Episode 255: Jillian Turecki: The #1 Reason Why Dating Is So Hard These Days

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins.

You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Greg.

Jillian, I was like seriously so hyper-paranoid about this podcast because I have like

serious post-traumatic stress disorder or trauma from it.

I was like, I was so nervous that I was like, I'm not taking a chance.

I'm doing it Zoom.

And, you know, that is what it is.

So by the way, for everybody, Jillian and myself tried to do this a few weeks ago and it was a disaster, which is why I hate virtual podcasts.

And you were so gracious for two for an hour, just sitting there like, oh my God, who is this girl and this stupid podcast?

Get me off.

No, it's technology.

It happens, you know, just have to freaking roll with it.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

So thank you for being on the podcast.

You know, this is a.

100%.

This is, I've been really looking forward to talking to you.

And this is, you know, take two.

And you're a relationship coach.

And that's basically your title, right?

You're, you have a great podcast.

I love your podcast.

I think we spoke about that for the three seconds.

Yes, yes.

So I guess like teacher, podcaster, writer, you know, whatever you want to call me.

All the things, all the things.

I consider myself to be an educator, first and foremost, probably.

Well, I wanted to, let's start the podcast by explaining how you became a relationship coach.

What made you become that?

What's your, what's your origin story?

and then we'll get into all my my litany of questions for you amazing amazing so um i was a yoga teacher in new york city for almost 20 years that was my thing that was my jam and i would say seven eight years into teaching yoga i definitely had this sense that i wanted to do something more but i had absolutely no clue what that was.

I also really wanted to get married and have kids.

And I had this blueprint, this relationship blueprint, where I expected that I would get married, I would have a child, maybe two kids, and then, you know, maybe like be teaching like, you know, my classes with like one kid on my hip, like that kind of thing.

But also had this deep desire for something for more to really achieve more and give more.

I didn't know what that was.

So I got, I actually ended up meeting the man who I would be married to at the yoga studio where I worked.

And we had a

great, I always say we had a great relationship before we got married, but I would say it was 95% great or 90% great.

And there was 10%

that was really problematic.

But once we got married, that 10% became the 90%.

And what was really great about us became the 10%.

And, you know, no relationship is perfect, but it depends what's in that 10%, right?

So we got married.

The marriage only lasted two

He, it was really tumultuous.

And actually, the day before our two-year wedding anniversary, I woke up to bleeding, vaginal breeding, bleeding because I was miscarrying, turned out.

And he

called me later that day and was like, I'm not coming home.

So, I mean, there's a lot.

Obviously, we had, there was a lot of problems leading up to this, but he kind of bolted.

So, you know, the story was always like, yeah, my, my husband broke up with me over over the phone while I was having a miscarriage.

And my mom had just been given a couple months to live because she had lung cancer.

Yeah.

So this happened in 2014.

And it was like, you know, that was like, I always say that was the day that my world fell apart.

And,

you know, I entered what many would refer to as the dark night of the soul.

And it was a very, very hard time.

It was, I was devastated.

And it was during that time that there was a couple of things at play.

Well, one, I had a coach who lived in my building and she was a coach before everyone was a coach, before it was like trying to be a coach.

Right, right.

And she found me one day sitting outside and she saw the despair in my face.

And I was outside because I have a dog.

And she got me hooked on Tony Robbins and basically was like, maybe you should have, maybe I should coach you.

And then she was like, you should really become a coach.

It was very overwhelming.

But anyway, I started, you know, long story, very medium.

I started a journey of trying to recover from this, felt like this catastrophe, this tragedy in my life.

And I learned so much about, I became obsessed with relationships and what makes a relationship work.

Cause I was obsessed with the fact that this didn't work out.

And I was like, what the hell, man?

Like, what is going on?

Like, this can't be happening.

Something is wrong.

And so I literally every day, I think from that moment, have been studying psychology and relationships and all of that.

And I, then I started coaching very soon after.

And then I started, I first started doing a lot of family work and couples work.

And then I went more a little bit more focused on individual work.

And here I am today.

I got certified.

I have mentors.

I I have all, you know, I, you know, I have two different coaches, mentors, and all of that along the way.

So it's, that's been my journey.

Did you, so you started pretty much in 2014 is when it all kind of began for you.

And yeah.

So do you still take clients?

Are you still with clients individually?

Yeah.

So I do have like a few select individual clients who I've been working with because, you know, I adore them and the progress has been amazing.

I run mostly group mentorship programs.

You know, I was still doing one-on-one here and there because look, the truth of the matter is, I don't care what anyone says, you can't become a great coach without working with people one-on-one.

You simply cannot.

You can call yourself a coach, but you can't, because how would you ever know what it's like to really coach unless you're actually working in the trenches working one-on-one?

