Healing From Emotional Abuse: From Stage Lights to Home Life: How Michael Kent Keeps His Marriage Strong While Traveling 250 Days a Year

Michael Kent, traveling comedian and magician, joins Marissa to share hard-won lessons from 20 years of marriage while spending up to 250 days per year on the road. Discover why performer relationships fail, the "dopamine trap" of audience affirmation, and the one ritual that saved his marriage.

Learn the three pillars of healthy relationships (communication, respect, trust), how to communicate vulnerably without blame, and why human connection matters more than ever in our isolated world. Michael reveals advice from Ralphie May that transformed his marriage and shares practical strategies for maintaining intimacy across distance.

Topics covered:

• Why entertainment industry marriages fail (and why his didn't)
• How to distinguish between audience affirmation and real love
• The power of saying "What can I do to help?"
• Reframing relationship conflicts
• Breaking the content vs. happiness debate
• Connection as the antidote to addiction and loneliness

Keywords: healthy relationships, marriage advice, communication skills, long-distance relationships, relationship tips, emotional intimacy, relationship goals

Full Transcript:

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Welcome, Michael. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Michael Kent

Absolutely. It's so good to be here. I was happy to have you on my podcast recently, and I've never been on a podcast like yours, so I'm kind of excited and nervous.

Oh, don't be nervous.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

It's easy, breezy conversation. We're just chit-chatting. But tell everyone about your podcast, because I thought it was so much fun to be a guest on yours.

Thank you. Sure.

Michael Kent

Well, my podcast, it's funny because it has nothing to do with what I do for a living. So I make my living as a comedian and magician.

During the pandemic, me and so many other people decided we were going to podcast. So I decided that mine was going to be about history, but not like the boring history.

I am fascinated by the fact that I'm in my 40s and I'm still learning things. Every day, like there's new things to learn.

And some of them are important. Some of them are just interesting. They're not important. And so what I decided to do was find a different story from history every week.

And it has to sound like it's something that I just made up. And initially, the podcast was called Tell Me What to Google, because tell me what to Google, because there were people giving me these ideas like, hey, you should Google this.

Because after the first season, I realized that it's really hard to be found on Google when you have Google in the name of your show.

So my buddy Jonathan Burns came up with the title, The Internet Says It's True. And that's what it's been called for 267 episodes.

Every week is a news story that sounds like it's absolutely made up. And they're all 100% verifiably true. I go through painstaking efforts to like go back and find the original newspaper articles and everything.

But I present them in a way that's really fun and lighthearted. And then we do a quiz at the end.

So yeah, it's been a fun project. It's really fun for me to work on something that is not me.

It's not about my show and me.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

And it sounds really fun. History is so interesting, and there's so much fun stuff out there. I love being on your podcast.

For the last couple episodes, we were talking about food, which anyone who knows me knows that food is a passion of mine.

Not cooking it, just eating it. But yeah, so check out The Internet Says It's True. It streams everywhere. You can listen to the episodes I'm on.

But let's jump into the Healing for Emotional Abuse podcast. Michael, so you mentioned that you are a traveling comedian and magician.

Will you tell us a little bit more about what you do?

Michael Kent

Yeah. Basically, my job for the last 22 years has been to give people an hour of their life where they don't have to think about what's going on outside.

They don't have to think about the... about the... They Thank You know, the stress and the tests and the exams, or if it's a workplace, you know, the deadlines and the news and politics.

I'm just giving them an escape, which is what magic is. Magic is an amazing ability for us to be able to suspend our disbelief as if we're watching a wrestling match.

And it's really easy, it turns out, for people to believe that something's happening that's impossible, because we all want to believe that that's true.

Even the most skeptical people react to magic in a way that is almost childlike. Magic has a different reaction from everyone.

Everyone has a different way of reacting to it. And I really love that, but I don't love the tension that magic brings.

So I do a comedy show. I do a comedy magic show that sort of acknowledges the strange elephant in the room, and that is, I'm a man in my 40s pretending to be a wizard.

This crazy career has taken me quite literally all over the world to 49 states. I still need to go to Wyoming.

I haven't performed there yet. But 49 states, 19 countries, I believe, and cruise ships and military bases. And gosh, I performed on board an aircraft carrier last year while they were active in the sea.

It's been an amazing career for the last couple decades. I'm focusing my efforts now more toward corporate groups and providing corporate groups with sort of an engagement tool and being that engagement facilitator for them to improve their events.

So that's sort of the focus of my career currently. But for the last 20 years, I've been one of the top comedian magicians on the college market.

So that's how I know you.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

That's true. That's awesome. So you have... You've in one relationship for basically like the extent of all of your career.

So 22 years on the road, and you and your wife, first, can you tell us how you met?

Michael Kent

Yeah, it's not like one of those, you know, Hallmark stories. But my wife and I went to college together, had the same major and several of the same classes and never met.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

We figured that out after the fact.

Michael Kent

So we met through the girl that I grew up next door to when I was a little kid. So from the time I was born until I was eight years old, I lived next door to this person who I won't name because I don't know if I have their permission to talk about them publicly.

So I grew up next to her, and she's like a sister to me. And we reconnected after college, like right after college, for the end of college, and we're hanging out.

And Allison, my wife, was always around in the friend group. And I started sort of jokingly referring to her as my girlfriend because I had a crush on her.

And finally, I asked her out, and we went on what I thought was like an amazing date. It was an amazing date.

And then, let's see what happened next. We went off and dated other people. It didn't last. And then we reconnected like four or five months later, and that was the end of that.

