- There's elements of the bad boy, that, in some ways,
you know, we look for even in the good person
that we end up with.
You know, we, you may marry a good man,
but it's hot when you marry a good man with an edge.
- Even in the right people,
we look for elements of the bad boy to exist occasionally
and at the right moments, even if only in the bedroom.
- But if, but I do, Esther Perel said to me
when she was talking about the idea of women going
for bad boys, and she said,
"One of the reasons that women like the bad boy is because
"they see him as being able to take care of himself
"and his own needs.
"He goes for what he wants
"and he takes care of his own needs,
"and that allows her to focus on herself and her needs,
"without having to be a caretaker for him."
I suppose the idea being that
so many women spend so much of their lives
babysitting men and being their caretaker
and playing mother to them, that when a guy comes along
who doesn't need any of that,
all of a sudden, she's free to focus on herself
and her own needs.
So I think that's an interesting theory.
- Oh, she's great Esther.
She really has some... - I love her, yeah.
- So going on from the bad boys, but it kind of ties in,
why do you think people ignore the red flags?
People say, "You know, I didn't really like this person."
They might say, "The sex was red hot and amazing,"
but they didn't really have anything in common
or they've seen this person would be rude to a waiter
or rude to their own children and yet,
but they still see them.
So why do you think we ignore the red flags and say,
"This person isn't necessarily nice,
"they've got some really unattractive qualities,
"but you've chosen to ignore them"?
Why do you think that is?
- I think there's a number of reasons.
I think, on one hand, we are afraid that
we're never going to find what we want, and that this person,
even though there's things wrong with them,
represents hope for our love lives,
and so we become a biased judge, ignoring everything,
all the evidence that this person
could make us deeply unhappy or isn't a very good person,
and looking for all of the attributes of this person
that suggest they're wonderful.
We have to, we always have to suspect our judgment
in situations where we want the result too badly,
where we're too unwilling to be, to remain alone any longer,
because that will always make us prone to ignoring the...
That's the same, by the way, in a company,
if you're trying to employ someone
and you're desperate to fill that position,
someone can come through for an interview
and they be kind of charming,
and you notice that there's a few red flags
and there's a few reasons why this person
is maybe not as a qualified or as competent
as they should be,
but you're so desperate to fill that position in the company
that you'll overlook it to get them in
and then you pay the price later,
when it turns out they can't do the job.
So I think that's part of it.
Certainly, insecurity is a part of it.
"I don't deserve someone who has these qualities
"that, you know, who is charismatic and confident
"and attractive,
"who also is going to treat me well,
"who also is a good person."
I, you know, we think, "In order to have this stuff,
"we have to put up with this stuff."
And that's a really, that's a very destructive pattern.
It is also the reason why people are, you know,
turning into people-pleasers in relationships,
is, you know, they find themselves doing twice as much
for this person as this person is doing for them.
They're making all the sacrifices,
they're giving up all of their time,
they're going out of their way to please this person
and doing all of these things
that this person would never do for them.
And you say, "Why, why do you do this?"
And it's because, deep down, they can,
the righteous mask for that is,
"It's because I'm a loving, generous person,"
but deep down, the insecurity is,
"I'm not worthy of this person.
"I'm not as good as them.
"I've put them on a pedestal and therefore,
"in order to keep them,
"I have to work twice as hard as them
"in order to make it worth their while.
"If I were to ask for what I really wanted,
"this person wouldn't be around."
- It's that whole thing of, "I have to earn love,
"work for love, run after love, and chase love,"
but you really don't. And I see that too,
that more people stay in the wrong relationship
in case it will never get better.
That, I see that as the biggest problem,
even than not finding the right person,
is staying with the wrong person,
because, "Oh, well, better the devil you know."
How do you know when it's the time to end a relationship?
So many people people stay in it for too long,
or they, I'm just working with someone now
who keeps breaking out and going back
to the same person over and over again,
both because they're too scared
to think they'll ever find anyone else,
but how do you know, what advice would you give?
How, what would you say, would help you to know
when it's time to end a relationship and move on?
- I suppose when you truly no longer feel
that you have a teammate in making things better
and working on it.
Either because your teammate
has totally given up on being a teammate,
or because you see that
your needs are so far from being met
and there is no sign of any of that shifting or changing.
It's not a phase; it's not a chapter where
your partner just happens to be quite... in a busy chapter
and that chapter will, you know, change.
If it seems to be just a permanent state of play
that, "I'm nowhere near to getting mine.
"We're not 10% out, in terms of my needs being met.
"We are so far away that I cannot be happy
"within this relationship."
Then I think it's time to leave.
You know, people forget that relationships,
what makes them quite different in a sense from friendships,
yes, it's lovely that your partner can be your best friend,
but what makes it different from a friendship is that
when you have a friend, I have many friends and they all,
I think of them as operating in sort of circles
expanding out. You know,
"Here's me, and around me is my closest circle.
