How to Spot a Narcissist, Why People Cheat, and What Makes Relationships Last with Kevin Nahai

(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Happy Go Lifestyle Podcast with Sarah Farouz, your destination for all things health, wellness and mindset. Each week, we explore ways to elevate your life through holistic living, self-growth, relationships, motherhood, divorce, and reinventing yourself after life's changes. My goal is that you leave every episode feeling inspired, empowered, and ready to embrace life with purpose, joy, and confidence in living your best life. Kevin Ahai is a life and relationship coach, therapist, couples counselor and author practicing in Beverly Hills, California. He earned his master's and bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California and takes us straightforward and solution oriented approach to improving the challenges in our lives and relationships. I had an enlightening conversation with Kevin where we delved into the intricate dynamics of love and relationships, exploring why many partnerships fail, not due to surface issues, but because of deeper challenges, such as ego, selfishness, and a lack of awareness. We discussed attachment styles and how understanding them can transform the way we connect with others. We touched on the struggles many women face with self-worth and how small shifts in self-love can lead to significant changes in relationships. Kevin also revealed why couples often remain stuck in conflicts for years, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing your partner's needs over your ego as a key to successful relationship. Throughout our conversation, we explore the true meaning of emotional fulfillment and how its absence can lead to infidelity. We discussed whether love at first sight really exists and he offered practical strategies for rekindling long-term marriages. Whether you're single and dating, engaged or married, this episode will provide hope and clarity, proving that lasting love isn't just a fairy tale, but a skill that can be learned and cultivated. This episode is perfect for anyone ready to upgrade the relationship game, break free from old patterns, or simply understand love on a deeper level. Get ready to rethink everything you thought you knew about love, commitment and self-growth. My conversation with Kevin Nahai is one that you won't wanna miss. Kevin, welcome to the podcast. - Thank you, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me on. - I'm so excited you're here and I'm so excited for this episode. It's gonna be really fun and we're gonna talk about all of my favorite topics such as relationships, marriage, love, dating, self-love and everything in between. So it's gonna be a lot of fun. - You've been through it all. - I've been through it all. I've come full circle. - I really enjoyed connecting with you and learning about your story. And I'm sure it's an inspiration to your listeners. And we had one phone call for 20 or 30 minutes, but we covered a lot of ground and it seemed like we had a lot to talk about. So I'm glad we're reconnecting. - Yeah, and I have to say that I recently came across your Instagram as I told you on the call. And I immediately knew that I had to have you on my show because you have such a clear and eloquent way of breaking down relationships, teaching us, how to navigate them, how to interact with one another and really just how to understand our own behaviors. So I'm really, really excited for this discussion today. - Thank you so much, me too. - So I know you see a lot of couples in your practice. I'm curious what are some of the common challenges you're seeing couples face. - Great question. Well, I could say it runs the gamut. I see couples who deal with infidelity, family problems, empty nesting or going through different phases in life, but that's kind of the surface level content of what's happening. The themes that couples usually struggle with are on is the relationship growing or is it dying? Two, is there communication day after day, month after month improving or is it stagnating or has it actually gotten worse? And that includes their conflict resolution. And three, to what extent are they working on themselves as individuals and how is that permeating the relationship? You can survey 100 different couples and they'll all have 100 different issues. But usually whatever the surface level issue is stems from one of those three overarching issues, which are again, is the couple growing together? Are they converging closer in their values and their commitment to each other and prioritizing each other? Is there communication improving and is there conflict resolution improving and is each individual in the relationship growing on their own and improving their own character flaws? When there's an issue in one of those three themes, it gives way to all sorts of issues to pop up. And when I think about my own relationships in the past that have gone south, I don't know if this is relevant to you as well, I can definitely pinpoint how something in one of those three areas was fundamentally missing. Yeah. And then it has a snowball effect. I would say communication has been the biggest experience for me that has made a big difference in the relationship. Would you say that women are better communicators than men? No, not necessarily. I would say it is thought that women are better communicators than men because women tend to be more in touch with their emotions than men and they tend to have less of an ego than men. So you would think that that sort of naturally correlates with being a better communicator. But that is not always the case because it tends to be easier for men to take responsibility. We're not talking about a man who has a narcissistic personality to sort or some type of serious complex. But in general, I find that it's easier for men to say, I'm sorry, I was wrong, I will change. And it's easier for men to own their mistake. Whereas women tend to feel accused and tend to feel criticized and that causes them to put defenses up, right? Now, there are men who are people pleasers who are very passive and very submissive. There are women who are people pleasers and very passive and submissive. So I can't say that it's always a male versus female issue. I would say that it's really about how experienced you are in terms of relationships and communication. The more experience you have with being in a relationship, being flexible and learning effective communication, the better equipped you are for whatever the challenges are in the relationship. And I think we think that women are more in touch with their emotions. They have less of an ego. They're not going to be as aggressive. Therefore, they're going to be better communicators. But that's not always the case because they just have a different set of challenges. Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned the self-growth part and our role that we play as an individual part of this relationship. It's, I didn't think that that was something that you would mention, but it's so true because who we are, who we're bringing into the relationship is such a big piece of the puzzle. I think we learn a lot about ourselves through relationships and that's why it's important. I think to have a few relationships before you choose to get married. Would you agree? I think that experience is important in terms of learning about yourself, but experience is overrated, which doesn't mean it's unnecessary. It just means that it's rated more highly than it's importance. And if you're conscious and if you're aware of each experience, you start to zero in on what's going to work for you and what's not. But just keep in mind that if you're not dating someone with the intention of marrying them, you're dating them with the intention of going through a breakup. Yeah. And the more of those breakups we have, we can accrue emotional damage. At the same time, it's a fine line because it's a rare person who marries their first romantic partner and they ride off into the sunset and they stay together happily forever. But it's very common people who marry their first loves, like their high school sweethearts. And then, you know, 20 years later, they're curious. They want to go out and find who they are without that person. What would you say are the top most important things that make a healthy relationship? The first one is the willingness to be wrong, which means the willingness to put your defenses aside, put your ego aside, and listen to the other person. I posted a video on my Instagram the other day and I said, do you know why couples will fight about the same issue for 10 or 20 or 30 years? And you look at them and you think it's been three decades you still haven't gotten it together over this one issue. It's because one or both of them was unwilling to say, if this issue keeps recurring, I must be wrong about something. There must be something that I'm not getting. So our attachment to being right is the number one thing that kills relationships and prevents us from growing and getting closer and resolving conflict. I think the second ingredient is the willingness to put the other person's needs above your own. And when I say this, a lot of people go berserk because they're like, what are you talking about? What about my needs? I need to love myself first. I need to be whole. And I think they're completely missing the point. It's not that your partner should take your independence away from you or they should control you or they should make unreasonable demands. It's that in the healthiest relationships, you are thinking about how can I meet my partner's needs and they are thinking about how they can meet your needs. And therefore, everyone's needs are met because you're taking care of each other. Correct. And the other thing that we know from all the clinical research is that the more focused you are on your own life, your own problems, your own needs, the more depressed and the more anxious you become. Whereas the more people give their lives over to a higher power, whether that is serving their relationship, taking care of their children, growing in their marriage, becoming closer to God, thinking about how they can help other people. The happier and more fulfilled they become. And it's just as true in relationships, I guarantee for anybody who's listening to this, that if you and your partner woke up tomorrow morning and you looked at each other and you asked each other, how can I love you better today? You will both have a better day, and be happier. And paradoxically, it's by not trying to serve yourself, that you actually become happier and more fulfilled. It's by trying to serve the other person. Now, the caveat, of course, is this only works if both people are willing to do it, right? Yeah, it's interesting, because you remove ego from the equation, and you focus on the common goal, which is to nurture and nourish this relationship. And when you continue to water this plant, and yes, you want to obviously have your own self-respect, but when each of you are taking care of each other, everyone is taking care of it. It's that book, His Needs and Her Needs. I don't know if you've ever read that book. There's a book called His Needs, Her Needs, a therapist recommended it to me a long time ago. But basically, if I'm meeting His Needs and He's meeting my needs, everyone's needs are met and we're all happy. Oh, wow. So I guess I accidentally plagiarized that book. You play them up with it yourself organically, so that's great. You're absolutely right. And it's sort of a paradox because what we go through breakups and dating and we go through pain and we go through trauma, and our parents don't give us what we need emotionally. And the conclusion that we draw is, I gave too much, or I invested myself more than I should have. And that is not the problem. The problem is that you gave to the wrong person. The giving was not reciprocal. You should have enough self-respect that if you're investing, if you're doing the work, you deserve to receive in return. I think the first relationship that we have is the relationship that we have with ourselves. How would you say that the relationship with ourselves affects the relationship that we have with others? That's a great question. You don't think the first relationship we have is the one with our parents, or you mean as adults? Yeah, I mean more as adults. Like before you're entering, yes, I mean, obviously, from a child, and that goes back to attachment theory, which I want to touch on as well. But I think to your third point about one of the most important things in a relationship, it's so much about who you are and who you're bringing into the relationship. Having that self-love, having that self-worth. So I believe that if you don't have that peace, it's really hard to enter a relationship with someone else. You don't need to love yourself in order to love someone else, but you do need to love yourself in order to receive love from someone else. In other words, you can not love yourself and give love to a thing or to a person. You might be really anxious. You might be really depressed. You might be in a really abusive or horrible situation. And you can still give love to your kids. You can still give love to your dog. Still take your dog on walks and feed him. You're not going to give love as effectively if you're anxious and depressed and stressed out. In order for you to feel deserving of good things and in order for you to receive love, you have to have a baseline of feeling confident and secure in yourself. Otherwise, when love is given to you, you will push it away and you will reject it. I'm taking a Kabbalah class right now. And I sit in a room with about 200 people every week. And for those of you who don't know what Kabbalah is, it's based on Jewish mysticism, but it has no religious connotation. And it's basically like a spiritual teaching on why things happen in life, how to navigate certain challenges. So I sit in this room with about 200 people every week, all ages, all ethnicities, all religions, men and women. At the Kabbalah Center? Yeah, at the Kabbalah Center. And I can't tell you how many times this has come up, it's been a reoccurring theme every week, where a woman will raise her hand and she'll say, I don't believe I'm deserving of buying this house, even though I can afford it. Another woman said, I don't believe I am worthy of having a good body, so I don't even bother working out. Another woman said, I don't believe in finding love. I don't believe in really good love. I don't believe that I deserve good love. So it's very clear that it's a common struggle amongst a lot of women that they struggle with this self-worth. What would you say they can do to find their self-worth again, or find it in the first place? First of all, I see what you're talking about, not only because I've taken a bunch of Kabbalah classes myself, but also because my private practice is mostly women. I would say 60 or 70% of my clients are women, which shout out to them for being more willing to work on themselves generally than men are, unfortunately. I'm trying to influence men to come more and more to that side of humbling yourself and going to get help. But what you see is extremely common. It's when you see somebody who is living in a way that is self-destructive, where they don't take