Why Smart People Keep Choosing the Wrong Partner | Dr René Vázquez del Valle

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Welcome to author conversations again and yes I'm Chris Dabbs again your host for today

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and today I'm joined by Dr René Vazquez de Valle, a psychotherapist, an educator, an

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author of Head, Heart and Crotch Connections, how not to fail in search of your perfect

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union. So this is going to be interesting I think. Now René has spent more than three

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decades helping people navigate. Well basically some of life's most complex emotional

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challenges. His career has included clinical leadership roles with their New York's mental

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health services, work with the LGBTQ community, university teaching and private psychotherapy.

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So drawing on that extensive experience his latest book explores one of the questions that

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has fascinated people for generations. Now here we go why do some relationships thrive

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while others fail? Well his answer centers on three fundamental human conditions.

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The head, the heart and physical intimacy, arguing that lasting relationships depend on

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achieving balance between all three rather than just relying on chemistry alone. So today we'll

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explore the psychology behind successful relationships. The lessons René has learned from

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decades of clinical practice and the practical advice that he hopes readers will take into their

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own lives. So René after that introduction welcome to author conversations it's great to

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meet you. Well thank you for having me. No no no not a problem. I think this is going to be very

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interesting for our listeners and readers as well. So you know not only about the book but also about

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listening to what you say really about relationships because everybody's interested in their

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relationships right. So you know let's kick off with the first question then. What do you want

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the reader who's going to be picking up your book hoping for advice to understand first of all by

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the title before they even pick up your book? Yes well the title head head heart crotch it's like a

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modern relation with an older concept of mind body spirit that was you know originally developed by

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the Greeks you know they coined the phrase because in their way of thinking with perfectly developed

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individual was that person right who worked on their mind their body and their spirit. So when again

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when I refer to head heart crotch I'm also referring to mental emotional and sexual connections.

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The title that I coined is that because it was basically inspired by my patients who I worked with

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and for them when I presented this conceptualization of head heart crotch it was an easy formula that

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they could connect to. They were able to see their difficulties or their failures in relationships

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in terms of easily saying I have you know intellectual mental connection or I have an emotional

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connection or I have a physical connection sexual or I don't or it's somewhere it's failing you know

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so that's how the the title came about and what I want people to understand like by the title is

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that connections involve alignments right alignments among those three spheres you know where are you

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developing your connections where are you failing to develop those connections where are they

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faltering which are the strong ones which are the weak ones. The second part of the subtitle you

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know how not to fail in search of your perfect union I focus on how not to fail rather than the

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concept of success because there are a lot of books on how to succeed right but none other like

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the five love languages how to succeed and a marriage without having to talk about it a whole array

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of books on success but none that focus really on failure so in the sense if you don't know what

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how something fails you don't really know how it succeeds or recognize a possible demise right

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right now we know that according to the APA right 50% of marriages fail first time marriages

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and that 65% of second marriages fail so in the face of those high rates of divorce I explore failure

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you know and for many of my patients failure was used as kind of like a signpost where they could

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confront those difficulties you know for many individuals failure is very elusive it's hidden away

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from consciousness they don't know what happened a lot of times and or they experience a lot of shame

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because of a failed relationship so the purpose of the second subtitle is to in a way demystify and

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destigmatize failure in general relationships that's a good point isn't it you know at the end of the day

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you so what you're helping people to do is I kind of I recognize the signs of failure I guess and

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then being able to adapt their behavior towards well at least recognizing it and dealing with it

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that no that's very true yeah that's fascinating actually I mean obviously the title it

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immediately catches people's attention doesn't it I mean you know it would do and now that you've

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explained it you know fully it obviously was deliberate from the beginning and because you wanted

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to really kind of tell everybody exactly what was going on and your ideas and making sure that

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they're accurately represented in the book right if I titled it my body spirit connections probably

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nobody would buy it right nobody wouldn't catch attention right no exactly because like you say

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they've already got ten books there are all about that right yeah no that makes complete sense I

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think that you know this is the whole point I mean I'm on my second marriage okay and you did

