Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
You know, the way people deal with problems, the way people protect themselves or their relationship from problems, backfires and becomes a prison.
Welcome to The Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parrish. My goal with this show is to help you master the best of what other people have already figured out, so you can use their insights in your life.
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My guest today is the late Sue Johnson. Dr. Johnson pioneered emotionally focused therapy. EFT is a structured approach that helps couples and individuals build stronger emotional bonds by addressing attachment needs and patterns in relationships.
I recently re-listened to this incredible conversation and realized just how timeless it is and how much of an impact it had and continues to have on me to this day. And most of you listening have never heard it. It doesn't matter if you're male or female, single or in a relationship, this conversation will help you better understand yourself and others.
Here are a few of the top ideas that stuck out with me as I re-listened to this conversation. The first idea is around criticism. When you or anyone in your life that you deeply care about is passive-aggressive or criticizing or complaining or demanding, it's really a cry for help.
We do this when we feel alone, when we feel like other people don't care about us, when we need attention and want other people to pay attention to us. This reminds me of something Esther Perel told me in episode 71. And she had this line that has stuck with me ever since. And she said, behind every criticism is a wish.
Most people respond to this criticism, this escalation, this passive aggressiveness by shutting down. If you grew up without having a secure relationship modeled for you, you just shut down because you think that's how you protect yourself. You shut your partner out. You shut everything out because you think that you can't get hurt.
I don't know about you, but this is what I tend to do by default. I feel like I need to protect myself. Like nobody can hurt me if I just shut down. And when we shut down like this, when everyone in our life shuts down like this, what does it do? It sends danger cues to... others. So if I shut down and I'm in a relationship, my partner, now all of a sudden it's dangerous.
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Chapter 2: How do we choose a mate?
A good relationship grows And fights in a way can help a good relationship grow because you hurt each other's feelings and then what are you going to do? Well, what is secure attachment? And this is beyond romantic relationships. If you watch a mother and an adolescent, we have research on the fact that
In secure attachment, the mother and the adolescent will have, and I always think of my son in this case, but the mother and the adolescent will have a big fight because we have big fights when we have fights. We have big fights. And when he was 17, we had glorious fights. But the issue is we can turn back towards each other, you know, and we can tune in and we can repair.
Because you know the fight's not going to be the end of that relationship. You're secure in the fact that it's going to. That's right.
We know that in the end, we are mother and son. We are bonded forever. The question in distressed relationships is always the same all over the world at every age. Where are you? Where are you? Do you care about me? Do I matter to you? Will you respond to me? Will you be there when I'm vulnerable? Am I safe with you? Where are you? Where are you?
And when the answer is, I'm here, you can deal with almost anything. You can deal with anything. You can fight, you can be different. People say, oh, relationships are based on being not too many differences. I say, are you joking? Everyone's basically incompatible. You know, it's like we're all totally different.
Like, I've been married for 35 years and, you know, my husband likes hiking up bloody great Canadian mountains. And I hate if I walk slightly up a slope, I get ticked off. You know, like we're, you know, we're... We're all different, you know, but this emotional responsiveness is what grows relationships. And you can see it. Here's the thing. It's not...
I'm not talking about something obtuse and abstract. We just don't know how to tune in. You can see it at airports. When I'm at airports, I watch people, okay? It's easier to watch a mother and child because the emotions are all so clear. As adults, we sort of fudge them and disguise them. But, you know, I'll watch one mother and child, and the child is trying to get the mother's attention.
The child's going, eh. And she holds out her toy and the mother's looking at her cell phone. And the mother says, what? You're fine. She's not looking at the kid. Emotionally, she's absent. Like people might say, the mother's with the child. She's fine. No, emotionally, she's absent. She's not looking at the kid. And the kid's saying, respond to me. Are you there? Where are you? Respond to me.
