Making Marriage Work

Better Life Media, America's leading source for Life Improvement, presents Dr. John Gottman, Making marriage work.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, why should you listen to me? First of all, let me just tell you that I'm not a relationship guru. I'm not like those people on afternoon television. And the only thing I have to offer is that I'm an expert in how to do research on relationships. And I've studied over 3,000 couples over the last 32 years. You know, couples very much like yourselves. And what I've tried to do is find out what it is they do to make their relationships work. And we've also studied gay and lesbian couples, as well as heterosexual couples for a very long time. And I've done this work with my friend Bob Levinson, who's a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. And it's our 30th anniversary, actually this year, of working together. And what we really brought to this whole area was profound ignorance, because we really didn't have a clue about what made relationships work when we started doing this research 30 years ago. So what we did is we made videotapes of couples doing ordinary things, like talking about how their day went and talking about an area of conflict, continuing disagreement. And at the University of Washington, I built an apartment laboratory that was kind of like a bed and breakfast getaway in which we had couples just hang out for 24 hours. And the it was a beautiful picture window there and boats going by, and people just sort of listened to the music they wanted to listen to, watched television, brought newspapers to read and did whatever they wanted to do. And the only difference between that setting and an ordinary bed and breakfast was that we had four cameras bolted to the wall, and they wore Holter monitors that measured two channels of electrocardiogram. And when they urinated, we took a urine sample to measure stress hormones and their urine, and we took blood from them to measure how their immune system was functioning. And there were people in the other room recording their facial expressions of emotion. But aside from that, it was like an ordinary bed and breakfast getaway. And we found, you know, what we basically did was study representative samples of couples. And we started with newlyweds. In one study, for example, we're now in the 13th year of studying those couples as they had kids. We studied them in pregnancy and as their babies developed. And then we studied families who were in midlife, who had young kids, couples in their 40s, couples in their 60s, all the way through retirement. Our current study is about 20 years. We follow Couples. So we didn't know if there were good relationships or bad relationships when we started. And we found out that over time, some of the relationships broke up and some of them fell apart. Some of them stayed together and were really unhappy with one another, and others kind of more or less liked each other over time. And the relationships got better and better, and they were pretty happy. And we called that last group the Masters of Relationships and the other group the Disasters, the ones whose relationships fell apart or stayed together and weren't happy. And, and what we tried to find out was, was there anything different about the Masters and the Disasters? Is there anything we could figure out about it? And we were very surprised to find out that we could predict which couples would stay together and which ones would get a divorce with over 90% accuracy. And, you know, you don't find that kind of prediction in psychology very often. Usually we can't predict people's behavior at all. But here in relationships, we were able to predict with enormous accuracy what would happen to a relationship. In fact, in just 15 minutes of a couple talking about an area of continuing disagreement, we could predict with 85% accuracy whether they get divorced. And not only that, after following couples for 14 years, we could not only predict if they would get divorced, but when they would get divorced as well. So I want to tell you about that research and what we discovered from, from this and how we put it all together in kind of a theory about what makes relationships work and what the principles are for making them. Making them get better and better and also turning around ones that are really unhappy. Now, this ability to predict divorce with very high accuracy or happiness with very high accuracy hasn't done a lot for my personal life. I don't get invited out to dinner very much. For example, very few couples want to know if their relationship is going to work or not. And in the middle of a fight, my wife is very likely to say to me, if they could see you now. But we try to use the principles, my wife and I, we try to figure out, you know, how we can make our relationship better. And in fact, we do a workshop in Seattle where the second day, every time we do the workshop, my wife and I talk about a fight we just had. And we're never at a loss. We always have a fight to talk about. And we do this in front of 150 couples. And so, you know, part of what I want to tell you is that what we've learned in studying good relationships as well as the disasters is that we're all really in the same soup. So let me start by talking about what it is we learned that allows us to predict divorce or stability with very high accuracy. The first thing we found was that if you take a look at the ratio of positive stuff during conflict, things like interest, asking questions, being nice to one another, being kind, being