care of their body, their health. They don't buy the house that they want. They don't have confidence. Maybe they drink too much or they smoke too much or they hate their job. Most of the time when people act in self-destructive ways, it's not because they have no shame. It's because they're full of shame. And we tend to look at these people and we say, "What's the matter with you?" Usually that's a person who is full of shame, full of guilt, who does not feel worthy, who does not feel deserving. That goes back to their relationship with themselves, their parents, with their previous romantic partners. Let's say you're super overweight and you've always been overweight and you've always had body image issues. And in my 20s I had major body image issues for about three to five years. So I know what it's like to have disordered eating and I had binge eating disorder and anorexia and then I gained a bunch of weight. If you tell yourself, "I'm so fat, I'm so out of shape, I feel horrible. Therefore, I'm going to get a trainer and I'm going to get on a diet." That will last for two weeks, maybe a month, because you cannot hate yourself into making a positive change. The foundation has to be, "I don't feel 100% comfortable with myself, I don't feel 100% deserving, but I know that I deserve to feel better than I do right now." And therefore, that's the thing that's going to get me up and go to the gym and stick to the diet every day. Every day, are you choosing to tell yourself that I may not feel 100% confident and secure, but I deserve to work toward that? Or are you telling yourself, "I don't feel 100% worthy and secure, so I'm just going to continue to feel low. It's going to stay where I am because that's what I've always known." And that's a choice every single day. I like the idea of having at least the aspiration, knowing that I may not be there today, but I can take little baby steps, become 1% better every day. And I think also what you said about, like, setting a goal and even though you may not feel like setting the goal, I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. and I'm going to work out whether or not I feel like it, because I owe that to myself. I deserve that. I may not believe that I deserve it in the moment, but I'm going to set that up for myself. And then when you do do that, when you develop that sense of trust in yourself, that in turn creates a confidence. I did something for myself today. I believe in myself. I believe that I'm worth it. So that could be like a great way to start. So I really love that. Sarah, you were made for this work. I've been through a lot. You have star quality. Not only are you an amazing conversationalist and interviewer, but you also just touched on one of the most fundamentally important concepts that in any type of self-improvement, which is that the action precedes the feeling. First act, then the feeling will catch up to you. This is something that I've been saying for years. You won't always wake up feeling motivated, feeling deserving, feeling worthy. The more you act on the aspiration, the more that feeling within you grows. We have the equation backwards. We think when I feel worthy, when I feel deserving, when I feel ready, then I will act, right? But it actually works backwards. The more you act, not out of hating yourself, but out of the aspiration to love yourself, or the aspiration to find love, or the aspiration to make a million dollars or whatever, the more you act according to that aspiration, the more the feeling that you deserve it will grow within you. That is so profound because you get into this momentum. You get the ball rolling. You take the actions even though you don't feel like you're there. And then those actions will perpetuate the feeling of goodness and wholeness and self-love. I love that. It goes back to also like really anything in life, like even if you're starting a business, start when you're not ready. You're not going to be ready. You're not going to have those feelings innately. You have to just start, like just do it. Correct. But I remember when I started my private practice, I had no clients, no insurance. I had an office that I could not afford. I had negative $10,000 to my name because I was in credit card debt. I had no referrals. And I quit the job that I had and basically started from scratch. And did I, but what I did feel was whatever is on the other side of embracing this challenge and this next phase in my life has to be better than working at this nine to five job that I hate. I relate to that so much. I think I told you that I was in residential real estate for like about 17 years on and off and I just abruptly left the business And I think I actually think I was pretty good at it But I just knew that it wasn't fulfilling me in ways that I needed to be fulfilled and it wasn't stimulating me And I don't think that it was pushing me to my potential and I think a lot of people also thought I was crazy Yeah, the thought of never discovering what was on the other side and the fear of that was greater than the joy that I got from just staying complacent and You know doing the same job that I was trained in and that I knew so we all have to take a little leap of faith on ourselves So here's a really important concept that that ties directly into relationships Their situation has to become sufficiently intolerable that even an unknown Alternative is better. I once had a client who I worked with for about three years who was in an Extremely abusive marriage where her husband and her kids were routinely beaten verbally physically Assulted by her then husband. She's divorced now. Thank God and in one of the sessions She said to me. I know I shouldn't be in this relationship. I know I should leave. I just can't figure out like why would I Continue coming back to somebody who I know is gonna harm me And I said to her the reason you go back to somebody who you know is gonna harm you is that you know They're going to harm you. It's known and The highest human instinct is not self-preservation or survival. It is predictability That is what our brains are wired for so even if we are in a situation Where we are actively being harmed whether it's in our job our finances our drinking our Relationship an abusive marriage our survival gets hijacked by whatever is predictable and whatever is familiar So that's why they say addicts don't quit until they're ready It's because their situation has to become sufficiently intolerable that they're willing to take that leap of faith that anything is better than this Yeah, you have it's almost like you have to hit rock bottom Unfortunately, I want to talk about attachment theory Okay, because a lot of our discussion is going back to our childhood and the past so I know that attachment theory is an integral part of any Relationship romantic or not and I read the book attached about 10 years ago I wish I read it 20 years ago because 10 years ago you were ahead of the curve that book wasn't even super popular till recently I know but I just feel like had I read it through my marriage It would have helped me understand my partner It would have helped me understand my own behaviors So can you please explain to us what the different attachment styles are and how those traits show up in a relationship? The first Attachment that human beings form is to their parents when we're babies We don't have an ego. We do not have a relationship with ourselves We have a relationship to our primary attachment figure which is our parents our parents do one of two things And this is not because they're good people or bad people. This is just how the cards are dealt our parents either meet our emotional needs as a