When a man does emotional work, the

woman feels stable in the relationship.

When a woman does emotional work to

support her partner, the man's

experience of volatility in the

relationship increases. So, I stopped

sharing my thoughts and feelings with my

girl. The relationship improved and now

I'm alone again. This is like a really

common thing that I've been hearing

recently from men that they they can't

really share their thoughts and feelings

in their romantic relationship. Um,

there's all kinds of crap on social

media about how, you know, like a dude

like sharing his feelings gives people

the ick. There's lots of people who say

like, "No, sharing your feelings is

actually okay." There's a lot of dudes

who are like, "Yeah, like I'll never do

it again. I got punished for it." So,

like, what's the deal with this? Because

half the internet is saying, "You should

share your feelings." And the other half

of the internet is like, "Don't ever do

that. Makes you a Makes you

beta." And like, because they're alpha

males, that means they're wrong, right?

like they have to be wrong if they're

alpha males. They can't be on to

anything. But one of the things that

I've learned as a psychiatrist is when

you know when a human being comes into

my office and says, "This is my

experience of life." I know it's insane

in the day and age of social media, but

I believe them. I start with belief,

right? Because if someone says, "Hey,

this is my experience of life." And

you're like, "No, it isn't." You're

wrong. I think that kind of thinking is

what got us here. you know, like this is

not a great place. And there's all this

idea of like, okay, like sharing your

feelings does improve relationships,

right? So, I I tried to get into the

research with it. Here's what I figured

out when it is okay to share your

feelings and when it isn't okay to share

your feelings. That both can actually be

true, but there is a way to do it. And

more importantly, there is a way not to

do it. Right? And this is what usually

happens in the world. It's not like this

group is right and this group is wrong.

Very few things in the world are black

and white. So, let's get into the data,

okay? Self-disclosure in intimate

relationships, associations with

individual relationship and

characteristics over time. If you

actually look at data, not what is on

your social media feed, self-disclosure

in relationships is roughly the same

between men and women. As hypothesized,

positive associations were found between

self-disclosure and the individual

characteristics of self-esteem,

relationship esteem, and responsiveness.

Self-disclosure was also positively

associated with relationship quality,

satisfaction, love, and commitment.

First thing is this is an association.

So this this says that self-disclosure

is associated with self-esteem is

associated with relationship

satisfaction. Now, here's the key thing.

A lot of people will interpret this as

positive. Therefore, it is okay to share

your feelings in a relationship. That's

not what this study shows. The relation

the study shows that it could be both

ways. If you have self-esteem in a

relationship, if you have a high quality

relationship, then you can share your

feelings. It could be that way, too. The

two tend to cluster together. So, this

brings us to a really important basic

principle of science. Relationships have

never been easy. Anytime you interact

with someone, you're dealing with their

unique soup of emotions, expectations,

and even traumatic baggage. And the fact

that we're all texting now and dating

apps are a thing is not making things

easier. That's why we developed a

coaching program to help our community

with modern relationship problems.

Working with a coach can help you build

skills like setting boundaries,

communicating effectively, and

navigating conflict. So, if y'all are

struggling with your relationships,

check out the link in the description

below.

We're going to talk about bell curves.

When people say men are this way, women

are this way. So if you look at sharing

your emotions, this is men and let's say

this is women. Okay? So in most cases,

even if there's a gender difference,

which this paper does not say that

there's a gender difference, we have to

remember that there are some men who

share a lot of their emotions and some

women who share a lot of their emotions,

but there are also plenty of women who

don't share many of their emotions.

There may be more men who don't share

emotions or feel punished by sharing

their emotions. Right? So remember that

we're dealing with overlapping bell

curves here. So even though men may do

something more than women or women may

do something more than men, the variance

within a population almost always

outweighs the variance between

populations. So if you look at there are

some men that self-disclose a ton and

some men that self-disclose very little.

that that difference that delta is going

to be greater than the delta that you

see between men and women. The other way

to look at this is if we look at

self-disclosure the gap between this guy

and this guy is this big. The gap

between this woman and this woman is

this big. But the gap between men and

women is this big. Do you all understand

that? So the variance within a

population is almost always greater.

Which is why like a lot of this gender

stuff on the internet is just wrong.

Like it's just statistically it's wrong.

Okay. Second thing, here's what's really

interesting. The more that women

perceived their partner disclosed at

time one, the less likely the couple was

to break up by time two. This is a

really interesting finding. If a woman

believes

that her partner is sharing their

feelings, that is associated with a less

likelihood of breaking up. So this would

be data that suggests the opposite of

what this person's experience is. Okay.

So let's look at another paper.

Self-disclosure in intimacy and

interpersonal relationships role of

perceived partner responsiveness.