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scare me when you said 65% of second marriages fail I mean mind you I have been with my wife my

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second wife for a long time so it's quite well 25 years actually so that's quite a long time I think

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so I think I'm doing reasonably okay not saying that we didn't we got through it early

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sorry well rather but you know I mean you've worked with people for more than 30 years you must have

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seen all sorts of stuff going on but you know were there recurring patterns that you kept seeing

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you know that eventually convinced you that you needed and you must write this book for people

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I think is that how is your recurring patterns but where you begin to see a relationship fail for

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example is because of the nature of the disconnections where the person fails to recognize

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or they undervalue the nature of their connections whether it's an optional connection

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mental or sexual connection if they don't see that there's a vulnerability or a lack of connection

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in one or one or two of those areas they don't recognize how that affects the intimacy you know

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so working with them you know I got them to identify what their connections actually are

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some of the things that recalls like failures in relationship sometimes has to do with the

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person's ability their stick to it is their willingness to stay in connected you know do they

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employ a like a flight or fight response in the nature of their connections so they fight to stay

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connected or do they flee immediately when there's a problem the people who fight for a connection

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or what I used to call the worried well you know whereas the people who would flee were the walking wounded

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you know they often don't have the resilience and the strength to stay in a relationship

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other reasons why a relationship could fail as to do a lot with like what we call fantasy bonds

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where you connect to someone based on what you wish they would be for you rather than what they

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actually are right other reasons why failures are happening have to do a lot with modes of communication

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the way we're communicating now you know through technological use of you know social media I think we're

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probably have more means of communicating and saying less and less you know we talk now in snippets

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and sound bites which do not force the connection they actually inhibit connection and create

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disconnection sometimes when you misinterpret what people are saying to you you know over texting

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and things like this so all that is also influencing you know success and failure rates

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totally totally you know I mean I speak to authors who write about perhaps maybe social media

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you know and how it affects us at the moment and then other people who who are talking about

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relationships as well and you know that this comes across a lot people nowadays and I look great

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here I'm old okay so I'm gonna start going on down the old oh social media kind of route but I

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think it's really true my two children are coming up to around about 30 now and and they just about

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escaped the worst of it I think but if I look at my niece oh niece is I should say not just one but

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and other people that I teach because I also teach at university and so all of those people you can

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see that it's different and you can see that yes the sound bites you've hit it right there you know it

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is literally type type type text or not even text what's that whatever it is and so I mean do you

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think that because of this right people think that there should be that that right person in the world

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you know that they that they think their compatibility is just about finding that right person

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and because of this they're really fast to choose and so this is why we have dating apps that are

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basically the swipe left swipe right they're fast to connect and they're fast to disconnect yeah

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well yeah I call it technological disconnections right where you get rejected online they don't even

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meet with you anymore they either begin to connect with you and then if something happens

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and before you know it they've ghosted you right and you have no idea how or what you connected to

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it was never real discussion of it you know an exploration of it so it occurs a lot especially now you know

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which is really again quite I'm sorry to keep going on about me but this is why I find it quite

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exciting I met my second wife 25 years ago on match.com believe it or not right so quite amazing

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really so what I did is I purposely widened my my sphere to look for people who are outside of my

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immediate area because normally we go to work obviously we meet people at work we meet people through

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friends we meet people maybe you know socially out but I thought I'd do that and I must admit it was

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quite an interesting ride even back then and of course when I tell millennials and whoever else that

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we met 25 years ago match.com they're like whoa was it even around the internet wasn't even around

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anyway so but I'd say our our relationship is reasonably successful to be fair do you think that

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success for relationships and I'm not saying it is right but it's reasonable I mean do you think

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that there are skills that can be learned by people to to to let me ask that question are there skills

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absolutely they're actionable skills and what I call the six w's of connection where you begin

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to identify who the why the what the which the where and the when of your connection so when you say

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who what is it type of person that you connect with the why what is it why do you find that person

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attractive what would be what is the order of your preference or your connection is it head

