|19 Years In: How a Dating Coach and His Wife Actually Do It w/Evan and Bridget

Do you know that one of my good friends is one of your clients? Do you know that already?

I was not aware of that.

Yeah. That's good. That means she has really good boundaries. We. I said we will. We'll make up a name for you. And she decided she wanted to be something like Vanessa or something. And I was like, no, it's going to be Dolores. Or like, okay, Bertha. She said, yeah, I'm working with this guy. And she told me a little bit about that work, not in detail, but she was like, yeah, that's my guy. I said, great, well, we're gonna all hang out. We're going to talk about you behind your back. So.

Well, I'm on your turf. I'm honored to be here. Bridget's honored to be here.

Tell me about yourselves. Like you have a. How long have you been together? What's the situation? Do you have children? What's the. What do you do? What's your stick? What's your thing?

I'll go first. Yeah, it's.

Because of what I do. It's easy for me to take center stage and I want to be more different.

Excuse me. So. No, no, no, I'm an extrovert too, so I'm not. I'm not shy. But he does have a very interesting job. So wherever we go, he kind of holds court. But we have been together for seven.

Years, married 17.

Married 17, together about 19. And we have two children. Okay. A 15 year old or a 15 year old daughter? Kira is in high school. Ninth grade. And our 13 year old son is in seventh grade middle school. And he just had his bar mitzvah a few months ago, which was awesome. We met at a party. Kind of boring story, but kind of didn't think we were each other's type. But we liked each other and then realized, oh, this stuff on paper doesn't matter. You know, he was Jewish and Catholic. He was East Coast kind of, you know, liberal. And I grew up in a military family in San Diego, so grew up kind of more Republican conservative. And what else was different? Oh, he was very erudite. Went to an almost Ivy League school, went to Duke, and I went to University of San Diego, which is a Jesuit school and a great school.

But it doesn't, you know, it's not well known and, you know, graduated with honors. But he's like the guy who seeks, you know, the intellectual pursuits. And I just, I just like people, and I just listen. And, you know, I've gotten a little more into things because of him. And I think we both kind of come to the middle a little on things like, I'm definitely not not Republican anymore. I, but I but I love to read, but I'm going to read fiction. I'm probably not going to read, you know, the stuff he reads a self-help stuff. But yeah, we had all the same. We had a similar family background, like very close family, you know, laughed a lot. Board games traveled together. But yet our families are different. But we definitely had like the love of our mothers that held things together. So we kind of had the same goals as far as making a family together.

Yeah, it's it's really easy to look at the external differences, but I think what people call values, we share all the same values. And as a result, our relationship is fundamentally an easy relationship. It doesn't require that much work. We pretty much land in the same place every time, even though we come from completely different backgrounds and have different worldviews. And so it's one of the things I really like about this is that we trust, trust the feeling of how well we fit together, rather than letting the tyranny of small differences divide us. Right.

How did you do that? Did you get lucky? Did you intentionally seek out value matches? Did you? Did you know right away? Was it something?

No no no. Yeah. Again, it's hard not to because, I mean, I've turned this story into a career, right? Like. Yeah. Like I spent a lot of time sort of analyzing it in reverse engineering it. And what worked what didn't mean.

Yeah.

Yeah. She's a she's a serial monogamist. Comes from divorced parents. But but the kind of person who one of her great qualities is she likes everybody and likes everything. And so if I died, Tamara, she'd find another guy in the next couple of weeks. Like, that's that's kind of.

The appropriate amount of mourning, obviously.

First. Yeah.

For for optics purposes.

But generally happy, generally agreeable. And as a result, you know, she wasn't terribly discriminating. If there was a guy who, who had who had a sense of humor and some measure of charisma, she liked him. And so she would be in a relationship for one year, three years, five years, seven years. And and that was her life was spending, you know, a long period of time in relationships and very little time dating. I was a complete opposite. I did it online. I was a writer who moved to Hollywood, and I dated online for ten years and went out with 300 people and never had a relationship for longer than eight months. For me, if I knew I wasn't going to marry someone, I didn't see the point of continuing. And other people are more likely to stay in a relationship and make things work for a long period of time.

