Putting Your Partner First Changes Everything

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Hi everybody and welcome to today's podcast where I am joined by Dr.
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Harry Benson, who is going to talk to us all about marriage and relationships, difficult conversations that come up in both of those arenas.
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Harry, thank you so much for being here today.
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Please tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're here today.
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It's a huge pleasure to be with you.
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And I was just thinking that, you know, hostage negotiation and marriage, there's a great joke to be told somewhere in there, isn't there?
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But I won't make I won't make that joke.
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My story is that as much of a nutshell as I can make it, I was brought up in a very well-to-do family.
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My father, so on the outside, I, you know, things look great and comfortable and whatever.
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But on the inside, it was a right old mess.
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My father left home when I was at three.
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My mother sent me to boarding school at seven, which is a some people thrive in that environment, but I think at seven it's just pretty grim.
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And it I used to cry myself to sleep and all that sort of thing.
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So boarding school from seven until 17.
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So I came out of school as very independent because I can't trust anybody, and also very capable because I was well educated, but also very emotionally closed as well.
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So completely clueless about relationships.
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Very, I'm very much a romantic, but I have no girlfriends, hardly ever met anyone because the boarding schools are it's hard.
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Anyway, I joined the Navy as a helicopter pilot, and I was a young 21-year-old commando pilot in the Falklands War way back in the day, which was all very exciting.
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And we were really good at what we did.
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And I did eight years in the Navy flying and went to sea and did commando stuff.
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And then I decided that I wanted to go make some money.
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Uh, so I actually, along the way, I met my wife Kate, and we got married.
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At the we met at the Naval College at Greenwich, which was a lovely place to be.
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And then I joined into finance for nine years in Asia.
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We,'ve we found a job in Hong Kong and bank and then Bangkok and then back in Hong Kong.
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We, had a couple of children, we had great fun time, but as so often happens in once couples have become parents, is that it's very easy to mum for mum to get involved in mum's stuff and dad to get involved in dad's stuff.
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And you kind of stop talking to each other and you grow apart.
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Very, very classic.
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It's how most breakups happen is by growing apart, the overwhelming majority of divorces and separations.
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And so we grew apart, we stopped being friends, and I had to do something about it, and I had to realise ultimately that I needed to put Kate first in my life and I need to love the mother of my children, which is kind of what the shift that I made in my mindset.
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And I realized along the way, so we were still in Asia, I realized that there must be loads of other Harry and Kate out there who needn't get into the mess that we that we did.
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And also, I had a bit of motivation from a faith that I discovered.
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I was an atheist, hardline Richard Dawkins type atheist, and then I had a weird conversion experience, which is a frightful shock to discover the world is not quite what you thought it was.
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Anyway, I became Christian, and uh that helped motivate me to try and do something for the good of others.
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And so we packed up our business in Asia, came back to Bristol, and set up camp in Bristol, had a few more children along the way.
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So miraculously, we've now been married 40 years, and we've got six kids aged 23 to 35, which is wonderful.
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So four of us last six kids simply wouldn't exist if we hadn't got our act together.
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I did a psychology degree at Bristol, which was my first degree, uh, which sounds very grand, doesn't it?
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My first degree.
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My first degree, and then I set up a charity in Bristol teaching relationship skills to couples, and so I used an American program called PrEP, and I used it in prisons for prisoners and their partners, which attracted quite a lot of attention.
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So I've been in the NIC a lot.
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I taught new parents, I ran a program called Let's Stick Together in post-natal clinics and sure start centers for literally thousands of mums, new mums, which was fantastic.
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And I also did courses for couples getting married as well.
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And we did some parenting as well.
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And then I realized that if we could, if we could have a friend of mine, an academic friend of mine, said, Harry, you know, we could do so much more if people built strong foundations for their relationship.
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They committed properly in the first place.
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It would make a huge difference.
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So I switched from being a practitioner to being a researcher and a publicist about commitment.
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And so that's basically what I've been doing for 14 years.
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I teamed up with a high court judge called Sir Paul Coleridge, who'd been in the family division for years, and he'd seen this growing trend away from marriage and how much problem it was causing for society.
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And we now have record levels of family breakdown driven mostly not by divorce, but by the collapse of couples who don't marry for whatever reason.
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And anyway, the last five years, I've done the thing that I put off for 20 years, which was to do a PhD.
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And so at the grand old age of 65, I've now got a doctorate and a fancy pronoun, doctor, which is really cool, and I'm very proud of it.
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And it was a tough ride, it was much harder than I expected.
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And but I now know a lot more about the psychology of marriage and commitment than I did before.
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And I've read literally hundreds of papers and written a whole bunch of stuff.
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And, you know, it's it's set me up for the next stage of life.
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So that's really what I'm I'm about.
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I'm interested ultimately in commitment, in what helps couples achieve reliable love.
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And that is good for them.
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And obviously, it's also good for for their kids and for society as well.
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So that's really my thing.
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That's my direction of travel.
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Wow, thank you.
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Thank you for sharing your story in a nutshell.
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I'm sure there's there's so much more to it underneath that.
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I just want to unpick the very first kind of your the start of your transformation where you went, right, I need to start loving Kate and not as the mother of my children, because that is quite a conscious thing to do.
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And I'm it is I'm not sure many of us do it, to be honest.
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No.
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We,, she challenged me.
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We, had two two young children.
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We, were living in Hong Kong.
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We,'d had our first two children, they were age three and one, and I absolutely was besotted by my two daughters.
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But we'd kind of grown apart, and I think what happens with a lot of young couples when you get become parents, this is a very common experience, is that mums spent nine months growing a baby thinking about what they're gonna do all the time.
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So it's a conscious, automatic thing that happens, or unconscious automatic thing that happens that mums think about what's gonna happen.
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And dad, for dad, for us, it's like you know, the Christmas presents there with a wrapping on it, and we opened the Christmas present when the baby's born, and then we have to get to grips with things.