affectionate, being empathetic, and you look at all the negative stuff like criticism, hostility, anger, hurt feelings, and you take the ratio of positive to negative in relationships that stay together, that ratio turns out to be five to one. There's five times as many positive things going on in relationships that work as negative. So that's an interesting equation, and it sort of suggests that if you do something negative to hurt your partner's feelings, that you have to make up for it with five positive things. So the equation is not balanced in terms of positive and negative. Negative has a lot more ability to inflict pain and damage than positive things have to heal and bring you closer. Now, the couples who wound up divorced, that ratio was 0.8 to 1. So there was a little more negativity than positivity in couples who were heading for divorce. So, first of all, for a relationship to feel right, it has to be a very rich climate of affection and humor and fun and intimacy and empathy. Now, in the apartment lab that I mentioned, that ratio is more like 20 to 1 rather than 5 to 1, right? So when you're just hanging out, it really needs to be an enormously rich climate of positive stuff. Interestingly enough, you might think that from that finding, what you want to do is, if you're a therapist, you want to declare war on negativity and eliminate all anger, sadness, hurt, hurt feelings from relationships. And that's not true. Turns out negativity is actually very productive in relationships because hurt feelings and negativity wind up, for one thing, calling out stuff that doesn't work in relationships, right? You hurt your partner's feelings, you learn something, right? And you talk about how to make it better next time. So you don't want a relationship where there's nothing negative going on. The other thing is, it wouldn't be very real. And if there wasn't sadness, disappointment. And there's kind of a cycle of getting closer and drawing apart that happens in relationships. After a fight, people are distant for a while, and then they get closer together. So that in fact, in relationships, as a result of negativity, there's a need to continually renew courtship in relationships. And so that's the importance of that finding about negativity. And not declaring war on negativity. You don't want to get rid of anger. You don't want to get rid of sadness. You know, that's kind of our inheritance. When we have a close relationship, we get all the emotions. Now, the next thing that Bob and I wanted to know is, are all negative things equally corrosive? Are there some things that really are a lot more negative than others? And, in fact, there are. And I wound up calling those things the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, because there were four things that really were very predictive of divorce, and they were characteristic of the disasters and very different from the Masters. The Masters are dealing with conflict in this way. It's kind of like if I was holding. Imagine I was holding an invisible soccer ball right here, okay? And this soccer ball represents our problem. And my wife and I are kicking this ball around, and that's the way the Masters deal with things. Now, the Disasters, from the beginning, try to put that ball in their partner's body, and they're really saying, you're the problem, right? So the first Horseman of the Apocalypse is what we call criticism. And criticism is a way of complaining that suggests that your partner's personality is defective. Okay? And now what are the Masters doing? The Masters are still complaining, right? But they're talking about themselves, talking about their feelings and what they need. So let's say, for example, I complain, and I want to complain the way, you know, a really great relationship would complain. I might say to my wife something like, you know, you talked about yourself all through dinner. You never asked me anything about my day, and that hurt my feelings. I really need you to ask me about my day, okay? So there I'm talking about myself, what I feel and what I need right now. The disasters would try to make that just a symptom of my wife's defect. And I would say to my wife something like, you know, you talked about yourself during dinner. You never asked me anything about my day. What is wrong with you? This is a great question, right? What is wrong with you? Does anybody ever answer that question? Hey, I'm glad you asked that. Take a look and see what's wrong. It's not really a question right now. The second Horsemen of the Apocalypse kind of follows from the first, because if you feel criticized, you're going to be feeling attacked, and you're going to be warding off this attack, right? And that's defensiveness. The Second Horseman of the Apocalypse. And we found there are two ways of becoming defensive that are most common in couples the first is righteous indignation. And in righteous indignation, what you're doing is meeting a complaint with a counter complaint. The second way of being defensive is I can act like an innocent victim. And the most common way people act like an innocent victim is they whine. I cared about your day. I really did. I was really interested in your day. Now, what's the opposite? What's the constructive alternative? What do the masters do instead of get defensive? It's very simple. They accept responsibility, even for a small part of the problem. So she says to me, all through dinner, you talked about yourself. You never asked me about my day. I can say, God, good point. You know, I really was stressed out, you know, during dinner, and the drive home