So we really came from two completely different angles. And so I dated online for so many years. We were on the same dating site at the same time, Match.com, but we didn't meet each other there because we wouldn't have met each other's external criteria. We met at a party and we talked for like six hours at the party, but it wasn't the oh my God, you just know it's not like I went over to hit on her. It was not that kind of magic thing that everybody tries to associate with love at first sight. It was just a conversation that I didn't want to end. And so 20 years later, we're still having the same conversation. But it didn't start from up here. The oh my God, you just know. And then kind of figuring out how to make it work.

It was a slow build that got better and better over time. So our relationship is, I might say, our relationship is better now than it was in the first year we were dating.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. I want to at the risk of like, asking you too many questions about your job, I do want to know kind of how your theories work there, because the thing I hear most often is, oh, my God, the first time we met, we talked for six hours. We stayed up till 3 a.m. is amazing. And then I hear and now like, it's 8:00 and please stop talking to me because I don't have any more bandwidth to, like, deal with your stuff or whatever. Like I got more thing to do. Like people stop talking when they figure out, but you, you haven't done that. You've continued this. Six our conversation for.

Well.

I mean, I continue to do it like, how did you do that? How did you cultivate that?

I think there's two things. I remember a moment when, on our first baby moon, where I realized we ran out of stuff to talk about because all the old stories were told was about five years into our, our relationship. And like, oh, now that, you know, we're we're not dealing with kids stuff. I'm not dealing with work stuff. We're in Tahiti. Right? I think we're just going to sit here and read our Kindles at lunch. And so that was like a revelation. It was like, oh, all the old stuff is done now. It's new. It's it's the intertwining of our lives. So the story goes, in general, women are the emotional caretakers of relationships, right? Like that's that's usually the story.

It's why I'm a coach for women and not men. I think because this is my job. I became the caretaker of the relationship. She takes care of the house or kind of traditional marriage. I'm the breadwinner. She, you know, handles the kids in the house. But because I'm in this conversation every day, it's really important for me to make sure we get quality time and have real conversations where she's probably more content not doing it.

Yeah, yeah, we we do fall into that. Haven't had a real conversation in days or maybe until the weekend. And even then we're a little exhausted from the week. But but yeah, you are you are more the the emotional caretaker probably. I think a lot of it is he's he's got the burden of all his clients talking to him. And you think that would wear him out from that. But he's doing all the listening and sometimes he you know my my guess is it might remind you, you know, oh, I want to I want to have that, you know, reconnect a little bit with my wife about that because here I've been listening to everybody else's problems. Maybe I just want to, you know, we still convinced to each other and we can talk about future stuff, but the deeper conversations happen.

Maybe over dinner before a play, maybe, or like in Valentine's Day dinner or something like we really because a lot of it, we do a lot with our kids and our kids are even though they're teenagers. This is, I think, an epidemic. Anyway, a lot of teens just are home a lot. They just they don't they don't have the same thing we had when we were going up. And our kids very social and sweet, but love spending time with us, which we love to like. I'm very happy with that. But he's more concerned, like, let them get out of the house because once they leave for good, we're going to be, you know, we're just the two of us. So yeah. So you are you're right. You're more the emotional caretaker.

But but it's good that you bring that up. And I think about it too because, you know, we're tired at the end of the night. We don't really have a lot in us to to talk about anything deep. But but it's true. Once you know everything about someone.

My daughter, my daughter called me out the other day for going deep all the time.

Oh, no.

And it's it hit me hard because it's obviously it's not the first time I've been told that I would have guy friends be like, I'd be talking to a girl at a party and be like, has Evan plumbed the depths of your soul yet?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Right. Like so. I mean, I recognize that, you know, I'm I'm intense and and really interested in this conversation. And sometimes I need to pull back and lighten up. Okay.

I did hear and, you know, my my daughters are 19 and 23. And, you know, vis a vis our generation versus theirs, there's this thing that you and I had, which was freedom came with our car. Once we got our car, we were free and we could go for these guys. Freedom comes with their phone like, yeah, they get to like, they get access to their friends. They get access to entertainment. They get access to, you know, whatever they need in a way that we didn't. We didn't have that we had to, like, actually leave and go talk to people, you know? So that's a little bit of what you're describing. I think this idea of them being at home all the time, they have, they have freedom inside their own bedroom.

