Relational problems associated with family upbringing or one’s primary support group are common stressors that come up in therapy, especially for those seeking strategies and support around conflict-resolution.
Can you think of a recent conversation in which you felt judged, bullied, blamed, or criticized by your partner? Do you find yourself becoming defensive within communication or reacting in anger during difficult conversations, only to feel more disconnected and dissatisfied in your relationship(s)?
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When we enter into long-term relationships—and certainly marriages—we may keep in our mind a list of the things we’d like to get from (and, one hopes, are willing to give to) a partner. Recent research suggests certain gestures are especially important for fostering satisfaction and are closely associated with couples’ long-term success. Collectively, these can be thought of as a Relationship Bill of Rights.
“Expectations are essential, and if you’re not expecting good stuff, then you very likely won’t get it,” says social psychology professor Eli Finkel, who directs the Relationships and Motivation Lab at Northwestern University and is the author of The All-Or-Nothing Marriage. “We should be honest with ourselves about what things are essential for us to get through the marriage, focus on those things, and let the other things go.”
This goal, he says, shouldn’t be put aside when couples face conflict, because every partner has the right to disagree—and to be imperfect. “It’s constructive to think of difficulties not only as unpleasant circumstances to be endured but also as opportunities to learn about each other and deepen the relationship,” Finkel says. “I’m optimistic about people’s ability to make progress on problems.” But he notes that resolution is more likely if partners’ beliefs about relationships are not based on the theory that people must find the one and only individual who’s perfect for them. The idea that any given partner is “meant to be”—or not—can make someone more likely to discard a relationship when hard times hit, convinced that the search for an ideal mate needs to continue elsewhere.
The following rights have consistently been found to form a baseline that gives couples the best chance of going the distance.
Your partner’s attention is likely to improve your satisfaction with a relationship, whether it’s spontaneous—like an unexpected afternoon text that makes you smile—or in response to your requests. A 2017 study on relationship experiences published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that on the days when their partners had supported them or said something that made them feel loved, people reported higher relationship quality.
Couples often show attention to each other in the little things they do. Jennyvi Dizon, 37, a fashion designer in New York City, is touched every time her husband of 15 years picks up a treat for her at the grocery store or remembers that she needs almond milk for her breakfast. “He says it’s his job to remember,” she says. “He really believes in the saying, ‘Happy wife, happy life.'” In return, she makes a point of tucking him in when he goes to bed every night, though she herself often doesn’t go to sleep until a few hours later.
How to get it: If your partner is kind, but not naturally attentive, it may help to explain the sort of attention you need and then to give positive feedback when you get it. And if busy schedules conspire to keep you from each other, engineer some together time. As Finkel explains, “Spouses who spend more time together engaged in actual conversation tend to be happier than those who spend less. And spouses who pursue more leisure activities together—including outdoor activities, sports, card games, and travel—are at reduced risk of divorce.”
Proposed amendment: The arrival of a child typically causes couples to take a short-term happiness hit because their attention is diverted from each other to the new addition; newborns in particular tend to be quite vocal about their own rights. New parents spend less time talking or doing activities together, and their relationship satisfaction declines as a result, making this a time to be even more conscious of finding or making moments to focus on each other.
All long-term relationships encounter sore spots and conflicts. Ignoring these problems won’t make them go away, even if partners do so because they sincerely don’t want to pick a fight. “No relationship can thrive when the two parties hold in frustrations that need to be shared and resolved,” says Leon Seltzer, a clinical psychologist in Del Mar, California. “When couples stop trying to work out their differences and revert to passivity to keep the peace, they hold more and more inside of them and their alienation grows. The frustrations tend to leak out through sarcastic, taunting remarks, thinly veiled criticisms, or increasing inattention to the other’s needs.”
Addressing problems as they arise improves spouses’ psychological well-being and ratings of marital quality, especially for women. One study of 205 married couples found that wives who believed that their husbands did more emotional work were more satisfied with their relationships.