And we're coming up on our 20th wedding anniversary in August.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Wow. Yeah.

Michael Kent

And like any marriage, know, it's had ups and downs and good times and bad times. And much of the good times and bad times have come from dealing with exactly what you're talking about, the idea that I do spend.

At one point, I spent 250 days a year on the road doing shows. And that's really tough on any relationship, married or not, however long, you know, it's...

It's just a difficult thing to learn how to deal with. When we met and started, you know, getting serious about dating, I was wanting to be a magician.

I was wanting to do this, but I wasn't very successful yet. So she was sort of my sugar mama for the first few years because she had a job and I didn't.

And so, you know, it took a while for my career to take off. And then it's been obviously a very, like, fulfilling and lucrative career since.

And so, yeah, that's sort of where we are. And she and I are one of those sort of opposites attract couples, you know, like she is a bit more conservative and pragmatic.

And I'm sort of a dreamy artist who, you know, head in the clouds type. But we have sort of become more similar as we've gotten older.

think that probably just happens with married couples. After a long time, our tastes have become more similar.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

That's awesome. So 20 years married, more than 22 years together. In our industry, like the college market, the traveling to entertain market, I don't know the statistic.

I can look it up. But I think most marriages end with one partner that travels a lot and the other that doesn't.

And thinking to the conferences that we go to or the colleagues that we have, most of them have been divorced.

I can really only think of four people who have been consistently married to the same person. So keeping the communication, the love, the marriage alive is very challenging.

So what do you and Allison do or like what have you learned over the years that has helped you guys navigate this, you know, kind

Michael Kent

Yeah, first of all, she is a saint to be able to deal with this, right? Like when you think about someone being gone that much, and that's just the half of it.

The being gone part is only half of the equation. We'll talk about the other half in a minute, but I was in Chicago Midway Airport headed to, where was I going?

St. Louis. And I was headed to a conference, and the comedian Ralphie May, who has since passed, I recognized him just being a fan of comedy, and we struck up a conversation, and we sat next to each other on the flight, and we talked the whole way to St.

Louis, and somehow we got talking about relationships. And at that point, Ralphie was married. He ended up getting divorced later, but he gave me the best relationship advice ever, and it sort of, I think, saved my marriage.

And Basically, what he said was, the reason that show business relationships fail is because entertainers, night after night, get this amazing feeling from complete strangers.

This affirmation that everyone would love. You'd be crazy not to love it. You have complete strangers. You know, it's like if your husband tells you, you look great today.

It means something. It's important. But if a stranger at the gas station says, look great today, why does that?

It means a little bit more because they don't have an incentive or motive, you know, like they don't have to tell you that.

And that's kind of the feeling that entertainers get on stage is like, oh, my God, these complete strangers adore me.

And then that night after night after night. And then you go home to your significant other. And they're like, where have you been?

Your dirty laundry is on the floor. You didn't do the chore you said you were going to do. And you start comparing them to the people in the audience.

And that's. It's so unfair because the people in the audience only know you for one hour at the most, and it's your best hour.

It's the hour that you've been rehearsing. It'd be bad. It'd be weird if they didn't love you for that hour.

You know what I mean? Whereas now you're comparing them to someone who knows all of you and all the warts and all of the, you know, the, the history and the, the arguments and your tendencies.

And, and it's just not a fair comparison. You're comparing apples to oranges in that instance, and it's not And so I spent so much time like thinking about that and examining that and how, which one's wrong, which one's right?

You know? And I think the answer is like, neither one's wrong. Neither one's right. But what I realized is that audience while I, God, I love them.

I appreciate them so much that they come to my shows and that they laugh with me. They're not my friends in most

Most instances. And so when the show is over, that relationship is over. Now, that's not to say, like, I don't want to, you know, put out content for them to consume and interact with people and enjoy their acquaintanceship.

But those aren't family. They're not friends. And so that's the that is the struggle that most entertainers run into is that they see that feeling that they get from a complete stranger when they're on stage or when they're, you know, someone who's reacting to their art and they say, oh, this person sees me.

This person really likes me because they see me and through my art and all this. But that's not a real healthy.

That's not a relationship. That's just a one sided thing. And and so it took a really long time to realize that.

And so what I did, I put in almost immediately after talking to Ralphie, a know, A new tradition slash ritual.

When I finish a job, a gig, when I finish a show, after I load out, I have a schedule that I do normally.

And this is just what I do. I get to, when the show's over and I've done a meet and greet or merch or whatever it might be afterward, when I start loading out and tearing down my show, I text my wife.

I let her know I'm loading out. And both of us know that that means that I'm going to be sitting in my car in about 45 minutes to an hour.

And when I get in my car, I don't put in the directions to the hotel. I don't put in directions to the airport.

I just sit and I call her and we talk. And we don't talk about my show or my travels.

We talk about her day. And we talk about the dogs and what's going on back home. And what it is, is a snapback to what is real.

It's a snapback to what is good and what is real. And it's a buffer between this world that can make anyone feel like a king to a world that is more mutual, where this is like, this is reality.

This is two-way now. It's not just a one-way thing. That call has met the world to me, and I think to Allison, too, because she doesn't want to hear about magic.

Allison hates magic.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

I tried to show her magic on our first date, and she goes, know what you're doing, and it's not going to work on me.

Michael Kent

And she wasn't talking about the trick wasn't going to work. You know what I mean? I had just spent all those years in college using magic to impress strangers, and now all of a sudden I have to use my personality.

I was like, I like this girl. So when we talk after the show, it's, you know, it's about her and her horses and the dogs and what's going on back home, you know, and it's, while that's nice for her, it's also nice for me because then...

