Most Replayed Moment: Why Does Commitment Feel So Scary? How to Build a Strong, Lasting Relationship

Thinking about the history of relationships, I often wonder how many of the rules of relationships that we've been handed by society are now invalid, or maybe were never valid.

So, you know, we have these sort of constructs of like marriage and monogamy and

even like heterosexuality, all these things that have been passed to us through religion and through history.

I was looking at some stats about marriage, and it says that in 2019, marriage rates for opposite-sex couples fell to their lowest on record since 1862.

That's in the UK.

And in the US, marriage rates have been declining since the early 1970s.

I'm not married, but I spend a lot of time thinking about whether I should be or not.

And I actually had a conversation recently with my partner where I said, do you want to get married?

And it was abundantly clear that she does want to get married.

But then I asked why.

And really...

it seems like it was really just more for the wedding than

than for some kind of legal contract that we signed with the government.

So

I'm really wondering, based on everything we know about history and the trade-offs of marriage, should I be getting married?

Yes, because your partner was too.

For the same reason enough.

But here,

so

I think the institution of marriage,

what you're going to see, this is my prediction is that because

nuclear families.

What do you mean by nuclear family?

So having

two, well, it's interesting.

There's different perspectives now on nuclear family, but I look at it as you have two partners and children, and that creates the nuclear family.

That becomes an economic unit, which drives a society.

And as that has disappeared, There's been less of a base to drive society per many researchers.

So as a result, what I believe is going to happen, as we see right now in Singapore, as we see right now in China, as we see right now in Japan, you're going to see government heavily involved in incentivizing marriage.

And marriage is already incentivized right now in terms of

tax benefits,

being able to

leave assets to your partner, leave assets to family members.

So So, as a result of the decrease of marriage and decrease of nuclear families, you will see government step up even more to incentivize.

So, you're going to see all types of benefits being thrown at

people

to get married, you know, especially as you not only see marriage rates decline, but as you also see birth rates declining as they

are.

Now,

your question around what should you do is that

this is a question around values.

And this is a question that I believe is very important to have early on.

You know, I was saying, you know, when you meet someone, you should lay out exactly what you want.

This is a very important question to have early, early on.

Now, in terms of where you are with your partner, I would say that if she is

for, if she is pro this

and you are indifferent sounds like it feels like you're indifferent not anti but indifferent

Yeah, I think I'm I'm somewhat agnostic

To it, however, I can call out a bunch of downsides to getting married really like uh Well again, I don't know cuz I'm not married so all the married people are like screaming at me right now I know this because they DM me they've been DMing me for many many years since I started the driver of CEO because in some of those early episodes I was really like not I was really quite against it but um over time I've kind of developed my thinking here.

I just wonder, I can't understand the first principles as to why having a like government or religious contract with somebody is going to increase the probability of success in the union of love.

There's obviously the issue with the pre-nup situation.

I actually don't have this concern with my partner.

So I think she's...

I think you've met her, haven't you?

You've met her, yeah.

Yeah.

From a distance.

Yes, from a distance.

Yeah, I don't have a concern that she's going to try and bankrupt me or that I might try and bankrupt her.

So that's not really a concern.

The whole charade of like doing a massive wedding, I think, is a little bit weird.

I think, why can't we just have lots of events over the next 50 years where we bring our friends and family versus like one?

I've also watched a couple of my friends at the moment who are getting married.

They're like two years of pain and heartache and like...

canceling date nights so that they can afford this one wedding day feels like highly illogical to me.

I've got one particular friend who is having to cancel so much of their like everyday joy to save up for this one big event, which is stressing them both out.

And I don't think they're going to have, well, I don't think he's going to have a great time at the wedding anyway because he seems so stressed by it all.

I just, I sometimes hear that people can't like get out of their marriage without having to like file a divorce

thing with like

the with through lawyers and going to court and battling out in court.

And I just think you should be free to leave if you want to leave.

I don't know.

I just think

this is a terrible terrible analogy and completely unrelated, but like in football, many of the problems we see with

my favorite club, Manchester United, at the moment, is we've got people on five-year contracts who we just can't get rid of.

And like they want to go, we want them to go, but because we sign these long contracts with them, it's like incredibly difficult.

