Ted Audio Collective.

Audio Collective.

You're listening to How to Bea Better Human.

I'm your host Chris Duffy.

I am fascinated by other people's relationships,

specifically their marriages and their dating lives. It's mind-blowing to me

that one of the most common and day-to-day building blocks of our society is also so

completely opaque from the outside. Is that couple just like us or are they doing

things completely differently? Are we normal or are we doing things

completely wrong?

I'm also fascinated by relationships because even in good ones,

there's so much to think about and to work on.

For example, I'm a big talker,

and I come from a family where we're always yapping away,

interrupting each other, constantly laughing and chatting at the dinner table.

And my wife and her family, they're much more reserved.

So it took me a long time, I'm talking years, before I could finally start to trust that if

she was eating and not also talking, it wasn't because she was silently fuming at me.

Even now, if we're in the car on a long drive and she's having a quiet moment, I sometimes

have to check, you're just being quiet right now, right? You're not angry at me? And when she says yes, I'm like,

okay, fine, I will let you get back to that. There are these constant adjustments and negotiations

that we have to make in relationships,

...