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November 20 - December 9, 2022
Rather than creating a climate of disagreement and resistance, they embrace each other’s needs.
Emotional intelligence has become widely recognized as an important predictor of a child’s success later in life. The more in touch with feelings and the better able a child is to understand and get along with others, the sunnier that child’s future, whatever his or her academic IQ.
an unhappy marriage can increase your chances of getting sick by roughly 35 percent and even shorten your life by an average of four to eight years.
Part of the answer may simply be that in an unhappy marriage people experience chronic, diffuse physiological arousal—in other words, they feel physically stressed and usually emotionally overwrought as well.
Researchers Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and Ron Glaser tested the effectiveness of other immune-system warriors: the natural killer cells, which, true to their name, destroy body cells that have been damaged or altered (such as infected or cancerous ones) and are also known to limit the growth of tumor cells. Again, subjects who were satisfied with their marriage had more effective natural killer cells than did the others.
Active listening asks couples to perform Olympic-level emotional gymnastics even if their relationship can barely walk.
If you find yourself keeping score about some issue with your spouse, that suggests it’s an area of tension in your marriage.
At the heart of the Seven Principles approach is the simple truth that happy marriages are based on a deep friendship. By this I mean a mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company.
Repair attempts are a secret weapon of emotionally intelligent couples—even though many of these couples aren’t aware that they are employing something so powerful.
When a discussion leads off this way—with criticism and/or sarcasm, which is a form of contempt—it has begun with a “harsh start-up.”
Usually these four horsemen clip-clop into the heart of a marriage in the following order: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling.
Contempt. The second horseman arises from a sense of superiority over one’s partner. It is a form of disrespect.
Its arrival is heralded when Dara literally sneers at her husband’s suggestion that they keep a list of his chores on the refrigerator to help him remember.
Dara’s sarcasm and cynicism are types of contempt. So are name-calling, eye-rolling, mockery, and hostile humor. In whatever form, contempt is poisonous to a
Recurring episodes of flooding lead to divorce for two reasons. First, they signal that at least one partner feels severe emotional distress when dealing with the other. Second, the physical sensations of feeling flooded—the increased heart rate, sweating, and so on—make it virtually impossible to have a productive, problem-solving discussion.
Because of these dissimilarities, most marriages (including healthy, happy ones) follow a comparable pattern of conflict in which the wife, who is constitutionally better able to handle the stress, brings up sensitive issues.
The husband, who is not as able to cope with it, will attempt to avoid getting into the subject. He may become defensive and stonewall. Or he may even become belligerent or contemptuous in an attempt to silence her.
You can see the seeds of trouble in (1) what partners actually say to each other (the prevalence of harsh start-up, the four horsemen, and the unwillingness to accept influence), (2) the failure of their repair attempts, (3) physiological reactions (flooding), or (4) pervasive negative thoughts about their marriage. Any of these signs suggests that, unless there is change in how the couple interact, emotional separation and, in most cases, divorce may only be a matter of
They were in touch not just with the outlines of each other’s lives—their favorite hobbies, sports, and so on—but with each other’s deepest longings, beliefs, and fears. No matter how busy they were, they made each other their priority—always taking the time to catch up on each other’s day. And at least once a week, they’d go out for dinner and just talk—sometimes about politics, sometimes about the weather, sometimes about their own marriage.
Fondness and admiration are two of the most crucial elements in a rewarding and long-lasting romance.
By simply reminding yourself of your spouse’s positive qualities—even as you grapple with each other’s flaws—you can prevent a happy marriage from deteriorating.
Catch your partner doing some little thing right and then offer a genuine appreciation like “I love the way you handled the teacher conference yesterday” or “Thanks for making my sister feel welcome here” or even “You look so hot in that outfit, I’m having all kinds of bad thoughts.”
When the researchers compared the scores the couple gave themselves with those of the objective observers, they discovered that couples who described themselves as unhappily married only noticed half of the positive interactions that actually occurred. Because they were so used to tuning in to their partner’s mistakes, they each missed a full 50 percent of their partner’s positive actions.
My partner really respects me. T F
I feel accepted and liked by my partner. T F
17. When I come into a room, my partner is glad to see me. T F
My partner appreciates the things I do in this marriage. T
My spouse generally likes my personality. T F
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.
marriage, couples are always making what I call “bids” for each other’s attention, affection, humor, or support.
Our research confirms the central role that bids play in a relationship. In our six-year follow-up of newlyweds, we found that couples who remained married had turned toward their partner’s bids an average of 86 percent of the time in the Love Lab, while those who ended up divorced had averaged only 33 percent.
look forward to spending my free time with my partner. T F 3. At the end of the day, my partner is glad to see me. T F 4. My partner is usually interested in hearing my views. T F 5. I really enjoy discussing things with my partner. T F
We just love talking to each other. T F
We always have a lot to say to each other. T F
We like to spend time together in similar ways. T F
We really have a lot of common interests. T F
We like to do a lot of the same things. T F
Even though our interests are somewhat different, I enjoy my partner’s interests. T F
Below 12: Your relationship could stand some improvement in this area. By learning to turn toward each other more during the minor moments in your day, you will make your marriage not only more stable but more romantic. Every time you make the effort to listen and respond to what your spouse says, to help him or her, you make your marriage a little better.
you find it difficult not to react defensively, first take five really deep breaths, counting slowly from one to six as you inhale and then slowly from seven to fifteen as you exhale. Then say to your partner, “I want to respond to you positively, so can you please tell me what you need right now from me? I really want to know.”
Although this has changed somewhat over the years, I still find that in heterosexual couples it tends to be the husband who gets caught up in trying to solve his partner’s problems.
But to paraphrase psychologist Haim Ginott, the cardinal rule is “Understanding must precede advice.”
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.”
A child’s expression of anger was seen as a moral failing, a sign of disrespect, or even an indication of mental illness. Growing up in such an environment can teach you to compartmentalize your emotions so you become a self-reliant problem-solver who avoids “feelings.”
5. Don’t ask “Why?” Here is a major exception to the suggestion that you ask open-ended questions: Avoid queries that start with “Why?” People who come from a problem-solving orientation tend to love this word. But in a discussion about what your partner is feeling, “Why?” will almost always sound like criticism. When you ask, “Why do you think that?” the other person is likely to hear, “Stop thinking that, you’re wrong!” A more successful approach would be, “What leads you to think that?” or, “Help me understand how you decided that.”
When someone is sad, usually it’s because they feel that they have lost someone or something.
has helped you bolster your marital friendship by updating your love maps, deepening your fondness and admiration, and increasing your tendency to turn toward each other.
Feel like I am going to get blamed for some problem. T
Fear a storm of negative emotion may be headed my way. T F
Assume I am about to get personally attacked. T F
