How I Trained My Wife

In this episode, join the conversation as we delve into the provocative topic of 'training' your partner for a healthier relationship. The discussion addresses societal norms, media influences, psychological insights, and personal anecdotes on how to navigate and deprogram toxic behaviors in relationships. We also touch upon common relationship pitfalls such as compromise, emotional arguments, and the importance of logical alignment. Along the way, we highlight the role of transparency, communication, and practical strategies for fostering mutual respect and understanding between partners.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about how I brainwashed you or trained you or whatever word you want to use into the perfect wife drone that you are to today. As some people, yes, husband. You? No, I mean, you are honestly, remarkably good. Like I, and, and trained is the right word here.

Like we worked for a long time.

Simone Collins: Yeah. This, it didn't start, it didn't, things weren't smooth always.

Malcolm Collins: No, they think they're very smooth. Now, I won't say it's not that they were not smooth, it's that you made more mistakes, but they were understandable mistakes, given the context of the relationship at the time.

Simone Collins: Well, also given societal norms about what normal women do in relationships, which as we've covered in other episodes, is really toxic. So actually, if you want to even have a slightly healthy relationship training of your wife. Is mandatory just because the, the social contract she expects, the societal norms she's coming in with are by default toxic.

They need to be removed. Like you need to, like, this is like, you know, she's coming in like ridden with license. You just like spray her down and like the, the,

Malcolm Collins: I'll give you an example of something like this because, you know, she might be saying this and if you're a woman or something like that, you're like, oh my gosh, come on, this isn't true.

And I'm like, you. If you are a woman of our generation, you went through an entire generation of media whether it's the Simpsons or Family Guy or any of these sitcom shows where the stereotype was that you have a fat, dumb husband. Mm-hmm. And the wife's job was to sit there in the background and make snide remarks about his competence mm-hmm.

In front of other people. Yeah. And then actually just go do what is actually right because he can't handle it on his own. Because he's just such a buffoon.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It was always just eye rolling and undermining your husband and that that was just so normalized

Malcolm Collins: and, and, and no, and so many women are like, I haven't been brainwashed into being, you know, by, by, by the culture I'm in to being a psycho.

And it's like, think about. Just, just think about like, if you're a woman watching this, all of this that you grew up with, do you not think that that influenced your norms about the way you might act in a relationship at all? Like do Yeah. If you,

Simone Collins: if you wanna believe that that didn't influence you, you're just delusional.

I mean, we, we, there is, there is lots of evidence. There are plenty, and we talked about this a little bit in our episode on. Propaganda how TV shows and radio shows have shaped behavior even going so far as to, for example, in Brazil, depressed birth rates when you make an aspirational middle class family have lower numbers of children, specifically in places where this one network soap operas played, their fertility rates went down.

It didn't play in every region of Brazil and in the regions that were not exposed to this. Birth grades didn't go down. So absolutely media influences us and absolutely we need to be thoughtful about deprogramming people if they've been exposed to this.

Malcolm Collins: It's not just media. The other huge problem that we have is really bad psychological norms in terms of how you should act in a relationship.

Mm-hmm.

EEG, like that you guys should have cooling off periods or that you should build your relationship around compromise. Mm-hmm. Or that, like, all of these are like really. Hyper toxic in a relationship. So yeah. So let's get into it.

Simone Collins: Also, I wanna give a little hat tip to Diana Fleischman. We just think she's the coolest.

We were inspired to do this 'cause she is currently finishing up a book called How to Train Your Boyfriend. And it's gonna come out in 2026. We're so excited for it. So we're not talking about how to train men because she's gonna do it way and like, oh my gosh. The, the psychological research that she goes into with this.

She's being Yeah. You, you've read like

Malcolm Collins: the draft, right? So you're, I haven't read,

Simone Collins: I haven't, I mean, I've only heard her about her processes so far. I haven't seen the draft, but she's, she's talked about like a lot of the research she's been looking at and, oh, like she is.

Malcolm Collins: Thorough. It's gonna be much more scientific.

This is me talking off the cuff. Yeah, we're talking anecdotally

Simone Collins: here, personal experience, but we're also, I mean, like I think that this is, this is very practical stuff and I think that if you are taking dating seriously, if you're embarking on a relationship or thinking about it you really, really, really should be thinking about these things.

'cause you only have so much time before norms and a relationship becomes solidified and unchangeable. So, so, or at least it's harder to change

Malcolm Collins: the first thing that happened in a relationship. That I remember was like a major issue, not, not a major issue, but it was like the first time when I was like, oh, this is a norm that she has built that we need to deal with.

Mm. Was, you were mad at me about something and so you hung up while you were talking. This is. Absolutely. If you normalize who you're dating, ever hanging up in the middle of a conversation

Simone Collins: or just walking out of a room, just like ending a conversation because it got uncomfortable shutting it down.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. You are normalizing what is functionally a form of abuse and what becomes a form of abuse because what that does. Is it allows either partner, whichever one wants to disengage and keep in mind how bad it is to set this norm. Whichever partner wants to disengage from a conversation can immediately control that conversation.

Yeah. Which everyone is willing to stop talking, willing to stop trying to work this out immediately has control of the situation.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: That is. An incredibly toxic norm to set,

Simone Collins: and I think it's way more common than you would think. This, this is, is not necessarily gendered either. I mean, I hear about this happening a lot with men too.

Like they just sort of stop talking or shut down and refuse to engage. So it, it's, it's important. Everyone, I

Malcolm Collins: think that's the same, it's not like just walking out of the room or hanging up the phone. It's also if they're just like, ugh, you know, turn to the tv, start ignoring you, watching, whatever, you know, or like, just, okay, I'm not engaging, I'm not talking to you.

Well, also

Simone Collins: like a, a really common way of like. Of doing this is like, okay, let's just, let's j