Midlife Uncensored
Midlife Uncensored-Real Life Discussions from Over the Hillis the no-holds-barred podcast you didn’t know you needed. Hosted by Joel Poppert, aka Poppy—the friendly Sasquatch with an epic beard—and his fiery co-host, Emanuela Messineo, aka E, this show unapologetically dives into the chaos, comedy, and WTF moments of midlife. If you’re 35-55 and ready to embrace the rollercoaster of aging, this podcast is your new home base.
Poppy and E tackle everything from modern dating disasters in the hilarious sub-series The Love Laugh Lounge (the “festivus” of dating) to real-life shit like divorce, mental breakdowns, balding, sagging tits, and figuring out how to parent while still figuring yourself out and maybe dealing with an unhinged ex. With a blend of interview episodes and no-expert-needed banter (except when we bring on experts), these two cut through the BS and get real about midlife—no filters, no sugarcoating, just pure, unfiltered truth with a heavy dose of humor. Expect raw, relatable stories, unfiltered guidance, tough love, easy happiness, and a few episodes where the comedy comes from alcohol infused banter, because who give a fuck, right?
Whether you’re dealing with the joys of aging, trying to keep your sanity while raising kids, or attempting to find love in a sea of idiots, Midlife Uncensored has your back. Expect a few F-bombs, some belly laughs, and a whole lot of honesty as Poppy and E rip the band-aid off midlife and give you permission to thrive in this beautifully messy chapter. It's not just about surviving midlife—it's about unfucking it and owning it! This is your community; we are in it together!
Midlife Uncensored
Trust Issues Unpacked: Navigating Betrayal and Healing in our Relationships ft. Blake Roberts, LPC, MA.
Discover how to rebuild trust and foster healthier relationships, especially during midlife, with insights from our esteemed guest, licensed therapist Blake Roberts, LPC, MA. When trust is compromised, it can feel like the foundation of your relationship is crumbling. Together with Blake, we confront the complex interplay between trust, insecurities, and betrayal, discussing how cognitive distortions and past experiences shape our perceptions. Blake shares personal anecdotes, offering a unique perspective on trusting oneself and understanding the limitations of controlling others.
Navigating trust issues isn't just about identifying problems; it's about self-awareness and transformation. We dive into the nuances of worry, false accusations, and maladaptive schemas that erode relationship foundations. Through engaging dialogues, we explore how patience, tolerance, and effective communication are crucial in redefining relationships after betrayal. From recognizing signs of infidelity to understanding the impact of social media and online dating, our conversation provides a roadmap for healing and growth.
As we reflect on the lessons learned from past relationships, we tackle the challenges of balancing career and family life while maintaining meaningful connections. Our discussion extends to the emotional complexities of parenting, co-parenting, and how these dynamics intersect with personal healing. This episode is not just about rebuilding trust but also about appreciating the resilience needed to redefine relationships post-betrayal. Join us for a thoughtful exploration of these themes, enriched by Blake's expertise and personal stories.
About Blake:
Blake is a practicing therapist in the Denver, CO area, along with his wife Lindsay Roberts, MA, LPC they own and operate The Gift of Psychotherapy practice and are taking new patients on limited basis.
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Thanks for joining the Owning Alone community, I certainly appreciate you!
All right, all right, all right. Welcome to another episode of Midlife Uncensored. This is your host, poppy, your favorite friendly Sasquatch with the epic beard game, and to my right is my lovely co-host, emanuela Messinaio, also known as E. Before we get started, remember to subscribe. We're on the Instagram, the gram at Midlife Uncensored. You can also find us by default on Facebook, and remember to subscribe and reach out. We want to hear from you guys. Download all our episodes, rate us five stars, four stars, but if you want to rate us three stars, don't rate us at all. Make some comments, tell your friends we're doing good things here and we love you all, so let's jump in. Today, joining us is the world-renowned Blake Roberts, licensed therapist here in Denver and owner of the Gift of Psychotherapy Practice. How are you doing, blake, on this wonderful Friday morning afternoon-ish?
Speaker 2:I'm doing splendid, Joel. How are you?
Speaker 1:I am doing wonderful. It's a nice day, we're past the snowstorm that we got last week and it's back to wherever the fuck it is in fall, winter, summer, colorado time, amen, yeah, so today this is your second episode on the podcast. You're becoming a regular. We appreciate you. One of the more trending podcasts we have was yours, so it's nice to bring an expert on and replace of us fools every week to talk about actual science around mental health. So I'm going to kick it over to E here to introduce the episode and tell us what we brought you on for to talk about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what we brought you on for to talk about. Yeah, I wanted to dive into like your take on how we can rebuild trust after trust has been broken, whether it be like if you're within a relationship especially I guess how I came up with this was especially dating and midwife we all have had like past experiences and relationships and sometimes trust has been broken and you can maybe sometimes carry that into your next relationship or if you're trying to work through something with a partner where that trust has been broken. So I just thought we could. I don't have a specific example or scenario, but I feel like this is a journey I've had to take and I'd be curious, if you're like, what advice would you give someone who's maybe ended a relationship trust was broken before they maybe go into the next relationship? Like, where's a good place to start if you're trying to heal that or rebuild that trust within yourself, if you're trying to heal that or rebuild that trust within yourself.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like there might be two arms to this. Yeah, hey, how do I trust, I mean and I think we've mentioned this before we started this podcast hey, how do I trust myself? Yeah, to have the right judgment on who I invite into my life. And then there's the other side of that.
Speaker 2:Hey, if I have a history of people being unfaithful how is that going to impact my next relationship as it surfaces and I think Joel had said something to the extent in his introduction like inviting the science to this and I think it's important for us to understand. If psychology is a science, it's a remarkably soft one because every individual is going to be unique and from there we need to be able to take that into account in this subject.
