In our forties, we start giving way fewer f*cks. And that vibe doesn't magically stop with our relationships.

The partner you chose at 28 feels different at 43, knowing yourself in a way you simply didn't back then.

And the question you are too afraid to say out loud—is this it?—starts getting louder.

That is not you becoming difficult. That might just be you finally waking up.

​YANA FRY is a love expert, founder of the Academy of Love, and one of the most direct voices on relationships we have ever had on this show.

She does not deal in platitudes. She deals in patterns.

The ones most of us are running in our relationships without knowing it, the ones we learned from Disney princesses (sigh) who gave up their voice for a man who barely knew their name, and the ones that keep the most accomplished, capable women we know inexplicably single for years at a stretch.

She also talked about the danger of "good enough" relationships that we want you to hear before you spend another year in one.

For the single ladies, she explained that wanting love quickly is precisely what makes it harder to find.

So Yana shared the exact reframe she tells single women in their forties, successful on every other axis, who genuinely cannot understand why they're still single. The answer is not what either Jasmin nor Amanda expected (!).

→ Listen to the full conversation with Yana Fry here​

​

One thing worth trying this weekend

Yana's most useful reframe, and one you can use immediately: the next time you feel that familiar urgency:

Ask yourself whether the speed at which you're moving is actually serving you, or whether it is just the mechanism you've built to avoid sitting with, or waiting for, what you really want.

Urgency, she says, is almost never about the thing in front of you. It is about the fear underneath it. And the fear, once you name it, is almost always more manageable than the pace you have been keeping to outrun it.

You do not have to slow your whole life down this weekend. Just notice where you are rushing—and why.

With a little less urgency and a lot more intention,
​Amanda & Jasmin

A word from our sponsor: Cozy Earth

Yana's "forties formula" was to slow down and lighten the load—advice that applies to your nervous system as much as your relationships. For most of us, our sleep is where that slowing down either happens...or doesn't. Cozy Earth's bamboo bedding is the one thing we have actually found that regulates temperature through the night rather than just promising to, plus, they ship here—which is still not a given for premium brands that should know better. Use code TFF for 31% off at cozyearth.com.​