and it takes a while, you know, to get to that balance and be like, okay, let some of it. Oh, I was going to say, so the title of this is when you do this, you often get used by men. And why I'm sharing this is it's the people pleasing. It's the addiction to the relationship that can put you in a position to be used. It's not that they are using you as you can find yourself feeling, I'm not saying you are used, but feeling like you're used. So one of the things, and the reason, and the thumbnail said, spot this red flag and why I'm sharing this with you is one of the things I invite my clients to do when they're interviewing a man that they're dating. And I say the word interview intentionally because it is an interview process whether you like it or not. One of the last questions I invite my clients to ask is are you aware of any red flags you have? Here's one of mine. Now, let me give you an example of how this looks. So asking somebody about their red flags. Now there's what is an aspect of you that might cause a question mark for me So I share this with Marie. I am a recovering anxious attachment style. So when it comes to love attachment, I'm an anxious person. And because of that, I found myself in previous relationships where I would feel a lot of anxiety, I would fight for the relationship, I would be needy. Now over the years, I've regulated that. I've gotten to a place where I am less needy than I used to be. However, with that said, I know that's my default. I'm aware of my default. So I shared this with Marie. Now some people might think, oh my God, that's demonstrating insecurity, that's demonstrated, that's too much vulnerability, that's TMI. I'm like, this is part of who I am. My point here is I'm inviting everyone to look inward and ask themselves, what could be happening within you? And most likely it could be relationship addiction to some degree and explore that for yourself. And at the same time, share that with someone just to see how they respond. Did I make sense with all that? Yeah, I love that because what it shows me is self-awareness. You know, like that's like number one on my list. If someone's not self-aware, then that's gonna automatically, there's gonna be problems in the relationship because there's gonna be communication issues, number one, if someone doesn't understand, we all have flaws, right? We all have weird stuff that we do and maybe if you're aware, you're like, oh, I have trust issues because this happened to me in the past. So sometimes, you know, and then you can, in a conscious relationship, you explain to your partner, like this is what's going on. And then if they're willing, if they're willing to be in a conscious relationship with you, they will work with you on that and help heal each other. Nobody's gonna go into a relationship completely healed you guys, it's okay. So I wanna raise my hand because there was some years ago, I was in a relationship with a woman who had trust issues, her father abandoned her mother and her brother for another family. So she grew up with significant trust issues and dating me triggered that like nobody's business because what do I do all day? I talk to women, I have Instagram. You know, I've got women on Instagram writing me messages, I got YouTube and all this stuff. So the next, the next woman I dated, I asked them point blank, do you have trust issues because I will most likely trigger that stuff. And yet I'm not, I'm not, I'm not betraying any trust. I'm not, I'm not, in other words, I'm not being unfaithful, but you might feel this way. And I asked that question. Thankfully, Marie doesn't have trust issues because we share everything with each other. But I'm in a business where I can trigger that. And so I asked that upfront. But because you are honest with her and you communicate with her, that's why she doesn't have any trust issues. You know, it works, but that's how it works. Like if you were hiding stuff from her or being sneaky or like she couldn't be in the room when, you know, you're texting with clients or something like she might be like, hey, what's up? You know, like it sounds like you're pretty much open for her. Well, I guess. What's that? I said, actually clients, a lot of that stuff is confidential. Yeah, no, no, let's not get into that. So just something that occurs to me. So I see, and I'm sure in your practice and folks, everyone, Mary Beth is an addiction specialist. She's a law of attraction specialist. She's a life coach. She's a friend. So there's a link below to connect with her. And you can certainly connect with her on YouTube as well and watch her videos. Something occurs to me. I think a lot of people's neediness comes from a lack of regular connection with each other. And what I mean by regular connection, I'm talking about face-to-face connection, okay? And because we see such a significant percentage of people now engaging in relationships that are further than five or 10 miles away. What I mean to say is they're not able to, maybe they even live five to 10 miles away, but they don't interact on a regular basis. Put that in a box for a second. Then there becomes the dependency on the telephone and text message to feed that bonding experience that happens through physical connection. So then there's this neediness that comes when they didn't respond to a text message right away, when they just kind of disappeared for 24 hours and they didn't disappear. It's just they didn't reach out for whatever reason. And all of a sudden, all of our insecurities begin to bubble up because I witnessed so many people engaging in relationships where it's literally 90% of the interaction is through these devices, if not 100% are through these devices. Right. How does that play into relationship addiction? Do you have any thoughts? I do. And I love that you brought this up because this is such a solid important thing to talk about. The opposite of addiction is connection. And you're so right. I think technology, yes, the opposite. Keep talking. I've got to do something, so keep talking. So basically what you're saying is correct about technology in the way we don't have enough face to face time. We don't have enough real connection. And so we all have this like desperate energy now to connect with people and we'll do things with a lot of addiction. You guys is