John & Julie Gottman, PhDs: What Makes Love Last
Drs. Julie and Julie Gottman have dedicated over four decades to the research and practice of fostering healthy and long lasting relationships. The Gottmans are the world’s leading relationship scientists, having gathered data on over three thousands couples to identify the building blocks of love and employing those findings through the training of clinicians and creation of principles and products for couples around the world.
Their latest book,The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy, distills their findings to the simple question, what makes love last? Providing readers with a simple, seven-day action plan, the book makes the Gottman’s work accessible to every relationship - no grand gestures, difficult conversations, or multi-day seminars required.
I am delighted to be joined by the couple to discuss how to build a fruitful dialogue around the perpetual problems that crop up in relationships; filling your relationship piggy bank with small, but daily, positive actions; and committing to an ongoing curiosity about your partner as they grow and evolve. If both people want to do the work, they tell us, many more relationships can be saved than we may think. Lasting love requires good partnership hygiene, tiny interventions over the course of a lifetime, in order to establish a culture of respect, awareness, and rediscovery that keeps things on the rails.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Accepting perpetual problems…4:00
Cultivating curiosity…23:46
Dawning of awareness…39:25
Respecting anger…41:28
MORE FROM JOHN & JULIE GOTTMAN:
The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy
The Gottman Institute - A Research-Based Approach to Relationships
Gottman Relationship Quiz - How Well Do You Know Your Partner?
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN:
Well, I would say to anyone who can go to one of those workshops—Rob, who was reticent was like buying everything off that folding table on the way out. Like he loved that workshop. It was really helpful. And you write a little bit about the workshop in The Love Prescription, but the first day is friendship building and love map creation. And then you sent us into battle to scab off a conflict.
JULIE GOTTMAN, PhD:
Actually, you know, that book is really designed, each day gives people something to do to really solidify their friendship or improve their friendship and intimacy. So that really is the focus of that book.
ELISE:
I loved it because, and what I love so much about your work is one, you just immediately through the vast amount of data that you guys have assembled studying couples, you dismiss with this idea that you're ever gonna solve these perpetual problems. Right. And what is it like 80 or 90% of problems are perpetual? Can you tell people what a perpetual problem is?
JULIE:
A perpetual problem typically is an issue that goes on forever and you shake your head and go, oh my God, are we really talking about this again? So it's a problem that is based in either different personalities between you or lifestyle preference differences between you. And because those don't readily change, you have to find a way to have a fruitful dialogue about it. Maybe solve a little piece of it around the edges of it, but, you know, fundamentally it's gonna come up over and over again. And that's why it's so important to be able to talk about it in a way that is calm, gentle, maybe full of humor. And you're gonna be talking about it forever.
ELISE:
And these are things like someone's really messy, like you're not gonna change a fundamental part of someone's personality or character or their preference. And so you've just sort of not ignore it, but treat it for what it is and then work on the quality of the relationship so that it doesn't sink you. Right. Is that accurate?
JULIE:
Yeah. That's exactly right. Good job.
ELISE:
Do you feel, and obviously you train therapists, there are Gottman-trained therapists all over the world. Do you feel like in a lot of couples therapy, there's this, there's this, I know it's a desire, and having participated in couples therapy, I'm like, let me get every, everything that angers me off my chest. But do you feel like in a lot of therapy, people just sit there and fixate on those problems, and that might be why people find themselves in therapy for extended periods of time?
JOHN GOTTMAN, PhD:
Yeah, I think it could be, it's sort of ironic because we're attracted to those differences in one another, in some way, you know we find them attractive thatthis person is really different from us. And then eventually we're, we find that real annoying and want to change this person into us. So that becomes kind of an irony about relationships and the master couples that we've studied, who stay together and, you know, like each other over time, those couples really do establish a kind of dialogue with these perpetual problems where they can talk about 'em without having hellfire emerge.
ELISE:
One of the myths that you guys bust in the earliest pages of the books too,is love is not a feeling. It's an action. It is daily practice. And I often see this in younger couples who are marching towards a wedding and it's this idea like once I get past that line, like we're good. And I think most married people recognize like, oh no, that's when it starts.
JULIE:
That's so true.
