the key is and this is one of the most important things for a happy life is is a partnership with somebody who will be the last person on whom you lay your eyes as you take your dying breath that's really really important a companionate love that is your wife that's all that turns out to be much more indicative of your happiness than actually getting the you know developing and having continuing relationship with your kids because your kids are turning into different people every single year I mean that's super fun and that's super interesting but that's
actually not the key the people who suffer the most from empty nest syndrome is not the empty nest it's the fact that there only was one other bird and they don't really like that bird very much that's the real problem is when it comes in and that's one of the things that I talk about with my with my students and and by the way I'm doing lots of executive teaching these days and it's what I'm talking about with people our age too is the goal of your marriage is not passion it's friendship this is the
goal you must be close friends ideally best friends with your spouse such that your kids they grow up and they move away and then you have your grandkids I'm probably gonna have grandkids within my oldest son is married and you know they're going to have kids quick I bet I mean I don't know I mean you can tell that I'm projecting and praying about this but but you know then I'll have grandkids and it'll be a different experience but I'm going to be with my wife Esther and until you know death to us part so
that has to be the juice of you know who who of the relationship or or the love that actually makes true happiness and love truly is the great secret of happiness yeah I mean that that that's the one Saving Grace is as I feel very fortunate that my my wife and I are we joke they're like we're the best roommates in the world right and so um there I think we'll have a lot to enjoy in in that transition is the implication of that though Arthur that because I don't think it is but how do
we reconcile then a person who chooses not to have a partner yeah so the key is with there are some people who do really really well on their own that you know introverts who like to live alone for example and loneliness is not the same thing as Solitude isolation and Solitude are very very different phenomena but they're by the way they're neurocognitively different phenomena they affect the brain in different ways and and so isolation is always bad but but Solitude is not as a matter of fact we all need it we need it at different
levels that's point one point two and actually this is based on the Harvard study of adults and sorry just to interruptions Arthur you can be lonely in a relationship you can and you can be in solitude and not be lonely absolutely one of the greatest predictors of divorce is as partners who are lonely while living together and this is the big and this gets back to the big danger of The Emptiness syndrome is that the only thing you have in common is your kids and that one point of commonality disappears and you're sitting across the
table blinking at each other during dinner not talking because you literally don't have anything to talk about that's that's really that's metastatically awful for a relationship and so that's why it's critically important that couples have something in common besides their kids that they're practicing their religion together they're practicing interest together they're reading the same things they're on the same philosophical journey together I mean one of the things that I talk about with with couples is that they should develop philosophical interests in common they're talking about deep things and and you know so it that the
gold standards that your kids are like ah mom and dad are talking about character guard again or whatever I mean it's got to be something that's bigger than digit change is diaper because you know that that's not going to be something you have in common forever and you're going to be lonely inside your relationship the the second big point however is that whereas most of the truly happy people as they get older they do have a spousal partner where that's companionate in terms of his love which also has some passion but the companionate part is
a ended throughout you know the uh throughout your marriage whereas the passion part is not as high as it used to be and that's completely okay that's healthy normal and actually advisable um because it's more sustainable over the long run but some people are very happy and don't have that what do they have in common very very close personal lifelong friends so here's the key if you don't have a spouse you need real friends these are people who know your secrets who take your 2AM phone call and that you talk to a lot now that
doesn't mean that if you're married you don't need that because you know when I talk to especially men men are horrible at real friendships they're the worst you know they got lots of deal friends but no real friends a lot of the time especially if they're really successful in business and so I'll say okay name two guys or whoever who are real friends besides your spouse and like yeah so and so and so and so on so when's the last time you talked to him it's like I don't know four months ago not a close
friend that's just the case and so you got to work on these things for sure for a lot of reasons besides the fact that it's just healthy and good you also might at some point be left alone if you're if you're widowed and and you don't want to be alone in the world under those circumstances that's really corrosive that's one of the reasons that men do so poorly when they're when they lose their wives to death because a lot of them don't have real friendships to backfill any of this need in their souls [Music]