simply self soothing. And I hear people, I mean, honestly, what's a red flag to me is someone's like, I don't have any addictions. All right, we got to get over this. There's a stigma, I get it, but everybody has addictions. It might be drama. It might be work. You might just be a workaholic. It could be like people, like another person you're addicted to. You could be just Netflix. Like right now I'm currently addicted to that stupid Indian matchmaking show. By the way, I love Indian matchmaking. I know, and Jewish matchmaker too. Oh, I got through that one so quick. That was only, are we gonna see what happens, by the way? At the end? No, no, no, you gotta wait now a year or whatever it's gonna be. Well, I'm into matchmaking. I'm into that. That's a little addictive and that's okay. It's okay to admit you have addiction. You know, it's not that big of a deal. Admit you have it so you could fix it. You can't fix anything you don't... Okay, so here's the thing. I'm kinda doing the chicken or the egg for a little bit. I think the addiction to validation is because there's a lack of closeness, a lack of connection. And so that almost, it starts a feeding frenzy of I need this more, because it's literally a click of a couple zeros and ones from our phones, so to speak. Did you see the video with Esther Perel in the last year? She talked about artificial intimacy. Yes. Okay, I might have sent it to you, or if I didn't, I will send it to you. Okay, that was a fascinating conversation of how so many people, and if you're listening to this right now and you're in a relationship with someone where all you do is 99% text message one another and you think you're close to this person, let me give you a wake up call. You're not, you're experiencing artificial intimacy, and maybe you can lean into this for a second. No, I just totally agree. And I wanted to circle back to the validation thing. Okay, got it. Social media, social media and dating apps. Oh my gosh, that's the biggest, I mean, it's such a huge addiction, the validation that you get swiping, swiping. Oh, let me check and see who liked my posts. All of that stuff are cell phones. Like, basically you guys, if you have something that you're not comfortable being without for a week and it's having a negative effect on your life in some way, that's an addiction. That's all an addiction is. And I think people go straight to like drugs and alcohol and they think it's, but I just wanted to take away that stigma, but. Oh, well, I did two things. I did a retreat where I didn't have my phone for seven days. It hurts. Well, it hurt. Now, by the last day, it actually was okay, but the minute I got the phone back, bam, I was right back too. Or then, let me just share another one. You went through withdrawal symptoms, just like with any kind of drug. Well, I went through the withdrawals and then I actually had a baseline that was stable. And then two days later, we got our phones back. I didn't engage fully, but within a couple of days, I was back to the addictiveness addiction. So also there was another thing I did. I'm throwing myself under the bus here. I did a cleanse for a week at a retreat center, where we ate rabbit food for a week. And the first thing I did when I got out, I went to McDonald's. Ooh, I bet you were sick. You know what? I wasn't too bad, but all the benefits were gone. So my point is, and so I'm using this as an example to lean into relationship addiction. What is the antidote for all of this? What is the way to heal from this? What is the way to avoid it? This is your area of expertise, so I'd like to... People don't know what they don't know. Okay. Sorry. Would you say... No, this is your area. So please give us the floor one more. I was just gonna say, people don't know what they don't know, right? So the first thing is like recognition. So people watching this, this sounds familiar to you. If you're attracted to those type of roller coaster ride relationships and you don't feel like you're bored when you're in a healthy relationship, that is an indicator. That's something, so what you need to do is first be aware of it and watching this video is a good step and then immersing yourself into like just learning more. Hire a coach, a therapist, somebody like that where, yeah, spiritual health, yeah, it's so important. Yeah, personal development. Doing things that fill that void because if you have that addiction to a person, you definitely have a void you're trying to fill in the same with any addiction, right? Yeah. You have that whole. So that is why the 12th step program is like a very spiritual program, where you admit and we are powerless to control other people, by the way. So that's one of the things as admitting, well, I can't control, there's a lot, that codependency, some of you watching, you might be the ones who have that insecure attachment style and you're trying to control your partner. So it's not always the men doing that. Sometimes it's the women who, you have that insecure or anxious attachment style and you wanna always check on your man. And by the way, if you are that way, do you remember Jonathan, that video yesterday with such a good point where she said, be honest about that upfront, tell the person don't act like you're cool and don't play games and then you're gonna be mad later because he thinks you're cool, not texting or returning texts. If it's important to you to receive a text within a certain amount of time and not the next day, you need to be upfront about that because this person you're lying to, you're playing a game. That's why you need to be yourself straight from the beginning or else they don't even know they're doing anything wrong because you were a little pleaser. By the way, the reason why I'm laughing right now is in the early stages of my connection with Marie and this is before we ever physically met. I remember I would send her a text message and sometimes it'd be two or three days later she would respond. That mind you, we're not in a relationship, we were just slightly getting to know one another. And even early, right in the very beginning I noticed the same thing until one day about 12 days after physically meeting her, it was like two or three weeks later, I watched her send a text message. And it was where she had to write a lot of information and it