JOHN:
Yeah. There's a great New Yorker cartoon with this couple. It says just married on their car and it's called the first straw. And he says, mind if I put on the game?
ELISE:
Oh yeah. I remember the day after we got married, we were staying at a hotel at this lake and my husband loves lake sports and he decided to get up early and go rent a jet ski, which I find offensive on every conceivable level. And I was like, what? Like, where are you? He was in the middle of the lake, like spinning around on a jet ski.
JULIE:
Yeah. The first straw.
ELISE:
I've read so many of your books, but The Love Prescription is excellent because it's tiny it's you can make, I know it's supposed to be sort of spaced out over seven days as you're practicing these exercises, but it's really the core of what you guys have studied and offer, which is, as difficult as it seems to keep a marriage on the rails for decades. It's these tiny little interventions that are really not hard that are sort the method of people who have, as you say, master couples, right? Um, including like the primary, one of your work, which is positive interactions, right. Turning towards each other. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
JULIE:
Sure. So turning towards each other refers to a situation where a partner makes a small bid for connection, or maybe a big bid for connection, where they might just say something like, wow, look at that beautiful boat out there. And they're looking out the window. So what does the partner do? Partner has three choices. Basically. They can either say, wow, that's really cool, which is turning towards. Or they can say nothing which is turning away, or they can say, would you stop interrupting me? I'm trying to read, which is more hostile. That's called turning against. And what we found in our apartment lab, where we studied couples for 24 hours at a time, and then followed them up years later, is that the couples who were successful turned towards each other's bids for connection 86% of the time, and the couples who didn't do so well were much more distressed or even separated years later turned towards each other only 33% of the time. And so there's a huge difference there, you know, 53% difference. So all it takes is that little tiny kind of nut and bold of your partner calling out your name and you saying yes, or could be something bigger where your partner really needs something from you and ask for that. And you do your best fulfill that need.
ELISE:
I liked that moment. I can't remember. I feel like you were writing about a specific couple where, and I do this sometimes, where I actually need something. I need a significant amount of time or advice. And I think we learned this together in your workshop, and I can't remember what you all call it, but, I recognize that this is important and I have a call in five minutes. So can we talk about this after dinner?That idea of sometimes you don't have to meet all the need in the moment, but that you acknowledging it and maybe scheduling it is enough.
JULIE:
That's exactly right. Because scheduling, it implies that you wanna be there for your partner and sometimes circumstances prevent you from doing so right at that moment, but you still want to, and you'll make a plan to do that.
JOHN:
The other thing that is so interesting about this turning toward is that, we found that master couples, when they get physiologically aroused during conflict, they often use shared humor as a way to calm down. And so, you know, that became really an interesting conundrum. How do you get couples to have access to the humor when they're fighting with each other? Well, it turned out that turning toward is exactly that. So when you have turned toward your partner 86% of the time or more, then you automatically have access to your sense of humor when you're fighting and you can reduce physical arousal. So there's a real link between these small moments and what conflict is like for a couple.
ELISE:
And that's sort of this feeling of the piggy bank of just these small daily good action. Positive action. And in conflict, I thought this was stunning. Is it that even when you're fighting, you need a five to one positive to negative ratio in terms of, can you explain that a little bit more? Like what that actually means?
JOHN:
It's interesting because, that was one area where I was completely wrong. I thought in a great relationship during conflict, there'd be as much positive as negative, you know, they'll be good enough. And certainly my relationships, which hadn't worked that well before Julie, before I met Julie, you know, there was a lot more negative than positive when we fought. But I was kind of shocked by the fact that these master couples, it was five times as much positive as negative, even during conflict. And that involved, just simple things like, you know, nodding your head and vocalizing when your partner's talking, showing you’re tracking, uh, yeah, interesting. Mm. You know, those very small things that connect people, even during conflict wound up being a whopping, you know, five times as much positive as negative. And so, you know, when we actually studied in the apartment lab, when there's no conflict, that ratio of positive to negative went all the way up to 20 to one.
ELISE:
Wow. Wow. And this, I'm assuming also keeps couples away from the four horsemen. Contempt being the worst, but defensiveness, stonewalling, if you're stonewalling in an argument and that's what more men typically do, right. Where they just sort of, it's like extreme, maybe not defensiveness, but can you actually take us through the four?
