February 10, 2023 • 27 mins
You can order my new book 8 RULES OF LOVE at 8rulesoflove.com or at a retail store near you. You can also get the chance to see me live on my first ever world tour. This is a 90 minute interactive show where I will take you on a journey of finding, keeping and even letting go of love. Head to jayshettytour.com and find out if I'll be in a city near you. Thank you so much for all your support - I hope to see you soon.
Today, I am going to share with you relationship red flags. There are warning signs that indicate potential problems in a romantic relationship. These can be behaviors or attitudes that are harmful or incompatible with a healthy relationship. It's important to be able to spot these red flags early on in a relationship so that you can make an informed decision about whether to continue the relationship. Pay attention to your gut feelings and listen to any concerns that your friends or family may have. Trust your instincts and if you notice multiple red flags, it may be time to reassess the relationship and consider whether it is a healthy and positive situation for you.
Key Takeaways:
- 00:00:00 Intro
- 00:02:09 Avoiding relationship red flags
- 00:09:09 Red Flag #1: Saying “I love you” too soon
- 00:12:46 Red Flag #2: Pressure to have s*x
- 00:15:52 Red Flag #3: Talking about moving in and starting a family
- 00:20:18 Red Flag #4: Gaslighting
- 00:21:34 Red Flag #5: Encouraging you to give up your passion
- 00:25:08 Red Flag #6: Talks about their ex-partner
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oxytocin can be the hormone of bad judgment. As you
keep thinking it's going to be okay. Because the hormone
makes you feel safe and secure, you don't see the
red flags the person is sending saying I'm not trustworthy.
So I want you to be really careful at the
beginning of a relationship about how you feel about something
(00:22):
how quickly you have sex, not from a position of like,
I'm not saying like, hold it back, wait till this day, like,
That's not the kind of advice I'm giving you. What
I'm trying to say to you is if you have sex,
you're likely to have more positive feelings about this person
and forget the bad things about them during that time,
and so you don't want to be making decisions around
that time. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the
(00:50):
number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each
and every one of you that come back every week
to listen, learn and grow. And I am so excited
to be talking to you today. I can't believe it.
My new book, Eight Rules of Love is out and
thank you, thank you, thank you so much for all
the support for Eight Rules of Love. It has been
(01:12):
an incredible launch week. I am so deeply grateful for
the amount of just love and kindness. I see all
of you tagging the book in your stories, and last
week I gave you the first introduction of the audiobook,
absolutely free. If you haven't listened to it, go back
and do and then download the audiobook from eight Rules
(01:33):
of Love dot com, Amazon, Audible, wherever you get your books.
It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or
let go of love. So if you've got friends that
are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure
you grab this book. And I'd love to invite you
to come and see me for my global tour Love Rules.
Go to Jay shehtytour dot com to learn more information
(01:56):
about tickets, VIP experiences and more. I can't wait to
see you this year. Now. If you're someone who's dating
right now, this episode is for you. If you have
a friend who's dating, this episode is for you. If
you have a friend who's in a relationship and they're
reflecting about it, introspecting about whether they're in the right
(02:17):
relationship with the right person, if things are going in
the right direction, this episode is for you, or if
you're in that position. Of course, this episode is for
you now. The reason why I put this episode together
is because I have had so many conversations with so
many people in my life recently where they've avoided red flags,
(02:39):
They've experienced gas lighting, they've experienced love bombing, but they
didn't realize it until afterwards. And at the same time,
I have a lot of friends and family and people
in my life who I think have spotted a red
flag and immediately thought that's it, it's over. This has
to end here, rather than learn the skill and the
(03:02):
art of figuring out is this a really extreme red
flag or is it more of like a pink salmon color? Right? Like,
is this really an issue? Or are we making an
issue out of it? Because we're scared, we're insecure, we're worried.
Often we can give up a great thing or a
good thing because we're not in the right mindset right.
(03:22):
Often we think someone's wrong for us because we're not
in the right space. How many times have you ever
experienced that? And I don't want you to miss out
on the right person. And I also don't want you
to stay with the wrong person, right. I don't want
you to do either one of those, because it leads
to a lot of pain, It leads to a lot
(03:42):
of heartbreak, and everyone goes through heartbreak. Everyone goes through
the feeling of rejection. It's something that I think most
people have experienced, but we know it's not a happy feeling.
It's not an easy feeling. So research shows that the
areas that are activated in the brain when we're in
(04:04):
love are the same as those involved in cocaine addiction. Fascinating, right,
So the way your brain experiences a breakup is kind
of like the misery of detox. Just as addicts crave
a fix, we can literally crave the other person. This
happens in part because our brains flood with chemical messengers
(04:27):
that are part of our reward and motivation circuitry. Our
brain sends urgent signals that we should hurry up and
retrieve what's missing. That's why you want to text your X.
That's why you want to see them again, That's why
you're obsessed with following them on social media and seeing
what they're up to, because we're literally detoxing from an addiction.
(04:49):
In one study of breakups, participants reported thinking about their
X is roughly eighty five percent of the time they
were awake, eighty five percent of the time that they
were awake. That's huge. Now, I know we've all been there, right,
So let's be let's be honest, we've all been there.
The flood of hormones isn't the brain's only response to
a breakup. Areas of the brain that are active in
(05:11):
heartbreak are the same as those ones that process physical pain,
But as the researcher Helen Fisher says, the differences. While
pain from a stubbed toe or a toothache fades, emotions
can intensify the sensation of a breakup. We don't get
angry with our tooth or feel rejected by the couch
we bumped into, says Helen Fisher, But with our exes,
(05:34):
we harbor hurt feelings dash dreams, which can exacerbate and
extend the pain. In this stay, our brains can desperately
seek oxytocin, the bonding hormone, because it decreases feelings of
fear and anxiety, and we're likely to seek this chemical
experience from our ex and this can prompt some pretty
(05:54):
irrational things, right, lack of emotional control, irregular eating, right,
or emailing, pleading, sobbing for hours, drinking too much. We've
all been there. So this episode is to help avoid
that at all costs if you can, not by staying
with someone who's wrong for you, but by either calling
it quits earlier, or by working through things that are
(06:17):
actually not that redder flag. So I hope this episode
helps you, guides you, gives you some insights to think about.
