Dr. Shannon Curry is a clinical and forensic psychologist who conducts research, therapy, and clinical evaluation pertaining to trauma, violence, and relationships. She testified in the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
- Factor: https://factormeals.com/lex50 and use code lex50 to get 50% off your first box
- BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off
- House of Macadamias: https://houseofmacadamias.com/lex and use code LEX to get 20% off your first order

EPISODE LINKS:
Shannon's Instagram: https://instagram.com/currypsychgroup
Curry Psychology Group: https://currypsychology.com/

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4
Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:38 - Starting a relationship
5:37 - Couples therapy
12:54 - Why relationships fail
20:11 - Drama in relationships
25:38 - Success in relationships
32:03 - Dating
40:39 - Sex
42:32 - Cheating
51:33 - Polyamory
53:24 - Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial
1:22:02 - Forensic psychology
1:32:12 - PTSD
1:41:47 - Advice for young people
1:44:38 - Love

SOCIAL:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman
- Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman
- Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/lexfridman
- Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman

This is what John Gottman calls sulfuric acid for love.

Nothing will erode a relationship quicker than contempt.

Contempt is when you are looking at your partner from a superior position.

So you are eye-rolling, you are name-calling, there's a mockery, mocking, even physical mockery imitating them, imitating their voice.

Contempt is meant to just take the legs out from your partner, make them feel pathetic, ridiculous.

And it can be abusive, But most people have engaged in contempt at some point in their relationship.

Lower level would be sort of the eye rolling, but that is the biggest predictor of a split.

The following is a conversation with Shannon Curry, a clinical and forensic psychologist who conducts research, therapy, and psychological evaluations pertaining to trauma, violence, and relationships.

She received worldwide attention in April of last year by giving a lengthy televised testimony on her psychological evaluation of Amber Heard during the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial.

I found her testimony to be an eloquent description of complex psychological concepts and evaluations procedures.

In person, she was brilliant, funny, thoughtful, and truly kind.

I really, really enjoyed this conversation.

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now, dear friends, here's Shannon Curry.

Charles Bukowski said that love is a fog that burns away with the first daylight of reality.

Do you think romantic love fades away in this way?

The truth is that you have all of these chemicals pumping through your body.

You're essentially high on heroin in the beginning of a romance.

And you're going to have these rose-colored glasses on, everything your partner does is magical.

You're just attuned to the magic of another human being moment to moment.

And then on top of that, you're just flooded with dopamine.

You will die if you are using these kinds of chemicals all the time, all day long.

So eventually, our bodies are sort of made to dial it down.

We are doing the same thing we did 200, 000 years ago to find a mate, procreate, spend enough time with each other that we have sex a whole bunch of times and make babies.

We're living almost till we're 100 years old in some cases.

We're making these marriage commitments that last half a century and we're expecting it to be all because of love and we're signing these contracts based on how we feel when we're high on these drugs.

So the reality is we know based on the reason and I'm also talking about certain Western civilizations here because as you know there are range marriages and a lot of times those marriages if we're looking at longevity are actually way more satisfied than people who are marrying for love, which logically makes sense.

If you're making a decision based on a feeling that is basically based on endorphins and dopamine and oxytocin, I wouldn't sign a contract just because of a feeling necessarily, you know, for 50 years.

Whereas an arranged marriage, if you have your elders kind of deciding for you that this partner has a bunch of traits that you're going to appreciate more and more over time, I think there's some wisdom there.

So you don't think that feeling could be a foundation for a 50 year relationship?

Well, I don't think that specific feeling you're having based on drugs is going to be the same feeling you have 20, 30, 40 years down the line.

If you're gonna wake up and turn to your partner when you're 70 and think, oh my God, I'm so glad you're hot, you are so hot, then sure, marry for hotness.

But if you've been through life a little bit, and I think most people who are on a second marriage know, Shit happens in life.

You're going to have maybe a kid with special needs, or your dad gets dementia, or you get diagnosed with cancer.

Who are you going to want to come home to?

Who is going to hold you when you are sobbing on the floor and tell you we're gonna get through it together?

Who's gonna know the names of your kid's special ed teacher and the process for getting a 504 plan?

But doesn't that hotness, don't those drugs kind of solidify into a deeper appreciation of the other person, into something you could call beauty?

When you notice the beauty of another human being, aren't you high on drugs still?

You're making it sound like there's a brief rockstar period of going on heroin and then it's over, but can't you be on heroin your whole life?

That was something, I think 1 of the reasons I got into studying relationships was because I wanted that, right?