Research shows that self-disclosure and

perceived partners self-disclosure are

essential in developing intimacy in a

relationship. Likewise, perceived

partner responsiveness, PPR, when

interpreted as understanding,

validating, caring, significantly

impacts the intimacy of a relationship.

So, generally speaking, if you were to

ask a mental health professional like a

psychiatrist or a psychologist, and

personally, I think the average

psychologist is probably better trained

at this than the average psychiatrist,

is it good to share your feelings in a

relationship? The average psychologist

will say yes. We will say that if you

want a healthy relationship, you should

share your feelings. That is what we

will say. And that's generally what the

data shows.

But it gets a little bit more

complicated. So this is what's really

cool. In relationships, there are two

general goals that people will have.

They'll have one or the other. Usually,

some people have a goal to get closer.

So I want us to be here and here. I want

to be more intimate with you. I want to

know you better. I want to know every

part of you. I want to know your body

inside and out. I know everything. All

of your fears, all of your dreams. Tell

it all to me. Let me know who you are.

And let me share what I am with you. And

let us intertwine our souls and our

bodies. And we will be one together. And

we are one soul split between two

bodies. Oh my god. Oh my god. That's

what I want from you.

>> Right. That's the point of a

relationship. Turns out, no. Turns out

there is another thing that people will

shoot for. Results consistently

indicated that for prevention focused

individuals, being emotionally

suppressive was associated with greater

marital satisfaction, but only for those

who perceive their spouses as also

emotionally suppressive. So, I'm going

to explain this in just a second. Here's

the key thing. In prevention focused

individuals, being emotionally

suppressive was associated with greater

marital satisfaction. What? Turns out

bro may have been right. So let's

understand. So there is another thing

which is that in relationships

sometimes

people drift apart and in some

relationships the goal for people is not

to get closer. The goal for people is to

not drift apart. Right? And if you guys

have been in relationships you know that

sometimes you just don't want things to

get worse. Things are okay the way they

are. I don't need a whole lot of

intimacy. I'm just trying not to screw

it up. Things are fine. I like the

status quo. I don't want to move. I

don't want to have kids. I don't want to

explore the world. Like, things are

fine. Can we just like live our life the

way it is right now? Do you really need

to move to New York to follow your

dreams? Can we just like have life as it

is right now? I just don't want to screw

it up. I'm happy with the way things

are. I don't need to get closer. I just

don't want things to get worse. So this

is where if we look at research there is

promotion focused individuals okay and

there are prevention focused individuals

wait okay these are two different goals

so when we're dealing with promotion

focused individuals they're moving in

this direction other people are trying

to not fall apart so it turns out that

emotional suppression is helpful in

these situations improves marital

satisfaction so it's not one or the

other right so should you disclose in a

relationship this gives us our first

answer. Well, it depends. Are you trying

to not rock the boat or are you trying

to get closer? More importantly,

remember that there's an element of

partner responsiveness here or partner

perception, but only for those who

perceive their spouses as also

emotionally suppressive. So, here's

another thing, another really important

thing. Does your partner express their

emotions? Right? So, you want to match

their energy if you want to maintain

harmony. I'm not saying it's healthy or

unhealthy. We're just trying to figure

out when is it okay to share your

emotions with your partner and when will

it hurt things. Then we get to the next

paper. For people with less social

anxiety, relationship closeness was

enhanced over time when negative

emotions were openly expressed. So if

you are not socially anxious, sharing

feelings enhances closeness. Whereas

relationship deterioration

was found for those more likely to

withhold emotions. Okay, so this makes

we're going to draw this out. Here is a

person without social anxiety. When I

share things get better. When I don't

share things get worse. This is I got to

fix this. Make sense? Now since I showed

that paper and it's a paper about social

anxiety, what do y'all think is coming

next? The reverse pattern was found for

people with greater social anxiety such

that the relationship closeness was

enhanced over time for those more likely

to withhold negative emotions.

If I am socially anxious and I don't

share, relationship improves. If I do

share, relationship goes down. Now this

is getting to be a little bit tricky,

little bit scary. Oh my god. Because

what I have seen time and time and time

again as a mental health professional is

that if my patients are mentally ill and

they dump that on their partner that we

will lead to things they will lead to

things like caregiver burnout it can be

burdensome. I hate to say this but this

is kind of true right? So like if we

look at something like major depressive

disorder or generalized anxiety disorder

or heaven forbid bipolar disorder that's

where I think I've seen the most damage.

It's not about blaming a partner. It's

to understand that if a if there is a

diagnosis of bipolar disorder within a

relationship, that becomes a challenge

for the relationship. I'm not trying to

make a judgment on whether this is fair

or good or whatever. I'm simply pointing

out that once mental illness enters the

picture. This is a paper looking at

social anxiety.

Sharing can actually deteriorate the

quality of the relationship. So, second

thing where you have to be careful is if

there is mental illness in the picture.

