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January 7 - January 21, 2023
After tracking the lives of happily married couples for as long as twenty years, I now know that the key to reviving or divorce-proofing a relationship is not simply how you handle your disagreements but how you engage with each other when you’re not fighting.
Bolstering your friendship is so critical in large part because it fuels the romance, passion, and great sex that we all hope marriage will provide.
I have found that many married couples fall into a similar (if less dramatic) habit of inattention to the details of their spouse’s life. One or both partners may have only the sketchiest sense of the other’s joys, likes, dislikes, fears, stresses.
emotionally intelligent couples are intimately familiar with each other’s world. I call this having a richly detailed love map—my term for that part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about your partner’s life. Another way of saying this is that these couples have made plenty of cognitive room for their marriage.
From knowledge springs not only love but the fortitude to weather marital storms. Couples who have detailed love maps of each other’s world are far better prepared to cope with stressful events and conflict.
There are few greater gifts a couple can give each other than the joy that comes from feeling known and understood.
The more you know about each other’s inner world, the more profound and rewarding your relationship will be.
Getting to know your spouse better and sharing your inner self with your partner is an ongoing process. In fact, it’s a lifelong process.
If a couple still have a functioning fondness and admiration system, their marriage is salvageable.
Fondness and admiration are two of the most crucial elements in a rewarding and long-lasting romance. Although happily married couples may feel driven to distraction at times by their partner’s personality flaws, they still feel that the person they married is worthy of honor and respect.
Of course, some marriages do come up empty. In these relationships, the antagonism has metastasized like a virulent cancer, actually spreading backward in time and destroying the couple’s positive memories.
94 percent of the time, couples who put a positive spin on their marriage’s history and their partner’s character are likely to have a happy future as well. When happy memories are distorted, it’s a sign that the marriage needs help.
The simple reason is that fondness and admiration are antidotes for contempt. If you maintain a sense of respect for your spouse, you are less likely to act disgusted with him or her when you disagree. So fondness and admiration prevent you from being trounced by the four horsemen.
Without the fundamental belief that your spouse is worthy of honor and respect, where is the basis for any kind of rewarding relationship? Yet it is possible for your fondness and admiration to recede to barely detectable levels and still be revivable. In such a case, the key to reinvigorating fondness and admiration is to get in the habit of scanning for qualities and actions that you can appreciate. And then, let your partner know what you’ve observed and are grateful for.
Sometimes couples resist searching for and expressing gratitude for their spouse’s positive behavior because, they tell me, doing so feels “phony” to them. But developing a positive habit doesn’t “sugarcoat” a relationship. Instead it resets it to a more realistic perspective.
There’s nothing complicated about reviving or enhancing your fondness and admiration. Even long-buried positive feelings can be exhumed simply by thinking and talking about them. You can do this by meditating a bit on your partner and what makes you treasure him or her.
When you acknowledge and openly discuss positive aspects of your partner and your marriage, your bond is strengthened. This makes it much easier to address the problem areas in your marriage and initiate positive changes.
Cherishing is a habit of mind in which, when you are separated during the course of the day, you maximize thoughts of your partner’s positive qualities and minimize thoughts of negative ones. This active focusing on your partner’s merits allows you to nurture gratefulness for what you have instead of resenting what is missing.
I rarely see small moments of connection in the tapes of couples who later divorce or report their marriage has permanently soured.
Hollywood has distorted our notions of romance and what makes passion sizzle. Watching Humphrey Bogart gather teary-eyed Ingrid Bergman into his arms may make your heart pound, but real-life romance is fueled by far more humdrum scenes. It is kept alive each time you let your spouse know he or she is valued during the grind of everyday life.
In marriage, couples are always making what I call “bids” for each other’s attention, affection, humor, or support. Bids can be as minor as asking for a backrub or as significant as seeking help in carrying the burden when an aging parent is ill. The partner responds to each bid either by turning toward the spouse or turning away. A tendency to turn toward your partner is the basis of trust, emotional connection, passion, and a satisfying sex life.
There’s a reason that seemingly small events are fundamental to a relationship’s future: Each time partners turn toward each other, they are funding what I’ve come to call their emotional bank account. They are building up savings that, like money in the bank, can serve as a cushion when times get rough, when they’re faced with a major life stress or conflict. Because they have stored an abundance of goodwill, such couples are less likely to teeter over into distrust and chronic negativity during hard times.
Sometimes, and especially if a relationship is going through a rocky period, a spouse may not recognize when the partner is making a bid for connection because it comes out sounding negative.
we have found that the most effective one is the first: “Reunite at the end of the day and talk about how it went.” This is because such discussions can be vital stress reducers that help you manage tensions outside your relationship.
When someone you love expresses pain, it is natural to want to fix the problem or make the person feel better. But oftentimes your spouse isn’t asking you to come up with a solution at all—just to be a good listener or offer a ready shoulder to cry on. So unless your partner has specifically asked for help, don’t try to fix the problem, change how your partner feels, or rescue him or her. Instead, your motto should be “Don’t do something, just be there!”