Let's see. I don't do what I used to do, which is before that, I would be like, how can I make this feeling of this audience continue?

And I would start looking and saying, okay, who added me on Instagram? Who liked my show? Who commented on that photo?

You know, and being like, you know, you just want that feeling to continue. It's why a lot of artists, musicians, comedians turn to substance abuse, because they're trying to continue the feeling that they get when they're on stage.

It's an indescribable feeling, and I'm sure you get it when you speak as well. You know, it's indescribable how it feels to be affirmed by complete strangers in a room where there are hundreds of them looking at you.

So it's a really difficult thing to compete with, but that's a much bigger aspect of the problem than is the just being gone.

Because I could do, it doesn't matter if you're gone, if you're gone. All the time anyway, mentally or emotionally, you know, like that's the important thing is, are you emotionally there?

And it's taken me a long time to do this. And you're talking, you're talking to someone who has spent years in therapy dealing with this.

think therapy has been just as important as that discussion with, with, with Ralphie May on an airplane, you know.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

That's so interesting. I, first of all, that's really cool that you got to, you got to sit next to Ralphie May, but also like that, that advice and like that thought process makes a lot of sense.

And I never really thought about it that way, where that like euphoric feeling of being loved and adored, right?

Right. And then you turn to your family or your partner where, you know, they don't, you know, they know the full you versus other people who only know, like you said, the one dimension of you, you know, it's, and I wonder just in like the full world, not just our world, but how.

that translates to them, right? Sure.

Michael Kent

Well, it does, because like people that are in the workplace have their work life and their home life. And it's completely different.

The people that the way that they interact with people at work is completely different than the way that they interact with their family.

And. It's I know that this is a problem for a lot of people, because when you get to that place where you're pulling into the driveway or you're pulling into your garage or whatever to go home, there's a really harsh shift that has to happen between how you deal with work and how you deal with home.

And it is it is incredible. It's the same with sports teams as well. When you're on a sports team, your relationship with that sports team or military unit is a bond that you might feel like you never can compete with, with your with your personal relationship.

And you have you have to realize and look at it that. It's apples and oranges. It is not the same type of thing.

And it's okay for both of those things to coexist. They are not competing with one another.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Yeah. And I think it translates a lot to why people cheat, right? Because if you, like even just looking at work wives and work husbands, right?

You have somebody that you have developed a relationship with in your place of work and you're like, oh, this is my work husband or this is my work wife or my work whatever, you know?

And then that person only knows the little bit of you that you show at work versus at home where, you know, you leave your dirty socks everywhere and, you know, or, or you're acting at your very comfortable personality, right?

And then the other people, when you get upset with your partner and you talk to your work friends about it, right?

Or like your work, whatever work wife about it. They're like, oh, I would never do that. I don't understand.

I would never yell at you for something so minuscule. So that becomes very, um, attractive, right? Like, oh, this,

Person, they would never treat me. But if they knew you the way that your home partner does, right, your real partner, they would absolutely not be okay with that, right?

Or they would also have, there would be tiffs, right? And so I just think that that's so fascinating. That's such an interesting perspective.

Michael Kent

Well, was a perspective that was sort of forced on me that I'm glad that I came to because, you know, when you are in a relationship that you value, that you really want to, if you realize in that moment the value of it, you'll do anything you can to keep it.

And in my case, what I realized was that the problem was me, right? The problem was that, and it wasn't just me being gone a lot.

Obviously, that's tough. But the problem was that, like, I needed to look at things realistically. And, you know, it's kind of like...

When you look at an artist's painting that they've put up in a gallery, like if they put it up in a gallery, they know it's good.

But what you're not seeing is all their early works that they're not proud of, that they're not showing off.

And your relationship with your significant other probably knows and has seen those early works. And so to stick with the metaphor, the gallery goer might be like, this is the best artist in the world.

They can never do anything wrong. You know what I mean? And that's that audience member. That's that person who's only seeing you for or knowing you for an hour.

Or the people who only know that you're really good at work and you're a good problem solver. Oh, that person must be like that at home.

And, you know, and you fantasize and you create this thing that's not there. And reality is often much more boring.

And reality is the...

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

The reality is in between the highs and lows.

Michael Kent

That's where most of our life happens, is in the waiting for the next exciting thing to happen. And so you have to kind of get, like, very comfortable with the fact that things aren't always exciting and full of affirmation and butterflies and puppy dogs.

Sometimes the greatness of life is those days where you're like, you want to go out to dinner, but we're just so exhausted.

So we're going to just make ramen and sit on the couch and watch TV. And that's going to have to be fine.

And that's like even the most successful, exciting movie stars do that. You know what I mean? Like they have, it might not be ramen.

might still be, you know, their executive chef cooks them something, but everyone has in between times where you might be in between projects or you might be in between this.

And that's what, like, to me, that's kind of the beauty of relationships. It's like, this is someone who you have deemed to be comfortable with you when things aren't exciting, when things are good, and when things are really difficult and hard and you're at each other's throats and fighting, like, someone that you can get through that with.

So, yeah. I'm talking, like, I feel like I'm really self-conscious right now talking about this because I know how I have struggled as a husband, and, like, I know how I've had my, like, shortcomings in the past, and I'm talking as if I'm some expert on relationships.

It's taken a lot of work for me to get here, and in 10 years from now, I probably will look back at this and be like, I was, I didn't know what I was talking about because I will have learned more.

You know, that's the hope anyway, right?

