Kurt Nelson 0:07 Welcome to behavior grooves. My name is Kurt Nelson Tim Houlihan 0:10 and I'm Tim Houlihan, and today, Kurt and I are tackling a question that's quietly sitting inside a lot of relationships. That question is, what happened to the person that I knew. Kurt Nelson 0:21 Yeah, now, Tim, you and I are both in long term relationships that are going really well, Tim Houlihan 0:28 agreed, absolutely, yeah, yeah, they're Kurt Nelson 0:30 fantastic, right? And truly, but that's not the situation that everybody has. And so, why is that happening? And so so much of relationship advice is focused in on the beginning, on kind of that new part of a relationship, new part of friendship. How do you get new friends, right? But what about those middle years we've known all of us? I can I can hope, not maybe hope, but think that we've all known people who have that disorienting moment when they look at someone they've known for years, their partner, a friend, maybe even a relative, and they think this isn't the person who I used to know. It's not the person that I knew 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Or maybe it's this idea that maybe it's not that person, maybe it's that I'm no longer that person that I was, and they haven't changed with me. Yeah? Tim Houlihan 1:29 You know, sometimes those kinds of questions come up out of sheer curiosity, but all too often they come with grief or frustration, maybe even betrayal, Kurt Nelson 1:40 yeah, yeah, because change in those close relationships doesn't always feel like evolution. It can really feel like a loss, and relationship loss can be a lot harder than losing money, even a lot of money, or favorite shirt I don't know you're crashing your car or losing like a preference or a habit, it can really feel like you lost a version of the person who you had this deep connection with that you knew really well. What happened? What happened to them that was the person I loved that I cared for. Tim Houlihan 2:21 Yeah, well, behavioral science can help explain a lot of why this hits so hard. We tend to think of personality as something that's fixed, but the short story is also a very hard truth, personality is not fixed. People change across all sorts of life transitions, job and career shifts, kids, relocation, illness, personal growth, our wiring shifts, the story shifts. The fact is, we do change. Kurt Nelson 2:50 Yeah, and here's where it gets complicated, right? In modern relationships, we aren't in romantic common relationships. We're not just expecting companionship. We talked with Eli Finkel, who's a psychology professor and researcher at Northwestern University, and he talks about this research that indicates that we expect an all or nothing relationship, one that helps us not just have companionship, but actually that we grow, that we self actualize, that we come the best selves all in one is part of this connection Tim Houlihan 3:36 that we have. It's a big burden to bear, really, yeah, and that means that when one person changes in a relationship, whether it's your partner or a family member or yourself, that you get back to this feeling of betrayal. It can be really strong, and it can feel like this whole shared life project that you've been in together has just been changed dramatically, and that can be really rough on us. Yeah, so today, and what we're going to groove on, we're asking some hard but important questions about relationships that we've Kurt Nelson 4:11 been motoring along for some time in this relationship, and maybe we have that moment where it's like, holy crap. What's going on, you know, and are the changes that we see in our partner or friend or family member? Is that a growth? Is it a growth in who they are and what we are? Or is it an escape? Is it something that we're like, they're going in a different direction? Is it a shift in style? Is it a shift in substance? Is it about values changing? Is it about the environment changing? Is it the is it our capacity for that shifting, that movement? It's just strained us and makes it really difficult? Yeah, maybe Tim Houlihan 4:58 the most important question. Question is, are we grieving the loss of who they were, or are we really struggling just to update our own story of who we are in the present moment? So if you've ever said or even silently wondered what happened to the person I knew, well, hopefully this episode's for you. Kurt Nelson 5:19 All right. So Tim, where, where do we want to go? Where, where do we want to start with this? Tim Houlihan 5:27 Well, I, for me, like the most important thing to get into my head is that people actually do change, right? Yeah, well, long term relationships always involve change, but oftentimes, if the relationship's good, it just feels like it's natural. Everything's working great. But if it's not in perfect harmony, it can feel painful when a partner or a loved one or a family member a friend, when they change and they come into they become something that we think of as, like a different person. Kurt Nelson 6:00 Yeah, and it gets really difficult when that personality