was awful. I had a rotten day. I don't think I was listening to anybody, you know, whole day. And you're right, I probably wasn't listening to you. So how was your day? Now, the third horseman is our best predictor of divorce, and it is disrespect and contempt. Now, contempt is a little bit different than criticism, because in contempt, you feel superior to your partner. You're speaking from a higher plane. Kind of like I'm on this podium and I'm talking down. Well, if you do that to your partner, you feel. Let's say you feel cleaner than your partner or more punctual or tidier or smarter than your partner, then you're going to kind of talk down to your partner, and the comment that will come out will be this kind of snobby, contemptuous comment, right? Now, how do people get contemptuous? The most common way they do that is by calling their partner names or directly insulting them. So you can say, what a jerk. You only talk about yourself. Now, we would like our partners to respond to us by saying something like, john, that's brilliant. You're such an observant person. You know, thank you for pointing out all the ways in which I'm failing as a human being. Can we have lunch next week so you can tell me more? You know, but unfortunately, people don't respond that way. Right? They really wind up getting hurt. In fact, contempt is our single best predictor of divorce. Now, what is it that the masters are doing that's the alternative for contempt? What is the opposite of disrespect? It is not doing nothing. It is really respect and being proud of the people we love. And what the masters are doing is creating in the relationship a culture of appreciation. They're saying thank you for very small things that their partners are doing. Thanks for picking up the laundry. I enjoyed the conversation at dinner. I watched you playing with the baby last night and it was really beautiful. We had that teacher conference and you know, that teacher really intimidates me. You've got a lot of guts. So it's communicating not only affection, but respect. That's the culture of appreciation. Now how do you build that? And the way you build it is you start really creating a different habit of mind. A habit of mind where instead of scanning the environment for things to criticize and put down and make yourself superior through putting down other people, you scan the environment for things you can praise and appreciate. And this is as important in love relationships as it is in parent child relationships. Looking for stuff you can appreciate. Catch your partner doing something right. Now, the fourth horseman of the apocalypse we call stonewalling. And here's what stonewalling is. It's really emotional withdrawal from conflict. And here's the way we actually measure it in our laboratory. Usually when a listener is listening to somebody talk, they actually give the speaker a lot of signals that they are tracking that they're, that they're there, not necessarily agreeing. They maintain their sort of an open body. They maintain eye contact, nod their heads, they utter these brief vocalization. They move their faces. Oh yeah, could be. Oh yeah, sure. And so all of these signals are coming out. The stonewaller doesn't do that. Maybe folds arms akimbo like that, looks down and away. There's no facial movement, there's no vocalization. And maybe an occasional glance at the speaker just to see if the ogre has magically disappeared. That's stonewalling. Now what does stonewalling do? What it does is that the speaker doesn't think he or she is getting through. Right. So instead of getting out the 40 pound cannon when they're stonewalling, the speaker gets out the 60 pound cannon. Boom. Let's really have an impact. So those are the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And they allow us to predict with high accuracy what's going to happen to a relationship. But that's kind of like the recipe for failure. And the recipe, the alternative recipe for constructive conflict resolution is interesting and useful in some way, but it doesn't give you enough information about what it is that in good relationships is really happening to maintain that intimacy in the relationship. And here's what we discovered about that from looking at the apartment lab. We actually came out with a number of principles that really could be useful in building a relationship. So let me tell you about these Principles. The first thing that we found was that in good relationships, friendship is extremely important. It's not just about conflict and how you deal with conflict. It's about intimacy and maintaining intimacy. Now the cool thing about being a researcher is you cannot just talk about things in vague terms. You have to really measure stuff. And so you have to be really precise about the advice you give. And what we found was there are three ingredients to friendship and that's all you needed to do was work on those three things and, and you could have an intimate friendship in your relationship. And here's what the three things are. First thing was to enhance what we call your love maps. Now what's a love map? It's an internal roadmap that you make up that you have in your mind about your partner's inner world, inner psychological world. So this is the whole dimension of being known, of feeling like your partner is really interested in knowing you, and of feeling like you want to know your partner. So it's about interest in one another and it's about knowing who are the main people in your partner's world. What's stressing your partner out, what's exciting, what are some of your partner's dreams