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October 12 - December 27, 2020
Negative emotions are important. Although it is stressful to listen to your partner’s negative feelings, remember that successful relationships live by the motto “When you are in pain, the world stops and I listen.”
Acceptance is crucial. It is virtually impossible for people to heed advice unless they believe the other person understands, respects, and accepts them for who they are. When people feel criticized, disliked, or unappreciated, they are unable to change.
Focus on fondness and admiration. If you or your spouse finds it hard to accept each other’s perspective, it may help if you work more on the exercises in chapter 5 (“Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration”). I have found that a robust fondness-and-admiration system is central to remaining happily married—foibles and all.
Perhaps the most important quality of this exchange is the virtual absence of the four horsemen. There is no criticism, contempt, defensiveness, or stonewalling.
The reason these harbingers of doom don’t make an appearance is that Justine’s start-up is soft.
Only 40 percent of the time do couples divorce because they are having frequent, devastating fights. More often marriages end because, to avoid constant skirmishes, husband and wife distance themselves so much that their friendship and sense of connection are lost. That’s why
The best soft start-up has four parts: (1) “I share some responsibility for this …” (2) Here’s how I feel … (3) about a specific situation and … (4) here’s what I need … (positive need, not what you don’t need).
These are soft start-ups because they are direct complaints rather than criticisms or contemptuous accusations.
If you are the one more responsible for harsh start-ups in your relationship, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to the fate of your marriage to soften up. Remember: If you go straight for the jugular, you’re going to draw plenty of blood.
Softening your start-up will be easier if you constantly remind yourself that it is the optimum strategy for resolving the conflict.
Complain but don’t blame. Remember: “I feel …”; about what? … ; and “I need …”
Make statements that start with “I” instead of “You.”
“You are not listening to me” versus “I would like it if you’d listen to me.” “You are careless with money” versus “I want us to save more.” “You just don’t care about me” versus “I’m feeling neglected.”
Describe what is happening. Don’t evaluate or judge.
Be clear about your positive need. Don’t expect your partner to be a mind reader. Instead of, “You left the kitchen a total mess,” say, “I’d appreciate it if you would clean your stuff off the kitchen table.”
4. You’re upset that you have not made love in some time. You’re feeling unsure that your partner finds you attractive. You wish that the two of you could make love tonight. Harsh start-up: You’re always so cold to me! Your softened alternative:
What separates stable, emotionally intelligent marriages from others is not that their repair attempts are necessarily more skillful or better thought out but that repair attempts get through to the spouse.
Because repair attempts can be difficult to hear if your relationship is engulfed in negativity, the best strategy under such circumstances is to make your attempts obviously formal in order to emphasize them.
Although mother-in-law jokes told by men are a traditional staple of comedy routines, the real family tension is more frequently between the wife and her mother-in-law.
At the core of the tension is a turf battle between the two women for the husband’s love. The wife is watching to see whether her husband backs her or his mother. She is wondering, “Which family are you really in?” Often the mother is asking the same question. The man, for his part, just wishes the two women could get along better. He loves them both and does not want to have to choose. The whole idea is ridiculous to him. After all, he has loyalties to each, and he must honor and respect both. Unfortunately, this attitude often throws him into the role of peacemaker or mediator, which
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The solution: The only way out of this dilemma is for the husband to side with his wife against his mother.
But he has to stand with his wife and not in the middle. He and his wife need to establish their own family rituals, values, and lifestyle and insist that his mother (and father) respect them.
In the end, David’s message was loud and clear: She comes first, Mom. Get used to it. “That’s when our real marriage began,” Janie recalls. “When he let his mother know that I was now first in his heart.”
What is the key to sexual satisfaction in a long-term relationship? In our study of couples with young children (a high-stress time in most marriages), we found that those whose sex lives were good to great made sex a priority rather than considering it the last obligation on a long to-do list. These couples talked about their sex life, ensured they had one-on-one time together, and put the relationship first, despite the competing demands of work and children. They also found sexual satisfaction through diverse methods, not just intercourse. In short, they had high levels of trust and were
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So often when a husband and wife talk to each other about their sexual needs, their conversations are like this—indirect, imprecise, inconclusive. Frequently both partners are in a hurry to end the discussion, hopeful that they will miraculously understand each other’s desires without much talk. They rarely say things like “I love it when you stroke my breasts for a long time the way you did last night” or “I really need you every day” or “Morning is my favorite time for making love,” and so on.