JULIE:
Sure. Criticism is the first, and criticism is blaming a problem on a personality flaw of your partner. You're so lazy. You never clean up the kitchen. Always and never are also criticisms because they imply personality flaws. You're so lazy. You're so selfish. God, you know, can't you be more considerate, et cetera. Those are criticisms. Contempt takes it up a notch. Contempt refers to really looking down your nose and scorning your partner or feeling some disgust as you criticize them. So it's gonna be name calling, you know, those really nasty names for each other. The F U phrase, it's gonna be sarcasm sometimes with the cutting edge mockery. Those are all examples of contempt. And we found that contempt was acid for a relationship, but it also really hurt the immune system of the listener. We found that the number of times in a 15 minute conflict conversation that one person heard contempt from their partner correlated and predicted how many infectious illnesses they would have in the coming couple of years.
So it really erodes the immune system, to live with somebody who's being contemptuous all the time. The third horseman is defensiveness and that's probably the most common. All of us wanna protect ourselves if we feel criticized or put down or attacked. And defensiveness comes in two forms. Either you can be a righteous victim, which is I did too pay the bills, maybe not quite on time, but I paid 'em, you know, okay, that's righteous victim or counter-attack. Oh yeah. Well you didn't clean up the living room. So it's attacking something else against the person who you feel defensive about. So those are three, and the fourth one we call stonewalling and what stonewalling refers to and Elise, you pointed out more of our stonewallers are men, which is really true. Stonewalling is when a person will completely shut down all responses to their partner in the middle of a conversation.
So they won't make any of those head nods or little verbalizations of uhuh, okay, all right. They won't say anything. A man may look down, a woman may look at you, but they're frozen. Nobody's home. And that will go on for minutes. You know, it's not just a few seconds to gather your thoughts. It's longer than that. So the partner is becoming a stone wall in the middle of the conversation. And what we found is that that was linked. This is the brilliance of my husband's research. They found—he and his colleague, Robert Levinson—found that fight flight or freeze was going on in that person who flooded and became a stonewall. So in other words, they were really feeling super attacked. Their physiology was reacting as if they were facing somebody with a spear ready to throw it at them. And they were going internally were going within themselves to try to soothe the discomfort physiologically that fight flight or freeze causes.
ELISE:
So sympathy and some empathy, I guess, is required too, of that reaction. I mean, so many of these are habituated into us, right? Like they're almost, they're subconscious. They're just the ways that we react right. In your experience. And I feel like the book is a bid for this is awareness. When you work with couples, is awareness enough sometimes for people to recognize what's happening?
JOHN:
Well, you know, one of the interesting things about the research that Bob Levinson and I did was that we really studied a lot of very happy couples and it wasn't just that the happy couples didn't do the four horsemen, instead of the four horsemen, they did things like soften the way they started up the conflict. They took responsibility for their part in the conflict instead of being defensive. They didn't do contempt at all. In fact, in the apartment lab, we found that the masters of relationships were really building a culture of appreciation and respect actively. So it, it's not just not doing the full horseman. It's really doing things that are the opposite of the enforcement that makes a relationship really work.
ELISE:
Which requires a lot of emotional maturity!
JULIE:
No, it doesn't be totally immature. I mean, there was a research study a long time ago that, uh, really looked at can neurotic couples have successful marriages. And I learned that they could, and I was so happy to find that out. So yay. You don't have to be super mature. I mean, what the heck is mature? I don't even know what that means, but what you do have to know is what do I do instead of these four horsemen? Because where are we gonna learn it? Right. We don't take relationships one-on-one in high school when we desperately need it. So you learn how to bring up an issue. For example, without criticism, by describing yourself, I feel about what situation and here's my positive need. Here's how you can shine for me. You know, that's the antithesis of criticism or contempt. You're describing yourself and your feelings and your needs rather than pointing a figure at your partner and saying they're bad in some way.
ELISE:
I thought that was, there was another profound moment, which was a light bulb for me, where you talk about this need. When we state needs, we feel like we need to justify them. And we often use, well, we'll use anything really, but often we'll find some fault in our partner as a justification for a statement of need. And that there's no, justification required, you can just say I'm exhausted. I need you to take the kids today, if you'd be willing to do that solid for me.