change isn't just cosmetic that there, it appears that there's some fundamental shift in potentially values, in world outlook, in things that are of importance, where we place our focus and emphasis. And that's many of the stories that I hear about couples that are going through divorce or separation or having difficulty. It also is in many of the conversations that we have with friends and people who are talking about family members who they love. Have you know that children who are feeling like their parents have gone from this loving, caring person who taught me to, you know, be a good person in this world and to protect my love, my neighbors and different things, and now they're in a different side of a political spectrum. That kind of forces us into saying, hey, here we go. So it's hard, but people do change, yeah, and Tim Houlihan 7:19 look in the mirror. So, yes, right? Kurt Nelson 7:22 It may not be. They might be the same person. Well, you're the one who shifted. Well, we've all Tim Houlihan 7:29 probably shifted. We've longitudinal studies find that, you know, partners, personalities do change over time, and that's not always perfect, and it's not always at the same pace, and we're going to get to this a little later, but there is the possibility of creating a sense of who are you now that would make sense about any relationship with with any person, whether it's a family member or a friend or a romantic partner. Who are you now and then asking the same thing of yourself, I think is an important part of that as well. Kurt Nelson 8:02 Yeah, and just, just on those, back to those longitudinal studies. So what the study found is that those personalities tend to change somewhat the same direction, so generally, not necessarily at the same time, but it is directionally we often go that personality shifts. And that's, that's the standard. That's kind of where I if I look back on my life with with Aaron, and the relationship that we've had, we're not the same people that we were in our late 20s, early 30s when we met. You know now at 58, years old, I am a very different person. It's been almost 30 years. And every decade, you can look back and go, I'm a little bit more this way. I'm a little bit more that way. And over time, that is a pretty big difference between the Kurt at 2930 years old and the Kurt at almost 60 years old, and Aaron is the same thing, but we have shifted in a general similar vein. Now, is it exact? No, but that's okay, because it's generally pushing and I think many times we we are looking at this that you know, if we haven't shifted in that same if we've drifted more apart in that longitudinal personality change, that's where this, this difference comes in. Yeah, yeah. Tim Houlihan 9:34 My first marriage ended because of a variety of things that stemmed from growing apart, stemmed from living lives that weren't well organized in a congruency fashion. And I learned that it's not about, you know, it's not about judging me and saying, Oh, I totally screwed up. I didn't know that this person was going to be like. Like, well, nobody knew. We can't we. We have no foresight into the future. So it's not that I I misjudged my partner at the start. That wasn't it, but we both lived through experiences that are literally rewiring the way that we look at the world, and it's just that her requiring ended up taking her in one direction, and my rewiring took me in a different direction. Kurt Nelson 10:25 I think that's a fantastic way of thinking about this, right? Because so often we do it's like, Were you always this person? And maybe there's some components of that, that there's some truth, but for the most part, it is that that the lived experience that you have is rewiring how you see yourself. There's a combination of who that person is at a core, deep set value place, but more likely, it's those small changes that are being driven by the world that they're experiencing, and particularly if that experience is not aligned with yours, that you're getting different news information, if you're talking to different people, if that You're having different friend groups who are doing different activities. Those can all be part of this moving apart that happens slowly. It's usually not, usually not a like, oh my gosh, you hit your head and you're a totally different person, you know? But, you know, there's not a Phineas Gage here, right? Tim Houlihan 11:39 No, very, very rarely, no. And I know that we are reason seeking machines, but asking, Why did you change is really not the most valuable question to answer. I think, I think the more valuable question to answer is to look in the mirror and say, Well, how do we deal with the changes that are already a part of what, what we're living through, and if we want to continue this relationship, how do we how do we find common ground? How do we get to a place where we're going to see where we're at, not so much dwell on the well, why what? Kurt Nelson 12:15 What you used to be like this and you're not like that anymore. Why did you change? Why not happen? I think it's a really