was like this. Oh no. And I was like, and it was painful to watch her. It took her 20 minutes to send two sentences. And I go, oh, and she owned it. She goes, I'm, you know, this is the way I type. You know, a lot of people use their thumbs. I mean, I watch kids and they're like, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. You know, they come without. And I'm like, I'm a slow texter and I misspelled words and all this stuff and she wants it to be perfect and rejects it. And so what in her case both it's arduous for her to send a text message, but more importantly, she had other shit going on in her life that caused her to like, forget that there was a text message to respond to. So with that said, it's kind of fascinating how dependent, coming back to dependent, we are for almost instantaneous response. And back when I grew up, you know, we didn't, you know, I remember getting my first answering machine, the telephone ring, and you had no idea who it was. There was no caller ID. Now, if we don't know who it is right away, if they're not responding, we're like, it's chaos going on. Or someone knocks on your door, you're like, what? Like, nobody called me. It's, it's weird, you know, but. We now know it's just Amazon. Yeah, but yeah, it's always just Amazon for me. But when we were kids, it was normal just to have people knock on your door knowing it wasn't a big deal and people actually saw each other in person. But, you know, I think the main thing to remember you guys with these trauma bonds is if you're in something that, by the way, and to get that rate, when it starts out, when it starts out with just that highly sexual, that physical thing where it's just, and you feel like, okay, if a man won't slow down for you, he's not, it's not a good indication. Like, because the right man will wait for you. You don't have to feel like, oh, you know, it's been three dates. You know, I better sleep with him because he bought me three dinners. You know, I wanted to bring that up too because that video that we watched went over that, like the. Oh, yeah. And by the way, for folks, we, there was a video I watched by Chris Williamson. He was interviewing Sadie Khan, who's a psychologist. She lives in, she's Pakistani and she lives in Dubai. And what was interesting about this, she was talking about particularly the promiscuity in the city of Dubai, particularly by the women. And that was her words, not my words. In other words, the ease and sleeping with someone in that country, which is a little shocking to me because I thought that was a Muslim country. But whether it is, you know, yeah. So with that said, you know, I think, you know, I remember right after I got my divorce, this is the early 2000s, I heard of this thing called the three date rule. And not that I made it up. I mean, if you Google it, it was like very popular in around 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, around that time. And it was like, if a woman hasn't slept with a man by the third date, he's lost interest. Yeah. And that was like things, people kept talking about that. I was like, God, I remember when I got married, you know, like it took me, you know, it was months before we were ever physical together and I had to beg a lot and I'm joking about that piece. But is it because particularly if a woman, and listen, I'm not here to say whether sleeping on the first date or 10th date, it's not about that. Do you feel like it's part of the addiction process? I need someone to love me. So I will compromise my boundary here so I can have them love me or like me or be interested in me. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is part of the addiction process and the people pleasing thing and self-worth. Like we talked about earlier, self-worth. And then there's that women's empowerment thing. But like I said on our last video, I don't find that empowering. That I don't know anyone personally who would actually feel empowered just because you slept with a guy, but you know, you can do whatever a guy does. Well, I would think, let me interrupt for a second. I think the idea of empowerment is you get to do whatever you want and by doing whatever you want, you're empowered. I have a different perspective when it comes to sex, especially now is, at least for my clientele, when you're physically intimate with someone, you can actually physically bond with this person, right? I mean, through oxytocin and other chemicals. Women much more so than men, yeah. We men have a capacity to kind of spread our seed and move on. So with that said, when you have been intimate with someone, you haven't had built trust with them. If you don't have trust with them, how do you know this person has your best interest at heart? And I think that requires more time than just a couple of dates and a couple of text messages. Exactly, and I know that I mentioned this and nobody wants to hear it, but when you're on a date with someone the first few dates and you're drinking, you have clouded judgment. You just do. You might be feeling good. You might really think you like this person. And I know, Jonathan, you said that's happened to you. The deception of chemistry is what you said. Remember it perfectly because it is so right on. When you're drinking, that's even worse. And then the next day, you're like, oh no, and you probably didn't really want to hurt these women at all. That was not your intention. It's just- By the way, read the comment right there. Sometimes I think the true personality comes out after you sleep with them, then you know who you're dealing with for real. 100% Julie, and that does happen, but if you wait long enough, if you go on enough dates and really get to know someone and you're not playing games and you do build trust and have that open, honest communication, you're gonna find out who that real person is before you sleep with them, hopefully. You're gonna already know. And it should be predictable. If somebody's making you feel unstable, that's a game. That they're playing a game with you because a person who's a healthy relationship, you don't have to wonder how he feels about you. Did Marie have to wonder how you felt about her? I doubt that. I bet you told her. Well, I want to touch, I'm gonna answer the question with Marie, but I want to piggyback on something you shared