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heart crotch is it heart crotch head you know what is it that for example the which which are

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your preferences for example do you prefer a head heart crotch connection or do you start off with

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a crotch heart head connection any what any permutation of those right the where where is your

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strongest connection right where is your weakest connection the when when does something not work

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so those six w's are skills that you explore and you have them consider to analyze that and not

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only analyze their six w's of connection but which is sometimes harder for them to do is to

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analyze their partners connection to them yeah I bet you're partner likes about you in terms of

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head heart crotch right because you'll find that sometimes it's not what they thought it was many

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times the partner will always tell them no that's not the order of my connection to you right I like

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this this and this so that synchronicity in connection sometimes has to occur where you where you

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understand your connection and you understand their connection to you you know it's it's

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vitally important you know yeah I suppose it is and you know breaking it down like that you know

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your framework is basically suggesting intellectual emotional and sexual connections and you're

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kind of saying that they all need to work together and I can see that you know if you break it down

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analyze it and look at what's going on then yeah you know that's fine basically you question

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their connection so intellectually do you value the way they think their values their thoughts

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what they espouse how they express themselves do you value that do you enjoy it emotionally do

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you appreciate their emotional expression towards you are they gentle they kind of they loving are

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they giving you know that is analyzing the emotional part sexually are they willing to please

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is the relationship mutually gratifying or is it self-centered when cited that's the way you look

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at each one of those fears and question it and determine what is it that I'm looking at when I

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look at head heart crotch right and so what so what actually usually happens then when someone is

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more focused on one of them it doesn't have to I guess it can be any of them right so what happens

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when when one of those three is significantly strong well usually the stronger one they don't have

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to work on it's always the weaker connection right the weakest link like the show yeah that you can

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consider I get them to to look at the words that they use because words create our experiences

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you know they define our lived encounters you know if I get them to use new ones to

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descriptive words to describe those connections the more new ones then the more descriptive the more

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you create internal imagery right and that imagery then creates bonds of attachment

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bonds of attachment is what increases your connection so if I used to like if a patient would come

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to me and say oh I like him he's very bright you know that's the until at least bright but that's not

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enough because it's not new ones then describe you know could you say more about that person could

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you say they're curious they're open-minded they're sophisticated they're intellectual they're

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unbiased they're impartial the more new ones and descriptive words you use the more you make that

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connection and to that an attachment to that person be it intellectual be it emotional so if

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you're able to say more than just that he's a loving person can you say he's heartwarming forgiving trusting

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spiritual pessimistic and then looking at the contrasting states if what you're suffering from is

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that your perception is that the person is envious jealous vengeful depressed distrustful that

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imprints on your being right and you're not seeing the other side of the coin so getting them

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to see contrasting states in their description and have a what they ascribe to their relationship

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is very important it can overcome this inhibition it can oh disconnection it can create

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attachment where attachment wasn't fair you know what creates in a sense what creates success

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is when there is synchronicity right in attachments so you get them to understand their attachment style

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right a lot has been written now these days about you know how attachment style influences

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our ability to connect in a healthy way so if you suffer from an anxious attachment or an avoid

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an attachment or an ambivalent attachment what does that mean for your relationship right you have

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an actions attachment that means you're often leery and reticent to get close if you have an

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avoid an attachment that means you're fearful with trepidation you know if you have an ambivalent

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attachment that means it's imbued with uncertainty that lack of stick to itness you know so understanding

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your attachment style also helps you in creating connection it's amazing I mean I'm not sitting

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listening to this I'm thinking yeah yeah yeah I could I quite like the way that this happens

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you know so in other words you're kind of you know analyzing and getting there but then you scared me

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when you said about communication and finding out what my partner thinks about me right

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this is my wife this one for many people yeah they haven't thought about it before maybe because of

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tendency to be more self-focused you know and what is it you like or you want or what is it you

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actually getting you know and to move beyond that into what about your partner their connection to

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you you know is it what you think it is you know and the willingness to ask them you know in

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couple therapy it happens a lot in individual therapy I get them to think about it but in

