HAPPY COUPLES

There are common basic aspects that are important for most good marriages:  physical attraction, shared values, common goals(family and children, financial) and similar conflict styles.  But we all still have differences, misunderstandings, and arguments. All marriages have unsolvable problems. Life itself will bring challenges. Marriage is a very human experience. Someone said, “It is not only important to pick the right mate, but to be the right mate.”  Based on the research, those couples who manage their differences successfully are happy couples. They are being the right mate. So what do happy couples have in common? How are they being the right mate?  The list below is not meant to be exhaustive, but here are few things:

1. Happy couples nurture a culture of positivity. Successful relationships are not free of negative interactions. They simply have more positive ones and the abundance of the positive ones has the effect of overriding the negatives. John Gottman’s research reveals that happy couples have a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions. And what are examples of positive interaction?

Couples sustain a curiosity about each other’s world.  They inquire with each other about what’s going on emotionally, professionally, spiritually and physically. Those couples who succeed devote more cognitive room to their partners than those who fail. As they go through their separate days, they spend more time thinking about what their partner might be doing, and they remember to ask about what a partner’s day has been like when the couple is united.  They notice and acknowledge the positive aspects of their partner’s actions. They regularly express fondness and appreciation.  The idea is to catch your partner doing something right or thoughtful and saying, “Thanks for doing that.”  Or “Wow, you were great!”

2.  Happy couples have conflicts, but they don’t get nasty or withdraw. They are able to express feelings and emotional needs without blaming, criticizing, shaming or silencing themselves. They attend to conflict respectfully and accept that each other’s “subjective realities” may often be different.  They listen, take ownership of their own behavior and empathize. In that manner they repair their conflicts without allowing them to fester.  I find this issue to be the most challenging and important one in couples counseling—helping couples learn how to use their emotions and express emotional needs in a constructive, reparative way.

3. Happy couples turn toward each other, not away from or against each other. When people are just kind of hanging out they are often letting their needs be known to each other, verbally and nonverbally. This is the first unit of emotional connection.  They are asking for attention, interest, conversation, humor, affection, warmth, empathy, support and so on.  These tiny moments of emotional connection form an emotional bank account that grows and increases over time.

4.  Happy couples are able to support each other’s life dreams. A crucial aspect of any relationship is creating an atmosphere that encourages each person to talk honestly about his or her dreams, values, convictions and aspirations, as well as feel that the relationship supports those life dreams.

5. And finally, as a result of the attitude and actions described above, happy couples trust each other, which of course, is the foundation of all happy marriages.

Good Habits for Good Marriages (Part II)

Based on the research (John Gottman), criticism and contempt( as addressed in my last blog entry) are two of the more destructive behaviors in relationships. They seldom lead to any deeper understanding or resolution. In fact they only sabotage your attempts to communicate with your partner.  

Beneath both criticism and contempt lies a general tendency to assume that, if you are upset, somebody must have done something wrong.  Marriage researchers have discovered that most of the time this assumption is unwarranted, and that when partners are upset with each other, neither partner has done anything that is intrinsically wrong.  Sixty nine percent of marital upsets arise from conflicting values, priorities, beliefs, or personal tendencies for which there is no generally accepted standard.  Marriages start to slide when partners assume there is a “correct” standard to which they are entitled to hold their partners accountable. Some happily married couples argue a lot and some couples who argue a lot end up divorced. 

Consider the following questions:

• How much arguing is acceptable in marriage?
• How neat and organized should a couple’s life be?
• How important is it for the couple to talk about feelings?
• How much time should be spent with extended families?
• How much financial risk should be taken?

Studies suggest that there are a wide variety of legitimate opinions that partners can take on such questions. Happily married partners differ on scores of important values and priorities, but they have one thing in common:  They avoid assuming that their partner’s values, priorities or opinions are wrong, and instead assume that there are many potentially legitimate ways to live life.  People destined to succeed, understand that if you assume the worst of your partner, you’ll get the worst from your partner.  Instead they give their partners the benefit of the doubt; they assume that there lies a legitimate reason for their partner’s words or actions, even if they don’t know what it is yet.  Beneath even seemingly provocative behavior on the part of their partners, they assume that there are legitimate dreams or priorities that their partners are trying to obtain.

In contrast, when people who are destined to fail in their relationship are faced with words or actions from their partners that are upsetting to them, they assume that their partners are acting this way because they have misguided reasoning priorities, motivations, or intentions, or that their partners have faulty personality characteristics (e.g. my partner is just lazy, controlling, irresponsible, insensitive, etc.). 

Many of us grow up feeling that we don’t have the right to be upset with someone unless that person did something wrong.  So, when we find ourselves upset, we tend to automatically assume that the other person did something wrong—otherwise, we wouldn’t feel entitled to be upset.  Successful people find a way out of this dilemma, realizing that it is normal for people to get upset with each other when their expectations are at cross-purposes.  NOBODY HAS TO BE WRONG.

Good Habits for Good Marriages

While I believe it is important that couples learn to exercise good habits of communication to achieve a successful marriage, often times before a couple can begin to practice these  pragmatic habits, (based on sound research), they need to learn how to express long held negative feelings in a less blaming, constructive manner. By the time a couple enters my office, their negative reactive feelings are so automatic that no learning can take place until I help them shift their internal emotional states to a more non-blaming, empathic level.  The reality is that our emotional internal states are far more powerful than our cognitive abilities.  I will write more about this in a latter entry.  That being said, here is a blog entry regarding how successful couples communicate. 

One of the most important things we know about people who are destined to succeed in their relationships is that they deliver complaints differently from those who are destined to fail.  Researchers have found that 96% of the time the outcome of an argument can be successfully predicted after watching only the first three minutes of an interaction between partners.  People who want the cooperation and respect of their partners are able to express their dissatisfaction well; they know how to bring their complaints up gently.  They don’t beat around the bush, and they don’t sugarcoat what they have to say, but they do avoid criticizing or talking down to their partners.   Researchers call this ability, a soft startup (John Gottman, Seven Principles for Making Marriages Work).

A soft startup is a simple statement about something the person doesn’t like or something he or she would like to see changed, with an explanation as to why this is so. 

Here’s a soft start-up: You know honey, I just have to share something with you. When you speak to me in a certain tone, like you just did, I often feel hurt and unsure how to respond. I feel like you’re judging me. Do you know what I mean?  And then you have a calm open discussion, rather than engage in a defensive argument.

A harsh startup carries tones of criticism and contempt.

Here’s a harsh start-up: Rolling your eyes and grimacing a bit, you say, I should have known that you’d screw things up again….why do I even bother with you?  What you did was just stupid!   Contempt expresses superiority…Contempt involves thinking that your values, preferences or viewpoints are better or more correct than those of one's partner in any given situation. 

So obviously, couples who avoid criticism and contempt in their conversations and express their complaints "softly" have more success in resolving their differences.  I will write more about this in my next blog entry.