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And most fathers want to be deeply involved, and I did.
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But sometimes we don't always get it right.
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Mum's been thinking about it more.
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So one of the things that you hear again and again and again from young mums is oh, it's easier if I do it myself because dad puts a nappy on the wrong way around, or he's you she's worried that he's gonna drop the baby in the bath or something like that, or the feeding's going badly, and you just think, oh, let me do it.
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That can disempower dads, and I think it did very gradually.
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It's not a conscious thing, it's not a malicious thing, but it's it's something, and sometimes mum's parents do it to them.
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You know, you think your own mum would do it, might come in and do it and say, Look, you're doing it all wrong, let me show you how to do it.
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And you just it's very deep disempowering.
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And I think when you do, when that happens, then it's easy for dad to drift very subtly into the background and stop taking the initiative, stop being proactive.
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And the result of that is then, of course, mum's carrying all the cognitive load, all the, you know, is she's thinking about all this stuff all the time.
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And I think it's then easy to understand why, even in a world where women have achieved tremendous equalities, that you know, women go out to work, but then also come then come back home and find they're doing most of the housework.
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Um, and I think it stems from this time as the new parent, where if you don't actively, consciously encourage dad to come in and make mistakes, let him make his mistakes, you know, and and stop saying it's easier if I do it myself, even if you think it, then I think that I think that families can get out of this stereotype thing of that you know, women have to do everything at home, as well as go out into the workplace and be equal earners.
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So I think that was one of the things that happened to us.
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So I had to consciously think I need to get much more involved, and I've got to almost fight through when Kate's looking at me saying, You're an idiot for doing this wrong and putting nappies on the wrong way around.
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We, did, we were pretty equal with nappies and things.
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But so I had to do that.
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But the biggest shift I made was because Kate challenged me that we weren't friends, and eventually she wrote me a letter in kind of despair, and it was a job spec of what it was to be Harry's wife, you know, terms, conditions, holidays, hours, fun, pay, all that sort of stuff.
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But at the end of it, she said, But actually, really, you know, Harry, what I really want is you to be my friend.
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Will that ever happen?
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Who knows?
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And who cares?
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And she wrote this letter, and who cares?
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was written in capitals at the end with a question mark.
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And it was left on my bed.
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And I got home from work one day and I saw this letter, and I thought, I wonder what that is.
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Opened it up and I read it, and it just got me.
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And I thought, my God, what have I done to my wife?
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And I went literally to Kate and I said, Look, you've got no reason to believe that I will change, but I'm so sorry.
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I'm going to change.
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I'm I'm gonna start putting you first.
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And I did, and just kind of one example of how that brought itself out.
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So this is really not a very big switch in my head.
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Instead of prioritising kids and work, I realised that actually the thing that was most important in our world, around which everything rotates, was to make sure that my relationship with Kate was was number one priority.
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So it was just a little tiny mental switch.
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And how it manifested, one of the things was that Kate used to say to me, Oh, well, she used to say to her friends, oh, Harry never compliments me.
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And these things were never a big thing in my family.
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My my mother wasn't very good at it, and my dad certainly wasn't.
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And so compliments have just never been terribly important, and affirmation and stuff, saying nice things, you know, well done.
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I love the way you look, that kind of thing.
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And so I heard her say this to a friend, and so I put a little post-it note on my computer.
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I just stuck it up on the screen, you know, on one of those little yellow post-it notes, compliments and affirmation.
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And Kate looked at it and kind of rolled her eyes and she said, Oh, right, that'll work for about a week and then Harry will forget.
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Anyway, the post-it note stayed on my screen for about six months until it lost its stick and fell off.
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By which time I had actually done it.
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And I heard her, overheard her a while later saying, Oh, to one of her friends, oh, Harry always compliments me, and I absolutely love it.
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And I went, yes, winning.
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So it's not, it wasn't, it's not, it, you know, it was a roller coaster at first.
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It was with, you know, it was a big step forward and then ups and downs.
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But we just don't have those anymore now.
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You know, we we've got to a stage now where we put so much intent into making our marriage work, prioritising it, making it the most important thing in our family, around which our world rotates.
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So work is always second, children are always second.
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I absolutely love my children and my grandchild, but you know, my priority is is definitely Kate.
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And I think it makes our family work and we notice and we're friends, and you know, we go for long walks and all that sort of thing.
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And I I it it it it wasn't a big shift, it was a small shift realizing just one more thing because I'm I'm sure you've got questions for me, but I one more thing is that I think a lot of the time, what a big narrative in the media and in social media today is that men have lost their way, we've lost our roles, we don't know what we're we're for, we're we're you know, we don't we serve no useful purpose anymore.
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You know, we we're a biological, very small part of making the baby, and then off we go.
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You know, it doesn't matter if we're around, the state can cover that, you know, or others, other parents can help, or you know, childcare can do with all of that stuff.
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So mums can do everything on their own.
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And to some extent that's true.
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It's not ideal though, as any lone parent will know.
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It's just bloody hard work being a lone parent.
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I've got my mum was a lone parent, my sister is, my sister-in-law, my daughter was temporarily as well.
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So I've seen it at first hand, and I know what an amazing job lone parents do.
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But I think I've now realised that the number one role for men, I think this is really important to hear, is to love the mother of your children.
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That's it.
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No one else can do that.
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And I can do that to Kate.
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No one else can do it, quite like me.
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Um, there just isn't anyone else around.
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You know, her kids can love her, her friends can love her, her mum can love her, but only I can love her as her intimate partner and husband.
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I think that's something that I think if men get that, it's a huge thing.
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That's fascinating.
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And I'm sure that people listening will really resonate with that.
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That whole, you know, that disempowering thing.
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When you talk about leadership, and I've had many conversations with some incredible leadership coaches, where they say, you know, coach your team so that they can do it rather than disempowering them so they can't do it.
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And actually, when you think about it, parenting is a team.