important piece to focus in on looking at where you are now, and part of that conversation, and this is difficult, but sometimes that part of that conversation is, do we want to continue? If this is the way that you are now, this is the way that I am, is there any way to come back to something that we had? And oftentimes there can be, then, not saying that that is not a possibility, but oftentimes, maybe it's just, it's better for both parties to say, let's not have this. But there are some drastic changes. A good friend of mine haven't really talked with in 1015, years, and sometimes, you know, there's overlap in things, and it's just, it's it's hard. Tim Houlihan 13:24 So do you regret? I'm just curious not to get to psychotherapy on you but, but you know, before we started recording, I mentioned that I know of some adult parents who have adult children who don't have ongoing relationships with a couple of their kids, and they're okay with it. They don't regret they actually kind of frame it as sad as it is. They frame it as a sort of a respect thing, both a respect for themselves, like this is where I want my life to be, and respecting that this one child of theirs is going in a different direction, and they're sort of respecting that, and yet what I hear in your voice is a sense of regret or sadness. Kurt Nelson 14:09 Kurt, yeah, I think that there is a sadness because there was a friendship there that I thought had some value and meaning and brought joy, right? He's a fun guy. He's like, you know, he was the crazy guy. And would, you know, push us sometimes too far, right? But you sometimes need some of those people in our lives. And then, you know, he, you know, and I'm sure I changed. I'm sure this part of it, and there's part of this too, but, but there was a, you know, come to Jesus moment with him, and became very religious. And with that. Religious came a big shift to a conservative political viewpoint, such to the point of like, not, you know, I have many people in my life who are gay or lesbian, and he found them to be abominations, and, you know, various different pieces. And was loud about that. And, yeah, so to the that point I am sad of losing that relationship. Am I regretting, like leaving that no, because I am not going to have in my life somebody who has counter beliefs to some core values that I hold dear, and, you know, that just doesn't make for a good life. So to that point of trying to do, I try to repair or find common ground. You know, no, that decision was made long time ago. Oh, okay, that that there, there isn't going to be common ground. So to your point of the people that you've talked with, again, I find that sad and particularly family. Yeah, and you know, if this was family, Tim Houlihan 16:21 there's research that supports this idea that we, we will put an inordinate amount of effort into trying to keep a relationship alive that isn't worth it, basically, that's not really helping us and keeping those doors open when they don't need to be Open. And I know that same tendency, I can easily connect to that at the same time, I think it's I think it's a better behavioral model to say it's okay to let that door close. Kurt Nelson 16:55 I'm laughing because I'm taking this back to the business world where you know this idea of hiring an employee, and then we invest all of this time, energy and money, even after we've realized that they are not a good fit, and instead of trying to change that person or fit the systems in order. I mean, you take that, you do those initially, but pretty quickly you should, it's fire fast, right? It's like, you know, that person is an emotional contagion on the team, or it's just bringing everybody down because their work isn't up to par. They're not doing the job, and so other people are having to fill in. You know, the best solution is, oftentimes making getting rid of that person, not trying to fix that person, and it parlays over into what you were just saying and but it's hard. Our natural inclination is, you know, I've invested in you. There's some sunk costs here. Yeah, yeah. Tim Houlihan 17:59 Okay, I want to, I want to move on to the second thing that I wanted to talk about here. But we talked to Eli Finkel about the Michelangelo phenomenon, and we should talk about that for just a minute, but, but this, it's connected to this idea of the self expansion theory that says that that when, when we're motivated to grow in a way that includes our partner, then we, we end up growing in this self expansion way that we expand from just me into we and this is, this is pretty cool stuff, because in healthy phases, partners end up sharing new activities and values and skills and and that makes life bigger than me. It. It actually life becomes we in a really positive sense, right? And, and the Michelangelo phenomenon, actually. Kurt you wanted to explain the Michelangelo phenomenon. Finkel talks about, Kurt Nelson 19:00 yeah, so the Michelangelo phenomenon is this idea. Michelangelo talked about sculpting, and in his sculpting work, he said, I'm not creating the sculpture. The sculpture