My Takeaways from Dr. Gottman's Research on Marriage - Part 1 (Why Marriages Succeed or Fail)

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share some of my takeaways from reading several books by Dr. John Gottman, an expert on marriages.  This is the first of 2 videos on this topic. 

Dr. John Gottman is my favorite researcher and writer on the topic of romantic relationships.  One of the main reasons I like his work is that it is based on the massive amount of data that he has collected at his "Love Lab" in Seattle, Washington.  He invites couples to his lab, watches them argue, and within 5 minutes, can predict with 91% accuracy whether they will be divorced in five years.  Crazy stuff, right?  

Gottman has written a ton of books — all discussing the data that he’s unearthed in his research.  What I like about Gottman’s work is that it sometimes runs contrary to conventional wisdom. So, he may go into an experiment with a specific theory — like "the key to good relationships is never raising your voice", but if the data goes in a different direction, he follows that.  And it turns out that contrary to popular opinion, lots of healthy couples raise their voices, have a ton of conflict, and don’t always listen well to each other. 

Ratio

So — here is the finding that has resonated the most strongly with me over the years.  In a healthy marriage, there is a balance of negative interactions to positive interactions.  And what do you think that ratio is?  How many good interactions do you need to offset a single negative interaction?  It is FIVE.  Five good to offset every bad.  Now, a good interaction doesn’t need to be some grand gesture, like a romantic getaway.  It can be as simple as asking about your partner’s day, bringing them a cup of coffee, or referencing an inside joke that you have.  But you need 5 positive interactions in your relationship bank if you want to have a negative interaction without things starting to go south.

Healthy Couples

Here's another thing I love about Gottman.  He basically pooh pooh's this idea of good marriages being these bastions of open communications, I statements, and active listening.  The bottom line is that if you are going to have a close relationship with someone, you are going to have a certain degree of tension and conflict.  You are going to hurt each other's feelings sometimes.  And when we are in the middle of a fight, are we going to be good communicators and active listeners?  Probably not -- after all, we are pissed off.  He acknowledges all of that.  He has identified three different kinds of stable couples.  The first is

• Validating Couples - These are the sort of textbook couples who listen well, validate each other, are supportive, and bring up issues in a healthy way.  These couples represent our typical view of a healthy marriage, but they are not the only stable type.  The second is
• Volatile Couples - We all know couples like this.  They argue a lot, can be intensely emotional, but also have a lot of fun together.  They can tease and insult each other, but have enough positive interactions to offset the negative.  They also tend to have less traditional relationship roles than the other 2 types.  The final type is
• Avoidant Couples - These couples avoid conflict with each other.  They can live easily and satisfactorily like this, but they tend to have less emotional intimacy and can thus be susceptible to romantic affairs.  These couples are the most traditional and tend to be bound by similar religious or philosophical views.

Interesting, right?  So, how can Gottman tell within 5 minutes whether a couple is going to get divorced?  Well, he looks for positive and negative interactions during arguments and in particular, he looks for what he calls the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  These are communication elements that are NOT GOOD for a relationship.  Ready?  As I'm going through these, think about whether you or your partner uses any of these elements while arguing.  The first is

• Criticism - First of all, Gottman draws a distinction between complaints and criticism.  You HAVE to be able to complain about things when you live with someone -- otherwise you'll end up resentful.  So, a complaint might be something like "I don't like when you leave the dishes in the sink at night because then I have to do them in the morning."  It turns into criticism when you say "You ALWAYS leave the dishes for me to do." or "You NEVER think about my workload."  or "You are the kind of person who does this" or "You are so inconsiderate."  You can sense the difference, right?  Complaints turns into criticism when you attack the person's character, use ALWAYS or NEVER statements, or pile on multiple complaints at once.  The second horseman is
• Defensiveness - I have a massive tendency to defend myself.  The problem is that defensiveness in a conflict never ends well and tends to escalate the negativity.  It's not that you can never defend yourself.  It's that when someone is complaining to you, they want you to listen to them BEFORE you start in on why they are wrong.  Defensiveness is a form of not listening and minimizing your partner's thoughts.  Instead, listen to your partner, ask clarifying questions and make sure you understand the entirely of their complaint.  Defensiveness is one of the most dangerous horsemen since it almost always spirals into emotional flooding, which we will talk about in a minute.  The third horseman is
• Contempt -  This is a bad one.  Insults, sneers, eye rolling, name calling, sarcasm.  It's basically fighting dirty with very little respect for one's partner.  Avoid it at all costs.  And finally,
• Stonewalling - This is the act of putting up an emotional wall.  It includes not responding, shutting down, or walking away.  It effectively ends the interaction and eliminates any possibility of a positive outcome.  It is the most destructive of the 4 and would make me absolutely nuts.  I think a distinction should be made between stonewalling and taking an emotional break, but first let's talk about

