Episode 48: Why are love languages so insidious?
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Hey there and welcome to Time to Lean, the podcast where you air your dirty laundry and we help you clean up your shit.
I'm Crystal Britt.
And I'm Laura Danger.
Think of us as your household secret weapon, taking your questions and voicemails to navigate the wild world of gender norms and household dynamics.
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We dive head first into the nitty gritty of how broader social issues impact our everyday lives.
So don't be shy.
Send us your dirty laundry.
And we'll help you clean up your shit.
This is time to lean.
Welcome back, everybody.
I am here to talk to Crystal about an episode that we just did where she and Michael Vaughan, World Shaker Bluey Dad talked about the fact that the Love what?
0:43
The love languages, the book, and the man who wrote it are bullshit.
And everybody has really strong feelings about that.
So I'm going to.
I'm going to be the interviewer.
You're in the hot seat today, Crystal.
0:58
I'm so excited.
I've been in the hot seat since this since before this episode came out, because Michael and I promoed it and people had big feels about love languages, yeah.
You know, OK, here's here's the thing.
I've never read it, never read it.
1:17
I don't think I have.
I want to say maybe I looked at the table of contents and I was like, hmm, I think I'm this one or I like, read the intro or something.
So I have no understand.
I had no understanding.
I feel like a lot of people didn't know.
1:34
I think that was the biggest thing.
They didn't know what the lore of the book was.
And so a lot of people have just heard it as like, oh, have you read the love languages?
Like it's really oh you and you're having a a hard time relating or getting on the same page.
1:50
Oh, and in my head it was like the newer version or a different version of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
That's exactly what it is.
OK, yeah, yeah, 100% the like, I was on, I was on Amazon yesterday looking for a different book and just out of curiosity, I was like, what are the top like books under relationships, relationship help?
2:13
That book is like number fucking three or some shit.
And here's the thing, I don't OK, in general love languages.
My biggest issue that I take from it is that it represents itself to be something that is not because that's how Gary Chapman presents himself, right.
2:31
It's this thing of, and Michael and I touched on this a little bit, it's the thing of in the Christian world, it's really evangelism is really important.
Proselytizing is very important.
If you can do it in a way that seems what we call what they call in that culture, secular like of the public world and public like discourse and in line with society, if you can cross that line, that's great because then you can like what was the Duggar show called?
3:02
What was that show called?
Shiny happy people.
No, not no.
The the original show.
Yeah, 1819 Kids and counting.
Yeah, 1800 Kids and counting.
Yes.
So that show.
And they talk about that in shiny.
3:17
Happy People was a great get for the Christian community because it plays that subtle line.
I don't like that.
I don't think that that is clear and transparent.
And like we say on the podcast, clear is kind like I don't think that's direct communication.
3:33
I feel like that's tricking someone.
I feel like that's duping somebody within the comment sections from videos that Michael and I posted separately, like we recorded separately and then posted separately.
I swear a lot in my videos.
3:49
His video is very much more palatable I would say, because he doesn't curse like a sailor like I do and he's so thoughtful and like it's very well put together.
People in general had a couple of different reactions.
4:07
One that like with the two.
Yeah, go ahead.
Before, before you get into it either anyone who's listening, go back and listen to the episode about this, about the love languages being bullshit.
And if you don't wanna do that, Crystal, can you give me like, what are some of the bullet points you said?
4:27
Like the fact that it's not transparent.
This is a book written for who?
Why should we care what Gary Chapman has to say?
Like, why is he problematic?
Can you like hit on the few?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
4:42
So Gary Chapman is, for all intents and purposes, a pastor.
He has a PhD that's in adult education.
There are multiple websites that we found in his bio where it says he is a he's a therapist.
Like he's a couples and family therapist.
He is not a couples and family therapist.
4:59
His undergraduate work is in anthropology.
He is not a licensed clinician.
The case studies that he uses in the book are within a pastoral counseling setting, which if you don't know what that is, that's when pastors take on the role.
There's a really blurry line.
Some pastors use, like, view it as like counseling people through grief usually or through difficult times and like kind of helping them like, hey, you know, what kind of.
5:23
I'm thinking of my friend who's been on the podcast before, John.
Pastoral counseling for John looks very different than pastoral counseling does for Gary Chapman.