So I spent years filling my schedule in a way that I don't recommend anyone do because I was just way too obsessive about it.

But years working one-on-one, I was like, I want to reach the thousands.

So I had that goal and I did that.

And now I'm slowing down just because I do want to work more in the, you know, I have the podcast and I do really love working with groups.

So now it's shifting a little bit because, number one, my priorities are shifting and just where I want to put my energy is shifting.

But I'm so glad that I spent years working one-on-one.

I would never be where I am today, I don't think, without that.

Do you have a partner of any form now?

Like, are you?

You said you weren't married.

I asked you already.

Oh, I was like, a business partner?

No,

or a business partner.

No, no, no.

No, no, no, neither.

I'm single.

I'm not in a relationship.

I was in a lovely relationship over the pandemic, but just wasn't right long term.

The relationships that I've had since my divorce have all been lovely and healthy.

I walk my talk 100%.

I just,

I guess I have a very high high standard of

what is going to be right for me for the long term, fully committed.

So at the moment, I'm single.

And one of the things that I love to do is help singles because I am so comfortable single and I never was when I was younger.

And so I love helping people sort of trust the process of being single and not feel so alone when they're single.

I can't relate to feeling really like alone anymore.

I feel so at peace with, I don't want to give any false advertising.

I mean, I struggle a lot.

I have my own demons, but I feel at peace not being in a relationship and knowing that I have full faith that it'll happen when it's meant to happen.

Do you feel that relationships in general have been more fewer and far between in the last few years?

I mean, I don't know, that's becoming the new trend.

You know, people aren't dating anymore.

People aren't even having sex anymore.

That was a new study I just saw.

And basically, this whole paradox of like too many choices could be part of it, right?

Like you end up with nothing, decision fatigue.

And so people can't really commit.

Do you find that that's really something that you've seen a lot of?

Well, the people who I work with, they're all dating and having sex or in relationships.

So the not the not dating or not having sex, that's not something that I've experienced in my practice.

People are absolutely doing that.

But certainly the problem with dating apps and technology is this this idea that everyone is just so incredibly disposable.

And it also makes it a lot easier for those who have a more predatorial nature, a darker predatorial nature to get on the apps and just sort of like, you know, go through particularly women, like, you know, they're like candy.

So that does happen.

I also have clients who've met the love of their lives on the apps.

So, you know, but yes, there's definitely a problem with things just becoming more, people being treated as if they're more disposable.

That's a great word for it.

I've never described it that way, but I think that's a perfect word.

People are more disposable because there's always someone, you never know who's going to be there tomorrow or the next swipe.

So it doesn't matter how good that date was or that conversation.

It just doesn't, because there's always someone else.

That's the mindset that I feel is happening.

I've seen, I'm married, but for my friend out there who are single, it's very difficult, it seems.

Yes, but all, but the studies suggest that it's easier for men to find more quality women on the apps than it is for women to find more quality men on the apps.

But there are, but the statistics show that there are more men on the dating apps than there are women.

So there's that.

I also think that, you know, call it the pandemic or whatever it is, or just because of, I don't, I actually don't think it's just the pandemic.

I just think it's the rise of technology.

People aren't.

out there.

You know, they're not doing things with their time

like we used to yep because their time is on a device so they're not doing the things that would make it so that they could meet people more organically right that's the problem what's the number one reason why you think relationships fail in the first place well the overarching umbrella of that is fear but really but more specifically there's a couple of things personal stress people not managing their personal stress well.

And so what happens is that they become completely dysregulated.

They stop engaging in the relationship.

They get in their heads.

And so they're in their heads all the time.

And then they are, you know, stress has a way, when we don't stay on top of it, it has a way of consuming us.

And when we get consumed by our stress, we get consumed with ourselves.

And so we don't actually engage with

our partner in the way that we used to.

So stress is actually the number one thing.

And then, you know, what runs pretty parallel to that is selfishness.

And it's really hard for people to hear that because you could be a really caring person, but be selfish in the relationship because people get, people are so afraid more than ever of being abandoned and of not being loved.

And, you know, people really pathologically fear rejection.

They may not fear rejection in general in the world, but when it comes to relationships, they do.

And so that's when we all our weird, quirky patterns come up when we think even on a subconscious level that our partner is going to reject us, we'll start to do all this protective stuff, or we'll be mean, or we'll be punishing, or we'll just think about our needs and getting our needs met.

And we don't realize, you know, it's, it's, we're not really taught how to love.

We're taught, you know, this is what it is to feel love.

This is what it means when someone maybe loves you, but we're rarely taught the art of actually giving love in a way that's pure, in a way that's giving, in a way that doesn't, it doesn't mean you're abandoning yourself

in a way and it's authentic.

And so that's the hard part.

So how, how do you teach somebody how to love?

Like if we've never been taught it before, where is, what's the first step?

