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Do you ever find yourself wondering, deep down, “Do I really matter—to anyone?” In our fast-paced, achievement-driven world, the quiet ache of wanting to be truly seen and valued can ripple beneath even our closest relationships. So often, beneath arguments or emotional distance, lies an even deeper longing: the human need to know that we are significant to those who matter most to us.

In this episode, listeners will dive into the heart of what it means to matter in intimate relationships. Through stories, philosophical insight, and practical examples, the conversation uncovers why our drive to feel significant shapes the way we connect and sometimes divides us. Listeners will discover ways to recognize their own “mattering map,” address imbalances, and create daily rituals that affirm each partner’s worth—moving beyond surface tension to cultivate true belonging and meaning with the people they love.

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a professor of philosophy and a novelist, and the author of eleven books, the most recent of which is The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us. She has received numerous awards for both her fiction and scholarly work, including a MacArthur Fellowship (“Genius Grant”) and the National Humanities Medal, which was presented to her by President Barack Obama.

Episode Highlights

03:11 What is the mattering instinct and how does it shape our lives?

06:44 Different paths to mattering: Individual strategies and social dynamics.

12:03 The role of mattering in attachment and intimate relationships.

15:26 Self-mattering and internal validation: The foundation for flourishing.

17:14 Childhood roots: How early experiences influence our sense of mattering.

20:54 Societal reflections: The impact of community and acts of kindness.

25:49 Mattering in the intimate space: Attention, presence, and relational dynamics.

27:10 Balancing mattering: Navigating imbalances within couples.

31:17 Honest conversations and rituals to restore relationship equality.

34:43 Valuing the invisible: Acknowledging domestic roles and everyday struggles.

40:47 Diversifying mattering: The need for meaning beyond partnership.

45:25 Negotiating differences: Working through mattering expectations in relationships.

47:57 Moving forward: Communication, understanding, and resources for deeper mattering.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

• Acknowledge the Mattering Instinct: Have an open, honest conversation with your partner about how both of you experience the desire to matter in your relationship.
• Map Your Mattering Profiles: Reflect together on the ways each of you seeks meaning and validation, recognizing how your “mattering maps” might differ.
• Be Explicit About Needs: Communicate directly if you’re feeling unseen, underappreciated, or if there’s an imbalance in attention or validation within the relationship.
• Ritualize Daily Check-ins: Set aside time each day to ask each other about meaningful events, feelings of accomplishment, or struggles—aim for sharing three significant moments per day.
• Appreciation Exercises: Practice exchanging specific appreciations with your partner about each other’s actions and character, as well as sharing appreciations about yourselves.
• Attend to the ‘Hidden’ Work: Explicitly recognize and affirm the effort and value in less visible roles or tasks your partner undertakes, such as parenting or domestic duties.
• Diversify Sources of Mattering: Encourage each other to cultivate interests, friendships, or projects outside the relationship to avoid making your partner your sole source of significance.
• Address Imbalances with Compassion: If you sense an ongoing disparity in felt importance, approach your partner with empathy and explore together ways to rebalance and affirm each other’s worth.

Mentioned

The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

The Mind-Body Problem (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

US Suicide Hotline

12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free relationship guide)

Connect with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Website: rebeccagoldstein.com 

Substack: rebeccanewbergergoldstein.substack.com

Instagram: instagram.com/rebeccanewbergergoldstein 

X: x.com/platobooktour

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. 

Thank you!  

*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.

Episode Transcript

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, thank you for being with us here today. 

It's a pleasure to be here. Very, very glad to meet you. 

Yes, likewise. And you've just written a book, but you're also a professor of philosophy at Harvard and an award-winning author. And your most recent book, The Mattering Instinct, we're going to be talking about, and also how it applies to the intimate, romantic space. So before we get started, let's talk about The Mattering Instinct. Would you be willing to help people understand what that means and then also, as we turn towards intimate relationships, how this might be playing a factor or a role in intimate space? 