This idea. So here's I don't want to like, work too hard on this, but you're a dating coach. You spend a lot of time talking to people about how to do dating in this world where they're not partnered. Now you're part, now you are. You come home and you come home to your partner. Do the two of you have a philosophy of dating for one another? Like, do you date each other? Is does your expertise or your kind of your energy around this topic come into the in into the house?

I'll let you take that. I'm. I have my theories, but I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Well, I, I think I don't know if this is so much a dating. I mean, I guess it could apply to dating when he sometimes when he comes out of his office or just overall, he's very appreciative. And I think it's because he's talking to people and remembering or hearing how frustrating it can be to be out there and not finding your match. When you're looking for your match, looking for a match. Let's say I don't think I don't believe in soulmates in the way, like there's only one. But I think people looking for someone, they're just kind of they get worn out, they get burnt out, they maybe have a really bad experience. They tell Evan about it or they're just really hard to work with.

So Evans, like, got some high maintenance clients and he'll, you know, be wow, thank you for not being that you know. So he's very appreciative. And I think we both are appreciative because, you know, mostly we hang out with couples because we've in a place where mostly couples live, nobody moves to the valley when you're single because who are you going to date out here? And so we're a little removed from it. Me. But he's always talking to people who are single.

So I think, I mean, I don't know if we're properly answering your question about what you mean by dating principles, but certainly the relationship principle, if you're expressing I mean, I speak all five love languages, and I'm reminded of it because of my job. You can't hide when people are telling you how men disappoint them. I'm like, well, I'm going to be I'm going to be better than that in my marriage. Which doesn't mean I get.

The meaning you give you. You speak fluently outbound in all five love languages.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's my responsibility. I'd be derelict to to not do all the things, use all the tools that that are universally considered ways of expressing love and appreciation. So I think I'm just more attuned to it because it's my day job. Yeah. I you know, it it does. Again, it doesn't mean I'm perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think I am. She doesn't think I am, but but I certainly spend more time thinking about how to be a good husband than most guys, by the nature of my work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I tell people, people will say, oh, you must have a perfect marriage. I go, no, I don't have a perfect marriage, but I don't have any excuses, you know, because I spend all this time trying to help people like find the path to relationality. And but I don't get to clock out and come home and be like, sorry, I don't do. I'm just a typical, you know, dude here. So that's intriguing. I guess I was wondering a little bit about what you've learned or what you know about how to maintain this kind of early energy of affection and attention that fades for couples if they're not paying attention.

Great. So. When we when we first had kids, I read a book. I don't remember the name of the book, but I took one idea from the book, which was the difference between child centered parenting and parent centered parenting. Do you ever hear this?

Oh no. Teach me.

Child centered parenting. The kid is the center of everything and kind of rules the roost, right? That's when the parents are putting the, you know, spending an hour giving, you know, reading to the kid when they're 14 years old. Yeah, that kind of stuff.

And centered parenting is probably important when they're infants and you have to, like, make sure they don't die.

Yeah, right.

But it's usually not a matter of them dying. It's it's a matter of boundaries. And so we've always slept on a separate floor from our kids. We had a baby monitor. They were fine. We've always had that. So we never stopped the thing that people call date night. We had a roster of babysitters.

Yeah. Are our collective parents his parents? My parents don't live that close by. My parents are in San Diego. Were, you know, north of LA. So they're close enough to help in a big situation like, oh, we want to go on a trip. We're going to bring them down to you. But, you know, your mom lives on the East Coast. It's not it just wasn't easy. So we're like, immediately, we need to get a roster, a babysitter.

We chose not to. We chose not to have our life change. So the same thing we had going in that remains. Because if you if you and I know you know this better and can probably even explain it better, but if you understand the couple is a unit, right? And they have their roles within that unit and in our as it's the, the breadwinner and, and the homemaker, it's easy to become so focused on the roles that the relationship itself gets hollowed out because he's worried about making money and she's worried about the kids. And then the thing that they had previously that brought them together, it's like a garden that stops being watered. And so we just never stopped watering the garden. And so I'm the same guy that I was 20 years ago. I'm on the internet all the time. I'm always trying to find cool stuff to do. I'm planning in advance.