That's all I'm ever trying to do. I'm never telling
you whether you should break up or shouldn't break up
with someone. My goal is to give you enough insight
and information to make healthier decisions yourself through the use
of wisdom and science. So thank you for being here again.
(06:40):
If you haven't already, I hope you're going to order
my new book, Eight Rules of Love. This book is
going to help guide you into how to find love,
keep love, and let it go in a healthy way.
And I can't wait for you to have that book.
If you don't already have it, I hope you're enjoying it.
If you do, I really really hope that it's helping you. Now,
how can we avoid this feeling? If we can, and
(07:00):
when we can? This statistic really blew my mind. Seven
point two out of ten. Gen Z would rather date
a love bomber than someone who is emotionally unavailable or noncommittal. Now.
A love bomber, by definition, is someone who displays feelings
(07:21):
of affection early and in a heightened way, but doesn't
necessarily back them up over the long term. They're not
going to live up to their promises. It can be
a really painful thing to go through, which often leaves
you feeling like you're the most loved person in the world,
to then feeling like you're the least loved person in
the world. The Healthline describes it as it happens when
(07:44):
someone overwhelms you with loving words, actions, and behavior. As
a manipulation technique. It's often used to win over your
trust and affection so that they can meet a goal
of theirs, says Sharon Paker, m A, a license marriage
and family therapist. So I saw this brilliant love bombing
survey from Shanko, where some of today's research is from,
(08:07):
and so if you don't follow them or haven't checked
it out, definitely go take a look at it. The
study says that seventy percent of people have had a
partner say I love you within the first month of
seeing each other. How many times have you done this?
How many times does it happen to you that seventy
percent of people have had a partner say I love
you within the first month of seeing each other. Now,
(08:28):
I promise you right now, there is no way that
in the first month of seeing each other someone can
truly love you completely, fully holy. Yes they can like you,
Yes they can be into you, Yes they can be
attracted to you, Yes they can want to love you,
but someone loving you. And the problem is we love
hearing those three words. We want to hear them so badly,
(08:48):
and we want to feel them. Only thirty one percent
of dating app users would break up with someone who
said I love you in the first month, which shows
we like it, which proves we want it and like it.
Sixty percent of dating app users feel pressured to say
I love you too early in a relationship. The first
(09:09):
red flag in a relationship is if someone says I
love you too soon. We have to be very careful.
We have to slow it down, we have to be
thoughtful about I had this great conversation the other day,
what does it mean when someone loves us. We have
to define that for ourselves. But when I think about
the kind of love we want and the love that
(09:30):
I hear people want, it means a love where we're
accepted for who we are, truly who we are, and
we can be ourselves. We all want a space where
we get accepted for our authentic, aligned selves, and that
means someone has had to see you stressed, see you fatigued,
see you exhausted, see you irritated, and you will have
(09:50):
had to see them in those scenarios as well, because
we know that our character is really shown when we're tested,
and we know that long term love is based on character, right.
Liking is based on chemistry. Loving is based on character.
So the only way you can love someone is if
you've experienced different elements of their character and you've found
(10:14):
a way to make peace with that. I'm not saying
you're going to love someone when they're stressed, fully in
the sense of you're not going to be like, Wow,
they deal with stress so well. But the point is
do you both deal with stress well together? Have you
seen them in that and are you able to figure
it out? Are you supportive of each other or are
you just trying to avoid that scenario, and the only
experiences you've had with each other are on a date
(10:36):
night when you're practically in an interview. Now, studies shows
that men are quicker to say I love you than women,
taking an average of eighty eight days. Women take an
average of one hundred and thirty four days. Right, so
men are saying it quicker, which is why I hear
a lot from women that they've in loved bomb or
had this experience. Now, how do you deal with this?
(10:57):
If someone says I love you too soon? How do
you deal with it? Because they might be great, it
might actually be going in the right direction. I'm not saying, oh,
when someone says that to you, you you break up with
them and go, all right, well your love bombing me,
it's over. This is not what I need. Like Jay
told me that, you know, that's not what I'm saying.
I think, first of all, we should never feel pressured
to say I love you back. Sixty percent of dating
app users feel pressured to say I love you too early.
(11:19):
You should never be saying those words too early. There's
there's no need for that. I think when someone says
it to you, you can genuinely ask them what do
you mean like no, no, no, I don't believe you,
or this is awkward, more like, well, what do you
mean by that? Like what do you love about me?
And you may think that that's quite forward, but actually
you give yourself an opportunity to listen to that person,
(11:41):
and that person also gets a sign that goes, okay, well,
this person's smart, this person switched on. I remember actually
saying that to an ex girlfriend early on and that
being her response, and it actually made me reflect, only
for me to realize that I didn't have as strong
feelings for her as I thought. And I think that
that can be probably one of the best things that
(12:03):
someone can ask you is what do you mean by that?
Like what do you love about me? I'd love to know?
And you're asking it not in a confrontation or intimidating way.
You're asking in a genuine way. And so I want
you to be aware of this one because the challenge
is when someone says I love you, they're signing up
to live up to their definition, and when you say
(12:24):
I love you, you're signing up to live up to
your definition. And so if you both have your own definitions,
but you think that person signing up to yours, and
you think you're signing up to theirs, right, Like, actually
you think you're signing up to yours. So if you're
not ready to commit to their definition, or if you
don't even know what it is, chances are that's going
(12:44):
to be a challenge. So that's something to look out for.