Yeah, well, you might have noticed that our species is very different from other species, and we have a lot to prove to ourselves. And that really distinguishes us even from our closest primate cousins. I've spent a lot of time in Africa with chimpanzees, and there are many ways that we're similar, but there is this special human dimension. It's from a philosophical point of view; I would say it's what provides our existential dimension. And that is that we want lives that matter. And that makes us very perplexing creatures, complicated, complex creatures, because we have to consider this existential question: what is it to live a life that matters? It makes us value-seeking creatures. We bring values into the world because we want to ultimately justify all the attention that we have to pay to ourselves just to live a human life. 

And 

That's what I call the mattering instinct, this extra dimension of trying to justify ourselves, all the attention that we give ourselves just by virtue of being ourselves. And that's what it is to be human. And it makes it very complicated and very perplexing. But I think really we're quite wondrous. I think it gives us another dimension that makes us- it gives us a certain dignity, a certain nobility. 

Yes. And you go into much greater length in your book to describe examples, how to really identify, because it's so, I think, fundamental to our existence as you're describing. And yet maybe we're not always contemplating it really overtly. And so this often perhaps might drive some of our motivations or tendencies to matter with others, to achieve certain things or even have certain pursuits. Is that right? 

Absolutely. You know, and you know, although this is the voluntary that we all share, the way we go about responding to it is so very different because we respond to it with our full individuality, with our background, our temperament, our talents, our traditions, our culture, the whole shebang of who we are. So of course, it's predictable that we are very different in the way we respond to it; this often causes some very deep rifts between us. And one of the goals of the book is to be able to look at this more consciously and to look at one another and see how much we share, even if we go about ministering to it quite differently with our full individuality. And this really comes to play in our relationships. 

Yes, I love just your acknowledgement that the expression or the strategies or how we may approach life in this desire of mattering. A deep human need here might look extremely different. Different from one person to the next. 

Yeah, in fact, I sketch out like a mattering map, all the different ways. There are general patterns that I've located, but so many different ways. I mean, if I could just tell you briefly. One of the funniest stories was I'm always talking to people about this, and I never actually intended to write a book about it until the pandemic, when I saw these rifts becoming more intense, angrier, more hostile. And I thought it would be good to kind of put something out that shows where these rifts come from something so deep within us- so that we can recognize the humanity in everybody and just struggle to understand each other better. But one of the things I was. This was about 25 years ago. I was in a Manhattan hotel lobby, waiting for a friend who's habitually late. 

A man comes up to me, and he's really pestering me. Let's go for a drink, you know? You know, you don't know. And I'm so, I just started talking to him about what I call mattering projects. Like what gets you up in the morning, what keeps you engaged with your life. It turns out he was a pickup artist. That's what he was. The first time I heard this term, it was 25 years ago. And this was his manner: pick up as many women as he could. And he had his statistics, like a baseball player or something. And he had his heroes, and he had the books, that how to be a pickup artist and such, which, of course, I went and read, because I'm so interested in all of these matters. Right. 

This is a sort of segue into our topic of the team. But you know that there is such a diversity of ways that people go about responding to what we all share, which sometimes sets us up against one another. I mean, in some sense I had to be aware of this kind of person and beware. Absolutely. Yeah. 

But it's such an interesting pivot that instead of feeling perhaps a bit boundaried or guarded, which it sounds like you did, but also were able to engage with him in a way to seek more understanding about his advantage. And in some regards, it sounds like you were able to understand that this had meaning for him. That was driving. Even though perhaps you weren't necessarily interested in participating in any way or another, it was like, okay, this is something that he's really taken upon himself to develop his skill set in this arena. 

He studied it, he cultivated it, he kept himself engaged in his life, which is good. Everybody should be engaged in his life. You know, it's not something I totally approve, but I should say. “But we have to understand, and it was a real human engagement, not quite what he had in mind, but one that was mutually satisfying.” Because I learned a lot, you know. Okay, here's another region of the mattering map I hadn't dreamt existed. And so it's. And I have, I found, the people do love to talk to me about this because it makes them feel like they matter. Here's this professor who's just agog at hearing their way of going about trying to matter. You know, I'm all ears. And so. 

And that is, of course, to be paid so much attention to somebody is a way of confirming their mattering. 

