Zach: How are you doing? You want to get into it?

Anna: Yeah. Did you get both of our questionnaires?

Zach: I did, and I’m worried I might pick a fight. I, Did you compare notes in your questionnaires?

Anna: We kind of filled some of it out together, didn’t we?

Daniel: Just a couple questions.

Zach: Is it okay if I pick a fight?

Daniel: Yeah, sure.

Anna: You want to use this? An example, in other words.

Zach: No, I’ve just.

Anna: Actually got to be like this couple. I’m just kidding.

Zach: Listen. No no, no. Listen, I ask people all the time to fill out, this question about how they would rate the relationship on a scale of 1 to 10. And I can’t tell you how many tens I get. I get so many tens. And I’m like, Please, can you not with the tens, right?

Anna: We’re not, Oh, there’s. I even moved mine from a four to a five. So just so you can.

Zach: Say your five. Yeah. And you were an eight. Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Anna: You were.

Daniel: Yeah. I was trying to be honest. I think, to preface it. Our ten years together, we’ve grown, we’ve ebbed and flowed. That’s like I kind of rated it based on the arc myself, not the. Yeah, I saw fit a little way and how I am. And I figured there’s, you know, several things that I can improve on to make this a ten.

Daniel: So I have, well expected and, and, I do that too.

Zach: You’re not surprised that you’re sort of further apart than the standard deviation.

Daniel: Is it is it further apart than the standard?

Zach: Well, I don’t know. It’s a five and an eight, you know, I mean, that’s sometimes that’s a signal that two people are in the same relationship or they’re not aware that things are going on, but it sounds like you have some kind of like, know my. And again, this isn’t science, right? It’s arbitrary sort of it’s relationship.

Zach: Yeah. How do I think about a random number scale and your lens was about trajectory perhaps like on the trajectory of our relationship specifically with regard to what I’m bringing to the table. I’m trending in the right direction. Maybe I’m at today. Is that is that a fair way to say what you just said?

Daniel: Yes, I would say that is I think.

Anna: That’s probably fair from where he started. He’s, he’s he is at a perfect firm eight.

Zach: Are you surprised that Anna was at a four? That she ticked up to a five?

Daniel: Probably not. I think yeah. She’s been pretty. Pretty, communicative about her desires. Right.

Anna: And so we have we’re pretty good communicators. We’re not, like, stuff it and hold it. We’re kind of more like. I guess that’s how we film this.

Daniel: I would say I was that person.

Anna: Yeah.

Daniel: Anyways, I’m from a an old school family where you just eat it and walk through it, you know? So.

Anna: And I ain’t been in therapy since I was 14, like you said. So I’m like, the Olympiad and I have to, like, kind of calibrate, be like, come on, keep it up, keep up, keep up.

Zach: Capital therapy and lots of eyes is on it.

Anna: Lots of them. Lots of. Yeah. Different. Different styles, different approaches, different, you know, but yeah, it’s a definite I also learned, I think in my 30s, that therapy into me wasn’t a process that needed to get over. It was like a way you choose to live your life, right? If you want to be a self-reflective person, if you want to be a, person who grows and changes openly, like, readily, and rather than fighting it, I feel like some people always swim upstream with their therapy.

Anna: And I was like, give it to me and what’s the next thing? And I wanted to do therapy, I think, for my whole life, just as a point of, you know, thinking and feeling about things and, you know, clearing things that I might not be aware of or that I am aware of and just kind of a keeps a good soulful hygiene.

Anna: I think a spiritual, you know, health in there. So, you got on board and pretty soon I don’t think that he was expecting to.

Daniel: Wow. So therapy was not any good. I mean, it probably even today if you told.

Anna: Your dad, you.

Daniel: Know. So my family, they’ve they’ve had fighting and turbulence my entire life. And if you brought the word up, you need to go to therapy or rehab or any of that. It was. Yeah, that’s for sissies. And, only only weak people do that kind of stuff. So that was the guys I was raised under for a long time.

Daniel: Yeah. Which was different than her, her family dynamic.

Anna: My dad was like I’ll pay for therapy. I will, you know, so that you don’t have to use your health insurance. I just want you to be healthy. And they were in marriage therapy. And so it’s kind of advanced at that time my dad and mom were really progressive for, you know, parents born in the 40s raising their kids in the 80s.

Anna: You know, it was like, yeah, that wasn’t a thing yet. It was almost like you only went to therapy if something was really.

Zach: Yeah. You know, I used to think the same thing. I used to think people who went to therapy, there was something wrong with them. They were broken. And now I sort of think people who don’t go to therapy, there’s something wrong with them. They’re broken.

Daniel: Oh, yeah?

Anna: Yeah. That’s really.

Daniel: Well, that’s the best way to put that for sure.

Zach: So. Okay. Tell me then about your five.

Anna: You know, I think my five has a lot to do with, you know, just kind of playing catch up. I married Daniel because I was extremely attracted to him, and I knew that he was a very, very, very good man. And I went in knowing that he was at a deficit in a lot of different ways. But no wife can tell him, and I just hope that maybe he’d keep up and like, want to work on this eventually.

Anna: I was 36, I wanted children, I knew that that was the value I had. A lot of my friends who were living in Hollywood were still at 37 and 38, chasing this ultimate marriage. And I’m like, I know marriages are not a lot to bank on, even though I my parents are 80, two, turning in and still together, still alive and thriving.

Anna: So I had a good role model of marriage, but I wasn’t going to hang my coat on it. I knew that relationships were hard, and so I said, I know that when I marry this man, no matter what. And I knew that he had a history of not wanting to get divorced either. It was like, okay, we’ll be in it and we’ll work on it.

Anna: And I know that he’s a good man, so I will have great children. Both. You know, in the psychology department, he has a very good mind. It’s very clear and straight and