Well, the first step is understanding.

Well, there's a, it depends who I'm speaking to, honestly.

You know, like it depends on the client.

You know, some people need to understand first how to show themselves respect and love.

Some people, you know, their self-esteem is kind of okay, although I work with a fair amount of people whose self-esteem is on the lower end of the spectrum.

So, loving someone is having a curiosity for them.

It's like having a curiosity about them.

What moves them?

What hurts them?

What motivates them?

What inspires them?

And then having a desire to be a part of that, to want to meet their needs, to want to understand their psychology and speak their love language.

It's so it's learning how to step out of yourself so that you can now try to understand

the psychology of your partner and then meet their needs, their core needs.

Do you believe there's one soulmate for people, or do you believe there's many soulmates?

Many soulmates.

And I think, you know, someone you could meet someone who's absolutely a soulmate and i i mean we can define that as someone who comes into your life who presents an opportunity you both present an opportunity to one another to be able to grow and to be able to expand and to be able to learn how to be you know more to be love and to give love and to exchange love and so two people can meet and they can really have that sort of soulmate connection, but they can easily screw it up.

And that's what we do.

We screw it up.

But that's okay because there's always someone else who can, who you can, who you can do that with.

So I don't really believe in one soulmate.

I also believe that sometimes people feel like a soulmate, but really that's chemistry talking.

That's hormones talking.

That's your dad.

talking or your relationship with your dad talking or your relationship with your mom talking.

So they feel like a soulmate, but really they're just someone who is going to be a big lesson.

I believe that people come into our lives for various reasons.

And not everyone who feels like a soulmate is, you know, not everything is meant to be a life story.

Some people come into our lives to wake us up.

Some people come into our lives to help us through a period of

time.

Some people come into our lives to show us some adventure.

So, you know, it's dependent on so many things.

But no, I don't believe in one soulmate.

How depressing is that belief?

I agree.

I also think it's unrealistic to believe, this is my opinion, that there's one, there's only one person for your whole life because you, as a person, evolve and change.

And so, this idea of like having one person that will, that will fit every single need at every phase of your life is like basically a societal lie or a fairy tale that we try to convince ourselves of.

And then, when we don't see that happening, we get really upset.

And that gives us stress and gives us anxiety and makes us feel bad, you know, like all the social norms of what we should have, you know, and right.

How, how do, like, what do we do about that?

Like, I feel like that's something that so many people struggle with.

Yeah.

Well, that's also part of the reason why I teach, and I'm not the only one who teaches this, just to have realism.

Yeah.

You know, so.

So you're, you're spot on, you know, first of all, who is going to be your soulmate at 18 is not who's going to be your soulmate at 28, or who's going to be your soulmate at 30 is not necessarily your soulmate at 50.

I mean, if you're with someone all those years, you can, the thing is, you have to keep choosing your partner if you're with someone for the long term.

It has to be an act of choice.

Love really is a practice.

It's a ritual.

It's a verb.

People have to be realistic that

there are...

I always say, you know, you have to choose five things that you absolutely must have in a partner and in a partnership.

It is non-negotiable for you.

All the rest, you have to be willing to tolerate.

So, you can have your list of everything that you want in a partner, but that list of what you're willing to tolerate better be twice as long.

Because, you know, no one's perfect.

And so, this idea that someone's going to come into your life and

complete you is really a myth.

But we're all looking for oneness.

We're all looking for the one because our subconscious is always looking to find a connection to something greater than ourselves.

Some people will say that's nature.

Some people will say that's God.

Some people will say that's a higher power.

Some people will say that's spirit or soul, whatever your belief system is.

But we are always in search of feeling more connected to something larger.

And when we fall in love, we feel like we're connected to something larger.

I mean, it is that intoxicating.

We just feel like, I mean, everything becomes like technicolor around us when we're falling in love.

But people really struggle with the next phase of relationship, which is more committed.

They think, oh, something is wrong.

No, no, no.

This is just, this is actually the natural progression.

Now you work on the deeper stuff so that you can actually really become each other's quote unquote soulmates, rather than thinking, you know, your soulmate is, it's like, it's not like Cupid pointing its arrow at you and hitting you.

It's not like that, but we are sold that lie.

Well, I think there's a big difference between we get, I think we confuse chemistry with what love is or pheromones.

Like, if you, like, I believe that there are some people that you're naturally more attracted to pheromonally, right?

Or chemistry-wise.

And we, you know, and what I think what you tell me, you're the expert, but, you know, we pick our partners sometimes based on that like physical chemistry because we think that's love, yes, 100%.

You know, the chemistry conversation is complicated because if sex is important to you, and if romance is important to you, and it's, you know, not, it's not, it's not that, it's not on the high on everyone's list, but it is on many people's list of a certain age or stage of life.

You have to be sexually and physically attracted to the person you commit to.