Yes. And some of their strategies. Right. That you're interested in understanding, and that gives some almost validity to having that attention and that interest. Yes. And again, whether or not you actually approve or like it. But just even the virtue of understanding and engaging can give that sense of being seen and mattering. 

To your point, we had a lovely time. We had a lovely 40 minutes chatting, and I did all this follow-up work. It was like, oh, I must read about this, you know. Yeah. So he gave me thought. 

I just. As we talk about intimate relationships, this idea of feeling seen and being known more deeply. Right. In my field with intimate relationships, what I understand is that, as social animals, we are wired up for connection, and when we bond, our attachment system is activated. And our attachment system and our learning about relationships usually is formed in childhood and early upbringing, mostly through our parents or caregivers. But then in adulthood, when we partner, pair, bond, if we're monogamous, that bond we see as survival. So this mattering and the intimate space. Space layers beautifully on that attachment, need, and longing to feel known, seen, safe, emotionally, like connected with. 

Yes, so there is, you know, people have their various mattering projects, 

seem to matter to people who are in our lives. Some people want to matter. So many people, you want to matter to the world at large, their followers. To be famous, which means to be deserving of attention from a bunch of strangers. That's what it means. But I think, as you say, “we are born to need people in our lives who will notice if we're gone, who will care if we disappear.” You know, that 

So we're on the same page here. 

Well, and it occurs to me too, Rebecca, that we're probably going to be focusing on an aspect of your mattering map around more of the intimate social way of bonding or mattering. “Is that right? And that there's, as you said, other ways in which people seek battering.” 

“Yes. Okay.” 

“Okay. So we're going to be talking about an aspect of your bigger.” 

Exactly. Yes. “For some people, it's a spirit. You know, they have their spirituality. This is important for other people, you know, it's achievement or being connected to something larger than oneself in some way. Knowledge or beauty or justice, causes and all of that. But no, you know, this way of mattering to special others who also matter to you. The reciprocity is so very important in these bombs.” 

“Yes, and I'm just grateful that you're making this so coherent for people. I think sometimes just to kind of backtrack, just to have clarity around the importance of this and, as you said, to be conscious of it, I think can just in that can actually be really helpful and maybe even awakening that this is a driver operating in us.” 

Yeah. 

At the time. Yeah. 

We're incredibly. I think you and I would both agree: you in psychology, me in philosophy, we are incredibly interesting creatures. We, creatures, matter who long to matter, which is my description of what we are: Homo sapiens, and we're very complicated, very perplexing to each other and to ourselves. But it is such a joy to try to get clarity and understanding and depth. 

And I also appreciate in your work that you really do research and you consult with other professionals and really try to understand the vast dimensions and complexities of this. So I acknowledge that. Okay, so as we pivot towards intimate relationships and in the context of mattering, is this typically how one is mattering to others? Or do people sometimes cultivate self-kind of validation, self-mattering, or can you help people before we turn to. 

Okay, yeah, so I do, in trying to understand this, what I call the mattering instinct, it really does have to do fundamentally with our relationship with ourselves to be able to reconcile ourselves with the fact that we pay ourselves so much attention. We can help but pay ourselves so much attention; we can step outside of ourselves and think, am I really worth it? It's a measure of how much I think something matters as how much attention I pay to it. It would seem that I rate myself as mattering more than everything in the universe. And short of lunacy, none of us think that really. So we try to come up with a reason, something to justify ourselves and all the attention that we give ourselves. And when that fails, the psychological cost is very high; I've had over the course of my life many of my friends who have suffered severe clinical depression. And what they tell me is they are nothing; they don't matter. And I'm talking about sometimes, you know, highly talented, so many gifts, but that doesn't matter. Their relationship with themselves is off. And the expression is I don't matter. In fact, the suicide hotline in the US is www.youmatter.gov. So it's so fundamental in living, you know, with ourselves, but our relationships with others; if others treat us like nothing, we're not going to feel very good about ourselves too. So these two things, our relationships with others and our relationships with ourselves, are very intertwined with each other. Is that similar? 