JULIE:
Exactly. That's a great example, Elise,.
ELISE:
Yeah. And why are we so bad at stating our needs?
JULIE:
Because we live in America. So in this culture, don't you think least that being independent, not needing anybody, you know, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps is this myth that we've held in this culture since the beginning of time and it's absolutely wrong. We are pet animals, right? We need each other in order to survive. And if we don't have each other, then we're in big trouble, you know, we're like a pack and we are isolated from it. That's why we have language to connect with one another so that we can fulfill each other's needs and support each other. It's a very important part of marriage relationships.
JOHN:
One of the things that is really kind of surprising is that if you have just a simple exercise where people have a deck of cards, they select from that deck of cards, what need they currently have for their partner this week. You know, it helps them really express their needs. It helps them really articulate what they do need. And, you know, it's a tremendous relief because the partner doesn't have to read your mind and guess at what you need, you get an explicit statement and then you can really shine for your partner that way. So a very simple exercise like that. And by the way, you can download that card deck, for free, in the app store, by typing in Gottman card decks. And you get 14 cards that really facilitate building closeness and intimacy without a therapist.
ELISE:
Yeah. And some just, well structured, basic questions. Like the one that you just mentioned, you know, you talk a fair amount in the book about creating or cultivating ongoing curiosity in your partner as they're evolving and changing as much as you are. And how, there are just simple questions that you can ask weekly, daily. I mean, one of them is what do you need from me this week? Or what are you needing this week? And others are like, how do you think you've changed? I mean, stuff, that's not earth shattering, but actually we don't, it's not our instinct.
JULIE:
Yeah. You know, that's really true Elise and I've never really figured out how come we stop asking each other questions. You know, we always do that in the beginning of a relationship just to get to know somebody, but then once we get committed, once we get busy, we're busy, busy, then we think, okay, everything is cool over here. I don't need to put energy into it. I'll go to work. And our partners, meanwhile, and we are too, we are changing over time. We are changing with history, with politics. We are changing with our whole world as our kids get older if we have kids. As our career changes and we stop asking each other questions, you know, our days become this endless to-do list period. And the only question we ask is, did you call the plumber? Well, yes. Anything else you wanna know?
JOHN:
Right. It's, it's really quite amazing. There was a study done in Los Angeles of dual career couples and they put cameras and microphones in the couple's homes and found out that the average couple, young couple with kids, spend less than 10% of an evening in the same room. And they talk to each other an average of 35 minutes a week. And most of the conversation, like Julie mentioned, is about errands. You know, did this get done? Did that get done? It's about the to-do list. So forget about nurturing the relationship with fun, play, romance, adventure, you know, great sex, you know, that seemed to really just dwindle to nothing in these dual career couples. So the relationship got neglected.
ELISE:
Yeah. It's interesting, too. You write about sort of marital loneliness and how common that is. And I sometimes even feel it's funny, Rob and I are going away just us for Labor Day weekend. And I feel almost shy. I mean, I think when you're not cultivating, when you get out of that practice, like you're not as vulnerable with your partner. I don't know if that makes sense, but sometimes it's like this almost panic of like, oh my God, we have three unobstructed days together. What are we gonna talk about? Obviously we'll have an amazing time, but I think it can feel so out of practice that it becomes intimidating.
JULIE:
You know, you are absolutely right. I mean, that is really true, John and I every year have this ritual of connection, that we call our annual honeymoon. And so once a year, we go off, we try not to take any work with us, and we go someplace for like a week. And it's the same place, the same B & B, the same room every year. And we've been doing it ever since our child went away to camp. So she was eight and we decided, okay, she's going to camp, let's go to camp. So we took ourselves to camp and it became a tradition. So when we do that, it's like, oh my God, we're facing eight days without work. We're not gonna talk about work. Really? What the heck, what are we gonna talk about? It's gonna just right. You know, there'll be these big empty silences.
