In this video, Jordan Peterson discusses various aspects of relationships. From choosing a mate to keeping a long-term relationship fresh, it comes down to communication, conscious effort and choices. Dr. Oz expresses that in terms of finding a partner, women may reject several suitors before she finds one to have children with. In fact, Dr. Oz wonders if how that choice is made can change. Jordan Peterson doesn’t think it can because women make choices rationally, emotionally, and instinctively. They are viewing it from a mating standpoint and the problems that could arise from choosing the improper mate. Jordan Peterson describes it as a profound rejection.
Dr. Oz then asks if there’s a way for men to reduce the pitfalls that are making them undesirable. Whether it’s being a little more fit, a little more educated, or even a little more compassionate, Jordan Peterson shares that one way could be to look at examples of others who are successful in those areas and see how incrementally they could work to be more like that. He explains that the best way is to take it as a lesson and not to hide.
Later, Jordan Peterson also says it’s important to know what you want in a relationship and to make sure to keep it interesting. He’s been with his wife for over 30 years and he feels like he doesn’t know all aspects of her. To him, this is a good to have in a relationship because you don’t get bored. And if you do, you’re bored of the image of your partner. Jordan Peterson suggests to learn ways to discover new things about your partner and to make room for the mystery of your partner to be revealed.
Dr. Oz then asks if there’s a way for men to reduce the pitfalls that are making them undesirable. Whether it’s being a little more fit, a little more educated, or even a little more compassionate, Jordan Peterson shares that one way could be to look at examples of others who are successful in those areas and see how incrementally they could work to be more like that. He explains that the best way is to take it as a lesson and not to hide.
Later, Jordan Peterson also says it’s important to know what you want in a relationship and to make sure to keep it interesting. He’s been with his wife for over 30 years and he feels like he doesn’t know all aspects of her. To him, this is a good to have in a relationship because you don’t get bored. And if you do, you’re bored of the image of your partner. Jordan Peterson suggests to learn ways to discover new things about your partner and to make room for the mystery of your partner to be revealed.
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00:00 You mentioned women seeking a male, a mate, that embodies the best that you can imagine.
00:05 How does she know if she has the right partner? Because not everyone's going to find it.
00:08 Well, she doesn't.
00:09 She doesn't.
00:10 And she never will. So it's doomed to failure.
00:13 And those numbers don't match up right now. Most women will pick a few men and not the
00:20 rest of the men on Tinder, for example.
00:22 Mm-hmm.
00:22 Right?
00:22 Yeah, that's right. They're very selective.
00:24 So, and this makes sense. You're looking for the best person to mate with you, to bond with you,
00:28 to be your companion. How do women make those choices wisely? What happens to men who aren't
00:35 picked? How do you change that dynamic? Because judgment is, you can say whatever you want to say
00:39 about judgment, but it's used every single day when people pick their relationships.
00:42 Oh, I don't think you can change it in its essence. I mean, if you're constantly rejected
00:46 by women, there's something wrong with you. And that's how it is.
00:51 Wow.
00:51 And well, and no wonder men get so angry at that. No wonder, because it's a profound rejection.
00:57 It's like, "No, I'm really, I'm rejecting your essence." And why do women do that? Well,
01:03 they're smart and self-conscious. And they know both rationally, they know rationally,
01:09 emotionally, and instinctively that they will bear a terrible burden in pregnancy and childbearing
01:16 and childrearing, for that matter, that they will become dependent to some degree on this person
01:22 they're having sexual relations with. And so they better get it right. And so, you know, they're
01:28 choosy. And how, would you want it to be any different? You're pretty happy that your mother
01:34 chose the best man she could manage to have you. I mean, so you're subject to the same process.
01:40 And it can be a terrible thing if you're continually rejected to think, "Oh my God,
01:44 there's something so wrong with me that every single woman I meet deems me unworthy.
01:51 God, it's no wonder that makes people so angry, so angry." And it accounts for so much of the
01:58 hostility between the sexes. It's a terrible thing, but how would you change it to make it better?
02:08 How does the individual male change it, or at least reduce the pitfalls
02:12 that are making him undesirable?