because I have said this a number of times. In the early stages after my divorce, I wanted companionship, I wanted connection, I wanted sex, but I wasn't capable of commitment. I wasn't ready for commitment, but I wanted these other things. And the minute I had alcohol and lust put together, lust is just, hey, I wanna jump your bones. And you put these two together. It was amazing, the things that would come out of my mouth that I wasn't aware of because I was experiencing through the chemical release of dopamine and testosterone and oxytocin. And I'm like, wow, I really like this person. I really, really like them. And I'm telling them all these things, oh my God, you're the most amazing woman I've ever met. You're unlike anyone I've ever met. You're like, I could see ourselves getting married. I've known her for like an hour, right? And then whether it was the first date, the second date or third date, we slept together. And what was fascinating to me after noticing this happened more than once, why is it I don't like this person? Like why did all, like, and then I did what was called the dysfunctional moonwalk, okay? I was too afraid to say, I'm not into you. So what I would do is literally bomb it, all the dysfunction that was going on in my life. So it was their idea not to pursue me. I call that the dysfunctional moonwalk. That's funny. And I didn't, well, no, I'm not proud of this, but I recognize the deception of chemistry. That chemistry is not an indicator of relationship success. So by the time I met Marie, what mattered most to me, like I vetted her. Like, I mean, I grilled her on our second phone call at last of four hours. I wanted to know, do we share the same values? Is our lifestyle blendable? And I was trying to figure out her emotional maturity. And I had some doubts in some areas, but because I was balanced with that, that the chemistry, even though we experienced chemistry, it was balanced because chemistry wasn't here. It was balanced with really recognizing, are we compatible with one another? Right. You know what, this is a little off what you just said, but that video again, because it was talking about, like they were talking about cheating and also porn addiction and how a lot of that is just when, and we're gonna talk about men mainly, because I think men are the main, mainly addicted to porn more so than women. And that doesn't mean no women get addicted to porn, but just for the majority. And what they're missing and their relationship is, they're actually looking for some intimacy and connection that we talked about. And then they're, instead, they're just having a poor substitute of porn. And like if someone's cheating, do you remember that other thing that they talked about was how men just aren't praised or complimented as much? Oh yes, so it was interesting, you know. And I can speak to this, because I've spoken to most of my male friends who have felt after their divorce, the number one thing they felt missing in their relationship, it wasn't the sex per se, it was feeling appreciated for their efforts. That is like, I think taking people for granted, both men and women alike, and they're guilty of their own version of taking someone for granted. But I know personally, not feeling appreciated, not feeling desired, I can see how that causes someone to seek that elsewhere. It doesn't make it right, I'm not absolving that action, it just makes it understandable why this happens. Just really quickly on porn addiction, I wanna just be clear with everyone. Not all men who watch porn are addicted to porn. There's a big difference because, and I'm just gonna throw myself under the bus, Marie knows about what I'm gonna share, but she took a week trip and she wasn't here. And I put on, I barely watched it even prior to meeting her, but I'm like, I've wanted a release and I wanted a little extra help, and there was that. But I mean, it happens so infrequently, that's not a porn addiction. So just because someone watches it doesn't mean that they're addicted to it. With that said, Bill. It doesn't have a negative effect on your life. No, that didn't have a negative effect. Like that's the big thing is like, can I not stop doing this thing, whatever it may be, that's affecting my life in a negative way? Yeah, I can't stop. That's an addiction. And for the record, I told her about it and then actually a week later, we watched some together and we're like, nah, that wasn't a much fun. Exactly, so that's not. Oh, someone just asked me a question. Oh, let's, by the way folks, if you have a question for either me or Marie Beth, write the word question then post the question there after it makes it easier for me to find. So Fiona writes, can you tell us more about what you were thinking when you pulled back from Marie? Great question. A couple of things were going on in my mind. This happened right after our first date. I did pull back a bit and I intimated a reservation about exploring a relationship with her. It was partially for two things. A, I wasn't really a fan of wanting to get into a long distance dating dynamic. I just didn't want to do it unless the pieces of the puzzle could fit. The other thing is I pulled back, and by the way, it was only temporarily. I mean, I really was aware of only pulling back for about 24 hours. It wasn't that long of a period. But I kind of, we had this great date and I couldn't wait to see her and then the next morning I pulled back from it a little bit. About 12 hours from that, I leaned back into it. My fear is I didn't want to get hurt. Like, I didn't want to get attached to someone if it wasn't going to work out. And there was so much uncertainty, at least in my mind. See, with Marie, she had no uncertainty about exploring the long distance dating dynamic because she had done it once before and had a relationship come out of it. And she also knew she had the capacity to travel. I was feeling uncertainty. I think fear is the culprit for pulling back. It's the fear of the unknown, the fear of your emotions, the fear of getting hurt. There's multitudes of fear that pops up and that's what happened in my case. And then what I did is I sent her a text message and I remember it was something to the effect is I really appreciated our time together and I recognize that I would like to explore this dynamic