Episode 272: From “I Do” to “We Do”: How Couples Survive the Parenting Years Without Losing Each Other (w/ Eli Weinstein)

Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Evolved Caveman Podcast, and today it is my true pleasure to have with me an old friend Ellie Weinstein. And Ellie is the hardest working social worker in America. He's also a therapist, author in the. Energizing host of the Dude Therapist podcast, a space where Real talk meets real transformation with a refreshing no BS approach that blends clinical expertise with humor, heart and practicality.

Ellie helps individuals, couples, and families navigate the chaos of life, relationships, and parenthood. With clarity and compassion. He runs a thriving practice in both New York and Nevada and works with a wide range of clients to build resilience, improve communication, and deepen connection. His upcoming book from I Do To We Do Navigating Marriage Through the Parenting Years.

Brings his years of clinical insight and real world storytelling to couples striving to stay connected amidst life's busiest season. Whether through therapy sessions, podcast dialogue, or his writings, Ellie's mission is the same to make mental health relatable, accessible, and actionable, and empowering people to build lives of connection, courage and meaning.

Welcome, Ellie.

I didn't know I was gonna get emotional just first thing in the morning. Just you being, so did

I get all that right? First of all didn't you got, I didn't run that by you. I always about that. You got everything

right and more. I wasn't expecting all those nice things to be said.

I don't know if I'm the hardest, but I just, I care. I think it's a sickness. I think I just care too much about. This work mean? That's why

we get into it, right?

Yeah.

And, I think that's one of the things for us to work on is dialing down that care from a 10 on a 10 point scale to, I don't know, maybe an eight.

Yeah. Simply to protect ourselves. A

hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I was a young therapist.

Brutal.

It was like, it was me. It was like it was, like my life.

Yeah.

And now it's more of Hey, when, and I always say this to my clients, I'm like, I'm not trying to be mean. I don't mean this in a heartless way or a cold way.

When we end our session, I have more to my life than just you. Yeah. And I love you. Care about you. I, think about you. If like I hear a podcast or a book or a song or something pops up, oh, I'll share that with my client maybe, but I'm not part of your life.

So let me ask you this.

You're not part of mine.

I'm

part your this, is an odd combination of personal and professional.

Because when I think back to when I started this in this industry and having an actively suicidal client like that was really hard to do, to just say after the session's done, I don't think about you anymore.

Yeah.

And it, that's a really heavy weight to walk around with.

Yeah.

Did, you have the same experience?

When I worked in the psych unit, I did. Because that was like really active. It was every day. It was hours of seeing the dark pain of human existence.

Yeah.

And trying to get them out of that spot of that hole when I was working in a clinic once in a while.

But I'll be honest my, my, daughter was born when I was doing that, so my brain wasn't really working fully. Kinda lack of sleep, but. It was this lesson that I needed to learn from my supervisor, Dr. Stanley Rustin, who I own, owe everything to.

Who was is in his eighties.

He used to tell stories of practicing when Martin Luther King was assassinated and the craziness of, working in New York City at the time. And just like the stories, like the real old school and he said this is a human, connection and it's gonna get to you sometimes, but it's also okay to say I'm letting you go.

And what I do, what you do outside, I don't have control over. And yeah. And that's, a hard pill to swallow. But that's like the struggle of a new therapist anyways. That whatever someone tells you it's in session, you are very limited because they could be, and that's a hard one lying. They could be, not even in a pessimistic way, that people are lying on purpose, but they could be lying.

Just impression management that truth. Yeah. Or whatever it is. And then you just have to go, okay, I'm gonna deal with whatever information I have, I'm limited. Versus I know everything. I have access to everything, and this person is now a part of my life. You're a part of theirs. They're not a part of yours.

Yeah. And it's a really difficult balancing act that they're not with me, my clients aren't with me that one hour out of the week and then what they do outside of session. I have zero control over. And balancing that with caring too much

Yeah.

Is difficult at first. Yeah. And, I think it's kinda smacks you in the face and

A little too hard sometimes.

Yeah. I think it leads to a lot of young therapists getting depressed for some period of time until you learn how to, reconcile that.

For sure.

So let me change the subject to a little bit, something a little bit more uplifting. So your book is coming out here when?

March, 2026.

Congratulations. Mazel talk. That's, thank you.

Thank

you. Amazing. Nice job. Well done. So what moment in your clinical work or your marriage, your personal work, made you realize, oh damn, this is the missing link that couples need between? I do and we do.

I'll tell you like I didn't think I was gonna write a book.

That's the total honest truth. Yeah. It was like a dream or a goal of like when I'm in my sixties, seventies and I'm like, towards the end of my career, maybe I'll sit back and write some book about therapy mental health. Who knows? But I'm not a good writer. It's not a skill set of mine. I would rather have a TV show or a thriving podcast speaking to millions of people every day than write an Instagram caption or a blog.

It gives me all the anxieties. Just a history of just with my a DH, ADHD and not being the best writer. But a po, a publishing company reached out to me and I wanted to write a book on fatherhood and masculinity and parenting like that combo, and they said to me dads don't really buy books.

Men don't really buy books like that. Let's make it. General relationship. So the book is secretly 80% a relationship book for any couple and 20% within the, you're in the stage of parenting no matter what stage of parenting you're in. But it's really about the couple of looking at each other going, what the hell happened to us?