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

That's the whole point of life and relationships, right? Like, we are always growing. We're always learning, right? On your podcast, the premise of it was, I can't believe I'm in my 40s and I'm still learning every day.

I have always been like an avid lifelong learner, right? I still – I'm in my mid-30s. I still want to go back for more degrees.

I still want to do more learning. And my mother-in-law is always making fun of me because I told her at Christmas I want to go to law school.

And she's like, why? Why do you want to go to law school? You don't want to be a lawyer.

And I'm like, yeah, but I want to understand. And I want to be able to help. And like if you're not learning, you're dying, right?

And so, you know, I can look back on things I wrote. My first book, know, Breaking Through the Silence, I wrote it in 2017.

And when I put it out, I was like, oh, this is incredible. Like I did so much work. I did all of this.

And look where I got, right? And now I read it and I'm like, oh, my God, this is so embarrassing, right?

Because we are always growing. We're always learning. So where you are – about when I make a promo video for my show.

Michael Kent

By the time I'm editing it, I'm embarrassed by it.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

That's how quickly I'm always changing stuff, you know? Yeah, but that's, I mean, we're always growing, and right now, especially in the world with technology and all that we have, we're absorbing so much stimuli and so much information every minute of every day to a point where our brains have shifted so much, and we're kind of getting off topic, but I'm happy about it because I like to talk about this.

Yeah, two quick things.

Michael Kent

Something that I realized that I have realized about relationships is another thing that makes them fail, in my opinion, is that people expect it to always feel the way it did in the beginning.

I mean, this isn't a surprise to anyone. Everyone knows that this is a problem, right? You might feel that way with someone at work or someone that, you know, like comes through your life, incidentally, and you'll be like, oh, this is the way I felt with my significant other in the beginning.

And what you fail to realize is that relationships always... Are changing and you're never going to have, I mean, I can't say never because I don't, you know, obviously there, I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but it's rare to be able to have the same relationship with your significant other that you had when you met and my wife and I have had different iterations of our life together, right?

Like there have been different, it's almost like a different thing that you find that you love about that person and you both grow and you're not the same people you were back then.

It would be silly if you were acting the same way you were when you were, you know, I met Ali when I was like 22 or something, right?

So there's a, my favorite book is called Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. It's just a book about Zen and the main premise of it is in the beginner's mind, there are many options.

In the expert's mind, there are few and many possibilities, I think is what he says. And that is to realize that you don't know.

Everything is the ability to learn and to change and to grow. Whereas if you say, well, I got married, I aced it, done, I succeeded, I'm at the plateau, now everything's always going to be like this, and everything's always going to be great, and I don't have to try anymore.

That's death, right? That's death. As you described, when you stop learning, you're dying. So anyway, those are the two quick things I wanted to bring up.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

And I appreciate that. So Larry and I had a conversation, my husband, it was more of like a debate actually a few months ago where do you strive to be content all the time or do you strive to be happy all the time?

Like what's the right, what's the right way to look at life, right? Because if we are striving to be happy, and I was on team, I want to be happy.

Thank you. All the time, right? I want to always be feeling like I'm accomplishing. I always want to be feeling like I'm doing something and growing.

And he was like, no, because if that's the case, then you're basically chasing a moving goalpost, right? If you always strive to be happy, then you are never happy where you are.

And I thought that was so fascinating. So like striving to be content versus striving to be happy. It sounds like from what you said, you strive to be content, right?

You know that things are changing and growing and you adjust and adapt and you grow together or you grow apart, right?

But you guys work to grow together. So what's your take on that?

Michael Kent

Well, you're right. mean, I think of those two options, I would say like striving to be content, but I'm not even sure I'm, I like the phrasing of like content because content, it can bring about feelings of like, I'm content, so I'm not going to strive for happiness or for joy, I guess is what I would replace happiness with is.

So Or pleasure. Joy and pleasure are fleeting, whereas contentment is not. Contentment is what I would describe as the middle path or the middle road.

If you can't tell, I'm really into Buddhism, and that's kind of where a lot of my philosophy comes from, is that it's going back to what I said earlier about how most of life are those in-between times.

And those in-between times, contentment is a great way to describe those. You're fine. There's nothing wrong. You're lacking pleasure in that moment, maybe.

But you're also lacking profound sadness or fear. You know what I mean? There's just times when you just are.

And if you aren't happy, and I mean happy in a very large, vague sense here, if you can't survive, and if you're suffering in the times when...

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... There's nothing to be particularly pleasurable or to be joyful about or whatever.

That's most of your life. Most of our life are those in-between times. And so if you were on a desert island, a deserted island somewhere, and you didn't have anything, how would you be happy?

What would you do to not suffer? And the answer is, you have to just be able to live with yourself.

You have to be able to understand that we are beings. The only thing we have to do is breathe.

And that's it. We have to eat and breathe and just be. Everything else is icing on the cake. So, but the reason I kind of have issue with the word content is because I think, at least in modern use, it sort of can mean settling or not striving.

And I'm always... This is a struggle for me. Sometimes it's really difficult for me to just sit. And it sounds like you're the same way.

You've written 40 books. Sometimes it's difficult to just be still. I always have to have that project to worry about.

And thanks to my therapist, I know that that's a nervous system response. That's a nervous system response medicating me to try to run away from being here right now.

And so it's okay once you have that in mind to do what you want. But realizing it is the hard part.

Realizing it is the part where you have to be like, okay, my nervous system is telling me that I'm only doing this and I'm only stressing about this because I need something for it to stress about.

We'll be right back. be right And so now that I know that, I can work on it, but not freak out if I don't do it, or not freak out if, you know, about having this thing.

