Why We're Attracted to Bad Partners | Lori Gottlieb & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | One thing that I've observed, I don't have any formal data on this, is that some of the

00:00:06.420 | happiest couples I know are couples where I would refer to one person in the relationship

00:00:13.300 | as more emotive and expressive, and the other person as a little bit on the spectrum.

00:00:19.240 | And my observation is that part of the reason those couples seem so harmonious is that the

00:00:25.780 | little things don't seem to bother the person on the spectrum because they don't register

00:00:30.920 | them.

00:00:31.220 | They don't get entangled in the other person's downs or ups, which I guess could be problematic

00:00:39.840 | in theory, but it just seems like they get along really well because, and I won't, you

00:00:47.000 | know, kind of stereotype the labels, but these couples that I know, it does happen to be the

00:00:52.180 | male who is a little bit on the spectrum and the woman who's a little more emotive, and

00:01:00.020 | it just seems like there's so much harmony there.

00:01:03.540 | And when I talk to him, I'm generally closer to the man in the relationship, although not

00:01:09.740 | always.

00:01:10.060 | They say like, yeah, like, you know, it doesn't bother me.

00:01:14.720 | There's, I just like, we'll listen, or if there's something to, a request, I'll respond

00:01:18.580 | to the request, there isn't this entanglement of, she's upset, so I like have to respond

00:01:23.680 | or this is really painful to listen to.

00:01:25.720 | It's more of like a kind of matter of fact.

00:01:29.700 | And I just think it's an interesting dynamic.

00:01:33.600 | It's obviously not one that people can pre-program themselves for, but I do think it's an interesting

00:01:39.760 | dynamic as opposed to what you're describing where emotions can kind of ratchet together

00:01:45.320 | like gears, and that can be wonderful when people are in, you know, ecstatic states or

00:01:50.080 | happy or that there's like the banter of certain couples that seem pretty emotive is something

00:01:55.360 | I'm also familiar with observing.

00:01:56.720 | But those couples also seem like more volatile, like when somebody is upset, the other person

00:02:02.280 | gets upset that they're, and it just starts to deteriorate pretty quickly.

00:02:07.000 | Yeah.

00:02:07.500 | You don't want two highly reactive people to be together.

00:02:10.620 | You also, I think, need to think about, there's a saying, we marry our unfinished business, right?

00:02:17.560 | So let's say that there's somebody who had a parent who was very kind of avoidant or withdrawn.

00:02:23.580 | That person, if they haven't processed that, will be drawn to the partner who is more avoidant,

00:02:30.960 | but not because it feels good, but because it's familiar.

00:02:35.200 | And so sometimes in the kind of couple that you're describing, and I don't know the experience

00:02:40.080 | of your friends, but I've seen a lot of couples where it looks like that would be a good match

00:02:45.260 | because one person is, you know, sort of more in the emotional sphere and one person is less so.

00:02:52.140 | But sometimes what that is, is one person gets very lonely because they're not really getting

00:02:58.100 | that kind of emotional interaction that they want.

00:03:00.760 | So it can be a solution for some people because they don't know how to be with a different kind

00:03:05.740 | of person.

00:03:06.200 | But I also feel like you want to make sure that you have figured out your unfinished business,

00:03:11.760 | that you're not just, you don't just have radar for the kind of person who hurt you.

00:03:16.120 | So what often happens is people haven't processed whatever it was that they wanted more of or

00:03:22.180 | less of when they were growing up.

00:03:23.580 | And then they go out into the world and they're looking for a partner and they literally have

00:03:28.340 | radar for a person who is exactly like the person who hurt them, but doesn't look like that.

00:03:34.440 | So it's like, I'm going to choose someone who is the opposite of the parent who hurt me.

00:03:39.540 | And then you find this person and after you get to know them a little bit, you're like,

00:03:44.140 | wow, that person drinks a lot too.

00:03:46.000 | I didn't realize that.

00:03:47.400 | Or that person is really withholding too.

00:03:49.600 | I didn't see that at first.

00:03:51.360 | Or that person yells a lot.

00:03:52.920 | I didn't notice that at first.

00:03:54.980 | And you're like, how did I get into this exact situation that hurt me as a child?

00:04:00.980 | And that's because your unconscious is saying, you look familiar, come closer.

00:04:07.000 | Because what we're trying to do is we're trying to win.

00:04:09.360 | We're trying to master a situation where we felt helpless as a child.

00:04:13.140 | We couldn't control the situation with our parents when we were growing up.

00:04:16.300 | And now we think, again, this is completely outside of our awareness.

00:04:19.440 | I'm going to win this time.

00:04:21.000 | I'm going to master this.

00:04:22.340 | I'm going to get love from that kind of person.

00:04:24.780 | And it doesn't work out.

00:04:26.660 | So I think that you really want to make sure that you are choosing someone for healthy reasons and not because there's some unfinished business that you're trying to work out with this person who is not going to meet your needs.

00:04:38.820 | To go a little bit further into this idea, which, by the way, I fully subscribe to, based on your explanation of this and my belief that our unconscious mind is driving a lot of our choices.

00:04:52.160 | My understanding is that what you just described doesn't adhere to mom, dad, male, female compartmentalization.

00:05:02.460 | And what I mean by that is that I think a lot of people will hear what you just said and assume, okay, if my dad hurt me in the following ways, then let's say it's a woman.

00:05:15.640 | And she said, you know, my dad hurt me in the following ways.

00:05:17.580 | Maybe he was a drinker, withdrawn, or he was violent or whatever.

00:05:20.500 | But if her mother was the one that was the drinker, violent, and or withdrawn, and she's heterosexual, my understanding is, based on the dynamics that you describe, if she will find those traits in a man because she's heterosexual, she's seeking men for romantic partners.

00:05:48.040 | And I think that's very important.

00:05:49.500 | And I think that sometimes we put the mom-dad labels on top of the attraction to, again, staying in the heterosexual framework here, the opposite sex framework.

00:06:03.840 | And then people say, well, why is it that this woman always seeks out these, like, what ended up being really terrible guys?

00:06:09.380 | Like, she had such a great dad, but she had a dreadful mom.

00:06:12.180 | That is absolutely correct.

00:06:13.700 | And I think it's so interesting because I think that people think that having one parent that gave you what you needed is protective.

00:06:21.340 | And in some ways it is.

00:06:22.640 | But the thing that hurts is the thing that gets the most attention inside of our bodies.

00:06:28.260 | So we don't necessarily think it, but we felt it.

00:06:31.680 | We internalized it.

00:06:32.700 | It lives inside of us.

00:06:34.680 | And so, yes, having a good parent, one of the two, if you have two parents, one of the two is important.

00:06:41.940 | But it's interesting that it's not like we seek out the person that's like the good parent always.

00:06:47.840 | Sometimes, again, because we're trying to work something out, we seek out someone like the parent who really hurt us.

00:06:54.080 | So it's such a flaw in our wiring.

00:06:57.220 | Well, I mean, I think that's where therapy is really helpful.

00:07:00.180 | I think that's where, you know, people are like, well, what is therapy really for?

00:07:03.940 | And I think it's really about what are the things that are outside of your awareness but that are sort of driving the car?

00:07:09.780 | So it's like we think we're the driver of our own car, but often, like, someone else is driving the car and we don't realize it.

00:07:17.400 | And we think, why does this keep happening or, you know, what is happening in my life that I'm not getting what I want in, you know, whatever dimension it is, whether it's professionally or personally.

00:07:26.640 | And so often it's because there's some force that you are acting out that you don't even realize.

00:07:33.400 | And I think the role of therapy is to kind of hold up a mirror to people and help them to see something about themselves that they haven't been willing or able to see.

00:07:42.640 | You said that people will pick the person who's exactly wrong for them, who feels exactly right, at least at first, that it has this kind of come here, this summoning aspect to it.

00:07:58.960 | Like we feel drawn to it.

00:08:00.040 | It feels drawn to us.

00:08:01.160 | I mean, that's how relationships start after all, one would hope.

00:08:05.180 | But in this case, you said that people come to find that that person is exact, harbors some of the exact same traits.

00:08:15.180 | I'm calling them that, behaviors, traits, you know, whatever it is that hurt them in the context of their child-parent relationship.

00:08:23.120 | Why do you think initially it presents as the opposite?

00:08:29.780 | I think it's about the familiarity, that there's something so visceral about this feels like childhood.

00:08:38.740 | And even if childhood was not optimal or even miserable, it still feels familiar.

00:08:44.500 | And humans in general are very afraid of uncertainty.

00:08:48.020 | They're very afraid of the unfamiliar.

00:08:50.900 | I remember when I was in therapy, my therapist said to me, you know, you remind me of this cartoon, and it's of a prisoner shaking the bars, desperately trying to get out.

00:09:00.160 | But on the right and the left, it's open, no bars, right?

00:09:04.280 | So why do we stay in this prison?

00:09:06.280 | Why don't we walk?

00:09:07.140 | Why don't we even see that it's open?

00:09:08.600 | And why don't we walk around the bars?

00:09:10.640 | And it's because with freedom comes responsibility and uncertainty.

00:09:15.500 | We don't know what's – we know what it's like to be in prison.

00:09:19.040 | That's been our experience.

00:09:20.720 | So that feels comfortable even though we say we desperately want to get out.

00:09:24.620 | And then if we choose the uncertain path, we're responsible for our lives now.

00:09:30.220 | We can't blame it on mom or dad or this situation or that situation.

00:09:33.780 | I'm not saying those situations weren't impactful.

00:09:36.020 | Of course they were.

00:09:37.040 | But we have choices as an adult.

00:09:39.180 | We have freedom as an adult that we didn't have as a child.

00:09:42.480 | And sometimes it's really hard for us to say I'm going to have to be responsible for my life.

00:09:47.420 | That's terrifying because we feel like we don't have the tools to do that.

00:09:51.060 | We feel like, again, the uncertainty.

00:09:52.780 | We'd rather have the certainty of like I know what it's like in prison.

00:09:56.020 | At least I know what that's like and I know the devil you know.

00:09:59.460 | And that's not – again, that's outside of our awareness.

00:10:02.100 | I think what you're describing is a pervasive feature of being human.

00:10:09.000 | If I may, there's this kid.

00:10:12.240 | He's now a young adult.

00:10:14.140 | But I've watched grow up from a very young age who got into college.

00:10:18.700 | He was doing really well.

00:10:19.940 | Then he fell in love.

00:10:21.140 | He made the decision to leave school.

00:10:23.040 | The relationship ended and I was talking to him recently.

00:10:26.520 | And he's kind of in this kind of dizzying spin of like thinking about how great things were, how he blew it.

00:10:33.800 | And he's young.

00:10:34.460 | I'm like, listen, you're good.

00:10:35.420 | Like he didn't drop out.

00:10:36.680 | He just withdrew.

00:10:37.500 | He can go back and, you know, he'll find another relationship.

00:10:39.920 | But, you know, and I empathize with him, but I passed something along to him that was actually discussed on a – by a former guest on this podcast, Josh Waitzkin, who was a former child chess prodigy.

00:10:52.460 | He's gone on to do a number of things.

00:10:53.980 | And he said exactly what you're saying, which is in a different context.

00:10:56.840 | He said we get so attached to our current identity and our past identity and trying to resolve those that we're more willing to stay in that state of discomfort than we are to step into a path of potential success.

00:11:15.200 | Right.

00:11:15.780 | It makes no sense, right?

00:11:17.200 | I mean – and so I pass this along.

00:11:19.080 | We'll see what he does with that knowledge.

00:11:22.140 | Yes, it's kind of like the misery of uncertainty.

00:11:26.120 | The certainty of misery is sometimes more palatable to people than the misery of uncertainty.

00:11:34.100 | So you can be certain that you're going to stay miserable if you stay in jail.

00:11:38.180 | But the misery of uncertainty is worse.

00:11:42.420 | So it's really interesting that people will make that tradeoff.

00:11:46.200 | And the other thing about this attraction question that you're asking about, it's like I had this therapy client and she would pick people who were exactly like one or both of her parents.

00:11:55.960 | And she would be so attracted to those guys.

00:11:58.760 | She would always go for them and she's like, men are terrible.

00:12:01.820 | Guys are terrible.

00:12:02.600 | It's like, no, no, no.

00:12:03.220 | The men you're choosing are terrible to you.

00:12:06.940 | But then you go out on dates with these like great guys and she's like, yeah, no chemistry.

00:12:11.600 | No chemistry.

00:12:12.760 | Yeah, let's talk about that.

00:12:13.980 | What is the flip side of this, the lack of interest in somebody that doesn't overtly or covertly harbor the painful thing that you're so used to?

00:12:25.500 | Right.

00:12:25.960 | So that's the thing.

00:12:26.880 | She was working out this way of she hadn't separated yet from her childhood.

00:12:32.680 | So she was trying to kind of reenact her childhood, reenact her childhood with these men.

00:12:37.420 | And she didn't realize she was doing that.

00:12:39.800 | She'd just be like, oh, I'm so attracted to this person or things like, you know, I just I like this guy so much.

00:12:45.200 | I don't know why he doesn't call when he says he will.

00:12:47.120 | Right.

00:12:48.800 | And it's like, well, who is that like?

00:12:50.760 | Who does that remind you of?

00:12:51.960 | When have you felt that before that?

00:12:53.360 | Like, I never know where I stand with this parent, with this boyfriend.

00:12:57.840 | And then the people who are really reliable who, by the way, it wasn't about their physical traits.

00:13:03.480 | It's like these men were all physically attractive.

00:13:05.700 | It was she felt no sort of, again, that word chemistry because there's something very threatening about like, oh, there's no friction.

00:13:13.560 | It's a frictionless, you know, thing where he says he's going to call and he does.

00:13:18.260 | He's reliable.

00:13:19.400 | He does what he says he's going to do.

00:13:21.360 | I don't know what to do with that.

00:13:23.020 | It just it doesn't like light her up in that way because she's not having that big emotional reaction to it because it doesn't feel like the thing that would give her a big emotional reaction.

00:13:34.580 | And so once she sort of works that through, by the end of the therapy, she became very attracted to the kinds of guys who would treat her the way she wanted to be treated.

00:13:44.380 | And she was no longer attracted to the guys that she so she'd get that initial kind of like, oh, I feel something when I'm in the presence of a guy like this.

00:13:53.000 | But I'm not really interested in a relationship with that kind of guy.

00:13:56.620 | So that's, I think, what therapy can do for people.

00:13:59.880 | So that's, I think, what therapy can do for people.

Why We're Attracted to Bad Partners | Lori Gottlieb & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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