And now these players are being thrown in the back room and they're not playing football.

And we're like just completely ignoring them because we can't get out the contract.

Yes.

So I don't know.

I just think.

Yeah, I hear you.

I hear you.

All right.

Can we talk about this?

Yes.

All right.

There are many secular marriages, so you don't have to do anything religious related.

And it sounds like a big difficulty that you have, could be the number one, is the wedding.

Because, but the wedding, to me, the premise of it is a public declaration of your love.

And to your point, it could be as small as you want.

It could be as big as you want.

You could have as many as you want, right?

That public declaration could happen 50 times over 50 years.

It is up to you.

So that is you and your partner navigating that space.

With regard to getting out of it, this is the single biggest change that we need in marriages.

Marriages, in my opinion, should be much harder to get into.

You shouldn't be able, like literally, you and your partner could go to Vegas, drive up, so a drive through, you could have an Elvis Presley impersonator marry you, you pay $25,

and you're married.

It's ridiculous.

I think that there needs to be,

there needs to be hurdles in place.

There needs to be some type of vetting, some type of premarital coaching, counseling.

So everyone is aware of the commitment that is about to be made.

And you have the tools, you have skills around conflict management, et cetera.

It needs to be hard.

But then if you want out, you should be able to get out in an hour.

It should be easy.

Drive up, Elvis Presley says it's over $25.

Free.

Yeah.

Yeah, free, right?

That's the way it should be.

But it is

the reverse.

Now,

you're right.

Marriage is hard to get out of.

That's changing.

There's now the introduction, especially in the UK, of the no fault, right?

But that still takes, it still could take six months or so.

There still is a lot of haggle.

So, so I agree with you there is that it should be much easier to get out.

But ultimately, what marriage is, is marriage is a declaration of commitment done in a formal way.

Can you not do that without the marriage?

Like, can you not do a declaration of commitment without having to go to like a church or whatever else and sign documents and stuff?

I don't know.

Is it not possible?

It is.

You know, it is.

It is.

So I think I just have commitment issues.

I think that's probably what it is.

Yeah.

I think that's at the core of it.

Because you know what's so interesting to me is that you're already going to, well, how do I get out of this?

Yeah.

Right.

And it almost feels as if there is a fear

of committing to someone for the rest of your life.

Yeah.

Because that's a massive, I mean, think about this.

You're going to commit to someone for the rest of your life, for the rest of your days.

And what we feel, because i've been there because when i when i'm getting anxiety as you say it i'm like fucking oh the rest of my life the rest of your life

but think about this the anxiety is the fear of what has not even come yet so that means that you can that now interrogate your thoughts

okay

you have fear

over what what's the fear

But isn't it just a terrible idea to commit to someone until death do you part?

Because like imagine if I said to you, you've got to pick a job and then you've got to do it forever.

Yes.

You would, the amount of procrastination that would occur because of the significance of that decision would basically stop you picking any job at all because you'd be like, oh, I've got to pick one and do it forever.

And, you know, you'd be, you'd become a perfectionist.

You know, you'd be looking for perfection in every single job.

And maybe this is in part the issue is that.

Because we see marriage as being such a final thing, that we really have to make sure the pick is perfect.

It's perfect.

I agree.

This is one of the myths, right?

This whole notion of till death do us part, which really was handed to us in religion.

If you look through Christianity, Hinduism, even a lot of the modern day Islamic marriage ceremonies, there's some formation of you will be with this partner for the rest of your life.

And I think what that does is it actually sets us up for a lower level of satisfaction.

It sets us up for complacency.

Oh, this is all we get.

Instead, they can't leave me.

They can't leave me.

So therefore, I don't have to try as hard.

I don't even have to talk to them now.

Yeah.

I don't have to get to the gym.

No, I can just sit here.

So

that is a myth, though, because we know where divorce rates are, separation rates are.

We know that there are.

You can get a divorce.

So you can get out.

She can get out.

We have to put that to the side.

But the key is to think about when I was like interrogate the fears is, well, what's the upside?

What's the upside of having a partner for life?

What would you say?

Upsides.

I mean, I could also name the upsides, I think.

So there's a certain sense of stability and focus that comes when you know that home is kind of locked down.

