Zach: I’m glad to talk to you guys. I started this thing. Victoria and I or Victoria may know this, but I started this thing a while back at that. I wanted to interview people who were married to relationship experts and just see what it was like really going on behind the scene. Do you feel like you’re married to a relationship expert?

Adam: Yes, I do, I do. And then it’s interesting because then we have our own couples therapy. Yet. Therapist set up the course and the, the, the training that Vic’s undertook. So it was interesting having those sessions because she would slightly scrutinize her in a different way or held at a slightly different standard. Somewhat. So it was interesting to see someone who’s so accomplished in her own field be challenged by someone with just that much more experience, particularly in the realms of our relationship.

Adam: And, I found that very interesting. And I think I could see sort of exponential learning happening on Vic’s side as a result. But it was interesting because it wasn’t quite it wasn’t quite like, you know, the the pupil becomes the master, not in this instance anyway, but out of that environment, I do feel like I’m with, you know, someone who’s very skilled at her, her job and her profession.

Adam: And like when we’re out socializing, particularly for meeting new people, I always pride myself on my sense of perception of people. It it’s definitely my perception of it’s definitely a product of my upbringing and education, which doesn’t hold me in a great light to sometimes I deal or no more frequently, I defer to Victor’s perception of it, and more often than not, her perception is 100% right.

Adam: Particularly, these are people that continue to go on into our lives, and something that I would never have seen or would have discounted it as an observation that she made, totally becomes the case. So true. So yeah, it’s it’s I’m definitely living someone who who knows her stuff and I pressure.

Zach: Yeah. No, I hear you. How do you feel about that. That she’s right all the time. That is a blessing. Is it a curse?

Victoria: Is it definitely not right. Well.

Adam: I think she. Yeah, even she would admit she’s not right all the time. But. No, it’s it’s.

Zach: I’m only asking that question because I think that’s what I heard you say. This idea that she has this perception about what happens or what’s going on relationally around you and that she’s 100% right. Like, if I heard it differently, let me know.

Adam: No, I think that’s right. I think those basic perceptions of people and, their behaviors and what she can interpret from that in a relatively short space of time is 100% down to the profession that she has chosen, and in a way that other people just might perceive it in the same way, maybe over a longer period of time they would.

Adam: But she’s so incisive and so quick. It’s really forensic and it’s really immediate. That distillation of the person in front of her. And I rather like it. I rather like it because, I, like to be right or I like to be well informed. Yeah. So it’s great that there’s someone that can assist in that.

Zach: I feel like I’ve got that going on when I’m like looking at people and I’m like, I know who they are. I know what they’re about. I know what’s going to happen next. I don’t, and, and but I don’t I don’t know if I’m cocky or if I’m correct or whatever, but I do know that my wife has no interest in knowing what I think until she solicits it.

Zach: She’s just like, yeah, I’m just sit back and I’ll just wait and wait and wait.

Adam: Yes.

Victoria: Waits to find out.

Zach: No, it’s more like, you know, if we’re in a social setting and she’s we’re trying to navigate something, particularly if our like if we have to like, make a decision or make a move. I generally let her run the show because she’s the more social, you know, because I’ve got a theory or if I’ve got an idea, I have to sit on it a little bit until she says, what do you think?

Zach: Because. Because it might be the cocky part of me that comes forward and says, well, this is it. This is all the things that I think, and I have to. I trust her to let me know when.

Victoria: She wants to hear that.

Zach: When I’m allowed to say it.

Victoria: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think there’s a dance. And, I think sometimes I will say it, but sometimes you just. You’ll come and ask me, what do you think? And then I think, what we’re talking about is observation. And I think that what we’re trying to do is therapist. And if we weren’t already and I think most of us who come to this profession are observers in lots of ways.

Victoria: And we’ve been we’ve had to be so largely comes from I don’t know whether that’s trauma or whether that’s just, you know, the environments that we grew up in, there’s a there’s a I wouldn’t go so far to say it’s always vigilance, but there’s certainly an observation and reading room and reading people.

Zach: Yeah.

Adam: I also think that’s part of that superpower, for want of a better expression in having that ability to really decipher and disseminate and determine people in a relatively short space of time is is, as you say, is to hold that within yourself until it’s either requested from you or it’s the way in which I feel like a lot of you practice, like the work that you do with couples or with people, is to help guide them, but let them do the work themselves rather than being told it.

Adam: So it’s it’s a very attractive quality to be able to seemingly sit there and have the answers or the or the directions of the policy. You want to lead them down, but having to be patient enough to wait for when they’re ready to do that or showing, you know, showing you those signs that that’s the direction in which they want to go rather than going.

Adam: I would be so patient, for Christ’s sake. Look, you’re this, this and this. You’re doing this, this and this. Yeah. Stop doing that, that and that. You’ll get to X, Y and Z. Get on with it.

Victoria: Yeah. Of course, the end of what we do in RLT.

Adam: Yeah a little bit I suppose. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. What is that Terry. Sort of I said yeah.

Victoria: It’s, it’s a lot more directive than a lot of, a lot of therapy trainings, which.

Zach: That’s why I prefer couples where to individual work because it is outcome based. It’s like, hey what do you want? You want better, you want less conflict. You want more communication. Yeah. Okay. Well then do this. Don’t do that. Is that which is very different of course lacking. Yeah. So like does that wor