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couple therapy they're sitting there and they're going to tell you yeah the order of my connection

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is this what I got with you was not my preference you know but I'm living with it or I'm dealing with

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it you know I prefer a head heart crotch connection but with you I got a hot crotch head connection

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that order you know in therapy I would get them to approximate right percentage wise for example

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your head connection what is it 70% your heart was 20 and your crotch is 10 or is it your

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crotch is 50 and the head is 20 and the other one is 30 so getting them to even approximate

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percentage wise the nature of their connection was helpful to them you know so if I only had a 10

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percent heart connection I got to work on that but that's what needs to be worked on you know

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because they come in again not quite clear what the disconnection is exactly so you get them to

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label it approximated percentage then they can something to tool that they can use to establish

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a conversation at least you know so if they uncover for instance I don't know one of them that's

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way out I don't know maybe for instance the emotional side no not the emotional let's look at

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the intellectual side okay because I think that's probably something that that would come across

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especially in this day in age of this social media or the internet kind of dating kind of thing

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intellectually then if someone falls I don't know or someone says oh yeah you know I used to like

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this person for because it's 70% intellectual whatever and now it's come back it's gone right down

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to 10 percent of that or even love or heart or whatever it is I mean you would explain well what

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happened what happened to your initial impression if it was 70% your attraction to that person

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what did he have that got him that 70% was it because he was wise and rational and brilliant objective

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sophisticated what happened along the way how did he become inflexible prejudicial judgment

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did that actually occur or is that in your head is that your perception or is it reality

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can you reframe your thoughts for example if it's because it started positively and it moved in

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the negative direction can you recall times in your life experience when it was that wasn't the case

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you know so it's about imagination it's about fantasy you know if it doesn't happen in reality

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can it happen in fantasy you know so that's interesting interesting point we reframe and recreate

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your inner attachments in other words or have you totally lost those initial perceptions that you had

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because it does change over time even the order of your connection can change over time the

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changes with age you know what you initially and that has been my experience in therapy that

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what initially attracted to someone to someone whether it was that order headhawk crotch 10 years later

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it's no longer that order you know it's changed you appreciate other things about them perhaps their

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heart above their intellect or their sexual connection you know or you appreciate that more

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sexually after 10 years than you did initially you know so connections are not fixed and inflexible

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they are not you know they're not static they're fluid and they move you know what the order and

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your preference as well Rene this is complicated stuff complex stuff right it's hard yet it's very

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simple if you think about it yeah it's a formula right mental emotional physical you mentally

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enjoy that person and a steam them you emotionally appreciate the emotional expression towards you

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and sexually are you pleased and satisfied with the sexual encounter is it mutually gratifying

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because based on the studies about sex the thing that's most relevant to a successful really

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sexual union is mutual gratification that's the one number one factor that bonds people if they're

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not mutually satisfied there's which starts going downhill I can imagine because you know the other

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person is just left behind right no I say that fantasy enters wherever you have a weakness in those

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in one of those three spheres that's where you begin to look outside right so if you don't have an

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intellectual connection with your partner what do you do you start looking for people outside

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who do who you connect with intellectually if you don't have emotional connection you start

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looking for that someone who you connect with emotionally and clearly if you don't have a sexual

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connection that is probably what you're going to look for an affair a sexual relationship right so

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it's important to identify where is it that you're it's faltering so that you could work on it to

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avoid that displacement outside of the relationship amazing yeah I think that this is the point

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isn't it it's about communicating and understanding and also I I know that's tried to say actually

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communicating and understanding of course it is but yeah I think that this is where a book like yours

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that looks at it from a different point of view actually helps a lot because yes it's complicated

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I think it's complicated right maybe you're going to think about it or maybe think about that but I

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think your book is probably going to help everybody I mean you know give me some example of people

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because you are a practicing psychotherapist I mean you've heard countless personal stories

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so obviously in confidence you know without really revealing anything but what's a particular

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experience that our listeners and and viewers can sort of like get behind that you can share with us

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that reinforce really the importance of all of those ideas and to try and get people to not be