Once differences are out in the open, even those that might have seemed irreconcilable in one’s imagination can often be addressed with a compromise or a conscious agreement to disagree. “You can learn to validate the hardcore differences that exist—and will always exist—between you and your mate,” Seltzer says. Consider a scenario in which one partner is far more extraverted than the other. Rather than sitting at home seething, or endlessly haranguing a husband or wife who doesn’t want to go out, partners who open a conversation might discover that their mate really doesn’t mind if they sometimes socialize without them.
Monica and Melvin Pullen, both 42, of Lititz, Pennsylvania, had been married for about four years, and were expecting their first child, when they bought their first home with the understanding that both would continue to work. However, once their daughter arrived, “I knew immediately that I didn’t want to return to work,” Monica says. But she kept it to herself. After about six months, the family started to feel the financial strain. Finally, she confessed her feelings. “He was fine with my staying home; we would just need to downsize.” As they prepared to do that, a new job came along for Melvin that allowed them to get by without needing to move. Still, Monica says, “the experience taught us to be upfront, open, and honest about what we want, regardless of the outcome.”
How to get it: “The party that initiates the discussion must do so with tact, diplomacy, and restraint—and the willingness to respect the other’s reluctance to engage on a topic that might make them feel very vulnerable,” Seltzer says. If your partner is prone to conflict avoidance or stonewalling, you may need to maneuver around those defense mechanisms: “I know this topic makes you uncomfortable, and that’s the last thing I want, but I think pushing it under the rug is keeping us from being closer. Can we talk about this in a way that helps us both understand why it’s so button-pushing? I want us to be closer and more trusting of each other.”
The discussion should help each of you better understand the other’s needs—and you’re both entitled to a partner who will validate your position, even if they don’t agree with it. “Resolution doesn’t always take the form of one person having to change their views or behavior,” Seltzer says. “It’s empathic understanding that minimizes the conflict.”
Proposed amendment: In some cases, as a couple ages, confronting problems head-on can actually lose some of its positive effect and even turn counterproductive. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Family Psychology suggests that for older wives, more marital “work” is associated with decreased satisfaction with their union. A research team led by Jakob Jensen of East Carolina University proposed that as we age, our marital priorities shift away from conflict resolution and toward maximizing the emotional rewards of maintaining a relationship.
This is a right well worth defending, in part because it appears to deliver significant benefits to both partners.
The stark division of household labor that was nearly ubiquitous in households of the past is less common today, with both outside earnings and domestic responsibilities more likely to be shared by partners. A 2018 study, published in Socius and led by Daniel Carlson of the University of Utah, compared national data from the early 1990s and 2006 and found that contemporary couples shared more household tasks than did couples in even the recent past, and that this advantaged many aspects of their relationships, starting with their sex lives. “Sharing housework is associated with greater feelings of fairness, teamwork, and overall relationship quality,” Carlson says. “In particular, feelings of teamwork—communication, cooperation, and shared vision—are important to sexual intimacy.” These feelings foster a partnership based on reciprocity and mutual gratification, he has found, improving a relationship’s quality and lowering the risk of its dissolution.
It isn’t necessary that couples split the work precisely in two, research finds—which is fortunate, because most couples still do not do so. In about 31 percent of families with two parents working full-time, women still handle more household chores and responsibilities; 59 percent report that they share them equally. And in more than half of these families, women continue to do more to handle children’s schedules and activities, according to 2015 data from the Pew Research Center. But Carlson’s work still shows measurable benefits to a couple’s sex life as long as neither partner does more than 65 percent of the domestic work. Partners tend to be satisfied with relationships in which the work is divided, not necessarily equally, Carlson says, but in a way they both feel is fair.
How to get it: Discuss your expectations with your partner. “I would even recommend writing down the tasks that you have and coming up with a plan to divide them and then track their completion,” Carlson says. “Partners—men especially—often don’t see that they are not contributing to the degree they promise, so having something concrete to point to can be helpful.”
