Nicole [00:00:00]: When you judge people, you judge yourself. Like, you can't judge people and not be judging yourself to the same critical standard. And we're all imperfect human beings. That doesn't mean you condone their behavior. And that's the thing. I feel like a lot of people have a hard time with some of these things because they think they're black and white. Love is not. In order to love you, I have to tolerate your behavior. You can have love for people that do bad things without condoning the thing

John [00:00:27]: beyond the perfect we discover through our flaws complete each other. Better than perfect. We stay through every fault we find. All right, welcome back to the Better Than Perfect podcast, where every week we share with you how two imperfect people helping each other grow equals one better than perfect relationship.

Nicole [00:00:51]: Wow. I'm impressed that you got it perfectly on the first try because it's been a minute.

John [00:00:55]: It's. Yeah, it's been. Been a minute for us. For us, you know.

Nicole [00:00:58]: Yeah.

John [00:00:59]: So. But yeah, today we're going to talk about secure attachment. We've done one on avoidant attachment, and we're going to avoid anxious attachment, I guess. But, I mean, we could talk. Yeah. Or I mean, we can kind of talk a little bit about that. I mean, this will probably encompass a lot of the attachment styles. Right. Because in order to understand secure attachment.

Nicole [00:01:20]: But the. Like, the other ones, what is it? Type A in me, even though I'm not always type A has to be all. Yeah, like, we have to cover all the things. Yeah. Eventually. Like, it doesn't have to be in a row. I'm not that ocd.

John [00:01:31]: Okay.

Nicole [00:01:32]: Yeah. But I think we should do one eventually.

John [00:01:34]: Balance.

Nicole [00:01:35]: Yes, exactly.

John [00:01:36]: Sure. We can do it.

Nicole [00:01:37]: Cover all the angles.

John [00:01:39]: But, yeah, we're talking about this, I think maybe a week or two ago, because our daughter was interested in what makes a secure attachment. She wanted to learn about those things. And so I think we could probably start off by talking about attachment styles in general. So people know what we're talking about. Right. Because not everyone's familiar with it. So there's essentially three. Really, really five. Well, attached. Because there's an anxious attachment in which you are. You're kind of needy, you're clingy. Yeah. Like you're afraid that you're going to be abandoned all the time.

Nicole [00:02:22]: Yeah.

John [00:02:23]: There is a avoidant attachment, which we covered, which is where you're sort of distancing yourself from people running away, keep

Nicole [00:02:32]: people at arm's length because you're afraid of betrayal by another person. You don't really Trust other people fully.

John [00:02:39]: Yeah. And then there is secure attachment, which is where you're a. Well established. Yeah. Like you're just, you're okay. Like everything is fine. You know, the functional, you're more functional the relationship. But then there's the anxious avoidant where you're both anxious and avoidant, which is a real, real mess. And then there's a disorganized attachment as well, which is the one where that one's the more rare one. That's when you've been in an extremely chaotic, abusive situation. Maybe you grew up in a home where there was rampant drug use and you were physically abused and that kind of stuff. And it creates kind of a real mess where you don't trust anyone, where you might be violent, where.

Nicole [00:03:23]: Oh well, I was going to ask what is the difference between disorganized and fearful avoidant? Because it would, I would think disorganized would just mean you flip flop between the two ones that are more problematic. But then wouldn't that be fearful avoidant or like anxious avoidant?

John [00:03:41]: Yeah. Disorganized I think is more, you know, I'm not a psychologist, but I think is more of just erratic behavior. Erratic. Like we were watching the oa, right. That, that kid Steve in there, he probably had disorganized because where he like, you know, she hugs him and he stabs her with a pencil. Right. He punches the kid in the throat. That's probably like, that's a weird reaction in a relationship when someone hugs you to stab them with a pencil.

Nicole [00:04:09]: But see, isn't that more like mental illness?

John [00:04:13]: Disorganized is probably mental illness. Right. Like it's, it's probably because that seems moving into that realm.

Nicole [00:04:19]: Not even attachment style at that point. That seems more like behavioral personality, mental.

John [00:04:25]: But remember, all of these things are labels, right. So that's true. They're just ways of, they're models. Like there is no such thing as attachment styles. There's no such thing as mental illness. These are all just labels that we

Nicole [00:04:37]: give it to make sense.

John [00:04:38]: Yeah. To sort things out. You know, it's a spec. Everything is kind of on a spectrum of things.

Nicole [00:04:43]: Yeah.

John [00:04:44]: That. That happen. So. But, but yeah. And then the difference like these things are usually rooted in childhood. Right. So you know, it could be previous relationships. But mostly we develop our attachment styles from childhood. So you know, an anxious attachment is from when your caregiver is, is like you, you. You're, you're. You can't get enough love. Like you're, you feel like you're not getting the attention or it's inconsistent. I think. Actually, I think the avoidant one is more of the inconsistent. I forget. Let me pull my notes so I can just give an accurate.

Nicole [00:05:24]: Yeah, Well, I mean, I know that anxious attachment people are afraid of abandonment, so I think they typically have been abandoned in some way, emotionally, physically, like literally, maybe one of the parents left. And I think that they think that they could have done something differently.

John [00:05:44]: Right.

Nicole [00:05:44]: And so they overachieve. They overdo it. They're like, oh, are you okay? You know, like, why are you upset with me? Can you tell me you love me? Are you, you know, are you gonna leave me? You know, like, they kind of overdo it.

John [00:05:58]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:05:58]: To make sure that that person's not going to leave them or emotionally check out or whatever it is.

John [00:06:06]: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Like anxious attachment says a person learns love is unpredictable, and so I need to cling, chase, or worry. It's often created by inconsistent caregiving, sometimes warm, sometimes available, intrusive or emotionally unpredictable. Right. So when you. When you don't have stability, you. You're. Sometimes you cry and your mom picks you up and is like, oh, are you okay? And sometimes you cry and she's like, shut the hell up. Like, why are you whining all the time?

Nicole [00:06:33]: I mean, I guess it makes sense because really anxious people clinging or talking a lot is just them trying to get the reassurance or get the confirmation because they grew up in such an unpredictable way.

John [00:06:45]: Exactly.

Nicole [00:06:46]: So they want the certainty.

John [00:06:47]: Yeah, it's the. And they're usually people pleasers, right? They're trying to please people in order to keep them around to get love. It's like, okay, if I behave good enough, if I do things good enough, then I'll be loved. If someone's not loving me, then maybe I'm not doing the right thing. Right. Where they avoid an attachment we talked about in the other episode. But personal depending on people is unsafe or pointless, Often created by caregivers who dismiss emotions, punish neediness, value independence too early, or cold, unresponsive. Right. So this is where you have a need or you're acting clingy or needy and you're being pushed away. You know where you're being given independence too early.