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concerned about it read the book take the instructions and change their lives for the better really

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I in the book I do give a lot of several case examples of people that I've worked with and

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explaining where were they when they first met the person you know what was their preference what

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was their order of connection and because I worked with them over time what they first came in with

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was not what they wound up understanding by the end you know of the therapy many times a relationship

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was saved by connecting in a different way by re-evaluating what was missing working on it

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and it taking more importance in another level of connection so when they were missing the emotional

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connection and they thought they only had a sexual or physical or intellectual connection they worked

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on talking with their partner about the lack of emotional connectivity right and what they felt

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they needed emotionally from that person you know once they began they started getting it or failed to

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get it it determined whether they were able to stay in the relationship or leave it you know if they

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never got what they needed they came to the realization that this is not working so they were

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cases where as a result of analyzing the headhark watch they broke up the other person was not willing

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to connect in the way they felt they needed but in most of the times exploring the connections

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actually helped improve you know it didn't cause a separate disconnect it caused more of a connection

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and I in the book I give you know five or six case examples of how that occurred

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oh excellent okay well that's good I think we all learn don't we through case studies and you know

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no totally so we're running out of time right I mean this is this is always the problem with

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these conversations because this is fascinating stuff but we've got we've still got time for a

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few more questions so I mean was there anything that I this hopefully you haven't been asked this

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before but was there anything you discovered while writing the book that challenged your own thinking

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about relationships I mean though I think there were three chapters that I enjoyed the most writing

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about and as chapters were on how trauma affects our connections another chapter that was

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called how familiarity breeds contempt and then of course a chapter on age and how age affects our

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connections I think I learned the most from that because I've worked with so many people who've had

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traumatic life experiences from abuse sexual abuse physical abuse emotional abuse as children

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and how that affected their ability to connect in a healthy way as adults you know

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helping them to see the difference for example between shame and guilt when you suffer from toxic shame

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how does that affect your ability your thoughts your emotions and your sexual nature

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the difference between feelings and emotions you know that they're not the same thing that they

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used interchangeably but feelings are not the same things as emotions emotions are subconscious

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feelings are at a conscious level your you know psychologists have only identified like about

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six different emotions happiness sadness disgust fear surprise and anger but there are many

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more feeling states than there are emotions feelings are the outward representations of your emotions

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so teaching my clients my patients to identify feelings from emotions that was something that I

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learned was so beneficial helping them understand toxic shame issues like toxic masculinity how does that

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work itself out in a relationship how it could be destructive to a relationship you know

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the issue of age you know do we do we appreciate and all the person because of how long they've lived or

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you know all the right things they've done or because they've lived so long they've made a lot of

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mistakes right as a through age you learn a lot you know it's a whole all expression um so

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appreciating the changes that occur with age you know that has been a learning experience for me

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which I talk a lot about in the book you know and and like I said in trauma how trauma in childhood

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affects us totally a very wise I'm going to say I mean yeah exactly the I think the

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the age things for me anyway it was really interesting obviously in a 25 year relationship and

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getting on in age a bit you know things do change and you mentioned this earlier on as well about how

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the the ratios between head heart crotch can change and move and all those things and I think it's

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important that everybody understands that as they move on you know I mean at the end of the day

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especially nowadays it appears that you know lots of divorces are happening later in marriages

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so people are married for about I don't know 20 25 years say uh and then they break up and for

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somebody they just realize they want to go their own way they want to do their own thing but

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and I think the people kind of like um agree with that to do it right because it's just you know

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whatever but I think if that always leaves one victim at the end right that actually doesn't feel

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like that I mean is that you know and poor that must be really tough so well and what sort of advice

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would you give to people who are in that position for instance who are older who have been together

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for a long time or relatively long time and you know they just like there's nothing there as far

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as they're concerned what do you think that nothing exists anymore for them in terms of the

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connection to their partner is that wake up in the morning yeah you know it's like oh yeah all right

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how you know hi how you doing whatever but yes there's no connection that they feel and this is

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what I was saying about older people getting divorced you know connections are also a choice you