So I'm a scientist, but I also love art, and I love writing, and I love literature.

I wanted to know that true love could be real, but as a scientist, I am cynical.

And so I practice a type of therapy called the Gottman Method, and I love that because it tends to be, well, it is 1 of the most evidence-based therapies we have, based on John and Julie Gottman, 2 psychologists who have been researching relationships for now about 50 years, and this therapy happens to be for couples.

They found that you absolutely can make longevity work in a relationship.

You can build, you are not just settling for companionship, but you can have passion and intimacy and growing love and appreciation.

But there is a blueprint, a set of skills that we were never given.

We changed the rules of the game and we haven't learned the rules yet.

And the Gottman Method for Couples Therapy kind of gives you a few guidelines, the rules for longevity in a relationship.

Yeah, they did a beautiful job at taking these findings they had through decades of research, quantifying it, and then codifying it into a therapy method.

I tell couples when they're starting out with me that they're essentially gonna be starting a class.

What I read is there's a kind of balance you can achieve of how many interactions you have in a relationship that are positive versus negative.

And I think that's what the 5 to 1 means.

But basically there should be kind of an empirical, like if you just look back over a month, how many of the interactions were positive, how

So the idea of this ratio, well, it's not an idea, it was a finding.

It is a research finding that the Gottmans got after looking at thousands of couples and codifying these interactions that they were observing.

Couples that tend to be satisfied in their relationships, that are happier, they have better health, et cetera, they are having approximately 5 positive interactions to each negative.

And I wanna be clear about what I'm defining as positive and negative here.

So this doesn't necessarily mean that you're, these don't need to be big sweeping romantic gestures, buying flowers, having sex.

These are things like paying attention to what we call your partner's bids.

We make these bids for affection, for connection, all the time in our relationships, not just with our partners, but with our friends, our coworkers.

And we may not even know what our style of bid is, but if you see them on a sheet, you can pretty quickly identify them.

Bids could be wanting to show your partner or tell your partner something and have them be proud of you.

It could be wanting to go buy groceries with your partner, doing things together.

It could be telling a joke and hoping that your wife looks up from her email on the computer and acknowledges it.

If she laughs, then you've got a positive.

But if I don't even look up, that's a negative, right?

So it's not necessarily that I'm calling my husband an asshole, it's just am I connecting with him?

Am I meeting those bids for connection and vice versa.

But do those also give you a guide of how you should behave?

Well, I think what's really important is actually asking your partner or paying attention to what your partner's bids are because what matters to Ty, my husband, may not matter to you.

For instance, I mean Tai's bar is so low with me, I thank God for him.

In terms of what defines a positive interaction?

Right, like he just wants me to ask him if he wants a water when I get up to get myself 1.

Just be a basic, decent, considerate person is all he asks of me.

Whereas mine might be sort of like, stay up later with me, watch a show, go to bed at the same time as me, or know about the people in my life, that sort of a thing.

I should highlight this and I hope, hopefully it's okay, that you were running a little bit late and you sent me this text, which people do really rarely, and there's a subtle act of kindness within that text.

So the text you sent was that I just decreased the amount of stress in your life or something like this by saying it's cool.

But that means that you were, you're signaling that you were stressed because you care enough to be there on time.

And that was like, that made me feel really special.

I was like, oh, you know, people don't often, people don't often, don't always do that because that puts you also, that makes you vulnerable.

I actually thought that after I sent it, but

Any interaction, like, oh God, I just expose myself.

But absolutely, I was excited to be here and I didn't want you to think that I didn't care.

I think being a therapist has shown me that It really, it's so lucky to be in that position because you meet people that you would have thought are cooler than you or smarter than you or just somehow impervious to life and you realize that we are all in it together.

We all would wanna be liked as a baseline.

Some people will say they don't care, but everybody does, it's human.

And I have gotten much better being a therapist, much more comfortable showing caring, showing love, and genuineness and vulnerability than I think I ever would have been otherwise.

And that kind of vulnerability is what's required to do a positive interaction in a relationship?

And people have different levels of comfort, right?

So, but as long as it's working for both partners, and typically you have to communicate to figure out what your partner, what makes your partner feel cared about.

However, you might be working for instance with an older couple and I have a couple that's perfectly happy and they sort of have a system.

If there's some sort of a rupture, if they get in some sort of a disagreement, they don't talk it out.

She might go to the store, run an errand, do a little shopping, he'll work in the wood shop, and then they'll come back, and there is a repair attempt though, but it's maybe she'll say, hey, do you wanna have dinner?

