0:03 When a man does emotional work, the
0:05 woman feels stable in the relationship.
0:08 When a woman does emotional work to
0:11 support her partner, the man's
0:13 experience of volatility in the
0:15 relationship increases. So, I stopped
0:17 sharing my thoughts and feelings with my
0:19 girl. The relationship improved and now
0:21 I'm alone again. This is like a really
0:23 common thing that I've been hearing
0:25 recently from men that they they can't
0:27 really share their thoughts and feelings
0:29 in their romantic relationship. Um,
0:31 there's all kinds of crap on social
0:32 media about how, you know, like a dude
0:34 like sharing his feelings gives people
0:36 the ick. There's lots of people who say
0:37 like, "No, sharing your feelings is
0:39 actually okay." There's a lot of dudes
0:40 who are like, "Yeah, like I'll never do
0:42 it again. I got punished for it." So,
0:45 like, what's the deal with this? Because
0:48 half the internet is saying, "You should
0:49 share your feelings." And the other half
0:51 of the internet is like, "Don't ever do
0:52 that. Makes you a Makes you
0:54 beta." And like, because they're alpha
0:56 males, that means they're wrong, right?
0:58 like they have to be wrong if they're
1:00 alpha males. They can't be on to
1:01 anything. But one of the things that
1:02 I've learned as a psychiatrist is when
1:04 you know when a human being comes into
1:06 my office and says, "This is my
1:09 experience of life." I know it's insane
1:12 in the day and age of social media, but
1:14 I believe them. I start with belief,
1:16 right? Because if someone says, "Hey,
1:17 this is my experience of life." And
1:19 you're like, "No, it isn't." You're
1:23 wrong. I think that kind of thinking is
1:25 what got us here. you know, like this is
1:27 not a great place. And there's all this
1:29 idea of like, okay, like sharing your
1:30 feelings does improve relationships,
1:32 right? So, I I tried to get into the
1:33 research with it. Here's what I figured
1:35 out when it is okay to share your
1:37 feelings and when it isn't okay to share
1:39 your feelings. That both can actually be
1:42 true, but there is a way to do it. And
1:44 more importantly, there is a way not to
1:47 do it. Right? And this is what usually
1:49 happens in the world. It's not like this
1:51 group is right and this group is wrong.
1:53 Very few things in the world are black
1:55 and white. So, let's get into the data,
1:57 okay? Self-disclosure in intimate
1:59 relationships, associations with
2:00 individual relationship and
2:02 characteristics over time. If you
2:05 actually look at data, not what is on
2:07 your social media feed, self-disclosure
2:09 in relationships is roughly the same
2:11 between men and women. As hypothesized,
2:13 positive associations were found between
2:15 self-disclosure and the individual
2:17 characteristics of self-esteem,
2:21 relationship esteem, and responsiveness.
2:22 Self-disclosure was also positively
2:25 associated with relationship quality,
2:27 satisfaction, love, and commitment.
2:29 First thing is this is an association.
2:31 So this this says that self-disclosure
2:34 is associated with self-esteem is
2:36 associated with relationship
2:38 satisfaction. Now, here's the key thing.
2:40 A lot of people will interpret this as
2:44 positive. Therefore, it is okay to share
2:46 your feelings in a relationship. That's
2:49 not what this study shows. The relation
2:51 the study shows that it could be both
2:54 ways. If you have self-esteem in a
2:56 relationship, if you have a high quality
2:59 relationship, then you can share your
3:02 feelings. It could be that way, too. The
3:05 two tend to cluster together. So, this
3:07 brings us to a really important basic
3:09 principle of science. Relationships have
3:11 never been easy. Anytime you interact
3:13 with someone, you're dealing with their
3:16 unique soup of emotions, expectations,
3:18 and even traumatic baggage. And the fact
3:20 that we're all texting now and dating
3:22 apps are a thing is not making things
3:24 easier. That's why we developed a
3:26 coaching program to help our community
3:28 with modern relationship problems.
3:30 Working with a coach can help you build
3:32 skills like setting boundaries,
3:34 communicating effectively, and
3:36 navigating conflict. So, if y'all are
3:38 struggling with your relationships,
3:39 check out the link in the description below.
3:41 below.
3:43 We're going to talk about bell curves.