Nicole [00:07:33]: Yeah. Well, I think they avoid. And people fear betrayal or they feel like they can't trust somebody.

John [00:07:39]: Right.

Nicole [00:07:39]: They're afraid to because like you said, like in their childhood, they trusted their parents would be there for their emotions or their needs or whatever. And then they weren't usually met with that sort of love and attention, or, you know, whatever you want to call it. And so then they learned that they can't count on other people to care about their feelings, so they have to figure it out all on their own. And they. Then they realize that they can only trust themselves, which causes the independence.

John [00:08:08]: Exactly.

Nicole [00:08:08]: Because they're the only person that they can count on.

John [00:08:12]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:08:12]: But even a lot of times, again, you can go watch the full episode of that if you're that far down the avoidant path, you can't even trust yourself. You think that you're the only person you can trust, but you can't even trust yourself. So it's a whole mess there. But.

John [00:08:29]: And then you've got the disorganized attachment person learns. The person I need for safety is also a source of fear. It's often caused by frightening, chaotic, abusive, neglectful, or highly unstable caregiving. Right. So that's the. And then of course, secure attachment. Right. A person learns, I can trust others and I'm worthy of love. It's created by caregivers who usually respond to distress, provide comfort, respect boundaries, and allow independence. So it's kind of interesting. We'll actually drill in on the thing that it said. I disagree with it. Well, sort of. I disagree with it because it says, a person learns I can trust others, I am worthy of love.

Nicole [00:09:06]: Oh yeah, you're very worthy of.

John [00:09:08]: And that's actually what I wanted to talk about was that no, you're not worthy of love. No one's worthy of love. Like, well, love isn't something that to be worthy of, which we'll get, we'll get into. But I think before we get into that, it's also good to lay the framework of like, why is this important in relationship context? Because if you're in any kind of romantic relationship, you're going to deal with attachment styles.

Nicole [00:09:30]: Yeah.

John [00:09:30]: You're going to figure out, you're going to deal with yours, you're going to deal with the other person's. And there's a lot of very volatile combinations that come up, especially anxious and avoidant together.

Nicole [00:09:44]: It's like oil and water.

John [00:09:46]: Right. And even it can flip flop in those situations too, because you have one person being really needy, which is pushing the other person away. And then when that person goes away, then the other person disconnects and then they start chasing. So it can go back and forth like that. Triggering.

Nicole [00:10:06]: That sounds disorganized,

John [00:10:10]: but yeah. So that's the relevance of it. I think a lot of relationship issues come down to Attachment styles. Because it's the psychology that's driving how

Nicole [00:10:21]: you're responding to conflict which needs to be resolved.

John [00:10:24]: Right. Or issues or any your needs. Yeah. Right. Like if you're. Because you're like most issues, I think they come up, have to do with needs being not met.

Nicole [00:10:34]: Well, I think it would be. Anxious people say that, but I don't think avoidant people talk about their needs a lot of the time. Like, not really. If they're really in it, they will instead just be like, my needs aren't being met, I need to leave.

John [00:10:47]: Exactly. So.

Nicole [00:10:48]: So they don't really talk about it. The anxious person does.

John [00:10:51]: Right.

Nicole [00:10:52]: But they like overdo it.

John [00:10:53]: Right.

Nicole [00:10:54]: And then if they're talking to avoidant person, then the avoidant person just wants to avoid all that because they don't even want to talk about their own needs. So that's why it's messy.

John [00:11:03]: Yeah. And that's why I'm saying it's like it's needs. It. It comes down to needs whether you're talking about it or not. Like even the avoidant person, the issue, the conflict in relationship has to do with needs not being met or addressing your need. Like, are you addressing them actually? Are you dressing them in the right way or not? So, but, but yeah. So let's talk about secure then.

Nicole [00:11:24]: Yeah.

John [00:11:24]: So secure attachment style is what you want to have in the relationship. It's really helpful if at least one person is secure in their relationship.

Nicole [00:11:33]: But honestly, like, how often do you see that? I mean, like, everybody should, yes. Be aiming towards that. But I feel like so many people don't even know their attachment styles. And like you said, some people, honestly, the more I think about it, the more I feel like people are some version of both unless they're secure.

John [00:11:54]: Right.

Nicole [00:11:55]: You know what I mean? And even secure people can sometimes have a moment of one or the other. So I think like you said, aiming for secure, it kind of doesn't even matter which one you are. Like if you want to identify it to help you get to a more secure place. Yeah. But really it should just be everybody aiming for secure because it doesn't matter even if you get to secure, you might fall off the wagon and have to get back there anyway.

John [00:12:20]: Right. And I think of it more of this is where you live. Right. So you might visit anxious town and you might visit avoidant town. But do you live in secure town or do you live in avoidant town? Do you live in anxious town?

Nicole [00:12:32]: Like where, where are you living?

John [00:12:34]: You know, because you're Going to, you're going to have different things, are going to like, you're not always going to be 100%, whatever it is.

Nicole [00:12:41]: But I think it's good to put it that way too, because I feel like when people label themselves sometimes not to get too far off on the going down the secure road, but I feel like when you attach a label to yourself, sometimes you kind of make it harder for yourself to get out of that. Whereas like you said, where you're like, okay, well, I'm living here right now, like even saying like, this is where I'm at right now. And then I want to be here though, permanently. Like, use more permanent words for the secure part.

John [00:13:08]: Sure.

Nicole [00:13:09]: So you can get there. But don't like permanently label yourself avoidant or anxious or whatever because like you said, we're going to flip flop back and forth. But the secure place is where you should want to be permanently living permanently. Putting down roots.

John [00:13:23]: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what secure is. And I think, I mean, I'll just start off giving the key to what I think it is, which is what we had talked about actually in that description where it said that a secure person thinks that they're worthy of love. I disagree with that, but it's almost the same thing. It's kind of a semantics type of thing. So my stance on it is that a secure person understands that they're not worthy of love and no one is and no one deserves love, but they get it anyway because love is a gift. It's not something that you deserve. And the reason why I say that, even though it sounds counterintuitive and like a contradiction, is because if you believe that you're worthy of love or that you deserve love, then you also believe that you could be not worthy of. Of love or that other people could be not worthy of love. Because love isn't, you know, like you have the. You're creating a transactional value to love. Right. So if you operate with that mind frame, then you say, well, if I do good, then I'm loved, and if I do bad, I'm not loved. And that's where anxious and avoidant attachments come from is, is that because when you think about, if you go back to childhood again, why is our attachment style dependent on the caregiver's response? Because we're learning that we're going to get love or we're not going to get love based on certain circumstances. For anxious, it's a random roll of the dice. For avoidant. It's only if we suppress our emotions and don't become too burdensome on people. Right. Those create the conditions for love or like, for the anxious. Maybe we're thinking, oh, well, if I'm a people pleaser, if I just do everything right, then I'll be loved.