Or who are you? Or, how did we get here? Or, where did we go from here? Questions that pop up. And it really, when I was thinking about the book, the story that like popped into my head was.

When my daughter was born, I struggled with panic attacks when my daughter was first born. So that really played with my identity, my mental health reality and life.

But between my wife and I, it was a massive, one of the worst arguments we've had till today. On, on the anniversary, our anniversary that year where it was basically we never knew how to talk about the things and the needs we, needed. During parenting, it was always just the two of us. Oh yeah, you need this.

Okay, you're gonna do that. Oh, you have homework. We were in grad school. Okay, you're gonna go. Easy peasy. Get it done. It doesn't bother me. I got my things, and we have each other. But then a kid comes in and you're like, whoa, there's another human here. What the hell is happening? And the dynamic shifted as it does.

And we started losing touch with being able to express our needs because we didn't know what they were and didn't know how to ask for them. And basically the argument in the book I wrote, I didn't remember because when I was writing the book, I didn't. But now that I'm thinking about it, we were arguing over who to go to for holidays and it just which

family members?

Yeah Which in-law my parents or parents. And it just opened the flood gates to go, oh, we're arguing. We're now gonna say everything. And it was downright dark and dirty. And we slept in different rooms in the hotel. Like it not, separate rooms in the hotel. Yeah, But like separate areas in the ho in the, in that room.

I gotcha. It was, and we woke up that morning, went, oh. When need to start communicating better. This is not okay, we can't do this. Yeah. And that's really where I was like, okay, we need to start the book here. But in the last, while writing the book and, I don't know, maybe if you experience of working on something that's very close to your heart, you start seeing the signs how important it is.

I have realized that more and more of the couples that I'm working with just don't have basic foundational things. Especially when they're in the trenches of parenting and they lose like touch with that foundation that they've been working on. And I have a few clients where I'm like working with 'em.

I go, oh, you're the reason I'm writing this book. And it just,

yeah.

It's so exciting.

One of the things that congratulations again on the book and I think one of the things that's. The joy and I have realized in doing this joint couples work I we went through a breakup about three years ago.

Yeah. It was really painful and we got back together after about six weeks. And that breakup was really the motivation to dig deeper and go to places. I personally, I think I was afraid to go. Yeah. And also I didn't think I could ever change, 'cause I'd have over five decades of experience saying, proving you can't change this pattern and.

So I, I think it's interesting to me, one of the things we realized that was massive was, I would say it's ballpark, 70, 75% of the shit that we deal with in our romantic relationship precedes that relationship.

It's about prior relationships, prior marriage, childhood, the trauma that we think isn't trauma.

But left a mark disconnected us from a feeling of safety. Yeah. And is coming out to the foreground now in those moments when you're at your worst in arguments.

Yeah.

And leading to the arguments too. And, so I, that's been a fascinating realization to me.

It's, and, but it's a very hard thing to accept and take accountability for that because people usually, I think it's called the devil's argument, where like they point to the other person and go, it's you.

And

then it leads to hell, which is why I think they call it the devil's argument. 'cause I, yeah, it goes down a spiral rabbit hole. But I think when you finally look at yourself and go, Hey, maybe something is me. Not all of it, not everything, but there are things that are me. No one likes to do that and look in the mirror and go, oh the way I grew up, or the last relationship, or the expectations I have, or my ego or my head space or mindset, whatever you want to call it.

Maybe that isn't the healthiest for a cohesive relationship.

Yeah. And I think that's the, golden, I don't even know what to say. That's the the heart of the matter for when couples work really begins to become productive is when you can start to take an honest look at, okay, this is my part in this dynamic.

And, stop. I, get so tired of the externalization of blame. It's a hundred percent you and 0% me. It drives me off a wall. Nothing in couples, no dynamic is a hundred zero.

Yeah. Yeah, I

agree. Whether you're talking about affairs or addiction or arguments or rage. Yeah. And it's just, it doesn't, it might be 2080, it might be 10 90, it might be 50 50, but we all have a part in creating these dynamics and sustaining them.

And until we can get to that point it's really hard to make change.

Yeah. And even some people push back and say what about physical or sexual abuse in a relationship?

Yeah. Yeah.

Guess what? You know what the role is that you have. Having the courage sha leave.

Yeah.

So you didn't, you don't deserve that.

And you didn't do anything to be beaten. You didn't cause it. That's what, not what Dr. John's not saying, but it's more of okay, now that it exists, what are you gonna do? What accountability are you gonna take for yourself?

Yeah.

Hey, I don't like this anymore. Versus playing the victim or saying, oh, I deserve this.

Or, he's a good guy, or she's a good girl. It's not her, it's me, or whatever. The things you start, the excuses you make, don't make excuses. Whether it's a re regular relationship dynamic where there are arguments and conflict, you take accountability for the things you do, or it's an abusive relationship and you take accountability and get the hell out or get help.

Yeah.

That's on you too.

Yeah.

I, man, I got so much to say on this, but let me let's talk a little bit about modern masculinity and in your view, what's the hardest part for men today? And I'm gonna force you into a, forced choice, but you don't have to stay within that. Those boundaries.

But what's the hardest part for men today? Expressing emotion. Understanding emotion, or admitting that they even have emotion. Oh

dude. Oh, I hate you, man. Oh, I think it's all three. But I think men know they have emotions. I don't think that's

Anger. Anger.