So as an entrepreneur in particular, I advise anybody that's going to pursue a big, grueling, tumultuous, uncertain challenge like building a business to have a partner at home.

And I know Sir Alex Ferguson was big on this when he was selecting players for Manchester United.

He would often inquire about whether they were in a relationship because if they had a stable home life, then they would be much more focused on the training ground.

And I see that with myself.

You need a stable base.

If you're single, I think as an entrepreneur, it can become an immense distraction.

An immense distraction, because on one hand, you're trying to build something over here and you're trying to build something over here.

I think marriage is useful as well, because

when you know that it's hard to get out of, it means that

exiting isn't the path of least resistance, which means that you probably will go to therapy first and you probably will see if you can fix it and figure it out versus just throwing it away.

Yes.

So it becomes less disposable, which means that you're more likely to fight to fix the thing.

And

what are the other upsides?

I mean, the stats, right?

So the stats around health and wealth all suggest that if you're in a good, productive, healthy relationship, you're going to earn more money.

I think it's 4% more a year in a productive marriage.

Both partners net earn 4% more a year.

And according to Robert Waldinger, who came on the show, you're going to live longer.

So I get it.

And you'll be healthier?

You're going to be healthier.

Yeah, yeah.

Less disease.

Good point, Stephen.

I know.

Do you know what it is?

I'm not trying to throw the marriage out.

I'm wondering if there's an alternative, which, do you know what it is, part of me as well?

If you look at the way I've lived my life, I've always tried to test the system.

So school, like not going to school, dropping out of university, being an entrepreneur.

There's always been a bit of a fuck you in me to the system and a real pause in questioning what I'm being handed as the right answer to interrogate whether it's still valid now.

Okay.

So like many of the answers I was given, you go to university, then you go get a job and then you hand out your CV, all of these things.

proved in my life to just be BS.

There was a better way.

So when I am approached with a conventional system like marriage, immediately I go, hmm, let's interrogate this thing.

And I would say, I'm with you.

Throw the system out.

Think about just one thing.

And you said this, and there's research behind this.

It's the investment model, right, theory.

So

the more you invest

in the preparation of your partnership, in the actual partnership, the more that you're investing time,

all resources, the higher satisfaction you have.

That's fact, right?

That's research.

That's in essence what you're saying, right?

So that's the way that I would approach it is how can I

invest as much as I can in this partnership with this person that I love?

What is it that predicts a successful marriage, in your view?

Well, once again, what is success?

To me, success is high satisfaction.

High satisfaction has a strong correlation around well-being.

Dr.

Carol Riff, I think, is the OG of well-being.

She doesn't get enough credit.

She created a model called the Six Dimensions of Psychological Well-being.

And in essence, if we are working to increase each one of these dimensions, so for example, one is having a vision of your life.

Like, what is that vision that you have for life?

And the question, though, is, do you feel like you are actively in pursuit?

of that vision.

If you don't feel like you know what your vision is or you're not in pursuit of it, you're going to have lower well-being, right?

So the higher well-being that you have individually,

the higher satisfaction you have in your relationship,

the more successful your relationship is.

Are there like fundamental qualities that I should be looking for in a good partner?

Oh yeah, I mean, there's a million, but the core, the core that I like to write about is, and I'll actually,

I'll even synthesize it.

You want to have a partner who is aware of their well-being and who is focused on their well-being.

This is incredibly important because

one of the most profound

bits of research that I feel like I include in the book is that most of us believe that having alignment

in the values of our partner is the most successful or is

the number one determinant of having a successful partnership.

We think it's about values.

We're told it's about values.

We're fed values, which by the way, goes back to, you know where that goes back to?

Religion.

You know how?

Have you heard of, you need to be equally yoked?

No.

Oh, you haven't heard of this?

No, no, no.

You're not reading your Bibles, dude.

Started with his boss man.

All right.

So

the Bible

talks about you have to have a partner.

You have to find a partner who's equally yoked.

What does that really mean?

Equally yoked comes from oxen, right?

So two, you have one ox here, one ox here.

They're tethered together.

They're plowing the land.

If they're walking lockstep, they can plow the land.

If you have one going off this way, one going off this way, you can't plow the land, you can't produce.

