Healing + Human Potential
The Truth About Modern Love: What No One Tells You About Relationships - Jillian Turecki | EP 72
21 Jan 2025
Chapter 1: What alarming trends exist in modern relationships?
If you're someone who tends to fall quickly, you gotta really, really slow it down. Actually, what's happening is that we're looking at our partner and we have a filter right in front of our eyes, and that filter is showing us mom, it's showing us dad, it's showing us our exes. Conflict is a part of relationships, advanced healthy conflict. It's you and me against this problem.
You can't let resentment poison your relationship. That means that you have to speak up, you have to stop having so many expectations of your partner to be perfect. Conflict prevention is really resentment prevention. But if you are spending the majority of your time in conflict, something is wrong.
Welcome to the Healing and Human Potential podcast, where today we're going to dive into all things relationships. We're going to explore how do you know if you're setting unrealistic expectations or your standards aren't high enough? How do you navigate conflict and resolution or sexual chemistry?
I'm thrilled to be joined by Jillian Turecki, who is a relationship coach and author of It Begins With You, Nine Hard Truths About Love That Will Change Your Life. So we're going to dive into some of them here, unpacking practical strategies to live happier, healthier relationships. Let's dive in. I am so happy that you're here. I'm so excited to share it with my audience.
And I wanted to start us off just by talking about any trends or stats that you see in modern relationships that may be alarming and how you kind of think about it in your work. Because I know you work with a lot of people around relationships. So in terms of modern day relationships, are there any trends or statistics that you're like, oh, this is somewhat alarming?
My work isn't really focused around statistics. It's more just my experience of working with people. A trend that I'm seeing in modern dating and modern relationships is this idea of 50-50, which is I scratch your back just as long as you scratch my back. And I'm going to put 50% of my...
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Chapter 2: How can couples navigate conflict effectively?
mental, emotional, physical, financial resources into the relationship and you're going to put 50 and we're going to meet each other exactly halfway all the time, which is a great antidote to relationships of the 50s, for example, where there was just a lot of misogyny and there was just a lot of imbalance.
But what's happening now is that relationships are so transactional and, you know, we're even calling them partnerships, which fine, you know, like I say partner all the time, but it is an interesting thing, isn't it? Because that is, that's actually, now that we're talking about statistics, statistically speaking, using the word partner is, for any kind of relationship is actually quite unusual.
Partners used to be referred to as business partners, and then you would see it in the gay community, but now it's like, no, this isn't my boyfriend, this isn't my girlfriend, this isn't my husband, this isn't my wife, this is my partner. What I like about it is I like this idea of partner in crime and this idea that like we're coming together and we are partner.
It's like you and me against the world kind of thing, or you and me against the trials and tribulations of the world. So I think it actually, I don't want to poo poo it too much. I think it has some value, but where we get tripped up is okay. Then we're really like these partners and you do this and you do this and then we're good. There's no passion. There's no chemistry.
There's none of the juice that makes a romantic relationship what it is versus a business partnership or a friendship in 50-50. The goal is both people putting their all into the relationship and And realistically speaking, there's going to be periods of times or days where you're at 20% and your partner's at 80%. And it's not about keeping tabs.
It's about if you both have the understanding that, like, I've got your back when you're not feeling great and you've got my back when I'm not feeling great. And, you know, maybe I don't like to do the dishes, so we hire someone to do the dishes if we can. Or you do the dishes, but I'm doing something else. So it's a conversation.
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Chapter 3: What are common misconceptions about relationships?
And so that's a very long answer to I think that that's like the main trend in modern relationships that, again, has some value in terms of what it is anecdotal to in terms of what it what it is an antidote to in terms of. marriages of our parents and their parents, but it doesn't really, it's not serving people. I'm curious your thoughts on that too.
Yeah. I mean, as you're talking, I'm just aware that we have not been in relationships evolutionarily speaking for that long. And so I think there was this kind of transactional period of time where it was like, we're, we survive in community and we need this.
And so things have really shifted since then we've really evolved and we're learning how to be there for the parts of ourselves and clearly communicate that in relationship, which is what I hear you highlighting, which is, Hey, I'm at 20% today. Can you help out? And like, I love you and I'm here, but it's not this tit for tat keeping tabs. I love that.
Yeah. There's another trend, but you said one that's really troubling me. I don't know if this is troubling me, but I do think it's worth the conversation, which is that, you know, cause you brought up this idea of community, right? And Never before in modern relationships, like this idea of a soulmate, that's very new. You know, it's new and like this idea of romanticism.
It used to be like, it takes a village. It's a community. You marry the person who's, you know, who is in your community or there's a range marriages. And so when we're looking at through the modern lens, it's like, I want to meet this person. Who's my twin flame. Who's my soulmate. Who's my everything.
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Chapter 4: How does self-awareness influence relationship choices?
And I think that that actually does trouble me because it's a lot of pressure to put on a person. And I think it's a lot of pressure to feel on our shoulders that we have to be someone's everything.