Well, you know, the wonderful thing is that you fell in love with your partner because of the person they are. And you rediscover during, you know, these outings you may do with your partner after a long period of not having any private time that, oh my God, I really do love this person. You see again, that you love, you see again, the sense of humor, the depth, the profound thinking, just relaxing, cuddling together, love making together how much the connection really means to you, and that your partner though, of course they change over time too, they’re still fundamentally the wonderful person that you started with.
ELISE:
Yeah, no, it's interesting. Going back to that weekend in Seattle and watching you two and the way that you talk about your own relationship and how vulnerable you are, which is I think so admirable and was a no blink, you know, as we were going through these exercises together, but we used a lot of the decks that you were just talking about John, and, you know, you would role play and then send us to these sets of two chairs. And then we would fill out these love maps and ask each other, all of these question prompts. And that weekend, it was so fun, even though the second day is about conflict and a lot of couples were struggling around us. It's true that when you commit to that re-engagement with your partner, you get curious. It's so fun. I mean, we had so much fun that weekend, which clearly we need, we're gonna redo it next weekend when we're we're alone together. You guys are aggressive about date nights too.
JULIE:
We are aggressive. Go on date nights. Date nights are really wonderful. That's where you can ask some of these questions without waiting a year to do so. Where you can just enjoy each other, enjoy an activity together. Ask big questions, talk about your future dreams and so on.
JOHN:
And reminisce about the past, which we did, yeah. Was our 35th wedding wedding anniversary, uh, a couple of weeks ago. And we went out to dinner and just thought about, you know, what's this journey been like being married to each other. What were some of the low points? What were the high points? And we've recently become grandparents.
ELISE:
Congratulations.
JOHN:
So we have a little baby together. Going in love with this little baby and falling in love with our, you know, our daughter and son-in-law and what great parents they are. So the journey continues and, and it's, you know, it's just been wonderful.
ELISE:
Yeah. Well, you guys are pretty positive. Not only have you been married for a long time, but you guys work together, which is wild. So I know you guys feel generally, you know, people wait, I think the stat you gave is six years before they pursue any help. And obviously a lot of your books are, even if you're dating, like just, these are good practices, this is hygiene. This is how we need to work on our relationships, but where for people who are full of contempt. And I wanna talk about negativity and breaking that pattern in a second, but where, you know, maybe if you're full of contempt, the idea of going away with your partner for a long weekend is impossible, but how do you, what's the first step to bring a couple back from the brink.
JULIE:
In therapy or outside of therapy?
ELISE:
I don't know. Both either. Choose your own adventure.
JULIE:
Oh boy. Well, I think the first thing to do is to sit down and have what we call a state of the union talk. And it's one where you very, very gently bring up, not blame, not criticism, but how you feel about how things are going in the relationship and ask the partner if they're feeling some of that too. I've been feeling lonely. I've really been missing, you know, the good times we've had. I really miss laughing together. I miss cuddling with you. I'm feeling really sad. I'm feeling alone. Sometimes I feel frustrated. And I think we need to try together to find again, you know, that lovely connection we used to have. What do you think about either working on it privately or going into therapy to really help us rebuild our bond and our relationship again. So that would be the first step.
JOHN:
One thing, one thing I'd add to that, I think, I think that that's a very good point that state of the union meeting to kind of assess what are the strengths in our relationship and what are currently the areas that need improvement. Building a culture of respect is really critical. And that's one thing the masters do with a different habit of mind. They really are searching for their partner doing things right, and really complimenting their partner and appreciating what their partner contributes to the relationship. And that habit of mind is absolutely critical. It's a wonderful study that was done by Robinson and Price, where they had observers in a couple's home, just observing positive things that each partner did for the other. And they trained the partners to do the same thing. Robinson and Price discovered that in unhappy relationships, it's not that people aren't nice to each other it's that their partner doesn't see 50% of the positivity that is there. You know, so contempt kind of seems to fill the missing perception. And so once you start noticing, you know, how wonderful your partner is, and really thanking your partner for making the bed, making the coffee, or listening to you, or looking beautiful in the morning, then suddenly that habit of mind shifts away from contempt to appreciation.
ELISE:
And do you think that cycle of negative thinking, which can obviously develop in relationships, but we all sort of know those people, right. And they're probably not aware of how they see the flaw or the problem, and rarely the gift. How do you gently bring someone's awareness or attention to the way that they're seeing the world?