Number two is the pressure to have sex. Fifty two
percent of women who are app users felt pressure to
have sex by someone who loved bombed them. Right. This
is really really challenging to see to think that over
fifty percent of people are pressured, and I don't have
the stats on how many of those people actually go
(13:06):
through with it, but it's really interesting how sex can
distort our perception of love. So the research shows that
sex can distract us from making good choices about who
to be with and whether to stay with them. So
if you're being pressured into sex too early on in
a relationship or ever in a relationship, it can actually
(13:28):
distort how you feel about that person and about love.
And one of the biggest causes of that distraction is
the hormone oxytocin. Now, according to neuroscientists and psychiatrist Daniel Aman,
Oxytocin is related to feelings of being in love, and
the release of oxytocin can support and even accelerate bonding
(13:48):
and trust. So generally men have lower levels of oxytocin
than women, but sex causes men's oxytocin levels to spike
more than five hundred percent. New York Universe City neuroscientist
Robert Frumka says that oxytocin acts like a volume dial,
turning up an amplifying brain activity related to whatever someone
(14:10):
is already experiencing. During and after sex, we feel more
in love, but it's not actually love. We feel closer
chemically even though we're not closer emotionally. Additionally, the hormone
actually has a temporary blocking effect on negative memories. So
all those little things that were bothering you, or that
(14:31):
argument you had beforehand, or the worry you had that
they weren't right for you, which might have been a
major warning sign, could fade after sex. So if someone
pressures you into having sex and you go through with it,
chances are you'll forget that you were pressured into it.
Chances are you'll forget that you were unsure about them beforehand.
So when I interviewed husband and wife relationship experts John
(14:53):
and Julie Gottman on My podcast, and doctor Daniel Lam
has also been on the podcast. But John said that
oxytocin can be the hormone of bad judgment. He says,
you keep thinking it's going to be okay because the
hormone makes you feel safe and secure. You don't see
the red flags the person is sending saying I'm not trustworthy.
(15:15):
So I want you to be really careful at the
beginning of a relationship about how you feel about something
how quickly you have sex, not from a position of like,
I'm not saying like, hold it back, wait till this day, Like,
That's not the kind of advice I'm giving you. What
I'm trying to say to you is, if you have sex,
you're likely to have more positive feelings about this person
and forget the bad things about them during that time,
(15:37):
And so you don't want to be making decisions around
that time. Right, That's not the time you want to
be making those choices and making those decisions. So I
really want you to be reflective and thoughtful about that. Please, please,
please think about that for sure, all right. Number three
is someone is talking about moving in, marriage and kids.
(15:59):
Now again this feels like an exciting thing. Oh my gosh,
don't want to move in with me? And I'm talking
about they talk about this too early marriage kids love
bombing Again from the Shanko study, twenty five percent women
need to seek therapy after they've been love bombed, right,
because it really makes you believe you're really special when
(16:19):
someone's like and I had a friend who literally just
went through this, Oh, let's move in. I can't wait.
Of kids, Oh my god, they'll be so cute. You're
having all these conversations so early on, and you don't
even know what country you want to live in, you
don't even know what you're doing with your own life,
you don't even know this person's family, and you're having
all these conversations. So I think this is a big one.
And this actually happens more during times of personal stress
(16:43):
and personal weakness. So listen to this. I've got a
couple of stories I want to share with you. Fresh
out of college, Caitlin Riley decided she was ready to
find love. So to meet someone, she joined a co
ed soccer team. Unfortunately, Caitlin says she didn't get a
lot of passes, tatious or otherwise. Finally, during one game,
a ball came her way. Seeing her opportunity to score
(17:05):
a goal, Caitlin went for it. Unfortunately, the ball ricocheted
and smacked her in the face. Her eye read and swollen.
Caitlyn went to ear and saw the on call doctor,
who told her she'd have to come in for daily
exams for a while to make sure the healing went well.
On that first meeting, something else happened. Caitlyn sensed a
little chemistry. Was it possible the young doctor was flirting
(17:27):
with her? Over several more visits and after a little
online research, Caitlyn decided the doctor could be the man
of her dreams and he was definitely into her right.
A few weeks later, at her last appointment, she decided
to ask her doctor out. Yeah, when the time came,
she got nervous, she fainted. Caitlin ended up being wheeled
to the ear and was so embarrassed she never asked
(17:49):
him out. But as she says, when it comes to love,
she's keeping her good eye open right now. The reason
I'm telling you that story is because in times of stress,
we get attracted to people, especially who are taking care
of us, who are supporting us, who are looking out
for us, and whether there was romantic chemistry or not,
there were more open to this idea of being love bombed.
(18:11):
Obviously that's a specific and extreme scenario, but you want
to think about when you're stressed, how you view the
person you're attracted to. Another story I wanted to tell
you about. Tasha and Andrew met at a healing workshop.
Tasha had crossed several states, and Andrew had flown in
from another country. During the intensive the two paired up
several times, and by the end they confessed their attraction
(18:34):
to one another. They made a plan to meet up
again in a city roughly halfway between where they lived.
They spent a magical long weekend together, and from there
they embarked on a passionate romance. Before long, Tasha moved
to Andrew's home country to be with him, and she
became pregnant. Not long after that, they were married. Unfortunately,
soon after their baby was born, the problems began. Tasha
(18:57):
began to suffer depression and feeling alone in her new
country and questioning her relationship with Andrew. She and their
child moved home unsure of whether Andrew would be joining them.
Eventually he did and they started couples counseling. Both of
those stories are an example of what can happen when
we meet during times of high emotional stress. In psychological terms,
(19:19):
transference is when a client or patient projects their emotions
and inner conflicts, sometimes related to a specific person in
their life, such as a parent or partner, onto a practitioner.