So that old school masculine call plan pay for dating. I'm still doing it so we don't let our lives get stale, because I won't let them get stale because a it's good for the relationship watering the garden and be it's inherently pleasurable instead of just being everything work kids work kids work kids. So we just continue to give oxygen to our relationship. In a world where people sort of forget to do that. And then they say, well, we drifted. What happened to us? Yeah.

You know, it's interesting because, you know, you said something a little bit differently than the way I sometimes think about it, which is this idea of people go, oh, we can't afford date night. And I'm like, can you afford not date night? Can you afford to not do night? But that's not actually what you're saying. You're saying date night is fun. It's good for you. It's pleasurable. It's like it's worth. It's worth it.

Well, people treat it as an either or, and instead of a both end like you can, you can be a good. You can be good at your job and not work 12 hours a day and on the weekends. And you could. Right. But there's a zero sum game like eventually the you have to make a trade off. So I, you know, I carved out a life where I don't work nights, I don't work weekends, I have dinner with my family every night. I don't travel separately from my family on. Not like, you know, going around the world. So I my, my job is being a good husband and father. And I take that job seriously because it's the most important job. And so I never really underwater. I never have to kind of apologize for working too late or not prioritizing my family. It's if that's where your values are, it becomes pretty easy to do.

Yeah, yeah.

If anything, I'm I've told them last night to. I'm, I'm actually really happy when he lately he's been like the last year or two been trying to join groups or find people to go out with just to have like the random haven't seen this guy in a while. We're going to have dinner. I love when he does that because I know it feeds him so much, and it's not a hassle. Like when they when we were little. I mean, when the kids were little, it was a little more of a challenge. If I if he had to leave me alone with the two little ones because there were only a year and a half apart, or I had to leave him like we absolutely did it for each other. But it was a little more work because you're like bath time feeding, you know, reading, maybe somebody not going to sleep.

And, you know, all of that's a little more challenging now. It's so easy, you know, with these teenagers, like they basically run themselves. So I love it when he goes out because he's I think it beats him every time he comes back. I'm like, so how is so and so? Or how was the meeting or how was the thing?

It's also when you make one person and you could be a really integrated, like there's people who have very, very separate lives. I think of the people who call themselves like a power couple. They don't have enough relationship energy because they're so big on their mission, right, that they don't pour anything into their marriage. We don't have that. My mission is not fame and fortune. My mission is to be a good husband and father and help people. And so I'm always sort of grounded by that. But one person can't do everything. It could be your favorite person in the world, but you still need you still need other elements. You need deep conversations. You need to watch sports with your guy friends.

You need to do a trivia league or a fantasy football thing. Like, I have things that feed me that she can't and won't. And similarly, she's got her own things. So we we really just try to give enough water to each of the elements in our relationship, but never forgetting that our marriage comes first and it even comes before the kids.

Yeah. One thing I that brought up something that you said about, you know, the feeding it and but but I can't be everything to him. And he's not everything to me, and that's okay. I mean, we've we've, you know, it's kind of a fact that especially men, when they get older and the woman dies first or something, they're kind of at a loss because that was their emotional grounding, right? The woman was the only person they shared important things with. And they had, you know, a handful of guy friends or whatever. But you just don't they don't have that community. What I think is important for people who date, and I know you talk to your clients about this. Women specifically want the men to be their everything, the man that they are dating or going to marry to be everything and like all the same things they like.

And that's hard. You know, I know you probably had to go through that because I never was very interested in politics at all. And he loves talking about politics, especially with people who don't agree with him. And then like, how do we see each other's point of view? Like you're very balanced about that, even if you have like if you're very, you know, you have very strong opinions about things very, very like we.

Probably want to hear this politics.

No, no, no. But what I'm saying is I never was interested in it at all. Not even a little. Didn't want to talk about it. And I don't know if someone told you this or you just came up with this yourself, like, oh, so she's not the person I talk politics with. That's that's okay. My stepmom married my dad and she was way into golf. And she thought to herself, like, how can I date like the one guy in the world who doesn't care about golf? Like, I can't get him, he doesn't care about. And then he she realized, oh, that's that's my time. I'll just. That's okay. He doesn't have to love golf. That'll be my thing.