and hopes and aspirations and values. Now how do you find that information out? Asking questions. So the fundamental process is really asking questions. Now, not questions like did the plumber come? Right? But open ended questions like how are you feeling about being a mother right now? How do you like this house? Do you want to change it? How are you thinking about your job right now? Have you changed? How would you like our life to be in the next five years? Those kinds of questions, they help build a love mat. Now the cool thing about this is some people make these love maps naturally and some people just don't do it. So when you talk to people who don't make love maps and you tell them about how important it is, they go, okay, so how do I do that? And if you show them how to do it, then they go, okay, I'll do it. Now if you want to really try changing your life in the area of relationships in the next two weeks, try making 50% of the things you say to people a question, an open ended question. Instead of making statements to people, ask them questions. And you'll find that people really change because people rarely ask questions. It's a very, very fundamental thing to do. And yet it's a very rare thing. People mostly make statements and broadcast rather than saying, well, what do you think about this? Asking those kinds of Questions. So love maps is the first ingredient of friendship. The second one is what we call fondness and admiration. And I mentioned that in the culture of appreciation, it's really about communicating affection and respect in very small ways. And that's what the masters are doing. They're creating this culture of appreciation in very tiny ways. They're saying, thank you. I'm proud of you. I really admire you. I respect you. And they're doing it often. Now, let me tell you about a couple that we saw. And this guy was very successful in his career, and he ran an intensive care unit for babies in a major hospital in Los Angeles. And he and his wife had been married for 17 years. And I talked to him about the very first date he had with his wife, and he said, God, you know, I was thinking that first date, that if all the women I'd ever met, she was the most vivacious, most exciting, the most beautiful, the most intelligent woman I'd ever met. I went, wow, now there's a fondness and admiration system, right? Now. The next thing I wanted to know was, did his wife know this, that he was thinking this on the first date? In fact, in 17 years, had he ever told her that he thought this about her? And so I asked her. I said, did you know this? She said, I never had a clue. So what's the fundamental thing in fondness and admiration? It can't stay in the brain. It's got to come out the mouth, right? So that's really what the masters are doing in very small ways. They're saying thank you. I mean, even for trivial things. Thanks for doing the dishes. You know, even if it's that person's turn to do the dishes. Right? A lot of couples say, well, why should I say thank you? I just do stuff. He does stuff. Why should we say thank you to each other? I don't get much appreciation. And I always say, do you like that? Do you like feeling unappreciated? No. Well, do you both feel unappreciated? Yes. Okay. So that's express appreciation. It's not very complicated. It's very simple. And it helps this habit of mind, right, where you're scanning the environment for things to appreciate. So that's love maps, Fondness and admiration. Right. Respect and affection. The third is something we learned from the apartment lab, is that when people are just hanging out, the way they build intimacy is in very tiny moments, they make little bids, bids for emotional connection. Now, at the lowest level, they're making bids for their partner's attention. Like for example, I can look out the window of the apartment lab where boats were going by and I can say, well, there's a pretty boat. Okay, now let's say that my wife says that and I'm cleaning my glasses, right? And she says, there's a pretty boat. No response. We call that turning away, right? Sometimes somebody be cleaning their glasses. Here's a pretty boat, huh? Now that's a pretty minimal response, right? But it's turning toward its some response. Sometimes people would turn toward a bid in a very enthusiastic way, like, there's a pretty boat. Wow, that is a pretty boat. You know, say, did you ever think, why don't we quit our jobs like and get a boat like that and just kind of sail off together? So we call that an enthusiastic turning toward, right? Rather than just, you know, a turning toward without enthusiasm. And what we found was very interesting that what happens if I make a bid for just her attention and she turns away? She doesn't respond at all. You know, what are the chances? I say, hey, there's a pretty boat. No response. I'm going to say, hey, Julie, I said, there's a pretty boat. You know, the probability of rebidding is almost zero in all relationships. It actually is zero in the couples, the newlyweds who wound up divorcing six years later. And 0.22 22% probability in couples who stayed together, still very low. Right? And in fact, on the videotape, what you see is if people, partners turn away, they kind of crumple a little bit, you know, and they do some face saving things like straightening up or petting the cat or something like that, but they don't rebid. That lack of connection is really painful. And we started realizing that in these very tiny moments of emotional connection, people are building kind of an emotional bank account in the relationship. They're building up points in