I would agree with that. I remember even when I was interviewing, I believe, Deb Dana, and we were talking about co-regulation and adult intimate relationships. And she was saying, ideally, in our early lives we want to have the caregivers or parents being able to help the child regulate through parenting and being attuned and all the things that parents can do to help the child negotiate their inner world. And then in adulthood, they can learn to self-regulate. And if they're able to self-regulate, they can also engage in co-regulation and intimate relationships. So I think that maps really beautifully that if we are afforded good enough parenting or caregiving, we can internalize this belief and working model, if you will, that we do matter. 

And the confidence that the world will see us that way, and we can feel that internally, but when we haven't been afforded that, I'm speaking in binary terms and likely it's on a continuum spectrum, but that we may feel some insecurity or blocks to that. So even if we're getting a lot of accolades or positive affirmation, it still might not satiate or touch the deeper parts of feeling like one doesn't matter. And it can be really difficult to understand it. 

Yeah, it goes very deep. And if it's lacking and if something was not given to you in your childhood or, you know, in your life. 

Yes. 

You're like that first mapping. 

Yes. 

It lingers. I mean, and that's why we need psychologists in this world. I mean, that's why we really need others to help. The first thing is, you know, to see it, to see how important it is and where the lack is and how to close this gap. That ought to. And now I'm using evaluative, not descriptive language, but that ought to have been provided in childhood. You know, 

Yes, a God-given right. 

Yes, and the extended network of family, community, teachers, coaches, even someone who can just be a kind neighbor. Like, I think we all have a role in this interconnected web. I mean, this is where we hear stories. Even a gesture of kindness or an act of kindness can have a deep impact. Impact of like this: a total stranger looked me in the eyes, and I felt that I mattered. That can also have an impact. Yes. 

You know, I'm living right now in New York City and in Boston too, where I normally am, you know. You pass, and I'm sure you have this experience. You pass people lying there on the street, you know, the unsheltered, and I just always think, what went so wrong? You know, here you are a human being. You have a right to feel like you matter, and you know, to have been reduced so badly by life circumstances, it just, it's not right. Not right. And in a society like ours, with so much wealth and so much privilege, every time I pass such a person. Like, this ought not to be what went wrong here. It particularly kills me when I see women, though unprotected, out there on the street. But we're going into the dark. 

Yeah, I know. Well, I mean, this is real. We're naming things that are really real. And I feel my tendency, and I do have one more question. I could talk with you and not talk about intimate relationships because I'm just so interested in what you're saying, but just to reflect. When you were talking about our place in the world as a human is contemplating existentially, I almost had this sense, Rebecca, that if one feels secure in their mattering, they may be able to look at the bigger scope of history and life with a little bit more equanimity, where perhaps, conversely, if someone doesn't feel so secure, they might be unconsciously grasping at these different strategies to matter in a very intense way because they're trying to fill or address that insecurity. 

Yeah. Oh, I love what you're saying there. And it is like if somebody is deprived of food, if they're starving, you know, they're brought to a banquet, they're just going to push past everybody, just get out of my way and grab whatever they can. And you look, we're animals. We are essentially. And things have to be in place before we can go. You know, this kind of self-reflection. And one of the people I profile in the book was a waste. A neo-Nazi skinhead. And everything had gone wrong in his life; oh, his childhood was battered. Nothing, nobody. Until he met another neo-Nazi leader who said, oh, you matter. You're a white male, heterosexual American. You matter more than all these other people who are taking it away from you. 

And so he grabbed onto it like a drowning person, you know, to a rope, and became a big leader in the neo-Nazi skinhead movement and was arrested as a felon. He did terrible things. He's now a close friend. He met some people who made him feel like he mattered. One of them would happen to be a Jewish man. And he hated Jews more than any, you know, they were. The Jews have a conspiracy and blah, blah, blah, you know, to rob white Christians of their natural entitlement. And so that turned him around. Just turned him around. And yeah, his story is amazing. I won't go into it, but I write about him in the book. In any case, what you're saying is exactly right. 

You know, if somebody is lacking this, they are capable of, well, you know, either horrific things or just lying down and giving up, and the sad people, like tragic people, try to pass in the street, or as you say, people are capable of hateful things. So it is just so important for us to see this clearly in one another. 

Well, I appreciate the story, and I know that it's hard to do it justice in a quick interview here. And you write much more about it in the book, and you're giving illustration to the impact of addressing this need more directly, that this can have a 180 impact on somebody's life and how they function. 

