‘Modern Love’: Why Boys and Men Are Floundering, According to Relationship Therapist Terry Real

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A session with Terry Real, a marriage and family therapist, can get uncomfortable. He’s known to mirror and amplify the emotions of his clients, sometimes cursing and nearly yelling, often in an attempt to get men in touch with the emotions they’re not used to honoring. Real says men are often pushed to shut off their expression of vulnerability when they’re young as part of the process of becoming a man. That process, he says, can lead to myriad problems in their relationships. He sees it as his job to pull them back into vulnerability and intimacy, reconfiguring their understanding of masculinity in order to build more wholesome and connected families. In this episode, Real explains why vulnerability is so essential to healthy masculinity and why his work with men feels more urgent than ever. He explains why he thinks our current models of masculinity are broken and what it will take to build new ones. This episode was inspired by a New York Times Magazine piece, “How I Learned That the Problem in My Marriage Was Me” by Daniel Oppenheimer. For more Modern Love, search for the show wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Wednesday.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Michael. A quick reminder, as we said last weekend, we're going to be changing some things up here on Sundays to bring you something a little bit different, but something we think you're going to appreciate. And that is modern love. Every Sunday for the next few weeks, you're going to hear episodes from our phenomenal colleagues who make that show.
0:21.7	If you don't know the show, every week host Anna Martin and that team explores the world of our relationships.
0:28.1	How we fall in love, how we fall out of love, sex, betrayal, the trouble spots in relationships.
0:35.1	Their stories inspired by the long-running NYT column called Modern Love, and we think it helps
0:40.8	make sense of this other essential part of our lives.
0:44.0	So we hope you'll spend time with these episodes.
0:46.4	They are great.
0:47.8	And as always, we'll see you right back here on Monday morning for the daily.
0:53.1	Take a listen.
0:54.9	Hey, it's Anna. Just a quick warning, there's a bit more swearing in this episode than usual.
1:00.0	So if you're listening with kids, maybe wait until later.
1:04.2	Love now and love.
1:05.6	Is you fall in love last night?
1:06.9	It's a love.
1:07.5	But stronger than anything.
1:09.6	And I love you more than anything.
1:13.7	There's to love.
1:14.7	Love.
1:16.4	From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
1:19.1	This is Modern Love.
1:22.0	Today, I'm talking to marriage and family therapist, Terry Real.
1:27.8	Dan, this is what I think you mean to be saying right now.
	...

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