I'm in no way would I ever suggest like you know, you marry the person who you don't find it you're not drawn to physically.

You have to be attracted.

But there's a difference between being attracted to someone, liking their smell, and also the more time you spend with them, feeling more attracted to them.

That's very different than the person who you're crazy attracted to because it's like teenage love.

I mean, some people will call it a trauma bond.

I just see it as immaturity.

And it's not, I'm not dissing anyone.

I mean, I've been there, but like, we have to change that person who you're like, oh my God, it's like, I'm so attracted to.

This is what's so difficult.

We have, you know, this sort of primitive part of ourselves that's like, I want, I want that person.

And then we have a higher mind that has nothing to do with the primitive parts of ourselves that has to be able to step in and say, okay, you're really attracted to this person, but is this person going to be all drama?

Is this person, you know, is this person going to be a repetition of your patterns?

Is this person, is it a relationship with this person just going to reinforce all the pain that you had in childhood?

And then as you start to mature and you start to do the work and you start to see, oh yeah, like, yeah, I'm really attracted to that guy, but he's troubled.

But by the way, I'm also really attracted to this other guy who's really good for me.

And maybe I'm not looking at him wanting to like completely rip his clothes off.

But when I spend more time with him or her, When I spend more time with them, wow, it's like I'm growing more and more drawn.

I'm more attracted to them.

I'm more in love with them.

I'm, I just want to be around them.

That's, that's really the ideal.

That's what we want.

Right.

But I think sometimes we can confuse ourselves, right?

Cause we think to ourselves, and it doesn't have to, it's like because something is new, right?

You're always more attracted to someone when with the unknown, when you don't know them.

And so it's more exciting.

And so you gravitate to that.

Right.

And so how do we stop ourselves from doing that?

Like you talked, you did a podcast.

I think it was called The Art of Choosing the Right Partner.

I think that was.

Yeah.

Can you give us some of the art of choosing the right partner and not getting stuck in these, you know, traps?

Yeah.

So part of it is having discernment.

And the discernment is based on understanding your own psychology and knowing not what just what you want, not just what turns you on, but what you actually really need.

And then what happens that you start to become attracted to other qualities.

So whereas maybe when you were younger or, you know, whatever, a year ago, a month ago, you may have been attracted to, you know, the person who's the life of the party.

You're like, okay, like, yeah, that's, that's what I used to be attracted to, but now I'm actually attracted to someone who's more grounded, who can communicate well.

You start to find other things more attractive because you.

You are becoming the partner that someone wants to be with.

You're starting to value things differently.

You're starting to understand yourself and your psychology and what you've been through.

And also you're deciding, I want to be a really good communicator.

I love, I think it's really hot if we can have a difficult conversation.

I think it's really hot when someone makes me feel safe rather than me feeling anxious around them all the time.

And so it's not, it's, you know, it's not quite so linear, but it's really about learning, look, if you've been burned enough times by a particular type, at some point, you're going to be motivated to change your type.

And that motivation comes, what comes with it is that you have to understand what your values are.

You maybe have to change, switch your values a little bit.

You have to understand your psychology.

And then you just start to, you start to recognize.

And maybe it's hanging around other people, men or women who embody more of that.

And you say, oh, you know what?

That would feel really good to feel safe around someone.

That would feel really good to like, you know, laugh with someone as opposed to always like, you know, doing this chase with someone.

So it's, it's a process.

And sometimes it's a long process if someone is really deeply entrenched in a pattern and they're, they have low self-esteem.

And sometimes it's quite quick.

It's those patterns.

Yeah.

I think breaking patterns are very difficult.

Like, is it breaking bad habits?

But you break bad habits.

Part of the process of breaking the bad habits is defining what's really what you value and what you want to continue to value moving forward.

You start, you have to start to think about who do I want to be in a relationship?

What kind of relationship do I want?

What do I find that's actually really sexy?

And some of these things, they change, honestly, as you age.

Yeah, that's true.

What is a trauma bond?

You said that earlier.

Yeah, I mean, I use that.

I use that term lightly because I think it's one of those terms in the pop psychology zeitgeist that I think is overused and actually misunderstood and a little annoying, frankly.

But it's whenever it's, so I always say that people find each other.

So if you have really

low self-esteem, you know, your self-worth, I'll just give extreme examples just for clarity's sake.

If you have really low self-esteem and your self-worth is in the gutter and you didn't, you know, you have, you know, mommy didn't give you, was mean to you or daddy didn't wasn't me, was mean to you, you know, you have some trauma there.

You also have some beliefs that you've been conditioned to have by society and family and peers, which is that you have to work really hard to be loved in a relationship, right?

So it's a combination of these forces within a person.

Then they're likely going to be attracted to the really charming narcissist, let's say, or the really charming selfish person, because they think, you know, wow, this person's so charming.