3:45 When people say men are this way, women
3:48 are this way. So if you look at sharing
3:50 your emotions, this is men and let's say
3:53 this is women. Okay? So in most cases,
3:55 even if there's a gender difference,
3:57 which this paper does not say that
3:58 there's a gender difference, we have to
4:00 remember that there are some men who
4:03 share a lot of their emotions and some
4:05 women who share a lot of their emotions,
4:07 but there are also plenty of women who
4:08 don't share many of their emotions.
4:10 There may be more men who don't share
4:12 emotions or feel punished by sharing
4:14 their emotions. Right? So remember that
4:15 we're dealing with overlapping bell
4:17 curves here. So even though men may do
4:19 something more than women or women may
4:22 do something more than men, the variance
4:26 within a population almost always
4:28 outweighs the variance between
4:31 populations. So if you look at there are
4:33 some men that self-disclose a ton and
4:35 some men that self-disclose very little.
4:38 that that difference that delta is going
4:40 to be greater than the delta that you
4:42 see between men and women. The other way
4:44 to look at this is if we look at
4:47 self-disclosure the gap between this guy
4:50 and this guy is this big. The gap
4:53 between this woman and this woman is
4:55 this big. But the gap between men and
4:57 women is this big. Do you all understand
4:59 that? So the variance within a
5:02 population is almost always greater.
5:04 Which is why like a lot of this gender
5:06 stuff on the internet is just wrong.
5:09 Like it's just statistically it's wrong.
5:11 Okay. Second thing, here's what's really
5:12 interesting. The more that women
5:15 perceived their partner disclosed at
5:18 time one, the less likely the couple was
5:20 to break up by time two. This is a
5:22 really interesting finding. If a woman believes
5:24 believes
5:26 that her partner is sharing their
5:30 feelings, that is associated with a less
5:33 likelihood of breaking up. So this would
5:36 be data that suggests the opposite of
5:38 what this person's experience is. Okay.
5:40 So let's look at another paper.
5:42 Self-disclosure in intimacy and
5:44 interpersonal relationships role of
5:46 perceived partner responsiveness.
5:47 Research shows that self-disclosure and
5:49 perceived partners self-disclosure are
5:52 essential in developing intimacy in a
5:54 relationship. Likewise, perceived
5:57 partner responsiveness, PPR, when
5:58 interpreted as understanding,
6:00 validating, caring, significantly
6:03 impacts the intimacy of a relationship.
6:05 So, generally speaking, if you were to
6:08 ask a mental health professional like a
6:10 psychiatrist or a psychologist, and
6:11 personally, I think the average
6:13 psychologist is probably better trained
6:15 at this than the average psychiatrist,
6:18 is it good to share your feelings in a
6:21 relationship? The average psychologist
6:23 will say yes. We will say that if you
6:25 want a healthy relationship, you should
6:26 share your feelings. That is what we
6:28 will say. And that's generally what the
6:30 data shows.
6:32 But it gets a little bit more
6:34 complicated. So this is what's really
6:38 cool. In relationships, there are two
6:41 general goals that people will have.
6:44 They'll have one or the other. Usually,
6:48 some people have a goal to get closer.
6:51 So I want us to be here and here. I want
6:53 to be more intimate with you. I want to
6:55 know you better. I want to know every
6:57 part of you. I want to know your body
6:59 inside and out. I know everything. All
7:02 of your fears, all of your dreams. Tell
7:04 it all to me. Let me know who you are.
7:05 And let me share what I am with you. And
7:08 let us intertwine our souls and our
7:10 bodies. And we will be one together. And
7:12 we are one soul split between two
7:15 bodies. Oh my god. Oh my god. That's
7:16 what I want from you.