Nicole [00:15:18]: Avoidance are also people pleasers, though.

John [00:15:20]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:15:20]: In a different way, but.

John [00:15:21]: Different way.

Nicole [00:15:23]: I'm glad you said that because really it's. It paints a good picture of how we don't even understand because we're children, obviously, when all this is going on that other people's way that they behave, our parents way that they behave, the way that they handle things, we take internally and then it becomes ours. Whereas, like, when we're adults and like you even just explaining that, it's like just seeing how much we absorb from our primary caregivers.

John [00:16:00]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:16:01]: And then that we carry. And that was never really ours to carry anyway. Like, there was never anything that we could do to either get more love or affection from these people.

John [00:16:11]: Right. Exactly.

Nicole [00:16:12]: You know what I mean? Like. Like there was nothing that we can do. And maybe that alone, like, I wanted to bring this up because maybe that alone, like hearing that, like you just said that.

John [00:16:21]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:16:21]: Can be liberating and knowing that you can be secure because it was never really your. Your burden to carry anyway.

John [00:16:29]: Right.

Nicole [00:16:29]: Like you never could have done anything differently. You were a child. Like, it was all based on their own stuff. And like, and then their parent, your parents got that from their parents. So that wasn't even their burden to take on. You know, it's just a continuous cycle. But maybe hearing something like that can free you from whatever attachment you might have that's not secure and realize that it wasn't about you anyway. And so you are love and you can give love. And I know you'll explain it more, but I just wanted to throw that in there because when you were explaining it, it just like it's logical. But it was one of those things that like, really hit me.

John [00:17:09]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:17:09]: On the outside that you can never get as a child. And we do take all this in as a child and we do take all this personally as a child. And like, you can't really explain to a child not to take it personally. Right. Because that's just what we do.

John [00:17:23]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:17:24]: But as an adult, we really do. Especially if you want to secure attachment style, you really have to analyze your own life maybe in this way and realize there was nothing that you could have done. Like, if you were a better child, your Parents still could have treated you that way if you, you know, didn't have emotions or didn't share your emotions. Your parents still act the same way. You know what I mean? Like, there's nothing that you could have done differently.

John [00:17:51]: Right.

Nicole [00:17:52]: Because that wasn't about you.

John [00:17:54]: Right.

Nicole [00:17:54]: And just like there's nothing your parents could have really done differently because how their parents acted to them wasn't about them. But it all affects us and now it's our responsibility as adults. But again, I just wanted to bring that up because it can be a very freeing kind of thing to realize that, yeah, we took all this personally and it's has nothing to do with us.

John [00:18:16]: Exactly.

Nicole [00:18:17]: And we're carrying it into our adult lives and we don't have to. We can put it down. We can be like, that was them.

John [00:18:23]: Right.

Nicole [00:18:23]: And even their stuff wasn't theirs and even your grandparents stuff wasn't theirs.

John [00:18:27]: Right.

Nicole [00:18:28]: And all, you know, and so then that also fosters more love for the people in your life and spreading that love. And I know you'll talk more about the deserving or not deserving of love.

John [00:18:40]: Yeah, well, and I think that comes down to like, what you're saying is, is an understanding of what love is and what love is not. Right. Because if it's conditional, it's not love. It's if it's. Which is another way of saying if it's transactional, it's not love. Love is not transacted.

Nicole [00:18:56]: Right, right.

John [00:18:57]: Not to say that we don't get into relationships for transactional purposes. Right. I read our favorite friend, Dr. Ryan Taravan's book called on the Value of Others, Value of Others, which was actually really good. I disagreed with a significant portion of the end of the book. But from a logical perspective, it was well laid out and it made a lot of sense. And it was correct in the sense that towards the end he addressed the issue of people saying, well, this is a very transactional view of all relationships. What about love and what about loyalty and all those things? And he was saying, well, those things exist, but those are not part of a relationship. They're transactional. Because if you say that you're in a relationship for love, then you're creating a transactional component of it where they have to do something in order for you to love them or to be loved. And love is not transactional. But we get into relationships for transactional purposes. A lot of times this person's attractive, I would like to have sex with them. I would like to. Or like I enjoy their Company and they enjoy my. It's like, so. But love itself, right, Is not transactional. Meaning that it's a gift. It's something that is not earned, right? So a good example of this is, like, if you have an ugly dog and you love that ugly dog, right? Why do you love that ugly dog? It's not really doing anything for you, right?

Nicole [00:20:29]: Some people think our dog's ugly, but I love her.

John [00:20:31]: No, she's cute. She's cute. She's cute. Except for when she gets shaved and then looks like haircut.

Nicole [00:20:37]: She needs a haircut.

John [00:20:38]: But the point is, like, you love this animal because even if it poops on the carpet or whatever, because you love the. Because you're making the choice to love the animal, right? It doesn't. Even if the dog is bad, even the dog doesn't do. Like, you still love the dog, right? Because you've made that choice, right? Hopefully the same thing with your baby, right? If you have a baby, like, a baby is literally just a puke and shit factory. That when it's first born, it doesn't care about you at all. It doesn't even know you really exist. It's just literally just a pain in your ass, right? But it looks cute. And, you know, it smells.

Nicole [00:21:17]: Were you gonna say smells?

John [00:21:18]: No, I was gonna say it smiles at you, but it doesn't even smile at you. Cause it doesn't even. It's not even capable at that point. You know, a newborn baby, like, for the first few months, yet you love that thing and you take care of it. Why? Right? There's an instinct to it, but because that's real love. Like, love is something that's not transactional. And so I think that's the fundamental thing to understand. Because if you're thinking that something you did caused you to not be loved or something that you did cause you to be loved, that's where those secure and avoidant attachment styles are rooted in. And when you can get that out of your head, that's when you can become secure. Because that's really what secure is. Secure is understanding that you're not worthy of love, that no one is. That you're given love as a gift. And when you give love, it's a gift. It's a choice that you make. It's not based on what someone does, right? Not to say that you should be in a relationship with someone under all circumstances, but the choice to love is a choice that we make. Just like the sun always shines on us. That's an example that Actually, Ryan, to give credit, used in his book, which. Which I thought was. Was a good example, I think, too,

Nicole [00:22:33]: I want to mention, I think a lot of people confuse, like, stopping loving someone with tolerating behavior. Like, you can love someone still and not be around them or leave them or whatever. And I think that people think that in order to show love, you have to tolerate whatever. Like, and that's not the case. Like, you can love somebody who's abusing you and be like, hey, I love you, but I can't be in this relationship anymore.

John [00:23:04]: Right.

Nicole [00:23:04]: You know, you can still care about that person and leave. Like, that doesn't mean that if you love somebody and they're abusing you that you have to stay with them because you love them. And that's how you prove that you love them. I think that also ties into, like, the attachment styles not being secure means when you have those more problematic attachment styles, that you have to prove your love in some way, Right?