is revealing itself, and I'm just, you know, breaking off the other parts of the marble to reveal the statue that's already within. So it's this idea of you're not creating something, you're revealing this truth that is underneath it all. And there's an aspect of partnerships that that can happen, that that other person sees the real you sees that inside person, and you've talked about this with like you and Katie, that Katie is that sculptor for you. Tim Houlihan 19:49 She is, she is. I've never felt so much me than when I'm with her in the we sense. Because. Because she has done a fantastic job of chipping away, of helping me chip away at all the things that aren't fully me. Yeah, and and so it's incredibly revealing and incredibly binding to think about all that we've been through in the last 13 years, that we've been together, that there is this sense of we, that's, that's that continues to get closer to who our individual me's are, in a way that ends up building the we part we have this expansive experience of being together. And it's, it's just like I never imagined, I never imagined being me to this degree, Kurt Nelson 20:44 I mean, and this is a little bit of Hallmark, kind of component, and different aspects of it, but, but you've seen those old, cute couples that they look alike, they dress alike, and they're just So like each other, they can finish each other's sentences. And it's just, it's that, you know, I often like I would aspire to I want, and we talk about it from a romantic partner and that. But this, to a certain degree, happens with friends. It happens with family, children, adults, various, you know, parents, that all happens. And the part that I think you talked about at the very beginning, when you started to talking about self expansion theory, was this, when we're motivated to grow and include our partner in that this idea of living, these shared experiences, even when I may not necessarily think that I want to become a go cross country skiing. Aaron loves cross country skiing, you know, not the big thing for me, but I will go cross country skiing with Aaron because I know how much it means to her. And you know, Tim Houlihan 22:02 how does that make you feel? Kurt Nelson 22:05 You know, I it actually makes me feel good. There's a part of that that is right. Hey, I can find some joy in cross Tim Houlihan 22:15 country skiing, right? It's more about cheerleading than naysaying, basically, right, right. It's you Kurt Nelson 22:23 come up with the best slides. How do you Well, I get that. Tim Houlihan 22:28 I get that when, if we think about this outside, actually in any relationship, that if we start to cheerlead this, this different aspect, this unique aspect of who that other person is, there's that concern, like, if I support you in this change, I might lose you and and I think that we underestimate the value of just spending time together, because when in doubt, if we do spend time together, this self expansion can happen more naturally. It's the isolation that ends up fostering more of the if I support you in this change, I'll lose you, yeah, Kurt Nelson 23:11 yeah, beautiful, yeah. I think the the intentionality about that, I think, is really important. It's the you know, Adam Grant had given take as this kind of, you know, book. It was business kind of focus. But there's an aspect of that. There is a there's a give, intentionally giving and taking in a relationship where, right, you know, there's some reciprocity there I will, I will give to you, and this is the other important piece, I think we didn't necessarily talk about here, is that that you know, I will learn to go skiing with you, but now you need to, you need to reciprocate. You need to be able to maybe go to the opera, or whatever else it is that you may not love, but Tim Houlihan 24:05 I do, ideally in less than a transactional way. Yeah, right. Very quick. Pro quo, Kurt Nelson 24:12 yeah, oh, I went skiing with you once. Now you have to go to this opera, and that was for a full day in the opera. So, yeah, I get three operas that you get, you know, yeah, that's not how this works. But there is that aspect of, I want to share my passions with you, and I want to, you know, be a part of your passions as well. Okay, but is there something that we can find to do together that is a it's some meeting in the middle to a Tim Houlihan 24:42 degree too, right? And I think that that's really an interesting thing to think about is, what could that be? What if it's cooking? What if it's, you know, Annie Duke always talked about, you know, getting the great Salmon Recipe from somebody that she doesn't appreciate. I won't go into that, but. Like, is there a new project or a new skill or an adventure or something that could be developed or identified that might bring people together rather than just pulling us apart and with the proviso that maybe being a part is better, but I'm also a fan of if, if you have that desire to maintain that relationship or amplify the good things in that relationship. Look for the opportunities for self expansion and for building