7:18 >> Right. That's the point of a
7:19 relationship. Turns out, no. Turns out
7:22 there is another thing that people will
7:24 shoot for. Results consistently
7:26 indicated that for prevention focused
7:28 individuals, being emotionally
7:31 suppressive was associated with greater
7:34 marital satisfaction, but only for those
7:37 who perceive their spouses as also
7:38 emotionally suppressive. So, I'm going
7:40 to explain this in just a second. Here's
7:42 the key thing. In prevention focused
7:44 individuals, being emotionally
7:47 suppressive was associated with greater
7:50 marital satisfaction. What? Turns out
7:52 bro may have been right. So let's
7:56 understand. So there is another thing
7:58 which is that in relationships sometimes
8:00 sometimes
8:02 people drift apart and in some
8:05 relationships the goal for people is not
8:08 to get closer. The goal for people is to
8:10 not drift apart. Right? And if you guys
8:13 have been in relationships you know that
8:16 sometimes you just don't want things to
8:19 get worse. Things are okay the way they
8:20 are. I don't need a whole lot of
8:23 intimacy. I'm just trying not to screw
8:26 it up. Things are fine. I like the
8:27 status quo. I don't want to move. I
8:29 don't want to have kids. I don't want to
8:31 explore the world. Like, things are
8:33 fine. Can we just like live our life the
8:34 way it is right now? Do you really need
8:36 to move to New York to follow your
8:38 dreams? Can we just like have life as it
8:40 is right now? I just don't want to screw
8:41 it up. I'm happy with the way things
8:43 are. I don't need to get closer. I just
8:45 don't want things to get worse. So this
8:48 is where if we look at research there is
8:50 promotion focused individuals okay and
8:52 there are prevention focused individuals
8:56 wait okay these are two different goals
8:58 so when we're dealing with promotion
9:00 focused individuals they're moving in
9:01 this direction other people are trying
9:03 to not fall apart so it turns out that
9:05 emotional suppression is helpful in
9:07 these situations improves marital
9:08 satisfaction so it's not one or the
9:11 other right so should you disclose in a
9:13 relationship this gives us our first
9:16 answer. Well, it depends. Are you trying
9:18 to not rock the boat or are you trying
9:20 to get closer? More importantly,
9:21 remember that there's an element of
9:24 partner responsiveness here or partner
9:25 perception, but only for those who
9:27 perceive their spouses as also
9:29 emotionally suppressive. So, here's
9:31 another thing, another really important
9:33 thing. Does your partner express their
9:35 emotions? Right? So, you want to match
9:37 their energy if you want to maintain
9:39 harmony. I'm not saying it's healthy or
9:41 unhealthy. We're just trying to figure
9:44 out when is it okay to share your
9:46 emotions with your partner and when will
9:47 it hurt things. Then we get to the next
9:50 paper. For people with less social
9:52 anxiety, relationship closeness was
9:55 enhanced over time when negative
9:58 emotions were openly expressed. So if
10:01 you are not socially anxious, sharing
10:04 feelings enhances closeness. Whereas
10:06 relationship deterioration
10:09 was found for those more likely to
10:12 withhold emotions. Okay, so this makes
10:14 we're going to draw this out. Here is a
10:17 person without social anxiety. When I
10:21 share things get better. When I don't
10:24 share things get worse. This is I got to
10:27 fix this. Make sense? Now since I showed
10:29 that paper and it's a paper about social
10:31 anxiety, what do y'all think is coming
10:34 next? The reverse pattern was found for
10:35 people with greater social anxiety such
10:38 that the relationship closeness was
10:41 enhanced over time for those more likely
10:46 to withhold negative emotions.
10:50 If I am socially anxious and I don't
10:53 share, relationship improves. If I do
10:56 share, relationship goes down. Now this
10:58 is getting to be a little bit tricky,
11:01 little bit scary. Oh my god. Because
11:03 what I have seen time and time and time
11:05 again as a mental health professional is
11:08 that if my patients are mentally ill and
11:12 they dump that on their partner that we
11:14 will lead to things they will lead to
11:16 things like caregiver burnout it can be
11:19 burdensome. I hate to say this but this
11:22 is kind of true right? So like if we
11:23 look at something like major depressive
11:26 disorder or generalized anxiety disorder
11:28 or heaven forbid bipolar disorder that's
11:29 where I think I've seen the most damage.
11:31 It's not about blaming a partner. It's
11:35 to understand that if a if there is a
11:39 diagnosis of bipolar disorder within a
11:41 relationship, that becomes a challenge
11:43 for the relationship. I'm not trying to
11:45 make a judgment on whether this is fair
11:48 or good or whatever. I'm simply pointing
11:50 out that once mental illness enters the
11:52 picture. This is a paper looking at
11:54 social anxiety.
11:57 Sharing can actually deteriorate the
11:59 quality of the relationship. So, second
12:01 thing where you have to be careful is if
12:03 there is mental illness in the picture.