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can choose to work on them or you could choose to avoid them and again relationships will either

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evolve or they'll fail to thrive you know um and I offer I believe actionable advice of how you

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can relive them how you can make them thrive again you know but it's a choice it's a conscious

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choice that one makes you know also in my book I give them a scale that they can use to

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rate themselves and rate their connection from very connected to somewhat connected to neither

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connected disconnected to somewhat disconnected to very disconnected when you use that scale and you

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look at and you explore you see where you are personally you know and where you need to

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explore more look at you know so in my book the acculturation of the um the connection scale

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is used as a tool for people to begin to identify where they're at you know

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and it's given free on my website so even if they don't read the book they could use the tool the

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scale to analyze where they're at you know perfect what makes me think about this as well is that

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when you were saying it's a choice right it's kind of and I'm going oh yeah yeah of course it's a choice

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like really quickly but that's not a simple choice right or it's it's not something simple choice

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but it is within one's volition and one's agency to make that decision based on some analysis you know

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may find that you've lost that headhawk crunch connection it happens that might be the decision

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you need to say it's over I'm stuck here but I need to move on right that's equally valid you know

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not every ship can be saved some to separate and move on me

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exactly no I remember I was specifically asking about that because my grandparent I think when I

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was seven oh not when they were 70 my grandmother said I've had enough of this this is it I'm out of here

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and she went to move to Vancouver for like six months or a year whatever it was but she came back

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to be fair and they kind of continued until they well were no longer alive so you know and they

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were married all their lives so they did they did pretty well I think you know my grandmother

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did 80 found some and she described the nature of her connection to him she lasted 10 years until

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they passed but it was her happiest 10 years of her life you know see oh my gosh that's really good

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that's really good news isn't it because this is what I'm saying about the older people you know

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about being and I don't have to be 80 or 70 you know 60 50 40 whatever you know they're not they're

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not 20 swiping left right and all that sort of stuff I mean if we're going into second

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relationships third relationships fourth one you know I mean serious relationships you know we're

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in a situation where we need to be thinking like that you've mentioned so brilliant ready we

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need to bring this to a close though so you mentioned on your website you're giving away advice

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obviously you're giving away bits and pieces what's the website address it's www.drfordoctorvdelv.com

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so it's vascular silvia so it's drvdelv.com yeah drvdv.com excellent okay don't worry we'll

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right dot com yeah right yeah we'll put it in the description as well but don't worry but I

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think it's really nice of you to be able to give that to give that to people so well there we are

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we are out of time now so doctor ready so book has been translated into Spanish so there's this

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Spanish version as well and it's called kareza koreza on korepa con exonis so it's in english and

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Spanish you know and I'm sorry I was a miss there because I saw that and I thought to myself it's

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really obviously it's quite rare for it to be translated right in in whole in a book like that so

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that is good and I meant to ask you about that so thank you for pointing it out we'll put all of

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those on the on the links in the description down below so you know don't worry that'll be there

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and everybody you know this is great so you're you're dealing with english language being with

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Spanish language that's all you need is mandarin and you'll be away so there we are

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drvdv.com thank you very much for joining me on author conversations so having me

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no not at all headhard crotch connections offers a thoughtful and practical look at my relationships

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succeed and drvdv.com was the the vae you have been fantastic to talk to about this I mean you've

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explained how well basically relationships can fail and how greater understanding of ourselves can

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help us build stronger healthier relationships I think and if you'd like to know more about drvdv.com

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00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:59,440
and his work you'll find links to the book and his author page as I say we'll make sure they're in

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the description below and don't forget of course if you've enjoyed this conversation please follow

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author conversations for more interviews with writers experts and thought leaders exploring the ideas

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behind their books drvdv.com thank you very much for joining me again it's been an absolute insight

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to talk to you about this and I'm going to walk out with my studio and go and see my wife and see

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which she has to say about everything so thank you I appreciate it thank you it's been my pleasure

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brilliant thanks bye bye

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if you enjoyed this conversation you can watch more author conversations here

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