Now, this sounds brutal, right? Because

you're like, "Damn, Dr. K, are you

basically telling me I'm if I've

got depression? I can't share my

feelings like that. Like, I'm

depressed." Like, it's bad enough that

I've got depression, but I can't share

my feelings. That's not what I'm saying.

Don't be black and white, right? We're

going to get to what to do about this.

But, like, let's be honest. If you ask a

hundred people with depression, how does

sharing your feelings impact your

relationship? Not all of them are going

to say it makes it wonderful. What is

y'all's experience receiving the

negative emotional energy of your

romantic partner? What is your

experience of offloading your negative

emotional energy onto your partner? Like

this is the reality we are living with,

right? It's not my job to tell you, "Oh,

hey, in a perfect beautiful world, you

can share all of your negativity with

your partner and they will love you."

No, guys, like I hate to say it, like it

is a disadvantage. Mental illness is a

disadvantage. That's why we try to treat

it. We try to fix it because it

people's lives up, right? But it doesn't

mean that things are hopeless. Like,

please God, do not interpret that from

what I am saying. Let's be clear. When

we're going up against the boss of a

level, we should understand that the

boss is a boss and not a regular mob.

This is an uphill battle that we have to

fight. We're going to help you fight it.

But let's be clear. Let's not pretend

that the problem doesn't exist. That

doesn't help us. Now, we get to an even

scarier part. So, I'm going to ask y'all

a question. This is going to be the

hardest part. Y'all thought that was

bad. When you see a tweet like this or

you have an experience like this, I

shared my feelings with my girl and the

relationship got better and now I feel

alone again. This is why it's so

damaging to try to understand

relationships from social media because

I'm going to ask you all a question and

hopefully that will show you all why

this is a terrible place to learn about

relationship dynamics. I think it's a

wonderful place to understand people's

experiences, but it's a terrible place

to get answers. And here's why. Simple

question. When this person says the

relationship improved, what are they

measuring? And and I'm not trying to

on this person in particular. I I

love that this person is sharing this. I

think it's really good that we're

talking about it. We wouldn't be talking

about it unless they shared their

experience. But here's where half the

answer is. When they say the

relationship improved, how are they

measuring it? Like what is the

indicator? What is your pre-est post

test for improvement in the

relationship? What is the time scale

that we're talking about? Are we talking

about a week? Are we talking about a

month? How are you measuring How are you

measuring improvement? Is it your

perception of improvement? Is it a

certain behavior? Is it a perception of

your partner? Are they even asking their

partner? Did they ask their partner when

I was sharing my feelings, how do you

feel about that? But now that I've

stopped sharing my feelings, how do you

feel about that? How are they measuring?

And this is why, like I hate to say

this, the internet is not science. And

this is the reason, like this is the

reason. You can have an experience, but

this is not science. And here's the

scary thing, cuz I found a paper that

really highlights this. Gender, emotion,

work, and relationship quality, a daily

diary study. Like, yeah. This is a

study that looks at relationship quality

in the emotional work that people put

in. Okay. First, three patterns emerged.

First, emotion work predicted

relationship quality in this diverse set

of couples. Second, gender differences

were minimal for fixed effects. Now,

third, this is what we're going to focus

on. Gender differences were more robust

for volatility for partner effects

having partner with who reported higher

average emotional work predicted lower

volatility in love satisfaction

closeness for women versus greater

volatility in love in commitment for uh

for men. I'm going to explain what this

paper says. We're going to go down here

for a second. Women and men who reported

higher average emotion work across a

week experienced lower overall daily

volatility in love, commitment,

satisfaction, and closeness. Let's talk

about what the hell that means for a

second. So, what is emotional work?

Emotional work is kind of a grabag. I

don't know ex I don't remember exactly

what the methods of this study are and

how they defined it. I'm sure they use

some kind of scale, but basically it's

like how much emotional work do you do

for the sake of your partner? The second

thing is we're measuring volatility.

Okay. So what is volatility? Now this

this finding is not that doing emotional

work makes the relationship better. So

this is what's really cool. It's a daily

diary study. So it's with seven days

five six seven. Okay. So then they ask

them how committed are you in this

relationship? How committed are you in

this relation every single day? How how

much love do you feel? So volatility is

like this is low volatility. This is

high volatility. So here's the really

cool thing. Doing emotional work doesn't

necessarily improve the relationship. It

reduces the volatility. We go from this

to this. When we do emotional work for

our partner, the amount of love and

commitment that we experience stays

stable over time. Okay. Now, this is

where things get really, really tricky.

Okay. For women, having a partner who

reported higher average emotional work

predicted women's experience of lower

volatility in love, satisfaction, and

closeness. What does this mean? This

means that when a man does emotional

work, the woman feels stable in the

relationship. That's what this means.