And the mother's going, no, I'm not. I'm sorry. I'm tuning you out. You're secondary. You're not that important. There's huge emotional significant messages in these interactions that we don't tune into. And we get them on a visceral level. So then the child gets really upset and the mother's still licking her phone. The mother says, oh, you're fine.
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Chapter 3: What are the main reasons people have affairs?
They're just self-obsessed with sex. So often what happens is women will say in a distressed relationship, You don't want me. You just want an orgasm. I'm instrumental.
Right.
Right. And the man doesn't know how to connect. He doesn't know how to create emotional connection. So he says, you want to make out? And she says, no, not really.
Stop.
And what they've both done is they've both freaked each other out at that point. You know, that's what they've done. I mean, lovers scare the hell out of each other. Of course they do. You're more vulnerable to the person you love than anyone in the world, right? That's part of being in love.
On the other hand, if it's a good relationship, you're safer with this person than anywhere else in the world. So that's this kind of paradox of love.
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Chapter 4: How does emotional disconnection lead to infidelity?
But, you know, things interfere with sex, right? And as a society, it's fascinating to me, we seem to be obsessed with sex. And we separate it from relatedness, which is bizarre to me.
I would imagine a lot of people come to you having had affairs. So I have a lot of questions around affairs. Why do they happen? And maybe after that, we can start talking about what you can do about them or how you can talk to your partner about them.
Yeah.
The myth out there in society, in the magazines, is that we have affairs because we're massively sexual beings and that one person can't possibly be enough for us and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, right? So one way that attachment science is revolutionary and one reason it was so unpopular for so long is because it is revolutionary. It challenges us, our thoughts.
was that John Bowlby, the father of attachment theory, said, sex is not the most important motivation in human beings, and neither is aggression. Freud was wrong. The most important motivation in human beings and the one that carries the huge clout is the need for a connection with another human being.
Yeah.
And so right there, he basically says, there's something more important than sex, actually. We can get obsessed with it at certain points in our life, but there's other motivations. And that really plays out because when I talk to people about why they have affairs,
I would say in all my 35 years, and I supervise lots of therapists as well, in all my 35 years, I've maybe heard one, two people who are a certain personality type, high risk-taking, needs to climb Everest three times, drive fast cars, is obsessed with high stimulation. Let's not talk about what that's about, but it's a whole personality type.
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Chapter 5: Can relationships heal after an affair?
I've heard those guys say, oh, well, you know, I just had the affair because I'm just into different women and I just got to have this adventure and I got to like, right? Very, very avoidant people who don't trust people at all say things like, it wasn't an affair. I just had a one night stand. It's no big deal. That's just what I do. It was just sex, okay? There's nothing.
And there are some people who totally cut themselves off during sex. And it really is just a form of, mutual masturbation and they don't understand why their partner's upset with it. So there's different things here. But in general, The overwhelming thing is people do not have affairs because of sexuality or sexual frustration.
They have affairs because they're emotionally disconnected and alone. They feel rejected or abandoned by their partner. They're getting in terrible fights. They feel alone and scared. They feel unloved, unwanted and helpless. And the secretary brings them a coffee and she smiles at them. and they suddenly notice how pretty she is.
Chapter 6: What strategies can couples use to reconnect?
They've worked with her for three years, but they suddenly notice she's terribly pretty, and they notice that she seems to like them. And when they take her for coffee, she listens to them, and she acts like they're the most important person in the world, and their whole nervous system starts to respond. It's like the sunshine.
They've been in the dark, and there's the sunshine, and they start to respond.
They're having a need fulfilled.
That's right. And it's about deprivation, not about how lust takes us over all the time. That's just a big story. And it's true of a few of us, but mostly it's not. That's a big story. And so people turn to other people because they can't get their attachment needs met with their partner. And that's the truth. And they're hungry for that connection.
Can relationships heal from affairs?
Yes.
Always?
No, nothing is always in relationships.
What's the difference between relationships that heal from affairs and relationships?
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