a we Kurt Nelson 25:29 So Kurt, how about you? What happens when 10 years, 20 years into a relationship, and you're looking at that person or that family member who you you know, that father or mother or uncle that you used to adore, that you said taught you so much, is now either a woke, crazy person and you're not or hard, right, you know mega person and You You just don't know, like, what happened to you, you used to be and now. So how do we, how do we reconcile that, and what do we do with that? Tim Houlihan 26:12 Yeah, well, I think part of it is has to do with sort of framing the way that we think about our relationship, like if we, if we hinge our relationship on just the most fragile parts, then we're not really doing service to our relationship with that person, right? Maybe, maybe we need to kind of think about it in terms of, like, are we the kind of people in the relationship that we have that, you know, like, is going to be perfect all the time. Well, no, are we the kind of people who solve problems that maybe we look for opportunities, that try to figure something out, and if we are the kind of people that are willing to engage in that, then let's do that. Let's, let's work for through the sacrifice, you know, work for the adventure. Try to find some kind of stable ground that we might be working in. Kurt Nelson 27:06 It comes back as again. We come back whenever we talk about this kind of thing, to Kwame Christian and to having some compassionate curiosity about that other person, and I think it's good goes along with our conversation about finding common ground that we've had over the past couple weeks as well, in both parties have to be open to this relationship. Is in my views on what I want out of this relationship are so different that we have to both be willing to be open to having that conversation, to working on the relationship. And part of that comes into identifying like, well, maybe I need to shift. Maybe I can't expect you to do be the only person in this partnership to change your views, to change your ideas, and that's hard. Tim Houlihan 28:14 We're not that fragile. No, we're just not that fragile. We are incredible human beings are so incredible at adapting. We'll figure it out. So we kind of have to be willing to go with the flow. I think to some degree, part of that is, if you want Kurt Nelson 28:32 it, if you Yeah. And then again, I go back to that relationship with my friend, where it was a part where it's like, no, this is not worth salvaging for me. This is it's, you know what? I just have to, have to be sad about the loss of what we had, but be happy, because I'm not going to be a part of that. And it wasn't, it wasn't a we can meet in the middle. There was no middle to be had, Tim Houlihan 29:05 yeah? So, Kurt Nelson 29:08 so I wanted to go into this a little bit, because I think there's an aspect of this is for ourselves, is that when we think about some of this stuff, there's this idea of a say, do gap right? Our preferences don't always align with our behavior. So now, if we willing, if we're willing to go into this, we might have preferences and ideas about ourselves and what motivates us in different pieces. Tim Houlihan 29:34 And the research bears this out on a lot of different levels. We see this come to life Paul eastwick's work, you know, indicates that we think that we have this preference, this set of preferences. It's going to be this kind of person that I'm going to be attracted to. It's going to be this type of person or the look of this person, when in reality, our preferences ended up actually end up being shaped by. The quality of the relationship that we build. So by getting to know someone by by getting to know someone who they are today. So when it comes to the crazy uncle Ralph, are we thinking about who, who crazy uncle Ralph is today? Like, where? Where is uncle Ralph coming from right now? As opposed to trying to think about who they should be, or or who we thought that they were. It's not so much about sometimes it can get more about our story, about who we think they are, and less about who they actually are. Kurt Nelson 30:32 And I love talking about powerful preferences, this idea that preferences evolve so those preferences are malleable and they're not. That is some of the best research. I mean that I think that Paul talks about, and I probably have misrepresented it to that degree. But there's an aspect of that that I think is just really interesting Tim Houlihan 30:55 well, and just to go out on a little bit, actually, this is a quite a long limb, but bear with me for just a second. It could break, okay, but, but this lack of understanding our real motivations underneath what our preferences are, also shows up in the business world when it comes to what reward will engage us the most with the most motivation, right? And I have to come back to this, because over and over again, we see all these people who say one thing, no, this is what will motivate me. This is how I'm motivated. This is the kind of person I am. And they it gets built up in this story that is