Dan Savage

There's no fair proof in your relationship, despite all the books you may have seen in the self-help sections.

The gift of embracing that anxiety and living with it and living with the existential howling void of it is it really does solve for something else that threatens relationships, which is being taken for granted. That's right.

The gift of embracing that anxiety and living with it and living with the existential howling void of it is it really does solve for something else that threatens relationships, which is being taken for granted. That's right.

If you know your partner can leave at any time, could fuck anybody else at any time, then you know that you kind of, and I say this to people and sometimes it makes people mad at me, you have to earn your partner every day.

If you know your partner can leave at any time, could fuck anybody else at any time, then you know that you kind of, and I say this to people and sometimes it makes people mad at me, you have to earn your partner every day.

I think there's something fundamentally transactional about all relationships and you pay in in an intimate, loving, committed relationship with time, attention, affection, prioritization, sex, you pay in. And to earn all of that back from that person, you can't take them for granted or take what they're bringing to you for granted either.

I think there's something fundamentally transactional about all relationships and you pay in in an intimate, loving, committed relationship with time, attention, affection, prioritization, sex, you pay in. And to earn all of that back from that person, you can't take them for granted or take what they're bringing to you for granted either.

And so if you just embrace it, like, yeah, they're free to go at any time. And so I don't want them to go. And so I'm going to show up for them.

And so if you just embrace it, like, yeah, they're free to go at any time. And so I don't want them to go. And so I'm going to show up for them.

I think your band is going to get signed. We've been talking for such a long time. We haven't talked about what you're here to talk about today, which is your new online course, where I actually think we may have a point of difference or contention here that we could unpack a little bit.

I think your band is going to get signed. We've been talking for such a long time. We haven't talked about what you're here to talk about today, which is your new online course, where I actually think we may have a point of difference or contention here that we could unpack a little bit.

So when you do couples counseling, you're a psychotherapist, you work with couples, there have to be couples who come and sit down in front of you where you know, you can tell instantly, one of them doesn't really want to be there, but it feels like they have to be there, that they have to go through the motions, that this is what is required of them, expected of them.

So when you do couples counseling, you're a psychotherapist, you work with couples, there have to be couples who come and sit down in front of you where you know, you can tell instantly, one of them doesn't really want to be there, but it feels like they have to be there, that they have to go through the motions, that this is what is required of them, expected of them.

It makes them a good person, that at least they're willing to show up and try to do the work, but they're not doing the work. Is that not also...

It makes them a good person, that at least they're willing to show up and try to do the work, but they're not doing the work. Is that not also...

version of that couple is going to come to this course where one person is done with sex doesn't want to have sex or doesn't want to fuck the person that they married anymore after 20 years and what they're told by the sex and relationship industrial advice complex is that you can get that spark back if you just communicate but what you can't communicate if you're the person who just doesn't want to fuck that person that you married 30 years ago anymore you can't say that

version of that couple is going to come to this course where one person is done with sex doesn't want to have sex or doesn't want to fuck the person that they married anymore after 20 years and what they're told by the sex and relationship industrial advice complex is that you can get that spark back if you just communicate but what you can't communicate if you're the person who just doesn't want to fuck that person that you married 30 years ago anymore you can't say that

You can't go through the motions of pretending.

You can't go through the motions of pretending.

No, you don't. Yes. You're saying it through your behavior and saying, I don't know why this is a problem. Like the sparks gone out, but there's not going to be in some cases on the part of both parties, a good faith effort to, to do this work. There's going to be the going through the motions on one person's part because we've been together 25 years. It's terrible. We're not fucking.