Falling Out of Love

Jo sent in a message requesting a podcast about relationships that she suggested was from a male point of view. Having spoken to some male friends she came up with two analogies that describe a certain male way of looking at relationships. I suspect that it is not simply males and that many females have similar attitudes and behaviours to men.

Jo said…
“I have an idea for a podcast mainly for women. About how people view relationships, you touched on it a few weeks ago. I have been asking men how they view them and have collected a few analogies…

Egg and chips is nice but you don’t want that every night because it’s unhealthy

You chase a bus to catch it but once you’ve caught it there’s no need to chase it anymore.

Can you advise on changing conditioned thinking when it comes to relationships?”

As a general idea, as I have said on previous podcasts, I do not understand what the majority of women are doing with the majority of men. When I work with couples it is almost always the male figure that is the problem. Not in all cases but in most. I guess I could say that this only applies to the couples that come to see me or couples that seek therapy, I do not know, but in my work it is normally the man.

There is a book “Act like a lady think like a man” by Erica Gordon

In the book Erica recommends the 90 day rule as propounded by Steve Harvey…

“Often referring to sex as the “cookie”, Steve Harvey suggests that women keep the cookie in the cookie jar for a probationary period of 90 days, causing men to have to prove themselves, work for and earn the benefits.”

This is of interest to me as you will gather from the podcasts that we know it takes 30 days to build a neuro net to accommodate a new habit and a further 60 days to lodge it into our long term memory. I call this the Mind-brain relationship.

What he is suggesting is that in a lasting relationship we need to get beyond the thrill of the chase, which is powered by the endorphin dopamine and avoid the subsequent feeling of boredom by developing a bonded oxytocin relationship. Oxytocin is the endorphin that creates a bond between mother and child, couples, families, communities, societies and even the whole of humanity.

In our rush (dopamine) to get married/live together we fail to do the tuning in, the engagement, the foreplay that allows for the development of oxytocin.

What we describe as the Honeymoon period is dopamine, what we describe as a committed ongoing relationship is oxytocin. Those that become addicted to the thrill of dopamine can easily become serial philanderers as they go from one relationship to another to get a dopamine high.

Because people’s expressions of love are different, the ways in which we each create dopamine and oxytocin will vary. Through communication we have a better chance of meeting each other’s needs and creating lasting relationships. Though we all need dopamine, we all need a bit of woo in our lives, dopamine and woo equal excitement and fun.

What are you doing with your partner that is fun?

Be happy, have fun and create some dopamine

Sean x