A hundred percent. I couldn't agree more. I think it's this fairy tale that we've been conditioned around, like you're going to complete me as if I'm somehow not enough as I am. And it doesn't allow the relationship to blossom and see what it is because we're putting our unspoken
needs and expectations onto them rather than just feeling our wholeness and seeing what unfolds naturally in the relationship. So the other thing that I'm aware of that you're bringing forward is like, you have also other relationships to fulfill other parts of you. You don't have to put too much on this one.
You know, it's like, do you have shared vision and values and in ways that lifestyle, you know, the way that you want to live your life? There's so much I want to dive into. So we'll get to it. But one of the things I want to talk about is conflict, because I think a lot of people think conflict is bad and it's normal.
And I think more than just if conflict comes up or not, it's like, how do we repair through it? And so that's the bigger question. It's like, conflict's going to happen. It doesn't mean you don't have a good relationship, but how do you use it to grow closer together? I'm curious if there's any practices or exercises you recommend for couples navigating conflict.
before I get into that, one thing that I want to say about conflict is that, you know, when we, conflict has such a big umbrella, right? And so you don't want to be in constant conflict with your partner.
Yeah.
Yes. Right. For sure. And if you never have any conflict, then my, My curiosity is peaked in so far as I'm wondering how much the two of you are actually involved in each other's lives, or are you living separate lives? Are you doing the, you know, let's just brush everything under the rug, right? So conflict is a part of relationship, but so here's the thing.
The most successful couples I know believe that conflict is about two people coming together and solving a problem. rather than two people coming together and thinking the other is the problem. And I know that that's easier said than done, but I've worked with thousands of people now. And what I will say is that that is always really the thing.
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Chapter 5: What role does emotional safety play in intimacy?
Chapter 6: How can partners better meet each other's needs?
You know, it's like, do you have shared vision and values and in ways that lifestyle, you know, the way that you want to live your life? There's so much I want to dive into. So we'll get to it. But one of the things I want to talk about is conflict, because I think a lot of people think conflict is bad and it's normal.
And I think more than just if conflict comes up or not, it's like, how do we repair through it? And so that's the bigger question. It's like, conflict's going to happen. It doesn't mean you don't have a good relationship, but how do you use it to grow closer together? I'm curious if there's any practices or exercises you recommend for couples navigating conflict.
before I get into that, one thing that I want to say about conflict is that, you know, when we, conflict has such a big umbrella, right? And so you don't want to be in constant conflict with your partner.
Yeah.
Yes. Right. For sure. And if you never have any conflict, then my, My curiosity is peaked in so far as I'm wondering how much the two of you are actually involved in each other's lives, or are you living separate lives? Are you doing the, you know, let's just brush everything under the rug, right? So conflict is a part of relationship, but so here's the thing.
The most successful couples I know believe that conflict is about two people coming together and solving a problem. rather than two people coming together and thinking the other is the problem. And I know that that's easier said than done, but I've worked with thousands of people now. And what I will say is that that is always really the thing.
Also, there are certain things that you are never going to resolve. it is always going to be an issue. Can you let it go? Can you accept that this is something that the two of you are always going to kind of like, there's never going to be any true resolution and can you let it go?
Because sometimes when there isn't any true resolution, the resolution is the letting go of it and to stop harping on it. You are correct. It's how people repair. And what I would add to that is how quickly does a couple bounce back from conflict? Because every relationship goes through cycles. There's cycles of closeness. Then there might be cycles where you're not as emotionally close.
There's a little like, so it's like, let's say cycle of connection, disconnection, and then finding each other again. So some people refer to it as harmony, disharmony, and then repair. And so The goal is to understand that there is that cycle and to become more aware of when there is disconnection and to do what it takes to find connection again.
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Chapter 7: What practical strategies can improve relationship dynamics?
Chapter 8: How do unresolved childhood patterns affect adult relationships?
Yeah. Yeah. So good.
Yeah. I was going to ask you like what some myths are that you hear or misunderstandings because one of them, and I'll give an example if you have any, would be like, don't go to bed upset. I actually don't believe that. I think that if you are both dysregulated, continuing the conversation isn't gonna be productive.
So I would rather say, let's pause, let's regulate ourselves and come back to this in 10 minutes or tomorrow morning. You have to say when you're gonna come back so you don't trigger the part of your partner that has abandonment or whatever the other pattern is. But to regulate instead of just trying to keep going because you heard, don't go to bed upset. I don't buy into that.
I'm curious if there are other ones that you have found debunk.
Don't have important, don't have those conversations at night in bed period.
Yeah.
That's not the time to bring up stuff. So I think the timing of when you bring up something that's bothering you is, I think timing is everything. So yes, so just try to avoid that whole scenario altogether where you're up late at night talking about the relationship. It's terrible.
You know, it's funny, most of the time I'm telling people they need to have more difficult conversations with each other because my experience with people is that we tend to avoid these hard conversations because we don't really know how to communicate about it and it's very uncomfortable. However, there are people who talk about their relationship too much.
And really what they would benefit from is just letting go and having more fun and stop talking about the relationship constantly. I think that. I think in general, women like to talk about their relationship more than men.
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