“We had a lot of fights about housework,” says Anna Aquino, 40, of Canal Winchester, Ohio. “The majority of it wouldn’t get done or would fall to me. Because I work from home, I understand I can have more to do, but I would get frustrated, and my husband would get annoyed when things weren’t done. It didn’t seem fair to anyone.” The couple finally agreed to post a chore chart on the fridge. “It saves a load of fights,” she says. The day-to-day chores aren’t split down the middle, since Aquino’s husband works more outside the home, but she says both partners are happier now because “it’s pretty fair all around and everyone agreed to it.”
Proposed amendment: When it comes to sharing domestic responsibilities, couples don’t need to aim for a specific target, but should work to find the breakdown that serves their relationship best. “You could have a good relationship with someone doing 100 percent of the household work,” Finkel says. Your partner might actually love cooking, cleaning up, and caring for kids or pets, while you feel more fulfilled by work and hobbies. “If a couple sees that as fair,” Carlson says, “they certainly can be happy.”
What are partners entitled to in the bedroom? The answer will vary from couple to couple, but the research finds that it’s not necessarily the presence or absence of sexual activity, a specific schedule or frequency, or even the pleasure derived from it that is most associated with relationship satisfaction. What matters is that both partners’ expectations, whatever they are, are met. That’s why two people can sincerely find satisfaction in a sexless relationship: If neither expects sex, nor seeks it, its absence doesn’t affect how they feel about each other. But sexual expectations can and do change over time, and it’s crucial for a couple’s satisfaction that partners communicate shifts in both their desire and their capability.
“It’s the disparity in partner preferences, whether for frequency or type of stimulation, that can potentially result in the greatest unhappiness,” says sex and marital therapist Michael A. Perelman, a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. When such a disparity exists, “communication and compromise skills become critical to mutual satisfaction.” Both partners need to be upfront about their expectations and help their partner understand them. From this place, a mutually agreeable plan can be drafted. If never-uttered sexual concerns are leading one partner to question his or her place in the relationship, the other partner has the right to hear about it, no matter how awkward the ensuing conversation may be.
How to get it: Find a comfortable time to talk about the issues, Perelman advises. For some, it might be while relaxing in bed, a setting that can lead to openness and intimacy; for others, he says, such a conversation will best be broached over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, “in any comfortable place that affords privacy.” Try a gentle opener: “I have a few thoughts about our sex life I’d like to discuss, if that works for you.”
Proposed amendment: Partners should never criticize each other during sexual activity (unless something is uncomfortable or painful). If you’re hesitant to start a conversation, you might unilaterally consult a sex therapist first. “Even if only one person in the couple seeks assistance, it’s highly likely that some relief can be found,” Perelman says.
Sexual passion may wax or wane over time in any long-term relationship, but it’s important that affection carry on. “Giving and receiving affection is associated with feelings of pleasure, acceptance, happiness or contentment, and a sense of being loved or cared for,” says Anita Vangelisti, a communications professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has studied affection’s effects, specifically in the early years of marriage. She has found that hearing “I love you,” and receiving physical affection outside of sexual intercourse, among other behaviors, predicts higher marital satisfaction for both men and women.
While expressions of affection typically become a little less frequent over time, she says, “partners who maintain relatively high levels tend to be happier.” Research on the physiology of affection has also shown that giving and receiving it are associated with the release of oxytocin, as well as the regulation of stress hormones throughout the day, enhancing well-being and enabling each partner to manage stress more successfully.
How to get it: “Ask for it,” Vangelisti says. You can start by giving more affection to your partner. “Once your partner sees you giving them more affection, they may reciprocate.” You can try to arrange more opportunities for affection by planning relaxed time together. “If one or both of you are always busy and rushing around, it’s more difficult to give and receive affection.”
And don’t fear that “manufacturing” affectionate behaviors, or the opportunities for them, will strip them of their power. Research by Brittany Jakubiak of Syracuse University and Brooke Feeney of Carnegie Mellon University has shown that people felt more secure and trusting in a relationship, and more confident that it would endure, after a partner held their hand or threw an arm around their shoulder, even if they were told that the partner had been instructed to show them affection.