When a woman does emotional work, you

guys ready for it? I think you know

what's coming. For men, having a partner

who reported higher average emotion work

predicted men's experiences of greater

volatility in love and commitment. So,

this is really insane, y'all. When a

woman does emotional work to support her

partner, the man's experience of

volatility in the relationship

increases. So, I like this study because

it's methodologically very interesting.

So what this study did is boyfriend and

girlfriend are doing daily diaries where

both of them are measuring some degree

of emotional work. So man does emotional

work, woman does emotional work. Then

they're also measuring sense of love and

commitment on both sides. So we're

seeing both perspectives in one study.

And what we discover is that when the

woman does more emotional work, there is

a greater sense of fluctuation in the

man's sense of love and commitment. Now,

there's a lot of stuff I not thrilled

about this study. When you get to the

discussion, they have a lot of

interpretations based on various aspects

of feminist psychology, the patriarchy,

and not that that is wrong, but that I

feel that it is incomplete. And there's

other reasons for that, but anyway,

they're like the patriarchy. I think

it's a convenient answer. I think it's

probably more complicated than that. But

here's the really scary thing. So, if we

look at this study, what this shows is

that the man's subjective experience of

love and commitment correlates with the

level of emotional work that a woman is

doing. I'm not trying to bash men here,

okay? There's lots of it's not men's

fault. But what I'm scared of and what

terrifies me is is this sentence right

here. The relationship improved. In what

way? How are you measuring it? And

here's the really scary thing is the qu

your quality of perception. What I I'm

really scared by by by this particular

study. The perception of your

relationship is disconnected for men in

this study. There were 74 couples I

think is disconnected from the emotional

work that that women do. So the more she

is doing, the more volatile you feel. So

that's not what I would expect, right?

What I would expect is something that is

more akin to what we see in women, which

is like the more effort that a partner

is putting in, the more stable the

relationship feels. So, I think this is

a situation where at the end of the day,

like why am I getting into this? I'm

getting into this because I believe that

we should understand. I do not want

people reading this tweet and thinking

to themselves, if you're a dude out

there, I cannot share my problems with

my girlfriend. But on the flip side, I

also want people to understand if they

read this tweet and they're like, "Oh my

god, all men are so emotionally babies

and it's all men's fault." We also need

to understand that there are very real

situations where sharing your emotions

is not a good idea. That if men are

having this experience, there's a reason

for it. And it's not just because we're

all babies in the patriarchy. Like

there's like real science at play here.

Those are elements of it to be sure. And

the most important thing is we're seeing

a dating and mating crisis where people

are struggling to figure out what to do

because on the one hand some

psychologist is telling me share your

emotions and on the other hand when you

share your emotions people get dumped.

So like what am I supposed to do? And

the answer is be careful about how you

share your emotions. First of all is

there mental illness at play? If there

is mental illness at play, recognize

that your partner's responsibility is

not to be your therapist. So, you can

share some of your emotion, but they

should not be your primary emotional

outlet. That's number one. They should

do the emotional work of a partner, not

the emotional work of a therapist.

Number one. Number two, what is my

partner's level of emotional discussion?

Right? So if my partner is sharing

emotions, they are more likely to

receive my shared emotion. Issue number

three. Is this relationship about

maintaining harmony or getting closer?

Does my partner demonstrate to me that

they want to get closer? If they want to

get closer, then it's okay to share. But

if they are kind of in a I don't know if

you guys have had these relationships,

but like these equilibrium

relationships. Have you guys seen these

relationships? Maybe you're in one where

like we're just kind of in equilibrium.

The relationship isn't really going

anywhere. It's like we have we're

coexisting. Maybe there's love, but it's

not necessarily moving in a direction.

It's like maybe we'll get married one

day, maybe we'll have kids one day. And

it doesn't mean that an equilibrium

relationship always remains in

equilibrium. Right? So, I can talk about

my relationship for a moment. I got

married seven years after I started

dating this girl. And for those seven

years, we were sort of in an equilibrium

relationship. And the reason we were in

an equilibrium relationship is because

we were settling our lives. So our

relationship stayed the same while our

lives were changing. And once our lives

settled, then the relationship moved

forward or we had to decide whether we

wanted it to move forward or not, right?

So once like stuff got settled. So

that's normal. It's not equilibrium

relationships are not bad. But it's

important to think about like what's the

goal here? Are we trying to get closer?

Are we like pretty content with where we

are? And the third thing to keep in mind

is that if you have a perception, your

partner may have a different perception.

I'm not saying one is right and one is

wrong. It's not what this is, right?

This is like if you have this

perception, how are you measuring it?

What is your partner's experience of

when you were sharing emotions and when

you weren't sharing emotions? That is a

critical piece of information, right?

Because what I don't want is this. This

is what I'm trying to prevent. Like this

is why I started streaming to prevent

this.

Are you ready for me?