So, and allowing yourself to be kind to yourself and take breaks and do whatever else.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

I think what you said about, you know, content being kind of sitting still, that's kind of exactly how I felt and feel.

I just didn't know how to verbalize it. So thank you, because you just kind of gave me the more of an understanding of what I meant.

Yeah, stillness is the middle way.

Michael Kent

Like, it's the middle path. It's not the big hill you're trying to climb or the valley that you're falling into.

It's just being. Yeah.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

And I love that. So I loved what you said about, like, if you were on a deserted island, what would you do to not suffer, right?

Because you're not going to be happy sitting there on a deserted island every minute of every day. Like, you just can't.

How does that translate? Out of relationships, right? So if you're not happy with yourself, you know, the theory is, and I 100% agree with it, but like, if you're not happy with yourself, you're not going to be happy with someone else because you're looking for what you're missing in someone else to come from someone else.

So like, how does that, in your opinion, like, how does that translate?

Michael Kent

Communication. I think you and your partner need to be able to tell each other how you're feeling. So I mean, it starts with you knowing how you're feeling, right?

A lot of people just don't realize how they're feeling. But like, or a lot, you know, you might be feeling anxiety, but not know what the anxiety is about.

And that's a perfectly acceptable thing to say to a partner, is that saying, I'm just on edge, and I don't know why.

That's such a great thing to say. Because if you are short with your partner, and you didn't mean to be short with a partner, which is what most arguments start from, I think is like, you know,

Someone's already have something going on by themselves, right? There's something in their life that they're stressed about, and they just accidentally put that on the other person in the act of normal conversation or whatever.

If you start that by saying, by realizing, I'm really anxious today, or I'm really, I feel like I'm really on edge today.

Just saying that can maybe stop that next interaction from blowing up into an argument or a fight. And because there's a little bit more communication and understanding of where the other person is coming from.

And, you know, my wife and I both suffer from general anxiety at different times. And we both know that sometimes there's not a thing that triggers it.

It's just there. And so we know that the answer isn't, why are you anxious? What's making you anxious? How can we make that go away?

You know, sometimes the answer, a better answer is, what can I do to help? Which is... That's phrase that both of us use quite often with each other.

And sometimes that question is enough to help. Because usually there's not a thing, you know, because our brains are weird and we don't understand them.

And sometimes you just have anxiety about stuff. So what can I do to help is like one of the most loving things you can say to a partner.

One of the most caring, one of the most efficient ways to show care is by saying, I'm here. That's all you're saying.

You're not trying to solve problems. That's a big pet peeve of mine. That'll, that'll, if I tell someone my problem and I don't want them to solve it and they start trying to solve it, that is so frustrating.

Not just relationship wise, but just in general, you know, family members, anything like that. Like sometimes I just want a .

Just let me complain. And getting that complaint out is, is the purpose, right? So, you know, what can I do to help is like commit that to

That statement, because there have been so many times my wife has said that to me, and it's all I needed to hear.

Because what she's saying is, I'm here, I hear you, and I care. And that little bit of affirmation is enough to be like, oh, it's going to be fine.

She's here to help me with whatever this is.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

So that's such a good point. And I teach that to a lot of people, especially college students, right? And you're not solving anyone's issue.

Just ask what you can do. Be empathetic. I'm here with you, right? We're going to do this together. What do you need right now?

You know, so I love that that's how you two communicate with each other and show support. We also both have anxiety and we both have bad days.

I'll wake up sometimes and just be like, nope, this is one of those days I'm not getting out of bed.

No bones day.

Michael Kent

Yeah, yeah.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

I'm going to melt into my couch and eat as much popcorn as my body can handle.

Michael Kent

And that's my day, you know?

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

But I love that. So what piece of advice would you give to... listeners, to our listeners, about having healthy relationships and maintaining a healthy relationship.

Michael Kent

You have to be brutally honest with yourself about what it is that you're feeling and be able to be vulnerable enough to share that with this other person.

That's the thing. Because I think most fights from unspoken things, most fights stem from unspoken things. And humans are just notoriously bad at working our brains.

Sometimes we just don't know why we're thinking the way we're thinking. But if you can acknowledge it, it all of a sudden doesn't seem that bad.

There's an analogy that I like to use. It's like most suffering in our lives is, it seems a lot larger than it actually is.

Whether it's like physical pain, you know, our nerve endings send these signals to our brain that say, like, there's danger, something's wrong, you should know about this.

lives. All And that's the siren, not the thing causing it. That's the that's the response. So the analogy I like to use is like on your car, you have like a headlight.

And if you've ever seen what a headlight is, it's a tiny little light the size of a pinky. It's a tiny little thing that plugs in.

And that creates hundreds of feet of of brightness in front of you because of the reflector. Most of the suffering that we experience in our lives, we perceive from the receptor, not realizing that the thing that's causing the pain is the pinky is the little tiny little the tiny little element that's inside that thing.

And so if you can find a way during painful moments, whether it be emotional pain or physical pain, to focus on the pain and what's causing it, it can actually alleviate some of the pain.

It can alleviate some of the suffering because you're able to look at what attachment it might be that that brought you to that point.

Or what it is. And it takes a lot of work to be brutally honest with yourself to know how you're feeling in order to communicate it.

And you have to have a partner who is on that journey with you and receptive to hearing about that.

Which is tough because a lot of people, when they hear someone's problems, they want to do what we were just talking about.

They want to try to solve them. They feel like that's their job. And sometimes, you know, you just need to .