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And that if you don't, if you do the same thing around that, that you go, oh gosh, you put the nappy on wrong, oh just give it here, I'll do that.
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It is that disempowering pushing you a little further away each time.
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So that's one of the points I wanted to highlight because I think that's fascinating, and I think people listening will be able to relate to that.
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I also think I think there's a big red flag that pops up that you can you'll be able to see easily to spot whether you're in that situation.
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And that is Kate's got this fabulous expression which I really love called the neglected wife micromanages, you know, and there's old sort of jokes about wives nagging and whatever.
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Basically, what it is is a wife or a mother who's neglected by her husband or partner.
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And so she is gonna say, Well, can you do this?
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Can you do that?
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Can you do this?
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Can you do that?
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Why haven't you done this?
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Why haven't you done that?
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She's gonna micromanage.
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That's a red flag.
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If that's happening in your relationship, then you're not paying attention, essentially.
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You're not, you're neglecting the person who you've built your life with.
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And you need to try and make ideally try and make this little mental switch to start noticing, pay attention, be a student of the person you live with.
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That's the most important relationship because amazingly enough, your kids are gonna leave home.
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I mean, mine are now mostly.
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I mean, they keep coming back, which is lovely.
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But you know, I've got 23 to 35.
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I've actually got uh 20, I've got to get them get this right.
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Well, 27-year-old is actually living with us at the moment, temporarily, just for a couple of months.
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And my oldest daughter, when she was going through a bit of a parenting crisis, uh, she lived, she lived with us for a while.
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She's 35 now, she's disappeared off and remarried, which is lovely.
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But you know, your kids are gonna leave home, and you're you need to be friends with the person you built your life with and with whom you set off on this adventure.
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And it is an adventure, but you need to be friends with the person you have the adventure with, and that's kind of what I think a lot of people forget.
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The it's I was talking to someone yesterday who said, you know, the thing in life which is most important is your marriage or partnership, and yet it's the thing that you can easily, most easily put on the back burner and deprioritize when actually it's the most important thing.
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If it if you do it well, then parenting becomes much more of a team.
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You're on the same page, you can make it work, you know, you'll you'll find parenting is a lot easier.
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You're more likely to stick together as a couple, you're more likely to be happy, all those sorts of things.
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And then, of course, when the kids leave, boom, you've you've still got that fantastic friendship and a life to live together.
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Kate and I have just walked from Florence to Bologna in Italy.
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Wonderful.
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I mean, we didn't do all of it, we did 50 miles of it and about 9,000 feet of climb.
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So it was a great war, it was fantastic, it was a wonderful experience.
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But we did it together with another couple, but that's the joy of now getting to the stage, now we're reaping the rewards where our kids come back, but ultimately we still got incredibly strong friendship and marriage, which we didn't have.
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We, really didn't have.
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So, you know, if you're listening or watching and you're in a difficult marriage where you think, oh my goodness, there's the spark's gone out of it, the friendship's gone out of it, then you can get it back.
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You know, there are you you can definitely get it back, and it's worth it.
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The prize is huge.
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Um, it's it's enormous.
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And and we're literally we're in the prime of our lives now because we've got adult, intelligent kids who are wonderful and we operate well together.
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We,'ve got a fabulous family WhatsApp group.
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You know, it's not all plain sailing.
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We,'ve had some major crises.
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We,'ve had lots of in the last couple of years, we've had several deaths, we've had a divorce, we've had relate, we know we had a wedding called off.
00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:21.519
You know, I've had I've had to finish my PhD, which was a nightmare, and my family were wonderfully supportive in that.
00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:22.480
So it's been difficult.
00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:25.200
The dog died, all sorts of stuff.
00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:28.960
And but our family WhatsApp group is hilarious.
00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:32.799
So the pride is of making your marriage work is just fabulous.
00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:33.920
It's so worth it.
00:18:35.680 --> 00:18:57.200
I often find when I talk and teach communication and we talk about how you know how to behave at work, and then you get home and the mask falls off, and suddenly we're these very emotional, reactionary people, and we're talking to the people that we love and care about, like you highlighted there, and in in a way that you wouldn't really talk to the the person that you love and care about the most in your life.
00:18:57.200 --> 00:18:59.680
So, how how how did you manage that?
00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:20.559
How did you become the different person so that when you got home from work, you weren't the, oh, I'm so exhausted, I can't talk to you like and and everything just snowsballs into why you haven't put the cup into the dishwasher or the socks into the washing machine, and it's always me that has to do this because that's that's around but that's the tip of the iceberg conversation, isn't it?
00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:22.799
And what's really happening is so much more underneath.
00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:24.400
Of course it is, yeah.
00:19:24.400 --> 00:19:27.279
I mean, ultimately it's it's your attitude.
00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:30.960
We,'re fundamentally selfish, human selfish beings.
00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:39.839
And I what's the name of the blueing psychologist who Canadian psychologist, what's he called?
00:19:39.839 --> 00:19:46.160
The you you know the guy anyway, but he he's quite famous for being provocative and whatever.
00:19:46.160 --> 00:19:48.880
This is gonna really annoy me, but I can't remember his name.
00:19:48.880 --> 00:19:55.440
Anyway, he but one of the things he said that you can only really come to maturity by having kids, because it forces you to look outwards.
00:19:55.440 --> 00:20:02.960
And I think we forget that we need to look outwards and take responsibility for our relationship as well as our kids.
00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:07.440
And I guess the thing, a number of things really made me shift.
00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:11.920
One was being married was very important because we'd made a life commitment to one another.
00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:18.720
And this isn't a life sentence because everyone knows you can get divorced, and we very nearly did, but the fact that we were married made a huge difference.
00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:26.559
I mean, I think if we hadn't been married, we both think if we hadn't been married, we would never have made it through our darkest times when we were just we'd stop being friends.
00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:34.880
So that commitment and the accountability and all the things that we'd said and done, and the history we'd shared and our commitment really make a difference.
00:20:34.880 --> 00:20:36.640
So I think that's that's very important.
00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:42.960
I think the attitude shift was very important of realizing, oh my goodness, how much have I neglected my wife?
00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:44.559
I need to start putting her first.
00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:48.000
So it was a conscious decision, it's being very intentional.
00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:52.000
We,'re very intentional about the way we run our family life.
00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:54.480
You know, we've been very intentional about our parenting.
00:20:54.480 --> 00:21:01.279
Having six kids, you know, you've got to focus have allow for focus on all of them individually.
00:21:01.279 --> 00:21:04.400
But at the same time, we have to, we've had to build a gang culture.
00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:17.680
So we've done things like little, lots of little rituals we've built built into family life, you know, birthday rituals, holiday rituals, Christmas rituals, that sort of thing, which make us us and all our all our kids know, you know, part of the thing.
00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:19.279
You know, I've got favorite films.
00:21:19.279 --> 00:21:24.880
We,'ve all got endless, very niche quotes from niche films that no one else has ever watched.
00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:30.480
Yeah, I was guessed some of you watch Bridesmaids or or The Incredibles or Emperor's New Groove.
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:30.799
Come on.
00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:32.160
I mean, these are great films.
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:36.400
We,'ve got little things that we'll say from them, and no one else would know.
00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:42.160
And our WhatsApp group is is a sort of a mine of, it's a sort of gold mine of hilarity.
00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:45.920
I think there are also some really good signs.
00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:57.759
One of the things that I used to teach in my relationship programs was an idea called STOP, which is really a warning, you know, warning signs that you can look out for to identify this is a great communication skill.
00:21:57.759 --> 00:21:59.759
And it comes from a couple of American research groups.
00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:06.319
One called John Gottman, who's famous for running a thing called the Love Lab, which sounds ghastly, but it's very good.
00:22:06.319 --> 00:22:12.880
And then my other favorite people in the world, who are Scott Stanley and Galena Rhodes, who are in the University of Denver.
00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:16.480
I'm about to go and visit them and write a paper with them shortly.
00:22:16.480 --> 00:22:21.920
But they've they've run some things which I combine together called stop signs.
00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:27.680
And stop signs is a really good way of identifying when you're blowing it with your loved one at home.
00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:31.920
And it it stop is S T O P scoring points is the is the S.
00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:33.440
That's you did this, well, you did that.
00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:35.440
That's kind of like you're having a go at each other.
00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:43.599
So instead of listening to each other, you you get defensive or you get on the attack, you either defend or attack, you left the cap off the toothpaste tube, you can escalate.
00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:45.920
Well, you didn't post that letter I asked you to.
00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:47.680
Well, you're not so perfect, are you?
00:22:47.680 --> 00:22:49.599
Well, don't if you don't like it, then leave.
00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:50.400
That kind of thing.
00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:54.640
Whoa, how did that come from the toothpaste tube to leaving?
00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:56.400
You know, that's massive escalation.
00:22:56.400 --> 00:22:58.000
So that's S, stop, stop.
00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:00.640
That's a big red, big, big red flag to watch out for.
00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:02.240
T is thinking the worst.
00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:06.640
If you're thinking, he's brought me , he's bought me flowers, what's he done wrong?
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:09.440
Or he's being nice all of a sudden, I wonder what he wants.
00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:14.799
You know, you're interpreting things negatively, and you're mostly likely to be wrong.
00:23:14.799 --> 00:23:19.839
And it comes from your background or whatever, but that's another red flag that's something that you can stop.
00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:23.440
You can knit this in the bud and think, oh, my attitude's really not very helpful here.
00:23:23.440 --> 00:23:26.319
I need to start thinking the best rather than thinking the worst.
00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:28.480
So that's scoring points and thinking the worst.
00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:30.319
Then O opting out.
00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:31.599
I'm going back to years ago.
00:23:31.599 --> 00:23:36.480
I thought this course hundreds of times, so it's it's in my brain somewhere and it's coming out on auto.
00:23:36.480 --> 00:23:37.920
O is opting out.
00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:47.200
So that's where you it's not like when you take a timeout where you say, Look, I'm completely knackered, I need a break, or can we talk about this in the morning?
00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:50.559
Or I've had too much to drink, or I'm too tired, or whatever.
00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:52.799
I'm hungry, angry, lonely, tired, hold.
00:23:52.799 --> 00:23:56.160
Go and do come back and do it another time.
00:23:56.160 --> 00:23:57.680
And that's that's timeout.
00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:03.200
That's a good thing, that's a healthy thing, because you're communicating well and then you're coming back to talk about it.
00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:06.079
But it's not coming back that is destructive.
00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:12.000
And it's more often than not, it's men who opt out because they're scared of getting into conflict.
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:21.359
If men get into conflict, the consequences are much worse, obviously, because men's potential for brutality is much more serious.
00:24:21.359 --> 00:24:27.359
Mostly, not always, but mostly it's more serious than if than women's capacity for brutality.
00:24:27.359 --> 00:24:30.559
So men are backing off in order to protect themselves.
00:24:30.559 --> 00:24:34.240
That's what they're trying to do, because they think I can't deal with this conflict.
00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:37.279
But the message it sends is I don't care.
00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:39.119
I just don't care what you've got to say.
00:24:39.119 --> 00:24:40.160
I'm not interested.
00:24:40.160 --> 00:24:45.119
And so opting out is very destructive, you know, when you say, right, back off.
00:24:45.119 --> 00:24:47.200
So that's another big red flag.
00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:50.880
You need to talk about stuff when you can, when you've calmed down.
00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:54.000
And then the final one is P, which is put downs.
00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:57.680
You know, we do it with drivers, you know, what an absolute idiot.
00:24:57.680 --> 00:25:00.240
When someone cuts you up, it's always them, never us.