just not accurate, because when they actually do this the test, and they and they give someone a different reward, they're motivated in a way that they didn't believe they were going to be motivated. Kurt Nelson 31:48 I know the performance bears that out. It's like you it does. Here's a control, here's reward a that you preferred, but here's reward B that you said, I don't want that performance goes way up with reward B, more so than reward a so. Tim Houlihan 32:06 Or if, if you said, Okay, what is going to motivate me to save on my electric bill by, you know, turning down my thermostat a little bit? Oh, that's going to be about, you know, money, or it's going to be about the virtuous aspect of future generations or something like that. Nobody says it's going to be about me realizing that my neighbors are spending less on their electric bill than I am. And yet, what actually changes our behavior is discovering that your neighbors are spending less on their electric bill than you are. Yes, we Kurt Nelson 32:39 can go to like even, do you want to talk to some stranger on the train, or do you want to just be quiet with your podcast and kind of everybody picked I want to be focused in on, like my book or my podcast or whatever it is, and not engage. And yet, when they engaged, what did they find? They found that they were happier, had a better train ride when they interacted with that other person. This all comes down to, I think, one of the most fundamental things, we think we know ourselves. We think we know our preferences, our motivations, our drives, our desires, and we are horrible at predicting those things, what will make us happy, what will get us out of bed and be working, and that is in part with relationships as well. And if we just go off of what we think is going to like, what I want in this relationship, without having that connection and really working through it and experiencing it, it's going to be less. Tim Houlihan 33:56 Thank you for making that limb feel like it's not quite so skinny. Kurt Nelson 34:01 It was a big, thick branch. It was like that, the split. It was a big part. It wasn't a little narrow thing. You could, you could do a, you know, a dance on that limb. Tim Houlihan 34:13 Okay, Kurt, what can we do about this? We've, we have waxed lengthy on this, but what? What are some frameworks and some ways of thinking about this, this, this dealing with the I don't recognize you as the person that I thought you were. Kurt Nelson 34:28 One way of thinking about this is, are we focused in on the person and who they are, or is it the settings, the environment, the context, Tim Houlihan 34:42 or who we think they are like, who we think they are too, right? Kurt Nelson 34:46 And who we think they should be in this situation. So again, as we think about when we were dating, we were, we were, you know, started off single, and now we're in a dating relationship, and then we get married. Well, there's different. Roles now we might start a family, it's with young kids, and then families change into teenagers, and then grown adults and roles within work change and roles within community change. Yeah, I Tim Houlihan 35:15 think the second thing to think about is, is it about growth, or is it about escape? And rather than first asking this question about the other person, think about it for yourself. Think about it for yourself as as a as just a rubric to say, am I motivated to change this person because I want them to grow, or because I want to escape? Like, where, Where's, where's this fit? Or maybe I framed that wrong. It could be, do I want to grow? Do or do I want to escape? Versus, do I want them to grow? Or are they really escaping? And both, you know, both of those things can be true in different ways, but having an understanding about where we fit on this, this scale of sometimes getting back to not knowing our own motivations might be blinding us from knowing when I feel this sense of movement, I might be misconstruing it as a desire to grow, when really it's a desire to escape, or vice versa. Kurt Nelson 36:20 When you say escape, what do you mean? Expand on what escape is, escape pain, Tim Houlihan 36:27 escape, escape. You know, the challenges in the relationship, Kurt Nelson 36:31 uncommon feeling, yeah, of Tim Houlihan 36:35 or in the most dramatic sense, escape the relationship. Okay, you know that's, the most dramatic. But I think asking ourselves that and thinking about that model is could be valuable for us. Kurt Nelson 36:50 Yeah, I think there's an interesting part of that, and I've seen this is that I've seen couples friends who like, it's been 20 years that they've talked about getting out of this relationship. And, you know, there's an actual aspect of it that they're not even trying, like growth or like they want to escape. They've realized that this person isn't what I want, but it's easier to stay in the relationship. That's negative, horrible, bad, yeah, because it's, it's the it's, you know, status quo, it's the devil that we know. It's what I know. We'd have to figure out what to do with the kids, or