JOHN:
Quite often, you know, people who are looking for other people's mistakes are irritable and, really not enjoying life very much. You know, they're really not very nice to themselves as well. They're kind of critical of everyone and, you know, so somebody signals to go into their lane and their attitude is, uh, I'm not gonna let this person in that they're trying to take advantage of me. So less people really, not only are they contemptuous toward their partner, but they're also making themselves miserable. So that shift is really critical for leading a happier life in general.
JULIE:
Well, let's go back to your question. How do you alert somebody? Like if you're their friend you mean, or their partner?
ELISE:
Either one. Both.
JULIE:
Okay. Well, if you are their partner, when it happens, when it happens, instead of going defensive, you need to say, as the listener to that contempt, you need to say, wow, that really hurt me. That hurt. I feel so put down and unloved right now. Was that really your intention, is that what you wanted to do? Make me feel unloved. So that's partner or friend of somebody who is being contemptuous. That's a tough one, because we have this unspoken rule that you're not supposed to interfere in somebody else's intimate life. Right. But if this is a really, really good friend, typically what they're gonna be doing is confiding in you about their negative feelings, about their partner.
That's what they'll be doing. And when they do you ask permission, can I share something with you? Would you be okay with that? You know, make sure to ask for permission about what I see also in the relationship, and then you can say something like, you know, last night when we were out to dinner together, I noticed that you said you made a sarcastic remark about your wife, and I saw her cringe when you did that. And it made me feel, again, you talk about yourself, it made me feel really sad to see the words coming out of your mouth would make the person you love cringe. Is that really what you wanna be doing? You must be feeling really unhappy to do that.Have you thought about getting some help for the relationship, you know, et cetera. So looks kinda like that.
ELISE:
And you mentioned the word intent, and I thought this was fascinating. The studies around intent and impact and how everyone has positive intent, even when the impact of what they're doing is really harmful. Is it that there's no, is it that there's no correlation or that it doesn't matter what you intend or how it's intended. It's only really matters how it lands.
JULIE:
Well to some degree, yes. I mean, typically two people, because they have two different brains, they're always gonna have two different sets of perceptions right of what's happening between them. And that's why we have tools for people to process past regrettable incidents, where there's been a really hard interaction. And the person may be responsible for saying something hurtful. Didn't intend to really cut down the other partner. But they were so angry they weren't thinking about the other person. They wanted to discharge that anger. So surprisingly enough, when they hear that it really hurt the other partner, and it made the other partner cringe, let's say, oh, you know, there's a dawning of awareness. Remember, you brought up awareness and that's absolutely true. That's the first step. That's the first step. But the second step is equally as important, which is what do you replace the contempt with?
What else do I say when I'm that angry? I don't know. So that's where learning the tools that we provide. And that, you know, we didn't invent the successful couples in our research. We have gratitude for them because they're the ones who showed us the right way to do stuff. So we've just translated that into language that people can learn from. So you can read the books, you can go to a workshop, you can go to therapy, you can learn new ways of talking. And it's almost like learning a new language, but sometimes that's what's needed.
JOHN:
A lot of times contempt enters into a relationship because anger is not respected. And other couples therapists have said, you know, you should never have anger, but we don't think that's true. We think, you know, there are lots of reasons to get angry in a relationship that are justified. You know, a sense that things aren't fair, you know, a sense that there's a lack of justice in the relationship, a lack of equity. And so, you know, the surprising thing is that when you really listen to anger and respect it just by asking, tell me what your concerns are, what are your concerns here? I see your angry, you know, what are you concerned about, then anger doesn't have to escalate into contempt. As it gets respected and listened to. Oh, you wanna know why I'm angry? Well, here's what I'm angry about. Well, what do you need? What, what do you really need here? Oh, here's what I need now. You know, anger becomes constructive. It becomes a way of connecting rather than when it doesn't get listened to, it has to escalate to something else just to get your partner's attention, you know? And so it's not that anger is a bad thing when it gets listened to it. Yeah. It's a very constructive emotion.
ELISE:
Agree. I think it's very healthy, but it has to be metabolized.