02:14 Well, I think partly what you do is you look at people who seem to be desirable, and then you see,
02:18 "Well, how could I incrementally change myself so that I'm more like that? A little stronger,
02:26 a little more fit, a little more educated, a little more charming, a little more socially
02:30 skilled, a little more compassionate." All of that. And you take it as a lesson.
02:35 And you don't hide. And no wonder you want to hide. I mean, I think women underestimate the
02:41 degree to which men are terrified by female rejection.
02:44 Oh my goodness. Well, we're seeing it now with incels and groups are now coalescing around the
02:49 fact that they think the system's broken because they're not being selected, which I completely get.
02:52 I suspect many human wars were created or caused because of massive problems with too many males
03:01 looking for too few females.
03:02 Yeah. Well, that's a specter looming in China.
03:05 Because of the one-child policy and its consequences, and more female
03:11 babies were terminated than male. So yeah, that's a problem. I mean, there's no rejection
03:18 like being rejected by a woman that you're, what would you say, you're captivated by.
03:23 So what do you do if you're in a stale relationship,
03:26 if you're fearful that you run into a dead end? Are those rehab-able?
03:29 Well, the first thing, I mean, I've been married for 30 years, 32 years,
03:37 and I've known my wife for 50 years, a long time. I don't know her.
03:41 What do you mean?
03:43 She's complicated. And so if you're bored of your partner, it's like,
03:48 no, you're bored with your image of your partner. Your partner has got way more to them than you'll
03:54 ever know. And if you don't see that, then that's a limitation of the memory through which you're
04:01 viewing your partner. Now you may have both fallen into that trap and perpetuated because
04:05 you just act out each other's stereotypes or something like that. And then you also have to
04:11 ask yourself, well, have you really asked for what you want in the relationship? Sexually,
04:16 for example, and this is a private story. I don't know if I should relate it, but
04:20 many years ago I stumbled across this lingerie site, Trashy.com.
04:25 Sounds good.
04:27 Yeah, yeah. It's an LA outfit and I bought like 300 pieces of lingerie.
04:34 Not for me. I wasn't dressing up in my bedroom in this. And I thought, well, you know,
04:40 I'd like to see my wife in some of those. And so that was a really good purchase.
04:45 Time you put it on, the different outfits?
04:49 Yes. And so then she's a little different, but it's not a different woman. It's a different
04:55 aspect of the same woman and it's a game. And so we learned to play that game and that was really
05:01 helpful. That helped sustain us through our terrible illnesses, that practice, because
05:05 we had set dates and we've started doing that 20 years ago. And we set aside a time for romance,
05:12 you know, because don't you want that? And so if you're bored, it's like, well, why?
05:17 What do you want? What do you want to rectify that boredom? And then dare you ask for it?
05:24 And is there some way you could entice your partner into participating? Maybe they're bored
05:28 too, maybe for the same reasons. You know, maybe you're too, what would you say, moralistic and
05:33 in a narrow sort of sense and, you know, feel that that sort of thing is wrong in some deep sense,
05:42 because we all suffer from sexual shame for all sorts of reasons. And have a little daring and
05:48 see if you can get what you want and see if you can even admit to yourself what you want and then
05:53 separate out what you shouldn't want, you know, maybe from what would be okay to explore. And
05:58 so there's boredom is perhaps a consequence of lack of daring and it's certainly a consequence,
06:04 at least in part, of lack of honesty. And then there's an authoritarian element to it too,
06:08 because you think you know who you're dealing with. You can fall into a rut and like I said,
06:14 then you act out each other's stereotypes and that gets dull. But part of what you do to maintain a
06:20 relationship is to continually allow the mystery of your partner to be revealed and to encourage
06:27 them also, right, to change. And then, you know, men do strange things to women in that regard too,
06:34 because like let's say you've managed to marry someone a bit out of your league, so you were
06:44 successful, right? So at least as far as you're concerned, this woman is an attractive woman.