child Or they fall short of meeting our emotional needs if we are so lucky that our parents meet the emotional needs that we Individually as children need to have met then we tend to develop Secure attachment which means that we are able to have close relationships. We have security in ourselves. We don't fear closeness We don't run away from relationships. Relationships are a safe healthy, elementally easy thing for us to engage in Okay, then there's the other 50% of the population or 60% of the population whose parents did not give them what they needed emotionally when they were children That could be because your parents were horrible people or it could be because they were amazing people Doing the best that they could with the tools that they had but for whatever reason you just didn't get what you needed When that happens those people split into one of two categories The first category is avoidant people avoidant people think in their subconscious mind I did not get the love Attention affection that I needed from my parents. Therefore love is dangerous So I'm going to push it away Those are people who shut down get defensive can't stand relationships for a long time are terrible communicators They need space They can't process their emotions. They can't communicate their emotions and generally speaking avoidant people are the hardest Worst people to date if they are not working on themselves The other category are anxiously attached people like me anxiously attached people chase love they crave love They crave connection because they didn't get enough of it So you have the same kid one of them didn't get what they needed and therefore registers love as dangerous and it should be pushed away The other kid didn't get what they needed and therefore registers love as a prize That has to be put on a pedestal that they have to chase after and earn about 40% of the population It is said is Secure which means their parents gave them enough love attention and affection 60% of the population is split into anxious people and avoidant people about 30% and 30% And is it true that the anxious are always going after the avoidant and vice versa like those two groups tend to attract one another 100% it is called the anxious avoidant trap and it's so counterintuitive, but it's a thing Okay, so this is a subconscious game that our mind plays on us. Okay, the sick cruel joke of attachment is that The anxious person and the avoidant person are each other's worst nightmare But they need each other in order to function Here's how the anxious avoidant trap goes and here's the cruel joke Let's just say you are the avoidant person and I am the anxious person You need me to run from if I'm not chasing after you you are not getting the satisfaction of pushing me away And I need you to run after to validate me and to give me your little breadcrumbs So that I can win over your love if you're not Avoiding me then my anxiety never gets fulfilled Yeah Right until we become aware and those are the most important words that I can say on this whole episode is until you become aware That's the cycle until you become aware Once you become aware then you can outsmart your own subconscious Almost any relationship is possible if you are aware And I think unfortunately a lot of the population is very unaware self unaware Which is why the Divorce rate is 60% oh is it 60 now? Yes, I don't it's 50 and I'll tell you something even crazier This is not to make people depressed. This is actually to inspire hope 60 six out of 10 marriages and in divorce within the first 15 years Okay, that leaves four marriages that are intact of those four marriages two of them wished They could get divorced or tried to get divorced But couldn't because of finances or kids which means that only two out of 10 marriages are staying together happily And I always talk about the 20% club actually what what is the number one reason why people are getting divorced Or what are some of the common issues that you're seeing? Well statistically it's finances But that's not true. That's just that that's a surface level issue Yeah, the number one reason that people get divorced is selfishness and ego And what about cheating? Do people cheat for physical fulfillment? Or emotional fulfillment? I'm going to get in a lot of trouble with this. Are you sure you want to ask me this question? Yeah, I want to know the answer to that. Okay. I think I know the answer but I want to see what you say Well, you say it so then I don't get in trouble Well, I I don't know if I can generalize think I think cheating is a symptom of a greater issue correct And I think often times it stems from emotional fulfillment Which then leads to the physical fulfillment But it stems from a lack of an emotional connection in the marriage correct So you gave the PG version that's Diplomatic but is right on the mic All cheating 100% of cheating stems from emotional neglect whether you're a man or you're a woman Whether you're older or you're young 100% of cheating stems from I am not getting my needs met emotionally. I'm not being heard. I'm not being seen Which is why I said that selfishness and ego is the main cause of divorce That's the underlying root problem from which every other symptom with money with family with religion with politics with infidelity stems from The ego and from selfishness when you're selfish and when you're resentful and when you're not working on the marriage That causes emotional neglect Okay, the part that was going to get me in trouble But that is true is that a man can cheat for physical gratification a woman will cheat for emotional gratification Both of them the cheating is stemming from feeling emotionally neglected They just take it out in different ways correct Okay, that makes sense. They execute their resentment in a different way So most of the time when a man cheats He is not seeking a emotional connection with the mistress. He wants an emotional connection with his wife, but because he's not getting it, he is settling for a physical connection with the mistress. When a woman cheats most of the time, she no longer wants the emotional connection with her husband. She has now gotten the ICC and is looking for an emotional connection with someone else. And one is not better or worse than the other. They're just different, but let me give you the most important infidelity hack of all time. There's no justification for cheating ever. However, the best hack that I can give you if you are in a situation where infidelity has occurred is to ask yourself, how did I contribute to a situation in which my spouse would be compelled to cheat? Doesn't mean it's your fault. Doesn't mean the cheating's justified. But if you can answer that question for yourself, how did I contribute to a situation in which my spouse felt compelled to cheat? Did I neglect him or her? Was I selfish? Was I ignoring repeated requests that they made? Was I engaging in shady behavior and then they retaliated? When you understand how you contributed, now you have some agency. Now you have some responsibility to actually decide if you want to stay in this situation or not. Yeah, and I think it's important to take ownership of your role in the destruction of a marriage, regardless of what the reason is really. I want to go back because we talked about ego and narcissism. And narcissism is a word that's thrown around a lot. It is. It's kind of become a cringy word. It's become a cringy word, but I want to know what is the true definition of a narcissist? And is there a way that you can detect one? There is no true definition of a narcissist. There is a true definition of somebody with narcissistic personality disorder, which are