You know, they haven't done the work to understand that, like, charming only goes so far.

And with charming also comes, you know, a whole host of other problems.

And so, and then the person comes in and they're

showering that other, the person with low self-worth with all this love.

And then the person,

they're putting each other on pedestals.

So this really selfish person or the person who's really dealing with, maybe they're dealing with a lot of avoidance, they're going to find the person who's going to be the most confronting to them, you know, about they're going to be, it's like, it's the mirror.

It's like, here you are.

This is the work that you have not done on yourself.

This is your problem.

I am literally this metaphor here to show you what your problem is.

And these people find each other and they can work through it only if both people are committed to becoming radically self-aware and working on it.

But more times than not, it ends in a complete, it ends in a toxic relationship.

Maybe it's abusive.

Maybe they're abusing each other.

Maybe it's just completely unhealthy.

Maybe they're just like they can't.

they can't make it through to the other side.

So that's basically what happens.

Their childhood trauma are finding each other.

They haven't done the work.

They don't have the, they don't have the self-awareness of why they behave the way that they do.

And they're almost like foils to each other.

That is, you know, a mirror.

Is that like codependence though, too?

Or?

No, I mean, you know,

codependency can be and can live in that, but it's not necessarily that.

You know, codependency is another thing that's been sort of taken too far.

Codependency is first and foremost to describe an addict and a non-addict.

And the non-addict is wanting the addict to change.

The addict, you know, wants to change, but doesn't want to change, but feels like forced to change.

So codependent relationships are basically like, I'm not happy unless you're happy.

You have to change and be a certain way so I can be happy, but...

I'm going to find the person with the biggest problem in the room.

And

I'm going to, you know, try to fix them and try to change them and then they're gonna feel totally terrible and so that's usually that's a codependent relationship relationship

yeah you said something also i i wrote this last time but you know this whole idea of anxious attachment

i thought that was really interesting because well you were saying something again something i was listening to about making excuses for people we have attachment to

and how you know we kind of do that we do we kind of like justify people's bad behavior because we want, we don't want to see the bad.

We kind of convince ourselves of whatever we want that person to be.

Yes.

And that is, I think, what people do most of the time.

Yes.

So that has nothing to do with anxious attachment.

Oh, is it different?

Okay.

Sorry.

I mean, I think it's just, it's never just one thing or another.

There's always like a host, you know, as you know, there's always a host of things.

It's always.

It's always more complicated.

But basically, you know, attachment is a part of life.

The Buddha said, you know,

life is suffering and life is suffering because of attachment.

And it becomes incredibly painful and emotionally dangerous when we become attached to someone, for example, who doesn't treat us well.

So that's when I think, I think that may be what you're referring to.

So it's like, oh, even though they're

either either.

What's the top of this?

What's the definition of anxious attachment?

Is there a definition of anxious attachment that when I want, what I'd love to have is people like having explanations of some of these terminologies that we get we hear about and so people can then figure out signs if this is something that they can relate to for their own relationships that they can figure out yeah so anxious attachment and this was something that i struggled with when i was younger anxious attachment is basically when you were as a small child, usually there was a parent who was very abandoning, whether they literally abandoned or they weren't really present.

So it's really, it's there, the theory is like how the child attaches to the parent from the beginning.

Is it a secure attachment, meaning they know when the parent leaves the room that they're going to come back, you know, or is the fear that when the parent leaves the room, they're never going to come back, or is the fear that when the parent leaves the room and they don't want them to come back?

Yeah, so anxious attachment is really just anxiety, it's relationship anxiety, it's a fear of abandonment.

And in it, there is

so much context to anxious attachment because you might be anxiously attached to a partner because they happen to be quite abandoning and they happen to be quite avoidant.

You know, maybe they're not a very good communicator.

And then you're in a relationship with someone who might be smothering you.

And then all of a sudden, you're like, oh my God, I'm not anxiously attached.

I can't wait to get away from you.

So we learn about our attachment styles and we learn about what we're experiencing on the attachment spectrum based on who we are relating to.

And it's also very dependent on what else is going on in our lives.

You know, if we're having, if we've been, if we're going through a death of a family member, if we're going through a very difficult time in our lives, we are, we might become more anxiously attached to someone because we think, or on a subconscious level, we think, well, this person is going to rescue me.

This person is going to make it all better.

Or I don't feel, I feel unsafe in the world.

I feel unsafe in my my body.

I feel unstable.

So I'm going to cling to this relationship as the source of my stability.

And so whenever I sense that it might be unstable, I'm going to cling.

So I hope that offers a little bit of clarity.

No, it absolutely does.

And I think that a lot of what we do is we like pick partners based on what kind of whatever has been so far.

Right.

But there's all these ideas of like love languages, right?

