Dhru Purohit

And so I'm here to say all of it is good.

We need to accept all of it.

We need to learn more.

From people who aren't like us, we need to have an open mind because all of it is going to inform what we choose to make our own sex lives better.

Absolutely.

No, I absolutely love that.

And I think how that really translates for couples in long-term relationships is that, look, there are going to be times in your life where one partner is maybe more focused on career or has older aging parents that they're trying to attend to or who has some sort of other focus that's taking a lot of time and energy.

And maybe during that time, the other partner could sort of lean in and take off a lot of the burden.

And then in a really healthy relationship, that happens because you know that you might transition to another time where the other partner is given a freedom to be able to explore whatever they're currently passionate about.

The idea is that there needs to be an ebb and flow.

But what I don't think works is if couples feel like there has to be a hard and fast rule that it is 50-50 throughout life and that there's never any... I mean, that's just not realistic, right?

I mean, in so many couples, one person might have a career that takes more time or they might have, you know, a personal thing they're going through that's taking up a lot of their energy.

where they need the support of their partner who is going to be leaning in.

But I think what we're up against in this culture is that what the data shows is that for women who are in long-term relationships where they out-earn their husbands, those women are actually more likely to be doing more of the household labor.

It's almost like this effort to assure their male partner that they're still a woman and their partner is still a man.

And so I'm just saying in those situations, there just needs to be an acknowledgement, right?

There needs to be an intentionality and thoughtfulness like your friend was forced to develop through being divorced where it's much more clear cut about whose week it's on and whose week is off.

But there's always going to be some kind of unequal load, which is why, you know, I tell people the secret to passion in long-term relationships, I think it really comes down to two things.

And the first is gratitude, right?

right it's knowing that it's not going to be a 50 50 split all the time but just being able to appreciate everything that your partner does for you right i mean this is based on decades of research by the gotmans showing that we have to have love maps of each other love the gotmans yeah oh my god love the gotmans