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:03.279
And you roll your eyes, or you just think moron.
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:05.519
And what you're doing is you're invalidating somebody.
00:25:05.519 --> 00:25:11.759
You're saying, I'm here and you're there, I'm, I'm, I, I have high value, you have low value, and you're putting them down.
00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:13.200
That's basically what you're doing.
00:25:13.200 --> 00:25:17.519
And that's just not a way to run a relationship, and that's another red flag.
00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:18.960
So I really like the site.
00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:24.319
I I've taught this for years, people pick up on it, but you know, we all do it to some extent.
00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:28.880
I mean, even I, you know, 40 years into marriage, I sometimes catch myself.
00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:32.319
But the thing is, I catch myself because I'm aware of it.
00:25:32.319 --> 00:25:34.319
I'm aware, oh, I shouldn't have said that.
00:25:34.319 --> 00:25:43.440
Or even I catch myself thinking something about Kate, and it manifests itself in a scoring points, thinking a word, stopping out, putting down, something like that.
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:45.599
And I just think, no, no, no, I need to deal with this.
00:25:45.599 --> 00:25:47.599
And it's become a lot more automatic now.
00:25:47.599 --> 00:25:49.039
We, just got much better at it.
00:25:49.039 --> 00:25:57.519
But it's a really good thing to pick up on how you can check your attitude and nip these stop signs in the bud.
00:25:58.160 --> 00:25:59.440
Yeah, I I really like that.
00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:08.480
As you were talking through them, I was going, hmm, there's some of them that I definitely do, and I do them in that and and you said halt as well, didn't you?
00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:10.880
Hungry, angry, lonely, tired.
00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:11.279
Yeah.
00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:16.079
Really like that because yeah, because yeah.
00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:22.319
I always say never have those difficult, challenging conversations when you're drunk, because that never goes well.
00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:22.880
Yeah.
00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:24.400
Hungry, angry, lonely, tired.
00:26:24.400 --> 00:26:26.079
I think I can't remember where it came from.
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:28.480
It was, I think it's from a mental health thing.
00:26:28.480 --> 00:26:30.640
But I I heard about, I read about years ago.
00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:32.000
It's been going around forever.
00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:33.680
But stop was definitely me.
00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:34.400
I invented it.
00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:51.119
And it's a mix of the programme called Danger Science that was taught by the Denver, the University of Denver people, and what John Gottman in in California, in I think he's in Washington State, called the the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
00:26:51.119 --> 00:26:56.880
And they've got sort of silly names, but my English translation of Stop, I thought was quite neat.
00:26:56.880 --> 00:27:01.039
It's easy to remember and easy to very easy to identify.
00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:18.000
And actually, frankly, that's how when I was running my relationship programs in Bristol, I used to go around very much under the radar into health clinics and Shure Start centers to talk to anyone who's involved in postnatal, talking to new parents.
00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:27.680
And I'd always start by saying, Look, and illustrate to the health visitor or the Shore Start Manager, look, you know, this is a free course, and they go, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:28.079
So what?
00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:31.039
And then I'd say, Look, hey, let me just tell you something we talk about.
00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:34.319
And we'd go through STOP and they go, Oh, I see.
00:27:34.319 --> 00:27:35.440
Yeah, I get it.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:40.720
Because they thought, you know, I'm some religious nut or something like that, you know, or they they don't need my stuff.
00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:43.039
I'm not officially approved by the council.
00:27:43.039 --> 00:27:44.799
But, you know, they all loved it.
00:27:44.799 --> 00:27:53.759
And I ended up uh for you know, for a few years, I was reaching about one in three of all new mums in Bristol, which was ridiculous reach.
00:27:53.759 --> 00:27:58.079
Literally, I've worked reached thousands, thousands of new parents, which is fantastic.
00:27:58.079 --> 00:28:05.759
So it was a very successful programme, but then I realized that I need to get involved in this more foundational stuff about commitment, and that's what I do now.
00:28:06.400 --> 00:28:07.759
And tell us about commitment.
00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:17.680
We,'ve briefly talked about it, but I know it's your passion around what do you believe is the difference between the marriage commitment and the relationship?
00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:23.039
I think the first thing to note about commitment is there's actually two types of commitment.
00:28:23.039 --> 00:28:26.880
There's what we all think of commitment, which is called dedication.
00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:28.400
I want to be with you.
00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:33.039
This is the internal bond that says, I can see a future with you.
00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:38.319
We, talk about an us and we talk about our future, and we have an identity as a couple.
00:28:38.319 --> 00:28:39.920
So that's dedication.
00:28:39.920 --> 00:28:41.920
That's what most people think of commitment.
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:47.279
You know, this is I'm I'm with you, I love you, I I can, we're gonna grow old together, and we're an us.
00:28:47.279 --> 00:28:50.319
That's a that's a really good sign of dedication.
00:28:50.319 --> 00:28:55.759
But there's another sign of commitment, which are all the things around you which make it harder for you to leave.
00:28:55.759 --> 00:28:59.599
And these are protective things if your dedication is good.
00:28:59.599 --> 00:29:06.799
If you if you want to be in a relationship, then sticking a wall around your relationship that makes it harder to leave is good for you.
00:29:06.799 --> 00:29:08.880
It's protective, it affirms what you're in.
00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:11.200
You know, we want to be there, it's brilliant to be protected.
00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:15.279
It's like, can you imagine growing a garden and you're in a walled garden, you feel safe.
00:29:15.279 --> 00:29:20.720
But if you don't want to be a gardener and you've got a wall around you, it just feels rubbish and you feel trapped.
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:22.000
And that's what happens.
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:27.920
So the the trick is to grow dedication before you put constraints around your relationship.
00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:45.200
And one of the things that's happened in modern society in the last 50 years or so, since the birth control pill came in in the 60s, is that we have we've we've stopped getting things in the right order, and we've thought that we can change the game without consequences.