Proposed amendment: Be clear about the type of affection you seek and make sure you and your partner both understand how you each define the term. If they think they’re showing affection by taking your car to get washed, while you want hugs and a whispered “I love you,” that’s the kind of misunderstanding that can erode satisfaction with a relationship.
Relationships flourish when couples attribute the best of intentions to each other all the time. This means that, yes, your partner really should view you through rose-colored glasses, idealizing you in normal circumstances and forgiving you relatively easily when you fall short. “A little bit of positive illusion is better,” Finkel says. “It’s easy to go down rabbit holes of perceived slights, but if we have a general view that our partner is loving and at core a decent person—maybe even more decent than they really are—then when we do have difficulties, we’re better at overcoming them. Some amount of self-delusion is linked to better relationship quality.”
Relationship satisfaction typically starts falling immediately after a couple says “I do,” but many studies have pointed toward a prescription for sustaining it. In just one recent example, Sandra Murray of the University at Buffalo found that partners who continue to idealize their spouse, even somewhat unrealistically, experience less decline in satisfaction with the marriage over three years than people who cannot maintain the same belief.
How to get it: “We have a lot of latitude in how we perceive our partner’s behavior,” Finkel says. If you show up late to an important event, your partner could label you inconsiderate—or remember that you’ve been overwhelmed at work but are still trying to get everything done. If you or your partner tend more toward reflexively blaming the other, try thinking about the situation from the perspective of a neutral third party who wants the best for both of you. “It gets us out of our myopia and gives us a broader perspective,” Finkel says. Implementing some psychological distance can help you and your partner feel less angry about conflicts and should strengthen the relationship over time.
Proposed amendment: Beware of the doormat effect. “We have studies showing that if someone is highly forgiving, with no amends made, or if a partner is always difficult, forgiveness may still have beneficial consequences, but it undermines the aggrieved party’s self-respect,” Finkel says. If a problem festers over time, the relationship is likely to suffer. Minor flaws or occasional missteps can be sugarcoated, but more serious issues must be addressed and ideally resolved.
“It’s a shared responsibility,” Finkel says. Partners need to own up to hurtful things they’ve done and express regret, even if they don’t fully believe they are in the wrong. For the hurt partner, there’s a lot of benefit in both hearing an apology and seeing amends. It can help you both put infractions in the past. “Let them be speed bumps, rather than barricades.”
Partners who are grateful for each other, studies have shown, feel more satisfied in their relationships. And even when just one partner feels gratitude—whether on an existential level or for simpler things like being brought a favorite drink—both benefit. Amie Gordon of the University of California, San Francisco calls it a cycle of gratitude. “If you start doing nice things, and your partner picks up on it and feels appreciated, it should inspire their own good feelings,” she says. Gratitude can increase people’s motivation to stay in, and improve, a relationship, and make them more likely to engage in more considerate behaviors, like better listening and sacrificing for their partner. Gordon’s research has shown that more grateful people are likelier to maintain long-term relationships.
A recent study in Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests it’s the feeling of gratitude that makes a difference, not the acts that engender it. Researchers found that people are equally likely to notice a partner’s sacrifice as not, and they are just as likely to see a sacrifice where there is none as they are to correctly note its absence. No matter: When a person believes a partner has sacrificed for them, accurately or not, the benefits of gratitude accrue. And when they fail to detect a sacrifice, their partner feels less satisfied.
How to get it: Your partner is not obligated to keep a gratitude journal or meditate with you on life’s blessings. So how to elicit it? You can prime a partner’s expressions of gratitude by showing your appreciation for them. “If you feel unappreciated or taken for granted, try doing some of the things you wish they would do for you,” Gordon suggests. “It’s a nice way to jumpstart gratitude in a reasonably well-functioning relationship.” If you’re having trouble accessing your own gratitude, think about what life was like before you were with your partner. That can help counter hedonic adaptation—or becoming accustomed to, and perhaps less appreciative of, the benefits they bring to you. When showing your own gratitude, make it personal. “It’s not just, ‘Hey, thanks for taking out the trash.’ Say, ‘You know how much I hate it; you’re so thoughtful for doing the thing that I hate.’ You’re not just thanking them for the act,” Gordon says, “but for the person they are. It bumps it up a notch.”