I think people have a really hard time with this. And this is this what going to bring in a dating principle? 2026 dating. Yeah, because everybody's so online. Yeah. Everybody is looking for some sort of red flag or trigger any reason to dismiss someone. And it's easy to find. You could find anything about someone. And it has so little to do with how that person actually is in a relationship. And common interests are people make it the most important thing, and it might be the least important thing in a relationship in my opinion.

Yeah, no, I agree, I agree, I do. Let's not talk about politics, but let's talk about how you talk about politics. If you are good at talking with people that disagree with you about a thing, and right now it's really easy. The line in the political world is like pretty stark. So you're kind of finding yourselves on one or the other side. But if you're if you're good at talking about it. What are you good at? What are you how does that work and how does it show up? Maybe the two of you have a difference that you come across.

I think that she's she's a natural. She's really if she wanted to monetize her skill, she'd be great.

I know it's my skill.

What is the skill? Yeah.

Where her her skill is being just fundamentally even tempered. Okay. And not having strong beliefs that she imposes on anybody. So everybody feels really good around Bridget. Everybody. Everybody likes Bridget. And Bridget sees everybody's points of view without judgment. Yeah. And she's she's just got like high EQ as they would say, okay, we're. I've had to learn more about how to be more like her. Talk about how couples wear on each other in ways good and bad. I've learned a lot from being around her about validating, and it has to happen in marriage, but it also has to happen in society about not making someone wrong just because you disagree with them. So we can take it on the macro level. Right. And Democrats, Republicans, we could talk about at the micro level, which is a husband and wife, where you look at the same situation and you draw a different conclusion.

But that doesn't mean the other person is wrong because they disagree with you. It's how do we how do we either agree to disagree or negotiate through our disagreement without trying to say my way or the highway? And once we lose the ability to do that, that's what people are doing now. They're like, you disagree with me? I'm going to be alone. I'd rather be alone to be with someone who doesn't agree with me on everything. And I was like, okay, well, then you're going to be alone.

Oh, tell the story about the girls you met at that Halloween party. It's such a great example of dating. I think.

This is this is an old an old story. This is when I was we were probably first dating and.

Oh, no, we hadn't. We were both at the same party, but we had not met yet.

So basically I went to a party and I was a young dating coach in my 30s, and I met two women at a bar in Hollywood where they were talking about their dream guy and their dream guy. Of course, was six feet tall and made more money than they were. And it was a Jewish people. So there was also Jewish, which was only 1.7% of the population. So it's 1.7% of the population, 10% of the population who make six figures. Right. So it's me, right? Yeah. Plus he has to be an animal activist because I'm an animal activist. So if I'm driving on the 101 and there's a dog on the side of the road, he's going to pick up the dog and we're going to find a shelter, right?

So then what percentage of men are not just like dog tolerant, but animal activists? So we reduced our dating pool to dating only the opposite sex version of you, which is 0.0001% of people. And before we get into how does he treat me? Yeah.

Or does he live close by or is he age appropriate?

I think everybody's just dating. Wrong. Yeah. They venerate the wrong qualities. And the the only not the only qualities, but the most important qualities are character, kindness, consistency, communication and commitment. And nobody looks for those things on dating sites.

Okay. We're going to come back to that. I want to say a couple of things. Number one, I've heard that math story before from Dolores or Margaret or Vanessa or whatever.

Whatever we.

Call her. Yeah. And I love it. I actually think that's really, like, really interesting to think about. Oh, it's literally a math game. And the more you more criteria you throw and the more more you diminish the math. The. And I am going to come back to the thing because you just said something that was gold that that I think everybody would want to rehear. But you were talking a little earlier about, okay, but when we disagree, like how do we do that? How do we agree to disagree or how do we get it at okay, how do you do that? How do Evan and Bridgette do that when you come to this spot? What do you actually do to mitigate the differences that you may have about this idea of their thing?

Gosh, that's a good question. Can you come up with a really sample? Yeah, I mean.

I, I think Dolores, Vanessa and I, we had one conversation that really seared itself on my brain. And this is, this is true. And it's not to negate the value of what you do or what she does. She was the thing that I got out of dating coach, which I didn't get out of therapy, is in therapy you're taught you can change and he can change. Everything is about change, change change change change growth growth growth growth, growth. She goes, you're the first person who told me it's not your job to change him, right? Just let's assume this is it. This guy that you're with flaws. Let's assume this is it for the rest of your life. Let's work on that assumption. Can you live with his flaws for the rest of your life instead of.