Or he'll say, hey, I recorded your favorite show, you wanna watch it tonight?

So they don't need to process it, but there is an understanding between them that we're still in this together, we care about each other, and there's a repair attempt.

Most people need to be able to process it verbally and talk about what happened, but not all.

So for most people, if there's a conflict, you should talk about it and resolve it and repair it versus like just put it behind you?

I don't wanna say should, I guess it depends on the couple.

Everybody processes emotions differently, everybody handles emotional expression differently.

I mean, I have couples where I have 1 person in the partnership who has autism and the other doesn't.

And so they're obviously going to have different ways of communicating or processing what happened.

It really depends on what makes a person feel like it's been repaired.

Or in the case of that older couple I have where they know they understand 1 another because there's a gentleness toward 1 another after.

What are some common ways relationships fail that you've observed in all the therapy you've

Well, the Gommons identified what they call the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.

So I mean, I could just keep it simple and go off their research.

So those are 4 different behaviors that they identify in couples or that you can identify in couples that are really highly predictive of a divorce, some more than others, but I'll start with the lower ones.

So 1 thing that we, by the way, actually, we all do these things.

You'd want to stay away from some of these.

So as they pile up, now that ratio is gonna get imbalanced and then you are headed for a split, okay?

So criticism is when we have a complaint, Complaints are normal, but instead of owning our own problems, our own feelings, we assume that our perspective is the only valid, accurate perspective.

And so we take it upon ourselves to tell our partner what is wrong with them.

So there's essentially no real belief that they might have a valid perspective too.

So this could look like, you never help me out with the house, or even you're so lazy, can't I just get you for 5 seconds to help with the kids or something like that?

And then what happens is horseman number 2, defensiveness.

So not everybody is defensive just because they were criticized.

Some People just are more prone to defensiveness than others.

None of us really like admitting our faults, so it's pretty natural.

But defensiveness is essentially making excuses or worse, turning it around on your partner, not accepting any responsibility, and definitely not validating what they're feeling.

Now if you get criticized enough or if you get really flooded, the flooding is what happens when our heart rate goes up kind of around a hundred beats per minute, our frontal lobe shuts down.

That's our thoughtful brain, our logical brain, and our reptilian kind of hindbrain takes over our thinking.

And we just go into fight or flight in a way.

We just want to annihilate our partner instead of say anything that would be helpful to the relationship.

So if you're getting flooded, you could do a couple things.

You could get super critical, you could get contemptuous, which I'll talk about in a second, it's the last horseman, or you do the third horseman, which is stonewalling.

And in their research, the Gottmans found that men are actually more likely to stonewall.

But it's where you just sort of disconnect from the conversation.

You can physically even turn away, kind of arms crossed, but you're just, you're shut off.

And stonewalling happens usually because you get flooded, you feel like you can't win, you don't know what to do to make the situation better.

It feels pretty hopeless and talking feels unproductive.

So you can see how in a typical heterosexual relationship, the gender dynamic, we know that women tend to use criticism more often because they're the ones that typically raise issues verbally.

And then if men are feeling more criticized, that they tend to stonewall.

And it becomes this vicious cycle of then more criticism, but the criticism is really just a plea to be loved and get your partner to show you they care.

And then the man tends to feel like he can't do anything right.

If I say anything, I'm just gonna make it worse.

And they don't have any real, you haven't given them a specific need, a solution, something they can do to shine for you.

All right, so contempt is criticism on steroids.

So you are eye rolling, you are name calling.

There's a mockery, mocking, even physical mockery, imitating them, imitating their voice.

And it can be abusive, but most people have engaged in contempt at some point in their relationship.

If you allow yourself to think, yeah, that mockery or contempt just a little bit, it's like this weird slippery slope.

And the opposite is true, where I just look at a person and think, wow, isn't that the most wonderful creature I've ever seen in my life?

And you notice the little details about who they are.

why just observe them the way you observe like a weird peacock at a zoo or something like that.

You start to notice beautiful things and then let the things that annoy you.

You're touching on some really important things.

So in relationships, we actually know that wearing rose colored glasses is important.

So there is a saying that getting married is just choosing 1 person's faults over another.

And the reality is that we may become infatuated with somebody else as human beings, love is an emotion, attraction is an emotion, and as you go through life, even if you're in a committed relationship, you might see beauty in another, and that person who is novel might seem attractive to you.

But if you can remember that they too have a set of problems that you would be marrying, it really helps you to see the beauty in your partner again and recognize all of their incredible strengths and all the ways we meld with a person and become our own family, almost become, I mean, our lives intertwine and we grow those oak trees.