John [00:23:31]: Exactly. Yeah.

Nicole [00:23:32]: Whereas if you're secure.

John [00:23:33]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:23:34]: Like, I'm not saying that you can go without someone showing you their love or telling you it or whatever if you're secure, but you can have obviously more stability. But I feel like with both the avoidant and anxious, you are probably more likely to cause somebody to have to prove it to you. And so you're going to put people through more stuff just like you were put through stuff as a child in order to prove their love to you. Or you might say, oh, if you don't do this, you don't love me. Or if you don't, which is controlling. Now we're getting into controlling behavior. But I do feel like it ties into exactly like you said, if you realize that there's nothing that you can do to be loved, then that lands you at secure. But then if you're trying to, like, prove your love or have someone prove it to you or, you know, make it where you have to be worthy of it or you have to do something to get it or, you know, whatever it might be, then that's when you're gonna land in one of the other places where if you realize, like you said, that you don't have to do anything, right. You have to just accept the gift and appreciate the gift and realize what a gift it is. And then you can also give the gift to everyone else.

John [00:24:51]: Right. Well, if you think about just the word secure, what is security? It means, like, if you feel secure. What does it mean? It means that you're not afraid.

Nicole [00:25:02]: Right?

John [00:25:02]: Right.

Nicole [00:25:02]: Yeah.

John [00:25:03]: Security is the Opposite. Yeah, it's safety, right? And so secure is really secure in love is secure. Like you're not needing love. You're not feeling the need to try and get love, right? So you're secure in the relationship. You're secure in. In the. In the love that. That you have or that this. The place that you're at. So. So it. It kind of also. I think another way to think about this is the. It kind of ties into. A lot of people that are watching will probably be familiar with or the Christian. Christian theology on this, right? I remember when we were first having this discussion, I don't know, like a year ago or so. I told you you're wretched.

Nicole [00:25:44]: Yeah, I said you did.

John [00:25:47]: Because we're talking about, you know, trying, like, being unworthy of, like, or like a perfectionist.

Nicole [00:25:55]: You have to be perfect to be loved or worthy of love.

John [00:25:58]: It was like a lot of times you felt if you made a mistake, then you weren't gonna be loved. So it was hard to own up to a mistake because then it means the withdrawal of love. And I was saying, it doesn't matter. You're already wretched. Like, you're a sinner. Even though we're not religious, a lot of people could relate to the Christian theology of that everyone is not worthy of love, but they're given a gift of love, right? They think through Jesus in the Christian theology, making a sacrifice of his life for everyone to be saved. The ultimate sacrifice of love, right? Of sacrifice that giving a love that you're not worthy of, right? And so in Christian theology, right, you. It's grace is the word, right? And so you don't have to do anything. All you have to do is believe that Jesus died for your sins and you're saved by grace alone. It erases all of the bad that you've done in your life, in the past and in the future. And instead of you being judged on your actual behavior, you're covered by the blood of Christ is the idea behind it. Whether you believe Christian theology or not, it doesn't matter. The concept is a very good one. This concept of grace, which is this idea that love is not something that is earned, it is something that is given that is a gift that you didn't pay the price for. You can't pay the price for no matter how much money that you saved up, you can't ever pay that price because the price that God demands is perfection. And you're not going to be perfect. And so you need something that is a substitute for that. But without getting into the theology of it, like, you don't have to be a Christian to understand this concept. And it still applies, which is that love, like we said, is not something that is earned in any way. And it's very hard to divorce that from your mind because we tend to think that way. But if you continue to think that way, then you can never be secure because your security will depend on, like, you might think you're secure and you'll feel secure when you're getting what you want, when you're feeling loved, when you don't feel loved, you're no longer feeling secure, you're gonna go to anxious or avoidant. Right. Which is going to happen at some point. You know, someone's not going to be attentive to you all the time. Yeah, they're going to. They're going to make mistakes. They're going to do things that are going to hurt your feelings. And in those situations, if you don't have a secure attachment, if you believe that love is something to be earned, then you're going to fear the loss of love, which is going to drive you either avoidant or anxious.

Nicole [00:28:45]: Yeah, yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense.

John [00:28:49]: So that's the key, I think, really, as an adult developing the scare attachment is getting rid of that. And then also the other piece of this is that if you believe that love is something that you can earn or that you're worthy of love, or someone could be unworthy of love, then you're also casting that judgment on other people. And so in a relationship, your love starts to become conditional, because if you believe that you're loved conditionally, if you believe that if you do bad things, you're not going to be loved, and if you do good things, you'll be loved, then you must also believe that about other people. There's no way around that, even though.

Nicole [00:29:26]: Right.

John [00:29:26]: And so that means that you're going to be treating other people that way. And so what happens? Well, that's where silent treatment comes in. That's where these responses come in. Where you punish someone in order to get them to behave how we want. Right. Where someone hurts our feelings, our spouse or partner hurts our feelings, we treat them poorly because of it, because now we don't love them as much. And then it becomes actually true. But the real understanding of that is that none of that is love. Those are manipulations, actually, in that case. Right. Because if you try to get someone to behave how you want and you use love as the lever, that's Emotional manipulation. That's what it is, right? Because if it's like, okay, well, if I upset you, if I don't do what you want, then you're going to treat me in a poor way and withdraw love from me. Well, okay, then that's not really love. That's just that, you know, then you were only acting as if you love me because I was doing what you wanted. And again, it sounds pretty like. I think a lot of people listening might be like, oh, shit. But we all do this to some degree, right? No one's perfect. We all do this, we all act in this way to a degree. It's just again, where do you live? Do you mostly live in a place where you don't believe love is something to be earned? Where you, you give love because you're a loving person? Or do you mostly live in a place where the love is very conditional, where you see how other people are going to treat you and that determines how you treat them? And then you believe that you have to act in a certain way in order to be loved. And again, you might not believe this at a conscious level, you probably don't believe it at a conscious level, but if you look at your behavior, then at a subconscious level, the truth might be that, yeah, you believe that if you are good enough, then you're loved. And if you're not good enough, you're not loved. Which again, comes down to really what the deep core of this is a value of self esteem, the self worth that you have. Because again, in the description I read it said that a secure person thinks that they're worthy of love. Okay? Another way of saying that is that they, they believe in themselves. They, they love themselves unconditionally. If you love yourself unconditionally, if you have a high level of esteem for yourself, if you think you're enough, then

Nicole [00:32:05]: you're not living in a place of scarcity or fear.

John [00:32:08]: Exactly.

Nicole [00:32:09]: Yeah, that makes sense because I was going to say that, like, at the core of both anxious and avoidant and whatever other mixture besides cure is the fear that if they lose that love, they'll never find love again.

John [00:32:23]: Right.

Nicole [00:32:23]: A lot of the time. And like avoidant is more so like they don't ever think they'll find it at all in some degree, or they think they found it and then like you said, they get upset with their partner and then they're like, nope, this must not be the one. So they, they just don't think they're ever going to find it. And when they do they'll like make up some excuse why that person's not the right one. And so it fulfills the prophecy. And the anxious person feels like I'll never find someone else to love me, so I gotta keep this person no matter what. You know what I mean? Both have the mindset of the scarcity of love.

John [00:32:59]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:33:00]: When you are secure, you realize that like you said, you love yourself. So you know that that is always there. But you also know that since you love yourself, that you will be able to handle going out if you need to and finding someone else. Or, you know, if you have to be alone for a while while you're looking for a romantic partner, you'll be fine because you have the love within yourself. But those two really thrive on the fear.

John [00:33:28]: Exactly.

Nicole [00:33:28]: And like I said, the anxious one, you know, it's like they cling because they think this is the only person that'll love me. And if they push that person away, if they end up finding somebody, they do else, they do the exact same thing because they didn't think that they would find someone else to begin with. So they probably even cling even harder honestly to the next person and the avoidant person. Their core thing is that, you know, most of the time there's no one out there for them ever.

John [00:33:52]: Right.

Nicole [00:33:53]: And they fulfill that prophecy because that's what they believe. And so even if they find someone good, like you said, if you, they get in an argument.

John [00:33:59]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:34:00]: Then it becomes, oh, well, I love you a little less because you didn't act the way that, you know, I thought you were going to or that I thought my, the right person would act. You know what I mean? They tell themselves whatever story, right. And so yeah, it comes down to the self love and the self confidence in yourself. But you have to have the self love to have the self confidence a lot of the time. Because, you know, I was gonna mention that I think a lot of people are just afraid. Like, you know, I'm afraid to someday lose our love somehow. You know what I mean? Whatever way that could happen, I'm working to try to be more secure and you know, but I still have that fear of like, I don't want to lose what you and I have.

John [00:34:44]: Right.

Nicole [00:34:45]: So like balancing like that there is some fear there, but then also trying to tell myself like I can handle whatever life throws at me. Not that I think that you're going to run away or whatever or that, but you know what I mean? But that is where you would lean more on the secure is that like, yeah, you just have to be secure in knowing that you could handle the loss of love as well.

John [00:35:11]: Right.

Nicole [00:35:11]: You know what I mean?

John [00:35:12]: Or that love is not something that you have to do because a lot of times the fear comes from, I could mess it up. Not to say that you can't mess up a relationship. Yes, you could do that. But you can't mess up love.

Nicole [00:35:26]: Yeah.

John [00:35:26]: Because love is a gift given to you.

Nicole [00:35:29]: Right. But I think people are afraid of losing that gift. You know what I mean? They're afraid of getting it and losing it, which we can't avoid.

John [00:35:38]: If you feel like it's in your control of losing it, then your fear will lose everything. Well, then your fear will be greater. You have to kind of divorce it from your mind that it's in your control, that it's.

Nicole [00:35:49]: That's true.

John [00:35:49]: You know, that's really the.

Nicole [00:35:50]: No, I think this is important. I think it's important to talk about this as a part of it, because I do feel like that's a big fear. I mean, like you said, there's a fear of something you can control, which, like, then maybe you need to look at what you're doing. And if there's things you can control, you should probably fix those things in your relationship.

John [00:36:10]: Right. For the relationship.

Nicole [00:36:12]: For the relationship. Not for love. Yes, for the relationship. For you. Because you want to show up better as a partner.

John [00:36:18]: Exactly.

Nicole [00:36:18]: But there are, like you said, there are some things that are out of our control when it comes. And we could still lose love that way.

John [00:36:25]: And that's where the esteem part comes in. And that. And a lot of people give me pushback on this because they'll say, well, you should feel like you're worthy of love. You should feel like, I'm a lovable person, I deserve love. And I disagree with that. Cause it's a trap. Right. Cause it's true that people that say they're not worthy of love, they don't deserve love, maybe their esteem is low. Right. When they're saying it in that way, the way I'm saying it is a little bit of a different way. But if you fall into the trap of saying I deserve love, then even though that seems like a really good thing and means that you have a high level of self esteem, the problem with that is that it's a very slight turn to not deserving love. Because then what happens if you're not getting love, your esteem is tied in the fact that you're getting love. Right. And so if you're not getting love but you deserve it. Then what's happening right then? Like, in order for you to believe that. That you deserve love, you have to believe that it's possible that you don't deserve love. And one day, when you're not living your best life and you're doing shit that you're messing up now, you don't deserve love, now your esteem plummets again.

Nicole [00:37:44]: And so I also think that saying you deserve love, like, I get the sentiment, I get why people say it, right? And I get the place that it comes from a majority of the time. But saying you deserve love is also kind of an entitled way of looking at love, for sure. And then it's. You're not looking at it as a gift, and you're not fully appreciating it if you feel entitled to it.

John [00:38:05]: Well, let's talk about deserve, because I think that's an important word, because that was something that also. That we discussed in that discussion, which was you. You. Because a lot of people will push back and say, no, everyone deserves loves. Okay?

Nicole [00:38:17]: Wrong.

John [00:38:18]: That's not correct. It's a gift. The difference between a gift and something you deserve. Let's talk about what that is. If you get a job, right? And you're gonna get paid $20 an hour, whatever your rate is, right? And you go and you work for an hour, you deserve $20. It belongs to you. If your boss gives you your paycheck, you don't say, oh, thank you so much. You're so kind. You say, no, deserve that. Like, right? If he doesn't give you the paycheck, you're like, hey, no, I like, I deserve the paycheck. I like, it's mine. I earned it, right? Love is a gift. It's not like you can't. Like, if you think that you deserve love, then you're like, hey, I paid for love, so you have to give me love, right? It has no value at that point. Like, because if. When your boss gives you your paycheck, you're not excited. You're not like. I mean, you're excited because you got your paycheck, but you're not like, oh, my God, this is so good.

Nicole [00:39:16]: It's not like he gifted you $10,000.

John [00:39:19]: Like, you expected that you were entitled to that because you contractually obligated yourself, and he was obligated, and you fulfilled your obligation. And so that's what you actually, that's what the definition of deserving is, is that you did what you were supposed to do, what you agreed upon, and now you get the thing that you're supposed to get. And that's why love is, is different. Like the non transactional things is because you don't deserve it. If you did, then you'd just be like, if someone says I love you, you'd be like, yeah, I know, obviously I did the things to make you love me. Cool, right? It doesn't mean anything. You're entitled to it because you did the thing, you earned it. And so you're getting the pay of it. And so it comes down to, again to the fact of earning it and realizing that, okay, if you think everyone deserves love, well, that means that everyone earned it. That means that love is earnable, right? It's not earnable, Right. The fact that everyone deserves it, if you think that means that it's, it's a gift that you give because clearly everyone didn't do everything to deserve love.

Nicole [00:40:25]: Right?

John [00:40:25]: But if, if you're saying that they all deserve you're. What you're really saying when you're saying everyone deserves love is you should say you should love everyone.

Nicole [00:40:31]: Right?

John [00:40:32]: Which is, which is true. But it doesn't mean everyone deserves love.

Nicole [00:40:36]: You should give the gift of love to everyone.

John [00:40:38]: Yeah, you should love everyone, but it doesn't mean everyone deserves love.

Nicole [00:40:41]: Right?

John [00:40:41]: In fact, if everyone deserved love and you loved everyone, you would just be like the boss handing out the paychecks. It's no credit to you. If you love everyone and they all deserve it, you're just paying the paychecks that you're supposed to pay because you owe those people. That. That's another way of saying it, is that you owe them.

Nicole [00:40:57]: Well, the funny thing.

John [00:40:58]: Owe everyone love.

Nicole [00:40:59]: The funny thing is I feel like a lot of people who do say everyone deserves love blatantly does not love everyone.

John [00:41:08]: True, true.

Nicole [00:41:09]: You know what I mean? And so it's kind of a contradiction.

John [00:41:12]: Yeah. They're the biggest offenders.

Nicole [00:41:14]: And usually it is because they have. Even though they say everybody deserves love, it's because they don't feel like they deserve love.

John [00:41:21]: Right?

Nicole [00:41:22]: So they want to prove that everyone does.

John [00:41:24]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:41:25]: In order to make sense and make them understand that they deserve it because they don't feel like.

John [00:41:30]: And then they say everyone deserves love. And then you say, what about Hitler? And they say, no, no, not Hitler, not him. He doesn't deserve love. He's killed lots of people. Like, okay, well what about mass murderers? No, no, no, no, no. Okay, so there's some line, right, where you don't deserve love anymore, right? So love is based on action then, right? It's like, it's something that you do, right? Right. You can't say everyone deserves love and say it's just like everyone should have love and then say there's nothing you have to do to earn the love and then have like, oh, well, but if you do this. And so then, so then, okay, fine, then let's say that Hitler doesn't deserve any love and a mass murderer doesn't deserve any love. But if you just killed one person, you deserve some love. If you just stole from someone, then you deserve some. So then now there's a sliding spectrum of how much love you deserve based on what you do. Boom, you're right into the whole love is earned thing again. And you're going to suffer for your whole life if you believe that. Because if you apply that ruler to other people to measure them, you're going to apply it to yourself. And you're going to believe that when you do good things, you deserve love. When you do bad things, you don't deserve love. And you're going to be a people pleaser and you're going to be upset all the time and you're going to be not secure. Because the only way you can be secure is as if you separate, you disconnect the deserving of love, where you just say, hey, if I have love, it's a gift and I accept the gift. If I don't have love, that's okay. I didn't do anything to not be loved because it's a gift. I like to get gifts. If I don't get gifts, I don't feel I'm entitled to them and I don't treat other people that way. And that's the only way you're going to be secure.

Nicole [00:43:06]: No, you're right. And just a side note, with the whole, like, you know, deciding who gets what love and kind of judging people, right? When you judge people, you judge yourself. Like, you can't judge people and not be judging yourself to the same, like, critical standard. And we're all imperfect human beings. Like we said in the beginning, like, even if you try to plant your roots in a secure attachment, sometimes you might be one or the other. But. And I think people need to realize that. And that's where the grace part of Christianity, like you said, comes in and makes a lot of sense, even if you're not religious, is that we're all having a human experience. And it kind of goes back to what I said when I was talking about that one thing where I was like, if you look at your childhood and you look at your parents, you realize it wasn't even ever about you, right? And then you can have grace for your parents and realize that the way that they were parent wasn't about them. And you know, it can spread. And when you give people grace, when you give people understanding for being human and making mistakes, right? You give yourself that as well. And then you can have that love and you can come from a more secure place, right? And like, even if you're someone that already strives to do the best that they can or be perfect, granted, you should not hold yourself to a perfection standard or you'll end up like me and you make a mistake and then you lose your marbles. Yeah, but even if, like maybe you haven't killed somebody, hopefully most people haven't killed somebody, right? Like you can't hold yourself to a superior standard than that person, right? Well, because then you fall in the judging, right? Like that doesn't mean you condone their behavior. And that's the thing. I feel like a lot of people have a hard time with some of these things because they think they're black and white. Same thing with like the, oh, well, if I love someone, I have to just, you know, I have to stay with them. I have to just deal with this. No, that's black and white thinking love is not I'm with you or I'm not with you like, or, you know what I mean? Like, or in order to love you, I have to tolerate your behavior. You know what I mean? Like, it's not those things. And the same thing is you can have love for people that do bad things, for sure, but not without condoning the thing, right?

John [00:45:26]: And I mean, go back to the Hitler example, right? To pull one from Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends Influence People, right? People are like, oh, well, I would never do what Hitler did. Yes, you would. I'll tell you why. Because if you had his body and his mind and you're born at the time that he was born, and you had his parents, right? And you had his environment that you grew up in, you would do exactly what he did.

Nicole [00:45:57]: Because it was the recipe for what happened.

John [00:45:59]: Because that, because that. Because everyone is a product of their circumstances, of their environment, right? In the sense that I didn't create myself, I didn't create my brain, I didn't decide what my parents are gonna be, I didn't decide what environment I was gonna grow up in. I make choices as an adult. Yes, but even those choices were Influenced by. By things that are outside of my control. I didn't make myself as a person and my personality in those things. Some of those things were genetic. Some of them were environmental factors in growing up. Right. There's some component, I think, that is your consciousness or soul. But given all of those things, you're capable of all of those. When we judge a person, we think that we're not capable of what they are capable of. We're all capable of all these things,

Nicole [00:46:42]: but we give different circumstances.

John [00:46:44]: You give people the right circumstances. There's a really good movie with Eddie Murphy, and I forget what it's called. I can't think of the name of the movie. Someone will know it. But basically, this Wall street guy is with a bunch of his buddies, and they're arguing. They're making some kind of bet. A dollar bet, Right. I can't remember the name of the movie, but, yeah, that's it. Trading Places. Yeah. And he's like, okay. They're arguing about whether or not it's the environment or whatever that makes a man, because they're all making all this money on Wall Street.

Nicole [00:47:25]: Nature versus nurture.