split the house or, yeah, again, I don't have research. Maybe some you know relationship experts will come in and say, No, that's not true. Your children will be better if you stay together. But I don't see that in in the relationships that I've seen that are going through that and the families that they're dealing with Tim Houlihan 37:59 so well, and like all things. These are context specific situations. Yeah, exactly, yeah. What else? Tim, well, there's the there's a question about looking at, you talked about substance early, earlier, and is it about a change in substance versus just a change in in capacity? Like it's possible that people can change in ways that, again, assuming that we're all changing, that everybody's changing, is it possible that that person really has a different set of values, that this they have substantially changed in terms of their their views about all kinds of things you talked about, you know, someone who went from being kind of a wild and crazy guy to being to becoming very, very conservative. I mean, that's a substantial change, and that's different from just being having a change in capacity, which is more about burnout or depression, or might even have to do with addiction or trauma like I think we can give some people grace. We need to give people grace when it's a capacity compromise, rather than just an actual, substantial change in who they see themselves as and how they want to live in the world. Kurt Nelson 39:15 All right, so I'm, I'm gonna take this. Have you watched the pit. Do you know that show? Yes, yes. Noah Wiley, right? Wiley, yeah, doctor, hospital, emergency room. There was an episode the other night that I watched that had this guy come in who was had fallen, hit in his head and broken like a wrist or something, and so he's in there, but his emotions were shifting, like, the nurse was going in, the doctor was going in, it was all over the board, right? And, like, one time he's really nice and kind, and the next he's, like, angry. Like, why, why am I here? You just, you just get me out of here? Well, the test came back, and they found that he had a. Tumor in his head, and you could see, and this is, I think, a really well done show, is that they the wife who had moved on, started asking the doctor, like he had changed, could this growth had been there eight years down, 10 years ago? And yeah, it could have been, could this have impacted his behavior? Can change him from the person I knew to this other person? Capacity? The doctor said yes, and you could see on her face the pain. It was interesting. It was it's that part, but the idea of that is you should have some grace, because there might be other factors that are coming in to this and trying to discern, is this truly a personality shift, that they went from This person to this person, or is there some factors that, as you said, capacity in this? Yeah, yeah. Tim Houlihan 41:06 So that's a great example. Actually, that is a great example, and we can see it if we, if we are willing to let go of that attribution bias that says, oh, when it happens to me, it's my capacity, but when it happens to them, it's about because they're a dumb, Kurt Nelson 41:23 yeah, they're short with me because they're, they're just mean and uncaring. I'm short with them because I've had a super rough day, and I it was the, you know, straw at the end of the the end of the day that just broke, right? Tim Houlihan 41:37 So, yeah, well, and, and lastly, there is this, this kind of, this underlying question about our connectivity to the relationship that if part of our identity was in, wrapped up in who we thought, that that person needed to be for us, that can, that can be problematic, right? That that, rather than thinking about who they really are, if we get too caught up in this story, this narrative of Who do I need this person to be, or who should they have been? For me, Kurt Nelson 42:13 who should you be as a father? You should be like this, like the pedestal I hold my father up, and you should act and behave exactly like he did, or whatever, that ideal is, that expectation about how you work? Where did that come from? Is that truth? Is it the reality of the world? Yeah, both Tim Houlihan 42:37 of those things, is it actually true and is it reflect reality are important questions to ask in kind of a very honest way. And I think that those, those are some ideas that you can use to kind of go, okay, where really are things with this person that I am having trouble connecting with today, that I don't recognize this person today? Think about, I think to think about yourself to some degree, Kurt Nelson 43:03 and which is a big piece of this. Because I think the one of the key questions is, did Tim Houlihan 43:10 you change, or did I change? And the truth of it is probably we both changed. Probably you're looking at them going look at how much you've changed, when, in reality, you both have changed, and you just haven't changed in the same direction. Yeah. So you might actually start that with with a conversation that says, This is how I remember who I