Yeah. Anger. Yeah. And I think it's a rarity when they, I think if you push hard enough when someone goes, yeah, I don't really feel, yeah, you do.

You're just not,

yeah.

You just don't know what it sounds like. You might be taught to not pay attention to it, but it's there and you know it's there. So don't play that game with me.

Yeah.

I think it's, I think it's sharing it because I think there's a shift in the world today, and I think it's like penduling him a little bit depending on where you're looking and.

How the algorithm convinces you what's in the world today? Unfortunately, but I think there is a, pendulum swing that was men need to be this way, right? Which is quiet, strong, powerful, all those things. And then it went, men suck and need to keep the and stay in their lane and don't tell me what to do and keep quiet.

And then it's now moving back to you could have a space to share but there is a hesitancy. Yeah. Because if I share and say something now I might be branded as some ism or some whatever last piece of, or is racist or hate, hateful, whatever the thing is, right? Yeah. I'm not saying you are, you should say whatever you say, there are consequences to your words and actions of course.

So please be cognizant and aware of what you're saying and how you're saying it. But I think there is this hesitancy that men have if I share too much, am I gonna. Get reprimanded for that is my partner gonna think that I am weak or less than. But if I don't share enough, then they say I'm not emotionally in tune and, speaking enough and finding that balance, what feels comfortable with them, but also appeasing the people in their life is a very hard space to figure out.

Yeah. One of the dynamics that I see. Recently is women that are like I want my man to be more emotionally expressive. Or emotionally aware, or emotionally in tune or responsive or greater emotional granularity, like all these kind of requests. And I, think those are good requests in general.

I think they're very valid. Wonderful. Yeah. What drives me up a wall is when that request is made and then the partner, the male partner, has the courage. To step outta the man box and express emotion, like crying in front of their spouse. No. Shut it down. And they're like, stop being such a pussy. Yeah. I'm like, oh, fuck.

You realize what you've just done. You

just you just, put them back like

10 years. You just shot yourself in the foot.

Yeah.

And killed whatever request you thought you might've wanted a

hundred

percent because you just shut them down for years.

Yeah.

And so it's this really funny dynamic of, I want my man to be manly simultaneously.

I want him to be emotionally expressive.

It's funny, the last seven months I've had six months, I've had conversations with about four men in my practice on the idea of what is masculinity. And I wanted to, I was looking forward to talking to you today 'cause I wanted to get your take on what I said.

Because you're like one of the leading experts in this field of that,

thanks. I don't know that there are any leading experts, but thank you.

I think you're one of them. So I'll just, if we will wait, we'll make the category okay. You, Dr. Christian Conti. We'll put the two of you together.

Okay. And maybe John Delony, depending on the day. But we'll throw you in there as number one or two. How about that? We'll be number one

fan. I like Daniel Ellenberg too. I think he's done tremendous

work. Yeah, he's great also. Yes, there's

Sean Harvey. There's some

great guys there doing, there's many amazing work out there.

So amazing men. Where I said that masculinity is, to me, the energy of strength and courage. Okay. Which is like the classic, but how it shows up could be the strength and courage to share. It's, I think, a offensive way of embracing that, or the defensive, which is the strength and courage to hold and pull back or be in control.

To not scream and yell at your kids.

That is masculine. That is a power. That is a strength. Then there's the offensive, which is to speak up when you feel you need to, take action when you feel you need to. And that balance, I think is the, offensive de defensive of masculinity is what people think.

It's only offensive. It's only that lion that's lunging to grab the claws out, ready to go and fight. But I think people forget the defensive part of sometimes me not saying something, me not yelling at my wife. Because I have control and I know it. The timing's not right, or I know it's not the best place, or I can hold it in and calm down and say it better.

That is masculine also in my mind. Yeah, the, that balance of the offensive defensive, I wanted to hear your take on that.

Yeah, I I think that's great. I, think I really struggle with the whole. Term or phrase or word masculinity. Me. Healthy masculinity. Toxic masculinity. Modern masculinity, progressive masculinity, of course, traditional masculinity, whatever you wanna call it.

And you, hundred percent would never say toxic masculinity. 'cause that just shuts men down. I know. But I, to me, what I want to see men evolve to is I, would best describe it as full spectrum humanity. In the sense of Yeah, a hundred percent. Of course. Like we're cut off. I would argue from two thirds of our emotions, just by virtue of how we're socialized, how we come up as boys and men.

Yeah.

And that, in and of itself pisses me off.

Of course. Yeah.

Because it's cutting us off from wide swaths of our humanity.

Yeah.

And then everything that comes after that is performative and we're just pretending. To be a man. We're performing at the role of masculinity and so I really like your idea of courage in there.

I think courage, strength I would throw compassion in there for sure, but it's really the courage to be who I know I can be, who it's stepping into. Your full humanity. With less regard for what others think about you. And the other thing that comes to mind as you were talking is I, saw a bit from Terry Reel, who's doing great work in men's work Sure.

About boundaries and about how there's two layers to boundaries. And one is when we traditionally think of boundaries, it's setting boundaries with other people. I want you to treat me like this, or I I'm gonna give you less time or more time, or I'm, available for this.