that relationship that builds emotional connection. Okay? Those are the three components of intimacy. Making a love map, right? And updating it periodically by asking questions. Fondness and admiration and turning toward. Okay? Now when those three things are working, then it turns out people are in a state of mind that we call positive sentiment override. Now it's a fancy term, but it means that my positive sentiment for my wife and the relationship overrides momentary times when she's irritable or we're feeling a little distant. But if those three parts of friendship are not working very well, love maps, fondness and admiration and turning toward, then I'll be in negative sentiment override. And that Means I've got a chip on my shoulder, right? I mean, if I'm in negative sentiment override, she can come down one morning to the kitchen and say, in a very sweet way, you know, honey, you're not supposed to run the microwave when there's no food in it. And if I got that chip on my shoulder, I'm going to say, don't you tell me how to run the microwave. I'm the one who reads the manuals around here. You're not going to control and manipulate me. See, I've got a chip on my shoulder. I'm hyper vigilant for put downs. I'm in a negative state. And, you know, you can't tell me to not be so sensitive about the relationship, you know, to lighten up, not take it so personally. You can't tell me, well, she said it in a sweet way I can't get out of. Negative sentiment override, right? So research studies that have tried to change people's cognitive style about the relationship fail, and they fail for good reason. Because love maps aren't working. Fondness and admiration and turning toward aren't working. That's why I got that chip on my shoulder, right? But if they're working, I'm in positive sentiment override. She can say in a very irritable way, hey, you're not supposed to run the microwave with this little fooler. And if I'm in positive sentiment override, I'll say, okay, I'm not taking that personally. Right. You know, I'm seeing that as maybe she's stressed out. I'm thinking, this lady's very involved in the microwave today. I don't know why, you know, but not gonna ask her now, you know, but, you know, basically, you know, it's a buffer. Positive sentiment override is a buffer against irritability and emotional distance. And that brings me to conflict. Because what the Masters are doing during conflict is they're really able to repair the conflict when it's not going well. It's hard to change people's behavior when they're fighting. You know, it's very easy to get defensive. You know, if you feel attacked. It's very easy to become critical if you're upset, particularly if you put off your complaints for a long time. So everybody does that. But the Masters can repair. They can have a recovery conversation. And in fact, this dimension of repair is one of the most central dimensions about making relationships work well over time, everybody messes up, everybody gets defensive, everybody gets critical at times, insulting. You know, these things Happen. But the ability to really step back when you're calmed down and say, I'm sorry, you know, that didn't go very well. Can we talk about it and have that recovery conversation? That's something that the masters can do. Not only that, but the one thing we found about the masters that was so interesting was that they had a sense of humor during conflict. So how do you get people to have a sense of humor? Turns out that if you build love maps and fondness and admiration and turning toward, and we've done this experiment, then people's sense of humor increases, even during conflict. And they can repair and they can be affectionate during conflict. So friendship is the basis of regulating conflict. That's pretty interesting because you can change people's behavior in these very neutral moments, these tiny moments, like in the apartment lab, when they're just hanging out. It's not very emotional. It's not a big deal. And all you have to do is build awareness of these bids and the importance of turning toward. What we didn't expect, and this was a big surprise, is that not only are these three ingredients of friendship the basis for dealing with conflict in a constructive manner. Having a sense of humor and affection during times when you disagree, but they're also the basis of good sex, romance, and passion in the relationship. Now let me try to convince you of that. That. That makes sense. I have a book that is called 1001 Ways to Be Romantic. It's kind of an interesting book. Has a lot of really great suggestions, like, you know, some are addressed to husbands, some are addressed to wives. You know, and like, one says, don't send your wife a dozen roses. Send her a rose a day for 12 days. Kind of cool idea. You know, write a note with each rose. Kind of nice. Well, let's look at number 24, which turns out to be, again, addressed to guys. And it says, what could be more romantic than sending your wife a golden locket? Giving your wife a golden locket with your picture in it. Okay, let's think about that. Love maps, Fondness and admiration and turning toward, let's say, love maps. I haven't asked my wife a question in 17 years. Fondness and admiration. We were out to dinner a couple of nights ago, and she started telling a story. And I said, you're not going to tell that story. Nobody wants to hear that. That is so stupid. Just shut up. I said that in public. Okay. Fondness and admiration. I'm down too now, right? Bids and turning. You know, I don't even notice when she makes a bid. And then I give her a golden locket with my picture in it, right? And I ask you, is that going to be a romantic event in the relationship? I don't think so. Right. She's going to drive the SUV over it a couple of times, really flatten out that golden locket. What makes that event romantic? You know, if I write a poem and we go to our favorite restaurant and I toast to how beautiful her eyes are, and I read my stupid poem that I wrote, I choke up when I read it. Her eyes filled with tears. Because love maps, fondness and admiration and turning toward are working in the relationship. And so you really build sex and passion and romance in these very, very small moments of emotional connection. Now, we learned some surprising things about conflict as well. Let me tell you what we learned. First of all, we found that most conflicts in a marriage, in fact 69% of them, are never solved. When we study couples four years later, we find mostly they're talking about the same stuff in the same way. So that's kind of interesting. If it's not that changeable, then what do you do to make a difference in relationships? Well, by building these parts of the relationship, fondness and admiration and turning toward and love maps, you're actually working on that relationship itself, on the way conflict is dealt with in that relationship. But 69% of the time, we found that the same conflicts are perpetuated. And we wound up realizing that when you pick somebody to marry, you have automatically inherited your set of unresolvable relationship problems that you'll have for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Like in my marriage, for example, my wife has to have the house incredibly neat, and it has to look like a museum, whereas I am charmingly sloppy. Right. It's not going to change until she gets therapy. And she feels the same way about me. She says I'm organizationally impaired. So we have this perpetual issue. Well, most conflicts are perpetual issues. Now, by the way, if you married somebody else, you wouldn't have those conflicts. You'd have a different set. But every relationship has these perpetual problems due to these personality differences and the fact that we are much more forgiving toward ourselves than we are toward others. So we found two kinds of couples around these perpetual problems. One kind really had kind of a dialogue with perpetual problems. You know, it's not that the perpetual problems went away. It's that they had a relationship with the problems. They talked about them, and they figured out ways to cope. And to some extent, you could really say that marriages last to the extent that you've selected somebody that whose irritating qualities you can stand and where the perpetual problems are ones you can deal with. Whereas if there are perpetual problems that really make you nuts, then that relationship is not going to work out very well. And in fact, in the couples that really wound up getting divorced, their perpetual problems resulted in gridlock. This is my visual image of gridlock. Two fists in opposition, no compromise. Every time they talk about the issue, there's the four horsemen or they get emotionally disengaged, they hurt each other's feelings, they feel basically not accepted by their partner. That's gridlock, marital conflict. It's like a highway where all the cars are bumper to bumper, never goes anywhere, it never moves anywhere. It's just frustrating, it's just steamy, it's awful. And so the major problem in making relationships work around conflict is, is not resolving the conflict because most conflicts don't get resolved. It's moving a couple from gridlock to dialogue to where they're coping with the problem. Now what's the secret of that? That's a really interesting question, right? How do you move somebody from gridlock to dialogue? And what a lot of people will say, if you went to the library and read about marital therapy or relationships between couples, they would say, well, the reason these people aren't compromising about this perpetual problem they're not getting anywhere with. They're in opposition, they're entrenched in their position, they're polarized in their positions is because they have personality defects. He's a narcissist, she is borderline, she's hysterical. He's self centered and unempathetic, you know, and all these ways of describing inadequate personalities. But what we say is the opposite. We say if you look at the subtext of what they're arguing about, in other words, look underneath what they're fighting about. Maybe they're arguing ostensibly about money. They really disagree about spending and saving. And their philosophies about money are really very different. But you actually look at what they're talking about underneath that and you find that they're actually arguing about very different things than money. They're arguing about basic philosophical concepts that are very close to their sense of self. They're talking about freedom, they're talking about power. They're talking about caring and love. They're talking about what a home is, what it means to be a family. And so what does that mean? It means that within these fists, if you could make the relationship safe enough and open These fists, there would be a dream, a life dream within each position that would fly out like a dove. And the reason they're not compromising is really understandable. So instead of us saying to people, the reason you're not compromising is that you're arrested in an earlier stage of development. You're immature, you have a personality defect, we say, no wonder you couldn't compromise. You could no more compromise on this issue than