Speaker 2:So for instance I'm going to put a story, an anecdote for me. When I was in my mid twenties, I was married and walked into my wife having sex with somebody else. So every person is going to react yeah, it is right, but for me it was enlightening. It taught me or it showed me like I want to be with someone who wants to be with me Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So I would have preferred this individual just text me or whatever and said hey, I'm not into this relationship anymore.
Speaker 2:It would suck, but I'd be all right.
Speaker 2:So I think, more than anything, it empowered me to recognize and to see hey that trust has to start with me and, again, I have enough of a opinion of myself or what I deserve. So when that happened, as I said, I used to be pretty possessive and jealous and the pendulum swung 180 degrees. I have no control on somebody else's behaviors and acknowledging that and almost celebrating that is a huge relief. Yeah, so, with the idea of the topic, is trust right? Yeah, and I think the more important question to the two of you, when you reflect on your relationships, do you think the issue is more about you trusting yourself or is it more about you being able to trust the person you're dating?
Speaker 1:I think I can answer that first. I think for me, I think I trust myself and my judgment pretty solidly. It's more important for me to that. My person trusts me and I've earned that trust and I feel that trust. I think I've had relationships in the past where I didn't do anything to not earn the trust but there was drama brought into the relationship where trust issues were a problem. So I've witnessed it firsthand how it can deteriorate not just deteriorate a relationship, but also just not allow a foundation to be built appropriately.
Speaker 3:It could, like creates more of a wedge. Like, do you feel, like the when you had that instance, was it because that person had been burned before, that they didn't trust you? Or do you have any idea, like, where that came from? Not that we need to dive into other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I don't know, I just think it just never. It never got there. I mean, I'm sure I was doing stuff that triggered her past trauma, but nothing like cheating I've never cheated on anybody. We've talked about cognitive distortions before, too, where there's issues in a relationship that aren't actually happening happening that you have to deal with, I guess unnecessarily.
Speaker 3:So, I mean for me I think it's a little bit of both, because so it's about. I think, like after my last serious relationship in the end I like sat back and had this moment where I was like, oh damn, this really fucked with me. Like I realized I didn't trust my own judgment of people like it, and that comes from, if I look back, like a history of a lot of, I'll say, gaslighting. Just I feel like that's such an extreme. I don't know there's so many like terms that people throw around very loosely anymore, but that explains, even in in my like childhood, like I remember my mom was like very passive, aggressive, and so I would say like Are you upset with me? And she was like Nope, but like with an attitude, and then I'd get the silent treatment. She'd go out of her way to do something shitty or whatever. It was like payback and it was like I'm confused, are you sure you're not mad? Nope, I'm not mad. And then continue. I was like so I don't know. It's like.
Speaker 3:It's weird because it makes you not really trust your gut instinct when you're like reading someone in that case, and so I think over time then the same kind of thing happened in some of my adult relationships not all, but I think that's where now I have a lot of awareness around it to where, if I'm in a situation that I feel like a little confused or taken aback, I just have to take a second and like remind myself I'm not crazy and it's no.
Speaker 3:These are the facts and so that was part of it for me. But then also there are I didn't have a situation where I walked in on my other partner with someone. That has happened, and so I think you just you kind of learn from those situations and you can take that into the next one. So, like you know, the fear of someone cheating on you or whatever, rather than now I'm going down like a rabbit hole, but it's instead of I think I had to go through that enough times, as then I have the next relationship where it's you're hyper focused on what I think you're talking about, joel. Is you then become hyper focused on oh, I don't want this person to cheat on me? Rather than just focusing on a good foundation with that person so that there isn't a need or desire or whatever, and also recognizing you can't control someone or stop certain things, again trusting yourself to analyze a situation or know if there's something off.
Speaker 2:Sure With within. In regards to intimate relationships, we almost want to invite Occam's razor in the sense of being able and we might have talked about this in the past this idea of being able to delineate between what I want, what I need in a relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that is ultimately going to determine what that trust needs to look like, right? So I think a lot of people have this tendency not to take the time or take a step back and saying, okay, what am I hoping to garner from this connection? And there are certain things that are immediate rollouts. I remember I was 18. It was like one or two things that I needed. The girl had to have boobs and something else, and by the time I reached my mid thirties, it was probably two or three pages long of rollouts and roll-ins, right? So we can all agree like, hey, one of the things that I need is a spouse or a significant other who is not going to cheat on me, right? I think most people would agree with that.
Speaker 1:That's just a reasonable expectation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right. And yet there are some patients that I see that are in open marriages and where I can respect that. But I can't completely wrap my head around it.
Speaker 1:I got all kinds of questions about that, but we're not going to go there.
Speaker 2:And those sorts of things. So at the end of the day, like when we talk about trust, that is actually we're relating it to some form of expectation is actually we're relating it to some form of expectation? And that's where, back to your original question, where communication within the context of any relationship is paramount in regards to what this or that foundational piece, joel, that you talked about moving forward. If you're not able to have those things are difficult on, then you're setting yourself up to the foundation is being made on sinking sand.
Speaker 3:I think, too, it's a good point where you're talking about like a list of things, like characteristics that you're looking for, because if monogamy, or just being faithful to one person, is important to you, like having some kind of discussion around that and making sure you align that way Some people are, I don't know. I guess if people are going to cheat on you, they're probably not going to tell you.
Speaker 2:And that's where you would hope you would have that.
Speaker 1:Hey, by the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Cause I think some people just.