00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:54.240
So, whereas up until the 60s, pretty well all cultures throughout the world, throughout recorded history anyway, there's been a way of getting together.
00:29:54.240 --> 00:30:03.519
Okay, the Western model of love, if you like, has been you get together, you learn lots about each other, you gather information, and then you decide, okay, I want to spend my future with you.
00:30:03.519 --> 00:30:07.920
And so you propose, get married, and then you move in and have children, in that order.
00:30:07.920 --> 00:30:11.680
So that's kind of the that was the sequence until the 60s.
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:14.079
Almost no cohabiting existed.
00:30:14.079 --> 00:30:17.119
It just didn't exist until the 60s, realistically.
00:30:17.119 --> 00:30:20.400
Maybe the odd couple, but hardly any.
00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:29.279
And, you know, there was also, obviously, there were affairs and there was lots of people who fell in love with each other, got pregnant, but if they got pregnant, they got married.
00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:31.200
That was the way society did it.
00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:33.759
And then come along comes the birth control pill.
00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:39.920
And it's completely changed the game because it's utterly liberated women from the worry about getting pregnant.
00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:43.359
You can sleep with someone, you can live with someone without fear of getting pregnant.
00:30:43.359 --> 00:30:44.640
So that's been wonderful.
00:30:44.640 --> 00:30:47.359
And that's liberated women in all sorts of ways.
00:30:47.359 --> 00:30:58.640
The whole workplace thing has come from that, essentially, you know, and without the pill, I don't think we would be in anything like the society we live in today.
00:30:58.640 --> 00:31:01.200
Women would not be as liberated as they are.
00:31:01.200 --> 00:31:05.039
But here's the flip side, and I don't think we talk about this much.
00:31:05.039 --> 00:31:13.519
The flip side is that we've also liberated men from the need to commit because ultimately sex is cheap.
00:31:13.519 --> 00:31:18.559
It's now seen as inconsequential and it's easy to get.
00:31:18.559 --> 00:31:24.720
You know, you go out and date somebody, it's just a question of time: first date, second date, third date, whether you sleep with them.
00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:27.440
And moving in is something that happens very quickly.
00:31:27.440 --> 00:31:29.680
But what are you doing when you move in?
00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:32.799
You're whacking a great big wall around your relationship.
00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:39.920
It's much harder to leave a mediocre relationship if you're living with somebody than if you're not living with somebody.
00:31:39.920 --> 00:31:42.160
And I think people don't think that through.
00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:50.000
So that's one of the things that I've talked to my kids a lot about, is that the reality is people are going to have sex with one another.
00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:52.640
I'm not trying to change that because that would be silly.
00:31:52.640 --> 00:32:11.839
But in terms of not getting stuck in, not getting stuck and strung along in relationships, and this has been a big, this is a big theme for me, is that there are huge numbers of women, young women who get trapped in mediocre relationships and inertia just carries them on into the next stage.
00:32:11.839 --> 00:32:18.880
And if they hadn't, you know, in the old days, if they hadn't moved in together, they would never that relationship would never have got going.
00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:25.680
So a lot of poor quality, lower quality relationships, unsatisfactory relationships tend to drift on.
00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:28.400
They slide instead of deciding.
00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:34.720
And that's kind of the other side of commitment, which is that you've got this, you've got dedication, I want to be with you.
00:32:34.720 --> 00:32:39.440
And then the constraints of living together, kids, marriage, where I have to be with you.
00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:43.119
Good things, if you want to be with somebody, they're great things.
00:32:43.119 --> 00:32:47.039
They're reinforced, they make you feel safe, they affirm what you're doing.
00:32:47.039 --> 00:32:54.319
But they also become a trap if you if you know if you put the walls around your relationship before you've built the inner part.
00:32:54.319 --> 00:32:56.400
I think that that's kind of the thing.
00:32:56.400 --> 00:33:06.240
So you can the trick is to build dedication first, always, is make, you know, build your relationship, have a plan for the future before you start trapping yourself in your relationship.
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:09.119
And I think that's the big message to couples.
00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:22.079
And one of the things that one of the things that one of my big points that I get out over in my Instagram stuff, my social media, and my book, Reliable Love, is that it's the what I call the Taylor Swift problem.
00:33:22.079 --> 00:33:32.880
And we literally, I this morning I've been talking to my wife about two people we know very well who've been stuck as young women, you know, one's 35, one's 30.
00:33:32.880 --> 00:33:35.759
The 30-year-old's just had a partner move out on her.
00:33:35.759 --> 00:33:38.640
She was kind of expecting to get married, have kids, whatever.
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:41.599
He he had an affair with somebody and and and walked out.
00:33:41.599 --> 00:33:42.960
He was never really committed.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:56.160
A 35-year-old friend of ours who is living with a partner, desperately wants kids, but too scared at the moment to challenge him to commit and too scared to walk away, you know, to commit or quit, you know.
00:33:56.160 --> 00:33:58.640
So he's not committing and she's not quitting.
00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:01.359
So I invented a thing called the two-year rule.
00:34:01.359 --> 00:34:07.359
And I I well I kind of lost my train, but anyway, we'll go we'll do the two-year rule anyway.
00:34:07.359 --> 00:34:10.159
But I think the Taylor Swift problem is the same thing.
00:34:10.159 --> 00:34:12.800
She had a relationship with an English guy for six years.
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:14.239
I know she got married this year.
00:34:14.239 --> 00:34:17.679
My kids are big fans, so this is why I know a little bit about her.
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:22.320
But obviously, I don't know her, and I don't know her in her workings and how she lives her life.
00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:26.880
But she she bears an awful lot in her songs and in her lyrics.
00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:32.239
And, you know, in one of her songs called So Long London, I don't know if you're a Swifty, I have no idea.
00:34:32.239 --> 00:34:32.719
You're not.
00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:34.480
Oh, I'm I'm so shocked.