you could respond to somebody who came up to you and said, excuse me, can I borrow your bones? You can't give people your bones, right? Or you die. And in the same way, you can't give up the bones of who you are. So we tell people the reason you're gridlocked is because you haven't looked at the dream within, the conflict, the life dream. And what you need to do is become a dream catcher and release those dreams, make the relationship safe enough. Ask questions, find out what the dreams are within this, each person's position, and what the history of those dreams are, what the life story is, the narrative behind each dream, and then find a way to honor both dreams. And once both dreams are honored, then the greatest sources of conflict and alienation in a relationship become the greatest sources of intimacy. Because what are you doing? You're building love maps at a deeper level, right? You're finding out something about meaning and purpose in people's lives. Now, for problems that could be solved, what we found was that 31% of the problems that could be solved, we found actually that the Masters were doing something really interesting. And to summarize what they were doing in one word, it was really gentleness. They were presenting issues in a very gentle way. And they were doing what we call soften startup. Instead of presenting it in a harsh way, they were presenting their issue in a very gentle way. And I learned a lot from this in my relationship. And I found that a lot of times I would get really upset with my wife, Julie, and I'd say to her, julie, you are so emotionally unavailable to me. What is wrong with you? And I found when I said that she did not want to spend more time with me, I don't know why. I was expressing my feelings very clearly. But then I watched the Masters do it. And so one day I said to her, you know, honey, I'm getting that old feeling again of being lonely. I really miss you. I just need more of you in my day. Not only that, but they expressed appreciation. So I said, you know, a couple of weeks ago, when we cuddled on the Couch. That was really so nice. How can we do that again? And she said, how about now? So it was the same complaint, right? But I softened the startup. In fact, rather than criticizing her, I was still expressing what I needed, which was more of her. I was really flattering her. I was really telling her how much I missed her, how much I needed her, how much I admired her, how important she was to me, and saying it very directly, which was what the masters were doing. The other thing we found is not only are the masters starting with general startup, but they're really accepting influence from. From one another. And in particular, guys are accepting influence from women. Now, that was a very interesting thing. And it emerged from studying violent relationships, a study I did with Neil Jacobson. And what we found was that these physically violent guys never said anything to their wives. Like, good point. I never thought of that. Everything they said was, no, you're not going to control and influence me. They rejected everything. They were like baseball players at batting practice. You know, whatever got tossed to them, they hit back. So we were very interested in that rejection of influence. And we went and looked at our newlyweds who were not violent to try to see what predicted whether they'd stay together or get divorced. And we looked at women accepting influence from men, men accepting influence from women. And it didn't predict with women. But for guys who came up to close to where the women were, because the women were accepting influence in all relationships at a pretty high level, the guys who were accepting influence, their relationship stayed together. And we're living through a period in history where women are being emancipated on an international scale in most nations, and they're being empowered economically, psychologically, politically, and after millennia of oppression. And the guys who realize that, this is a time to really honor women, and it makes a difference to honor your wife's dreams, it makes a difference to convey that honor. Just for example, like putting down the toilet seat after you go to the bathroom, you know, now it takes as much work for a woman to put it down as for a man to put it down. Putting it down. It really conveys that you're thoughtful and that you're honoring your partner. It's a small thing, but the men who accept influence from their partner will say, well, that's a good point. I never thought of that. Tell me more about your opinion. Let me consider that. Let me find out why you see things the way you see things. Those guys are way ahead of the game. Now, not only did the masters have gentle startup and did the guys accept influence? But also they moved toward compromise, and they were able to compromise. And one of the things they did was very interesting. And because we collected data on heart rate and blood flow velocity on physiology while people were interacting, we found that calming down was a very, very important part of this whole equation. When your heart rate gets above 100 beats a minute, your body starts secreting adrenaline and your arteries start constricting and blood flow shuts down to the gut and the kidney and you start sweating more. Blood pressure increases. The kidney starts producing a substance called renin, which leads to angiotensin, which also increases blood volume and blood pressure. All this stuff is going on. Well, it has adaptive value when you're trying to escape from a predator or there's a car coming in your lane