So the Bible says you need to have a partner who is equally yoked.

Pastors then interpreted that over the years to be what?

values.

You need to have a partner who shares your values, has the same religion, has the same accent.

This is how we became regimented in class.

This happened century after century after century, right?

We get to today, you ask anyone on the street.

We grab 10 people, nine out of 10 would say, and we said, how important are values?

Nine out of 10 would say, values is everything.

What?

Values change.

They change.

I value things much differently today than I did 10 years ago.

Our values change.

They're not constant.

We need to throw away values.

Are they important?

Yes.

Are they the most important?

No.

So therefore, let's de-emphasize the focusing on finding someone who matches all of our values.

Instead, well-being, key.

Are they focused on their well-being?

That's one.

Two, yeah, values is important.

But you know what?

What's equally, if not more,

is you know what?

How open-minded are they?

How much do they lean in?

How curious are they?

And then a third is how resilient are they?

Because having having a relationship with anyone means tough times.

So are they able to bounce back?

Or when things get tough, do they just lay on their back?

So if you have a partner who's resilient, you've a partner who's open-minded, you have a partner who's focused and nurturing their well-being, you have a great partner.

What about ambition?

Does that matter?

I think ambition is a value set.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, I was just wondering, because a lot of people people would say that they want that in a partner, but just by, I mean, like running the mental numbers, not everybody can be ambitious, and people that aren't necessarily hugely ambitious also find love and keep love.

But when you ask someone what they're looking for, they'll tend to have a preference towards someone who's ambitious or goal-oriented.

One of the things we talked about kind of in between the lines was

how society has changed.

And one of the ongoing conversations in dating at the moment is around how women are struggling to find compatible men because women are more educated.

I think there's more women graduating with college degrees now.

The top 10% of men seem to be having all of the sex, according to some studies that I read, a lot of the sex.

And then there's this bottom 50% of men that are somewhat disenfranchised because

they're not getting the attention.

They're probably turning to things like pornography.

Women are dating up into the right, I'm told.

So women, I did read a study that said the majority of women are still looking for a man who's earning more than them.

But in a world of equality, which we all agree is a good thing, where women are more educated now,

there isn't enough men up into the right anymore.

So there's this sort of disparity between

what women are looking for, but actually what's available in the market potentially.

These are all facts.

However,

we have to interrogate

this data, but more so I think we have to interrogate the narrative that's being handed to us.

So I feel like the narrative that's being handed us today is that, you know, what the top 20% of men or 10% of men, they're good, but the bottom 80%, you suck.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

And I think we have to acknowledge, and this is where

two things could be true.

One, we live in a patriarchal society, absolutely, absolutely.

But do we need to extend more more grace to our men?

Absolutely, we do.

Are men lonelier than they ever have been?

Absolutely.

Are men confused?

Absolutely, right?

Are men being misled?

Absolutely.

Let's extend more grace to our men.

What does that mean?

That means being aware.

that we do live in a loneliness epidemic, being aware that less than 27% of men have a friend that they can feel is a confidant, that 0% of them now feel like they have someone who they can go to at 3 a.m.

in the morning.

It's being aware of these things.

It is saying, you know what?

I

can appreciate other traits and characteristics outside of how much you earn or how tall you are.

These are, it's important to be able to understand.

And you just asked me, you said, what were the most, I said nothing about how much money someone makes, nothing about how tall they are, right?

But at the same time, what we have to understand is the narrative that is handed to about women is that all women are looking for the six foot plus CEO, right, who's making over 100,000 pounds or dollars a year.

And that is also not the case.

This study here says, despite advancements in gender equality, research indicates that better educated women still tend to prefer husbands who earn more than they do.

That's from the Institute for Family Studies.

An analysis of online dating behaviors across 24 countries found that women are more selective than men, showing a marked preference for men with higher incomes and education levels, which again proves this up and to the right thing.

But there's just not enough men up and to the right.

So there's going to be a lot of women that are somewhat dissatisfied according to this.

All right.

So the challenge, if I'm really interrogating this, is one is it's talking about highly educated women.

So we know that highly educated women are on average dating hypergamously, right?

Which is what you're talking about, up.