JULIE:
And it also has to be expressed in the right way. Right. You know, not expressed as criticism or contempt or even defensiveness. It has to be expressed as I'm furious about the situation. I'm furious that the kitchen is left a mess every night and then a positive need: I really need your help to clean up the kitchen. How about we divvy up the days of the week? You know, something like that.
ELISE:
The experience of needs, just going back to this for a second and thinking about how women, you know, culturally, at least in the United States are we're taught. I don't think we're taught this familialy, but culturally, to be selfless, right. Caring for other people is our first priority if we're quote unquote good women. Do you find in partnerships that that there's a gendered approach that men, that it's easier for men to state their needs or are their needs more expectations, or do you think it's something that's just universally human to actually even be able to identify a need?
JULIE:
You know, I think men are pretty bad at it too. Women are bad at it. Men are bad at it. We all are bad at it. And I think you're right for women it's, you know, the other person has to be the priority. However, for men, men aren't supposed to need anything. To need something, you're weak and men aren't supposed to be quote unquote weak. Well, it's such a ridiculous idea. So men need, just like women need and there's no weakness about it. I mean, it's simply expressing, gosh, you know, my body is really exhausted. I am so tired. Well, what's weak about that? Nothing, especially if you've been, you know, chopping wood all day. So it's fine to say that you need something. It's actually very healthy to do that. And given our cultural norms, it actually takes courage to express your needs. So go be courageous, be brave and express your needs.
ELISE:
In terms of anger, I'm wondering how often too, you know, John, you mentioned justice, right. Or feelings of inequity and also anger can be related to unmet needs that are sometimes maybe unexpressed. Do you find that that's, is that true? Or, or do you feel like it can be more generalized?
JOHN:
Well, you know, James Avery did sort of the definitive work on anger and he had men and women keep diaries and used other methods to find out how often do women get angry? How often do men get angry? What makes men angry? What makes women angry? And what he found was there was no difference between men and women. They both get angry equally often. You know, women weren't suppressing anger and men weren't expressing more anger, you know, and the same things that made men angry were the things that made women angry. There really were no differences in the experience in expression of anger, but in the relationship quite often, women feel un-entitled to express anger and, you know, often men feel that when women express anger that they're being attacked. The anger is an attack, and you know, and it doesn't have to be if it's expressed in a gentle way, here's what, here's what I'm angry about. And here's what I need, then suddenly you're offering a recipe for success with you. And if men and women both do that, it really does work.
ELISE:
I wanna ask you guys sort of a philosophical question, obviously, culturally, you know, we prize this idea of forever marriages and you know, these master couples and it's enviable to me. I hope Rob and I pull it out until our last days. And this idea of shared history and story is so important, but, and I know sort of taking issues of abuse and extreme toxicity aside and putting them to the side when someone should definitely be seeking safety. Do you feel like in watching so many couples, all marriages should be saved, or do you actually see people where you're like, maybe not today guys, like you're not matched, or do you feel like anyone can really do it, or should do it?
JULIE:
That's a wonderful question. And first of all, my own philosophy about it is is it's never up to me to decide or to advise unless there is abuse for sure. And the abuse isn't gonna stop. You know, there’s a particular kind of abuse, which we could talk about in other time. However, the couple really has to arrive at that decision themselves. And I have had couples who have divorced, you know, they've worked hard to try and create a good relationship, but for example, uh, a couple in Australia that I was treating virtually, the husband was the most silent, pretty nonverbal, distant, distancing guy, and had no idea of how to respond to anything that his partner said, just had no idea. And had come from a very fundamentalist Christian home where kids were to be seen, not heard.
And he'd been a real loner, became an engineer. He wasn't on the spectrum as a lot of people would think. He was just the way he was raised and what tools he developed in himself or lack of them. And she was this bubbling cheerleader of a personality who just talked and talked and talked, had a little anxiety, and she was warm and loving and sweet and just giving, giving, giving, giving, and really wanting conversation. And there was just no conversation to be had. And when he learned some of the tools, he would repeat them a bit like a robot. And there definitely was anger in him because of the high expectations she had of him that he felt were impossible to meet. And they were such a extreme mismatch of personality styles that she finally decided she was so lonely in this relationship, couldn't connect with her feelings, couldn't give her the verbal exchange, the rapport that she really needed and wanted, that it was better to really be alone than to be alone with him.