Gary Chapman's acting like a therapist or presented himself as a therapist in this book and says on on my, you know, experience, the back of my experience.
5:39
Here are the five ways that people feel loved, right?
Which if you're presenting that as a pastor, OK, because then I know if it's for me or if it's not for me.
I would not read a book necessarily written about relationships and a counseling book.
If I know that guy's a pastor, 'cause I'm like, OK, but does he have experience working with the same kind of person that I am?
6:00
No.
So love languages are five different ways He Presents 5.
Vehemently denies that there's a 6th one, which we talked about in that podcast as well in podcast episode.
But they include words of affirmation, quality, time, acts of service, physical touch and gifts.
6:18
The idea is that you have one predominantly 1 predominant love language.
The your your partner has another one or it's the same one.
It's your job as a partner to play to that love language, right?
6:37
If my, like, Ben and I have done this in the past, this is a book.
Yeah, the way they understand and receive love.
This was a premarital counseling book that Ben and I read and used for a long time, right.
His primary love language is acts of service.
My primary love language was gifts, right?
6:54
It meant a lot to me if he brought home coffee, but it wasn't because he brought home coffee.
It was because he.
And that took us a long time to sort out in couples therapy where it's not that you gifted me something, it's that you had thought behind the intention and thinking about me.
7:10
But he also had a tendency to view it as a check, which we talked about in that podcast episode.
Right.
So the downside to love languages is that it presents the opportunity for one of the partners to go, well, I checked your fucking checklist.
You know what I mean?
Like, I did what you asked me to do.
7:26
That's your problem.
Now if you don't feel loved, I don't know what to tell you.
Or well, that's not my language.
I don't speak that language.
So it's hard for me.
It's hard.
For that's the one I've heard.
I I hear that all the time.
The comments section Crystal, I have been texting you about married at first sight this I love that.
7:48
That just the best to love reality TV show TV.
But this one this season these two, this couple have come to the table like right out of the gates just met each other day one.
They have to meet each other's families or like loved ones, their closest friends alone.
8:09
So imagine you and I have just gotten married, just met, and you have to go sit with my best friends or my mom and they're going to grill you and you have to answer questions and I have to go and talk to your family and sit down.
8:26
Like what a matter?
Of sweating.
I'm already sweating.
I hate that and.
It's like on top of that, these are family and friends who are like, Are you sure you want to go on a show like?
Yeah, truly.
And this one guy he's like, Oh yeah, I guess I'm not really.
8:45
I'm not really too worried about anything except like I don't know.
I'm kind of like more of a physical touch kind of guy.
And like, sounds like she's maybe more of like a talking about things.
And like, I'd rather like connect physically.
9:00
And she like is having a hard, like our our intimacy is not aligning because she's just like not moving at the same pace as me.
I'd rather just like physical touch.
And she wants to like talk.
And it's like, oh, no, no, no.
That's emotional intimacy.
9:18
Yeah.
And you want to jump to physical intimacy without like.
That's just a difference in viewing relationships.
Right.
Not just an expression of affection, yes.
Which takes away the complexity, like Michael and I talked about in the episode.
9:37
Touched on how it plays to the superficiality of like, yeah, let's just keep it up here.
Just keep it up here.
Physical touch.
You need to hold my hand more.
And it's like, I'm not going to fucking hold your hand more if I've done more internal work and know the reason I need, like, in order to hold your hand, I need to feel like you see me.
9:57
It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Just hold my hand.
And I can't do that unless you hold, you hold my hand and then I will that, right?
It has the potential to hold each other at like a standpoint, like at gunpoint, right of like we'll all do it if you do it right.
10:15
And takes away the nuance of like, how can we connect to each other?
How can we?
How did we both understand emotional intimacy growing up, right?
Is are we both intellectualizers and, like, think about emotions instead of feeling them?
10:32
How do we?
It just takes the nuance straight out of it, which is why it's a best seller.
Because if you give, this is also a point that I have.
I mean, that was part of my deconstruction of my faith, right?
Where I don't go to the church that I attend now because I got tired of it.
10:50
You know, I wanted a different setting.
I went because every time I would go to church it would be, hey, here are three ways to love your kids better.
Here are three ways that you can get closer to God.
And I'm like, if I serve a God where I can, I can meet them on a checklist.
We've got a problem, right?
11:07
I attend the church.
I do now because I leave with more questions that I have answers and I have book recommendations and I have podcast recommendations and I have follow up.
You know, people that I can follow up with during the week to meet for coffee with to discuss it.
That's what this reduces this down to.
11:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just pray more.
Yeah, just do your.
Rosary that.
I mean, that's the type of Catholic I grew up with.
It was just like, if you do your rosary enough times and you go to the correct and you follow.
11:39
It was always like following a script so that I can I panicked.
I sat in a Pew and panicked and ran through, OK, what do I say?
What's the script?
What's the script?
And then I go into confession and do the script.
And then it didn't matter what I said.
11:56
I had to not get in trouble.
Yes, by saying it wrong, right?
And here's the reason, that's the reason why love languages may not hit in the comments.
There were a lot of people who were like, I always felt like there was something off I or it didn't ever like really resonate with me.
Thank you so much for this.
12:12
And here because I'm wondering if a lot of neurodivergent people, if you can't do something like neuro virgin people tend to see the world in that binary, black or white, because it provides us with safety to have an answer.
Uncertainty is really uncomfortable and we like, we want to be able to know what is happening.
12:29
This gives you a template to know if you're doing marriage, doing partnership, doing love, right, right.
And so if you are, and again doesn't speak to the deeper issue of what is making you feel so insecure about your relationship that you feel like you've got to reduce it down to a checklist, What?
12:48
What are you scared of?
Let's talk about that.
Which is why individual, like why couples therapy with an individual therapist who is fucking licensed and has background of schooling and clinical hours becomes really important.
I'm not in no way in suggesting that love languages is.
13:05
It hasn't been helpful to people.
Clearly it has.
But it can do more harm than good if you rely on that, It's like, that's all the work I'm going to do.
I'm good.
Everything's great, OK?
On that point, on that point, I want to read you one of the comments that's right in front of me.
13:22
This is from.
I don't know, it's from a clip from the show.
It's from the episode says I have yet to meet or see a man who doesn't say his first his love.
Language is physical touch.
I'm sure there are some out there, but the vast majority say this.
13:40
When my partner and I were going through all this bullshit surrounding domestic and emotional labor, I would have said my love language was acts of service because he was going to do so few of them.
Because he was going to, he was doing so few of them.
13:57
But once he came to an understanding about my needs and he started changing, suddenly I craved physical touch from him and gifts and every other love language because we were back to a healthy place.
Every healthy relationship needs, they say, needs all of the love languages.
14:18
What do you think about that?
I think, like, I think that that 'cause there were a lot of people as well who maybe hadn't seen or hadn't heard of love languages before who were like, I just did a quick Google search and like information on what these love languages are.
And it sounds like everybody needs all of them.
14:35
Which, yeah, it's kind of the point that we're trying to make right is like a relationship is much more nuanced than that and much deeper than that.
And someone who men in physical touch.
Like I can't.
It's so that is the that is the most dangerous part in my opinion right there.
14:55
We talk about a point in the podcast episode.
We talk about chapter 12 where Gary Chapman gives the example of a woman who came to him and basically said basically was disclosing to him that she was in an abusive, like physically abusive relationship and the husband emotionally abusive relationship.
15:11
Husband was upset that they weren't having sex more.
She expressed feeling used like a body, like just like a body when she had sex.
And his recommendation to her was to go home and ask him what she could do to be a better wife and to pray and suggested that, or may have explicitly said Michael quotes it exactly that if she doesn't do that, like if she if it doesn't work out, it's going to be because of her lack of faith in God to help her fulfill those duties as a wife.
15:40
There was this guy.
There was this guy when I first got on TikTok.
He's still doing his thing.
He has now connected with all of the MRA, the Men's Rights Activists, who are just, yeah, women hating misogynists.
15:57
A self hating misogynist too.
Anyway, this guy made a video that I was upset about and he cheated on his wife and they got divorced.
And his he does all these videos where he's like, I've learned, here's what I've learned and here's what I've learned as a girl dad who is divorced and blah, blah, blah.
16:21
And was basically like if another woman is going to find you interesting and you just like have like your wife is always like telling you what to do and then telling you that you did it wrong and like isn't showing you any interest.
16:37
Then if somebody does want to do that and it is making you feel like seen and heard and is going to let you.
He was like and is going to let your railer in the back of a car and film it like of course and what a.
Treasure, I hear.
16:53
That, and like underneath the bullshit of it is like, OK, yeah, if you are feeling disconnected with your partner, your relationship is going to fall apart if you aren't seeing each other.
But the answer is not to use that as like that's not it shouldn't be coercive.
17:13
It shouldn't be like, oh, now I need to behave exactly as you need.
If those two were butting heads and they were totally misaligned on values and communicating poorly, she might have been emotionally abusive to him.
Who freaking knows.
Don't know.
The answer to those issues is never dissociate from your body and let him do it right.
17:36
Is never is Never.
Suck it up and just let him do it.
Yeah.
Which is a callback.
I mean not a callback.
If if you would like to hear us talk more on that in depth and read you out an article.
There was an article written by a psychologist who suggested that even if you're not into it, you should just do it right and it becomes so that line becomes so blurred when you're like, well this.
18:04
This therapist recommended this in this book. 5 Love Languages.
This is the remedy.
This is a it provides legitimacy to that claim.
It provides a space where because he's not presented like because he's represented as something that he's not could hold more weight.
18:21
It's just dangerous.
I don't understand why.
I don't understand why it's so.
For me, if an element of something is dangerous, there is potential for the rest of it to be insidious and dangerous as well and needs to be re examined.
18:37
So it's really interesting to me when people like are vehemently like you don't know what you're talking about.
You know, like this isn't that big a deal.
Like girl take a take a Xanax, calm down.
All of which are in my comments.
Like it doesn't make I get really fired up about the potential that shit has to cause additional harm to people, because that's the exact opposite of what any resource should do.
19:02
Yeah, that is interesting.
Especially cause when people say that like they don't and what I hear is the part that is dangerous and the risk doesn't matter, like that is an OK risk for them.
19:19
That's what we hear.
Anytime someone's like, oh but either like brushes it off.
They're saying that whatever possible negative outcome is just acceptable.
Some their risk assessment is that this is OK Was it love and respect that you were talking about where it was like if I do you, you do me.
19:41
And if if I'm not doing, if you're not doing me the way I'm supposed to, then I can't do you and it I'm.
I mean, it's men.
They're all written that way.
I was gonna.
Say men are from Mars and women are from Venus.
Is the most horrific example of that that I I haven't read, love and respect but.
20:01
It's it's so dangerous and bad and it just blames the other person for not doing it.
And I think you've said this before, and I mean, it's how I feel too.
The relationship, like it's about the relationship.
20:16
It's not you versus me.
That's a really shitty way to think about it.
It's like.
OK, if our needs aren't being met, it doesn't mean that you should sacrifice yours or I should sacrifice mine, right?
20:32
Like it's you don't have to be.
Opposing forces here, if you have a need for physical touch, I wonder how we could make that happen in consideration of my needs too, right?
And love and respect.
20:47
Yeah, Sorry.
Go ahead.
In the comments section in the comments section here, I like that this person is just like yeah, suddenly once we were aware of needs and not necessarily as like the the action is what this guy focuses on.
21:04
Like you said, like without the other shit, right?
And right, I'm not going.
To want to touch you and you're not going to want to be in you're not actually in service of me if you are behaving in a way out of fear that I'm going to leave you, right.
21:21
Right.
And having that perspective of you aren't doing what you are supposed to be doing, like you're not, you're not doing what you.
And in this context is, again, particularly dangerous because it is, it can be weaponized really easily with an evangelical Christian, high control religion in general.
21:41
That you're not, you're not performing your spousal duties, right?
Like you're not.
Well, I don't know what to tell you because God clearly says that this is what you're supposed to do.
Here's a book that backs that up.
Love and respect is even worse, in my opinion.
But men are for Mars.
Women or for Venus.
21:57
Or is what would be considered like a a secular example.
It it's all so problematic.
And I just want to point out all three of those books are written by men.
White men.
You know what's a?
Better example All about Love by Bell Hooks 100.
22:16
Percent How?
How we show up by Mia Birdsong becoming kin.
Patty.
Literally anything by the I'm reading the future is disabled and care work The Future is Disabled is brilliant.
22:32
It's about disability justice and gripping relationships.
Amazing.
Yeah, like any anything written by a black, brown or indigenous woman who or non binary person who has lived experience about and has knowledge to bring to the table about what community looks like.
22:54
How do you navigate?
What is, what is intimacy, What is emotional intimacy?
How does it interact with physical intimacy?
The I feel like the biggest lie that these books purport all three of the ones that you just mentioned, actually, along with, you know, gender essentialism is the lie that, like, men's only goal in a relationship is to fuck.
23:18
That's all they need.
This is, this is so, like, this is not, this is not hard.
Cook him a meal.
Like, fuck him.
You're set.
It's like.
Why that's such a fucked idea of what a relationship is.
And OK, so we talked about Pierre.
23:36
I mentioned Pierre a lot.
Pierre Fleury, he, he and I had a conversation like a year ago, and I was just looking at it, and he was talking about the ways that men and boys are sexualized.
And I I was talking to Angela Chen, too, who wrote Ace.
23:53
And Angela interviews somebody like, up in the front of her book, like a, a Christian, a Christian boy who grew up thinking like, wait, I've been told my entire life that I am in this, like, insatiable sexual monster.
24:11
And I don't feel that way that, like.
And I need to, like, go to the doctor like some things do.
I have low testosterone, like, is something, Am I sick?
Do I have an adrenal disease?
Like, what is going on?
And Pierre said the same thing with me.
It was like, you've got these 1617 year old boys who are not obsessed with sex and they're getting made fun of and they've got uncles who are like, are you gay?
24:36
And there's like, this, the pillar of toxic masculinity.
Is this homophobia?
And so then you learn to objectify women.
And there you go back to Crystal's point of purity culture being rape culture.
24:52
Being a boy who can see a woman for her.
Humanity is gay.
That's gay.
You're gay and something's wrong with you.
And you better learn to be a a deviant.
25:09
Yeah.
You need to, you need to toe the line and objectify women.
We don't understand why you can't get it together.
It does such a huge disservice.
I mean we talk about will to change by bell hooks a lot, but the the community that people need in order to that men need in order to facilitate that kind of thing is so like the implications if men were supported that way would be so far reaching.
25:36
Like, Can you imagine if that were more normalized?
Like, it's it dried, like in the middle of raising a son.
It is wild to me that I have to fight so hard to be like here's who you need to spend time with, because these are men who don't play to those norms And how much of an effort it takes because it's not available and it's not encouraged.
26:01
Yeah, Well, yeah.
I mean, Michael Vaughan talks about this all the time, like being called a cock, a Sissy, a a bitch, Like all of these these horrible insults for being, for seeing a woman's humanity.
26:20
And so, So Angela Chen refers to this compulsory sexuality, which is like the the Cosmopolitan, where it's like if you're not having sex five times a week, once like, oh man, married people get into a slump where they only have sex twice a week.
26:37
And everyone who is that's any variation from that is like, oh wait, what?
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
What?
Yeah.
Doesn't matter where you vary.
26:53
If you're like, Oh no, I have sex five times a day.
I can't or or not once a year, maybe like, but all of us are like, what are you?
This is weird.
Yeah, and there.
You go, I'll bring it back to your point, which is there's no three checks that you or 6 rules to like.
27:12
Yeah, principles, pillars of yeah, but rigidity?
I don't know.
That's my thing.
Like anything that comes with like an easy fix.
I'm really hesitant to like in any anything that I'm exploring right.
27:28
Anything that I'm researching or reading about right.
Whether it be racism, capitalism, patriarchy like any of those things they're like here's I mean that's why it's so hard to create content in these areas is because I'm like there are three easy ways to what the fuck?
No that's not easy.
27:43
That takes years of development and years of interest and curiosity and learning like it's that's hard work to do and Rob's, you know that simplicity robs people of the experience of being human in my opinion right.
It's just very and the most interesting thing to me, and this is probably my neuro divergent coming out.
28:04
The most interesting thing to me about the reactions to the videos that Michael and I posted about love languages was was the pushback to research.
Like the pushback for like there's no there's no research that supports this so there isn't any scholarly research or thing like articles from peer reviewed journals that support this.
28:26
The closest Michael did all the research, the closest that Michael could find was a study that suggested that it was with college students and college students who were given like the five love languages to identify themselves from.
