the preston rack show

Preston Rakovsky

Most of us learned about love by accident, from movies, our parents, and relationships that taught us more about what we didn't want than what we did. But love isn't one-size-fits-all. This podcast brings you a new perspective on love every episode: the couples therapist, the ER doctor, the grandparents, the wedding planner. Borrow what resonates, leave what doesn't, and build a definition of love that's actually yours.

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23 episodes
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Avg 37 min
English

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Today · 25 min
the only question you have to ask to get over someone
00:00 - intro & moving on from someone you loved 02:24 - can you accept it for what it was, not what it could have been? 04:32 - what would it be like if you were still together? 06:31 - is it possible to have the right person at the wrong time? 08:51 - becoming who you want to be so you can be with who you want to be with 09:44 - loving their inner child 11:44 - accepting someone for who they are 13:40 - can you be over them and still think about them? 15:08 - can you be with someone new before you're over your ex? 17:20 - visiting the archives 18:51 - it's good to be sad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Saturday · 44 min
10 Signs You're With the Right Partner
A man who was ready to resent his wife over 30 minutes of sleep explains how one more episode on the couch rewired his entire relationship, why he and his wife schedule a quarterly check-in, and whether he'd keep the ways he's changed if they ever broke up. After five years together, the habits he's picked up don't feel like compromises. They feel like her fingerprints, and he has no plans to wash them off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 8 · 34 min
10 Questions to Reveal if You Feel Safe in a Relationship
What does it actually mean to feel safe with someone? Today Peter joins us go through 10 questions, from stupid nicknames and inside jokes to whether you can be boring, messy, or fully weird around your partner, and find that safety isn't about compatibility checklists. It's about whether you get to be yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 19 · 31 min
Why It's So Easy to Ignore Relationship Warning Signs
A woman who spent four years shrinking what she asked for explains how the smallest possible request became the thing her relationship couldn't survive, why a to-do list told her more than any conversation did, and what it took for her to stop believing she was too much. The problem was never how much she wanted, it was who she was asking. Song: Ethereal Composer: Punch Deck Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEA License: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 6 · 36 min
Why Relationships Get Stuck At Surface Level
A woman who could name exactly what she was feeling in the moment she felt it explains how one comment at a friend's dinner party exposed the version of herself she'd been performing for four months, why four years in a relationship where honesty felt safe left her with no idea how to tell a friend she was hurt, and how a gold bracelet chosen over hours of back-and-forth texting showed her what a year of not hiding had quietly built. The tiramisu she brought to seem effortless, the $1,000 Versace heels she couldn't stay quiet about, the walk to the ER alone with the swelling climbing past her ankle. "I've never met someone who can articulate their emotions like that," one of them told her. The question was never whether the conflict would cost her the friendship. It was whether the friendship was ever real without it. Song: Ethereal Composer: Punch Deck Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEA License: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 2 · 35 min
How To Tell If You're Looking For Love in the Wrong Place
A woman who spent five years arranging her life around one person explains what happened the year she picked up a dream she'd abandoned in college. Not a fight. Not an ultimatum. A pattern of questions that never got asked. She blocked her closest friends so none of them would ever find the account. Then the algorithm handed it to one of them anyway, and she was approached about it in public with no warning and no exit. She had already decided how that conversation would go. She'd had five years of evidence. She was wrong about what she'd been owed, wrong about where it was coming from, and wrong about which one of them was the sun. Song: Ethereal Composer: Punch Deck Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEA License: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 30 · 36 min
The Effort Trap in Relationships
A woman who showed love in eight-hour meals and quietly finished laundry explains how a conversation about the origins of Bluetooth exposed the one thing she couldn't give her fiancé, why a year of couples therapy, a booked venue, and a hand-designed ring didn't prepare her for the summer he spent secretly deciding whether to leave, and how five friends packing her entire life into tote bags in a single weekend finally showed her what she'd been asking for the whole time. The braised pork belly, the cheesecakes, the chores she took off his list, "I never asked you to do any of these things for me," he told her. The question was never whether she loved him enough. It was whether either of them was ever fluent in the other's language. Song: Ethereal Composer: Punch Deck Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEA License: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 27 · 43 min
Are You Asking Your Partner The Right Questions?
A woman who spent years testing her boyfriend's love through hypothetical worst-case scenarios explains how a random question about turning into a worm on the New Jersey Thruway cracked open a pattern she didn't know she had, why growing up in a house where needs went unspoken taught her to ask for love sideways instead of directly, and how therapy helped her trace her hypotheticals back to a simple truth: she wasn't testing him, she was seeking assurance. The worm, the burning building, the bullet, she realized, were never really the question. The real one was whether she could just say what she needed out loud. Song: Ethereal Composer: Punch Deck Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEA License: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 20 · 44 min
Engaged in 6 Months: Why Waiting Longer Won't Make You Sure