The problem is that the less clear you are about what you want, the less likely you are to get it. Sex can be such a fun way to share with each other and deepen your sense of intimacy. But when communication is fraught with tension, then frustration and hurt feelings too often result.
When sex becomes about technique rather than passion and communication, the result is sexual anxiety. Men worry about their erections. Women worry about achieving orgasm. Both become self-conscious, and it all becomes difficult to talk about.
Be gentle and positive. Because most people feel so vulnerable about whether they are attractive to their spouse and a “good” lover, the key to talking about sex is not to criticize your partner.
A conversation about lovemaking that starts with one partner criticizing the other is going to end faster than a “quickie.” Nothing is guaranteed to make your spouse want to touch you less than if you say, “You never touch me.” It’s better to say, “I loved when we kissed last weekend on the big couch. I’d love more of that, it makes me feel so good.” Likewise, instead of, “Don’t touch me there,” you’ll get a better response if you say, “It feels extra good when you touch me here.”
Don’t take it personally. I know this sounds contradictory because sex is so intimate, but to an enormous degree, what turns your partner on or off isn’t about you! Sexual proclivities are so deeply entrenched and idiosyncratic that the goal of lovemaking is to explore what works for each of you. It isn’t an implied criticism of your attractiveness, sexual virility, lovemaking skill, or innermost being if your partner likes it harder, softer, more or less kinky, with or without lingerie or dirty talk, etc.
What do you need to make sex better? What do you need to put you in the mood?
Your sex life will benefit if you keep your sexual maps up to date. This requires talking about the experience from time to time as a way of taking each other’s sexual “temperature.”
When we followed up on couples who attended our Seattle workshops, we wondered what would distinguish those couples whose marriages continued to improve from those whose marriages did not. Would we find that the successful group had dramatically overhauled their lives? Far from it. To our surprise, we discovered that they were devoting only an extra six hours a week to their marriage.
Reunions. We recommend a hug and a kiss that lasts at least six seconds. The six-second kiss is worth coming home to. Also, be sure to engage in a stress-reducing conversation at the end of each workday for at least 20 minutes.
Admiration and appreciation. Find some way every day to communicate genuine affection and appreciation toward your spouse. Genuinely say, “I love you.”
Affection. Show each other physical affection when you’re together during the day, and make sure to always embrace before going to sleep. Even if on occasion your goodnight kiss just lasts for microseconds, think of it as a way to let go of any minor irritations that have built up over the day. In other words, always lace your kiss with forgiveness and tenderness for your partner.
State of the union meeting. Select one hour a week to talk about your relationship this week. Keep this time sacred. Begin by talking about what went right. Then give each other five appreciations you haven’t yet expressed. Try to be specific. Next, discuss any issues that may have arisen.
Yet these six hours will help enormously in keeping your marriage on track.
He has found that people with the greatest expectations for their marriage usually wind up with the highest-quality marriages.
This suggests that by holding your relationship to high standards, you are far more likely to achieve the kind of marriage you want than you are by looking the other way and letting things slide.
Here is a list of questions to ask yourselves once a week.
Instructions: Use this questionnaire to assess how things went in your marriage today (or lately) and whether you want to bring up any issues. Check as many as you think apply. If you check more than four, think about talking things over gently with your partner, within the next three days.
If you consider yourself inadequate, you are always on the lookout for what is not there in yourself and your partner. And let’s face it: anyone you marry will be lacking in certain desirable qualities. The problem is that we tend to focus on what’s missing in our mate and overlook the fine qualities that are there—we take those for granted.
Expressions of thanksgiving and praise are the antidotes to the poison of criticism and its deadly cousin, contempt. The following exercise will start you on this path.