I'm not available for that. And that's how we normally think of boundaries. Yeah. The other layer though, which I think is less. Commonly thought of is the internal boundary to know what you can and should share and what may be destructive or what may be oversharing or what may be harmful. Like you are talking about anger, right?

Like it, it's okay to say, Hey, I'm really frustrated with you when you come home late. I don't know, after work or when you break curfew.

Yeah.

But to rage at that person as a result of breaking the curfew. That's something that needs to be more restrained Yeah. And dealt with. And so I think it's, that's an interesting way to look at it too, with those two boundaries of how do other people, how do I teach other people to treat me, but how do I also show up in a variety of situations so that I'm being constructive and pro-social, not destructive.

Yeah.

I was talking about in the book, I have a, chapter called from Dues to Dads. 'cause I want, that's what I wanted my title of my book to be, just for fathers. And, I have another chapter called Mama Magic, just for the love letter to moms and the, mental load and that kind of and how to speak up or how to say what you need. But in the fatherhood chapter, I talk about this hurtful thing that happens unconsciously in relationships, which is the pushout, right? So it's like the couple comes home with the baby and the wife is on maternity leave. And for any men listening, paternity leave will save your relationship with your child.

It is the best that you could do. You can finally connect. I agree. You can find your energy and your vibe and your way of dealing with the kid

speaking. Pardon me? Speaking of courage again, right? Yeah. Because I think that requires courage of the father to insert themselves and demand a place at the parenting table.

And whether it's a son or a daughter. 'cause I think daughter takes a little more courage sometimes. Yeah. To, stay involved. To get involved

Is an act of courage that I would highly and strongly suggest

we

do. Yeah.

And then what happens sometimes is push out concept is that the wife who is on 24 7, while you might not be in that yet stage of doing it, goes, no, I got this.

You don't know what you're doing yet. You haven't figured it out. And it's not, purposeful, it's unconscious. But it takes courage to go, Hey, sit down. I'm gonna feed the baby. Because it takes action to go, I want to do this. I want to be involved. Don't let life push you out.

Step in and, I say to the, I wrote, write in the the chapter for the women in men's life to let them fail. Let them try. Yeah. Let them find their own voice. And I think that lead that ties into what you were saying before of, Hey, I want you to be more emotional. I want you to tap into this, and when you do, what the hell are you doing?

I didn't ask for that. Yeah. If you're gonna ask them to help accept it. If you're gonna ask them to be who you hope them to be, let them work on that and try that. Don't just shut it down. I always make the joke, and I think I wrote in the book of the friends episode with Rachel. And Bruce Willis' character, I forgot the name in the show.

Yeah,

and Rachel's like Sister Monica what the hell? The guy doesn't even share any emotions. He's so strong and tough and Monica tells Rachel how to open him up. And then the next scene is him on Rachel's lap bawling uncontrollably. And then she now has this like face of disgust. And not attracted to him anymore because I didn't, ask for the floodgates, I just asked for some emotion.

So what? I just want a little

emotion, not

a lot of emotion. I just want something. I don't want everything.

Yeah.

Come on. Keep it together. And then I think she breaks up with him or something, whatever, and doesn't wanna be with him because of that. And its just a, like I iconic thing of can I have some emotions?

Whoa, I didn't ask for all of that. No. Yeah. Put it back. Put it back.

I wanted a two, not a 10. Yeah. Let me ask you this on a personal front. So your first child was a girl. Did you find did you, you said you had panic attacks, so did you have anxiety about having a daughter?

No, I didn't have anxiety a having a daughter. I wanted, to be a parent since I was a, like a teenager. Like I always loved like the idea of having a kids. I'm glad you waited. Yeah, thanks. And the idea of the daughter wasn't what gave me anxiety. It was the pressure because we did IVF of the hope.

And then having the bait and then the pregnancy and oh my gosh, is it gonna work? And then it was an emergency c-section where I could have lost both my wife and my daughter. And then it was like me trying to focus so much on my wife after the c-section. Literally after the surgery, I ran to the bathroom vomited and got back into the action.

Like I didn't even wipe my face. I was like, I gotta go back. It was more of not. Sitting and processing everything.

Did you, get a, did you put a breath mint in?

Oh heck no. I didn't have any. I just wanted right to kiss my wife. I went bad I was like all the vomit flavor. No, but it was more of the idea that I wasn't focusing on myself at all.

It was all like, I lost like 10, 15 pounds and two months I was just not caring for myself. 'cause I was like wife and kid, and at some point, I think Dr. David Burns talks about this in feel good therapy of if you keep shoving something in the closet or he calls it under the rug.

At some point, something's gonna open it up and that's when you have panic attacks that aren't a trigger based. This happened and now I feel it's more of two o'clock in the morning waking up and your brain just going, something opened the door. We're now coming out flooding of emotions. Yeah. And that's what it was.

It was, I just, my body was screaming at me to go, Hey, pay attention to yourself. There's stuff you need to process that you haven't done yet. But it wasn't about having my daughter, but it's funny 'cause.

I connected. I didn't feel connected to my daughter just because of like new dad third wheel kind of thing.

But once I had maternity leave, I was like all in. Yeah. My son, I didn't feel connected to because of how hard he was with sleeping. Like we didn't sleep for a good year and a half.

Oh

shit. It was just annoyed. We were just annoyed like, yeah, what the hell are we doing? This is not fair. This is not tor, this is torturous.

Why do we do this to ourselves? What is wrong with you? And we my wife and I have discussed it before and it's like, it's not that we hated him, we just didn't like him.

Like we loved him but didn't like

him

And I appreciate, you sharing that because I think it normalizes it for a lot of new dads.

And I remember my first child was born by C-section and I remember. Being really torn and not expecting this at all. Like I'm talking to my, at the time it was my wife's head when her abdominal cavity is cut open and it was like, did you look Frankenstein? Oh yeah. Oh my gosh, that was the worst season of my life.

Each one I looked more progressively, more until I was like, holy shit. Is that her? Yeah, maybe I shouldn't look at that. Anyway but I, was really torn emotionally between staying with my wife who I knew and had an emotional relationship with. They wanted me to go with this new neonate, this new baby.

And I was like, but I don't know them. I don't have any emotional connection to this thing, and I'm supposed to go with the baby. And I'm like, wait, but I'm leaving my wife. And she's cut open on a operating table. Like

yeah

It was, a really weird pole that I didn't Yes. Anticipate.

Yes. It, yeah, it wasn't like it's funny 'cause the whole pnc, the whole like labor was like 23 hours.

Nothing happened. And then it was, okay, we're gonna plan for a C-section in the next hour or so, and that's when we lost the baby's heart weight beat. Ooh. Within a couple of minutes. Frightening then it was like all of a sudden there was no heartbeat. And then it was like three seconds, gotta go. They grabbed my wife, pulled her in and within five minutes the baby was there.

And it's funny 'cause my son was a planned C-section. He came a week early, but it wasn't an emergency by 12 hours of labor. My wife's I looked at her and she's yeah, we're not doing this again. Can we just have a C-section? Yeah, we're gonna do it anyways. Like we're not waiting till 24 hours. And it was, there was music playing.

I got to cut the cord and it was this very stark difference of, holy crap, the baby might die to la. Throughout life. Yeah. In this experience. And it was so weird to think of the two. Happening to my wife and having a child and me being the dad. But I think it's just an interesting dynamic you're talking about, of men don't have the time to repair.

Like woman baby's growing in you. You feel it, you know it. You have all the symptoms. And we're like, you go girl, and you're on the outside. Yeah. And all of a sudden, three seconds later you're like, oh look a baby. And you've already built that connection for nine months.

Right.

And you're like thrown right into it.

And the other thing I appreciate you bringing up is just that idea of loving your child but not necessarily liking them all the time. Yeah. 'cause I think that's really human and that's true, I would guess of all parents.

Yeah.

But same thing with a partner,

my spouse.

Yeah. And just to give yourself that permission of yeah. I love my son right now, but I don't really like him 'cause he's kinda screwed up our sleep for a year and a half.

Yeah. I remember

having, and I'm

resentful of that breaking point at my, my, we were living with my parents at the time to save money to buy a house. And I was like at a Friday night Sabbath dinner and I was just, I was like crying and screaming at the same time.

I just was at my end and my father looked at me and said, don't you dare talk about my grandson like that, because like to him like, this is like such a blessing. You went through IVF and all these things and this is what you're talk, this is how you're talking. And in my head I'm like, yeah. I am.

'cause this is called having emotions and feelings.

Yeah.

Doesn't matter. Also how we got here. Children

will push you to the breaking point

often. Also, I think my daughter screwed us up by spoiling us. She like slept four hours at time. They

often, they make the first one easy so that you have more.

I think that's, I know, I don't know if that's God's plan. I don't know what that is but, that often seems to be the case.

But it was like and it was just this realization and then now he's three and a half, almost four. Like I can't, he woke me up last night, he had to go to the bathroom, right?

He's like potty trading and stuff like that. And, and he asked me, he goes, daddy, can I snuggle with you a little bit? And the answer of course was like, a hundred percent. Yeah. I love you. Like I want this. And it's so nice to look back and be like I, can't believe I ever had those feelings. 'cause you are just, yeah, I always say that my son has my heart and my daughter has my soul.

We're like, it's like soul. Like we're like the same person, but my son like has my heart in the way that my daughter doesn't and my, daughter has my soul the way my son doesn't. So it's like this weird story.

So let me ask you this.

To what extent did you like being a parent of infants versus toddlers or older?

What was your experience there?

Oh, I love like the, I love each stage differently, but I love like the eight month a year stage where they start becoming a person and aren't a blob of nothing.

Yep.

And they're not spitting up as much and not but that they're now like have a per the personality starts.

Yeah.

And you're like, there you are. Like, and then they see you and they're cooing and talking. But I love this, even though the toddler stage is really hard because they have thoughts of their own and talk back and are super sassy and say, you're the worst father ever and you suck, and all those things.

But I love the conversations and the depth of relationship that we are building. 'cause they are now like actually people, they have their likes and dislikes. They have a sense of humor. We're reading certain books and they're laughing just like I'm laughing, or they don't, and it's just this, the questions of life and, just these conversations and talking that I just can't get enough of.

I always say, I agree. My favorite part of the week is I walk to synagogue with my daughter and now my son comes along and the conversations we have of just like the ridiculousness that you can think of that a toddler asks. I, look forward to it every week. It's just the simple, like this child is gonna ask me the most ridiculous things and I cannot wait.