They found that partners who engaged in interest in their partner and like learning more about their love language made the other partner feel more loved, which is like, fucking dumb.
28:54
Like, no shit that's That study also suggested there was a sixth love language with my Michael and I talk about in that episode.
The 6th love language is check ins where I'm like, Oh no shit, you mean like bids for connection?
You mean like intentional emotional labor toward your partner that makes a relationship like.
29:11
And when that study came out, Chapman went on like the fucking Today Show and was like adamantly, no, there's no six love language.
And I was like, this is the most Boomer doubling down shit I've ever seen.
I'm like, OK, so it's very, very interesting.
29:28
And if you have watched mine and Michael's episode, or listen to mine and Michael's episode, the predominant comment to anything that we posted about this was that the podcast If Books Could Kill has an entire episode on this.
And I haven't listened to it yet, but it must be phenomenal and very listenable because I had well over at least 100 comments.
29:48
Just like reinforcing, please listen to that episode, that breakdown of both languages.
That I mean that that podcast is incredible.
That's it's so good.
I think before this call we were talking about this book and I we this is the recent one.
30:07
But Patti Crawlak's Becoming Kin.
I was thinking about this thing that she said in it, which is the in it, one of the indigenous ways of naming things.
Did you get to that part yet?
Yeah, yes, I am in the middle of that right now.
30:24
Or just listen to it.
So something what I took away, and maybe you took something else away from this, but like the fact that everything is relational and how we name things in relation to one another, and that the naming that she talks about is like this Anish nabe way worldview.
30:44
OK, so there's this.
We are not human beings.
We are humans being, which is like things are fluid.
I am a human being this way right now the the shirt is blue. the OR the blue shirt versus the shirt is being blue like it is blue right now.
31:04
It could be a different color later.
I love that.
But the the thing that stuck out to me that I relates to this is like to you.
I would refer to you as something outside of me.
31:20
You are Crystal, my friend from California that I could describe you of all of these things and that's like a naming of you.
I have a description and a definition of you.
To.
Me.
I am a certain thing.
31:35
I have names and descriptions for myself.
Your description of me is going to be different because it is about your relationship to me, right?
And how I relate to the world based on your world view.
And all of these things are much more complicated and dependent.
31:55
And this is like the intersectionality and centering idea of like you experience patriarchy in a totally different way than I do.
And a a black gender non conforming person is also going to experience the world completely differently and have a different understanding and and experience of patriarchy.
32:20
So I cannot project and pretend to understand that I can do my best and understand relationships, but ultimately, like it's not as cut and dry as this is what this thing is.
Yes, which as a person with a neurodivergent brain drives me fucking crazy and also calls me into the opportunity to notice that and know that about myself and try and self reflect so that I can't.
32:51
I mean I'm looking at three books right now as I'm standing here.
Family Abolition, Mad World about Mental Health and capitalism and politics and a Decolonial Feminism, which is a French translation.
It's like I have to have, I have to continue learning and opening myself up to different perspectives so that I can figure, so that I can have a lifelong attitude of I do think this now, right, like with I can say on the Internet, love language is bullshit.
33:20
That is the state of being to like to your naming.
That is the state of being I am in, right Then the Internet, like you've talked about before, flattens all nuance and you have 60 to 90 seconds at most to get your point across, right.
And it works for engagement.
33:37
But the people in my comments that are like, can't people just have things?
Can't people just like things?
Girl, why is this such a big deal?
And it's like, I that's OK if it's not a big deal to you.
Like also I'm willing to engage with that.
Tell me what.
And I have one of like one of the people that I follow on Instagram and we you know dialogue back and forth like, hey, love language has really worked for me.
33:58
I would love to chat with you more about this.
And I'm like, that's great.
Absolutely right.
It's just it's this, it should be this interactive fluid, never coming to a conclusion necessarily right?
In the effort of protecting each other and if through understanding each other better and being open to understanding what's going on right, I think you.
34:21
That's my perception of it.
And like if I said anything that you perceived differently, that's like the nature of the conversation I kind of want to hear.
That's like when I'm when I'm putting these thoughts together and I'm like, OK, if there is no one truth, then like how can I proclaim anything, right?
34:39
And I think like in my head I see it as relational and fluid and like so when I am thinking of these things, I am constantly thinking of how I relate.
It's not about the one truth.
34:54
It's about understanding the many and the many.