So to you, by the way, there's a line I read somewhere that when you're wearing rose-colored glasses, all the red flags looks just like flags.

So you think that humans are fundamentally, all of us are fundamentally flawed or have flaws, they're unique flaws and that basically relationships is just the way to figure out how the 2 can fit together.

So no matter what, we're going to have differences.

We are raised differently than our partner.

We have different stories, different experiences that shaped our value systems, especially when it comes to the big ones like parenting, love, money, these principles that are based in our history.

So is this a set of differences you can accept from somebody and work with, do the benefits and do their strengths, do they make it worth it?

But in the couples you've worked with, is there like the feminine and the masculine, is there different dynamics that come into play, like dominant, submissive?

Is it like a dance where it just changes from minute to minute?

Is there dynamics that you observe that both limit and enable successful relationships?

Yes, so there are, if we're talking about masculine feminine then how also we could get into, are we talking about actual gender, identified gender, or are we just talking about these traits?

Because like I said, I stonewall, which is typically in couples, something that is more associated with straight men.

But that's my style of coping when I get overwhelmed.

That is not tied to any sort of success or non-success of a relationship.

But what we do know is that gay couples, so lesbians and gay men, tend to be gentler with 1 another when they are having conflict discussions.

So that's actually been identified in the research and it's something I've witnessed and it's just fascinating.

So with my straight couples, I'll be going through 1 of these, if we're processing a conflict that occurred, I'll be going through the sheet and it's very, very structured because you don't want couples doing more damage when they're there with you.

You want them practicing skills that protect them from criticism, that protect them from contempt.

And when I'm working with a straight couple, I am like a referee or sometimes I'll relate it to being like a ski coach and keeping people on a bunny hill and you let them make like 2 turns and then you stop them and you meet up again because you don't want them to veer off.

With straight couples, you are doing very short turns before you need to kind of intervene and rescaffold.

I had a lesbian couple recently and they were so lovely with each other.

They skipped like 7 steps to the advanced final portion where they were already coming up with solutions and suggesting things that they might be able to do differently next time to make it better for their partner, they were asking each other questions about how their partner felt with no agenda, no attempt to sort of be like, well, do you think you're feeling that way because, which straight couples do all the time, you just see this humility and openness.

Yeah, it's lovely, but I wonder if maybe watching too many Hollywood films, if some of the drama, some of the tension is required for a passionate, lifelong romance.

So we actually know that the closer you feel to your partner, so if, I mean, you've talked a lot about beauty, and you can ignite that beauty, that interest, right?

So when you're falling in love, it's usually that a person is sort of a mystery to you and you're uncovering these layers that you find really appealing.

There are continual layers that you can uncover with your partner over time.

I think we get complacent and we think we've had every conversation imaginable.

What else are they going to do to surprise me?

But we don't know the questions to be asking.

1 of my favorite questions, I like turning these conversations kind of into a quiz because I get bored easily.

So rather than just asking an open-ended question, there's a way you can do this with your partner where it's sort of like the dating game.

Like, what is my as of yet fondest but unrealized life dream and see if your partner knows.

They might know you better than you know yourself.

That in and of itself is a beautiful reminder of the relationship and how special it is.

But then also when they say it or when you realize or have to think critically, like what is my husband's as of yet unrealized but fondest life dream?

You just, I don't know, you just kind of transcend into this new area and you feel tight again.

Like I've recorded and without intending to publish podcasts like this with microphones, with friends, with people close to me.

Because it's literally that, you get to ask questions like as if it's an interview.

Sit down with your partner, have that conversation.

Right, show interest, actually be curious, see what they surprise you with.

And actually what you learn is you don't know the answers to most of these questions.

Like what's your favorite movie from the 80s?

It's like those first date questions or whatever.

Or what's your favorite movie this year and why?

It's hard to do that because I think that you'll probably be offended at first, how little the other person knows.

So I think you have to work through that.

You know, I actually find that there's this rekindling because partners are shocked that their partner does know so much about them, especially if they've been feeling dissatisfied or disconnected, it's a reminder of all the good that's still there.

What, I know we've said some of those things, but what's on the opposite side, what's the key to a successful relationship?

What's like, what are the things you see time and time again that you designate that they're on a good path?

Yeah, there's a real attunement, honestly.

See all Lex Fridman transcripts on Youtube

Shannon Curry: Johnny Depp & Amber Heard Trial, Marriage, Dating & Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #366