emotionalneeds

No one will deny that marriage is hard. In fact, there's evidence it's getting even harder. This week on the show, we revisit a favorite episode from 2018 about the history of marriage and how it has evolved over time. We'll talk with historian Stephanie Coontz and psychologist Eli Finkel, and explore ways we can improve our love lives — including by asking less of our partners. 

For more of our Relationships 2.0 series, be sure to check out last week's episode, "An Antidote to Loneliness." And if you've found this series to be useful, please consider supporting our work! You can do so at support.hiddenbrain.org. 

Complaining is universal, perhaps, like gossiping, one of the first uses to which developed language was put. Overall, a complaint can refer to a perceived legal injustice, medical symptom, or other personally painful matter. The chronic complainer feels a lack of agency, and implicitly pleads for emotional support and/or effective action from another. A complaint may therefore range from a request for empathic engagement to an effort to assign responsibility to others. Listeners have a felt sense of a complaint’s legitimacy; we resonate to injustice and its reparation in the tale of The Goose Girl. We feel exasperation with the heroine’s petulant entitlement in the tale of The Princess and the Pea, and take satisfaction in the punishment of greed in The Fisherman and His Wife. A chronic complaint is a call to identify and understand an underlying problem rather than externalizing it.

Dream

“There was a man (though he seemed not simply a man but some combination creature or child like or otherworldly -- maybe something that can turn into something else) and he was lying down and sort of whimpering. He was wearing a long light-colored robe. Then I realized that on his side he had a large gaping wound and rotting flesh and there were birds, many families of birds feeding on his flesh. He was in great pain but also kind of trance-like and internal. I had to help him. It was a grave situation. He couldn’t help himself. He was helpless. He seemed pathetic. It would be a really long painful death. I didn’t know what could help but thought maybe if I took a hose I could force the birds off with water. I did that and maybe someone was helping me, because as I hosed it seemed there was another set of hands “cleaning” or holding the birds that came off. It was arduous. I thought it was a great infection and how could I get him or it to a hospital. Then I woke up.”

References

Video: It’s Not About the Nail (YouTube). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

Sieff, Daniela. Understanding and Healing Emotional Trauma (Amazon).

Compulsive eating is a complicated psychological and biological problem. Food addiction can be a way of defending against unmet needs by displacing emotional hunger onto food. We discuss how infant experiences with eating and soothing can shape one’s relationship to food in adulthood. Two fairy tales tell of parents with insatiably devouring babies and illustrate the consequences of failure to develop affect regulation and how that can lead to various vulnerabilities to addiction.
 
The dream:

My skin (not sure what body part) had green mold on it, like the intense green mold that grows on an orange. When I try to peel it off, I discover it is about a centimeter thick and that it comes away in spongy chunks leaving a very uneven skin surface—once again, like the contrast between peel, pith, and segments of an orange. I feel alarmed. I stop peeling worrying the whole structure will collapse.
 
 

There are signs it's getting even harder. In this episode, we explore how long-term relationships have changed over time and whether we might be able to improve marriage by asking less of it.

We are taught as children, that our parents are supposed to meet our needs – emotional and material. When we grow up, we are “supposed to” substitute other people, like friends and romantic partners, for our parents, who should also meet our needs.

On this episode the UnF*ck Your Brain podcast, I explain why this type of reasoning is insane and teach you one of my favorite tools for revolutionizing your love life.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://unfckyourbrain.com/23

Part 1: Maps of Meaning: 4 Games People Must Play 0:32 Part 2: Maps of Meaning: 5 Grappling with Fear 27:59 Part 3: Maps of Meaning: 6 Submitting to Order 55:23 Links YouTube Video playlist Self-Authoring Programs Dr Peterson's Patreon Support Page