06:50 But when she presents herself as attractive, other men attend to her. And so, you know,
06:56 then every time she puts on a dress or something that's attractive, instead of thinking, "Oh my
07:00 God, what a bombshell, aren't I lucky?" More of that, you know, you frown or you turn away or
07:06 maybe you make a bit of a disgust face or something. Just a microsecond of that, you make a bit of a
07:10 disgust face and she's all not happy about that because she put a lot of effort into buying this
07:15 dress and putting herself together and now you've indicated that there's something corrupt and
07:19 untrustworthy about her attempts. And you do that 50 times and well then she's frumpy and old,
07:27 because that's what you wanted, you idiot. Because you're jealous and resentful and stupid.
07:32 And so maybe there's some of that going on too, you know? I mean, if you cultivate that sexual
07:40 charisma in your wife, well, you risk other people being attracted to her, but
07:43 well then I guess your job is to put yourself together so she still thinks you're,
07:49 you know, worthy of that. That's the greatest compliment. If other people find the person you
07:53 were able to trap into marrying you attractive, I would think you'd celebrate that. Yeah, well,
07:58 you know, but people are doubtful and insecure and it's understandable, but it's not a good...
08:04 Look, do not punish what you wish to have happen. So this is a really good piece of advice.
08:11 This is something I learned in my clinical practice. So, okay, you want to improve your
08:15 marriage, okay? And so what do you do? Well, you watch. Start watching. Start paying attention now.
08:20 You watch your wife and your kids too. And when they do something that you would really like them
08:25 to do more of, because you notice, "Oh, I like that. That was good." Some subtle thing. You say,
08:30 "Hey, you just did this." And you make it specific. "You just did this and I noticed it. I really
08:36 thought that was great." And you do that a hundred times. This is not many times. Then those hundred
08:44 things will happen over and over. That's positive reinforcement. B.F. Skinner, the famous behaviorist,
08:50 he trained animals to do all sorts of strange things like rats to climb ladders and so forth.
08:54 And pigeons to peck out locations on maps for guided missiles. Pigeons. Using photographs,
09:01 using positive reinforcement. You watch. And then when the person does something you'd like to see
09:07 more of, you say, "That was great." And you mean it. And you admit to yourself that that's what you
09:12 want. And you get over your resentment at the person for being flawed even more than you are,
09:17 you think. But you're wrong. And you overcome that so that you can say something nice to them without
09:23 it having a bitter edge. And it's hard. But think about what you... Watch and see what it is that
09:29 you want. And when it happens, celebrate it a little bit. And then you'll get a bunch more of
09:34 it. And that'll keep the boredom out of your relationship. So let me ask the more extreme
09:39 question. Sexless relationships. I mean, statistically, people who are more intimate
09:45 seem to do better. They definitely seem to live longer. They're probably healthier, a lot of them.
09:50 That's why they can be intimate. But let's leave out the physical impairment to being sexually
09:55 active. What happens when a relationship's sexual energy dries up? Well, part of that happens with
10:03 being older, of course. And that is reflective in some sense of health and also the relationship
10:08 between sexuality and reproduction. But 25% of octogenarians are very sexually active.
10:13 Right, right. So that means it's not rare. And what happens to everybody else?
10:18 Well, there is variability in desire. And you see that, I think, fairly standardly between men and
10:24 women. There's an old Woody Allen joke where the two in the couple are both in therapy and the
10:30 woman says, you know, he wants sex all the time at least three times a week. And he goes in and says,
10:36 well, we never have sex. It's only three times a week. And that was pretty funny and pretty
10:41 accurate. So there's variability in sexual desire. That's for sure. And lots of variability. So some
10:48 of that you get two people who have a lower libido, they're not going to have intimate
10:52 relationships. Is there a problem, though? It's not about blame. It's just about the
10:56 clinical reality. If a couple comes to see you and they're not being intimate.
11:00 Oh, well, it's often a marker of something that's gone profoundly wrong. Yes. And often something
11:05 deep. I mean, you know, you have the idea, well, that there's variability in mind. And maybe this
11:10 couple is mismatched in terms of their intrinsic libido, their desire. But yes, if they're not
11:15 being intimate, usually that's a decision on the part of the woman, but not always. And yeah,
11:20 it's generally indicative that something way down in the relationship is really not right. Yes. Yes.
11:25 You know, it's not a blanket statement because there's lots of variability in couples and
11:31 individuals, but it's certainly something worth investigating. You know, why aren't you sleeping
11:36 with him? Well, I hate him. Expand.