Yeah, yes, exactly. 

Quite transformational. 

Quite transformational. And I'll tell you, one of the ways to really feel like you matter in the world is to turn such up, to be that person who, as you say, looks them in the eye, treats them as a human and says, you have potential, whoever you are, you have something to give. I mean, that in itself is such an act of affirming one's own manner. You're not doing it for that reason. But the afterglow can be pretty strong. 

Yes. Okay. So intimate relationship. Tell me, often what's coming up for me now as we're talking is sometimes I will hear partners complain that their significant other may offer this goodness, this attention, this being on, so to speak, to others in the world. And they come home into the home intimate space, and they kind of let their guard down, but then they're not as kind, or they maybe let some of their more challenging feelings being expressed, or they're in habitual modes and doing all the work and domestic tasks that they don't necessarily create or take the time and space to do this looking each other in the eye, dropping into this level of presence and conveying, mattering. “Tell me any thoughts here you have on the intimate space?” 

“Yeah, well, the intimate space is, I think it really is the place where we want this reciprocity, this reciprocal sense of mattering. One of the ways I think of like a really healthy relationship or 

You know, that here is a little, you know, there's the world and what we do in the world and what we give to the world or take from the world or want from the world or what. But here, you know, here let's form a little conspiracy. And it can be of 2, it can be of how many. You know, this is not necessarily, you know, I mean, polyamorous relationships are of this sort as well. But here is a conspiracy. We are cultivating each other's sense of mattering here. That is something that we can take for granted here that I think is. I'm very interested in your response to this. But for me personally, in the relationships I've been in and in what I've seen, this is a picture of healthy mattering in relationships.” 

I agree. I again think it maps really beautifully on the attachment research. And in my, I mean, my dissertation was on couples. My whole career has been mostly on couples. And I've studied with various contributors who I think do phenomenal work. And in my experience, the biggest drivers of disconnection are these deeper needs of belonging, feeling securely connected, like fear of abandonment, fear of not being good enough. These types of fears that get activated, which I think do have a great relationship with mattering. And I agree with you that often in the relational space, that can be taken for granted. But also people's pacing when they're wanting to be experiencing mattering might be different. Their desire for how much they want. 

It might be different. 

We're negotiating interdependence and relationship. But as you said, we have our individual pursuits, and then we come into a relationship. So this togetherness, closeness, separateness, autonomy. But I mean, this seems all the more reason to be conscious and have almost like a mattering practice. 

Yeah, I think so. I actually do it away at this sort of mantra I go through, like when people are annoying me or when my spouse is there, I would say yes, right. You know, bad. Where is this coming from? And then here's something that I've seen in many relationships. Again, I still want your take on this. Sometimes the problem is I'm going to talk as two couples, you know, a two-part couple. And for one person, the relationship is everything. This is the mattering project. And for the other person, yes, the other matters, but they have something else going on for them. 

And this can be extremely, you know, extremely painful, or the other person really matters out there in the world, is having an impact as lots of people are paying attention to her or him. And you know, the other person is somewhat invisible. And there's that unbalancing in terms of the outside world. How much mattering is it? And so, you know, it may be incumbent on the one who's getting so much out there in the world to give a little more to the one who might feel invisible. He's very prominent. And when they go out walking, all these people are coming over. I want to take a selfie. I know your work. And she feels invisible, and so, and he, but it feels petty for her to follow her. 

He doesn't need to apologize for doing the work that he does. But I think it would be good, and I think good couples therapy, as I've often told them, would be good for somehow this imbalance to be addressed. He loves her, but she might need a little more because she may have to learn to appreciate how much pressure there is on him to keep this up. It's a lot of work what he's doing. He has to constantly be producing. And so, yeah, but the different experiences. 

With mattering in the world and then also how the couple system is experiencing that mattering or balancing or imbalance. There's a couple that's coming to mind right now. He recently retired from a very successful career building a business as a CEO. And all the things. And she. They have three or two kids together, and she's been very much in the more traditional gender norms, homemaking and parenting. And their children are adults now, but now they're in a venture of collaboration. And so they're business partners. And it's beautiful. It's an expression of both of their gifts, and they're both very excited about it. But she's feeling a lot of inadequacy having, like, her big honcho, like, super experienced and able to maneuver very quickly. 