12:06 Now, this sounds brutal, right? Because
12:08 you're like, "Damn, Dr. K, are you
12:09 basically telling me I'm if I've
12:10 got depression? I can't share my
12:12 feelings like that. Like, I'm
12:13 depressed." Like, it's bad enough that
12:14 I've got depression, but I can't share
12:16 my feelings. That's not what I'm saying.
12:18 Don't be black and white, right? We're
12:20 going to get to what to do about this.
12:23 But, like, let's be honest. If you ask a
12:26 hundred people with depression, how does
12:28 sharing your feelings impact your
12:30 relationship? Not all of them are going
12:32 to say it makes it wonderful. What is
12:35 y'all's experience receiving the
12:37 negative emotional energy of your
12:39 romantic partner? What is your
12:41 experience of offloading your negative
12:44 emotional energy onto your partner? Like
12:46 this is the reality we are living with,
12:49 right? It's not my job to tell you, "Oh,
12:51 hey, in a perfect beautiful world, you
12:53 can share all of your negativity with
12:54 your partner and they will love you."
12:56 No, guys, like I hate to say it, like it
12:58 is a disadvantage. Mental illness is a
13:00 disadvantage. That's why we try to treat
13:02 it. We try to fix it because it
13:04 people's lives up, right? But it doesn't
13:06 mean that things are hopeless. Like,
13:08 please God, do not interpret that from
13:11 what I am saying. Let's be clear. When
13:14 we're going up against the boss of a
13:16 level, we should understand that the
13:18 boss is a boss and not a regular mob.
13:20 This is an uphill battle that we have to
13:22 fight. We're going to help you fight it.
13:23 But let's be clear. Let's not pretend
13:25 that the problem doesn't exist. That
13:28 doesn't help us. Now, we get to an even
13:30 scarier part. So, I'm going to ask y'all
13:32 a question. This is going to be the
13:34 hardest part. Y'all thought that was
13:37 bad. When you see a tweet like this or
13:39 you have an experience like this, I
13:42 shared my feelings with my girl and the
13:44 relationship got better and now I feel
13:46 alone again. This is why it's so
13:47 damaging to try to understand
13:49 relationships from social media because
13:51 I'm going to ask you all a question and
13:53 hopefully that will show you all why
13:54 this is a terrible place to learn about
13:56 relationship dynamics. I think it's a
13:58 wonderful place to understand people's
14:00 experiences, but it's a terrible place
14:03 to get answers. And here's why. Simple
14:06 question. When this person says the
14:09 relationship improved, what are they
14:11 measuring? And and I'm not trying to
14:13 on this person in particular. I I
14:15 love that this person is sharing this. I
14:16 think it's really good that we're
14:17 talking about it. We wouldn't be talking
14:18 about it unless they shared their
14:20 experience. But here's where half the
14:22 answer is. When they say the
14:24 relationship improved, how are they
14:27 measuring it? Like what is the
14:30 indicator? What is your pre-est post
14:33 test for improvement in the
14:35 relationship? What is the time scale
14:37 that we're talking about? Are we talking
14:38 about a week? Are we talking about a
14:41 month? How are you measuring How are you
14:43 measuring improvement? Is it your
14:46 perception of improvement? Is it a
14:49 certain behavior? Is it a perception of
14:52 your partner? Are they even asking their
14:54 partner? Did they ask their partner when
14:56 I was sharing my feelings, how do you
14:57 feel about that? But now that I've
14:59 stopped sharing my feelings, how do you
15:01 feel about that? How are they measuring?
15:03 And this is why, like I hate to say
15:07 this, the internet is not science. And
15:09 this is the reason, like this is the
15:12 reason. You can have an experience, but
15:14 this is not science. And here's the
15:16 scary thing, cuz I found a paper that
15:19 really highlights this. Gender, emotion,
15:22 work, and relationship quality, a daily
15:26 diary study. Like, yeah. This is a
15:28 study that looks at relationship quality
15:30 in the emotional work that people put
15:34 in. Okay. First, three patterns emerged.