further and I want to make that declaration of that. And I basically begged her to come to the wedding that I was going to the next day. So, and she agreed to it. That's great communication. There you go. See, that's what, that's a healthy relationship. Wasn't left for very long wondering what you were thinking. So then she was able to feel like she can respect you, she can trust you. That's admirable when somebody even admits like you admitted some of your anxious attachment style. And I love that you brought that up that you used to be anxious and sometimes you could get back into that because that's something important for people to know is we can sometimes feel secure and then a trigger could happen. And then we go back a little bit to anxiety but we can always get back to secure when we're, especially when we're with in a conscious relationship with someone who's willing and capable of working with us on that, you know, we're gonna be honest with them. So it's interesting we're talking about this because the next question from Julie is if Marie was also anxious, would that have turned you off or could you have handled her neediness? So that's a good question. So I think it's important to differentiate between extreme neediness and a lack of self-confidence, self-awareness, self-respect, self-love, okay? That usually manifests in extreme neediness, okay? And that's unattractive whether it's a man or a woman. So there is a theory at least according to love attachments theory. See, I believe even though Amir Levine and Rachel Heller said that that's, you know, 30% of the population is secure love attachment style. I don't believe that's true of the single population. In other words, that might be true for those in relationships, but I don't think that's true for those that are single, okay? I think you can become secure in a relationship but I don't think, so I think the population of single adults are either anxious or avoided for the most part. I mean, yes, there might be some secure people. I think in my particular case, my anxiousness is something that I'm learning to regulate. Okay, I'm aware of it. I catch myself, I don't stay in that space for too long and I make a bid for a connection. I make a request for a connection, like what Gottman talks about the Gottman Institute. If she was anxious, I'm not so certain to minor anxious people are going to kill each other, okay? Just like I don't believe to avoid it people, to minorly, and I say minorly, you're just on the cusp of being secure that you don't feel the need for it, okay? It's the extremes I'm concerned about. Stream avoid it, extreme anxious. And so, and for the most part, our relationship is relatively secure. I mean, because we have built a lot of trust with one another. Does that mean that my anxiousness doesn't rear its ugly head? Absolutely. But it's usually because I'm disconnected from my own self-love. That's where it usually pops up. So, hey, we got another question here from Feline. Reconnecting with a shorter boyfriend from 20 years ago. I don't know if that means height. Okay, and you're a tiny thing. You're five foot tall, five one. How soon is it? I don't believe my foot tall. Okay, how soon is it okay to ask Mr. P is working as I remember how to word that question? Oh, you know what I'm thinking? I'm wondering if she just means he's got a smaller penis because Mr. P stands for penis. I don't know. Oh, I was completely confused. Okay, okay, let's just go with that. I'm gonna make an assumption. So, she's reconnecting with a boyfriend who had a small penis. And how is that working? So, I remember how do I word that question? Wow. By the way, if we missed the boat on this, Feline, we're sorry, but I'm just gonna go with this. That could be the totally wrong direction. Oh, short term, short term boyfriend. Oh, that's not, okay. Wow, I went down a weird path. She just wrote that short term. Oh, short term boyfriend, but still, who's Mr. P? Yeah, how soon is it to ask Mr. P is it working, as I remember? Well, let's just go with our, so how do you ask a guy, does your equipment work? Gosh, I've never- You know what, I think it's just, you gotta do trial or error. I was gonna say, I think you just find out as you go, right? Exactly. Because I'm gonna tell you what, you could give this guy performance anxiety by asking that question, maybe everything was fine, then now he's gonna be like thinking about it too much, you know, like, oh my gosh, she's worried about my performance, and then that anxiety could cause his equipment to not work. Yeah, you know, I mean, and I'm not an expert in this area from a physiological standpoint. I just know that I've experienced circumstances where it just didn't work for some reason. Now, it could have been based on my diet, it could be based on alcohol. Alcohol does affect me significantly, that's why if I know I'm having sex, I don't wanna drink much. But- There's a term for that. Yeah, well, stop drinking. Well, I don't drink much anyway. So, but coming back to this, you know, particularly for men, that's obviously a sore subject, our ability to perform, that's where much of our masculinity comes from. And, you know, the challenge is, you know, if he's an emotionally aware grown-up, he can have that conversation with you. In fact, he probably would initiate that conversation. I know that I'm unafraid to initiate those difficult conversations with my partner because I feel secure in myself. It's the ones who feel a sense of shame or feel a sense of embarrassment. It's hard to bring up those conversations. And at the same time, you just have to allow them to bring it up when it's right for them because it's hard to get someone to open up who might be incapable of opening up. Anyway, we went on a weird track on that one. Let's see what Marla has to say. Yeah. The person I'm seeing will talk about his ex but doesn't wanna talk about his three years of dating experience. Is that a red flag? What do you think? So talk about, okay, so the ex has nothing to do with the three years of dating. Yeah, he has an ex it sounds like, but the three years after the ex, he doesn't wanna talk about those experiences. That is a little bit, why no communication on that? I don't understand. It does seem a little bit red flaggy to me. I would definitely wanna dig into that. Like I'm sure you, you know, who is this Marla? You are more than willing to discuss your dating experience. Why isn't he like? My suspicion is like person. Well, I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here is he might have been, you know, slept with a lot of women and he doesn't want to divulge that. He might have been hurt by another woman and that's a sore subject. There's a variety of different reasons. So, but is that a red flag? It's what is, but see to me red flag means ask more questions. That's what red flags to me. Deal breaker is, so if you had written Marla is this a deal breaker? I would say no. No. I would say, find out more, be curious. You know, is there something causing this person not to share about that and see if they're willing to have a dialogue? Look, if his penis gets allowed anywhere near your vagina then you have every right to ask any question you want. Okay, that's my word. Limiting communication with you. That is, that's unhealthy. Like, that you're not allowed to know him. Like, why is he not being vulnerable? It doesn't seem like that's such a intimate question. Just, hey, we didn't have to give you every detail, right? You just wanted a little bit about, hey, what were you doing in your three years of dating? Like, that's, that's a job. But if, yeah, and if he had slept with a lot of women, he can, by the way, you know, he can always downplay anything too. You know, I, by the way, really quickly that question from feeling, it was the 70 year old man and she wanted to find out if the plumbing was working. So, and at, at 70 years old, I can understand why you might want to find that out. So just ask him. Yeah, might as well just ask that guy. Yeah. He's probably used to it. So someone says, I'm not seeing how this topic relates to the title. So I think, you know, bring it back to full circle and we'll wrap up here. You know, relationship addiction is probably, again, the number one addiction out there, it's just not identified. It's not in the DSM or anything like that. I think it's the root cause is, and I've just, I want your take on this because I've said this on video, so you'll know this when I share it. I believe the number one emotional health issue is, I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable and I'm not likable. And nothing triggers this more than dating and relationships. So, you know, the addiction to a relationship is because most humans aren't coming, you know, I'll share my book title. What the heck is self love anyway, is because the journey begins by filling your own love cup. So you're not needing dependent on someone else to fill that cup up. Right. Yeah, the red flags would be, that's what we're talking about with the codependency would be, if you are dating someone and they're trying to rush you into something and it's that really intense, that roller coaster ride, all the drama, these are all red flags. It's the trauma bond versus the healthy bond. And a healthy bond, the green flags, let's talk about green flags are gonna be predictability, communication, you're allowed to express your feelings. There's not a lot of, there's like- Resiprosity. Criticism, yes, exactly. You feel like you're equals. There's not one person who has power over the other person. You're not on that, you know, intense, that intensity that throws you off, you know, your nervous system should not be, listen to your body, listen to your nervous system because if you're with somebody who makes you feel uneasy, that's a indicator that that's not, that person is not good for you. Maybe it's not a bad person, but they're not good for you, your personal nervous system, you know, like it could be a fine person for somebody else, but if you have an anxious attachment style and this person's gonna be, you know, flaky with you, for instance, flakiness, it's not your person. So- So, and I wanna say this, the relationship addiction oftentimes turns people into people pleasers. And when you're trying to please this person so much, you oftentimes, and the title says, when you do this, people pleasing, men often use you and simply it's this, it's an imbalance in the relationship. One person has, you know, the power over another and in that particular case, when it's not a balanced relationship, you can feel like you've been used. I'm not saying you are used, however you could feel like you're being used. So- And a lot of times like if you're enabling the, that to happen because of the fact that you're not standing up for yourself or speaking your needs, and that's where the people pleasing thing comes in. Yeah. Both have to be healed from previous relationships drama. I don't agree with that. I don't think that everybody's gonna be like, go into a relationship healed, but I do think you need to be with a partner who is willing to heal along with you and be conscious of that. And you'll feel more together, we're always growing, we're never done growing, we're never done healing. Well, I wanna say this, I believe healing is a process. I don't believe we healed until seven seconds before death, okay? We get to really heal at the other side. At least that's the way I view it. But so long as someone is healing or willing to heal, I believe that's okay. I mean, to explore a relationship with that person because maybe this relationship together, a lot of people don't wanna hear what I'm about to say, but maybe this relationship you have now is preparing you for the ultimate relationship in the future. And yet when we're attached to someone and we're attached to the outcome, it's really hard to recognize that every experience is a lesson and an opportunity for us to grow. And you might be learning about boundaries in this relationship, like you said, like maybe you have weak boundaries and you're learning that. And yet the next relationship, you're going to be able to have healthy boundaries, not walls, like I went to, but healthy boundaries. Hey, let's wrap up with this question. As a recovering people pleaser, when a guy is pulling back, do you suggest continuing to date? I suggest just stop the people pleasing, just be authentic, always be honest about your needs and who you are as a person. And if they leave, then that's simply not your person. It doesn't mean anything. Well, I think when she means date is, do you suggest