Hey, welcome back to New day Northwest.
You know anyone who is either
dated or been married knows that
relationships are not easy.
Our next guests are the hosts of the
anatomy of Marriage podcast and they're
here to talk about some relationship
trends that they've been seeing lately.
Seth and Melanie Studley
are on the couch with me.
Thank you and good morning to both of you.
Thank you for having us.
This is perfect timing.
You just saw our kids earlier and you know,
that's that's hard too.
But overall,
a trend you're seeing lately is hesitating.
Yeah, what's hesitating?
It's a combination of being
hesitant to date again,
and then this other term phota like
FOMO like fear of missing out.
Yeah, fear of dating again,
which is really interesting and
I think it comes from COVID and
people like wanting to get back
out but not knowing how to be
social again and there's all kinds
of things going on with that.
That's true I think like a lot
of people forgot how to like
socialize or tell stories or jokes.
Yeah, overall it was just you know,
human interaction.
That's really interesting.
So how does someone who's hesitating?
Get through
that. Well, my advice as the
marriage and family therapist,
I like vulnerability right?
And when you're vulnerable with someone,
you invite them to speak about
who they really are, right?
And so it's like, OK,
don't share too much,
but at least put yourself out there
and usually you will get what you
want back if that makes sense. Yeah,
absolutely. I think that people
are hesitant to date again,
there's so much so many different
things going on in the world.
So many crazy things happening and we
just need to put ourselves out there.
There's nothing more.
To say then like get out there,
say something say hi, meet people,
get on groups all of that jazz.
Yeah, the next trend that you
guys have seen which I think is
kind of actually pretty smart.
Dry dating. No alcohol.
Yeah yeah that's a whole movement too
because people are just tired of like
drinking a ton of drinks like waking up,
not remember what's going on and
then not really having a real
relationship without the alcohol.
So when we take that out,
we're like oh I'm getting to know myself
a little bit better and then getting to
know their partner a little bit better
too. Say I think people
really want authenticity.
They don't want to be, you know,
inebriated or dampened or whatever
that looks like when you're drinking.
So they're they're.
I love this approach of like saying,
hey, who are you really?
What are we really like?
Let's get to know each
other on a deeper level,
like right out of the
gate. I think that's a good advice for
couples who have been together for a while,
because how often do you share a
glass of wine or a bottle with
your your significant other?
Yeah, but just taking that
apart taking that away.
I mean, it's I think that's interesting.
One thing you see is just simple idea
of really getting to know a person.
Before you start dating them.
Yeah, like we work together Millie and I.
A year before we got married.
And so we really got to know one another
like ohh I like her characteristics.
I think this would make a good a good
match and I think because of COVID I
mean we've been holed up, you know,
in our in our apartments for like 2
years so we've been able to be be
more thoughtful about who we are.
Yeah, so also we want to be more
thoughtful in who we date and
we want them to know themselves
because we're working on improving.
Ourselves as well.
On that note, you also think that more
people are starting to think about dating
in terms of emotional intelligence,
which is, I mean, literally something.
I wish someone told my younger 20 self.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think people are interested in
people who know why they think the
way they think. What they're not,
just what they're thinking about,
how they're thinking and emotional
intelligence is really this idea of
being able to control your emotions,
understand them, know what to do with them,
right, and know what to do empathically,
with your partner.
And that's a huge deal.
You want that person for your future spouse.
You know you want to.
Think of emotionally,
intelligently dating,
and it's a cool and I think it's awesome.
It's exciting.
I even saw this thing this morning
on Instagram and it literally said
emotional intelligence is sexy.
Yeah, I'm like ohh OK yeah,
so true yeah, I mean, it really isn't.
It's a muscle that I mean I believe
everyone can gain emotional
intelligence at some point.
But if you are already there on that,
I mean you want to make sure that someone
you're dating is already kind of there.
Yeah, an intelligent
emotionally it's so important.
So tell us about the podcast
oht. Well, the podcast is called Anatomy
of Marriage and it is our story as a
licensed marriage and family therapist.
We went through a really hard time
and I mean really hard time like,
OK, we're calling it quits.
Really what we work through it.
We recorded our arguments,
put it all out there, not yeah,
and we examined what like why
was our marriage failing?
He was a marriage family
therapist at the time.
We had just given birth to our
second son and he was so bad.
I literally gave him a black
eye and we were trying to find
resources and everything.
Just felt so vanilla and like
where's the book for the chick
who gave her husband a black eye?
Doesn't want a divorce like
where's the book for that?
Yeah.
And so we went out and created
the podcast as a way to like help
other couples who looked more like
us and to really talk about the
serious stuff because we would
run into trying to interview
professionals in this field who
wouldn't talk about things they were
like oh we don't talk about that.
Let's move on to the next question.
Like
how do you not talk about?
How do you not talk about you're
talking about spousal abuse?
You know, I know this is something.
And Congrats to your vulnerability
and your bravery for sharing that
because you open yourself up to
judgment with absolutely but I
love that you're doing that just
so you can help other people
because all y'all know out there.
We've all had a fight.
That you don't want anybody to see, right?
You know what I'm saying,
so I'm glad that you're doing that.
Recorded your argument?
Yeah, yeah, that
was the biggest teacher.
Oh my, goodness gracious,
I would go back and I would
edit them and I'd be like I'm
gonna show him how smart I am.
I'm gonna edit this and I was like,
Oh my gosh, I'm terrible at arguing and
it taught me it was my biggest teacher.
Was revealing myself.
Yeah, absolutely
was OK. I mean, that's interesting.
I am totally fascinated totally
on board and not just for
like romantic relationships.
All relationships they feel
like really helps with. Yeah
yeah. We talk about so over 500 episodes.
Yeah, parenting, relationships,
family of origin,
sex and intimacy, you name it,
finances all the stuff that
make up real relationships,
and we go there, yeah,
and it's like it's like the
best time of the week for
her therapy sessions. Yeah, for the world,
the real conversations.
I'm so glad you go there so
we can go there with you.
Thank you both so much.
This is been so fascinating.