similar, but they're different things. The true definition of somebody with narcissistic personality disorder is that they meet five or six of nine criteria. That is only four percent of the population, even though they seem like you're everywhere. Yeah, only four percent of the population actually have six of the nine required criteria to be diagnosed with NPD, which is a personality disorder, which is incurable and does not change. Ever. There's no true definition of a narcissist because people around us all the time have narcissistic traits. They may have one or two or three of those nine traits. So even though they're not fully diagnosed with the disorder, they still seem narcissistic. And this is something that you can easily detect. The first one, which is most important is how willing is the person to take responsibility and to apologize. People who do not take responsibility, they do not apologize, they do not own their mistakes. That is an extremely narcissistic trait. They may not have NPD, but they have the trait. Another one that you can detect is if you ask people about their past, you ask them about their past relationship, you ask them about their childhood, you ask them about their family, and they immediately give you a story of how they are a victim, of how they should enough trusted this person, of how their parents were so messed up, of how everybody wronged them. If someone is constantly talking about how they are a victim and other people have screwed them over, it's again, going back to not taking responsibility for their own lives, but it is having this delusion that the world is out to get you. That is a very narcissistic trait. Yeah, because they're not taking ownership. It kind of goes with like not being able to apologize, like nothing is their fault. Is it true that they're really charming though, that they're really good at charming people and attracting people? No, people with narcissistic personality disorder are very good at charming and attracting people. People who just have narcissistic traits are generally very unpleasant to be around. If you think about somebody who's a true narcissist, there was a point at which you probably liked them or were probably enthralled by them. Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So I want to shift gears to long-term marriages. Okay. Oftentimes, if you're in a long-term marriage, things can become really monotonous, especially if you throw in some kids and you lose that initial spark. What would you say to couples so that they can restore and reinvigorate their emotional intimacy? Amazing question. You're probably more of an expert in this than I am. You were married for a long time. So I think this is a question I'd love to hear your answer on. I would say it's a prevention game. You don't want to let the monotonous train leave the station. You want to work on it all the time, maintaining your emotional connection, maintaining your physical connection. You have to see your relationship as a Ferrari. You don't spend $500,000 on a Ferrari and then drive it recklessly. Once you have a $500,000 Ferrari, the maintenance costs on the oil, the engine, the tires, the paint are just as expensive as the Ferrari itself. That's a great analogy. Having said that, if 10 years have gone by, 20 years have gone by, now your kids go to college and now you look at each other and you're like, we're just like roommates, there is no intimacy, but you also don't have contempt for each other. Don't feel resentful toward each other. You just feel estranged. Yeah, I feel like that's really common. It's very common. It's very strange. Is there a way to get out of it? Yes, absolutely. The other situation is when contempt has developed, when resentment has been festering. That's much more likely to lead to divorce and it's much harder to salvage. It can be salvaged. It just takes a much longer time and really intensive couples counseling. In the more common situation where it's not that contempt has developed, it's just that you've become estranged. Couples counseling is very effective, but the first thing that you have to do is you have to mourn the death of the previous relationship. You have to acknowledge that what you have starting from this point forward is a new relationship and you have to start redating each other. You have to start rediscovering each other. That means mandatory, once a week, date night, mandatory, once a week, check in conversation. That's my favorite one. The check in conversation. I think a lot of people, they might be good about the date nights. Like, okay, we're just going to pencil and we're going to go to dinner, but it's not just about physically showing up at a restaurant and sitting at a dinner table. Having almost having it scheduled where you're going to have those deep conversations and talking about like, I didn't feel good this week when XYZ happened so that you don't harbor that resentment. It goes back to prevention and just having a pulse on the relationship. So like, what do you think we're missing right now? Where's our flow right now? Or what's like the energy we're feeling right now towards each other? What can I do for you? Just having your finger on the pulse of the relationship. If you can maintain that before it's too late, I think that would be key in my opinion. And if it is too late, you add that element back in. You add in intimacy. A lot of people have gone months or years without sleeping with each other. You need to slowly reintroduce that and then make that a regular thing. And it might even mean scheduling it as unsexy as that is, but when you have kids, sometimes you have to schedule it. Absolutely. So it requires rediscovering a new relationship. Even though perhaps it's bittersweet and you're mourning the death of the first marriage or the first part of the marriage, but the thought of like recreating a new version of yourselves, a new version of each other separately, a new version of the marriage as a whole and kind of redating that person, getting dressed up, trying to see them in a new light. I think that can actually be kind of exciting. We open your heart and reopen your eyes to see them through a loving lens. Now, what prevents us from doing that are ego. The darn ego that keeps showing up everywhere. It's it's it's inescapable and everyone's everything. But if you can learn to dissolve it, you can have a devastating love. What's the biggest lie we've been told about love? No one's ever asked me that. I told you you're really meant for this. I haven't answered myself, but I want to hear what you say. Okay. I'd love to hear your answer. The biggest lie we've been told about love is that you should never have to change for the person you love. So you should have to change course a little bit and adapt yourself. You have to change a lot. You have to grow. You have to improve. You have to dissolve your own ego. If you don't do that, the relationship always fails. So the biggest lie is that you and your partner should accept each other as you are. That is not true. Especially in a long-term marriage. I mean, every decade you're changing. I mean, hopefully you're changing and you're growing and you're evolving. And hopefully you're doing that together. But if you get married, let's say mid 20s, you're going to see three to four minimum versions. Or you're saying. Of your partner and yourself. Yeah. Like I am I am so flawed. Why should my fiance have to accept me the way I am? Does that make logical sense to anyone? True love is growing into a better version of yourself for your partner and for your relationship. And the truth is we're all flawed. But I think it goes back to setting your ego aside and coming into the relationship with the desire to be the best version of yourself. So your partner can rest at ease that I know they're not perfect, but they're working on themselves. Correct. What's the biggest lie you've been told about love? This might be controversial and you can correct me if you disagree. I was going to say that I don't think love is enough. Oh wow, that's great. I don't think love is enough. to sustain a lasting relationship. - That's a really good one. I think one of the biggest lies is if you're passionate and if you have chemistry and if you're like two teenagers with butterflies in your stomach, that then you'll ride off into the sun set together. - That and also, I mean, I've been in a situation where I was in a relationship in my adult years with someone that I really, really loved, really cared about was a wonderful man, but I just knew that he wasn't my forever. He wasn't me. - I know. - We were very incompatible in a lot of ways. We had very different upbringings. We had very different views of the world, the way we process things, the way we viewed things in the world. - Divergent values. - Yeah, different values, different value system was a big part of it. Also, you know, I'm dating with kids, so there's that whole other element, but I just knew in my gut, but I will say that it was one of the hardest breakups because I really did love him. - Yes. - So, I don't believe that love is enough. - Yes, I actually completely agree with you. It sounds unsexy and unromantic to say, but the compatibility is just as important, if not more important than the love. - Okay, so let's shift gears to some fun stuff. Let's shift gears to dating. - Okay. - So everyone that I know, that's single and in the dating scene, it's complaining about being single and in the dating scene, at least in LA. - Understandably. - Why is modern day dating so challenging? - I think because people are going into it with the wrong message and with the wrong mindset, wanting to get their needs met, I think they're going into it, trying to figure out what's this person gonna do for me, thinking that they have unlimited options and that people should accept them as a pre-packaged perfect version of who they are. The other thing, which you might be surprised to hear this, but I think it's one of the number one killers of would be successful dating is becoming physical too soon, which this generation is beyond comfortable with. I'm not saying that I've never become physical too soon with a girl I have, but what did it do? It killed the potential. - What's too soon? - Sleeping with somebody before there's a commitment or an emotional connection. - Or an intellectual connection. - Yeah. - Getting to know their body before you get to know their mind and their heart. - How soon is too soon? Could be a month, could be two months, could be three months to build that connection, but don't fool yourself into thinking that if you're sleeping with somebody on the second date or the fifth date, it's because we have such a deep emotional connection and we're so compatible. You don't know that yet. The ultimate test of how much a person values you is whether they are willing to commit to you. So for all of the singles out there, hear me loud and clear when I say that people will go on dates with you, will spend money on you, will sleep with you, will sweet talk you, does not mean they value you. The only way you know they value you is if they are willing to commit because commitment requires a personal sacrifice. So what happens is people become intimate with each other too quickly. That creates a false sense of attachment. There's usually some sort of chemistry there that confuses us. - Yeah. - And then the relationship fizzles out because we didn't even learn if we were compatible before we went to that next step. - So speaking of waiting to have that commitment, let's say you've been dating someone, when is the right time to have the talk, the talk about exclusivity? - Depends how much time you have been spending with them. If you're going out with them for a month, but you see each other four times a week and you spend six hours per date, then you can become exclusive more quickly because you've made more of a time investment. I would say that you should date for about two to three months and then you should become exclusive if it's the right match. - And what if you've been dating someone for like a year, two years and you know that you're ready to take things to the next level, you're ready to settle down, you're ready to get married and your partner isn't. What should you do then? Should you consider leaving or-- - Are you in a committed relationship or have you-- - You're in a committed relationship. You're waiting for him to propose, he's not proposing and you're faced with this decision because you've invested all this time in this person. He loves you, you love him, but yet things aren't moving along or they're not moving as quickly as you would like for them to move. - Well, first of all, again, prevention, you shouldn't be in a situation ideally where you've been dating for a year and that's when you discover that he's not ready. You should be having those conversations way sooner of what's your intention. And I don't know if you've noticed, but there's an enormous uptick over the last five years of the number of couples who get engaged and then break off their engagement. - Yeah, because they're not having the tough conversations that they should be having prior to getting engaged. - Those couples are my clients before and after. The ones who have the tough conversations consistently and early on tend to stay engaged and then get married and then have successful marriages. The ones whose engagements get broken off or who get married and then get divorced within a year, it's because they did not start having those hard conversations until they're already knee deep in the relationship. And I'm gonna say something controversial, everybody hates ultimatums. They say a woman should never give a man an ultimatum because it's gonna turn him off and it's gonna make him run away and all of that kind of stuff. There is a difference between an ultimatum and a standard. An ultimatum is a confrontational stipulation that if you don't propose by January 1st, I'm out. That delivery is going to create animosity. - Correct. - A standard is we've been together for a year or two. I love you. I want nothing more than to be with you. But if I don't know where this relationship is going, I have to assume it's going nowhere. So I am giving you an invitation to connect with me and lead me and guide me. - I love that. I think this is so important for women to hear this because this is not about like begging the guy and saying, "Well, when are you gonna be ready "or being really aggressive and saying, "this is what I need." But it's simply stating your own standards. - Correct. - Sading where you are in your life. This is what I need for myself. And I'm hoping that you can meet me there. But the truth is if they can't, then you have a very tough decision to make or perhaps you have an easy decision to make that maybe it's the time for you to leave. - Correct. - Especially if you're in your childbearing years and you don't want to waste your time. - Absolutely. Now I'm not encouraging people to just break up blindly. Like have many, many conversations before you break up. - But have those conversations. Those are some really, really tough, eye-opening conversations, but those need to be had. And I think a lot of people are very nervous about hearing the truth. Maybe they don't want to know the truth. But it's important to have those conversations. - Totally. It's funny, you immediately framed it in terms of the guy not wanting to propose to the girl. A lot of the time, the guy wants to propose and the girl has cold feet. And she doesn't want to have those conversations because it brings up whatever fears of commitment she might have or it brings up past traumas. So it can go both ways that people just are afraid to have that difficult conversation. - Yeah. Okay, so I want to ask you the question that everyone wants to know, which is how do you know when you found the one? And you can probably speak to this 'cause you just got engaged. - Oh, thank you. I got engaged in September. We had been dating for a year and a half when I got engaged. One way to answer the question is, how do you know when there's a feeling that this is the person I want to commit my life to? The other way to answer the question is, how do you know when you want to take on the challenge of investing in this relationship for the rest of your life? So one is more of like a love feeling and the other is more of like an intellectual decision. - Pragmatic decision. - Exactly. And you need both. But then there also needs to come a point at which you decide this is the person that I want to choose to love despite all of the challenges that are gonna come up. - I want to choose to love. - Yes. - Because every day you're making that choice to love that person and to stay in that marriage despite all the challenges that are sure to come throughout your lifetime. - Correct. The longer the relationship lasts, the more love becomes a choice rather than an automatic feeling. This is why getting married is the biggest gamble and also the most important decision that will ever make in our lives. But going through a divorce is not a recipe for dying alone, staying in an unhealthy, unsalvageable relationship is a recipe for dying alone. - There's nothing worse than being in a relationship and feeling alone. I always say, you know, you mentioned this generation is all about perfection. They want to check all the boxes. I always say choose three things that you must have non-negotiables. Maybe five, but choose three things. Everything else is cherry on top. - I love that. So I give my clients an exercise called want willing won't. Want is here are three to five things I want. I must have them. Willing is here are three to five things where I'm willing to bend. And I don't love them, but I'll deal with it. Won't is here are three to five things I will not tolerate under no circumstances. - I love that. I think every woman, if you're listening out there and you're single, I think you should make a wands willing and won't chart for yourself. And that's going to be like your North Star when you're out there and you're dating. And maybe you went on a date with someone and you're like, okay, he was okay. I maybe not that into him. But if he has the bulk of the criteria, I think it's worth going on a second or maybe third date because it's very easy to dismiss someone, you know, early on. And you use the word North Star. You need a gold standard because if you're just going based on your emotions, maybe one day you're into him, one day you're not it. Maybe he says the right thing. Maybe he texts you something annoying. But if you're going based on your want, willing and won't, that's going to be a much more reliable standard. You know, it's funny. I actually made this list myself. Oh, wow. It wasn't worded that way, but I had my must have list and throughout my time of being single and dating and actually sporadically, I'll refer to it to kind of keep myself in check. Like, oh, yeah, these are the things I wanted. Um, these are the things that I have. And it makes me appreciate my partner even more because I'll refer back to that list of like, oh, yeah, he has, he has all the things that I want. And he's checking all the boxes. And I think it's really important to write those things out so that you can reflect on them. Okay. So I want to do some fun, rapid fire questions. What's more important, chemistry or compatibility? Compatibility. Is it okay to ask your partner how many people they've slept with? It's very important to not only is it not only is it, is it okay? You should know their past. Should you know the number? I think that's an individual comfort thing because some partners want to know, some partners do not want to know, but it's absolutely okay to ask. And even if you don't know a specific number, you should know about their relationship history and their sexual history. I would agree with that because they're relating to the number. But I do want to know about the past and the dynamics of the past relationships. If you don't know about that stuff, you are missing a huge glimpse into who they are today. Yeah. Cause he's the product or she's the product of those relationships and those experiences. You may have outgrown those relationships, but at one time, they were a part of you. And it's, it's a glimpse into your evolution. Yeah. And if you're not evolving, if you haven't evolved past that, that's also important for the partner to know. So talking about the past is a taboo subject, but it's like a tear in terms of importance. I would agree dating apps or meeting in person, whichever brings you more peace. Is it a red flag if someone is in their 50s and has never been married? You stumped me. I know we're generalizing here. It's a red flag. If somebody has been in their 50s and has desperately wanted to be married and has never been married, it is not a red flag. If somebody is in their 50s, always unmarried, but that was not something they're particularly valued. Yeah. Makes perfect sense. Do opposites truly attract or do similarities marry matter more? You want similarities in values opposites in personality. Similarity than values opposites and personality. Correct. So school, we both are traditional. We both are liberal. We both want to spend X amount of time with family. Those are all values. Personalities are you're more quiet. I'm more extroverted. You communicate in one way. I communicate in another. These personality dynamics tend to attract each other because it's sort of the end to the yang, but opposites in values or in worldview or what you want out of life never works. Do you believe in soulmates? Absolutely. But I don't have one. No, you took the words out of my mouth. Yeah, I know I did. I absolutely know and believe that soulmates exist. I do not believe that you only have one and I do not believe that the person you marry has to be your soulmate. So you're marrying someone that's not your soulmate? You can have a successful marriage with someone that's not your soulmate. Yes, you can. Oh, wow. Interesting. You never thought about that. Very often you can have a soulmate, but not a successful lasting relationship with your soulmate because what makes people soulmates occurs in the quantum world. It occurs in the soul world where we have soul contracts. That is not always compatible with the 3D realm of reality that we occupy. So they're there for a point in time to correct your soul, to give you what you need in that moment in time, but they may not be your forever. Correct. Yeah. Whereas there may be somebody with whom you do not have a soul connection or a soul contract, but you love them. You're a team. You work together. You choose each other every day and you're at a point where you don't need to marry your soulmate because you've experienced that type of soul love. And maybe it's not what you're what you're looking for. So different things work for different people. Interesting. I think we romanticize highly the idea that you'll marry your soulmate. And if we all could marry our soulmate and have a successful relationship with them, that would be amazing. There's no time. There's no finances. There's no families. There's just two souls purely connecting in an ethereal realm like heaven or the quantum universe or whatever, right? I think that relieves some of the pressure for people who are single out there. And like, I have to find my soulmate or I've waited this long. I'm not going to give in and I'm not going to settle. I need to find that person. And maybe it's not just finding your soulmate. It's finding the person that you can build a life with. Absolutely. Can men and women really just be friends? Oh, I love this question. I don't know if I don't know if I know the answer to that actually. It's, you know, this is supposed to be rapid fire, but these are like, these are really thought provoking questions. I know I have female friends who I truly only feel a platonic connection with. So I do think that it's possible. What I will say is interesting research recently published by a clinical psychologist named Dr. K. He's known as the healthy gamer is that when men and women are friends, it is more often that the man will have a romantic feeling for the woman than she will have a romantic feeling for him. Yeah. So yes, I think that they can be friends, but it is rare that it's purely platonic. Yeah. I would agree with that. Should couples know each other's passwords like to their phone and computer? Yeah. Of course. I mean, I don't think couples should go through each other's phones and computers, but if you really don't have anything to hide and if you really trust each other, the highest level of trust is I know your phone password and I don't have to go through your phone. Yeah. Actually, what I told my kids the other day, I was like, give me your phone password. My 13 year old didn't want to give it to me. She goes, well, you're going to go through my phone. I said, how about this? I won't go through your phone, but I want you to know that I know your password because I know that if she knows that I know it, she's not going to do something that she shouldn't be doing. And I have the same girls for your partner. I'll tell you a funny story, actually. One time I was like a year in change into dating my girl and I asked her, have you ever gone through my phone? Like, I don't mean, this is your fiance. Yeah. Okay. And she was like, yeah, for sure. I love that she admitted to it. What do you, yeah, because she's being honest and she knew my password and I didn't care. And I was like, what, like why? What, you know, when she was like, I don't know, three or four months in, like, how did know what I was dealing with? So I went and I did a little scrolling and I said, why didn't you ever tell me? She's like, because I didn't find anything. So I never needed to go look through it again. I'm going to tell you a little secret. Tell me most women go through their partners. I was so shocked. I'd love to do a poll. I should do a poll on this on my Instagram because it's funny. I have a funny story too. I was with my fiance and I was going through his phone for photos and he had handed me his phone, like already unlocked. And I was like transferring photos to my phone and I was like, goodling with the photo app. And then the phone went blank because I, I guess I took too long. And I saw I kind of tested him and I said, oh, I need your password because the phone went blank and he looked at me and he's like, but I'm like, is that really? Is that really my password? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I did need it. But I was like, oh, I'm going to use this. I want to see what he says. And we looked at each other with a little smirk. And in that moment, he gave me his password. And it was so silly and so simple. But in that moment, I just felt a tremendous amount of peace and safety because my intention was not to go through his phone, but I just wanted to know that he trusted me enough and that he was willing, he had nothing to hide for me. I love that story. I think I know what you're going to say to this, but I'm going to ask it anyway because this is very prevalent in LA. Is it okay to date more than one person at a time? It's okay, but I have a three date rule. Let's say you're going out with three people. You should go on a maximum of three dates with each of them before you decide. Okay. You should not be going on five, seven, 10 dates with multiple people at a time. You're just, okay, you're just filtering them out, like kind of honing into which one is the right one for you to then pursue. Correct. So yes, I mean, ideally you date one person at a time and you focus on them, but if you're doing online dating, it's very possible for you to have multiple prospects in the pipeline. Yeah. Okay. Last one. Do you believe in love at first sight? Absolutely. I believe in love at first sight. There is no such thing as compatibility at first sight. As we talked about love and compatibility are different things. So just because you are overwhelmed with this feeling of loving someone and being connected to them doesn't necessarily mean that that is your person. Yeah. And you shouldn't be confused by that feeling of love. You can't let that feeling of love get in the way or force. I like to end every episode. with three questions that I ask every guest. And it's meant to encourage a growth mindset and just give your perspective in the hopes to inspire others. So I would like to ask you, what habit do you think everyone should try for 30 days? Do something kind and selfless for either your partner or if you're single for another person every day for 30 days? What is one belief you look go of that completely changed your life? Other people are responsible for why I am the way I am. The belief that has changed my life the most is that even if something is not my fault, it is my responsibility. Because you can choose how you react to that. Correct. And what is one thing you want to do that you haven't done yet? Publish my book. Are you writing it? Yes. Amazing. Yeah. You've never written a book, right? No, it's my first book. Amazing. Well, I will be a definite consumer of your book. Thank you. I should say one thing I want to do is write a best-selling book. And it's going to be on everything that we just talked about. I want to write a book as well. I would love to read your book. I think you'd be an amazing you'd do an amazing job. I think you're a star and I think you're made for this work and I've so appreciated and enjoyed this conversation. I'm so enthralled and enthusiastic and I think we can talk for hours. So shameless plug. I have a podcast too, which I will be bringing Sarah on as a guest and we're going to flip roles and I'm going to ask her about all her expertise. I would love to. But yeah, I can't thank you enough. So tell us where people can find you. My podcast is called Nobody listens to Kevin. I run. They should. Thank you. It's on Spotify, Apple podcasts. My Instagram is just my name Kevin the High. So as my TikTok and you can reach out to me through my website, KevintheHigh.com. And you practice in Beverly Hills. I do. I have a private practice in Beverly Hills and I see clients on Zoom as well if they don't live here. Amazing. This was one of the most fun conversations I've had. I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to the Happy Go Lifestyle podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and I would be so grateful if you could rate and review it on your podcast app. You can watch the full video version of this episode on Spotify or YouTube. You can also follow me on Instagram @saraforruse for more wellness, mindset, and lifestyle inspiration. And I'll see you next time.