But we can experience projections of this kind in any
type of relationship. Right, Transference and similar types of projection
can also temporarily blind us to signs that the other
(19:43):
person isn't perhaps right for us, that the relationship could
be inappropriate, or that they will simply not be interested
in us in that way. So this is why in
my book I talk so deeply about solitude and the
power of being in a good place, not in the
perfect place, but being in a good place when you
get into a relationship, because now you're able to spot
(20:04):
these signs earlier. Right. Again, this doesn't mean you have
to break up with someone if they display this sign
or something like that, but so often we're actually turning
to someone out of weakness rather than a position of strength. Now,
the next one is Gaslighting number four, And for this one,
I want you to go listen to my episode with
doctor Ramany on the show. So I'm referencing three great
(20:27):
podcasts to go listen to after this one. Doctor Daniel
Aymon's been on the podcast maybe three or four times now.
All of them are great interviews. Then we've had John
and Julie Gottman who have been on the podcast once,
and doctor Romany who has been in the podcast. One
we did a masterclass on gaslighting, narcissism, and love bombing together.
Makes you go listen to that episode. I think a
lot of people are experiencing gaslighting more and more now,
(20:51):
and it comes from the other person's insecurity. It comes
from the other person's challenges, but end up leaving us
with insecurities and challenges. So the definition that's given by
Medical News today is that in relationships, an abusive person
may use gaslighting to isolate their partner, undermine their confidence,
and make them easier to control. For example, they might
(21:14):
tell someone they are irrational until the person starts to
think it must be true, right, so they make you
feel you have a particular weakness in order for them
to be more in control of that relationship makes you
go listen to the Doctor ramany episode all right. Number five,
(21:36):
someone who encourages you to give up your purpose, passion,
or your dreams. This one's huge because often you find
someone who's like, ah, don't worry about that, it's not
a big deal. Like, oh, that's okay. Maybe you're just
too ambitious, right, there's a bit of gaslighting there too.
You're too ambitious. There's no need for that, you know,
it's just not really you know, do you really want that? Like?
(21:57):
You know, it's that questioning, that doubting that comes in.
And I think it's so important for us to be
there as a support for our partners. So if you
find someone that supports your dreams versus gets insecure about
your dreams, that's the kind of person that you want
in your life. Again, I'm not telling you to break
up with this person, but it's to have this conversation
and say, hey, like, I've chased this because I really
(22:19):
believe in it. I really want this myself. Often a
partner can help you realize what you truly want something.
So sometimes this questioning is very helpful. If someone's saying
to you, like, do you really want to know, does
your parent want that? That's a great question that's helping
you reflect. And so the question you have to ask
yourself is this person telling me what to think? Or
(22:39):
are they telling me how to think? Right? If someone's
helping you learn how to think, that's different from them
telling you what to think. And that's the kind of
person that you want to help build in your life
and hopefully help reflect with them. In a twenty nineteen
piece for The Atlantic, Senior editor Julie Beck investigated what
it means to be ready a relationship. What she found
(23:01):
is that the meaning of the phrase varies widely and
is tough to pin down. However, results from Google's index
of search strings on printed materials shows that the term
first showed up in the nineteen fifties, but not until
the nineteen eighties did it rise to popularity. Today, it's everywhere.
Stephanie Koontz, a professor of history and family studies, told
(23:23):
back the timing of the word is just about perfectly
aligned with a sea change in people's conceptions of marriage.
It used to be that you got married in order
to grow up, settle down, start saving up for a
future home, move away from your teenage preoccupation with yourself
and learn how to handle a relationship. Whereas many saw
(23:46):
marriage as a cornerstone for building a happy and successful life,
now it's viewed more as a capstone. Younger people are
more apt to want to embark on a relationship when
we feel we've checked off some of our individ vigual
adulting goals. So it's almost like we got into a
relationship in the past to become adults. Now it's almost
like I want to date an adult, right, how many
(24:07):
times have you ever said that, Like, I don't want
to date a child. I don't want to be with
a child. They don't want to be with a kid.
I don't have to take care of someone as their parent.
But that's how relationship started in the past and they evolve.
Now we're expecting people to have done some self work
before we get to that. So in this situation, what
a relationship requires is a little bit of compassion and empathy.
(24:28):
So if someone doesn't have the ability to be compassion
and empathetic and you don't towards them, it becomes really
challenging because you're expecting them to already be a complete
person before they're even ready for it before they've even
gone through what's needed. And this is that catch twenty two,
because you want someone who's working on themselves is a
work in progress, but isn't a masterpiece, right, Like, that's
(24:51):
the idea that you're looking for someone who's on the
path not perfect. If you're looking for perfection, it's going
to be impossible, And if that person's looking for affection,
it's impossible. But you're looking for someone who's on the
path of self work and growth. That's a healthier thing
to look for. Now. The next one is people who
talk about their exes now. According to a survey of
(25:14):
a thousand people by Your Tango, seventy one percent said
they still think about their X too much. Of single respondence,
the number was eighty one percent, and more than half
of single respondents said they think about their X so
much it's keeping them from moving on. And it seems
marriage doesn't solve X obsession either, says this study. Sixty
(25:37):
percent of married folks said they think about an X
too often, and thirty seven percent said it actually causes
problems in their marriage. So you do want to be mindful.
I think we live in a time right now. It's
like Oh, everyone has exes. It's normal, of course it is.
But if someone's still talking about their ex a lot
comparing you to their X, fixated on how things were
with their ex, even if they keep bringing it up
(25:58):
in conversation and being like I didn't work out with
my ex because of this, or oh, I'm still friends
with my ex. Right. We want to be cool about
these things, but it can cause challenges. And this is
the part that really blew my mind that seventy percent
of guys and seventy six percent of girls say they
have searched for an X online. So a lot of
(26:19):
us are still addicted to our exes, the ones that
got away. Eighty six percent of survey respondents said they
still look at photos of their ex. And so for
those of us that want to be all cool and
act like nonchalant about our partner being friends with their X,
it is definitely something that if you're worried about it,
if you're anxious about it, it could be a big deal.