And now they get my humor. 'cause I have a witty like humor and they'll look at me and they'll go, come on dad. You're ridiculous. Yeah. I love that they're your biggest

critics.

Yeah. I love that. Even yesterday, my daughter had a Hanukkah party thing at school and she said, do not scream my name when I get up to the stage.

And I said, okay. Not gonna happen, but, okay. And she got up there and I yelled let's go Ricky. And she, just gave me this look of come on. Yeah. On stage. And it just, I'm like, we're here. Like this is it.

Just, wait. That. That penchant for embarrassing your children gets better and sweeter.

Can oh, can't wait. It really peaks to middle school. I can't wait. I used to drive my daughter up and drop her off at middle school, and as she's getting out of the car in front of all these students milling about trying to look cool, I would roll down the window and be like, I love you, honey. Have a good day.

Learn lots of things. Yeah. And she would just run away. And I'm gonna

tell her, call her the name that I go, I love you Pooky. I love the pickles and oh dad, you're the worst. It just gives me joy.

And, then she'd be solen and bitter another day and I would threaten to pick her up in my speedo and goggles and just be waiting out in front of the school for her and just, okay, I

feel better now.

Dad, don't do

it. And it was interesting 'cause it had this great side effect of making her really comfortable with embarrassment and learning to care less what other people thought. Because I think embarrassment so many things, something that's safe. We, do. Yeah. You're we, do some things in life to avoid embarrassment, but it's like why?

Yeah. Like embarrassment is not that bad when you really look at it.

Yeah.

And I think it's a really good skill to get comfortable with embarrassment.

It is. Years ago I was studying abroad and the school sponsored a Dale Carnegie course was like a famous speaker in the 1950s. You know how to win friends and influence people.

Oh yeah. Great. And I see his courses. He was like the pre Tony Robbins. Yeah. But his courses didn't make you walk on hot coals and burn your feet off like Tony Robbins. But he, his whole thing was to, in front of a group of people, small group people, 10, 20 people do something that was a little outta your comfort zone, but you knew you were safe and you're okay to break you out of this shell of.

What am I supposed to do? Like I can't, there are people here and that taught me so much about myself that like, who cares? So I'm, jumping like a frog and yelling Shakespeare.

Yeah.

Big whoop.

I remember when I was, it must've been 30 years ago, I was prepping to do a radio show, like a live daily primetime radio show in the Bay Area.

And I decided I would take an improv comedy class to prepare me way outta my comfort zone. And. That helped me to get comfortable with being silly, being stupid. Embarrassed. Being embarrassed

and being you. Yeah.

And it was invaluable.

I love that.

Because then you can, again, embrace all of your humanity.

So let me, we've been reminiscing here and. Talking personally, let me go back to the work stuff.

'cause then I feel like I've justified this interview, although I enjoy talking to you at every level, but in your book you talk about the holy trinity the, three fundamental components of how we make sense of everyday life.

And there are expectations, perceptions and reality. And you say. In the book that this is one of the most, I just have to say that because then I can say, I've read part of the book, so I feel very good about myself. So you say in the book that this is one of the most important insights you've had for your relationship and the work you do with couples.

So tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, I think a lot of us have so many expectations of how things should go well. If my partner is home all day, they should clean the house or take care of the dishes. Or if they're feeding the kid, they should. Be doing it this way, and then we come in without context into the scenario with that expectation, and now we perceive it through that lens.

Either they're failing or they're succeeding within that perception. How do you think we're gonna deal with that? Within when it comes to the reality of how we interact with it, we don't know the reality. Number one, we're not there and we also. Or gonna interact with that reality based on our expectation and perception.

So the classic example I give is I was taking care of my, daughter paternity leave and my, wife was out at work and she comes home and the apartment's a mess. And she gives me this look of what the hell have you done all day? And I remember feeling so crushed.

I'm like. I was keeping this child alive and playing and

Like you weren't there. You didn't see how many diapers I've changed. You don't know the, there could have been like seven poop explosions and three vomit explo. You don't know anything. You're coming in with limited knowledge, and your expectation is things should be cleaner because when I do it, and when I did it and you came home, everything was taken care of.

Maybe tomorrow when you come home it will be, but today was a different day. So now your perception is you suck, you did nothing, and I'm gonna yell at you and get upset at you and be pissed off at you and hold some grudge or lead to resentment. So one of the biggest things that I feel a lot of couples struggle with, or any human depending on your relationship, is that we have to understand what we're expecting first.

If we're expecting that something that's not realistic, we're gonna be annoyed by it and we're gonna have hold grudges and hold this, pain towards our partners. So just like. Talk it out. What, are you expecting? What do you, think is gonna happen tomorrow? And I say that, and I do this in my relationship.

It's not something that I just preach. I practice when I can. Is this idea of a daily or weekly check-in, so every night or every morning? Yep. If we're all sitting, scrolling in bed or watching tv. And do cut it off 10, 15 minutes earlier and look to your person and say, Hey what's, on Taff for tomorrow for you?

My schedule changes every day. People cancel. People pop in at podcasts. Things happen. Kids, who knows, and, oh, here, I have this, and that. Who's doing carpool? Okay, who's doing lunch? Who's doing dinner? Okay, now that we put that out, what do you need from me tomorrow? And what do you need for yourself?