So someone who's dating someone who has the same or higher level of education, the same or higher level of financial resources.

And why is that?

Because that's the script that society handed to women to say the only way you can survive is by finding a man who can deliver this to you.

Right.

And I think we have to accept where it came from.

It was this terrible society of, you know what, you're not going to be safe unless you find a man who could provide.

But you fast forward to today,

a large percentage of highly educated women are dating this way.

But that's not all women.

The other part is, yes, are women beginning to out-earn men and out-educate men?

Absolutely.

In certain cities,

not in

everywhere of the world, men on average still earn more income.

So if you look at

the narrative that's handed to us, you could say, well, you know what?

Men on average still earn more.

But my point is this.

My point is that I think we all need to reevaluate what it is that we want.

No longer do we need to have a partner for most of us.

Or should I say, this is me speaking out of privilege, for many of us in the West.

No longer do we need to have a partner for pragmatic reasons.

If you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and you just divided it into three categories, you would say the bottom, the bottom kind of rung is all of our psychological and physical needs, food, shelter, right?

Then that kind of middle rung is belonging and connection.

And the top rung is self-evolved, self, you know, we want to be, you know, or, you know, well, self-evolved, living our best self, contributing the most that we ever could to this world.

Marriage and partnership and selecting a partner was largely based on that lower rung all the way through to the 1960s.

That's like yesterday.

If you think about how long we've lived, but isn't that evolution as well?

Because you see the same thing in the animal kingdom with like the orangutan, which has like 98% same DNA as us.

They still select for survival factors.

So I think what's interesting when you look at different mammals

and the

uh the the evolutionary biology is that there's lots of similarities but then there's also lots of traits that are different you know so it's it's one of those where we have to appreciate this as homo sapiens right we are unique and we live in a structure that we have largely created ourselves we're talking we're debating about the institution of marriage i mean marriage didn't exist for the vast majority of our existence.

But this golden rule thing, you told me about this.

Yeah.

And you told me that it's cross-cultural.

Yes.

So it is.

And this golden rule thing, please explain it for people.

But for me, that is evidence that there's still an evolutionary component to selection for men and women.

And I was reading this study that said women,

almost 50% of women prefer to date only men that are taller than themselves, while only 13% of men prefer to date only women that are shorter than themselves.

And another study revealed that women are most satisfied when their partner is approximately eight inches taller, whereas men are most satisfied with a height difference of about eight centimeters taller than their partner.

So women clearly have a preference here, a significant amount of them, to dating a man that is bigger than they are.

Yes.

All right.

Yes.

This is so good.

All right.

A couple of things here.

Do we have these preferences?

Absolutely.

Is a lot of this handed us through evolutionary and our biology?

Absolutely.

Is most of it handed to us through socialization?

Definitely.

Do we change as we increase our well-being?

Yes.

So here's my point.

If you were to go back and say, Zendaya, look, you go back

10 years, say, Zendaya, look, would you prefer to date a man that is taller than you?

I would say there's a good chance she would say, I would prefer it.

Yes.

Has that been her result?

No.

Does she appear to be incredibly happy and satisfied?

Yes.

Right?

With Tom Holland?

That's from my opinion, from my outside looking in?

Yes.

Why could that have been the case?

Because she grew up being handed to script.

She grew up the Disneyfocation of relationships.

She saw the prince and how large the prince always was in comparison to the princess.

She saw that the prince was able to pick up the princess.

Like she saw all of these things, she believed all of these things.

And then as she became more mature, as she realized that she doesn't need anyone's validation, as she understood the things and the traits that she loved, she was like, this Tom Holland guy is hot.

Yeah, but

that is an exception, obviously.

Because also, Tom Holland's got 30 million in the bank.

But this does happen.

You hear the show.

It happens, but it's the exception, isn't it?

It's not the rule.

It is.

And you know why?

Also, that's the exception.

And I agree.

I'm with you.

It's the exception.

Because

most of us have poor well-being.

Most of us have low self-esteem.

Most of us do.

I would argue.

Most adults have low self-esteem, mid to low self-esteem.

And what does that mean?

It means that we need

the validation of others.

Right.

And this is the reason why I always say it goes back to us.

Do you really think this is the answer to this?