(26:41):
And I don't just want you to pass it off
because you think you're more cool or more easy if
you don't make a thing out of it. Matches. Singles
of America's survey found that half of men and forty
two percent of women said they'd stay friends with an X. However,
study by researchers from the University of Connecticut found that
(27:02):
when people were friends with their X, they tended to
not only have more romantic desires, but also more negative
feelings towards their X than they had towards opposite sex
friends they'd never dated. So the research suggests you can
be friends with your ex, but it can be complicated.
I want to thank you for listening to today's episode.
(27:23):
I hope it gave you a ton of great insights
when you're talking about this topic to your friends. It's
such a big theme, and of course I'd love for
you to get my new book, Eight Rules of Love
from eight Rules of Love dot com. Thank you so much.
Oxytocin can be the hormone of bad judgment. As you
keep thinking it's going to be okay. Because the hormone
makes you feel safe and secure, you don't see the
red flags the person is sending saying I'm not trustworthy.
So I want you to be really careful at the
beginning of a relationship about how you feel about something
(00:22):
how quickly you have sex, not from a position of like,
I'm not saying like, hold it back, wait till this day, like,
That's not the kind of advice I'm giving you. What
I'm trying to say to you is if you have sex,
you're likely to have more positive feelings about this person
and forget the bad things about them during that time,
and so you don't want to be making decisions around
that time. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the
(00:50):
number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each
and every one of you that come back every week
to listen, learn and grow. And I am so excited
to be talking to you today. I can't believe it.
My new book, Eight Rules of Love is out and
thank you, thank you, thank you so much for all
the support for Eight Rules of Love. It has been
(01:12):
an incredible launch week. I am so deeply grateful for
the amount of just love and kindness. I see all
of you tagging the book in your stories, and last
week I gave you the first introduction of the audiobook,
absolutely free. If you haven't listened to it, go back
and do and then download the audiobook from eight Rules
(01:33):
of Love dot com, Amazon, Audible, wherever you get your books.
It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or
let go of love. So if you've got friends that
are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure
you grab this book. And I'd love to invite you
to come and see me for my global tour Love Rules.
Go to Jay shehtytour dot com to learn more information
(01:56):
about tickets, VIP experiences and more. I can't wait to
see you this year. Now. If you're someone who's dating
right now, this episode is for you. If you have
a friend who's dating, this episode is for you. If
you have a friend who's in a relationship and they're
reflecting about it, introspecting about whether they're in the right
(02:17):
relationship with the right person, if things are going in
the right direction, this episode is for you, or if
you're in that position. Of course, this episode is for
you now. The reason why I put this episode together
is because I have had so many conversations with so
many people in my life recently where they've avoided red flags,
(02:39):
They've experienced gas lighting, they've experienced love bombing, but they
didn't realize it until afterwards. And at the same time,
I have a lot of friends and family and people
in my life who I think have spotted a red
flag and immediately thought that's it, it's over. This has
to end here, rather than learn the skill and the
(03:02):
art of figuring out is this a really extreme red
flag or is it more of like a pink salmon color? Right? Like,
is this really an issue? Or are we making an
issue out of it? Because we're scared, we're insecure, we're worried.
Often we can give up a great thing or a
good thing because we're not in the right mindset right.
(03:22):
Often we think someone's wrong for us because we're not
in the right space. How many times have you ever
experienced that? And I don't want you to miss out
on the right person. And I also don't want you
to stay with the wrong person, right. I don't want
you to do either one of those, because it leads
to a lot of pain, It leads to a lot
(03:42):
of heartbreak, and everyone goes through heartbreak. Everyone goes through
the feeling of rejection. It's something that I think most
people have experienced, but we know it's not a happy feeling.
It's not an easy feeling. So research shows that the
areas that are activated in the brain when we're in
(04:04):
love are the same as those involved in cocaine addiction. Fascinating, right,
So the way your brain experiences a breakup is kind
of like the misery of detox. Just as addicts crave
a fix, we can literally crave the other person. This
happens in part because our brains flood with chemical messengers
(04:27):
that are part of our reward and motivation circuitry. Our
brain sends urgent signals that we should hurry up and
retrieve what's missing. That's why you want to text your X.
That's why you want to see them again, That's why
you're obsessed with following them on social media and seeing
what they're up to, because we're literally detoxing from an addiction.
(04:49):
In one study of breakups, participants reported thinking about their
X is roughly eighty five percent of the time they
were awake, eighty five percent of the time that they
were awake. That's huge. Now, I know we've all been there, right,
So let's be let's be honest, we've all been there.
The flood of hormones isn't the brain's only response to
a breakup. Areas of the brain that are active in
(05:11):
heartbreak are the same as those ones that process physical pain,
But as the researcher Helen Fisher says, the differences. While
pain from a stubbed toe or a toothache fades, emotions
can intensify the sensation of a breakup. We don't get
angry with our tooth or feel rejected by the couch
we bumped into, says Helen Fisher, But with our exes,
(05:34):
we harbor hurt feelings dash dreams, which can exacerbate and
extend the pain. In this stay, our brains can desperately
seek oxytocin, the bonding hormone, because it decreases feelings of
fear and anxiety, and we're likely to seek this chemical
experience from our ex and this can prompt some pretty
(05:54):
irrational things, right, lack of emotional control, irregular eating, right,
or emailing, pleading, sobbing for hours, drinking too much. We've
all been there. So this episode is to help avoid
that at all costs if you can, not by staying
with someone who's wrong for you, but by either calling
it quits earlier, or by working through things that are
(06:17):
actually not that redder flag. So I hope this episode
helps you, guides you, gives you some insights to think about.
That's all I'm ever trying to do. I'm never telling
you whether you should break up or shouldn't break up
with someone. My goal is to give you enough insight
and information to make healthier decisions yourself through the use
of wisdom and science. So thank you for being here again.
(06:40):
If you haven't already, I hope you're going to order
my new book, Eight Rules of Love. This book is
going to help guide you into how to find love,
keep love, and let it go in a healthy way.