Like, like you said, those all of those books sound incredible, by the way, and I want you tell me which ones I need to start with next.
But like, I just want to know the network and the growth.
35:11
And like, I just want to always be gaining knowledge and learning and experiencing and like to just be like I that You've said this before.
The capitalist lens is like, check, I have the wife, I have the house, I got the job.
35:28
But did you?
But did you work or did you experience love?
Yeah.
Right.
Like like when?
I don't know.
There's so many like.
Lately I have been getting a lot of content about about like Jesus being socialist and I'm like 100% but a lot of religious post like post deconstruction content of like at what point did you sell your that has made me think of at what point did you sell your soul to not feel any of that shit?
35:59
To come on and troll a therapist Instagram to be like no.
Nope her hair is weird.
Fuck this.
I love love languages.
It's like babe I'm so like true.
Like truly, genuinely I am so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
36:14
Like that sounds like a very unlived life and I hope that when folks are 80 years old they're not on their deathbed going.
I didn't.
I wish I had engaged with these things more.
I wish I or Oh my God, have we talked about the woman who left all the journals, that article, that HuffPost article when she died.
36:32
Can you talk about that?
We.
Didn't maybe you have a better memory of it.
But before we move on from that, yeah, the the people who come to the comments section and shut it down is what's a bummer saying.
36:49
And I just want to repeat what you said, had said before is like coming to a comment section and being like this worked for me.
That's like with an element of curiosity and being like, yes, this is my, this is my experience of this thing interesting that that's your experience of this thing.
37:06
Instead it's like, no, I know it's mine, yeah.
Yeah.
Women be women in, like, in my comment section, it's like, OK, my favorite thing is to troll those people because I'm like, thank you so much for the engage.
Like I had when I did the Men in therapy video.
37:22
I had a friend DM me who was like, why did you turn the comments off?
And I said I'm, I'm being railed in the comments and she was like, leave them on.
That's going to help the algorithm.
Why would you turn them off?
Just don't check them.
Turn the notifications off.
So I I engage with those trolls with like, thumbs up emojis or K or like, oh, OK, never mind.
37:41
Like, oh, OK, you changed my mind.
You did it.
You changed my mind.
This is how the Internet works.
Great job, buddy.
But yeah, having that, like, it's not the back and forth.
And I hope that that comes across right.
Like both in the podcast and in like the content that you and I both create in social media of like, absolutely, like, you have a differing opinion.
38:01
I would love to engage in a conversation about that.
I wouldn't like to be screamed at about how you think I'm full of shit.
But.
That's the other thing is like I I think that you and I also agree on things.
The universal truth of like our responsibility to one another, like we.
38:20
Belong to each other.
Exactly.
So, like, I think it's principled in that we have a responsibility to one another.
And so when it goes, when it steps into the spaces of racism, Islamophobia, you know, like when it's when it's a hatred and a destruction, when it's the opposite, when it's finite, transactional, violent, dominant, like those are.
38:45
Yeah.
Those are deal Breakers, yeah, say.
Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, We stand firmly, Yeah on.
Both.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
There was an article that you had sent me.
I think it was Huffington Post.
It may have been something different, but a woman like prematurely died of cancer, like in her like fifties, 60s, like they had raised their children.
39:07
They were like moved out.
And after she died, her husband found all of these journals that she had kept.
I don't know whether or not he had known that they existed.
He had just never read them before.
He had didn't have knowledge of them and he read them and the article is about how he didn't know her like he was like we spent a lifetime together and I didn't know.
39:27
Like these journals showed me.
I didn't know who she was.
It gives me goosebumps where I don't want to live my life that way.
I have uncomfortable conversations as I'm discovering things about myself, and as I read these books and talk with you and like, write and do all of these things, I have to have these conversations with my partner that are really uncomfortable at times and scary.
39:48
But if I don't take him along with it, he's not my partner.
He's my roommate who like, occasionally I update about shit, right?
But I don't want to die and have all of these things that I've learned not be integral with my life.
That robs me of the experience of living in my opinion.
40:06
I think that is the core of what it means to be alive and living.
Here's the here's the question.
I can't remember if we've broached this subject before the I love you, but I don't like you very much comment that I think that a lot of, maybe maybe a lot of people have heard as from a parent to a child.