That's sometimes all you need. I had a long conversation about that.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

My mom is a problem solver. And so I'd call her and just really want to vent. And she would try and solve the problem.

And I'd be like, no, mom, I just want to talk. Right? So we've developed a system where if I call her to, you know, for anything, she'll stop before she says anything and say, is this for comfort or for advice?

Like, do you want me to just sit and listen? Or do you actually want me to advise and you want my opinion?

And then I get to choose. That's a huge win.

Michael Kent

mean, what an evolved thing to be able to say, like. And that's because that's like, what she's asking you is, would you like me to turn my maternal instinct that's inside of my body and I can't get rid of off for a moment?

And it's probably hard, really hard for her to do that. Because that's just a, I think that's just a parent thing.

Parents hear your problems and it's been their job, you know, for the first 18 years of their life, it was their job to absolutely solve those problems for you.

No questions asked. And so it's hard. It's got to be, I'm not a parent, so I don't know, but it's got to be hard to turn that off and be like, okay, I'll just listen.

Yeah.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

I mean, I can't, I had to remind her many a time, but we finally got to a point where I feel comfortable and safe talking to her.

Whereas in the past I would call her for something and she would advise, advise, advise. And I'd be like, I don't want your advice.

And it would, it actually caused a lot of rifts in our relationship. So it was, it took work, but, but we're in a good spot where like, she's very respectful of, of what I need, whether I want to just vent or, or get advice.

So that could be really good way.

Michael Kent

If you're listening, Marissa's mother, good job. Good work.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Thanks, Amy. You call your mom by your first name?

Michael Kent

No.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Oh, okay. That was just for the show. Okay. Thanks, Amy.

Michael Kent

I can say it. You can say it.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

So thank you for that advice. That was really helpful. I think even to kind of, it was, it is.

And to kind of spin off that, not just to tell, you know, yes, tell like, I'm feeling anxious today.

And being honest about it. So instead of saying something like, you know, you're always at work and we never talk, right?

It's, I feel lonely, right? So like, I feel like I'm not a priority to you, right? Personalizing it. So you're not talking about this symptom.

You're talking about the cause, right? I feel lonely. It feels like you're prioritizing work or it feels like you're prioritizing your friends or it feels like you're whatever over me, right?

So it's addressing the things that you're feeling, but also making it honest.

Michael Kent

And you also have to learn sometimes to sort of reframe that, that statement. So like, you know, if my wife says to me, you're always gone.

My tendency is to hear that as what do you want me to do? Not work, not have money. You like, you know, like you're, my tendency is to hear it as a complaint.

But I can reframe it to mean she's complaining because she wants me to be around more because she likes Like, you know what I mean?

Like that's, you can reframe these types of things and think like, what is, what is this person really saying to me?

And, you know, and that's the common thing that people say in relationships when there's some sort of issue is like, what's wrong?

And the other person will say, I'm just tired. It's just the easiest thing to say. And it's usually a cop out.

I mean, you could legitimately be tired, but usually there's something else going on. Even if you don't know what it is, or, you know, it might be depression, it might be anxiety, but usually it's not just that you're tired, but it could be.

I mean, it could be, I do not have the ability to have an in-depth conversation right now because I'm emotionally exhausted or I'm physically exhausted or whatever it might be, and then sometimes you just have some space, but that goes back to communication, right?

Like, that's a huge part of a relationship. Yeah.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

It's my three pillars, right? My triangle of healthy relationships, communication, respect, and trust, right? If you don't have all three of those things, you don't have a healthy relationship.

If you can't communicate and resolve issues, right? If you can't trust each other to be honest and vulnerable, and then you don't feel like you're being respected or like your needs are being met by your partner, like the boundaries or what you say, you know, are not being respected, then you don't have a healthy relationship.

And even missing one of those three, just the communication piece alone is so important. You know, it was trust, communication.

Michael Kent

What was the third pillar?

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Respect. Respect. Okay. Yep, yep. If you don't have one of the three, right, you don't have a healthy relationship because trust is built on respecting communication.

Michael Kent

Yeah, they all are interrelated, right? Yeah.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

And so it's important that you have, you know, that strong communication because no one wants to wake up every day and resent your partner because of an issue that happened 10 years ago.

And I use Friends, the show Friends is a great reference for that because if you look at Ross and Rachel, right, they had one fight one time in like season two and they never talked about it.

Like they talked about it, but it was always very nitpicky and jabby and aggressive.

Michael Kent

Yeah. And so then by season 10, like there's still, I think it was 10, right?

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

There's still, were they on a break? Were they not on a break? I don't know. Cause they never had a 15 minute sit down, honest discussion about it.

And so they are such an unhealthy relationship. But everyone's like, I want the Ross and Rachel kind of love.

Michael Kent

And I'm like, no, you don't. No one would have watched if it was a healthy relationship. That's where most of the conflict and the storylines came from.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

In any show, right? The only show I can currently think of where the two protagonists have a very healthy relationship is Nobody Wants This.

Have you seen that? No. Oh, it's so good. It's Adam Brody and Kristen Bell. But the toxic relationships. weird?

I think I have two friends that are in that show. Oh.

Michael Kent

And I've never watched it.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

I do have two friends that are in that show. Like, I've never watched it.

Michael Kent

And I have no excuse for that. So I'm sorry, friends.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

It's a really good show. But Adam Brody and Kristen Bell's characters, anytime there's conflict and there's a lot of external conflict, they have a conversation about it and they work it out together and they understand.

So even when one is feeling slighted or one is feeling put off, they have a conversation about it and they resolve it.