Like if my love language is A and yours is B, and then do we match each other like it like to me like that can't be enough right like if i know your love language is compliments and then i compliment you and then my love language is you know acts of gifts to me you know people are always like you just have to give people the love language that really works for them like to me isn't there like a piece of it though that is like somewhat innate like either you're like into the person or you're not like once there's too much of this back of or you're the expert but like how much of these of relationships do you think have to be something that is more natural versus like constantly being worked on right yeah that's a very very good question so let me just a little note about love languages i think it's important that when we love someone and this is part of what it means to love someone that we don't just love someone in the ways that feels comfortable and familiar to us we love them in the ways that we know that they want to be loved so that might include within that conversation the love language is touch or something like that, but it also includes other things, which is like it's really important to your partner that, you know, they feel most loved when you cook them a meal or, you know, maybe whatever it is.

But but you don't, you're like, that means nothing to me, but it means something to them.

And so that's the selflessness that I'm talking about.

It's not martyrdom.

It's I'm giving, I'm showing them love in the ways that

they feel loved by me and putting in that effort.

And so I don't really see that as work.

I see that as mindfulness.

And it's very easy, the best of us and

the best of relationships, we will get mindless sometimes.

We will become unconscious.

And I think part of it is just being, it's just bringing that awareness.

Oh, like.

My partner's a little bit tired today, or my partner, you know, I'm not, you know, they could use a little more love today.

And then you're doing that.

I don't really see that as work.

I just see that, again, as part of just being in a relationship.

There is that line, though, between how like certain things just should be, it shouldn't be so hard

that you're constantly having to work on the relationship.

You might have to go through a season where you have to.

But yes, there should, I definitely don't recommend, for example, if someone is, you know, in seeing someone for six months, that they take their relationship to the next level.

Maybe that's getting engaged or maybe that's moving in with each other.

I certainly don't recommend that if it's just always hard.

If they're just always having to work on their relationship, there really actually should be some natural ease to it for sure.

But sometimes that ease happens because the people inside of the relationship are not as complicated.

They don't have as much trauma and stuff to work through.

Like, I do do believe there's just some people that are just not, are just like not programmed to be great in relationships.

And that should be okay too, right?

Like there's that, there's a reason, like some people are just, you know, like some people are just more simple, right?

They're not as complicated or difficult.

You know what I mean?

And that is, and so sometimes it's, we're always trying to fit a circle into a square or a square into a circle, right?

I believe everyone has the potential to be in a healthy relationship.

Most everyone.

Maybe not everyone, but most people have the potential if they're willing to do the work.

If they're willing to do the work.

That's if they're willing to do the work on themselves, on themselves.

Yeah.

And not everyone is, not everyone is willing to do that.

But I do believe in people's potential.

I don't believe that because I know lots of people who've had horrific childhoods that are in great relationships and they're doing and they are great in relationship.

And I know people who've had really happy childhoods who aren't doing great in relationships.

Yeah.

So I think that, and I know people who've had really, really terrible trauma and they're not defined by their trauma.

And I know people who've had not so terrible trauma and they're really defined by that.

So I really just believe in people's potential to be able to be in a healthy relationship as long as they are willing to work on that and hire someone if they need to.

What is the number one myth about a healthy relationship, like about relationships that you've heard?

Well, that it's that it doesn't take any work and that it's easy and that with the right partner, you know, there's everything's going to be perfect.

That's the biggest myth.

Yeah.

Well, and I guess

I laugh at that because that's so, it's, it's, it's silly.

You know, how about this idea of like emotional unavailability, right?

When you're, you hear that a lot, like, oh, they're just emotionally unavailable.

They're just emotionally unavailable.

Can you help somebody become more emotionally available, or is that something that's more?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So,

first, it's important to note that sometimes you'll be with someone who's emotionally unavailable, but they're really emotionally unavailable to you.

They're just, they're really just not as into you.

They don't have the same, they don't share the same feelings for you.

So they're not opening to you because they're conflicted about how they feel about you.

Right.

And then they'll meet someone else and totally open up.

So that's a reality.

That's a tough pill to swallow.

Not, you know, it's a hard truth.

But there are just some people who are emotionally unavailable because they weren't taught the tools of, they're just very afraid.

They're afraid to go deep.

They're afraid to let anyone in.

They're afraid to make deeper connections.

Maybe they're going through a stage of their life where they're very selfish.

Maybe they are just very selfish.

So, but there are people who aren't as emotionally available because sometimes their self-esteem is really low.

So they conveniently choose partners who have a really big problem that they can fixate on.

And then there's never really any intimacy there.

So at the core of emotional availability is vulnerability.

It's the willingness to be vulnerable.

And it's the desire to experience another's vulnerability.

So if you're vulnerable with someone and they're not taking the bait, they're not interested, they might even be repelled by your vulnerability, they are not emotionally available, at least to you.