"And then around that are the people that I enjoy as friends
"and around that are acquaintances
"and around that are people that I enjoy seeing
"but I only see once in a while."
And so, and when a friend,
let's say, who I deemed to be my close friend,
no longer feels like a close friend
or we're not really investing in each other anymore,
they may drift into a different circle,
into a more outer layer, and that's okay,
because more friends can come into the inner circle.
Friends shift and change and move,
and that's natural and that's healthy
and we can develop more friends,
but in a monogamous relationship,
we can't develop more lovers.
- Yeah.
- And so, if we're a mile away
from having any of our needs met within a romantic context,
there's not just a romantic tribe that we can go to
to diffuse those feelings
and spread them out amongst the community.
And so I just think that's where it comes down to,
"How close am I to getting my needs met?
"Is it, do I, is it possible on the horizon?
"And do I have a teammate who actually looks like
"they're willing to get there?"
Because that idea of, you know,
I think it was Jacob M. Broad who said,
"Consider how hard it is to change yourself
"and you'll realize how foolish it is
"to think that you can change somebody else."
That's such an important idea.
Most people woke up at the beginning of this year
on January 1st and said,
"I want to get a better body this year."
Most people did that, and most people didn't,
they were motivated to do it and they still didn't do it.
So now imagine trying to get your partner
to change over something they're not even motivated
to change.
- Yeah, that is hard, that many people go into a relationship
planning to change the other person,
when, of course, we have to remember Billy Joel's song,
"Don't go changing to try and please me,
"I love you just the way you are."
And, you know, my daughter is just getting married
to this amazing guy.
I honestly couldn't have picked anyone better.
And I remember saying to her, you know, "Darling,
"when you're looking for a husband or a boyfriend,
"don't overlook kindness." We get so into,
"Oh, they're so fit and they're so good looking
"and they're so something,"
and yet, I, you know, sometimes we start to get so caught up
with the hot and heavy sex,
which is very compelling in itself,
but you've got to think of,
"Who am I going to spend my life with
"and what kind of qualities do I require
"in the person I'm going to spend my life with?"
And I mean, I'm very lucky, I have an amazing husband,
but his qualities are that he's so funny,
he can make me laugh, and he's immensely kind,
and he's so intelligent.
And those are the things that make a relationship last,
you know, if you're sick, if you've got a problem,
if, you know, your parents have just died
and you have someone who is kind...
You know, last year my little cat got attacked.
It was in the jaws of two dogs and my husband was amazing.
They're my cats, they're not his.
He actually got his hand in their mouths, he got them out,
and then he crawled under this crawl space
to find my little cat,
and then he took her to the vet and then he paid this
eye-watering fee of, like, I don't know, $5,000.
He said, "It's okay, babe, because you love her,"
and I thought, "Well, that's so amazing."
I didn't think I could love him more.
But when he showed me in that day, how kind he was,
that he would put his own hands at risk
to rescue my little kitten,
that he'd crawl under a crawl space
with a torch in the middle of the night
because she'd hidden in fear
then he said, then he paid the bill.
And, you know, we really underestimate kindness.
"Do you want to spend your life with someone who is kind?"
I think funny is the biggest turn on,
but also someone interesting
that you can talk to. I mean, you can't have sex,
no matter how good it is,
nature goes, "You've been doing that for two years,
"I'm now going to turn that sex drive right off
"because you must've made a baby,
"the amount of time you've been in bed together,
"and now I'm going to turn that right down,
"because you got to get out of that bed
"and start looking after that baby."
And, you know, you really need to look at the long,
not the short-term that your heart does a flip
and you have all those thoughts,
"Oh, he's a rebel and I love him," or whatever,
you really need to look at,
can you spend your life with this person?
Have they got the qualities that you want
to spend your life with?
Then you have to think of the kind of person you want,
what do they want?
- I think what you just said,
Marisa, is fantastically important.
And, you know, David Burke said,
"Marriage is a 50-year conversation."
- Well, relationships are not hard work
if you find the right person and you respect each other
and you care about each other
and you have sexual chemistry and best friend chemistry,
and you think, "Wow."
And at the times, occasionally,
when my husband does annoy me,
I always imagine my life without him
and immediately I think, "Oh, no, I'm so lucky,"
and then I get myself out of that.
And it's always good when you're having a challenge
to imagine your life without that person.
Because if they're a good person,
then your life without them will never be as good.
- Yeah. That's lovely.
That's a lovely idea.
"Imagine your life, if you're having a challenge, imagine..."
- Yeah. - "Having that challenge
"without them," I love that.
