How To Tell If You're Looking For Love in the Wrong Place

Julie Thevis, thank you so much for coming on the show.

How are you doing?

Doing well.

Thank you for having me.

Well, so we actually spoke, I think, last week about this topic, but a lot more briefly, and I've been thinking about it ever since, and so I'm really curious to hear your perspective.

Just to give the audience some context, oftentimes people think that there's this hierarchy of love where romantic partners are at the top, and then under that is family, and then under that is friends.

And from what I understand, your five-year relationship taught you something different about that hierarchy of love.

Exactly.

And so today, what I really wanna talk about was how you kind of realized that romantic love is not the top of this hierarchy of love.

Yeah, I mean, I think traditionally we tend to put our partners on this pedestal, right? We, we see them at the top of that hierarchy, and it's just something that's happened traditionally over time.

Um, and I really did believe that for a long time.

I made my partner the center of my universe, um, and made my family and friends kind of like the outside planets.

And I think what I started doing was always putting my partner first, uh, even before myself, um, but then also my friendships.

And I, over time, thought this was the right thing to do until it wasn't.

Expand on that.

That was a really interesting analogy.

Expand on this, like, idea of, like, this solar system of love.

Right.

So I, for so long, made my partner, let's say, the sun, um, and I was a planet, and then my friends, family members were other planets, stars even.

Um, and over time, I realized that doesn't necessarily need to be the case.

And so how did you realize that that wasn't the case?

So I was with someone for five years.

Um, at the beginning it was great.

Uh, he made me laugh, which was really big for me.

He made me feel, um, really good in moments of distress.