Speaker 3:I don't know if they I don't know that they want an open relationship, but they still crave some level of attention that they might not get through a relationship. So they're not going to really tell you that. So I think you just have to. That's where it comes For me. It's always come back to. I just need to trust myself and my judgment. And then it's also about I think of what does that mean? So what does if they cheat on me? What does that mean? Okay, then the relationship ends and then back to square one, right, like okay, now you're back in the dating pool or whatever. What is okay and that's fine. I think it's just like where I ease my anxiety around that Cause you can't control someone else's I'm fine on my own, I got. I've got me. Like I don't actually like if the relationship ends, it's like I'm fine on my own, I've got me. If the relationship ends, it's like I'm fine. So it's like a good reminder. I don't know.
Speaker 1:My approach has always been with friends or relationship is you get to start with my trust, you get to start with my trust until it's gone. So it's a little bit different approach than I think other people take where you build trust. But in my relationships, in my last marriage, I didn't worry about her cheating on me. I'm like well, the reality is is, if you cheat on me, I'm going to, we're done. That's a boundary that no one's going to cross. I'm just going to leave, that's it.
Speaker 1:There weren't kids, so it's less complicated, but I didn't worry about it. I didn't worry about it at all. I just and that allowed me the freedom to work on the relationship, on the other aspects of the relationship. It's just a fear that it's an anxiety that I just didn't, I don't, I didn't want to bring into our marriage, regardless of the fact that I had to deal with accusations false accusations quite often in my marriage about cheating when there was no evidence or anything of the fact, which, to be honest with you, is insanely detrimental to the foundation of a relationship, when you're having to defend yourself against things that aren't warranted whatsoever and that can break down trust too. So I won't go into that.
Speaker 2:But Well, and it's important to go into that because then, what we're talking about here is we're in a relationship where one, or maybe even both individuals have quite a few insecurities.
Speaker 2:So what you're describing in your previous marriage is like hey, we have this relationship, and insecurity surfaced in the way of trust, or not or mistrust Right surfaced in the way of trust or not, or mistrust right, and you know to bring in the quote, unquote science here a lot of trust issues are going to reflect various maladaptive schemas that we adopt over the course of our lifespan. E you were just saying, like growing up and your relationship with your mom resulted in mistrust, emotional deprivation, subjugation, and that now we have this cognitive bias, now our brain sees the world around us with this particular filter and we always talk about within the context of therapy itself is self-awareness, so the more self-aware that we have these maladaptive schemas and they fuck with our most relationships, then we can begin to challenge ourselves, reframe and invite those cognitive restructuring.
Speaker 2:Being able to acknowledge those cognitive distortions like a big one for you that you just recognize indirectly is, yeah, we have a tendency to look at things through a very polarized lens yeah, so either I trust or I don't trust and there's nothing in the middle?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's there's a shit ton in the middle. If we're able to acknowledge it, we are all fucked up human beings, right, and that was something. So I I think it's that idea of we need to look within ourselves, yeah, to recognize how we might be contributing to mistrust or not allowing ourselves to get too close to someone out of fear of these past experiences. You brought up worry. What is worry? Worry is just allowing our imagination to create shit we don't want. So if we're able to recognize what we're worrying about again, work on reframing that then it makes it a lot more comfortable and and easier to to just trust for the sake of it, or yeah.
Speaker 1:So I have a question because I've never I don't think I've ever really been cheated on. I had a very serious girlfriend who decided to sleep with one of my friends about a day after we broke up after a four year relationship, which felt like cheating. I was not happy about it Alcohol man Anyway but I've never really been cheated on and I guess since you I'm sure you've dealt with this in therapy with some of your patients over time is is it obvious, like once you is hindsight 2020 with cheating? Is it obvious typically when it's when you look back on it as somebody was cheated on? I guess that's my question.
Speaker 3:Like were there signs? Is that what you mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it obvious in hindsight or no, it's just one day you're like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:One day you're like what the fuck? I think, as we evolve and we grow and we, like you, had brought up previous relationships and it's not going back to square one, it's learning from those relationships and recognizing, hey, these could be the tales. So I look back at my first marriage and no, I think I was young, I was pretty naive, because if I were to ask you guys this and please take a second to think about it how many people do you feel like you've dated over the course of your life span? Okay, why not a?
Speaker 3:date with or dated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just date.
Speaker 3:Are you?
Speaker 1:asking me what my number is.
Speaker 2:Not. It doesn't necessarily have to be sexual. I know, but it's interesting because people don't recognize holy shit. If we're being honest with ourselves, I would say that for most people not all, 99% of our relationships don't work out. Yeah, that's fucking mind-blowing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you think about it.
Speaker 2:Hey, I am very happily married now. I have two wonderful kids, whatever. But shit, that marriage didn't happen until I was 40. 40? Yeah, kid, I had my kid at 42. Yeah, it's amazing. So all those experiences, all the mistrust that I had in various relationships and I had some crazy ass relationships for sure, particularly in my twenties had led me to where I'm at now, where what you were saying with your ex Joel is the fact that I don't worry about my spouse cheating on me, and if she did, I we joke all the time. Just text me, hey, I'm doing this and like I said I'm done, or it would hurt but give it six months and I'm going to be okay.
Speaker 3:How do you yeah, I have so many, I have so many questions, yet They've all just fled my mind because I'm trying to just listen and I think so, if we go back to, like maybe your example where you, the previous relationship, where you walked in on her, like how did you start, like moving forward from that what was like a I don't know? Do you have any advice around that or things you could share?
Speaker 2:Regardless of how a relationship ends, what we're going to experience is grief. Yeah, and it's being able to acknowledge hey, I'm grieving here, yeah, and I think that acknowledgement almost gives us permission to work through a lot of sordid emotions and I there are often times I meet with patients and say there are times that I feel like grieving someone alive is more challenging than grieving someone who's passed away.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 2:Because there's more what ifs, all these different questions, and they're still here, right? So in the back of our mind we're telling ourselves, hey, there's a possibility, or is there a possibility I can get back with this person or they'll take me back, or whatever. And so I think that's the first thing. Like when I walked in shit, the first 48 hours I was just numb and then from there I just sat and allowed myself to feel what's going on here. What emotions did this elicit? She wanted to work through things. Obviously, I wasn't in that space Again I think I was 24 or 25 at the time, which made that decision easy. But again, talk about how much I learned about myself, where what we talked about early on, I was like I have no control over what anyone does, so I need to be able to radically accept that and let it go. And it's that out of all the things that's happened to me in interpersonal relationships this was the most and it's going to sound fucked up, but it was the most beneficial.
Speaker 3:Well, you want because of what you learned from it about yourself, yeah absolutely, that's great, yeah.
Speaker 3:And what would you say, do you feel like so, for people that are like maybe in a marriage they do have kids, like we've talked about? Obviously, joel, you mentioned a little while ago, if somebody cheats, like that's it, you're done, now obviously a little easier if you don't have kids involved, or things like that. So let's say for like if, if somebody does want to work through that, like how do you suggest like going about rebuilding trust when it's been broken with that person? Because I feel like I okay, so let me go back because my I had a boyfriend that I was with for several years and there was he cheated on me at one point I found out. It was random how I found out, but we tried to work through it and it was like the you go through.
Speaker 3:I was pretty young, so immature at this point, and it was like I went into this like overdrive of trying to control and see, because you're like I feel like I was looking for signs Is this going to work out? Is this whatever? And you're like fear of abandonment or fear of being rejected or all these things, and didn't have all the awareness around it that I do now. So I don't think I would have tried to work it out. If that situation were to happen again today, I'd be like I'm done, like you've made a choice, you're, you know, whatever I'm, I'm moving on. But if, if somebody has that happen and they're mature, older people and they have a family and they don't want to completely unravel that and they want to work through that, any advice that you could give on how to rebuild that trust?
Speaker 2:Well, it all starts with communication. First and foremost, we need to figure out what happened in order for us to get to this point, and a lot of times when I work with couples, it's that they never recognized how much distance was between the two of them over the course of however long they've been together. Because, being in a relationship and again, let's be honest about this Can you think of any person in your life right now that you can see spending every day?
Speaker 1:of your life with.
Speaker 2:That's one hell of a commitment. Mine is my wife, and I think I could last with my brother for three weeks, and that's it. So that's a big ask, and I think people minimize that every single day and then you get shit like COVID. Then it's like every waking hour kind of thing. So back to your question. Like you have to be able to communicate to figure out like hey, where did?
Speaker 1:where was the breakdown?
Speaker 2:where did this go astray? And that's, and obviously the person who was cheated upon has to have a shit ton of grace, because what happens?
Speaker 3:security right like so, like just being secure in their own, like being able to probably not take it personally to some extent, right and that's what again joel was talking about.
Speaker 2:It brought up. That's one of those primary cognitive distortions that people have a tendency to get sucked into. Is that personalization?
Speaker 3:I must have did something wrong.
Speaker 2:And I think another area where we can invite science here is hey, what sort of attachment style do we have? And there's generally four primary attachment styles. But if somebody has an anxious, preoccupied attachment style, then they have this tendency to put their partner on a pedestal and as a result of that, how could that kind of fuel mistrust? Sure, and again some people might just be in denial that someone is being unfaithful. I've run across that more often than you would think.
Speaker 3:What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:So they have all the objective evidence and proof, but they don't want to acknowledge. Hey, this individual is not making me a priority or being unfaithful, and that's the hardest part.
Speaker 1:What an awful feeling to carry around.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's awful for a therapist as well, because we see what's going on. But they need to be able to come to that truth. I can't say what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 3:I think, yeah, man, I feel like I can empathize with that, because I think there's also this like depending on what the situation is, if you do have to unravel a family or then go into co-parenting, what does that? It's always. What does that mean? What does that? What's the story? I'm telling myself that if I admit that, what does that mean? If they're unfaithful, okay, they're rejecting me. Now I have to separate a household, or co-parent, or how is this going to work? It's you can't wrap your brain around all that stuff, so it's easier to just deny what's right in front of you and try to like I think I don't know, come up with another story.
Speaker 2:But it's primitive like defense mechanism. Out there is to disavow or deny, because then we don't have to deal with the feelings that would associate for that mistrust that abandonment, because what does that mean?
Speaker 3:it's always. What does that mean then?
Speaker 1:yeah, do people, do people, I mean, is there? Do people tend to come back from that, I guess, in their relationship, or does it traumatize them? For I can see how people can get there like for sure, like I can, can, like you said, living with somebody every single day if there's not a foundation there and the love gets lost and there's kids and you know you're just how many years how long can you go without without feeling intimacy from your partner, where it just becomes your roommate?
Speaker 1:right, it doesn't justify cheating, but I'm sure it's. You know everyone, not everybody's out there oh, new piece of ass. You know, I'm sure there's reasons why this happens. I mean, there are reasons why this happens and how it gets there.
Speaker 3:but I guess, like you still want to feel accepted or wanted, and it still happens. It's still there.
Speaker 1:It's still when it happens and it's still there and I guess, do people ever manage to fix it and A do they forget about it? Or is it put in the past and they build a new foundation, or what happens there? Or do most people just go their separate ways?
Speaker 2:And it's going to primarily be related to various personality traits, right? So obviously, if someone decides to stay in a relationship after their partner has been unfaithful, that's going to take a lot of resiliency Because obviously that relationship is now going to have to be redefined. And I think the big thing that happens is a couple of months goes by and something triggers the person who was cheated upon and then they create those rabbit holes and then it's really hard for them to live in the present moment because we're constantly bringing back that infidelity and we could, just as typical human beings can, see why that would be the case. That is now imprinted, right. That is now part of our cognitive bias and it's going to be contingent upon each individual.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it sounds like what you're saying is then there's like some level of a fear factor and there is something that can trigger, and then you're just absolutely you know we talked about're just absolutely you know we talked about when we started this.