Proposed amendment: Gratitude shouldn’t be used to gloss over problems such as emotional abuse. “It’s not healthy to try to feel gratitude because, hey, this person didn’t yell at me today, or get mad when they usually do,” Gordon says. No one should use gratitude to prop up a relationship that they should be exiting.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201811/your-relationship-bill-rights
My last depressive episode left me completely isolated. I didn’t respond to messages for months. Since I didn’t know how long I would be depressed, answering the question “how are you?” became emotionally draining. Actually, that one question was why I stopped talking to people entirely.
“How are you?” is such a knee-jerk opening line to a conversation; most of us don’t even realize we’re saying it, or pay much attention to the typical response of, “I’m good.” But I wasn’t good, or even okay, and saying it just to get past that question felt like a lie I didn’t want to explain.
I never would’ve guessed that I could go such a long period of time without talking to anyone. I know now how painful it was for those who cared about me not to hear anything despite their repeated attempts to reach out.
Peer support—“peer” defined both as friends and as those who identify as having mental illness—can be profoundly helpful to the recovery process and to help keep symptoms at bay. I could’ve really benefited from this kind of support during my depression, but my lack of communication with my friends and family led me to struggle in silence.
When that dark cloud finally lifted, I was intrigued by how difficult it was for me to communicate with the people I cared about during my episode. I didn’t want to go through that again. I wanted to learn how to be better at communicating, especially in the thick of a depressive episode.
So I read the book, “There Is No Good Card for This: What to Say and Do When Life Is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love.” It includes many wonderful examples of how and when to say or do something, and when it’s best to say nothing at all and just listen. It’s a relatively short, easy read considering the depth of knowledge it contains about difficult conversations. Some of the scenarios included made me cringe as I reflected on things I’ve said that were less than ideal.
This book was immensely helpful in learning empathy for those trying to make a connection with me during my episode. I learned that my negative reaction to my friends asking me how I was doing was because depression had changed my perception. The book helped me understand that people might say uncomfortable or insensitive things—“how are you doing?”—when they are genuinely trying to connect but don’t know what to say or what may negatively impact someone.
I also learned how I could be a better support system for my friends facing adversities, because we all end up being the supportive friend at one time or another. Conversations are a two-way street, even if one person is doing most of the talking. How you listen and respond can change the tone and outcome of a conversation. In “There is No Good Card for This,” you can find out what type of listener you are and what you can do to improve or change the way you respond. This can help build confidence during a difficult conversation.
Here are a few tips from the book to start working on:
At the end of the day, just knowing my friends cared enough to reach out meant the world to me. I isolated myself because I felt emotionally fragile and didn’t want to be asked how I was doing. I still wanted to cheer and root for them, and to tell them how proud I was of them despite my depression; I just didn’t want them to ask how I was because I was still trying to figure that out. I now know that I could have expressed that sentiment, and my friends would have understood. It sounds so easy in hindsight, but I couldn’t even get past “how are you?” to tell them.
Please know that you are not alone if you’ve ever felt like this, and if you would like to talk to someone without fear of judgment, please call the NAMI HelpLine for references to mental health resources—including support groups—in your area or online. If you’d like to speak with a trained peer support specialist, the NAMI HelpLine can also give you a local number that you can call 24/7.
Traditional classrooms do not include courses with the sole purpose of teaching emotional intelligence, sensitivity and empathy, so those lessons tend to come from life experience. It’s important to remember to be kind to yourself and others as you navigate through difficult situations. Look back on mistakes as learning opportunities.
I have learned through this experience that if someone is reaching out to you, their heart is probably in the right place, even if they can’t find the “right” words.