The rest of the conflict is from external sources. So you're seeing these two people. It's like us against the world, but in a very positive way.

And so more shows, I think, are going to start to have that similar dynamic. But up until now, and I do this at colleges all the time, think of a TV show or your favorite movie and think of a healthy relationship dynamic that's in it.

It doesn't need to be 100% healthy all the time because that's not realistic. But think of one relationship where through the arc of the show, it is built on healthy principles.

Yeah, I can't. It's so hard. It is really hard. Because conflict, like we're addicted to that conflict. That's why we watch the reality TV shows, right?

Love is Blind. It's all built on conflict. It's nonsense. Right. Real housewives and all that. It's all conflict. They're all unhealthy.

It's all produced on purpose that way.

Michael Kent

Also, like, you know, there was probably a push in the 60s that was like, we need TV couples to fight and to be unhealthy because real couples are.

And people don't want to see the 50s, you know, Cleaver family, like perfect relationships because it doesn't they don't identify with it.

So it might be a thing of like where, you know, reality, art imitates life rather than life imitating art.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

But I think the pendulum swung too far. Right. Now we look at like we've got Walter and Skylar White, who it's like impossible to know who's telling the truth and who's not.

Right. And I mean, now we've set terrible expectations. Right. So in the 50s with Leave it to Beaver and all that, we set a terrible expectation for women.

Right. If you are not happy and made up, if you don't like look at Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Did you watch that show?

I watched. Right.

Michael Kent

Real housewives and all that. It's all conflict.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

They're all unhealthy. It's all produced on purpose that way. Also, like, you know, there was probably a push in the 60s that was like, we need TV couples to fight and to be unhealthy because real couples are.

And people don't want to see the 50s, you know, Cleaver family, like perfect relationships because it doesn't they don't identify with it.

So it might be a thing of like where, you know, reality, art imitates life rather than life imitating art.

But I think the pendulum swung too far. Right. Now we look at like we've got Walter and Skylar White, who it's like impossible to know who's telling the truth and who's not.

Right. And I mean, now we've set terrible expectations. Right. So in the 50s with Leave it to Beaver and all that, we set a terrible expectation for women.

Right. If you are not happy and made up, if you don't like look at Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Did you watch that show?

I watched.

Michael Kent

Some of it, but I'm currently rewatching Mad Men, but it's a similar era and the same vibe, yeah. If the woman isn't made up, hair perfect, dinner on the table the second the father gets home, right?

Then if that's not what you're doing, you're a bad wife. Whereas now, it's like, you know, if you're not fighting about dumb stuff or if, you know, one of the people in the relationship isn't just a complete follower.

Like, one person's not allowed to have an opinion and the other person has an opinion or whatever the dynamic is, right?

It sets a terrible precedent for what people are willing to accept, which is why I have such a fundamentally challenging time at colleges when I do this activity.

And inevitably, somebody will say, you know, well, Joker and Harley Quinn, I want that kind of love. Like, that's a healthy relationship.

There's not a moment of time where that's a healthy relationship. But like when Suicide Squad came out, how many young women do you know dressed up like Harley Quinn for Halloween?

Yeah. Yeah, there's a similar thing right now with one of my focuses with my career is engagement and dealing with, particularly in the corporate sphere, dealing with apathy and people who are not wanting to open themselves up to connect with other people.

And it is somewhat generational, which I hate to say, but this is more of a younger person problem than an older person problem.

And when you look at a very famous quote that came from Schitt's Creek, I'm trying really hard not to connect with people right now.

It's on sweaters, it's on tote bags, it's on bumper stickers, and it's funny, but I hate it because it is contagion.

Like there are people that now think like staying in and binge watching Netflix is a replacement for real live connection.

And we are all needing more connection. And it becomes, you know, it's cliche to say, like, you know, because of the internet and social media and all that, but we need connection.

We, like, people need connection to be fulfilled in our lives. It's how we, we are a very social species.

And so everyone, when they get in that room with friends and they're connected, feels amazing. And if there's those times when you're in that room and you don't feel amazing, it's because you're not connected, which means you're either not present or you're not listening or you're not, you know what I mean?

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Like, but when you really, truly feel connected, there's no feeling like that. And it's, we're setting a really bad example by having these types of quotes, like, I'm really trying hard not to connect with people right now as, like, a popular feeling.

Because it's, it becomes more than just a TV, you know, line. It becomes like... A whole culture type of thing where you're just, you know, this is more preferable.

And I get it. It is more preferable sometimes to not like it feels more safe to just stay at home.

But it's sort of lazy and it's sort of it's an easy way to you're letting your nervous system win.

You're letting your, you know, your anxieties and everything win when you could be a much more fulfilled, happy person if you content person.

If you do allow yourself to connect and be open to connection. Yeah. So fun fact, you might, you might be able to use this on your podcast, but the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was the first penitentiary in the country that tried using isolation as a tactic as like a punishment for inmates.

And what they found, yeah. So what they would do is like, they'd have everybody, um, uh, In their cells, staggered outdoor time.

So they'd never know who was outside with them, and they couldn't see anyone. And they were all in like little, literally high wall, brick wall, five by five outdoor spaces.

So they were completely isolated from each other. And they did not have any interaction with anybody, not in their cell, not around their cell, nothing.

They were on one wall, separated by walls. And what they found was that within a few months of that lack of connection to anyone, these men went crazy.

Michael Kent

They went bananas. They tried to unalive themselves. They like were starting to hallucinate and like having severe mental health like backlash from it.