continuing to date? So I guess there's a couple of ways of looking at it. In general? Is dating other people might be, like in other words as a precursor to detach from the person, I'm a big proponent of the following. I like being clean. I like only dating and I'm using it as a repetitive thing, one person at a time. I don't believe in people dating multiple people at the same time, just not the way I'm wired. I just don't, I'm a little bit territorial in that way. And I'm also like to, it's too hard to keep track of multiple people. Meeting multiple people, that's different. That's not dating, that's meeting. You can go out of as many meeting greets as you want. But when two people establish that they're seeing each other and they're having regular sex, then do it one person at a time. If a person holds back and you are dating this person, it's not a question of whether or not you should continue to date them. It's really, and this has nothing to do with people, please, and this is all about stepping into a conversation. Sweetheart, I notice you pulling back right now energetically. Is that true? Are you physically and energetically? Is that happening for you? Ask them the question point blank. And if the case is that, what needs of yours aren't being met? And let's discuss this because your pulling back causes me to wonder if you really genuinely care about me. And if you care about me, I would hope that we would talk about what may be coming up for you. Have a conversation with them. And listen to what they say, but more importantly, watch what they do. Like, are there actions that have to match their words? You know, if they're telling you one thing but doing another, go by the action. See, here's, okay, I'm gonna go on a rant for a second. Okay. So, a lot of people are in dynamics, and I was gonna use the word relationships, but I'm gonna call them dynamics. relationships? Yeah, quite frankly, I would say most people are in a situation ship, not a relationship. I agree. Because they haven't built the deep roots of trust through social activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, teamwork, building skills, both in their personal and their professional life, intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy, that's what builds trust. Yes. And so, a lot of people are experiencing another human being, you know, they might think it's a relationship, but it's not really a relationship. It's not an agreement between each other. See, a relationship should be something where it's an agreement between two people. It's an agreement of how often we see each other, what are we gonna do with our time together? What are we gonna do with our time apart? And in other words, connecting with each other, these are all agreements. And so, you know, when you've built a solid friendship with someone, a solid connection, when they pull back, it's not, you know, no one wants to desert a friend. Or let me reframe that. Rarely will someone desert a friend. You might need time to recharge your batteries, you might need your cave time, you might need time to process something, but it's not going to be with someone, the only time this happens is because you haven't established a real bond with another human being. You might have established an attachment. That's where I was going. I agree, 100%. Okay, wait, one other. I know it's off topic, but how do you recover from being an emotionally abuse? How do you recover from being with an emotionally abusive narcissistic for 10 years? You're an expert at that. I'd love to hear your thoughts. It's tough. It will take a lot of, I would say therapy, and you know, there's a lot of free stuff too though. There's a lot of free stuff. If you go on YouTube, there's so many people that- Dr. Rami. They are therapists. Yeah, so you can learn so much if you don't have the money to spend, but a lot of it is being honest with yourself and it's great that you know you were with somebody like that and reflecting on what, how did you end up in that relationship? Like did they, because a lot of times they groom you and you don't even realize that they're a narcissist. You don't see any of that until you're already in too deep for the most. You brought up something that I appreciate, but I'm going to bring, I'm going to reject it a little bit. We get- And I rejects not the right word. I believe it was that Sandra Kahn video we were watching with Chris Williamson. I believe she said something like to the effect. If you're consuming a lot of content regarding like narcissism in particular, if you're watching videos, you could be continually re-traumatizing yourself through these videos and validating a victim consciousness. I don't recall if those were exact words, this is me paraphrasing it. Yeah, I don't remember that, but that's true. Like that is true. If you're already like, if you've already understood what happened to you, you don't want to keep, I'm all about that Jonathan, like the law of attraction, I don't agree you should continually put yourself in that old vibration. If you want to create a new reality for yourself, you don't want to keep going back into that victim role. Yeah, so it's- We're going to move on, but- Yeah, so it's, I'm sorry, I'm cutting you off, but I want to say it's important that you choose content that is about how to heal versus how to recognize. If you are watching content that is all about how to recognize, how to recognize, how to recognize. It's just going to continually fuel your existing trauma, what you want to do. Yeah, you want to recognize it. So now- Yeah, we know that. So what do I need to do to heal? I had a specialist on Dr. Roberta Schaler on, folks, if you're watching this video, it was only about three or four weeks ago, you can scroll through my live videos. She's a specialist in this area about healing from trauma. I want to repeat myself, healing, not revisiting. That's so important. I agree with that. If somebody's victimized you, if you put yourself in that, then you're always going to be a victim. So when do you turn, at some point you got to turn it around. And it's a lot about learning boundaries. So you don't repeat it. A lot of it's just not getting to the same situation again. So that's just self-awareness and personal development and doing things differently than recognizing