What Makes a Relationship Actually Work? | Alain de Botton

What would you say is, so I'm 36, to have hopefully a long-term successful relationship, what is the advice that you would want to instill in me or pass to me? I think you have to have a therapeutic atmosphere within a couple and what I mean by therapeutic atmosphere is an atmosphere whereby you can safely, both of you, acknowledge how peculiar and demanding and wobbly and not optimal you both are and that that can be done safely. Someone can go, I felt a bit jealous then or I've been a bit insecure or I wanted to push you away, I don't even know why. I love you but actually I kind of hate you at the moment or whatever it is, these difficult truths can be aired safely. The sexiest thing you can do in a couple is come as close as possible to the truth in a way that's gentle and kind, even difficult truths that you can reconnect around those things. As I say, it could be really difficult material. I slightly fancy somebody at work and I'd love you to know that because I love you and I don't know what to do with this feeling. That is not disloyalty, that is the beginning of ultra-loyalty. That's like, wow, you really trust your partner because you're able to get that kind of message across or, you know, I really love you but I kind of want you to be a bit more distant from me because I'm feeling a bit engulfed. Wow, if you can say that to someone and say it in a way they'll understand with enough love, that's the kind of dialogue that keeps relationships going. So when they say communication, what we really mean is a certain way of communicating at depth around difficult material with love and tenderness. To me also that has to emulate you understanding yourself to communicate that. Absolutely, if you're a mess who doesn't understand that you're angry or lustful or needing space or needing proximity etc, you can't begin to tell the other person and I think I want to berate bits of the audience, bits of ourselves, bits of me. You know, people will say something like, well I was really angry, I just didn't know and I didn't tell you. You want to go, oh my goodness, that's not a good look. It's like, try and get in touch with your feelings. You have to get in touch with your feelings because as you say, if you're not in touch with your feelings, you can't communicate those feelings and then it's a double mess. I think the biggest messes in relationships are when someone goes through an experience and they go, I'm so sorry I couldn't tell you what I was going through because I didn't know. And you think, oh my goodness, you just, you were acting blind and I then had to pick up all the pieces. So people can do serious damage by not understanding themselves properly in time. Do you think couples therapy is an important part to integrate into a relationship or not? What couples therapy means is really important. There are actual couples therapists who are no good. There are actual couples who probably don't have enough time or enough money, et cetera, et cetera. So let's keep aside the sort of actual couples therapy. It's more what couples therapy symbolises, which is an examined relationship. A relationship where two sides are quite committed to hearing how the other side feels without quashing it. The worst thing that couples do is to deny each other their reality. So someone will go, you know, you've been angry and it's because of your mother. And the other person goes, I don't think I'm angry and I don't think it's got anything to do with my mother. And then suddenly you're in a conflict. If someone goes, I feel that you're angry and I feel it might have something to do with your mother. Then we're talking, which is why therapists bang on about saying, I feel. Always locate your vision of what's happening in the couple in yourself, in your own experience, do not give a meta analysis. That way the other person can have their own truth. So you go, I feel that you're angry. And the other person goes, well, I feel that you are actually depressed or whatever it is. And there can be two realities. The number one thing that helps couples is to keep in mind that in one couple, there can be two realities that just because you see it very strongly this way, it might look different through somebody else's eyes. It sounds basic. It's one of the most major pieces of moral education, if you like, where you're able to understand that other people exist and other people have a legitimate viewpoint. So, and it's dazzling. You kind of think, hang on, what we sharing the same apartment? Like I know what's going on. No, no, no, no. Cause in somebody else's mind, it looked very different. And to be able to just give that person room. How did it feel for you? I've told you how it felt for me. How did that feel for you? Oh, well for me, I just thought that you were mocking me. And the other one goes, I hear that you think I was mocking you. The way I felt was I felt you were crushing me. And you think, okay, both things are true. Both things are totally true. And then you make progress and then you make love and it becomes really exciting. That's when relationships make progress.