John [00:47:26]: And he's like, okay, I can just take a guy off of the street and I can turn him into a Wall street tycoon making all this money. And so he finds Eddie Murphy, who's this homeless guy or whatever, and he takes him in and, you know, gets him, basically. He becomes this rich trader guy because he gives him the opportunity, lets him into the inner circle, and then he's like. He thinks he's this big shot that did all this stuff himself. I forget exactly the movie. Maybe I'm. I might. I might be making up some parts of it. But. But. But the. The principle of it is that I think. And then he gets humbled at the end where he's like, oh, and he finds out about the dollar bet or whatever, and he realizes that. And. And so the. The point of it, though, is. Is the same thing that happens, like, without going too far off track. But if you take a person, right, and you put them in poverty, let's say that we suddenly became really poor, and we're like, oh, I would never steal. Well, if you're starving and your family's starving, you're gonna steal food. You will do what you need to do to survive. It won't be beneath you anymore. So it's like so much of circumstances determines morality to a degree, Right. Because you would say that in general, stealing's bad, right?

Nicole [00:48:34]: Yeah.

John [00:48:34]: But if your family's starving and you have no food to eat and you have a child who's dying because they're starving to death. Is it okay to steal a loaf of bread? Most people would say yes at that point. Right. Like, you see how conditional it is. So, so what I'm saying is that, like, we're all capable of. Of these things. Like, we have to have grace for people because they didn't make their body, they didn't make their brain, they didn't make the circumstances that they came into. They're in control. Again, it's not condoning the behavior. It's knowing what's right and what's wrong, but it's not judging. Because just like us, like, we could be in that situation, we don't know. We can't put ourselves above it and say that we are. We're different than the person because if we had those exact attributes that they had, we'd be doing the thing they would do. They're doing.

Nicole [00:49:24]: Yeah, well, no. Yeah. And like I said, judging it makes us judge ourselves. So if you think, oh, I just judge other people, but I love myself. No, you don't.

John [00:49:33]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:49:34]: Because you would not be judging people so severely, so harshly. You would be able to understand where they're coming from. Again, that doesn't mean you condone the harmful behaviors, but you can understand. And so, yeah, I feel like that's a very important part of the secure. Because like you said, it really, you have to have self love for yourself.

John [00:49:58]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:49:59]: You have to love yourself before you can love other people, period.

John [00:50:01]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:50:02]: And so if you're judging other people, you don't love yourself because you're going, whether you know it or not, you're going to hold yourself to these high standards or you're going to be like, oh, I can't make a mistake, you know, because I have to be this in order to get the love or to be loving or whatever it is you're telling yourself.

John [00:50:23]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:50:23]: Whereas if you give people grace, like you said, and understanding while having boundaries and, you know, removing yourself from bad situations or, you know, not condoning harmful behavior, you will be able to stay in that secure place and trust yourself and love yourself and love everyone and, you know, realize that we're all humans doing this for the first time.

John [00:50:50]: Yeah, exactly.

Nicole [00:50:52]: So, all right, well, is that all the stuff that you want to cover?

John [00:50:57]: I mean, I think that pretty much covers it, I think. Yeah. Like, the biggest thing is, like I said, is just realizing that love is a gift, can't be earned. If you get that, and you truly internalize that, then you'll be secure because you won't be trying to get love by what you do. Exactly.

Nicole [00:51:15]: Yeah.

John [00:51:17]: Yeah. All right, let's see our segment. I think we had. It's been a while, but I believe the incident that we had was the dress incident I don't think we talked about. Yeah, I messed up on that one. Nicole was trying on a dress that she had shown me before, but I didn't remember, but he had told me

Nicole [00:51:43]: he liked it, and so I kept it.

John [00:51:45]: Yeah. And so when she tried it on this time, I said that I didn't like it. I said it was poofy or, like, it didn't have a shape to it. And then you got upset about it, and I didn't do the smart thing, which would be just to say, oh, I'm sorry that you're upset. I don't want to upset you. I care that you're upset. Instead, I talked about, like, I can't change my mind on a dress, or, like, you know, I got more defensive about it instead of recognizing, like. I mean, there's a valid, I think, argument to say that someone from my perspective could say that. Okay. You know, saying, like, changing your mind about this is not. Not a big deal. It's not something to be.

Nicole [00:52:44]: Which that wasn't even a problem.

John [00:52:46]: Exactly.

Nicole [00:52:46]: It triggered in me. I felt betrayed by you.

John [00:52:50]: Exactly. Yeah.

Nicole [00:52:51]: It triggered that in me that you told me one thing and then you were telling me something else, and I did, at the time say that you lied to me, which wasn't true because you, like, the whole time, I realized you are entitled to change your mind, but just based on some of the things that you and I have gone

John [00:53:07]: through that I had changed. Yeah. I didn't realize it was a trigger.

Nicole [00:53:10]: Was.

John [00:53:11]: Yeah, it was a trigger.

Nicole [00:53:12]: It was definitely, like, blown to a higher proportion because, yes, it shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but to me, I, like, took the time to ask you if you liked it when I first bought it and showed it to you, and you said, yes. And so I was like, okay, because I value your opinion.

John [00:53:27]: Right.

Nicole [00:53:27]: And then when you suddenly told me that you didn't like it, I was, like, so conflicted. 1. I was like, you lied even though it wasn't a lie. But.

John [00:53:38]: Right.

Nicole [00:53:39]: That's what it felt like to me.

John [00:53:41]: Right.

Nicole [00:53:42]: And then also, I was conflicted. I'm like, well, where can I even wear this? Because I don't want to wear something around you that you don't think is attractive. Like, I care about your opinion. I mean, I'll wear it somewhere else, but I'll wear it to, like, girls dinner or something. But because I like it. And the thing is, like, I'm not saying that I'm not going to wear something that I like that you don't like, but I do value your opinion. You're my husband.

John [00:54:09]: Right.

Nicole [00:54:10]: And so when you flipped it on me really fast. Well, like, to me, it felt fast. It was. It was a time in between. But it went from I showed it to you when I got it to being a yes. And then when I went to put it on to wear it to dinner, you were like, no, I don't like that. And so I just felt really blindsided. And I felt blindsided in the past by some of your decisions that you made, which were a lot bigger problems.

John [00:54:36]: But it flashbacked it, like it triggered that thing. So I think the emotional reaction was disproportionate. Like, in my opinion.

Nicole [00:54:46]: Right. It was because it was more of a triggered thing.

John [00:54:47]: Right. Which I didn't understand at the point. But it doesn't matter if I understand at the point. Like, the lesson to mention is that regardless of what. Because you don't know what you're going to get a lot of times as far as an emotional reaction, because a lot of emotional reactions from women are going to seem very irrational to men. Because a lot of emotional reactions in general that people have are irrational. A lot of times I'm triggered by something and I have an emotional reaction that is way higher than what it should be objectively to a person. But the real lesson that I had messed up on was it doesn't matter whether the reaction is proportional or disproportional. What matters is that I demonstrate that I care that you're having an emotional reaction, that your emotions matter to me. And that's where I failed, was I wasn't.