this is, by the way, a lot of people are going to be bored in a healthy relationship if they're used to that. So a lot of that is just learning about what a healthy relationship looks like and how it feels. And you're not going to have those intense, sexual, highly physical emotions that you might, and understanding that that's okay. You're going to have something better. You're going to have intimacy, real love, real connection. I think someone, I can't remember who said this. It might have been Marianne Williamson. It might not, but she said, people that are susceptible to narcissism are oftentimes the people most starved for love. I can't remember if she said there was someone else and I'm not sure I'm paraphrasing that properly. So the minute a little bit of love comes their way, they jump on it. So if that's the case, let's just for a moment assume that's the case, okay? Well, then all you have to do is fill up your love reservoir and be very mindful and conscious that when someone is giving you a little bit of love in the early stage of dating is not, don't bite the apple. You know, don't give into it. And that's hard to do if you're starved for love. So what does that say? It means you ideally begin working on filling your love cup so you're not susceptible to it. Now that's just my thoughts. Do you have a different perspective on that? Yeah, no, I mean, I think that typically they don't give you a little love. A big red flag is- Oh, they give you a lot of love. Stopping, loving. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, and you're like, you're my soulmate, you're my twin flame, you're gonna hear like, you're gonna hear, be over-complimented and it makes you feel really special and that is why that's why what you said is true, Jonathan, because if you're starving for that, you're gonna just be like, oh, this is what I've been waiting for my whole life and he sees me, he gets me, but they're saying the same thing to every girl they meet. By the way, for the record, I actually was with someone who I believe was a clinical narcissist. Again, that's my only speculation, but she loved bomb me in the beginning. I fell for it, hook, line and sinker and because I was so weak and insecure at that point in my life and she was this successful, gorgeous woman and I mean, that crushed my soul, that relationship, the more I was in it and it took all my willpower to end at five months into it and the pain still carried for another year and that was really the beginning stages of my personal development work was to recognize that if I really want a healthy relationship, I have to have a healthy relationship with myself and I've been working on that since 2007 and I had a coaching session with my coach today and I realized, oh my God, I got so much more work to do. Well, Jonathan, did she, so, cause typically what they are gonna do if it's a real narcissist, they're gonna give you that love bombing, put you on a pedestal and then tear you down. Like they just pull the rug out from underneath you and that's what makes you so unstable and that's how they get their narcissistic supply because then you wanna come back and get that, you wanna be back up on that pedestal. Like, wait, and you tend, if you're the one who's enabling that behavior, you tend to really believe you can get back to that, but. And by the way, I take full ownership, I take full ownership, God, universe, spirit, I take full ownership for allowing myself to, when I say I take full ownership, when I say allowing myself, I was in a position of not loving myself and I gave my power to another human being. They didn't do anything to me. I did it to myself. They were just being who they are. Okay? I'm not absolving narcissists here. I'm just taking ownership that I am not a victim whatsoever. And I had a lot of fun. We traveled together. We did a lot of good things too. So I'm grateful and I wouldn't be a coach today if it wasn't for her. Same. Can you let me? I'm so grateful. I am so grateful. It is because of her I'm able to do what I do today. Absolutely. That's how you learn. And like you just said, that's so true. Like no one can have power over you unless you give away your power. Yeah. So it's- No, we've been talking for an hour, sweetheart. I know, I know. Oh, this has been fun. Folks, listen, Mary Beth, thank you for shedding some light on something we talked about. The number one addiction is relationship addiction. I'm so grateful that you came on and shared. Really quickly, can you tell everyone how they can get ahold of you? Sure. Actually, my link is, I think you're gonna have it below. It's just my link tree that has every single way link. Like I'm on everything. I'm on every social platform. And also I've got addiction recovery cards. They're right over there. I have them right here. And these are exactly for that to help people with any type of addiction, whether it's a person, whether it's alcohol. These are the ways that I quit my addictions actually. So I thought I would make, create these cards to help other people. Well, we're so grateful you come on. Will you do this again with me? Absolutely, I love it. Thank you so much for inviting me. You're very welcome. You and I have fun together. We talk all the time and share reels and all that good stuff. So folks, I hope you got value out of this content. When you do this, you'll be used, you'll often can be used by men. Be careful of your own red flags. That red flag might be that you are addicted to relationships. And I invite you all to do the inner work, that self love work so you can actually be using whether it's Marybeth or myself, so you can lean into a healthy, happy relationship. I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do Marybeth. And first off with giving myself a big gigantic job, the bear hug. Can I reach into the camera and give you a hug of love? Yes. Okay. Do I get one back? You're getting one back. Wait, no, twist your arms the other way. Like that? That means you're giving it back to me. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. All right, everyone. I wanna thank Sarah and LG and Julie and E, I love and feeling and Sarah and Linka and Lynn, I am terrible with names, Sherry Lynn, Fiona, everyone, Blue Horse Shoe. Blue Horse Shoe. Everyone, thanks so much. Have a fab day. Be well. Bye now.