Do you not believe that there's a big evolutionary component to attraction selection preferences?

Like, because

I'm struggling to believe that society

is the only reason why we're, why we pick certain people.

And I do part of me wonders and slightly worries that

we've almost accidentally, inadvertently designed society in such a way where what we're looking for no longer exists necessarily.

So we have to confront this new reality that, in fact, we're going to have to adjust some of our preferences if we are going to be happy and find what we're looking for.

Yes.

I do believe that a large percentage of the decisions that we make have been handed to us genetically.

So

I'm with that.

And I think the research suggests that.

So if you have, for example,

You know, I was talking

to Dr.

Tara Swart and talking about, you know, a woman in the club, if she's ovulating or not ovulating, just based on that, men are going to be attracted

or not attracted.

Or you think about scent, right?

Really, what we're trying to do with scent, the reason why we're turned off with scent is that it's genetic.

It's that if we end up mating with someone who has too close of a genetic mirror to ours, the child won't be as strong.

So we need diversification in our genetics.

And we don't realize this, but we can determine that through our scent, by being turned off.

It's a whole sniff test.

So

do genetics play a role?

Absolutely.

Golden mean, we talked about golden mean, where in essence, this is women on average loving to see wide shoulders and a thinner waist.

And men on average loving to see smaller hips,

smaller waist, wider hips.

Now,

can people debate these concepts absolutely do they stand up

I mean are there evolutionary reasons for these

yes because it speaks to being fertile for women or it speaks to being strong to protect right for a man all of this does play a role and sometimes we don't realize how

much of a role evolution has played in why and how we make decisions, which is why it's also important, though, to understand

how the society that we have created as human beings also plays a role.

How we were handed,

you should, you need to have a partner who's the same class as you.

You need to, when you find your partner, that's the person that completes you.

When you find a partner, that's till death do you part.

Those pieces were handed to us.

So there's no wonder why we're confused.

We have all this evolutionary

decision-making happening that we're not even aware of.

And then on this side, we have society telling us this is the person that we should have and this is the reason why.

And I go back to why awareness is key and understanding how and why we are gives us a power.

It gives us autonomy over our decisions so that when you are making that decision on your partner, you can ask yourself, you know,

yeah, I would love to have a partner who's over six feet, but how important is that really to me?

Why, why do I think I feel this way?

Yeah.

And once you begin to have those debates with yourself, that puts you on the path to making a decision that you're going to be more satisfied with in the long haul.

I think that's the key.

And I think the awareness comes from confronting both realities, which is on one hand, there are some evolutionary things that are going to make me have a bias towards a certain type of person that has certain attributes, even if those attributes are actually

not going to lead to a long-term, healthy relationship, like fuck boys.

Like charisma and bravado and confidence is like somewhat attractive, but it might not be a great husband.

And then on the other hand, there is tons of things society has handed me through magazines and media that have portrayed an image of what beauty looks like that are also just bullshit.

I think understanding both is the key to that sort of autonomy.

Being able to say, actually, I understand where that's coming from in me, but I will make a rational prefrontal cortex decision to select something else.

Some evidence of this, the evolutionary basis of attraction, comes in this idea that people who have symmetrical faces are more beautiful and more attractive across cultures.

Is that true?

Yes.

So there are many scientists that will say absolutely.

But here's what one thing I know definitively about attraction is attraction to someone else is largely based on your self-esteem.

And this is what I mean is that the lower your self-esteem, the more dependent you are on the validation of the public.

So therefore, you will want to have a partner who is considered to be

attractive.

So if society, if the script is that symmetry is it, or if the script is

wearing

this type of trainer is it, if that's what society is saying, then if you have low self-esteem, you want a partner to look like that because you need the validation of the partner.

However,

whenever you see, this is what I

say, whenever you see someone who's walking around with a partner and you think, how did those two get together, right?

Chances are there's an element.

And remember, I'm not talking about one as super high income or one as super high status.

I'm just talking about you look

at a couple and you say, they look odd, right?

One of them could be traditionally attractive, one of them might not.

Normally what's happened is that you have someone with high self-esteem who has

no

need

for the public's validation of their partner at all.

What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode.

If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below.

Check the description.

Thank you.