Doctor Mike

that complexity, that right hemisphere murkiness, that dark consciousness is what governs it.

That's the fun part of life.

You've been watching my marriage for the past 34 years?

I'm married to a Spaniard, which is an additional level of complexity.

And it's, yeah, I mean, it's- Why is that?

Why is there- Oh, just because it's like fighting is a basic form of communication.

You know, it's just, it's, you know, boisterous and loud and- In Russian culture, the same thing.

He's just asking about the traffic on the West Side Highway.

Literally, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

And it's interesting, I've seen this from a number of different sources that, I haven't done this research myself, but that anger and divorce are uncorrelated.

Mm-hmm.

What's correlated with divorce is contempt, which is a complex emotion that mixes anger and disgust.

And so when you have anger and disgust, it's an ice cold, very complex emotion where you treat somebody as if they were worthless.

That's all that John Gottman stuff.

You know, the Gottman Marriage Lab at University of Washington, where if you and your girlfriend are having a big argument, you and your wife, whatever, having a big argument, and she rolls her eyes at something you say, that's a huge predictor of disillusion of the relationship, because that expresses contempt.

Anger's no problem.

Anger says, I care what you think, and I want it to change.

Yeah, there's a lot to it.

Because some cultures just, they tend to be more expressive.