I’m not suggesting that it is never appropriate to problem-solve when your partner is upset. But to paraphrase psychologist Haim Ginott, the cardinal rule is “Understanding must precede advice.” You have to let your partner know that you fully understand and empathize with the dilemma. Only then will he or she be receptive to suggestions.
If your mate is feeling all alone in facing some difficulty, express solidarity. Let him or her know that the two of you are in this together.
Let your partner know that his or her feelings make sense to you. Phrases that communicate this include “Yeah, that is really so sad,” “That would have me worried, too,” and “I can see why you’d be annoyed about that.”
No one knows you better than your spouse. Sometimes advice may be just what you’re looking for. The best strategy is to talk about what you’d each like from the other when you’re feeling stressed.
After years of studying couples in the lab and working with them directly, it has become clear to me that happy couples live by the credo “When you are in pain, the world stops and I listen.”
Usually this very common tendency to turn away from negative emotions is rooted in childhood.
Growing up in such an environment can teach you to compartmentalize your emotions so you become a self-reliant problem-solver who avoids “feelings.” Because life presents us with plenty of hurdles, having a talent for problem-solving is certainly an asset. But in order to achieve real intimacy, you also need to be there for your partner, to see the world from his or her perspective and to empathize with negative feelings.
A more successful approach would be, “What leads you to think that?” or, “Help me understand how you decided that.”
When someone is sad, it’s a common response to attempt to make them smile, laugh, or otherwise erase their blues. But unless your partner asks for assistance in shaking the mood, it’s usually more helpful to listen to sadness rather than trying to relieve it.
Search out the goal and obstacle. Behind most anger is the feeling of being blocked from reaching a goal.
Anger is not always rational, and you may not agree with your partner’s perspective or his or her level of upset. But that doesn’t change your job, which is to ask questions without judgment and express understanding and empathy.
More commonly, I have found that when one spouse feels the other doesn’t connect enough, the cause is a disparity in their respective needs for intimacy and independence.
In our long-term study of 130 newlywed couples, whom we followed for nine years, we found that, even in the first few months of marriage, men who allowed their wives to influence them had happier relationships and were less likely to eventually divorce than men who resisted their wives’ influence. Statistically speaking, when a man is not willing to share power with his partner there is an 81 percent chance that his marriage will self-destruct.
An overly compliant wife who doesn’t feel empowered to ever reject her spouse’s influence would likely become depressed, which is detrimental to both her health and the relationship. So perhaps it is a lesser evil for a wife to escalate conflict somewhat rather than fully comply.
Some men claim that religious conviction requires them to be in control of their marriages and, by extension, their wives. But no religion I know of says that a man should be a bully.
Our research has included couples who believe the man should be the head of the family as well as couples who hold egalitarian viewpoints. In both kinds of marriages, emotionally intelligent husbands have figured out the one big thing: how to convey honor and respect. All spiritual views of life are consistent with loving and esteeming your spouse. And that’s what accepting influence is all about. After all, do you really want to make decisions that leave your wife feeling disrespected? Is that really consistent with religious beliefs? It is not.
When a husband accepts his wife’s influence, he also strengthens their friendship. This occurs not just because the absence of frequent power struggles makes the marriage more pleasurable, but because such a husband is open to learning from his wife.
the plain truth is that “girlish” games offer far better preparation for marriage and family life because they focus on relationships. Boys don’t often include games with relationship and domestic themes in their repertoire.
Many young husbands discover they have a lot to learn from their wives about maintaining a home.
About 35 percent of the men we’ve studied are emotionally intelligent. Research from previous decades suggests the number used to be much lower. Because this type of husband honors and respects his wife, he will be open to learning more about emotions from her. He will come to understand her world and those of his children and friends. He may not emote in the same way that his wife does, but he will learn how to better connect with her emotionally. As he does so, he’ll make choices that show he esteems her. When she needs to talk, he’ll turn off the basketball game and listen. He will choose
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I believe the emotionally intelligent husband is the next step in social evolution. This doesn’t mean that he is superior to other men in personality, upbringing, or moral fiber. He has simply figured out something very important about being married that the others haven’t—yet. And that is how to honor his wife and convey his respect for her. It is really that elementary.
And when you have a conflict, the key is to be willing to compromise. You do this by searching through your partner’s request for something you can agree to.
Nobody can change old habits overnight. But if you’re able to take responsibility for your difficulty with power-sharing, that will be a major leap forward. Your spouse is likely to feel a great sense of relief and renewed optimism about improving your marriage. The next step is to make your partner an ally in your crusade to overcome this problem.
A willingness to share power and to respect the other person’s view is a prerequisite for compromising. For that reason, becoming more adept at accepting influence will especially help you better cope with marital conflict—
Although you may feel your situation is unique, we have found that all marital conflicts, ranging from mundane annoyances to all-out wars, really fall into one of two categories: either they can be resolved, or they are perpetual, which means they will be a part of your lives forever in some form or another.