00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:42.559
Um, but uh if you're a Swifty, you'd know there's a song she'd written called So Long London, where she talks about being stranded at the altar waiting for proof.
00:34:42.559 --> 00:34:44.800
You told me you love me, but where were the clues?
00:34:44.800 --> 00:34:48.320
She was in this relationship for six years and it went nowhere.
00:34:48.320 --> 00:34:50.719
And she was furious, she was waiting for him to commit.
00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:52.800
Get the crack on with it, you know.
00:34:52.800 --> 00:35:10.880
And I think she's the voice of a generation of young women who are deeply frustrated with an awful lot of young men who simply won't commit because they don't have to, because they've been liberated from the need to commit, you know, and this explains so many things.
00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:18.079
Why are women doing so well in society, you know, more university degrees, better jobs, equal pay, all that stuff, you know.
00:35:18.079 --> 00:35:19.760
But why are men doing worse?
00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:23.119
It shouldn't be a zero-sum game, and yet it seems to be.
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:24.480
Why are men doing worse?
00:35:24.480 --> 00:35:29.119
I think the answer is that we don't have to work so hard to prove ourselves to get the girl.
00:35:29.119 --> 00:35:31.039
I think that's been a big thing.
00:35:31.039 --> 00:35:32.800
So that's quite a lot on commitment.
00:35:32.800 --> 00:35:34.079
That's probably enough for now.
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:37.440
Yeah, and then and you and but you just touched on the two-year rule.
00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:41.039
So then you didn't follow for on the so what what's the over the two-year, the two-year rule?
00:35:41.119 --> 00:35:41.840
Yes, good point.
00:35:41.840 --> 00:35:54.880
The two-year rule, it deals with the Taylor Swift problem of being stuck drifting along for six years, you know, or like our daughter's friends being stuck in a relationship, you know, hoping that things will work out.
00:35:54.880 --> 00:36:13.119
And my point is that we if you have a two-year rule, it gives you permission to try and overcome this inertia of being stuck in a relationship that's going nowhere, or which you you hope will will be, will work really well.
00:36:13.119 --> 00:36:14.639
And you're just not sure.
00:36:14.639 --> 00:36:16.480
You're in living in a state of ambiguity.
00:36:16.480 --> 00:36:21.199
Ambiguity is the kind of the biggest relationship killer, it's the thing we're trying to get rid of.
00:36:21.199 --> 00:36:23.119
It's why marriage is so important.
00:36:23.119 --> 00:36:25.679
You ask me why what's marriage got to do with commitment?
00:36:25.679 --> 00:36:29.360
Ultimately, it removes any kind of ambiguity.
00:36:29.360 --> 00:36:32.000
You have no doubt whatsoever.
00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:34.079
If someone marries you, this is it.
00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:35.199
You know, that's the plan.
00:36:35.199 --> 00:36:36.239
It doesn't always work out.
00:36:36.239 --> 00:36:40.159
We, know that human beings mess up and we're selfish and we get divorced.
00:36:40.159 --> 00:36:46.480
But most you're much more likely to split up if you never marry because you've never fully committed.
00:36:46.480 --> 00:36:55.440
And I think that the two-year rule avoids you getting sucked into a relationship that goes nowhere and and you you avoid the Taylor Swift problem.
00:36:55.440 --> 00:37:02.320
You know, we've had well, our kids are have been in this situation as well, you know, after two years.
00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:07.440
If you're over 25, okay, so that you know, it would be if it's two years from 15, then that's silly.
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:09.840
You don't want to expect to get married at 17.
00:37:09.840 --> 00:37:12.719
But if you're 25, then come on, crack, guys, crack on.
00:37:12.719 --> 00:37:18.800
Either she either he commits, and it is usually him, or she quits.
00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:22.079
And one more, one more fun thing on this, actually.
00:37:22.079 --> 00:37:31.840
I was just talking this morning about a there's a really cool American study, which is that women are much better at pulling the plug if they're less committed.
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:38.559
If they're not sure, so why is it that, you know, why why do men need to be the ones who propose or buy in or whatever?
00:37:38.559 --> 00:37:40.960
Why is men's deciding so much more important?
00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:54.880
It's just interesting that, and I think there's all sorts of biological and social reasons for this, but ultimately that this study found that when the woman was the less committed partner, she was the one who was much more likely to pull the plug.
00:37:54.880 --> 00:37:57.679
So she just says, look, it's not working, game over.
00:37:57.679 --> 00:38:04.559
But if a man thinks is he's less committed, he'll just go, Well, cake and eat it, you know.
00:38:04.559 --> 00:38:10.800
I've got all of these luxuries of living at home, I've got all the perks of marriage without all the price, without any of the sacrifice.
00:38:10.800 --> 00:38:13.039
So he'll tend to keep it going.
00:38:13.039 --> 00:38:22.960
And of course, there's this horror idea which nobody thinks about, which is that the less committed partner is the one who's got all the power.
00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:25.039
Because they don't care as much.
00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:29.280
If you're more committed, you're gonna think, I need to do, I need to make this work.
00:38:29.280 --> 00:38:31.840
I've got to, what can I do to make him love me?
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:33.760
And what can I do to do things right?
00:38:33.760 --> 00:38:37.599
And I'm scared of challenging because I don't want to challenge the status quo.
00:38:37.599 --> 00:38:39.760
And I think a lot of women get stuck in this problem.
00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:46.159
They don't want to challenge the status quo because they're scared that he might actually move out, you know, which will reveal his true self.
00:38:46.159 --> 00:38:51.360
But, you know, so the less committed person is the one who has the power.
00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:52.960
It's invariably the man.
00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:54.000
So guess what?
00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:55.679
There's your patriarchy.
00:38:55.679 --> 00:38:58.079
It's not in marriage, which is equal.
00:38:58.079 --> 00:38:59.760
People think it is, it's not.
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:04.559
It's in uncommitted relationships where the man is less committed than the woman.