Emotional Flooding.  We all have a physical reaction to conflict.  Most of us can feel our pulses quicken, breathing rate speed up, and blood start to rise.  This is called emotional arousal.   We can still productively engage if we stay in our window of tolerance.  If our physical response gets too high, we go into Hyperarousal which is when our bodies engage in fight or flight and we can no longer have a rational discussion.  At this stage, people can no longer hear new information and tend to think in a repetitious loop (I'm not a bad person, I'm not a bad person, I'm not a bad person).  Sometimes, for those who have experienced trauma, their physical response slows and they shut down biologically going into Hypoarousal, which is the freeze response -- like a possum playing dead.  Emotional flooding is when you are in Hyperarousal and can't take in new information.  There is no point trying to engage someone who has reached this level of emotionality.  This is why I think it is useful to take an emotional break sometimes in the middle of a conflict.  It's different from Stonewalling since you are just trying to get your emotions under control before attempting to engage again.   There are some interesting gender differences with regard to emotional flooding.  Men tend to flood out faster and can get there simply with criticism.  Women take a little longer to flood out and it usually takes contempt to get them there.  Watch your partner as you are arguing.  If they are literally repeating the same phrase over and over again, they are probably flooded out and need some time to decrease their physical response.  I have observed people actually flood out in front of my eyes.  I know someone who blushes easily and you can literally see his emotional flooding rise up just like he is a thermometer.  Don't push things at this point -- just take a break.

Gender Differences.  Just a quick note on some gender differences that Gottman has observed.  For whatever reason, women tend to handle conflict better.  This could be for a number of reasons, but for one, women tend to have more intense social relationships earlier on.  For everyone who has rolled their eyes at little girls getting into petty fights -- they are getting relationship training that their male counterparts are not.  Depending on what kind of a family you are from, some boys may not have ANY training on relationship conflict until they enter their first romantic relationship.  As a result, they tend to flood faster and have a harder time recovering from emotional upset.  In other words, it takes longer for men to calm back down and re-enter the window of tolerance than women who are similarly upset.  Here's another thing, perhaps because women are more used to conflict, they tend to start arguments with criticism whereas men tend to avoid conflict altogether.  There are obviously exceptions to this rule, but it's kind of amazing how true to type most relationships are.

So, how do you improve the odds of your marriage succeeding?  First try as hard as you can to stay away from the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling.  Next, Gottman suggests 4 things that YOU can do to make things better:

• Edit yourself - filter what you say and how you say it.  Be kind, don't say every critical thing that enters your head and treat your partner with respect.
• Soften your startup - be aware of your own tendency towards criticism or contempt.  Bring complaints up gently and and without blame.
• Accept influence - this can also be called power sharing.  Make sure you aren't being dictatorial or inflexible.  Understand when your partner is sacrificing to do something for you and let them be involved in and influence your decisions and thoughts.  And finally,
• Focus on the positive - remember you need FIVE good interactions for every one negative interaction.   Focus on the good stuff, say nice things to each other, have fun together, laugh, be affectionate.  You'll be AMAZED at how differently your conflicts might go if you raise the number of good things you do together.  I like to think of a dieting analogy for this.  Instead of focusing on NOT eating cookies and sweets, instead, focus on eating more fruits and vegetables and naturally your diet will start to include less of the bad stuff.  Same with a marriage — PLUS you fill your mind with positive things and energy rather than stewing about the negative stuff.

And that is it.  I find Gottman's work enlightening.  Plus he provides real, tangible things you can do with his findings to improve all of your relationships.  Let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!