thought we were like, This is who I how I think about us, how do you think about us, and how do you remember us? Yes, right? Having that compassionate curiosity, having that sense of like, let's actually try to understand where we're at right now Kurt Nelson 43:53 well, and what's informing that? Yeah, I love that question, because it brings us back to that time when it was we both are looking at this as this was good. What was the good qualities about this, right? And then I think, you know is that we've talked about this, so we have that looking back, how I remember who we were? How do you remember it? What were, where did we what were we doing good? You know? Now, then you can ask the subsequent question. Is, when you look at yourself? Now, what do you see is different about you? And ask that question and answer that question to that other person, for them about yourself, like when I look at myself. Now, compared to that person I was when I'm 30, what feels most different for me and have that conversation. Tim Houlihan 44:49 Another way of thinking about this might be to ask yourself that question about, if I were to write the next chapter of my life, what would I think that. What my next chapter is going to look like, or if you're writing the chapter together, what would you want the theme of that chapter to be in your in your relationship with this other person? Unknown Speaker 45:12 You know it's okay to think. Tim Houlihan 45:14 It's okay to think futuristically and to leverage our imagination to say, what could it be? Unless that helps us plot a course. Kurt Nelson 45:23 Yeah, again, I think that's a nice way of thinking about this. There's the looking backwards, looking at the reality of what is today now and then looking forward, right? And any one of those is good, but when you combine all three, they think big takeaway relationships are dynamic, right? They're these systems, and there's turbulence throughout. And it doesn't mean, like a little turbulence and plane doesn't mean it's going to crash, and we just have to get through that, or do we not right? There's a renegotiation of things in relationships, and they're evolving. And make sure you're you're being intentional about that evolution. Tim Houlihan 46:17 Yeah, so it just makes me think about this. What chapter are you in now? Where are you now? Where is this other person right now? And when you think about who you are, how do you remember it? When you think about them, how do you remember them compared to where you're at right now? And then maybe, as you said, Kurt take that from the past into the present of the reality and then into what's the dream state for the future? What's What? What? What would be that ideal future? Take it full circle, Kurt Nelson 46:53 yeah, because the person you knew was just as real then as they are today. Today's person is just as real as that person you knew back then. The question isn't whether the change happened or that change is happening. It's like, what are we going to do about that change? It's is that change acceptable? And can we change moving forward in a way that we grow together, or do we make that change where we grow apart? And this is hard because we want to hang on and particularly like again, that the story of like, just disconnecting from your kid is so difficult for me to think, because I can't envisioning that. Dan Pink, right? We talked to him about regret, and the biggest regret is, like those lot, one of the biggest regrets was the lost relationships, those friends who we just didn't connect with. We got had some falling out. Maybe it was a big fight. Maybe it was just a slowly, gradual part, it's the children that we don't talk I mean, at our deathbed, we we regret those things we didn't do, the reach out the connections that we didn't make, and so try to figure that out. So yeah, Tim Houlihan 48:15 so if you have that regret, if that's the story that you have in your in your mind, if that's the story that you've told yourself for a year, or five years or 10 years, about something that didn't go well, and you haven't reached out, you haven't tried to build that bridge. Then act on that, act on that, live in the real world and allow, allow yourself to do that, that 360 cycle of engaging with that person, and what was their shared past like? What is the current life like, and what could be the potential future, I think, and Kurt Nelson 48:52 that's hard, and so, yeah, I mean, it's easier to take the easy way out and ignore it or push it away or just not deal with it, but do that hard work and try, because you'll live like the regret hopefully won't be there. So absolutely. All right. Well, thank you for listening and for grooving with us. It is so appreciated, and hopefully Tim Houlihan 49:20 there's some value until next time grooves, we hope that you're able to take some of these ideas that we've shared today and that you use them, maybe even this week, maybe with a relationship that you have, and ultimately, You use them to help you find your groove. You you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai