I'm Dr Orion terban and this is psycha Better Living Through psychology and the topic of today's short talk is the most effective marriage intervention so today I'm going to talk about the one thing that has single-handedly saved more marriages than any other intervention in the history of relationships it's not couples's therapy it's not effective communication it's not a safe place to be vulnerable with each other in a non-defensive non-judgmental I see you seeing me seeing you kind of a way and it's not anything else that your culture generally tells you is supposed to work to
solve marital dysfunction you're not initially going to believe me when I tell you what it is so I'm going to ask for your consideration and openm mindedness as I build my case over the next several minutes here it is the most effective marriage intervention is an office an office having an office has saved more marriages than any other single intervention in the history of the world let's discuss why this might be the case the fact of the matter is that men and women were never designed to spend that much time with each other this is
not how our closest primate ancestors behave and it is not how human beings have lived for hundreds of thousands of years a good deal of our py psychology including our emotional well-being our sense of self and our interpersonal relationships has been molded by our evolutionary origins as this psychology has been associated with success and survival in generation after generation throughout most of our history humans have lived in small communities and in these small communities men and women weren't really hanging out with each other the men were hanging out with other men and the women were
hanging out out with other women nor did this change with the Advent of children children weren't raised by a couple they were raised by an entire community and primarily by a multigenerational cohort of women the concept of the nuclear family of the expectation of 50/50 child care is an extremely recent development it's very new in evolutionary terms and it's probably not a context in which either men or women have evolved to thrive in today's day and age because we no longer live in small communities because we no longer have access to Extended kin networks we've
created a situation in which we expect our partners to be an entire Village that's a lot of pressure and expectation and as I've argued previously that just might be too heavy for a marriage to support and this situation has been exacerbated even further by the global shutdowns in recent years people don't have to go into an office as often as they used to and things might not ever go back to the way they were and now suddenly millions of people are spending an inordinate amount of time day after day every single day with one single
individual of the opposite sex like millions of people started to live some kind of weird cabin fever experiment something that NASA might conduct to see if their astronauts were mentally resilient enough to withstand the Journey to Mars without killing each other like that's how unnatural this situation is it's science fiction there they are there they always are it's like they're inescapable you can't get out from under them and to make matters worse this other person is a man or a woman woman and why is that worse because this person the person with whom you will
now be spending all day every day won't ever really be able to understand you like I don't care how enlightened and inciteful and empathic you are a man can't ever really understand what it's like to be a woman and a woman can't ever really understand what it's like to be a man in fact Mis understanding between the Sexes seems more the default than the alternative and that's the person that you're stuck with having an office that is having a place to go and something to do there has been the bulwark keeping marriages together since the
collapse of nuclear families we eliminate this at our own substantial risk if you appreciate the insights on this channel I would highly encourage you to get your hands on a copy of my book book the value of others over the course of 432 pages I delve deep into my economic model of relationships and explain the behavior of both men and women in the game of mating and dating I also provide a lot of actionable advice on how to get and keep more of what you want in the sexual Marketplace once you read the value of
others you'll never look at relationships the same way again now available in ebook audiobook and paperback formats the links are in the description people should probably only be spending a little bit of time every day with their romantic Partners at most at least if they want to keep any kind of Desire or interest or attraction alive in their relationships and trust me this is very important sometimes people think that I'm sex crazed talking so much about the importance of sex and attraction to long-term relationships however this is a very myopic perspective sex is about way
more than just sex desire is a leidal libidinal libidinal drive that permeates so many other ostensibly nonsexual components of a relationship I guarantee that people try harder for longer with people they are attracted to kill that desire and you cut the engine that motivates a lot of that effort this is not a Bueno idea the greater the attraction the stronger the willingness to continue to enthusiastically participate in the relationship constant inescapable contact murders attraction it's like a zoo The Continuous surveillance might prevent the animals from escaping but by that point they're so lifeless and dispirited
that they hardly constitute a Flight Risk the vast majority of couples do not suffer from too much distance but too much closeness this closeness creates a whole Suite of problems that our culture then suggests should be solved by moving even closer be more present more vulnerable more transparent more more communicative that's like trying to dig yourself out of a hole it doesn't work we collectively need to move in the opposite direction we need to reintroduce space and distance and Novelty and freedom into our relationships and the expectation that all couples marry cohabitate and otherwise spend
all of their non-working hours together needs to be challenged however many couples will continue to walk down this traditional path pathway if this is you then you absolutely need to leave the house you have to get away from your partner men and women are spending way too much time with each other these days and it's driving them crazy women expect their husbands to be their girlfriends and want to talk to them about everything and Men expect their wives to be their buddies and they want to hang out with them in general it's much better for
women to have other women to talk to and it's much better for men to have other men to hang out with create space if you don't have an office rent one like get a membership at one of those co-working spaces or something and get out of the house for a substantial part of your day while you're there do not remain in constant contact with your spouse they do not need to know what you are doing all the time you're a grown adult cultivate some unknown so that you actually have a reason to reconnect at the
end of the day offices save marriages having a place to go and something to do there has saved more marriages than couples counseling ever has or ever will what do you think does this fit with your own experience let me know in the comments below and please send this episode to someone who you think might benefit from its message as its Word of Mouth referrals like this that really help to make the channel grow and anyone to join my free Weekly Newsletter or book a paid consultation can do so on my website the links to
everything are in the description below as always I appreciate your support and thank you for listening
