[The Knowledge Project Ep. #62] Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love

Shane Parrish: I want to preface this conversation with the fact that this is not relationship advice for you specifically and while Sue is a professional, and I am clearly not, you should seek advice from someone more close to the situation, with context and specifics to you as an individual and you as a couple. This conversation will be hard for many of you, and I’m sure there’s aspects of your relationship you’re going to pick up on and say, “See, I told you,” and your partner is probably going to do the same. You’re both right. Let’s listen and learn how to make that conversation more productive. 

I was telling you before we started recording that this interview has prompted more unsolicited questions from friends and colleagues than any other interview, and I was trying to think of how to incorporate a variety of different situations into our conversation. I think I landed on…let’s walk through the life cycle of relationships from start to finish. Well, let’s start with the stereotypical younger couple falling in love and let’s go through the whole arc until death in terms of—we’ll go down some paths in terms of talking about infidelity and children and empty nesting and retirement and these big markers in relationship. Let’s start with, based on what you know about love and how we’re brought up, how do we choose a mate? How do we go into that decision with just—I’ll leave it there. How do we choose a mate? I’ll leave it as broad as I can.