And so she's like, I don't know if I can keep up, but what she has to bring feels in balance to what he's bringing. And I. And so we're working on that. And so I just want to validate. There are so many cases where I'm even thinking about extroversion. Like, certain personality traits tend to get a bit more value in the world than introversion. Right. And like, how this manifests socially. So I guess as we're talking, and I don't want to lose time without asking you, what can people do to intentionally focus on mattering in relationship A and then B? And this might be A. You might cover this on the first point, but for the one who is feeling not equal in mattering in all the worldly senses, how do they solicit? How do they ask for longing? 

Because, I mean, as you said earlier. I know. Just a side note to the second point, and my coupled example is that if someone already has some uncertainty about their level of mattering, it can get activated in the couple dynamic. Right. So that just gives more fuel for this. But yes, I would love to hear your thoughts on mattering practice, so to speak, or how to be conscientious and in practice of mattering. And then how the one that might be feeling a bit imbalanced, actually either partner, if we're talking about a monogamous relationship, if they're noticing an imbalance, how they might address that or negotiate that. 

Yeah. So I think the first thing is both people have to be aware of this, and an honest, non-accusatory conversation has to be had, probably over and over again because certain habits set in and they're, you know, hard to overcome. But I think the first step is to talk explicitly about the fact that these two lives, again, I'm considering a monogamous relationship, that these two lives have very different mattering profiles of those that one of them is really saying, your work touches so many people, you matter to so many people. And that's terrific or whatever. This is not accusatory, but that's bound to do strange things to our egos and to our expectations. And I think one has to come out and say it after. What do we want in these intimate relationships? 

We want our real self to be seen. And if we want to be so heroic, oh, I don't care about this. This is beneath me or something. Well, no, it's not. It's you. And 

And you may really be surprised at how surprised he or she is that they had no idea. And then get to work on maybe some extra rituals that might, I don't know, they might feel artificial at first, but maybe the one who is such a big mover and shaker out there in the world can really cultivate an interest in these more hidden. The more hidden, the quieter. 

Not in the limelight, but maybe holding the flashlight of the other's life, you know, that the other's life, the other's individuality matters. It has to be, perhaps in the beginning, quite artificially done. I will come home. I want to know three things that you did today. And the ones that made you happy and the ones that made you sad. And does that make sense to you? Yes. Yeah. 

So some ways of bringing the attention to that this mattering is so fundamental to our well-being and an intimate partnership, we have great possibility and potential to support that for one another and as we do for other aspects of well-being. Right. 

Yes. 

And that if we're cognizant of perhaps the mattering map around how we tend to seek mattering, but also in the intimate space, that there can be some conscientiousness around imbalances. How do we focus on perhaps giving more mattering play time, if you were, or airtime, to the one that maybe isn't feeling as met in this way? Do you have some examples of you said just now, tell me three things that indicate significance in your day. “Are there other ways, or even for people that are like, I want to matter, but I don't know how to matter?” 

“Yeah, well, you know, that's also, I think, can be a real strain on relationships.” 

“Yeah.” 

“You know, so there is the imbalance that's caused because of different marrying profiles. I'm going to rely on these gender stereotypes.” So let's say yes, the woman in the relationship, or one of them, it doesn't need to be a woman. Right. It would never be young children. Somebody has more responsibility for the young children, and somebody's out in the world, and you just. The domesticities. Yes, exactly. And you know, and maybe even living quite a glamorous life out there in the world. And it's not glamorous to be attending young children. It is rewarding. It can be rewarding. Also frustrating and boring. You know, one mother said to me, if I hear that shark saw one more time, I'm going to just kill myself. Right. You know, in my head now. Like. Right. 

But okay, but you know what, her partner should know this. That is her life. That is her day-to-day life at this period in her life. And that matters just as much as she matters, even if the other is out there living a very glamorous life. And so, I just think 

So, if you're in a loving relationship, you don't want that for the other. So it's got to be; we've got to pay attention to it. It's to be deserving of attention. 