We both have to grow to make this work. And so we chose a relationship which doesn't actually require greater growth for either of us. It's not that we can't stand to grow and learn and communicate better like normal people. It's if she doesn't change and I don't change, we're still good. So then we can just understand, okay, we have a different use of of time, right? We disagree on how our weekends. She likes to sleep in late to like 11, like a teenager. I wake up the same time every day. And then I've got like, you know, a big chunk of time. She doesn't want me to wake her for no reason. I understand that I hate missing half of my my day on a Saturday.

I got to find a workaround since she's not going to change. So I gotta go play pickleball with a friend. I gotta take the dog to a dog park or take my son out somewhere. Like, I got to compensate for the fact that if she's not going to be me, I am not going to lecture her all the time about not being me, because that's counterproductive.

Yeah, that's a good example actually, because, yeah, I really like sleeping in.

Yeah. I do, but my body won't let me anymore. Like I'm like, yes, I'm going to sleep till I wake up tomorrow. I know, no alarm. I'm so excited. This is going to be amazing. And then, you know, 7:00 rolls around like, I guess I'm getting up at 7:00.

I have heard that I luckily have somehow staved it off, even with little kids. He's like, I don't know how you did it. I trained them to not bother us unless they were literally bleeding out of their heads. Like I'm like, okay, if somebody actually got hurt. But if you just get mad at each other, then no, no waking up for that.

Is it honestly, the only person in the world and only mom in the world who's completely avoided the normal mom responsibilities.

And I was about to say, there are so many people listening to this podcast who are envious. Like, wait a second, they've you've slept on a different floor for 15 years and you haven't they? You train them not to wake you up. Like, how did you how did. Like, I'm telling you, it is like going to be something.

I think I can count on one hand the number of times that either kid, like, together came up to wake us, and it was usually I'm sick or I had like the worst nightmare. And that's like in that many years, I don't know, I just think they're also just pretty self-sufficient kids in that way, which is lucky. But but yes, I don't I don't want to change. He's right. If we have a plan. Yeah, we have to be somewhere, then. Yes, of course I'll get up. But if we have no plans, I'll make then don't even plan on waking me. Like why?

So here's an interesting snapshot of our thing. And again, it's not, it's not to to venerate me. Usually in the relationship the woman is the more introspective one, the one who goes to therapy, the one who wants to talk about us. Right? I'm the chick in the relationship. She doesn't want to do any of the stuff. Yep. Right. So anytime a woman is like. But I want him to. I want him to want to. Yeah, my wife doesn't want to. And so that's how I know it can work. Yeah. You could. You just have to choose someone who's good enough without therapy. Yeah. Which is not to negate the value of therapy. Right? You need to choose someone. If they don't change, I can deal with whatever their perceived floors are, and vice versa.

Right. Exactly.

Okay. I want to go back to one thing before we run out of time, which is having you a little bit earlier. You said the only thing that matters in relationship, and you rattled all the stuff that starts with the same hard sound, right? So, Bridget, do you know what those are?

Yes. Kindness. Consistency. Commitment. Communication. Character. Character. Thank you.

Very good. How did you come to how did you come to that list and how does it show up for the two of you?

Yeah. When you do, when you do your job for a long time and you ask people the patterns of why their previous relationships failed, no relationship ever failed because she wanted him to be 511, but he was five nine. I broke up with him after 15 years because he was five nine, said no one ever. I broke up with him because I liked skiing more than he did, said no one ever. You ask anybody why the relationship failed. It will fall in one of those buckets or chances are more than one of those buckets character, kindness, consistency, communication, commitment. And so that's the tricky part of dating and relationships is that dating rewards the external height, weight, age, education, income, religion, politics, common interest, what we see, which we will call attractive traits, right, that provide us a dose of validation and chemistry.

None of those traits have anything to do with whether you're going to be happy in 20 years. Yeah. So what gets you there and what keeps you there are just distinctly different things. So if you're dating, you got to get those other traits met, not just the list that you come up with, which is kind of a flawed list anyway.

Well, it's that subject to all that math to.