And so about divorcing. And that was a very extreme, super extreme, but in most cases where there isn't abuse and both people really want to work on the relationship, many more relationships can be saved, then think they can be saved. I had a couple this week, for example, in which I did a four day marathon, that's five, six hours a day, consecutive days. And there was an affair involved, and lots of emotion as you can imagine, but they worked through it and really worked hard to rebuild marriage number two, and left, through their own hard work feeling really good, positive, hopeful, and so on. And they'll need more work of course, but just doing great. So it's very possible to save marriages that you think are lost.
ELISE:
And often infidelity, I know it can seem like a relationship's dark night of the soul, but that can actually inspire needed change. And isn't always more often than not. Doesn't research suggest that most couples survive that?
JOHN:
Yeah, we're doing an international study of healing couples from an affair and the results look very good so far. So it really, you know, there hasn't been a real gold standard study like that ever done on treating affairswith a control group and so on. And, uh, and it really looks like rebuilding trust is possible.
ELISE:
Maybe it's too early to say, but is it that the affair somehow isn't personal that someone…it's not so much of a trail of the other person as it is? I don't know.
JOHN:
No, it's not all, it is a betrayal and it is very, very painful. And personal. But you know, it's really a lack of certain processes taking place in a couple. The lack of commitment and trust being built in the relationship. So instead of complaining to your partner about what you're upset about, you'll go complain to somebody else about your partner. And instead of realizing that you're very lucky to have this person and thinking about all their positive qualities, you feel sorry for yourself and think about their negative qualities. And so there's a pattern that precedes the actual betrayal. And once you understand the pattern and really how couples actively build trust and commitment, then you can go back and really reverse those processes. But it's painful and slow. But doable.
ELISE:
Well, we're all retrainable right. And trainable. I mean, that's what so much of your work is about is work, small actions, not overwhelming, but that there's this terrible myth that it just happens and it's gonna be great isn't true for most people.
JULIE:
It might be, but probably not. Everybody has to work on their relationship and that's in part why we wrote The Love Prescription, because those little small moments that we prescribe and teach people how to do in that book, you know, day by day, just a few minutes every day, make a huge difference and are part of a buffer against betrayal and distance, loneliness, and so on that lead to affairs.
ELISE:
Yeah. No, it makes so much sense. It's a must read, and it's so simple to implement. And that's what makes it great. And as someone who has done this process, I can speak from my own experience that these interventions, just being aware of the intervention, is incredibly helpful.
I love the Gottmans. I love even watching them interact as an example of what they teach. And if you can get to one of their workshops, I highly recommend it. It’s fascinating. You’re in an auditorium with hundreds of other couples, and yet it’s this intimate, incredible experience where everyone is doing their own work, in tandem. It sounds like it couldn’t possibly work but it’s transformative. I wanted to leave you with a few of the questions that they propose in The Love Prescription. What’s on your mind today? What are you looking forward to? What are you anxious about? Is there anything you need from me today? (We discussed that one.) What are some unfulfilled things in your life? How have you changed in the past year? What are some of your life dreams right now? And again, they have all these card decks on every possible topic that are really great fodder, particularly if you are feeling shy about starting up date nights again. And we didn’t get to this, but in terms of conflict, they had a revelation in their own relationship where they were fighting about getting a cabin in the woods. Julie really wanted one; John didn’t understand the instinct, having grown up in Brooklyn, far from nature, etc. So they write about this cabin fight: “But it also led us to a big idea that was a huge breakthrough in our work with couples. We call it the ‘dreams within conflict’ exercise. It’s the idea that most of our fights are not actually about what we seem to be fighting about, but something deeper, hidden beneath our positions on the conflict. When couples have a gridlocked problem where it’s impossible to make progress or even talk about it, there’s often an unrealized or even unacknowledged life dream, lurking below the surface. For us, we spent so much time fighting about whether or not we could afford the cabin that it was years before we finally got to the real question we each needed to answer: ‘What’s your dream about this issue, and what’s your nightmare?’” And that it might be one way to unlock one reason why it seems so fraught.