Maybe you're expecting that I'm gonna do dinner, or I'm gonna put the dishes away in the dishwasher, or I'm gonna go pick this up from the library. I'm gonna do this chore errand that we talked about three weeks ago. Who the hell can remember that, but now we're doing it the day before. So it's the three questions of what's on tap for tomorrow?

What do you need from me? What are the expectations of your par of me as the person? And anything you need for yourself. And that's for both partners to ask each other. It's not a one way thing. Yeah. No I love that. And then it clears the air and if anything comes up, okay, we talked about it already.

Now we can, like versus coming in, going, what you were supposed to do this. I don't, you didn't tell me. You're supposed to know that. Don't you know you've been married for 10, 15, 20 years, five years? You don't know this already. Who cares? Everyday changes. So just have that check in so that there isn't this argument.

Let's preempt these arguments and things so that we can just and to that

end I, always like that being aware of that cognitive error that we do of mind reading or thinking our partnership in our mind, many, right? We've been together for so long, they don't know how to buy me a gift already.

You should know this. You don't, they don't know what I would want. No, but the. The other thing that's fascinating to me about your triad is I, think the expectations are often built up over a lifetime often. Yeah. Before you even met your partner. So that's something to be aware of, the perceptions, because I'm an emotion geek.

I'm always aware of and curious about how our emotion or our mood is influencing those perceptions. And one of the things Jo and I talk a lot about is how it's a Terry real line of most relationships don't end because of a huge transgression. Like an affair. They end.

Death by a thousand paper cuts where those paper cuts are small, emotional resentments and annoyances and her for sure being ignored and so on. But as those accumulate, your perception of your partner can go from all positive to all, or mostly negative.

Yeah.

And so I've seen it get so bad that I've seen husbands try and do something kind for their wife, bring them flowers and the lens, the perception.

Through which the wife is viewing. This is so negative that they get angry at the husband for bringing home flowers.

Yeah.

The one that I hear often die I hate flowers. Like, why are you doing that? Why are you wasting money on that?

Yeah. The one I hear often is what your therapist told you to do that.

Oh man. Or, and or the extension of that is when you ask couples in relation, like in couples therapy, like what, would you need to hear from your spouse when you're in this state? Like when you're triggered when you're angry. Yeah. And they tell them word for word, this is what would really help me.

And then the next time they get in that state, the partner tells them word for word what the partner to themselves said, this would be helpful if you said this. And then they get mad at them. They're like, what? I just told you. You're just saying that 'cause I told you to say that. It's like what, how do you think new skills developed

how you want me to do it?

Yeah, so the thing with the, when I get that pushback, when the guy comes back into my office, he goes, Ellie, I did what you said and like the suggestion of how to say things. And she's I'm sure Ellie told you to say that Uhhuh. So I said, you know what, you should say back, you are like, you're right.

He did. That is me. I'm trying to do the work. Yeah. You like, I know I'm not where I need to be, or, I know this is not, I'm not my best self, or I know that this is I'm trying to work harder for us. Or you, this is part of that. If you want me to be there and, show that effort, I need you to accept it.

'cause if you keep shutting me down, why would I even try? But, and that's like a big, pushback.

It's one of the points that Jo and I always hammer home this idea of focus on effort over outcome.

Yes. Even with I'm sorrys, how many times do you deal with someone not having the, this wasn't the perfect, sorry, but they said I'm sorry.

So accept what they did, not what the ideal hope is because maybe they're not there yet, but at least they said they're sorry and that's start the start versus it needs to be the perfect language and the perfect algorithm to be the perfect thing to make me feel everything I deserve and need.

Yeah. And if you want your partner to change, you gotta learn to reward or praise the efforts.

Yeah.

The small steps that they're making on the way in order to encourage your effort so they keep going. Whereas if you attack the effort because it's not the outcome you want, it shuts the effort down and you're, in square one again.

I love that. I think that a lot of people get, get sucked into that.

It's not the end result. And also the thing with like that back and forth of trying and making these efforts is that when it comes to these ways that we, talk to each other and support each other and you're not there for me and Oh, this is what your therapist said and all those things.

I think it's just very important that people need to realize people are doing their best.

Yep. And most people, and it's interesting, we had a story. I won't tell the whole story, but. Early on in our relationship, joy and I, we'd get into a disagreement and I would get butt hurt and angry and maybe a little bit of shame mixed in there.

And I could get to the point after a while of making an apology. But the initial apology was pretty robotic, monotone. It lacked sincerity, it lacked warmth, and she would get. It, would trigger her again. She's that doesn't feel very authentic. And she then we get back into the loop, right of being disconnected. And I told her, I said look if, you can accept that initial apology is a half step towards you, as that is my best effort in the moment that I'm still angry and hurt, but I'm trying to turn towards. So if you can accept that in a couple more minutes, I can get to a place where I've calmed down enough to give you a more sincere and warm and authentic apology.

Yeah. And then, so that was a big breakthrough for us and, again, it speaks to that rewarding effort over outcome.

Yeah. And the thing that I was trying to say before that my brain just glitched and kept going in a loop and not saying was that I think a really important thing for couples to realize is that if you had a kid with this, person, and you trust them with a kid's life and you trust 'em with your life, and you trust them in so many other avenues and they're not showing up in certain ways, can you have the benefit of the doubt or a positive light?