Keiko Purnell is a NAMI HelpLine Volunteer.
https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/August-2018-/Communicating-is-More-than-Finding-the-Right-Words
I don’t recognize the bedroom. The walls are black and bare, except for a chaotic painting hanging in a random corner. From the doorway, I see two people laced together on a bed. I’m embarrassed, because they’re naked, but I don’t think they know I’m here. There’s a woman whose voluptuous silhouette is blurred by shadows — apart from her hair. Even against the dark contrast of the room, her cascade of long, black curls stand out. There’s a man too. I can see him clearly, but … that can’t be … oh, god.
For the past few months, I’ve had a vivid, recurring dream that I catch my husband being unfaithful with some mysterious woman, always the same one.
Every time, I wake up shaking, almost in tears, and immediately want to lash out at my husband — even though he is fast asleep, drooling away on one of our overpriced down-filled pillows. He’s done nothing wrong, but I still can’t help but hope that a stray feather drifts up his nose and makes him sneeze. The emotions I have in this dream are different — deeper, more painful — than anything I’ve felt in dreams past. And they linger.
The next morning, behind red, swollen eyes, I try to shake off the hurt and anger that have been plaguing me all night. But lately, things haven’t ended so well. While eating breakfast the other day, my husband mentioned running into a girl from high school at a local convenience store. An innocent story, except that I’d just had the dream again the night before. In my mind, I saw her face on the unidentified woman — and stormed off, leaving behind a man who was incredibly confused.
Later in the day, I apologized and we carried on — but somewhere deep inside, I continue to hold a tiny grudge. Yes, it’s unfair, and I know the whole thing makes me sound slightly unhinged. How can I stay mad at someone over a hypothetical situation? Besides, I’m not normally the jealous type, and I know my husband would never cheat. So, why is a dream affecting my reality so much?
“Typically, dreams that are troubling to us or that have particularly intense emotions tend to stick with us more than neutral or less intense dreams,” explains Alexis Conason, a clinical psychologist based in New York. Most people dream at least four to six times per night — that’s generally about two hours total, adding up to a twelfth of our lives — but remember only a tiny sliver of what they’ve dreamed about. And most of the time, the dreams they remember are the emotionally shocking or difficult ones, filled with anxiety, fear, guilt, shame, helplessness, or confusion.
In part, the explanation is straightforward — negative experiences are generally more emotionally charged, and easier to remember, than positive ones. Timing also plays a role: The majority of our dreams — especially our most vivid dreams — happen during REM sleep, which is also when the limbic system, a collection of structures in the center of the brain that deals with emotion, is especially active.
While researchers still aren’t sure why we have nightmares, one theory is that they provide a safe, low-stakes space to work through difficult emotions or situations that might be troubling us in waking life. “Dreams are the number-one way in which we process emotions, particularly emotional tensions that we are experiencing in waking life,” said psychologist and dreaming expert Ian Wallace. “They are part of the same problem-solving processes that we use during the day.”
This might explain why I keep having the same recurring dream. “Generally speaking, we dream about whatever it is that is going on in our lives as we are falling asleep, or it’s the most prevalent stressful situation that’s going on in our world,” explains psychologist and sleep specialist Michael Breus. “If you have a situation where you are thinking about something that is very, very stressful on a fairly regular basis, then it will show up as a dream or in your unconscious.” And that same dream can replay over and over again during stressful periods.
That’s not to say that the dream scenario is a literal representation of what’s bothering you in waking life — it can just be an indication that something is wrong. Breus, for instance, has a recurring “stress” dream of his own: “I’m in high school, the bell rings, and I run to my locker to get my books for the next class,” he says, but “it’s a combination lock and I cannot remember the combination. I sit there and I spin the dial and I get more and more stressed out.” He wakes up in a cold sweat, he says, but understands it’s a sign that there’s something going on that he needs to think about.
Infidelity dreams, similarly, often have a lot to do with stress. “This has more to do with insecurity or self-esteem that’s going on with you personally than with your husband,” Breus says. And Wallace, who studies dream interpretation, suggests that I may conjure up the affair dream when I’m disappointed with myself. (Ironically, I’ve struggled with writing a novel this year, despite my husband’s support.)
And, as my husband unfortunately already knows, dreams can also impact our relationships. One 2013 study in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science found that the mood-altering effects of troubling dreams can last throughout the following day or even longer, negatively affecting intimacy and communication.