And I can't wait for you to have that book.
If you don't already have it, I hope you're enjoying it.
If you do, I really really hope that it's helping you. Now,
how can we avoid this feeling? If we can, and
(07:00):
when we can? This statistic really blew my mind. Seven
point two out of ten. Gen Z would rather date
a love bomber than someone who is emotionally unavailable or noncommittal. Now.
A love bomber, by definition, is someone who displays feelings
(07:21):
of affection early and in a heightened way, but doesn't
necessarily back them up over the long term. They're not
going to live up to their promises. It can be
a really painful thing to go through, which often leaves
you feeling like you're the most loved person in the world,
to then feeling like you're the least loved person in
the world. The Healthline describes it as it happens when
(07:44):
someone overwhelms you with loving words, actions, and behavior. As
a manipulation technique. It's often used to win over your
trust and affection so that they can meet a goal
of theirs, says Sharon Paker, m A, a license marriage
and family therapist. So I saw this brilliant love bombing
survey from Shanko, where some of today's research is from,
(08:07):
and so if you don't follow them or haven't checked
it out, definitely go take a look at it. The
study says that seventy percent of people have had a
partner say I love you within the first month of
seeing each other. How many times have you done this?
How many times does it happen to you that seventy
percent of people have had a partner say I love
you within the first month of seeing each other. Now,
(08:28):
I promise you right now, there is no way that
in the first month of seeing each other someone can
truly love you completely, fully holy. Yes they can like you,
Yes they can be into you, Yes they can be
attracted to you, Yes they can want to love you,
but someone loving you. And the problem is we love
hearing those three words. We want to hear them so badly,
(08:48):
and we want to feel them. Only thirty one percent
of dating app users would break up with someone who
said I love you in the first month, which shows
we like it, which proves we want it and like it.
Sixty percent of dating app users feel pressured to say
I love you too early in a relationship. The first
(09:09):
red flag in a relationship is if someone says I
love you too soon. We have to be very careful.
We have to slow it down, we have to be
thoughtful about I had this great conversation the other day,
what does it mean when someone loves us. We have
to define that for ourselves. But when I think about
the kind of love we want and the love that
(09:30):
I hear people want, it means a love where we're
accepted for who we are, truly who we are, and
we can be ourselves. We all want a space where
we get accepted for our authentic, aligned selves, and that
means someone has had to see you stressed, see you fatigued,
see you exhausted, see you irritated, and you will have
(09:50):
had to see them in those scenarios as well, because
we know that our character is really shown when we're tested,
and we know that long term love is based on character, right.
Liking is based on chemistry. Loving is based on character.
So the only way you can love someone is if
you've experienced different elements of their character and you've found
(10:14):
a way to make peace with that. I'm not saying
you're going to love someone when they're stressed, fully in
the sense of you're not going to be like, Wow,
they deal with stress so well. But the point is
do you both deal with stress well together? Have you
seen them in that and are you able to figure
it out? Are you supportive of each other or are
you just trying to avoid that scenario, and the only
experiences you've had with each other are on a date
(10:36):
night when you're practically in an interview. Now, studies shows
that men are quicker to say I love you than women,
taking an average of eighty eight days. Women take an
average of one hundred and thirty four days. Right, so
men are saying it quicker, which is why I hear
a lot from women that they've in loved bomb or
had this experience. Now, how do you deal with this?
(10:57):
If someone says I love you too soon? How do
you deal with it? Because they might be great, it
might actually be going in the right direction. I'm not saying, oh,
when someone says that to you, you you break up with
them and go, all right, well your love bombing me,
it's over. This is not what I need. Like Jay
told me that, you know, that's not what I'm saying.
I think, first of all, we should never feel pressured
to say I love you back. Sixty percent of dating
app users feel pressured to say I love you too early.
(11:19):
You should never be saying those words too early. There's
there's no need for that. I think when someone says
it to you, you can genuinely ask them what do
you mean like no, no, no, I don't believe you,
or this is awkward, more like, well, what do you
mean by that? Like what do you love about me?
And you may think that that's quite forward, but actually
you give yourself an opportunity to listen to that person,
(11:41):
and that person also gets a sign that goes, okay, well,
this person's smart, this person switched on. I remember actually
saying that to an ex girlfriend early on and that
being her response, and it actually made me reflect, only
for me to realize that I didn't have as strong
feelings for her as I thought. And I think that
that can be probably one of the best things that
(12:03):
someone can ask you is what do you mean by that?
Like what do you love about me? I'd love to know?
And you're asking it not in a confrontation or intimidating way.
You're asking in a genuine way. And so I want
you to be aware of this one because the challenge
is when someone says I love you, they're signing up
to live up to their definition, and when you say
(12:24):
I love you, you're signing up to live up to
your definition. And so if you both have your own definitions,
but you think that person signing up to yours, and
you think you're signing up to theirs, right, Like, actually
you think you're signing up to yours. So if you're
not ready to commit to their definition, or if you
don't even know what it is, chances are that's going
(12:44):
to be a challenge. So that's something to look out for.
Number two is the pressure to have sex. Fifty two
percent of women who are app users felt pressure to
have sex by someone who loved bombed them. Right. This
is really really challenging to see to think that over
fifty percent of people are pressured, and I don't have
the stats on how many of those people actually go
(13:06):
through with it, but it's really interesting how sex can
distort our perception of love. So the research shows that
sex can distract us from making good choices about who
to be with and whether to stay with them. So
if you're being pressured into sex too early on in
a relationship or ever in a relationship, it can actually
(13:28):
distort how you feel about that person and about love.