So it's not, you know, it is in us. It's biological, that need for connection. And so phrases like I'm trying really hard not to, you know, connect with people right now.

I agree with you. It's very funny. I love Schitt's Creek. I'm rewatching it for like the 18th time right now.

I just watched that episode. It's like the second episode. But it really does set a bad precedent. And then you have the backlash of that where the loneliness epidemic.

And when I go to colleges, a lot of these advisors are talking about, my students come to me and say, I feel like I have no friends, like I'm not connected.

But then they have events and the students don't come out to events, right? So it's kind of like you're shooting, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Yeah, it's a huge problem. And outside, I don't know whether or not in the higher education world, if this is as much of an issue, but it definitely fuels addiction in the real world.

The isolation fuels addiction. And have you ever heard of the Rat Park study? There's a famous study in the 70s.

I think it was in Canada, but like British Columbia. Basically, they had a bunch of mice or lab rats or whatever.

And they gave them access to, in their water bottle, they had like drugs in the water bottle, like morphine or cocaine or something in the water bottle.

And the rats that were isolated constantly drugged themselves, but the rats that were in a community of other rats did not.

That's so interesting. Yeah, and it's been used for, you know, for 40 years as this or 50 years as this study that shows that, like, we need connection.

We need connection because we don't have connection. find other ways to satisfy our, I don't know if that's our nervous system or whatever that is in us.

But we end up, you know, basically the connection aspect of it replaces the need to get dopamine from other things, right?

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

So we're getting dopamine from those connections, which is critically important to our data. And it might not be substance abuse, right, particularly in those instances like you were talking about where the college students complain and then they don't leave.

Michael Kent

Well, they might be getting dopamine from scrolling Instagram or scrolling TikTok or reading or watching Netflix or whatever it is that they're doing.

I'm not saying any one of those things is worse than the other.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

I'm just saying all of them are a thing you do when you're not connecting. If that becomes a replacement for connection to get your dopamine, that's when you're going to be, you know, basically you have to keep feeding that beast, you know, and keep you because that's where addiction comes from.

need to keep feeding that dopamine thing because you're not getting it naturally. So I think the key here is, right, even if it's uncomfortable or if it feels, you know, weird, especially post-COVID, right, which I think creates...

Michael Kent

Created a lot of disconnection. It's finding that connection somehow. And so it kind of takes you away from, you know, trying to find it in other sources.

Is that, I love that. absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we, I think like just natural human connection provides a lot of dopamine.

Yeah. But that's if you're actually connecting. That doesn't mean being in a room with a person. means actually connecting.

Yeah. That's really interesting. I feel like we've overshot your episode. This is gonna be like three different episodes. No, this is great.

Honestly, I love this conversation. I was going to say like, I think we, you know, I could talk to you about this kind of all day.

I love your perspective. But we should probably, we should probably get on with our days, you know, but thank you so much, Michael, for being here.

Would you mind, I know you just put out a book. So would you mind talking about that for a second, telling everyone where they can get it, how they can reach you?

Yeah, I selected more than 50 episodes or topics. pass.,ages, take you It's from my podcast, The Internet Says It's True, and compiled them into sort of like a bathroom reader style book.

So you pick this thing up, and each story is only three or four pages, and they're all these amazing stories that sound made up but are really true.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Like, for instance, one of the stories is about how before the Teachers in Space program from the Challenger space shuttle mission, their first idea was to put Big Bird in space.

Michael Kent

And I did an entire episode about how they really were going to, and Carol Spinney, the guy inside Big Bird costume, agreed to it and wanted to do it.

And so we talk about that and, like, why it eventually failed and didn't, you know, that's what launched the Teachers in Space program.

So there's stories like that that were, like, you know, make you say there's no way that's true, and they're all true.

And at the end of every chapter, there's a QR code that you can scan that links you to the episode where you get to hear not only, you know, that story, but then also...

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

A quiz with a guest, like we did with you on my previous two episodes. So, but yeah, you can find that wherever you buy books.

Michael Kent

It's called The Internet Says It's True, Stories That Sound Made Up But Aren't. Thank you so much.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Thank you so much, Michael, for being here, for having this conversation. It felt very, I know we covered kind of a wide range of topics, but I think that it was all very valid and very, like, fascinating.

Michael Kent

So thank you, and I'd love to have you back on any time that you'd like.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

I would love to.

Michael Kent

This is, I agree with you.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

We could have just kept going because I love to talk about things that aren't magic and aren't, you know, history.

Like if I can get to a point where I can just talk about real world stuff that, you know, is affecting all of us, I love that.

So I envy what you do for a living, that you're helping people in a way that's like very connecting A to B in a straight line, you know?

Michael Kent

So it's really cool.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

Thank you very much.

Michael Kent

And I love what you do.

Marissa F. Cohen (Marissa F. Cohen)

I think magic is so fascinating and comedy just makes. People happy. I wish I was funnier. I always laugh when I'm talking to you, so.

Oh, it's usually at me, but I appreciate it anyways. Well, you have a very happy new year, you and Larry, and it's good to talk to you again.

Thank you. You too. That was awesome. Thank you very much. very welcome. Absolutely. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Oh, good. And truly, anytime you want to come back. I will. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like we covered everything in the first episode.

My episodes always range. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So now I'm going to record my two episodes, and I won't have to do anything next week.

Woo! Thank you. So I have one set up for this week and next week, so this will be probably January 21st, and when it goes up, I'll send it.

me in it, and yep. Will do. Sounds great. Okay. Thanks, Marissa. Thanks, Michael. Have a good one. All right.

You too. Bye. Bye.