- Sometimes, I walk into his bathroom
and I've gone flying,
because he doesn't ever put a bath towel down,
and he's got his little... We have separate bathrooms.
I think that's one of the keys to a great relationship.
But I go in there to pick up his stuff,
and occasionally, I've said to him,
"That's really annoying," but he still does it
and then I have to remember, "You know,
"he doesn't do that intentionally."
But, yeah, imagining my life without him always
makes me realize how lucky I am to have him.
But, tell me, I'm telling you my little secrets
that make my relationship really work, but what are yours?
What would you say are your three top tips
for mastering your mind in order to have
a great relationship?
- It's a horrible thing
when we make our partner feel judged
for the way that they are.
And I think that it's very easy to do that
when they're different from us,
when they don't think in quite the same way as us,
it's very easy to make them feel judged.
And it's very important what you just said
about your husband.
You said it very offhand,
but it's so profoundly important is,
"It's not as if he means to do that."
You know, that, the leaving the floor wet, you know,
it's not like it's a conscious or intentional thing.
It happens to be a difference in the way he does things
or where his focus goes.
It goes to a different place.
And we're very quick to, you know,
a friend of mine, he's in his forties now,
but he said through his thirties,
he was always looking for everything in a person, you know,
and his, every time he would let go of someone
and he'd say, "No, they're not quite there,
"and I feel like, you know, I can get everything."
And his mom once said to him, "What is it you're looking for?"
And he said to his mom, "Well, you know,
"I want everything; I want to find someone who has it all."
And she said to him, "I hate to break it to you, darling,
"but you're not perfect."
She said, "You..." You know, and she went on to list
all of the flaws that he has
and all of the difficult things that
someone would have to deal with with him
and put up with with him,
and he said it was a profoundly, insightful moment for him.
And it, by the way, I think we probably have a big problem
with too many mothers making their sons feel like
they are perfect and not giving them
that moment of realization,
and the same may be true of women,
you can tell me. But I do,
I think that we have to go in with a sense of humility
that there may be lots of things,
"While I'm sitting here judging this person
"I'm in a relationship with over this thing,
"there might be plenty that I do every day
"they don't judge me for.
"That they accept about me while I'm here judging them
"for this thing."
So I think that being compassionate towards our partner,
seeing the best in them, and regularly echoing back to them
the best in them and elevating it,
whilst, at the same time, soothing,
some of the more difficult parts of them.
I think the right partner for us
is the one who doesn't agitate our worst components,
who can sooth some of those parts of us
that in different relationships, grew into monsters,
and yet, with this person in front of us, somehow,
they don't feel as raw.
In terms of the things to look for,
I actually think so much of what you said
in terms of looking for kindness,
looking for someone that you think
you're going to be able to have the conversation with,
the conversation of life and outlook and love
over a long expanse of time,
is deeply, deeply important.
Who can you stand to be shut in a room with?
You know, not just, "Who can I leave the house with?"
Who's, and, "Who do I love more when they're here
"than when they're there?"
Because you've always got to be suspicious of, you know,
yes, absence makes the heart grow fonder,
but at a certain point, you have to say,
"Am I more in love with this person's absence
"or their presence?
"Because if every time I'm actually inside four walls
"with them for a protracted period of time, I start to think,
"I don't want to be there anymore,
"then maybe I'm more in love with their absence
"than their presence."
I think good family in some way,
I don't think it's necessary,
but I think that sometimes, knowing that someone
has love around them or knowing that
if your family is important to you,
that at least they understand the concept of family
and they value it too, I think is important too,
because those things don't seem like much
when you're dating, but later down the line,
they start to become bigger and bigger things.
Especially as, you know, if it's marriage or kids
and your communities start to intertwine more,
those peripheral characters can start
to become more important in various ways.
Again, I don't think it's absolutely necessary.
Plenty of people do great with people
who don't have the same family or home life as them,
but I think that you want to at least know
that that person has an interest, even if they never had it,
they have an interest in building what they never had,
that they don't not understand your need
to be close to family or connection.
And, you know, certainly, for me at least,
intelligence is very important because
that is directly linked with the conversation
I want to be having with someone over the long-term.
I want to know we can talk about lots of different things,
and kindness, like you said, I mean,
kindness and someone who is genuine about being a teammate,
to me, is number one.
Because if you've got a true teammate,
if you've got somebody who's willing to work with you
through difficult things,
and even through your difficult things,
that is invaluable, because you won't be a saint,
you will do things wrong, you will screw up,
you will say the wrong thing,
but when someone shows compassion,
even for some of your worst sides,
doesn't mean that they agree with them
and it doesn't mean that they make excuses for them,
but if someone can show compassion and empathy
for your neurosis, your fears,
the things that, the monsters you have in your head,
then you can heal together.
And I think that's one of the best properties
of a relationship.