A woman who spent four and a half years convincing herself that doubt was just the price of love explains how she mistook a relationship that never fit for one worth fixing, why a pair of jeans became the way she finally understood what she'd been ignoring, and how she went from years of not knowing to being certain about someone else within six months. The doubt, she realized, was never the problem, what mattered was what she'd been doubting all along. Song: Ethereal Composer: Punch Deck Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEA License: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 14 · 40 min
Married Magician Reveals The Lie About Modern Love
A professional magician of over two decades explains why he spent 15 years chasing the grand gestures he thought love was supposed to be, what a $40 bag of firewood in Vermont taught him about the difference between the honeymoon and the marriage, and the one thing he now believes actually holds a relationship together. Because real love, he's decided, has less to do with the fireworks or the airport reunion, and more to do with laughing at a stupid mouse video on the couch after the baby's finally down. Song: Ethereal Composer: Punch Deck Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEA License: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 1 · 33 min
The One Question Every Couple Avoids Until It's Too Late
A woman who always put her relationship first and prided herself on meeting her partner in the middle explains why all that compromising slowly turned her into someone she didn't recognize, what a stack of movies she never wanted to watch had to do with it, and the one question she now asks before deciding a relationship is worth saving. What makes love sustainable, she's decided, has nothing to do with how much of yourself you're willing to give up. Song: EtherealComposer: Punch DeckWebsite: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEALicense: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 26 · 32 min
The Difference Between Love that Looks Right and Feels Right
A lifelong romantic who built vision boards of red-carpet weddings and prayed for the Romeo-and-Juliet kind of love explains why the relationship that looked like "couple goals" from the outside felt like a campaign from the inside, what a teddy bear's baptism taught her about being loved without having to beg, and the lightness she felt three days after it all ended. What makes love real, she's decided, has nothing to do with how good you look on paper. Song: EtherealComposer: Punch DeckWebsite: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEALicense: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 23 · 44 min
Married 21 Years: Don't Create a Safe Space
Timm Chiusano, who's been married 21 years, explains why the instinct to protect your relationship, building a safe little room around it and shutting the doors, might be the exact thing slowly killing it, what a cat that wandered through his Brooklyn house had to do with it, and the quiet moment his wife told him he was wrong that changed everything. What makes love last, he's decided, has nothing to do with how safe you keep it. Song: EtherealComposer: Punch DeckWebsite: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEALicense: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 21 · 27 min
Why Trying To Be Loved Is Pushing People Away
A lifelong people pleaser who befriended everyone from her classmates to the nurse drawing her blood explains why being liked by everyone left her feeling known by no one, what a $3,000 trip to Iceland she didn't even want had to do with it, and the quiet thing she now reaches for instead of grand gestures. What makes love real, she's decided, has nothing to do with how much you're willing to sacrifice. Song: Ethereal Composer: Punch Deck Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3M9CX5HWSw25k5QL3FkDEA License: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 17 · 9 min
Gary Vee: The Kind Of Love That Decides Your Whole Life
A man raised on the kind of unconditional love most people never get, from a mother who survived losing her own mom at five and a father imprisoned in Soviet Russia, explains why money, fame, and winning will never make people actually love you, the uncomfortable reason the people surrounding the rich and powerful don't really love them, and the one quiet thing almost everyone gets backwards about how love is earned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 15 · 34 min
Why Grand Gestures Are Actually Red Flags
A woman raised by Filipino immigrant parents who never said "I love you" out loud explains why a partner's most generous gestures can land as rejection, what her dad's Elmo phone calls had to do with it, and the quiet thing she now looks for that most people overlook. What makes love last, she's decided, has nothing to do with how much someone is willing to give. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 10 · 43 min
Why You Stay When You Know You Should Leave
A self-described lover girl who gives people 28 chances before walking away explains how one breakup left her in bed for weeks, why her mom had to tell her the same fairy tale over and over before it finally clicked, and the moment she realized she'd spent three years begging for something a near-stranger gave her after being asked once. The thing that changed how she loves wasn't getting over him, and it wasn't finding someone new, it was noticing who had been showing up for her the entire time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 7 · 44 min
You Marry the Same Person Three Times
A woman who stayed married 35 years explains why she's actually been married three times to the same man, a sweet beginning, a decade that felt like war, and the marriage they have now. The turning point that ended the fighting wasn't him changing, and it wasn't a grand gesture, it was a small, almost embarrassing realization about why she was angry in the first place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 31 · 41 min
What The Bachelor Taught Me About Conversations We Avoid
A woman who spent her days as the producer of The Bachelor asking strangers the deepest questions about love explains why she couldn't ask those same questions in her own five-year relationship, and how she learned that wanting to truly know someone is the one thing you can't fake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 26 · 43 min
What No One Understands About Love Until It's Too Late
A woman who spent years being annoyed by her dad's quirks explains what she'd give anything to have back, and why the things that irritate you most about someone are the things you'll grieve the hardest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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