15:36 First, emotion work predicted
15:38 relationship quality in this diverse set
15:40 of couples. Second, gender differences
15:43 were minimal for fixed effects. Now,
15:44 third, this is what we're going to focus
15:47 on. Gender differences were more robust
15:50 for volatility for partner effects
15:52 having partner with who reported higher
15:55 average emotional work predicted lower
15:56 volatility in love satisfaction
15:59 closeness for women versus greater
16:01 volatility in love in commitment for uh
16:03 for men. I'm going to explain what this
16:05 paper says. We're going to go down here
16:07 for a second. Women and men who reported
16:11 higher average emotion work across a
16:14 week experienced lower overall daily
16:16 volatility in love, commitment,
16:18 satisfaction, and closeness. Let's talk
16:19 about what the hell that means for a
16:21 second. So, what is emotional work?
16:23 Emotional work is kind of a grabag. I
16:24 don't know ex I don't remember exactly
16:26 what the methods of this study are and
16:27 how they defined it. I'm sure they use
16:29 some kind of scale, but basically it's
16:31 like how much emotional work do you do
16:32 for the sake of your partner? The second
16:34 thing is we're measuring volatility.
16:37 Okay. So what is volatility? Now this
16:39 this finding is not that doing emotional
16:42 work makes the relationship better. So
16:44 this is what's really cool. It's a daily
16:46 diary study. So it's with seven days
16:49 five six seven. Okay. So then they ask
16:51 them how committed are you in this
16:52 relationship? How committed are you in
16:54 this relation every single day? How how
16:56 much love do you feel? So volatility is
16:59 like this is low volatility. This is
17:00 high volatility. So here's the really
17:03 cool thing. Doing emotional work doesn't
17:06 necessarily improve the relationship. It
17:10 reduces the volatility. We go from this
17:12 to this. When we do emotional work for
17:15 our partner, the amount of love and
17:17 commitment that we experience stays
17:21 stable over time. Okay. Now, this is
17:22 where things get really, really tricky.
17:25 Okay. For women, having a partner who
17:27 reported higher average emotional work
17:29 predicted women's experience of lower
17:31 volatility in love, satisfaction, and
17:33 closeness. What does this mean? This
17:37 means that when a man does emotional
17:39 work, the woman feels stable in the
17:41 relationship. That's what this means.
17:44 When a woman does emotional work, you
17:46 guys ready for it? I think you know
17:49 what's coming. For men, having a partner
17:52 who reported higher average emotion work
17:55 predicted men's experiences of greater
17:58 volatility in love and commitment. So,
18:01 this is really insane, y'all. When a
18:04 woman does emotional work to support her
18:08 partner, the man's experience of
18:09 volatility in the relationship
18:12 increases. So, I like this study because
18:14 it's methodologically very interesting.
18:18 So what this study did is boyfriend and
18:21 girlfriend are doing daily diaries where
18:24 both of them are measuring some degree
18:26 of emotional work. So man does emotional
18:28 work, woman does emotional work. Then
18:30 they're also measuring sense of love and
18:31 commitment on both sides. So we're
18:34 seeing both perspectives in one study.
18:36 And what we discover is that when the
18:39 woman does more emotional work, there is
18:42 a greater sense of fluctuation in the
18:45 man's sense of love and commitment. Now,
18:46 there's a lot of stuff I not thrilled
18:48 about this study. When you get to the
18:49 discussion, they have a lot of
18:51 interpretations based on various aspects
18:54 of feminist psychology, the patriarchy,
18:56 and not that that is wrong, but that I
18:58 feel that it is incomplete. And there's
18:59 other reasons for that, but anyway,
19:01 they're like the patriarchy. I think
19:02 it's a convenient answer. I think it's
19:04 probably more complicated than that. But
19:06 here's the really scary thing. So, if we
19:08 look at this study, what this shows is
19:12 that the man's subjective experience of
19:15 love and commitment correlates with the
19:16 level of emotional work that a woman is
19:18 doing. I'm not trying to bash men here,
19:20 okay? There's lots of it's not men's
19:23 fault. But what I'm scared of and what
19:25 terrifies me is is this sentence right
19:28 here. The relationship improved. In what
19:30 way? How are you measuring it? And
19:33 here's the really scary thing is the qu
19:36 your quality of perception. What I I'm
19:38 really scared by by by this particular
19:41 study. The perception of your
19:45 relationship is disconnected for men in
19:47 this study. There were 74 couples I
19:50 think is disconnected from the emotional
19:52 work that that women do. So the more she
19:55 is doing, the more volatile you feel. So
19:57 that's not what I would expect, right?