The good news, as Breus is quick to highlight, is that there’s no predictive value to dreams. And there are ways to stop the emotions of a bad dream from bleeding over into regular life: One approach is to give dreams better outcomes in our waking lives. “Prime your brain right before bed. And what that means, is to think about things that are positive before you go to sleep,” Breus recommended. Deep breathing and relaxation exercises can help. So can a technique called Image Rehearsal Therapy, in which a person writes out the entire content of their dream and then gives it a different ending. The idea, developed by sleep-disorder specialist Barry Krakow, is that over time, the exercise can alter the dream with the new outcome.
For now, I need to find a quiet corner and reflect on what stressors in my life could be causing my recurring nightmare. It might be the unfinished novel, or it might be something else. Until I find an answer, I’m hoping the mystery woman remains faceless and the pillows stay in one piece. And as far as my husband knows, my red eyes in the morning aren’t necessarily caused by the dream, anyway. I think I’m allergic to down.
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http://nymag.com/scienceofus/article/when-betrayal-in-a-dream-leads-to-real-life-conflict.html
Actually I’ve never heard him talk, but when he writes, I read.
So when a newly revised edition of his best-selling “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” (Harmony Books) hit my desk this week, I cracked it open immediately.
Gottman is a psychology professor at the University of Washington and the founder/director of The Gottman Institute, a marital research and counseling center in Seattle.
Maybe you’ve read about his theory on “master couples” versus “disaster couples.”
Co-authored with Nan Silver, “Seven Principles,” which has sold a million-plus copies, was first released in 1999 — before Tinder, before Facebook — heck, before some of us even had cellphones.
The updated version (out next week) offers tips for dealing with digital distractions, including Gottman’s suggestion to agree on rules of tech etiquette: How much are you comfortable with your partner sharing on social media? When is texting/posting off-limits (mealtimes, date nights)? Do you create cyber-free zones in your home?
Most compelling of all, though, is Gottman’s “magic six hours” theory, based on interviews with couples who attended marital workshops at The Gottman Institute.
“We wondered what would distinguish those couples whose marriages continued to improve from those whose marriages did not,” Gottman writes. “To our surprise, we discovered that they were devoting only an extra six hours a week to their marriage.”
If your first thought is, “Only? Where am I going to find an extra six hours in my week?” — I hear you.
If that was not your first thought, forget I said anything.
Anyway, back to the winning formula.
Couples who saw their relationships improve devoted extra time each week to six categories.
First up: Partings
“Make sure that before you say goodbye in the morning you’ve learned about one thing that is happening in your spouse’s life that day,” Gottman writes. “From lunch with the boss to a doctor’s appointment to a scheduled phone call with an old friend.”
(Two minutes per day for five days, for a grand total of 10 minutes per week.)
Second: Reunions
Gottman recommends greeting your partner each day with a hug and kiss that last at least six seconds and ending each workday with stress-reducing conversation that lasts at least 20 minutes. (About 1 hour and 40 minutes per week.)
Third: Admiration and appreciation
Spend five minutes every day finding a new way to communicate genuine appreciation for your spouse, he says. (35 minutes per week.)
Fourth: Affection
“Show each other physical affection when you’re together during the day, and make sure to always embrace before going to sleep,” he writes. (Five minutes per day, seven days a week: 35 minutes.)
Fifth: Weekly date
For two hours once a week, Gottman recommends one-on-one time, during which you ask each other open-ended questions. “Think of questions to ask your spouse, like, ‘Are you still thinking about redecorating the bedroom?’ ‘Where should we take our next vacation?’ or ‘How are you feeling about your boss these days?'” (2 hours per week.)
Sixth: State of the union meeting
Spend one hour a week talking about what went right that week, discussing what went wrong and expressing appreciation for each other. “End by each of you asking and answering, ‘What can I do to make you feel loved this coming week?'” he writes. (1 hour per week.)
All of it adds up to six hours per week.