Speaker 1:We talked about caring. We just did this in the last episode, where we talked a little bit about we touched on. As we get older, we have more baggage per se, so we have more traumatic, more trauma in our lives to bring into a new relationship. What you're taught, what we're talking about here, is staying in the relationship, that the trauma, that a very significant amount of trauma was created, which is doubly as bad as you've cut ties with an existing relationship. The trauma still exists in your brain, there's still some wiring there. But now we're talking about a situation where there's still a person in your house that created the trauma and I just I'd feel like the hurdle to overcome that would just be quite traumatic and it would be two steps forward. If it does happen. I imagine it's two steps forward. One. I just I'd feel like the hurdle to overcome.
Speaker 3:That would just be quite traumatic and it would be two steps forward If it does happen.
Speaker 1:I imagine it's two steps forward, one step back. Two foot step forward, one step back, and needing a good therapist, probably Right.
Speaker 2:And just or delaying the inevitable. I know, for me I just feel like I'd be, but and that gets back to that Every person, every individual is going to look different. I think if somebody invested 20, 30 years of their life, that would be harder to just say fuck it, I can't do this anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 2:As opposed to somebody who's I was married for six months right when this all happened, so that was a pretty fucking easy decision. No, kids know all those other things that you had mentioned, but once you invest, visualize it as investing in the stock market. Like I'm just not going to give up that 30 years of assets. That I did based on our experiences. But each individual, it's going to be, it's going to be different.
Speaker 2:And another thing since we're talking about like primarily like infidelity and those sorts of things or cheating, it's interesting now too and and this might be a separate podcast as well just how kind of social media and shit plays a role in that. It's just so easy, honestly, to find someone to make you feel good about yourself or to feel validated or whatever. Where shit. 20 years ago, 30 years ago just a reminder how old I am like that wasn't an option, right? I don't know when online dating became a thing. I never have online dated, so who knows? But I think that invites a lot of opportunity that otherwise wouldn't be present, like I said, 30 years ago.
Speaker 1:It's curious it does. It also comes with its own bag of tricks, too, though, that you have to deal with. I mean it's you know, online dating or just dating in the modern age takes a certain amount of awareness and patience, and yeah.
Speaker 1:But I also think too, like in today's age, therapy is more well, I mean, it's more predominant right, it's not like shameful to go to therapy, whereas I think at least my, you know, like my parents generations they don't go to therapy sure, really there's a definitely a stigma up until probably again 20, 30 years ago which is where the self-awareness.
Speaker 1:If everybody had a certain elevated level of self-awareness, we probably would avoid a lot of this stuff. Right? Yeah, because there would be communication, be like look, something's not working in our relationship. We keep running into this wall. There's no intimacy, we haven't had sex in a year. We, you know blah blah, like I don't like my job, whatever it is so and that self-awareness is obviously looking and it's gets back to this kind of union theory.
Speaker 2:All people are centered in themselves and I think the objective is for us to move from self-centeredness to self-reflective, which then allows us to create or foster more meaningful relationships. So I have to take ownership for my fuck-up-edness and how that fuck-up-edness impacts my relationship with my spouse or anybody else. To be honest with you, and a lot of people are afraid to explore because they don't want to acknowledge their shortcomings, they don't want to acknowledge their insecurities, because then that results in what? If you don't have the fortitude, it's going to result in a low self-esteem. It's going to invite a lot of fear. You're going to find yourself comparing yourself to others often and frequently, and these are all denominators that we attribute to not trusting ourselves. You know how often the patient will sit in my office and just the whole time, just find themselves comparing from somebody at work or previous friends or relationships, and it's just holy shit, like we have to get out of that, that that mindset, and start acknowledging like, yeah, I'm imperfect, but that's what makes me beautiful, as cliche as it sounds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think, the more I guess just not being in my 40s and having a lot of friends around me who have been, you know, married, divorced or still married and have kids or wherever they are, and also just like people I've encountered over the years that aren't necessarily friends with, just like you know, whether it be through work or whatever the more I look at some of these situations, I can see the challenges around marriage and especially when you do have kids and like making sure that you're still prioritizing and keeping a relationship between each other, and so I can see a lot of how it that that connection breaks down over time because you're just in like survival mode, right, like you're you got to take care of these kids, or you both have careers or whatever, and so I could see how that breakdown or that distance happens. And then it's like how do you come back together without it, like people going outside the marriage to do that. But then and I don't know, obviously I was my my goal for this, or my hope, was to talk about rebuilding trust and then also just thinking about how we take those pieces into the next relationships. And while it's okay, I learned from this, but I'm not going to make someone pay for someone else's mistakes. Or maybe, like you know, I don't.
Speaker 3:I learned from this, but I'm not going to make someone pay for someone else's mistakes. Or maybe, like you know, I don't. I don't want to take that the trauma piece, but I do still. I have learned from all my past experiences and so I have certain boundaries or things in place. And there was somebody I was dating recently who was like why do I have to pay for all the like whatever? And I'm like you're not, I'm not mentioning any X or having a. There's no like negative. I don't know, I wasn't blaming this person of anything, I was just saying no, I know that, as a result of this past experience, I need this in a relationship, right, and it was like I didn't bring up another person at all. I'm just saying I've realized this about myself and so, whatever, it was probably just a good indicator that the person wasn't a great match, because they were like automatically thinking I was like. They were actually doing it, I think, is what was happening.
Speaker 2:They were projecting their own, yeah, whatever, and that's a good thing like back to when you first started start dating and how you you attempt to foster that, that trust. It's being able to have those more challenging conversations in terms of what you're talking about. It's being able to see how well that person can validate. Because it back to like how do you fix trust in a relationship? More than anything, what do you want out of that relationship? It's not rhetorical. What would you say if you had to choose one or two things out of a relationship that are most important to you? What would those one or two things be?