And one of the biggest causes of that distraction is
the hormone oxytocin. Now, according to neuroscientists and psychiatrist Daniel Aman,
Oxytocin is related to feelings of being in love, and
the release of oxytocin can support and even accelerate bonding
(13:48):
and trust. So generally men have lower levels of oxytocin
than women, but sex causes men's oxytocin levels to spike
more than five hundred percent. New York Universe City neuroscientist
Robert Frumka says that oxytocin acts like a volume dial,
turning up an amplifying brain activity related to whatever someone
(14:10):
is already experiencing. During and after sex, we feel more
in love, but it's not actually love. We feel closer
chemically even though we're not closer emotionally. Additionally, the hormone
actually has a temporary blocking effect on negative memories. So
all those little things that were bothering you, or that
(14:31):
argument you had beforehand, or the worry you had that
they weren't right for you, which might have been a
major warning sign, could fade after sex. So if someone
pressures you into having sex and you go through with it,
chances are you'll forget that you were pressured into it.
Chances are you'll forget that you were unsure about them beforehand.
So when I interviewed husband and wife relationship experts John
(14:53):
and Julie Gottman on My podcast, and doctor Daniel Lam
has also been on the podcast. But John said that
oxytocin can be the hormone of bad judgment. He says,
you keep thinking it's going to be okay because the
hormone makes you feel safe and secure. You don't see
the red flags the person is sending saying I'm not trustworthy.
(15:15):
So I want you to be really careful at the
beginning of a relationship about how you feel about something
how quickly you have sex, not from a position of like,
I'm not saying like, hold it back, wait till this day, Like,
That's not the kind of advice I'm giving you. What
I'm trying to say to you is, if you have sex,
you're likely to have more positive feelings about this person
and forget the bad things about them during that time,
(15:37):
And so you don't want to be making decisions around
that time. Right, That's not the time you want to
be making those choices and making those decisions. So I
really want you to be reflective and thoughtful about that. Please, please,
please think about that for sure, all right. Number three
is someone is talking about moving in, marriage and kids.
(15:59):
Now again this feels like an exciting thing. Oh my gosh,
don't want to move in with me? And I'm talking
about they talk about this too early marriage kids love
bombing Again from the Shanko study, twenty five percent women
need to seek therapy after they've been love bombed, right,
because it really makes you believe you're really special when
(16:19):
someone's like and I had a friend who literally just
went through this, Oh, let's move in. I can't wait.
Of kids, Oh my god, they'll be so cute. You're
having all these conversations so early on, and you don't
even know what country you want to live in, you
don't even know what you're doing with your own life,
you don't even know this person's family, and you're having
all these conversations. So I think this is a big one.
And this actually happens more during times of personal stress
(16:43):
and personal weakness. So listen to this. I've got a
couple of stories I want to share with you. Fresh
out of college, Caitlin Riley decided she was ready to
find love. So to meet someone, she joined a co
ed soccer team. Unfortunately, Caitlin says she didn't get a
lot of passes, tatious or otherwise. Finally, during one game,
a ball came her way. Seeing her opportunity to score
(17:05):
a goal, Caitlin went for it. Unfortunately, the ball ricocheted
and smacked her in the face. Her eye read and swollen.
Caitlyn went to ear and saw the on call doctor,
who told her she'd have to come in for daily
exams for a while to make sure the healing went well.
On that first meeting, something else happened. Caitlyn sensed a
little chemistry. Was it possible the young doctor was flirting
(17:27):
with her? Over several more visits and after a little
online research, Caitlyn decided the doctor could be the man
of her dreams and he was definitely into her right.
A few weeks later, at her last appointment, she decided
to ask her doctor out. Yeah, when the time came,
she got nervous, she fainted. Caitlin ended up being wheeled
to the ear and was so embarrassed she never asked
(17:49):
him out. But as she says, when it comes to love,
she's keeping her good eye open right now. The reason
I'm telling you that story is because in times of stress,
we get attracted to people, especially who are taking care
of us, who are supporting us, who are looking out
for us, and whether there was romantic chemistry or not,
there were more open to this idea of being love bombed.
(18:11):
Obviously that's a specific and extreme scenario, but you want
to think about when you're stressed, how you view the
person you're attracted to. Another story I wanted to tell
you about. Tasha and Andrew met at a healing workshop.
Tasha had crossed several states, and Andrew had flown in
from another country. During the intensive the two paired up
several times, and by the end they confessed their attraction
(18:34):
to one another. They made a plan to meet up
again in a city roughly halfway between where they lived.
They spent a magical long weekend together, and from there
they embarked on a passionate romance. Before long, Tasha moved
to Andrew's home country to be with him, and she
became pregnant. Not long after that, they were married. Unfortunately,
soon after their baby was born, the problems began. Tasha
(18:57):
began to suffer depression and feeling alone in her new
country and questioning her relationship with Andrew. She and their
child moved home unsure of whether Andrew would be joining them.
Eventually he did and they started couples counseling. Both of
those stories are an example of what can happen when
we meet during times of high emotional stress. In psychological terms,
(19:19):
transference is when a client or patient projects their emotions
and inner conflicts, sometimes related to a specific person in
their life, such as a parent or partner, onto a practitioner.
But we can experience projections of this kind in any
type of relationship. Right, Transference and similar types of projection
can also temporarily blind us to signs that the other
(19:43):
person isn't perhaps right for us, that the relationship could
be inappropriate, or that they will simply not be interested
in us in that way. So this is why in
my book I talk so deeply about solitude and the
power of being in a good place, not in the
perfect place, but being in a good place when you
get into a relationship, because now you're able to spot
(20:04):
these signs earlier. Right. Again, this doesn't mean you have
to break up with someone if they display this sign
or something like that, but so often we're actually turning
to someone out of weakness rather than a position of strength. Now,
the next one is Gaslighting number four, And for this one,
I want you to go listen to my episode with
doctor Ramany on the show. So I'm referencing three great
(20:27):
podcasts to go listen to after this one. Doctor Daniel
Aymon's been on the podcast maybe three or four times now.
All of them are great interviews. Then we've had John
and Julie Gottman who have been on the podcast once,
and doctor Romany who has been in the podcast. One
we did a masterclass on gaslighting, narcissism, and love bombing together.