Some of these suggestions sound a tad awkward. “What can I do to make you feel loved this coming week?” reminds me a little too much of the last time I bought a car. (“What can I do to earn your business today?”)
But I like to think of marital advice like the food pyramid: You’re not going to adhere to it every day, but it’s an instructive guide to shape your habits around.
Kids chuck a frag grenade at many parts of your life, but it doesn’t have to ruin your sex life. A new baby too often causes a sexual dry spell for the parents that extends beyond the months it takes to recover from birth — in some cases, it can go years. This is the product of a new family struggling to find a new normal, focusing too much energy on the kid, and forgetting the couple who created the kid. Or, more to the point, the coupling that created the kid.
A family forces you to focus your resources that once went toward the couple — time, money, energy, hours in bed — toward the family’s newest member. Your supply of resources stays the same, but demand just increased by a factor of screaming human libido killer. “We now want a balance between me, us, and family,” says Esther Perel. “Those were not tensions that existed before.”
You probably remember Perel from her wildly popular TED talks on maintaining desire in long-term relationships or how a couple can survive an affair, so you already know she knows this topic better than most. Unless you’re one of those annoying couples whose sex life actually improved after having kids, read on …Redefine “Sex”
Contrary to popular opinion, the hokey pokey is not what it’s all about. “You can do the act in 5 minutes, done, and it has zero effect on you,” Perel says. She’s talking more about “the erotic presence — the feeling of connection, pleasure, aliveness, vibrancy.” Loss of erotic presence in a relationship is the reason sex stops, so focus on fixing the cause not its effect. “If people had a less narrow definition of what sex is, there would be an ability to feel much more sexually connected after having kids,” she says.
“If people had a less narrow definition of what sex is, there would be an ability to feel much more sexually connected after having kids,”
Learn The Erotic Ingredients And “Eros Redirected”
This may be the most important sentence you ever read: The erotic ingredients are playfulness, novelty, looks, curiosity, and touch. Perel points out that every one of these things are at risk of being entirely redirected toward your kid if you’re not careful. There’s even a fancy term for it: “eros redirected.”
For Perel, the core of the issue in any couple where the sex life has faltered post-kid is that all the energy that once went toward the erotic ingredients in your relationship go to the kid. Here’s how she puts it (and try not to wince if it sounds too familiar):
“Playfulness: You have loads of playfulness, but it’s all with the kids. Novelty: I see you constantly looking for new experiences with your children but you do the same old, same old [with your partner]. Looks: I see your kids walking around in the latest fashion, and I see you in your old schmattes. Curiosity: I see you being curious about anything your child is doing, but when was the last time you gazed at each other? Touch: I see you often living on a diet of quick pecks, and I see your children experience languid hugs and affectionate everything.”
Break Your Routine And Plan Together
Undoing eros redirected is in some ways as simple as behaving toward your partner the way you behaved before the kid was born. “When people meet and are in love, they live face to face. When people have children, they create this whole enterprise, and they live side by side. What they need are moments of turning their bodies back to each other in face to face situation.” That means date nights, complete with touching, playing, and all those other ingredients.
Among Perel’s clients, there are couples who hire a babysitter to attend Burning Man and couples who haven’t left the house in 4 years. Guess which ones have better sex lives. You don’t have to drop peyote in the desert to appreciate a novel couple’s activity, but you do need to occasionally break the schedule that parenting has forced you into by planning together. “The reason everybody talks about planning dates and all of that is because it’s not just about putting it in the calendar,” She says. “It’s about assigning value. It says it’s important.”
[ted http://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_the_secret_to_desire_in_a_long_term_relationship?language=en expand=1] Whether it’s a date night or an annual couple’s vacation separate from the child, which Perel also recommends, plan together. For many couples, she finds it helps if one person is responsible for the adult end of the planning (date nights, researching vacations, booking reservations, etc.), while the other focuses on the kid’s end (reserving babysitters, packing overnight bags for the grandparent’s house, etc.).
Divide, conquer, and turn “eros redirected” into “eros directed,” with the direction being straight to … well … use your imagination.