Speaker 1:Understanding and loyalty.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:For me it's probably more of like just mutual respect and wanting to actually spend time together.
Speaker 2:Okay, and that gets to my point of yeah, like we all want to feel as though we're a priority. And if we don't feel like we're a priority. That's where the scenes start to become exposed, and so the first couple of years in a relationship, we always feel like a priority, but then we invite and we've talked about this, maybe even your our last podcast, like the existential dichotomy of freedom versus responsibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when we first start dating we have a shit ton of freedom, right, and we're excited about meeting this person and getting to know this person. After a couple of years and god forbid you invite kids. Then we're at like 80 to 90 percent responsibility. So then how do we make our marriage or our relationship a priority? And it's about balance, it's about communication and it's about balance. It's about communication and it's about being able to be deliberate with time that we do share. Then you invite love, languages and shit like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then we have to be more mindful that we're intentionally showing our significant other that they are a priority by what love languages they subscribe to.
Speaker 3:What would you say is like a healthy way to approach trust when you're starting a new relationship?
Speaker 3:Joel mentioned how he gives trust until it's broken. So he's like going in, blindly giving, I would say, because I've taken this approach to and then other times, and now I'm at a place where I'm like you get a little bit of trust up front, like I'm at a place where I'm like you get a little bit of trust up front, like I'm not gonna, I'm not coming in skeptical, like making you pay for the sins of others, kind of thing, but at the same time I need to see that what you say matches with what you do and that comes with time right. So to me it's like you get a certain amount of trust up front because more because I trust myself, but then you have to prove to get to a full level of trust, like you got to prove yourself a little bit. So that's in my mind how I see it, but I don't know what would you say is like a healthy way to approach trust when you're starting a new relationship?
Speaker 2:I think one thing we don't want to do is invite complexity bias where we have too many criteria that what constitutes trust and doesn't.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think it was Hemingway who said the best way to trust someone is just to trust them. Okay, but again it looks it's different in the sense like, okay, when we, or when you talk about trustee, what does that look like to you? You talk about trust. What does that look like to you? So, when I give someone's part of my trust, what's the difference between giving someone your full trust or compared to partial trust?
Speaker 3:I guess they're getting full trust to the amount that I know them, if that makes sense. It's not like I'm withholding something, but I'm also like but I don't know you yet, so I don't actually know.
Speaker 2:So is this trust or is this vulnerability?
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe there is some.
Speaker 2:So I'm not going to be completely exposed to someone that I just met so as I become more comfortable with them, which obviously does include what's happening with all the microphone stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if I'm going invite someone, what is happening? Hold one I don't know, it's the connection like yeah, all right, there we go. Okay, don't move now. And I'm just don't move now people.
Speaker 2:Anyways, back to that idea of hey. So we're talking about being vulnerable, which again, is it's akin to trust, right? The more comfortable and trustworthy I am of someone, then obviously I'm more. I allow myself to be more open, less guarded. So you can even take for example hey, when I go see a therapist the first time or two that I see them, was I as open and comfortable with sharing what I needed to share, or did I have to wait until that rapport was gradually built?
Speaker 3:So what I get? Can we define trust? What is trust? Like a mouth that's got me what is it?
Speaker 1:Let's ask the scientist.
Speaker 2:Well, and again we can look at trust is like we threw that out there, like trust, is this inane? Like belief, that I'm like, how do you? Because again, then we invite some level of semantics and I think, like, with trust, there is macro and micro trust, and so, like a macro based on cognitive bias, for instance, I remember a patient a couple of years ago coming in my office and we were having a discussion around trust, but it was just, it was so innocuous. He doesn't feel as safe on an airplane. If there's a female pilot, I'm like OK so that's a trust thing which is trust of female pilot.
Speaker 2:OK, and he's not, and I can like you can guess who he voted for. Yeah, it's exactly the kind of thing, and it's interesting because that's a macro one. And then we talk about the more intimate trust, which I think is going to have a different definition, like I trust that you will never maliciously hurt me.
Speaker 3:So we can take trust out that you won't maliciously hurt me.
Speaker 2:So we can take trust out that you won't maliciously hurt me. That, to me, is a simple definition of trust that if you say you're going to do something, you follow through with it. That would be trust, I think.
Speaker 3:Where trust is what you say you're going to do or that, yeah, and I think trust or mistrust is rooted in.
Speaker 2:one of my favorite Nietzsche quotes is I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that I can't believe you anymore.
Speaker 1:So is trust a thing, or is it an emotion?
Speaker 2:I think it's both right Like a state of mind, yeah, like it's almost like a rule, right, I try to think it, but, as I said, it's going to look different for each person. Like, how often do you see these videos on like Instagram or whatever, where they're falling back and people are going to catch them, right?
Speaker 3:I think for me, when I was going back, when you asked me about trust and giving maybe a piece versus a full trust, for me it was what I was thinking of was believing in what someone says, that it's true, right, that they're not lying and and that they are going to do what they say they're going to do.
Speaker 3:That for me, is what, if I have to, like, looking back now, right as I'm, and so why I say I am only giving partial upfront is because I don't know that they're doing what they say they do, or that they're not lying yet, and so I'm just it's not like I'm withholding something, I just am like you haven't proved it yet. So, yes, I believe you, like I'm not going to be stalking your social media or driving by your house or whatever to verify things. I'm going to trust that you are being honest with me. But until I can see the actions and actually validate that I'm correct or that you do what you say you're gonna do, I don't necessarily have blind trust that like, oh, they're not gonna, I don't know. So it from. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:it does, and I don't know how to explain it. Yeah, it's a defense mechanism. If we've been hurt in the past like we're, obviously our brain is going to say, hey, let's not make the same mistake twice yeah so we're going to be. So you're a little more jaded, which is great. We all are right. You have shitty experiences.
Speaker 3:It's going to make you a little jaded, I don't feel like I'm like trying to. Yeah, I hear what you're saying and I'm gonna try to not get defensive about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah I mean, and it's across the board, and it's those, because we keep bringing up like these, these incidents where it's trauma, which I agree, but I think a more accurate way to work through is like, hey, because of this experience, I'm experiencing quite a bit of suffering.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then the question is what do I do with that suffering? Where trauma is more, it's more extreme, yeah, or even can be ambiguous at times. Where, like, suffering is like, yeah, I know I'm hurting, and I know I'm hurting because this person violated my trust and now I have to make a decision. What am I going to do with this? And I think that's a huge part of how we rebuild trust within ourself is taking ownership for our choices and recognizing and I use this quote a lot like any choice we make, any choice we make, there's going to be a level of regret. That's just the nature of it. My favorite Kierkegaard quote and it's being able to take the time and allow ourselves to explore the choice we did make that we might have the wrong regret for, and say, all right, so what do I learn from this? How do I move forward from this and how do I not allow this to negatively impact my next relationship?
Speaker 1:How much? Of how much, maybe, to wind it down, but how much of our ability, or lack thereof, to trust do you think is influenced one by our childhood and how we were raised, or, and how much was it? How much is it is influenced by culture? Do you think that you've both lived in? I think you've lived in Italy, right, you've lived in other places, and do you think? The third question would be like do you think that different cultures have an ability to trust more than others? Just like, how much is culture influencing trust and how much is our childhood and our upbringing?
Speaker 2:If we subscribe to the fact that a big part of trust is our self-esteem. Our culture plays a huge role in that. Right Again, I think, and there are a couple of countries in Asia that they don't even have a word for self-esteem, because it's a moot point here, shit, everything is driven by that how much money we make, materialistic things, whatever.
Speaker 3:And why is it a moot point in Asia? Because they don't again they're not having the social media or just all the shit that we deal with here.
Speaker 2:Okay, uh, kind of thing and it's interesting. You're like holy shit. Oh, when you think about that's pretty cool. Where, again, with two kids, like one of my biggest worries is them being bullied, yeah, so then it gets back to how much of our childhood plays a role in it. A shit ton, because that's where those maladaptive schemes come from. So E was just saying, hey, I had this relationship with my mom. That relationship at times wasn't the best and as a result of that it has skewed the lens in which I see my reality in this way where I'm more hypersensitive maybe to people who are passive, aggressive in communication, that I really struggle with how to get needs met in terms of validation just because I didn't receive that in the way that I needed or wanted. I know your grandmother, you did, but I think your mom kind of offset that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I think just at this point. It's been a long journey of being able to give that to myself and being able to find know what I need in a partner that doesn't bring out the triggered side of that. So, unfortunately, that's just something that I need.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's something that you would want to communicate to Lindsay, and I know very much what triggers one another. So if I want her to be pissed and think I'm an asshole, I know exactly how to do that, and vice versa, what.
Speaker 3:I have another question before we finish up. So I think one of the things that you've taught me is that I think could be a really good tool for people that are trying to work through especially if they're trying to work through rebuilding trust within a relationship that has been broken is the difference between patience and tolerance, and wondering if you could explain that.
Speaker 3:And then we could talk about maybe a little bit of how that could play Like. Having awareness around. Those two things could maybe help when you're deciding if and how to work through that rebuild.
Speaker 2:Okay. So yeah, the patience versus tolerance is, I think, remarkably important in our closest interpersonal relationships. So how I decipher the two is patience. We would define patience as something that we are anticipating some sort of change down the road. So I have again a five and an eight-year-old. With all due respect to my five-year-old, 70% of the time she's not the nicest to be around. That's a euphemism right there. But I also recognize in a couple of years she'll grow out of that. So it's easier for me to be patient with that. Tolerance is this recognition that hey, maybe a certain behavior isn't going to be extinguished and we have to learn to quote, unquote, live with it. So an example of that is my wife has a tendency to be habitually late. So the first year we dated I was patient and she continued to be habitually late. So then I had to slowly transfer or transition to being tolerant.
Speaker 3:How did you feel in that first year where you were being patient around something that wasn't changing Like? How did you?
Speaker 2:With humor, yeah Are you getting frustrated oh of course yeah, Depending on what it is that shit drives me nuts too, man. Oh my God, I'm a very punct. It is that shit drives me nuts too, man.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I'm a very punctual person too.
Speaker 2:No, and that's it. And our personality type.
Speaker 3:What does that mean for you, when someone's late?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and again that's disrespectful to me, so I don't want to be feel like I'm disrespecting someone else, and it's interesting because it would suggest personality types would be the exact opposite she would be the one that was more anal and me be the one that was more flaky. But over time I realized I had to be tolerant and then we had to talk through it. So we have an agreement like hey, we're scheduled to meet so-and-so at 630. I'm leaving at 615. If you're not ready, we're going to be taking two separate cars.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And she doesn't get upset by that. She respects that and that's being tolerant.
Speaker 3:So it's really important With boundaries, yes, with boundaries for you, so that yes.
Speaker 2:So there are going to be qualities that our significant other has that we just have to learn to tolerate. And I was like, like tolerate, dude man, you're. Having some level of dysfunction in a relationship isn't unhealthy. And what I mean by that is that, if we the biggest part, the hardest thing you'll ever have to do in your life is be yourself. And I think a lot of times people get into a marriage or relationship long term and then they lose that sense of self-identity Because they want to maintain harmony or whatever. But sometimes, hey, we just have to tolerate various attributes that might drive the other person crazy. But again, we recognize, based on everything else out there, it's easier for me to tolerate this than to invite something else that I will definitely have to learn to tolerate as well.
Speaker 3:So I think for, like where I see this playing out when it comes to trust or even just like in relationship, like longer term relationships is if you have patience around something that isn't going to change, that could probably lead to resentment over time and drive like a wedge between you two. So important to have some awareness around is this thing going to change or not and then approach it like the way that you did, with some boundaries and a discussion or something like that. But then also is if you're working through trying to maybe like if there was a wedge in your relationship and you're trying to repair that or come back together identifying why that happened, and then maybe I just feel like having this awareness of is something going to change or not, do I need to have patience or tolerance is a good thing to have in mind when you're working through some of that stuff too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And then it gets back to maybe what we talked about 30 minutes ago being able to decipher what I need versus what I want. Right, what I want I can be tolerant with, what I need, I can't.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. So I can tolerate my wife being, you know, late, five or 10 minutes, right, I want her to be on time, but that's not a deal breaker. So, again, tolerance is something that we know like. Hey, at the end of the day, how big of a deal is it that she's five or 10 minutes late? Right If we were to say at a scale of one to 10, maybe a one and a half to not that big of a deal, so that's easier for me to tolerate.
Speaker 2:However, I work with a particular family in which one of the kids has a significant addiction and they have that tolerance at a seven or an eight. They're not going to abandon him, but that takes a lot of him continuing to fuck up for lack of a better term, and them trying to be supportive. They feel helpless, whatever, but they have to be able to hold them accountable but also recognize like there has to be a level of tolerance that goes along with that, or their heads are going to explode.
Speaker 3:Because, if I feel like in that situation, you approach it with patience, hoping something's going to change, but you have to be realistic and knowing that it's going to be two steps forward, one step back at times, and not getting frustrated trying to fix something that's out of your control too.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, interesting, we do tolerance more for ourselves, right?
Speaker 3:So we don't harbor that resentment and we don't like hey man, that's just part of being a human.
Speaker 3:And I think, if you're going through trying to reconnect with a partner, that maybe there was like a break in trust, having that awareness and figuring out what it is If people have been married for 20 years, like they're probably different people than they were when they got married and they might now have awareness around hey, I need this and a partner can that is that still you or not? And then maybe using that to help work through some of those conversations before you decide whether to continue working on it or go separate ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bingo, absolutely. And it gets back to everything's about communication in order for interpersonal relationships to be successful. And if people aren't able to be honest within that dialogue and invite any level of depth, then that conversation is pointless and you're not going to be able to grow, or you're not going to be able to rebound from being cheated on or whatever else might be the obstacle that you're trying to overcome.
Speaker 1:That is the foundation, or that is the cement, I guess, is being able to communicate and without judgment and, I guess, defense mechanism. That's a lot of times in relationships. I've been in communication, trying to communicate, because I'm not as articulate sometimes as trying to communicate, and then the defense coming right away. So you're like, okay, I haven't even been able to articulate what I'm trying to say and now I'm already defending what I just said.
Speaker 2:It's that idea of people not listening to understand. They're listening to reply, and that's the difference between reacting as opposed to responding.
Speaker 2:Reaction is coming from this emotional place where responding is we're allowing that frontal lobe to ignite so we can at least add or invite some level of objectivity. But when we're reacting, it's just coming from this completely emotional place where a lot of times, it's the heat of a moment reaction that, truth be told it, can be pretty irrational. And I God, yeah, I know we're wrapping it up there. I, just two days ago I was meeting with a patient and he had been doing so well with controlling his emotions and responding and something happened and he dropped the C-bomb and yeah, and that's just in couples constantly no, this was.
Speaker 2:They got into an argument and so see you next tuesday yeah, exactly or never and again, he's not a completely. She's not a completely innocent bystander too. But that was again like we all have that point of no return. And then we say it and now again talk about trust. Now he I mean he has made so much progress over the year and a half. But now that two steps forward, one step back, this is five steps back.
Speaker 3:And if you know how to push each other's buttons you can get like right, and this is where those cycles like begin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just in that regard it's fascinating because obviously some people would be able to tolerate that. Back to tolerance, where other people like dude man, you just called me that and. I don't know, man, if I can be with somebody who would willingly call me one of the worst names you can be called.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like it. There you have it. I don't like that, but I like all the points you make.
Speaker 1:So we end these things now. With what is it? You're over the hill when dad oh, I'm supposed to answer that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you have one?
Speaker 2:When I turn fucking 50.
Speaker 3:That happened on November 5th, so I know, yeah, like when you burn the house down with your birthday candles. That's a, that's a mom joke, that was like hey, nice Motherhood is knocking, oh boy. Amen yeah.
Speaker 2:You're over the hill Like that. That's a big one. And again the simple fact that after I play a round of golf walking, I'm pretty non-ambulatory for 24 hours, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I did restorative yoga with a date last night and I'm not quite sure it was so restorative. My back hurts right now.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's it. And the fact that, at the end of the day, you just want to take a bath, that too is a little bit like oh what?
Speaker 3:the hell's going on with me. Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 1:Blake, we appreciate you and if everybody, I'm assuming you guys I don't know if you guys still have openings, you and your wife.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a few.
Speaker 1:We'll put the, we'll put the stuff out there. The gift of psychotherapy. Both him and his wife are wonderful therapists do good work and yeah, yeah, we appreciate you enjoy your weekend I think that's good mic drop all right, everybody.
Speaker 1:Remember to follow us on instagram at midlife, uncensored, and I guess if you want to follow us on facebook and we want to hear from you, slip into our dms. Let us know what's going on, share your stories and please subscribe and rate us. Goes a long ways. It means a lot as we grow here bye.