40:30
Like, I'm just very disappointed in you type of thing.
And it brings the question in my mind of what is love?
And so if you are in a relationship with someone and you share a home with them and you serve them in the way that they would like to be served, is that love?
40:51
Is that a guarantee of love?
No, that's servitude.
That's.
That's indentured servitude, as I learned it in fifth grade.
Yeah, like I tell you, you're pretty and I buy you flowers and you do my dishes and there's always a hot meal for me and that's love and.
41:12
Here's what I think that's.
Valuable.
It's companionship or it's a partnership.
Right.
And here, this is what makes me so frustrated is in that exchange.
Yes, like in in a sys hat relationship, yes, women are impacted.
41:29
Men are the bigger loser there, in my opinion, because women at least have the like, and this might be a little bit controversial.
They can feel loneliness, they can feel yearning, They can feel disappointment.
They can feel they have access to those feelings and vulnerable vulnerability.
41:45
The men who complete their lives in that way never felt that like to me.
That's like they didn't.
Oh, they didn't.
They weren't aware.
Disappointment.
Yeah.
They they like, have this level of they lived with this level of sedation right where it's the like the men who whose wives are like, I'm they wake up one morning and they're like, I this is it.
42:10
I'm I got my bags packed.
I'm gone.
And they're like what?
I got you the flowers.
I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.
Like that is what makes me so fucking mad at patriarchy, is that men can live sedated without even meaning to, because the system completely sets them up in that way.
42:31
Yeah, I was going to say, because it isn't that.
It isn't that men don't experience those things.
It's that they don't think it's abnormal.
Yes, like.
Or they only?
Experience it in a work environment, which is even worse, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's so incredibly isolating and lonely to just not.
42:53
It's such a disconnect because it's like, on one hand, if the husband, in that scenario of not knowing his wife, not knowing because wasn't she.
He was like she was so lonely, like she was feeling all of these ways and she was, she was yearning.
43:09
She was lonely.
I learned this after she was dead.
It's like he didn't know about that.
He might have felt the same way, but wasn't encouraged to explore that or understand that or know that there was a different way of being and she didn't feel for whatever reason, that she could share that.
43:29
Or was sharing it and he was missing it?
And that's the thing that makes me like the systemic thing of it might not even have been intentional, right?
Like, it is quite possible for well meaning men.
Like, we kind of project onto this guy who found these journals, right?
Projecting onto him as like he was doing his best, like, you know, but like didn't know there was even another option and she didn't feel like it.
43:54
She could take hold of that option that it like, like you said, that's incredibly lonely and so isolating.
And that's OK.
That's the flip side.
If you take the gender out of it and you think just patriarchal, then what is the principle?
44:12
It's hyper individualism, yes.
So it doesn't matter which side of the coin you're if it's masculine or feminine, it's the hyper individuality that is isolating absolutely.
The hyper individuality and the hyper independence, right?
44:28
The lone wolf thing that truly we see, I mean to your point, is not gendered.
Right, that is a.
Tendency that people who don't know what to do, like you know, fear emotional abandonment and so want to be hyper individualistic so that they don't have to engage with community and depend upon other people that feel safer.
44:53
Oh, I was gonna I I feel like I skipped over it and I don't want to brush past.
Yeah.
If to act in companionship is still loving like that can be.
I don't want to.
Yeah, that's the part.
I mean, clearly we we build a podcast platform on it.
45:10
Like, clearly it's important, Yeah.
Like all of the acts of service, the showing up for each other, all of that.
But it I what I was trying to say was like, shouldn't we all be questioning, shouldn't we be thinking broader about what it means to be connected?
45:29
Right.
Which is when you and I have talked before about, you know about fair play in the way that like that's a great tool and a great system and a great start, right.
That's a very equitable and meaningful start.
If you are implementing a system like that, or you've tried fixes toward that and don't feel like the quality of your relationship or connection is any better, this might be why, right?
45:52
Like it takes more than a quick fix and like checking a box to find emotional fulfillment or meaningful fulfillment in a partnership.
Yeah.
Amen.
Amen.
OK, resources in the show notes, everybody.
46:11
Thanks so much for hanging with us.
Thank you.
Guys.
Goodbye.
Thanks for joining us on another episode of Time To Lean.
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46:26
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46:42
See you next time.