To you.

that's what I think is important, or in general, or they could be that way in all relationships.

Could be, but I think what you said earlier is more accurate in a way.

Like, I think that my mother would always say something to me when I was younger, like, every pot has a lid, or every lid finds its pot, or whatever.

It is true, like, and the movie, like, you know, like, he's just not that into you.

I think there's something to be said for the react, like the realization that sometimes, you know, a cigar is just a cigar, that you're not clicking with somebody because it's just not not meant to be clicked with, right?

Yes.

Like, okay.

And we can like trick ourselves and we can fool ourselves to believe it's not us to make us feel better.

But really, in reality, it's like, yeah, well, that person could be unavailable to you, but be available to that person.

Right.

So what is it about you?

So I feel like that's something that.

I think as a whole society, we can't, we do to ourselves, right?

Like we think of all the reasons.

Well, maybe he's not, I'm just making this.

He's not calling because my phone was in a bad cell server.

Well, maybe he just didn't call, you know, all the excuses we give each other, you know,

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

And there are definitely people who really struggle with finding deeper connections.

People, they can connect really well in the beginning lustful stage.

You know, they can connect, they, they present themselves as very emotionally open because they're all googly-eyed for you in that moment.

But when it comes to like true vulnerability, when it comes to really going to the deeper layers, right?

Lust is not love.

So when you get to the deeper layers, it's like there's a wall there.

How does lust usually last?

You know, I think there's different phases to lust.

I think there's like, you know, the very beginning, you know, the very beginning, a few weeks of lust, a couple of months of lust.

It depends on how quickly or slowly someone is, two people are going, how much time they're spending with one another.

It depends.

It depends.

I mean, for some people, that lust phase is six months.

For some people, it's it's a year.

For some people, it's one month.

Yeah.

That's fair.

So it's different for, depending on the situation, it's different.

I think so.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's different for everybody.

Men and women, how are we the most different?

Like, what do you see the big in your practice and all the people you've spoken to?

What would you say the biggest differences and similarities are, I guess?

Are we speaking within, I'm assuming we're speaking within the context of relationship?

We're speaking really.

Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah.

So,

most women want to feel very safe and cherished.

And most of the men, in my experience, they want to feel it's not that they don't want to feel safe, it's not that they don't want to feel cherished, but they want to feel very respected and they want to feel appreciated.

And

women's, the experience that I've had is that women's biggest complaint is, you know, he's not present with me, like his pre, you know, he's not present with me, he doesn't pay enough attention to me, all of that.

And his biggest complaint will be, I feel emasculated around her.

You know, I'm not appreciated for the things that

I do do.

And I think that because in general, women are really seeking safety all the time, because we are just, we're more vulnerable in the world.

You know, we just are.

I mean, you talk to the average man and he walks down an empty street.

He's not thinking about who's going to jump him necessarily, but we walk down an empty street and we're very, as a woman, very well aware of just how vulnerable we are in that moment.

So we are always seeking safety.

And in that pursuit of safety, it's very easy for women to look for what's missing rather than what's there.

And so a lot of women will get very nitpicky.

We're talking obviously very heteronormatively.

They'll get very nitpicky of their man and what's missing.

And he's not doing enough of this and not doing enough of that.

And he'll say, well, what about what I did, you know, what I did this morning for her and what I did for that?

And so it's, he doesn't feel appreciated and she doesn't feel understood or seen.

And so those are like some of the biggest differences.

In dating, here's a really key difference.

Most men can have sex.

without falling in love or falling in lust.

A man typically has to form some sort of emotional connection with a woman before he has sex with her, in order for him to continue wanting to see her after he's had sex with her.

This is biological.

A man meets a woman that he's attracted to, he wants to have sex with her.

This doesn't make him a bad guy, it just makes him a guy.

He wants to have sex with her.

After he has had sex with her, he can be totally done unless he has created some sort of emotional bond to her.

Women, on the other hand, and this is really primarily the role of estrogen, will

once typically, if she has sex with someone who she likes, who she likes, after she's has sex, she gets very attached.

And so, whereas men don't.

So, it's very important in dating.

If you're someone, to loop this back, if you're a woman and you have anxious attachment, or you tend to get anxious, or you know, you attach very quickly, or you fall for the wrong people, it's important to wait until you have sex with someone until you know that you're on the same page.

And this is not, this has nothing to do with morality.

You can do whatever you want with your body that you see fit.

But I'm telling you right now, from the thousands of women I've worked with who have struggled with this, it's like as soon as they decided, you know what?

Like, I don't, because there's this belief that many women share, which is, well, I had to have sex with him in order for him to be interested in me.

And that is a lie.

