Marriage Expert: "Not Many Know The Uncomfortable Truth About Marriage, But I'll Expose it..."

what keeps a marriage going what makes marriages Thrive I have one word for you and that one word is intention when somebody is intentional about their marriage they're not just waiting for it to happen but they're actually actively maintaining it it becomes a lot more meaningful it's a it's it's a lot easier to to keep going it's a lot easier to keep that flame that you had started out with from forming into just a mere spark because you're constantly Fanning it you're constantly working on it I want to share with you this following video and I want to share with you afterward the Jewish perspective so take a listen when you look back at the types of people you've represented um is there a certain length of Engagement and boyfriend girlfriend phase that is typically conducive with it working or not working no I don't see that pattern I I'm constantly I'm very fixated on pattern recognition so I'm constantly thinking I'm always looking at same Religion different religions or religious versus non-religious or older and younger older man younger woman younger man older woman like what what permeation same culture different culture same races different races like first generation to the US or you know both first generation or neither um I I don't I don't see those patterns I really I I if I did I'd be the first to say it you know I don't hesitate to say stuff but I I've not seen those patterns I I have found if I was to say there was any any pattern it it it really is um I I think substance use is probably the main thing like that if if one or both people are big drinkers or drug users that's usually a good indication that the marriage is going to lead to divorce because substance use issues tend to get worse in either both people which causes all kinds of second order effects or more commonly one person when they have kids or when they reach a slightly different stage in life scales back on alcohol or drug use and the other person has an unhealthy relationship with the substances and it gets further down and that's the direction that it goes in I had um you said something earlier which really piqued my interest as well which kind of relates to this is you said love is loaned and I I immediately thought of a friend who who brought me to a restaurant one day to basically tell me that him and his um wife were being divorced and the way they described it was quite heartbreaking because it seemed like they had a good relationship it's kind of like they got busy with their jobs and the kid and they forgot to water the plant yeah it's like the only way I can describe it cuz they were like good people they didn't really appear to argue at all they had this kid they're both CEOs she's a CEO he's a CEO and it's like they like raised the kid and forgot to water the relationship yeah yeah I I've I've always phrased that as they lost the plot like that they were because when you get married you're trying to write a story together and sometimes I think you lose the plot ah like you know when you're reading and like all of a sudden you stop and you go I don't really remember where I am in this like and you got to go back a few pages you know to like oh okay I remember this part let me start there I think sometimes we lose the plot and I and I think that happens in every relationship every long-term relationship I think sometimes you lose the plot like other things are going on at work or you have kids and and kids require a tremendous amount of your bandwidth so I I get it but I think if you lose the plot that's where it's like hard to it's a it's again acknowledgement of it like awareness truth being honest and saying hey I feel like we lost the plot like I feel like there's you know we lost the plot how do we get it back like how but but the problem is when you say to your partner hey I I feel like we kind of lost the plot rather than hearing that as hey this is really important to me you're really important to me yeah work's important kids's important but you and me you and me that's really important like it's equally not more important so I feel a certain way I I feel like we've lost the plot and and I'm not saying that's your fault I'm not saying it's my fault I'm saying it's the kid's fault I don't know whose fault it is I don't really care but I don't want to lose the plot because I care about you and I and this plot this story is important to me people don't hear it that way people hear it as we lost the plot well what do you want me to do about it like you know oh okay so I'll just ignore the kid what do you what what what what what do you want I'm sorry I'm doing the best I can and that's like that's not the way to hear that I I understand I think it's very human to hear it that way but I genuinely believe that that you know yeah it's like you forgot to water the plant like and nobody meant to kill the plant but you kill the plant because you weren't thinking about the plant and by the way plant's right there you walk past it every single day you just not once thought oh yeah I got to remember to water of the plant and so I think it's very easy in marriage in long-term relationships it's very easy to just forget that this is you're borrowing this you know this is not yours like this person's not yours this person is loaned to you and it's by the way it's the same with death like this person's loaned to you they could be taken away by divorce or by death they can be taken away every marriage will end in one of those two things death or divorce for sure you've used this word slippage before yeah when does it happen and what does slippage mean I mean slippage is everyone understands slippage I think like it's not like you eat cake and then the next day your suit doesn't fit like you just make lots of little choices and those little choices add up and all of a sudden your suit doesn't fit you go wait when did that happen you know and I think it's the same thing in relationships like we you know Ernest Hemingway said in um The Sun Also Rises um I I went bankrupt the same way anybody does very slowly and then all at once and I think that's how that's slippage like it's just little raindrops that eventually become the flood and and I think that's what happens in relationships is you you start to with good intentions you're focused on other things maybe you start to go hey I got this like because you know when you were single finding the one was big that was big that was a big priority in your life and then you found them and then there's like a whole bunch of just high fiving and celebration and it's like a this is so great I found the one you found you wanted the one too and you found it it's me is this great and then you go all right we got that now what other stuff you know what other stuff can we do because now like I'm supercharged I got you you got me we're gonna do this thing and you go and what do you do you make new life or you make careers or you go amazing places like you're do it's not enough it's not enough to just go we got each other and it's so fun and let's just tuck in here and just stay together you know and I I always laugh with Friends by the way because I can always tell when someone's like in love cuz they put on a couple of pounds you know cuz they really cuz they're just they just go like do I want to like get up and go to the gym or do you want like sit on the couch and eat popcorn and watch something yeah let's do that you know and it's just sort of like the you know you're just so it's love weight it's like happy love weight and I I love when I see it on somebody like it looks good on everybody you know much better than like if you believe me like if you look at photos of me from when I had an eight pack it was the most miserable time in my life cuz I'm at the gym just trying to beat the pain out of me you know so I I I think it's very very normal that people in that headiness of that okay so when that Fades and now we're like in a sustainable pattern of a relationship and you're focusing on other things little tiny things start to you know and you don't want to make a thing of it you don't want to say like oh by the way calling a foul here throwing a flag on that play no you just sort of go like oh no it's it's just a little thing it's not a big thing don't worry about it and I think that's the that is how the process begins and it leads right to my office someday s down to the way Judaism understands a fundamental difference between dating and marriage in dating you're not connected with the person you might feel connected with the person and you want to try to feel connected with the person and because you feel a connection with this person or want to feel a connection with this person you value this person you decide you'd like to connect with them that's the marriage now comes marriage and you are connected with the person whether you feel it or not and now you're trying to feel it in other words in dating you're deciding whether you can potentially feel it so you can connect in marriage you believe you are connected now you want to try to feel it so when marriages are in this situation or in this space where like he said in the video they had lost the plot they forgot about the plot all you have to do is go back to a pre-existent connection a connection that is already there a connection that already exists that's what marriage is marriage is that recognition that we are one and if you don't have that recognition that we are one and nobody else is invited into this Union and we cannot leave this Union then what is the point in the marriage in the first place that that that literally is what marriage is the Torah says you shall connect with your uh uh with your wife and become one flesh you become one and you are one at soul but you want to become one physically spiritually emotionally intellectually try to align as much as possible and couples who forget about the plot so you got to you got to just remind yourself of the connection you've once had and do more of that and like you said in the video it's like well I want to connect I don't care how that connection went away I don't care how that connection seemed to have fys that it's not relevant because you're trying to get it back that's what's relevant what's relevant is the difference you're looking for the better reality the more preferred reality that you're looking for that's my story and I'm sticking to it