If you want to make a change this year, check out how to be a better human, a podcast from Ted.

I'm Chris Duffy, I'm a comedian and each week on how to be a better human, I sit down to have an honest and hopefully funny and revealing conversation with an expert who can help us to see the world in a new way.

This season we're diving into everything from how you can love better to how to create habits that stick, to how to have hope in a world and at a time where that feels really challenging.

You can find all those topics and so many more on episodes of how to be a better human, wherever you get your podcasts. Pushkin. be treating him. The right standards were very clear. They'd been set out in all the

fairy tales and Hollywood romcoms that he'd grown up with. I had certain

expectations for how he should be treating me. I was thinking well he should just be

asking me how my day was he should just be doing these things.

And reality is that it's a much more complicated dynamic than that.

Many of us share this kind of naive view of relationships.

We expect near perfection from our romantic partners

and assume that accepting anything less would be settling. We want a soulmate who

understands us, a rock who supports us in all we do, a therapist who heals us when we're hurt,

and a lover who fulfills all our desires and makes us feel incredibly attractive.

These roles is less they're infiltrating the relationships from date one to year 10.

These are things that we've internalized and they become indistinguishable from

our voice compared to our culture's voice. They just feel like absolute truths.

The eventual collapse of Todd's 10-year relationship was a wake-up call.

Todd had been demanding way too much from his boyfriend.

It was more than any real person could reasonably deliver.

So Todd decided to recalibrate in his future relationships.

Sure he'd be thrilled if he met the perfect partner,

but he'd also be okay with a kind yet fallible and flawed human.

...