19:59 What I would expect is something that is
20:01 more akin to what we see in women, which
20:03 is like the more effort that a partner
20:05 is putting in, the more stable the
20:07 relationship feels. So, I think this is
20:09 a situation where at the end of the day,
20:11 like why am I getting into this? I'm
20:14 getting into this because I believe that
20:17 we should understand. I do not want
20:20 people reading this tweet and thinking
20:21 to themselves, if you're a dude out
20:23 there, I cannot share my problems with
20:26 my girlfriend. But on the flip side, I
20:29 also want people to understand if they
20:30 read this tweet and they're like, "Oh my
20:33 god, all men are so emotionally babies
20:35 and it's all men's fault." We also need
20:38 to understand that there are very real
20:41 situations where sharing your emotions
20:44 is not a good idea. That if men are
20:46 having this experience, there's a reason
20:48 for it. And it's not just because we're
20:50 all babies in the patriarchy. Like
20:51 there's like real science at play here.
20:54 Those are elements of it to be sure. And
20:56 the most important thing is we're seeing
20:58 a dating and mating crisis where people
21:01 are struggling to figure out what to do
21:02 because on the one hand some
21:04 psychologist is telling me share your
21:05 emotions and on the other hand when you
21:07 share your emotions people get dumped.
21:09 So like what am I supposed to do? And
21:12 the answer is be careful about how you
21:14 share your emotions. First of all is
21:17 there mental illness at play? If there
21:19 is mental illness at play, recognize
21:21 that your partner's responsibility is
21:23 not to be your therapist. So, you can
21:25 share some of your emotion, but they
21:27 should not be your primary emotional
21:30 outlet. That's number one. They should
21:33 do the emotional work of a partner, not
21:35 the emotional work of a therapist.
21:38 Number one. Number two, what is my
21:41 partner's level of emotional discussion?
21:43 Right? So if my partner is sharing
21:45 emotions, they are more likely to
21:48 receive my shared emotion. Issue number
21:50 three. Is this relationship about
21:53 maintaining harmony or getting closer?
21:55 Does my partner demonstrate to me that
21:57 they want to get closer? If they want to
22:00 get closer, then it's okay to share. But
22:02 if they are kind of in a I don't know if
22:03 you guys have had these relationships,
22:05 but like these equilibrium
22:07 relationships. Have you guys seen these
22:09 relationships? Maybe you're in one where
22:11 like we're just kind of in equilibrium.
22:13 The relationship isn't really going
22:15 anywhere. It's like we have we're
22:17 coexisting. Maybe there's love, but it's
22:19 not necessarily moving in a direction.
22:21 It's like maybe we'll get married one
22:22 day, maybe we'll have kids one day. And
22:24 it doesn't mean that an equilibrium
22:26 relationship always remains in
22:28 equilibrium. Right? So, I can talk about
22:30 my relationship for a moment. I got
22:31 married seven years after I started
22:33 dating this girl. And for those seven
22:35 years, we were sort of in an equilibrium
22:37 relationship. And the reason we were in
22:39 an equilibrium relationship is because
22:41 we were settling our lives. So our
22:44 relationship stayed the same while our
22:47 lives were changing. And once our lives
22:49 settled, then the relationship moved
22:51 forward or we had to decide whether we
22:52 wanted it to move forward or not, right?
22:54 So once like stuff got settled. So
22:56 that's normal. It's not equilibrium
22:58 relationships are not bad. But it's
23:00 important to think about like what's the
23:02 goal here? Are we trying to get closer?
23:04 Are we like pretty content with where we
23:06 are? And the third thing to keep in mind
23:09 is that if you have a perception, your
23:11 partner may have a different perception.
23:13 I'm not saying one is right and one is
23:15 wrong. It's not what this is, right?
23:16 This is like if you have this
23:19 perception, how are you measuring it?
23:21 What is your partner's experience of
23:22 when you were sharing emotions and when
23:24 you weren't sharing emotions? That is a
23:26 critical piece of information, right?
23:29 Because what I don't want is this. This
23:31 is what I'm trying to prevent. Like this
23:33 is why I started streaming to prevent this.