And I think that's how it shows up for us. And I think it's like it's, it's that it's like I could be he could be annoyed with me about the sleeping in and, you know, not like he says, oh, let's go do this thing. I'm like, how are we? Do I have to get up to do that thing?

I want to go to the beach. Do we have to go before 11?

We do the afternoon beach. The the beach is nice in the afternoon, like that kind of thing.

Is the beach showing at 1230 today?

Right? Can we.

Have a reservation for the later.

Reservation of the beach? Totally. Even though that is the case, he knows all those other characteristics are there, right?

She's she's the best person, so.

Right. And I know that even if he does something or says something that annoys me or makes me mad, like I always know his intention is not to hurt my feelings, make me mad, give me more work. Like I know that's never his intention. That might be the byproduct because like that. But it's the intention is I know it's not there. I know it's the kindness, the commitment. Like we need to do this because or can I, I want to do this. It's not because he's.

You know. Exactly. It's the assumption of positive intent. Like if if your partner is doing something and their job is to make you happy and they're not making you happy. Yeah. It's not their intention is to be hurtful. It's it's a byproduct of the fact that you look at the world slightly differently.

Yeah. Well, it's it's the opposite of what you said earlier. Like, if you're dating and you're scanning for flaws, you'll find them super easy. It's so easy. But if you're if you're stuck and I don't mean that in a, I don't mean that in a pejorative way. But if you're in the relationship now, like here we are, we got our kids, we got our mortgage, we got our sunk cost or whatever else. You can keep scanning for negative if you want to, or you can scan for the positive. You scan for the things that are going well and be like, okay, I'm going to invest in the high side because the low side is available to me. I'm just not choosing to make that the thing. And it sounds like you are pretty practiced and have some real cultivated experience around that, which is lovely. I think it's really cool.

Yeah. So the kind of you you from an authority?

Yeah. Right. So my brother is recently divorced and he's he's trying to figure out how to do the next thing I know that you're I know you only work with women, but I'm just telling you there's an eligible 47 year old guy out there who's a firefighter, and he's tall. He's a good looking guy. So if you got you got anybody who's mathematically looking for that guy.

Everybody.

What? We're looking for a tall firefighter. He should have a lineup. He doesn't need a dating coach.

I know.

I know, he might need an assistant. Yeah.

Right on. Okay. Listen, very cool to talk to you. Who should know about you and your work, you know, tell them and tell us how to point them.

Yeah. I mean, I'm a dating coach for smart, successful women who have everything but a partner. It's generally women, late 30s to early 70s, who either that or feeling the pressure to get married and start a family, or married the wrong person, right, and are starting their life over and are finding that it's more complicated and overwhelming than it used to be. And so it's sort of a sifting and sorting problem. And it's a skill set, like just like relationships or a skill set, dating is absolutely a skill set, but most people think it's just a matter of luck and swiping, but it's really trying to figure out how to discern whether someone is long term compatible. And most people don't have a great track record of doing that. So if you go to Evan Marquette's or my podcast, they'll love you. I'm going to have you as a guest on my podcast.

That's pretty cool. I'm glad to continue this conversation. I think that I recently took a pottery class like a, like a for the first time, throwing it on a wheel, and I was the only guy, and there was all these, like, middle aged women there. And I was like, my brother. I was like, Bertie, you need to go.

To class.

Seriously. Like. But anyway, very cool. And then Bridget, what's what's your sign off like when you when you when you have a message for the world. What is it?

My big sign off. Yeah. Okay.

We're not prepared. For this. Wow. All right.

Sign off. You know what? Never keep track, but always be ahead in giving. Always be better at giving than anybody else. You know, if you can, that you'll be happy.

Never keep track, but always be ahead. In terms of the generosity.

Sort of. Yes.

Out. Yeah. To out give rather than to out get.

There it is. Did I marry well?

Who did? You did a great job. Thank you so much, guys, for coming on to talk to me. I look forward to continuing this conversation and I hope that will be friends. Like, if I can be of help to you in any way, let me know. And I understand that you throw pretty, pretty cool parties in your backyard, so maybe.

I'll try.

Yes, we do.

Make it down to the valley. Is that where you live? You live in the valley. Don't leave. Oh, I'll make it down to the valley for one of these epic backyard parties sometimes.

Thanks, Zach.

You're great. Thank you. Bye bye.