And that is the biggest lie no no no no no

that's not what's going to get him interested in you is getting in your pants it's the opposite it's being able to actually see you as someone who's not just a sexual conquest that's going to have him bond with you And so women will lead a lot with that part of themselves because they think they have to.

And then they form this attachment to someone who's not formed the attachment back.

And that's why a lot of women will get their hearts, especially of a certain age, will get their hearts broken after once the relationship has become physically intimate.

So that's a big difference between men and women, generally speaking.

That's important to know.

Yeah, I like that.

And then my last question is: what happens when you're in a relationship and everything else is great, but one loses attraction for the other?

Like, how does that work?

Well, you first have to understand why.

Okay.

You have to understand why.

So is it, that the person lose attraction to their partner because their partner is always a stress case, stressed out, isn't is a shell of the person that they were when they started the relationship, isn't taking care of themselves emotionally or physically, is always making their partner feel like they're responsible for their unhappy for their happiness or and therefore responsible for their unhappiness?

Is that why they lost attraction?

Did attraction get lost because

the two of you are acting too much like roommates and you're not having fun together?

You're spending too much time together, maybe not enough separateness, not enough dates?

Have you lost attraction because you're feeling dead inside?

There's something that you're grappling with, maybe in your body, maybe in your mental health.

Maybe you've lost some of your own vitality because work's not going well.

So there's no stock answer to that because I'd have to understand why the loss of attraction is there.

And then we can, with work, a couple can bring it back if they understand the why and they work on the why.

And especially if there was once a lot of attraction in the beginning, it is something that typically can be resurrected as long as the other things are sort of rectified and worked on.

But there, but that being said, there are just times where like you look at your partner and you see a brother or sister.

And once you do that, it's over.

Yeah.

You're not getting, you're not getting those sexual feelings back once it's hit that spot.

I, I mean, I am a big believer in that.

I feel like there's only so much therapy can help in certain things.

You can go to therapy all you want, but if some, if something's not there, you can't force something.

That's my opinion.

I mean, I'm not the specialist, but.

Yeah, but there's always a reason behind it.

You know, we're most attracted to others when we witness them from afar.

embodied in their element in the flow state.

It's like, oh, there's this person who's like, you know, doesn't, doesn't even notice me at the moment.

And they're so in their element.

And so if we become disconnected to ourselves and we're never in our element and our partner is never able to see us in our element, it becomes problematic.

This was a big problem with the pandemic.

People stop going to work.

They stop dressing up for work.

They start, and they are living together all the time.

They're not seeing, they're not, first of all, they're not separating enough.

They're not having enough distance.

People are feeling down about themselves.

They're in their sweatpants all day long.

They're not seeing the person like, you know, go out into the world and come back.

And so this is why a lot of marriages fell apart.

No, I think that's a really good point.

What have you seen happen post-pandemic with relationships then?

Well, I mean, people are, I know a lot of couples and worked with a lot of people who are still trying to recover from that.

You know, they're still trying to figure out like the working from home thing and it's still problematic.

I've seen a lot of people who had pandemic relationships and so they are just getting out of those relationships, right?

Right.

So yeah, yeah.

A lot of people, a lot of people.

I think basically you actually you answer most of my question, all my questions.

So yeah, I think we're good.

Jillian, we're good.

Where do people find you?

Because if they want to hear more information about relationships, talk about your podcast.

You have a book?

You don't have a book yet.

No, you don't have a book.

I'm working on the book.

I'm writing it right now.

All right.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Yeah.

The book is coming.

I I have my podcast, Jillian on Love.

So that is, it's some interviews, but it's a lot of solo episodes of just educating.

And it's basically for all people, like whether you're in a relationship, heartbroken or single, I kind of try to give content for people at all stages of relationship.

Also tons of free content on my Instagram at Jillian Tareki.

I also have a on at Jillian on Love Instagram.

I'm on TikTok.

And then of course my site, which is my TikTok, my site, which is jilliantarecki.com, my full name.com.

thank you jillian i i actually i love your solo episodes i think you do a great job thank you yeah how how long have you had the ep uh the episodes the the podcast for it launched september 7th so it's new oh wow it's so new yeah

nice

oh wow i didn't realize it was that new congratulations thank you you're welcome when does your book come out we'll see

probably

next year yeah realistically 2024.

are you just like writing is that what you're spending most of your time on these days is writing that's where i'm that's what i'm starting to car to create more time to be able to do that yeah so they can so i can get that on turbo speed oh who's your publisher uh i i'm not i'm not permitted to say just yet but oh yeah okay all right i know i'm sorry but i will let you know as soon as i'm allowed to permit it to say yeah absolutely thank you thank you again i really appreciate making time i'm sorry but the last time so this was like really a treat oh my god all good thank you so much for having me I really appreciate it.

Absolutely.

I'm going to speak to you soon again.

So, I'll be calling on you.

Okay, amazing.

Bye.