And so where do we want to feel most deserving of attention in our intimate relationships? You know, and not the glamorous version of ourselves. The real version of ourselves. 

Yes. 

Yeah. 

I mean, this reminds me of Brené Brown‘s work, and that she set out to study love and belonging, and people repeatedly in her research were talking about instances where they felt shame, unlovable, and it was in those moments that they felt seen and responded and engaged with; that's when they felt most belonging. It wasn't in the pretty sexy, like, I've got it all dialed in moments. It was in the like super messy moments. And I think we do have a great capacity and intimate space to hold. It's like holding a vigil almost of these very vulnerable, tender parts of ourselves and to have attention to places where we feel struggle or challenged, but also where we feel pride and feel accomplishment and just celebrate that. It's a little silly, but I'm imagining it is something people could utilize. 

I grew up, and my mother would do this appreciation exercise, and it really can go where you give any number, but what she did is three for the other. So if we're doing the appreciation exercise, I would give you three appreciations that ideally were not like things that you did. It was something that I really genuinely care about or appreciate about your character, your expression. And then you would give three to me, and then I'd give three to myself, and you would give three to yourself. 

Yeah. 

And what I love about this, particularly when I do it with my husband, I love appreciation. That definitely feels really good to be seen and acknowledged, but I absolutely love hearing what my husband appreciates about himself. Like, it's his inner world that I'm like, sometimes I don't. He's not super. He's not an extrovert. So he doesn't externally process. And I don't always get a chance to hear the things that he's feeling proud of or really lit up about. And so to get that insight. And so I get to hold that with him and really give attention to it, and it feels like it amplifies it a bit. 

Yeah. Oh, how interesting. I love that. I think your mother was really up to something there. Yeah. And you know, and I guess, yeah. One could feel a bit self-conscious about it at first. Yeah. But where else but in our intimate relationships? Right. Which I keep thinking as we're talking, much trust has to be there for us to show ourselves, as you say, in our prideful and in our shameful aspects, but that's what we want. 

And it's a tremendous gift when that happens, so that is. Yeah. But trust, I mean, to cultivate that trust is. It's difficult. 

It is difficult. And I would say even in an intimate space when we're complaining or criticizing sometimes, as you said, we might have different ways that we're trying to get attention or trying to matter, and to have this lens on of looking for the mattering that we might be able to query how it fits with mattering. That could give us a bit of a direct, maybe an insight or an access point to how this relates to mattering. So then it could be a bit clearer and more centered. Yes, because for the one that maybe has the longing but doesn't have the awareness or the consciousness of it, they might have other strategies that they try to get mattering but maybe are off-putting or maybe don't seem super connected to mattering. Is that fair? 

Yeah, no, that is fair. And yes, there are ways of trying to get, you know, and you know that, you know, they're a mattering hogs. They want to hear; they come into the room, and they want it. And to be a partner with such a woman can be very difficult. These different kinds of personality types and strategies. But the one other thing I did want to talk about, and we started to talk about, and then is when the relationship is the be-all and end-all, yes, that thing that matters. This is where the person's mattering lies. And the other. Yes, the relationship matters, but other things do as well. You know, there is. And that can be extraordinarily painful. And there too, I think there has to be a really honest conversation about it. 

And I do think for the person, I don't think it's. You may disagree with me here too, but I don't think from what I've seen, it's from my own personal experience, it's a good mattering strategy to put all your mattering into one relationship. That is a lot of pressure on a relationship. I think it is good. Yes. We need these intimate. Oh, do we need these faces? Right. Of trust, of mutual seeing, of affirming one another. But I think 

But most especially if it's the be-all and end-all for the one person and not for the other, that can be terrible for both partners. I think good to cultivate something else outside the relationship as well. 

I think relationships work better that way. 

I absolutely agree. Because I do think there's a primary bond, right? And to give nurturing to that. And I think most systems are better in diversity, right? When we have a diversity of resources and support and a network. So I think that's really important that there's multiple sources of mattering, perhaps. And secondly, there are so many personality differences, as you said, and how a couple negotiates those differences gives an opportunity. It's almost like curriculum for developing, like negotiating that conflict in a way that can work. I mean, maybe sometimes it isn't workable, but for the one that's very primarily focused on relationship as the focal point and the other having different pursuits, that's a difference that seems incompatible. 