00:39:04.559 --> 00:39:08.800
That's where you find your patriarchy today, which is kind of that will blow people's heads.
00:39:10.719 --> 00:39:10.880
Yes.
00:39:10.880 --> 00:39:14.719
But that's absolutely but and it's absolutely fascinating.
00:39:14.719 --> 00:39:20.880
And I have to be honest, I could probably talk to you about this all day because you raised some incredible talking points.
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:28.400
You raised just some really in interesting points that perhaps we don't think about and we definitely don't talk about as much now.
00:39:28.639 --> 00:39:28.800
Yeah.
00:39:29.199 --> 00:39:32.159
Even in my generation, and I'm 58 and we don't talk about it as much.
00:39:32.159 --> 00:39:35.440
So looking at the younger generation, yeah, definitely.
00:39:35.440 --> 00:39:43.760
And it's interesting that because we were talking about your TikTok and your Instagram account before we gone, and that your following is mainly young women.
00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:45.760
So young adult women, yeah, yeah.
00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:47.119
Young adult women.
00:39:47.119 --> 00:39:55.599
So you know there's clearly a a need for what you're talking about and the observations that you're making and the research that's been being done.
00:39:55.599 --> 00:39:58.960
So let's talk about your book, because you mentioned your book.
00:39:58.960 --> 00:40:00.719
Where can we find your book?
00:40:01.440 --> 00:40:02.079
Thank you.
00:40:02.079 --> 00:40:06.400
It's basically it's uh it's an easy-to-read and understand.
00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:09.840
It takes four hours to read it, I know because it's a four-hour audio book.
00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:11.360
It's called Reliable Love.
00:40:11.360 --> 00:40:13.920
It's the psychology of marriage and commitment.
00:40:13.920 --> 00:40:23.360
Unbelievably, the last book I think that was written on the subject was Professor Scott Stanley, and my friend in America, who wrote a book on it in 2000.
00:40:23.360 --> 00:40:27.119
And the one before that was 1971 called The Psychology of Commitment.
00:40:27.119 --> 00:40:32.480
So, you know, how what why does marriage do what it does?
00:40:32.480 --> 00:40:34.480
And how does commitment work?
00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:36.079
How do we stick at things?
00:40:36.079 --> 00:40:39.440
And that's what Reliable Love, my book, is all about.
00:40:39.440 --> 00:40:46.719
It's in paperback, it's ebook, and it's also my Dulcet Tones on audiobook in Amazon and Audible.
00:40:46.719 --> 00:40:49.039
So it's all of those platforms.
00:40:49.039 --> 00:41:10.639
And then also I've got the even funnier version, well, the shorter version, which I started back in June actually with zero on my Instagram feed, but I kind of thought I've got lots to say, and I started saying it, and I'm ultimately to help try to empower young adult women not to get stuck in these drifting relationships.
00:41:10.639 --> 00:41:14.320
A lot of it inspired by you know this Taylor Swift problem.
00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:19.039
You know, my kids are Swifties and they they, you know, we we talk about it a lot.
00:41:19.039 --> 00:41:28.639
And so I started my Instagram feed, and so I'm there, Harry Benson 6, and on TikTok, Harry Benson PhD, which I started two weeks ago, literally yesterday.
00:41:28.639 --> 00:41:30.159
I've just had a massive hit.
00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:34.559
I've got one that's on TikTok, it's well over 100,000 views now.
00:41:34.559 --> 00:41:38.960
And on I put it on Instagram last night, it's over 20,000 now.
00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:41.440
And extraordinary, huge hunger.
00:41:41.440 --> 00:41:42.800
There's a hunger for this thing.
00:41:42.800 --> 00:41:46.480
That was essentially why why won't he propose?
00:41:46.480 --> 00:41:48.880
That was essentially the that was my hook.
00:41:48.880 --> 00:41:51.360
And it there's a huge hunger for this.
00:41:51.360 --> 00:41:59.679
And you know, my insta, my my social media stuff is really scratches the surface and it just raises some issues.
00:41:59.679 --> 00:42:08.079
But young adult women seem to be interested in what I've got to say, and I'm delighted because I've got four daughters, I absolutely love them to bit.
00:42:08.079 --> 00:42:11.679
So we've all the stuff I talk about, we've we talk about at home.
00:42:11.679 --> 00:42:13.679
They know my rules for romance, you know.
00:42:13.679 --> 00:42:14.719
Is he marriageable?
00:42:14.719 --> 00:42:15.519
Does he fight for you?
00:42:15.519 --> 00:42:16.639
And the two-year rule.
00:42:16.639 --> 00:42:21.039
Those are my rules, which help you choose well and not get stuck.
00:42:21.039 --> 00:42:24.079
And, you know, how do you pick someone pick someone good?
00:42:24.079 --> 00:42:27.280
And I think there's an audience for it, and that's what I'm I'm seeing.
00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:33.679
So reliable love, the psychology of marriage and commitment, anywhere on Amazon in three different variations.
00:42:33.679 --> 00:42:43.199
And then my social media stuff is Harry Benson 6 on Instagram, which is a bit of fun, and also Harry Benson PhD on TikTok.
00:42:43.599 --> 00:42:44.000
Perfect.
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:49.360
We, will put all of those in the transcript that goes with today's podcast.
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:51.920
Dr Harry Benton, thank you so much for being here.
00:42:51.920 --> 00:42:53.440
I really appreciate it.
00:42:53.440 --> 00:42:58.320
And uh thank you for your time and sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us.
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:03.039
And I'm I look forward to seeing and reading more about your work in the future.
00:43:03.039 --> 00:43:04.079
Thank you for today.
00:43:04.480 --> 00:43:05.199
Thank you, Nicky.
00:43:05.199 --> 00:43:06.159
I've loved chatting to you.
00:43:06.480 --> 00:43:17.199
If you have in any way been affected by today's podcast episode, there are numbers at the end of the transcript which you can contact.