Versus always seeing them through the negative, everything they do, you're just gonna be rum and that grumpy oh, they did that freaking thing again. I wanna kill the freaking face. Like the classic line. I can't even stand how he freaking breeds.

We're at a place where all we see is the negative and, taking from a colleague of mine, Dr.

Sasha Hines, who's a positive psychologist. I call it treasure hunting. I write this in the book of the idea that, and whoever's who's watching, but I'll try to describe it with listening, if you, all you have is a vision in front of your face that blocks you, and it's only anger, frustration, or resentment or pain.

You don't give opportunity to see anything else. So just move it to the side where it's in your peripheral vision. You're not deleting it. No one's asking you to get rid of that pain. It's just you're giving space to see something else. So give yourself and your partner. The opportunity to see something positive.

Don't make it up, but just give a different vision. Like I can have the benefit of the doubt versus the first thing going, oh, they did this on purpose to catch me and they left it here so that I can be pissed. And you start building these narratives that they're all like this evil villain and whatever movie you can think of Disney who, or whatever movie you watch or whatever thinks, oh, they're this like Wahaha I did, no, oh, they're the hero, or they're neutral.

So that I now can interact with them in a neutral or positive way versus jumping. You must be. The villain of the story.

And I like that idea, just a basic tenant of relationships of assume positive intent.

Yeah.

And I think naturally and then be curious to

find out, and then you can get real information.

We, get away from that over time because of the paper cuts, right? Yeah. And our lens exactly why through which we view our partners actions becomes increasingly negative. And I think that's a normal progression. Yeah. I've seen that. I've seen it myself, but I think you wanna become aware of it so that every.

Pick a number every five years, every 10 years you go, Hey honey. I think our lens through which we're interpreting each other's actions is becoming a little too negative. Yeah. How about if we decide and put a concentrated effort into getting back to assuming positive intent?

And, part of that, to your point earlier, is playing the game of.

What am I grateful for? What am I appreciative of? The small things that my partner is doing throughout the day. Yeah. And then calling those out, bringing those out to your partner. And joy and I play a game where we try and hide like positive things that we do for the relationship or the household, just to see if the other one can catch it.

And so we're trying to catch each other being good.

Good.

And it's it's a great parenting tactic too, but it takes. Retraining to focus on what's going well versus giving into the negativity bias and just focusing on what's not.

That's why I'm a big fan of just say thank you as much as you can for things that have been expected.

Things that are, yeah, a basic foundation. If my wife takes carpool, I'm saying thank you because I didn't have to, and

Well,

it's very hard, by the way, for your brain, it's impossible for your brain, just from a neurological perspective to be grateful and thankful and hateful at the same time.

Yeah. Your brain and neurotransmitters can't.

Absolutely.

They just can't.

I'm laughing because I've seen couples where one dad made an effort to go pick up his daughters at high school, and Jory asked the mom the, wife did you express gratitude for him doing that? And she's no, why did I do that? That's his job.

Why would

it exactly

No,

That's the point. It is. He did it. And you didn't have to. So I appreciate you,

and he did it

kindly without complaining. You did it. He did

it to support you and the relationship

with the

family.

It doesn't matter what the role is, even if it's the garbage, whatever roles you've discussed for how many years you've been doing it, say thank you anyways, because you cannot, your brain cannot function with anger and hate at the same time as being grateful.

It just does. It doesn't work for your brain.

Ellie, I unfortunately, I gotta wrap this up because I gotta cut. I know you're a busy man,

and we got

things

to

do and, by the way, we will be in Vegas in February, so hopefully we can hook up with you for a meal. Of course. Love to do that. And tell me again the name of the book, when it's gonna be available, where people can find it, and where people can find you.

Sure. So you can find me on Instagram, LE Weinstein, lcsw the book just a there's a page on my website, Ellie weinstein lcsw.com with tab booked and you can get anywhere. Amazon, Barnes and Nobles bookshop book a million. I didn't know those other two existed. Yeah, they're

new. No, they're not new, but they're not, they're

overlooked.

And it's pre-order right now and it means a lot. So pre-order, 'cause it shows Amazon and Barnes and Nobles, it's worth buying more for them. And it just shows the, it just helps the algorithm to show this is a worthy book. And

and by the way, I've read about a third of the book. I think it's fantastic.

Beautiful

stuff. Oh, thank you. Like how much I admire you and jewelry and how your opinion means the world to me and how much I love you guys. You guys are just like the epitome of, the work. Of the work.

Thank you. And you smashed this book. You just did a great job.

Thank you.

And and with the books coming out in March, I wish it was coming out earlier 'cause the work has been 10 months of writing it and then you just sit and go, okay, I have to wait another eight months. Let's do it. You're so excited. And then, but I'm really proud of it. It's from I do to, we do navigating marriage through parenting years.

Again, it's 80% book of relationships for anyone. But 20% if you happen to have kids and how to not kill each other and how to get through the chaos and rebuild what you guys have.

You, sent me a PDF. I'll go pre-order my copy just so I have a physical copy and to support you. Appreciate

you. I appreciate you a lot.

Thanks so much, John.

So thank you so much for sharing. Thank you so much for being on the show. Always a pleasure. That is it for this episode of The Evolved Caveman. If you liked this episode, if it meant something to you, please be sure to like rate, review, and share. And if you didn't like it, it's all right.

You don't have to do a damn thing. Until next time, this is Dr. John signing off.

I.