Perhaps. 

But with talking about it very explicitly, there could be a way that both people are getting their needs met. That still works, but requires a negotiation, requires talking about sometimes I have found the one that is like 100% relationship, nothing else. Like they're looking to satiate a need, so to speak, or a sense of, again, a strategy to feel more secure themselves. But I wouldn't say it's a wrong thing to want a relationship. And that's the only thing. But it would be curious to explore a little bit more about that. But let's just say that's good and everything, and they're different. That still could be something to learn how to negotiate. That could be workable. 

It could be workable, yeah. And if both partners are like this, the relationship is everything. I have known couples like that, and like, oh, you go out to dinner with them, and they're just into each other. And that does not make for a good dinner. Exactly. But you know, it's okay. They're on the same that this is what. This is the be-all and end-all for both. But usually it's not that way. 

I agree. 

Yeah. And so there's one person, and who this is, you know, the romantic. They're romantic, you know, and they want to full-on intense Yelp. 

And their partners may say, I can give that to you a percentage of the time. And the fact that if you are supportive of me doing these other endeavors, then the pull, the push, pull. Right. We don't have to create as much or spend as much energy on the conflict. Then it can really show up and have these potent moments with you. But it's not going to be all the time. And that person might say, well, okay, I can work with that. Yes, it feels good. And then I can go do some other things. Maybe it wouldn't have been my first choice, but I will work with that. 

Yes, exactly. So, you know, some. The first thing is to be explicit. 

Yes. 

Yeah. And you know, but I would think that this is

Right?

To get attention. 

You get attention. It's like a two-year-old who misbehaves, you know, to get Aaron's attention. 

But protesting. Yes. 

Right. And, and at least they're getting the attention, and it's intense. They. This is a person who wants intensity, and the other may not want this kind of intensity. Maybe it can work out, and maybe it can't. But I think this is often something that goes quite wrong in intimate relationships. Yeah. 

And if we look at the mattering instinct, if we can have awareness that what's underneath these strategies or the protest is the mattering. 

Exactly, exactly. 

And we can be much more direct. 

Much more direct and much more sympathetic and yes, understanding. Understanding is everything. And you know, if you truly do care about the other, you're going to struggle for as much understanding as possible. Maybe the result of the understanding is, you know what? We're not going to make each other happy. We're too different. 

We want different things. 

We want different things. We want different things from this relationship, from life, and we will go our way. 

Yes. 

And perhaps be good friends. 

But yes, with regard and understanding, as you said. Wonderful. Rebecca, there's so much here. Say the name of your book and where people can get your book. 

Okay. It's called The Mattering Instinct. How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us. And yes, even in our, as we've been talking, even in our most intimate, most important relationships, that can really divide us from our loved ones. Can one get it? Hopefully in bookstores, but certainly on Amazon and, you know, those other online sources. 

Yes, and you're a novelist; you have many other books that you've written. Is there anything else you want to share with people who are interested in getting to know you and your work more, and how to connect with you? 

Well, you can email me. Or find me at rebeccagoldstein.com.

Oh, that's a generous offer. 

I'm not kidding. I really love communication. I really do. And you know, this is how I do my research basically, I guess, you know, talk to people, and so yeah, it's very easy to get in touch with me. But I also have just started a Substack. It's called The Mattering Map. And so because I believe it's so deep, it's really the core of us. I think, you know, it really has so much to do with whether we get life satisfaction or not, whether we're able to sufficiently minister to our longing to matter. And there are so many things I had to leave out of the book because it just has implications all over the place, politics everywhere. Right. And so I thought, okay, I'll start a Substack and talk about what I had to leave out of the book. 

Maybe I'll talk more about intimate relationships. I would love to. This conversation has really inspired me. 

Excellent. Well, I'll make sure to have the link to your book as well as your Substack page and perhaps some of your other books in case people want to read your other books. And thank you so much, Rebecca. I've so enjoyed chatting with you here today. 

Well, the feeling is mutual. Thank you.