Makes you go listen to that episode. I think a
lot of people are experiencing gaslighting more and more now,
(20:51):
and it comes from the other person's insecurity. It comes
from the other person's challenges, but end up leaving us
with insecurities and challenges. So the definition that's given by
Medical News today is that in relationships, an abusive person
may use gaslighting to isolate their partner, undermine their confidence,
and make them easier to control. For example, they might
(21:14):
tell someone they are irrational until the person starts to
think it must be true, right, so they make you
feel you have a particular weakness in order for them
to be more in control of that relationship makes you
go listen to the Doctor ramany episode all right. Number five,
(21:36):
someone who encourages you to give up your purpose, passion,
or your dreams. This one's huge because often you find
someone who's like, ah, don't worry about that, it's not
a big deal. Like, oh, that's okay. Maybe you're just
too ambitious, right, there's a bit of gaslighting there too.
You're too ambitious. There's no need for that, you know,
it's just not really you know, do you really want that? Like?
(21:57):
You know, it's that questioning, that doubting that comes in.
And I think it's so important for us to be
there as a support for our partners. So if you
find someone that supports your dreams versus gets insecure about
your dreams, that's the kind of person that you want
in your life. Again, I'm not telling you to break
up with this person, but it's to have this conversation
and say, hey, like, I've chased this because I really
(22:19):
believe in it. I really want this myself. Often a
partner can help you realize what you truly want something.
So sometimes this questioning is very helpful. If someone's saying
to you, like, do you really want to know, does
your parent want that? That's a great question that's helping
you reflect. And so the question you have to ask
yourself is this person telling me what to think? Or
(22:39):
are they telling me how to think? Right? If someone's
helping you learn how to think, that's different from them
telling you what to think. And that's the kind of
person that you want to help build in your life
and hopefully help reflect with them. In a twenty nineteen
piece for The Atlantic, Senior editor Julie Beck investigated what
it means to be ready a relationship. What she found
(23:01):
is that the meaning of the phrase varies widely and
is tough to pin down. However, results from Google's index
of search strings on printed materials shows that the term
first showed up in the nineteen fifties, but not until
the nineteen eighties did it rise to popularity. Today, it's everywhere.
Stephanie Koontz, a professor of history and family studies, told
(23:23):
back the timing of the word is just about perfectly
aligned with a sea change in people's conceptions of marriage.
It used to be that you got married in order
to grow up, settle down, start saving up for a
future home, move away from your teenage preoccupation with yourself
and learn how to handle a relationship. Whereas many saw
(23:46):
marriage as a cornerstone for building a happy and successful life,
now it's viewed more as a capstone. Younger people are
more apt to want to embark on a relationship when
we feel we've checked off some of our individ vigual
adulting goals. So it's almost like we got into a
relationship in the past to become adults. Now it's almost
like I want to date an adult, right, how many
(24:07):
times have you ever said that, Like, I don't want
to date a child. I don't want to be with
a child. They don't want to be with a kid.
I don't have to take care of someone as their parent.
But that's how relationship started in the past and they evolve.
Now we're expecting people to have done some self work
before we get to that. So in this situation, what
a relationship requires is a little bit of compassion and empathy.
(24:28):
So if someone doesn't have the ability to be compassion
and empathetic and you don't towards them, it becomes really
challenging because you're expecting them to already be a complete
person before they're even ready for it before they've even
gone through what's needed. And this is that catch twenty two,
because you want someone who's working on themselves is a
work in progress, but isn't a masterpiece, right, Like, that's
(24:51):
the idea that you're looking for someone who's on the
path not perfect. If you're looking for perfection, it's going
to be impossible, And if that person's looking for affection,
it's impossible. But you're looking for someone who's on the
path of self work and growth. That's a healthier thing
to look for. Now. The next one is people who
talk about their exes now. According to a survey of
(25:14):
a thousand people by Your Tango, seventy one percent said
they still think about their X too much. Of single respondence,
the number was eighty one percent, and more than half
of single respondents said they think about their X so
much it's keeping them from moving on. And it seems
marriage doesn't solve X obsession either, says this study. Sixty
(25:37):
percent of married folks said they think about an X
too often, and thirty seven percent said it actually causes
problems in their marriage. So you do want to be mindful.
I think we live in a time right now. It's
like Oh, everyone has exes. It's normal, of course it is.
But if someone's still talking about their ex a lot
comparing you to their X, fixated on how things were
with their ex, even if they keep bringing it up
(25:58):
in conversation and being like I didn't work out with
my ex because of this, or oh, I'm still friends
with my ex. Right. We want to be cool about
these things, but it can cause challenges. And this is
the part that really blew my mind that seventy percent
of guys and seventy six percent of girls say they
have searched for an X online. So a lot of
(26:19):
us are still addicted to our exes, the ones that
got away. Eighty six percent of survey respondents said they
still look at photos of their ex. And so for
those of us that want to be all cool and
act like nonchalant about our partner being friends with their X,
it is definitely something that if you're worried about it,
if you're anxious about it, it could be a big deal.
(26:41):
And I don't just want you to pass it off
because you think you're more cool or more easy if
you don't make a thing out of it. Matches. Singles
of America's survey found that half of men and forty
two percent of women said they'd stay friends with an X. However,
study by researchers from the University of Connecticut found that
(27:02):
when people were friends with their X, they tended to
not only have more romantic desires, but also more negative
feelings towards their X than they had towards opposite sex
friends they'd never dated. So the research suggests you can
be friends with your ex, but it can be complicated.
I want to thank you for listening to today's episode.
(27:23):
I hope it gave you a ton of great insights
when you're talking about this topic to your friends. It's
such a big theme, and of course I'd love for
you to get my new book, Eight Rules of Love
from eight Rules of Love dot com. Thank you so much.
Host
Jay Shetty
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Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!