11:41 Yeah. Why? You know, and that's something to think about too. Why are you mad? Well, you don't
11:46 really know. Lots of times we're in bad moods because we don't know. We don't know why we're
11:51 bad. Write down everything you might be mad about. You know?
11:56 The male-female energy that historically guided a lot of our behaviors, it was that the yin-yang.
12:02 I just wrote a book about traditional Chinese medicine, a topic that was hidden for many years
12:07 because Mao and the earlier Chinese communist leaders didn't want it out there. They were
12:12 shamed by these older traditions. Now it's become more popular to talk about because it's part of
12:17 the heritage of the country. But very much of yin-yang is about the opposite energies attracting.
12:22 Oh, and also chaos. That's the black paisley in the Daoist yin-yang symbol. Chaos,
12:29 an excess of chaos is an excess of psychophysiological stress. It's the same
12:35 thing, you know? And so if your household is chaotic, for example, it's messy and all the
12:41 pathways are cluttered. Every time you look at one of those paths, you become stressed because
12:47 the pathway isn't clear. And one of the functions of the stress response is to react to unclear
12:53 pathways. And so if you go into someone's house and it's chaotic, then you can say, "Well, you're
12:57 more prone to become ill." And that's actually literally true because they're more stressed,
13:01 and stress suppresses immunological function. And so there's lots of wisdom in that. Getting the
13:07 balance between order and chaos correct, that's where meaning is on that line between chaos and
13:13 order. And to exist there is definitely to be more healthy. And that's speaking purely empirically,
13:21 purely scientifically. It's just that scientists didn't really understand what the interplay of
13:26 chaos and order meant. It's entropy, the disorder, too much entropy. We can't tolerate that. We break
13:32 down physically. - But you've spoken often of order and disorder in terms of masculine and
13:36 feminine energies. And we can have, one person can have both. But in our modern discussions,
13:42 certainly over the last decade, there's been a blurring of male-female separations. At least
13:47 it's not as clear when you look at it from the outside. How does that play into relationships?
13:51 - Well, it depends on the relationship. And there are obviously biological differences between men
13:59 and women, obviously. But then on top of that, there are temperament. And some women clearly
14:05 have masculine temperaments, and some men clearly have feminine temperaments. So the idea that
14:10 there's gender as well as sex has some validity, even speaking scientifically. So basically, men
14:17 and women are about the same in conscientiousness, although women are slightly more orderly,
14:22 and men are slightly more industrious. Those two together make up conscientiousness.
14:26 Extroversion, about the same, but women are more enthusiastic part of extroversion, and men are
14:32 more assertive. Agreeableness, that's where a big sex difference exists. Women are more compassionate
14:39 and polite than men by quite a bit. And that's not massive. The sexes still overlap more than
14:46 they differ, but that's where one of the bigger differences is. And in the tendency for negative
14:50 emotion, neuroticism, that's withdrawal, and volatility, women are more sensitive to negative
14:58 emotion. Well, why? Well, they're smaller. So in some sense, the world is more dangerous.
15:05 But I think more importantly, women are more susceptible to threat, more sensitive to threat,
15:11 because I don't think adult female nervous systems are adapted for single adult females. I think
15:19 they're adapted to mother-child dyads. And the reason I think that in part is that boys and girls
15:26 are about the same in negative emotion. But when puberty hits, the sexes differentiate,
15:31 and women become more sensitive to negative emotion. Well, why? Well, if you aren't you,
15:38 but you are you and an infant, the world is a way more dangerous place, and you need to be
15:43 more sensitive to threat. And that's hard because that threat sensitivity, that neuroticism,
15:49 negative emotionality, does make for difficulties in relationship, because smaller things will upset
15:57 women on average than men. And I explained why, and that's not a criticism. It's not a criticism,
16:05 but every advantage comes with a disadvantage. But it's something for people to be aware of,
16:10 and it's something to take seriously. It's also partly why I think it's 75% of divorces
16:16 are initiated by women. Well, they get more unhappy in the same situation. And so men think,
16:22 "Oh, women, they're hard to please. They're always upset." Well, yeah, but look what they
16:27 have to contend with. Well, you, for example. Exactly. Top of the pack. Yeah, exactly.