and you have to get out of the way. Right? That's adaptive. But when you're in the middle of a marital discussion, this kind of physiological arousal is very maladaptive because you cannot process information very well. You can't be very creative. You're not a very good problem solver when your heart rate gets above 100 beats a minute. So what really has to happen is people have to calm down and take breaks and really calm themselves and self soothe. So in one study we did, we actually did this trick with people. We waited for their heart rate to get above 100 beats a minute. And we went out and said to the couple, we're having some trouble with our equipment. Would you stop talking about this problem until we repair it? And we gave them magazines to read right now. It wasn't true. The equipment was working. We waited actually for their heart rate to go down, down, down, down, down. And when it went back to baseline, we came in and said, okay, the equipment's working. Now you can talk about the issue again. Why did we do that? We wanted to see if it would be different with their discussion of the problem would be different when their heart rates were low than when they were high. I can tell you, for the most part, it was like a different relationship. When the heart rate was low, all of a sudden people had a sense of humor, they listened well, they were more creative problem solvers. So we learned from this that reducing flooding and physiologically reducing your arousal is a very important part. And one of the most important thing you can do to really make that happen is to take a break, call a timeout. And what we found in studying violent couples was that they never did that whenever they had a violent fight. There was one person who wanted to get away from the other and have a time out. And the other one would say, no way, you're not abandoning me. You're not having a time out. And so the conflict would escalate. So monitoring your physiological arousal is very important. Now, this is nobody's fault, right? I mean, when your heart rate gets up, you get defensive, you know, you're really in a state of fight or flight. And there's no way you can be a good problem solver and you can listen well. And that gets us to the final part of this theory. And these principles for making relationship work is the idea of shared meaning and a shared meaning system. And this is really one of the most important things about relationships, is that what people do in relationships that really work well is they feel like they're building something, something beyond just the two of them. They feel like being together has some meaning and purpose. And there are many ways in which people create meaning and purpose. Most people do it really unintentionally, without talking about it, without thinking about why they're doing what they're doing and what they're doing. One important way people build meaning is, is by the way they move through time together. Now, what I want to suggest to you is that every relationship, even if people come from the same race, the same religion, the same part of the country, the same ethnic group, every relationship is a cross cultural experience. So people create meaning thinking about their cultural legacy, their heritage. They think about their mission in life, what they want to leave the world with. And that relationship either supports that mission and legacy or not. They create meaning in the way they move through time together, right? They create meaning in how they think about themselves. As a son, as a daughter, as a friend, as a brother or sister, as a mother and a father, as a husband, a wife. And all of these ways, you know, in all of these roles and all of these ways, people create meaning. Now, you can do it intentionally or you can do it unintentionally, but if you do it intentionally, then you create the shared meaning system. And what are we doing there? We're really again, building love maps, right? So it really comes back to the beginning, to friendship. So let me summarize. There are really three parts to making a relationship. A successful relationship, the one that works out over time and gets better over time. One thing is really the quality of friendship. And all that you have to do for that is build love maps. Build fondness and admiration, which is affection and respect, and notice bids for connection, and turn toward your partner rather than away. And against. And when that happens, you're in a state of positive sentiment override rather than negative. And that helps you really repair. It helps you have a recovery conversation after a fight, helps you regulate the conflict and repair when it happens. And I also told you that during conflict, most problems don't get solved in a relationship. People just adapt to them. And when they don't adapt to them, it's because they're really gridlocked on a conflict. And those horrible conflicts, the worst ones, really can be the greatest sources of intimacy if you wind up opening those fists and releasing the dreams within the conflict and honoring one another's dreams. And that's actually the tip of the iceberg because it's part of creating a shared meaning system together. And that's what makes relationships work. Well, thank you very much for listening.

We hope you've enjoyed this special presentation of Dr. John Gottman's making Marriage Work. If you'd like to own a copy of this program or any of Better Life Media's programs, please visit our website@betterlifemedia.com where you'll find all types of valuable life improvement information.

Come on, Come on, Come on. It.