Nicole [00:55:33]: Well, you're defending your response, and that just made it worse. And then, you know, I didn't yell at you. I didn't do any of those things. But then I said that, you know, we can't continue this conversation because you're not understanding me.

John [00:55:49]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:55:49]: And then you did, like, later on, you did tell me you understood me, but you didn't tell me in that moment.

John [00:55:55]: Right.

Nicole [00:55:55]: So it did go on, like, really long. Granted, I didn't really realize that you had triggered me because if I did, I should have said, you know, this is triggering something in me. I know it's not about the dress.

John [00:56:08]: Right.

Nicole [00:56:08]: That was my responsibility. But I do feel like you were very defensive in the beginning part, which is also why it kind of spiraled even further. Granted, I, you know, had a overly emotional reaction to begin with, which is fine.

John [00:56:26]: Like, that's, like, that's like that is the thing that I can't predict. Or like, you shouldn't get. You should get the same treatment, whether it's proportional or overly emotional. Right. You know what I'm saying? Whether it's because I was trapped in my rational mind of saying, this doesn't make sense. How does this make sense? Let me understand this thing. Whereas that doesn't matter. What matters is how you felt. And again, it's not an admission of guilt. I didn't feel like I did anything wrong in expressing my opinion about the dress. But where I did do wrong was in not addressing that you told me that your feelings were hurt and addressing that. Now you saying that I lied. I could have addressed that separately. Right. But if I would have addressed that from the very beginning and said, I don't want your feelings to be hurt. Tell me more about that, or I'm sorry that your feelings are hurt, let you know that I cared that your feelings were hurt and addressed that fully, then we could have had a rational discussion about the rest of the stuff. But there was no rational discussion that was going to happen until that was addressed. And that's a lesson that I should have known already. But, you know, like, it takes a long time to learn that.

Nicole [00:57:44]: But I also want to say that it's not like. Yes. Even though it wasn't rational, I did not yell at you. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't. I did not freak out at you. I did have to put a boundary up in the conversation because I continuously felt misunderstood. And I get that you also felt misunderstood in a way, but it's like I felt like I had come to you with this issue and, like, I'm sure I didn't do it a thousand percent correct. I mean, I do feel like I did say I'm hurt because you told me one thing.

John [00:58:18]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:58:19]: But I'm sure it was like, you know, to you. Like, what? Like, why is this hurting you so much? Because I was obviously very upset.

John [00:58:26]: Yeah.

Nicole [00:58:28]: But yeah, like, I just, I don't want to sit here and act like it was some, like, completely, like, blown up thing.

John [00:58:35]: No, no, it wasn't at all. Yeah. I was totally in the wrong in that situation because I didn't address your emotions when you said that you're Hurt, that's the most important thing. Because it doesn't matter what the reaction is or if it's rational or not. Those things don't matter. What matters is that you, your feelings were hurt and that's what matters. And that's what I should have addressed. So I'm sorry.

Nicole [00:59:01]: Well, I'm sorry.

John [00:59:03]: But it was good. I mean, it was good to work through that and realize, but also just to realize that there's triggers that like, as we talked about it more and I understood, oh, wow, this is why you had this kind of reaction, was because in the past I had just changed my mind and left along. Yeah. Twice. So way back in the when, when I was going through the divorce and all this stuff, so.

Nicole [00:59:27]: But I don't even like the word trigger. You know what I mean?

John [00:59:29]: Yeah, yeah.

Nicole [00:59:30]: Because we need to work on those things. But like, it is also different when like, you've been through, like, we've moved on from those things. But it's like my body still has like sometimes a knee jerk reaction to you changing your mind. What feels like suddenly to me because it really affected me when you did it those times a long time ago.

John [00:59:54]: And that's the most important thing, I think, just like in the relationship in general is that it's not like not understanding why, but dealing with what. Right. So it's like we're gonna have emotions, we're gonna feel a certain way. And if you try to understand why a person feels the way they do, and that's the basis of you responding correctly, you're gonna have a real problem because it's not always going to be the case. Like, it's not even gonna be the case with me. Like, you're not gonna know why I am upset about something. And if you're, if you're like, well, I'm not gonna show him any empathy until I understand why he's upset. And I've validated it and said, okay, that's a good reason for being upset.

Nicole [01:00:39]: True. Yeah.

John [01:00:40]: Then it's not gonna happen. It's not good. Right. Because it causes. And that's, and that's kind of what I did in that situation. Right. Is I was like, okay, well, I need to understand why you're upset in order to validate the being upset.

Nicole [01:00:53]: Right, Right.

John [01:00:53]: Because, but, but the big thing about it is it's not an admission of guilt. Right. If you do something and you didn't do anything wrong, but it upsets me and I'm very upset about the thing. If you tell me, hey, I'm sorry that you're upset. I don't. I don't want you to be upset. I care that you're upset. It doesn't mean. It's just not an admission of guilt of saying that you did something wrong.

Nicole [01:01:14]: Right.

John [01:01:14]: And I think that's the thing. It's harder, I think, for guys to get that. To understand that because we're more of the rational, like, okay, let me understand these things. And that's what you know, Again, it's a learning process. I've gotten a lot better at it, but I still make mistakes and slip up. But it's good to see it. So I can.

Nicole [01:01:31]: And I still love you anyway.

John [01:01:33]: Yeah. Yeah.

Nicole [01:01:34]: Because you're human. I get it.

John [01:01:37]: Because love is not. Is a gift. I accept your gift. But. No but. Yeah. And even last night, we had a little bit of a discussion in the car. Not in any way in the fight, but these lessons had kicked into my head. Cause I was like, okay, because you were upset. And to me at that time, it seemed disproportionately upset because it just came out of nowhere in my mind. But I didn't care about that. I cared that you were upset. That's what my primary. And I think you could see that that was the primary thing that was. Was important to me was that you're upset, not why not whether it was justified. Not any of those things. I mean, I do think it was justified, but that's besides the point. So.

Nicole [01:02:19]: Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, that's besides love. The best gift you can give.

John [01:02:25]: Well, good. All right. I guess we should wrap this one up. Go check us out at the. I need to update the question.

Nicole [01:02:32]: Better than perfectpod.com.

John [01:02:33]: i haven't published that.

Nicole [01:02:34]: I thought you said you had it figured out.

John [01:02:36]: Well, I have an automation that automatically publishes to the YouTube channel and Spotify, but I need to connect it to the website.

Nicole [01:02:45]: So maybe wait a few days to go. The website?

John [01:02:49]: Yeah, that's true. It'll be up there soon, but otherwise you can just subscribe to us on YouTube. You can email us@betterthanperfectpodcastmail.com and we'll see you next week. Take care.