Speaker 1: Pushkin. These days, there's really no shortage of relationship advice
Speaker 1: out there. There are the usual Dear Abbey in Modern
Speaker 1: Love type columns and newspapers and magazines. There are also
Speaker 1: reality TV dating shows, couples podcasts, TikTok videos, Instagram reels,
Speaker 1: Reddit dating threads, and on and on and on. Some
Speaker 1: of this advice is helpful, but a lot of it
Speaker 1: isn't backed up by empirical evidence. So in this new
Speaker 1: season of The Happiness Lab, I wanted to explore what
Speaker 1: the science says about building happier relationships, and what better
Speaker 1: way to begin than with a husband and wife team
Speaker 1: that not only has decades of married life experience to
Speaker 1: draw on, but also a wealth of knowledge gained from
Speaker 1: some truly elegant scientific studies.
Speaker 2: Julie's walking around with our grand side on her arms.
Speaker 1: How well does he?
Speaker 2: He is going to be too in January that he
Speaker 2: just started doing imaginative play this morning, Okay, Joles, I'd
Speaker 2: like to be included.
Speaker 1: Doctor Julie Schwartz Gotman is a clinical psychologist who's helped
Speaker 1: people facing challenges in many domains of life, including in
Speaker 1: their romantic relationships.
Speaker 2: By the way, the book is called fight right, I
Speaker 2: bet are doing good.
Speaker 3: Title too, I thought of it, so that means it's
Speaker 3: really great.
Speaker 1: Doctor John Gotman is an academic psychologist and pioneering relationship researcher.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen seventy six, John used the primitive video
Speaker 1: technology of his day to capture real life couples interacting
Speaker 1: with one another. Collaborating with his then research partner, doctor
Speaker 1: Robert Levinson, John analyzed hours and hours of taped interviews
Speaker 1: in order to learn how some couples are able to
Speaker 1: maintain healthy relationships and to spot the warning signs that
Speaker 1: a partnership could be doomed. Today, Julian John Brunn the
Speaker 1: Gotman Institute, an entire research center devoted to udying romantic relationships.
Speaker 1: You probably won't be surprised to hear that they have
Speaker 1: a lot of wise things to say, so much so
Speaker 1: that we've decided to split their interview into two chunks. Today,
Speaker 1: the Gutmans will share what's so called masters of relationships
Speaker 1: can teach us about avoiding the pitfalls of criticism, contempt, defensiveness,
Speaker 1: and stonewalling. These are the traits that John and Julie
Speaker 1: have christened the four horsemen of relationship destruction. They found
Speaker 1: that their presence in a partnership pretty much guarantees and
Speaker 1: impending apocalypse. But the real story started way before John
Speaker 1: and Julie even got together, back when John and his
Speaker 1: colleague Robert Levinson, we're dreaming up a way to robustly
Speaker 1: study relationships inside the laboratory.
Speaker 2: We're too dumb to really have a good area or anything.
Speaker 2: So we just had couples come into this lab talk
Speaker 2: about how their day went after they've been apart for
Speaker 2: eight hours, and interviewed about the major problem in their
Speaker 2: relationship and ask them to resolve it. And then they
Speaker 2: looked at their videotapes and turned the dial to tell
Speaker 2: us what they were feeling from very negative to very positive.
Speaker 2: And then we just sent them home because we had
Speaker 2: no clue about that to help anybody, you know. And
Speaker 2: three years later we recontacted these couples to see if
Speaker 2: they were still together and how happily married they were,
Speaker 2: how their relationship had changed, And then we started really
Speaker 2: looking at the data to get hypotheses and really determined
Speaker 2: over time by doing this study over and over again,
Speaker 2: also with gam let's mean couples, that there really are
Speaker 2: masters of relationship and disasters like Bob and I, so
Speaker 2: you know, we actually learned from the research. And then
Speaker 2: twenty six years ago, Julie and I decided to work
Speaker 2: together in the canoe, you know, where we were paddling
Speaker 2: in the ocean. Julie suggested they we work together. And
Speaker 2: it was a great combination because Bob and I had
Speaker 2: no idea to help anybody, and Julie, with our clinical experience,
Speaker 2: we were able to combine and create a theory of
Speaker 2: how relationships work. And then twenty six years that we've
Speaker 2: been testing it out in experiments.
Speaker 1: And so Julia, I was going to ask your version
Speaker 1: of how you two got together in the first place.
Speaker 1: I guess it involves a canoe.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: How we got together in terms of our studies and so.
Speaker 1: A little bit of both the together in terms of
Speaker 1: the studies and in terms of the forever together.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's see. We both moved to Seattle Light around
Speaker 3: the same time, so I just finished my PhD. John
Speaker 3: has already been a professor and was moving to University
Speaker 3: of Washington. So we actually met in a coffeehouse. John
Speaker 3: came over to me and said, I wish he would
Speaker 3: have said, you're the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: I really want to have coffee with you. But you know,
Speaker 3: he said, what would you think about having coffee with me?
Speaker 3: You know, kind of a nice try professariat question. So
Speaker 3: I said sure. So he sat down and we had coffee,
Speaker 3: and we had the most incredible conversation. It was fantastic,
Speaker 3: And the next conversation we had over the phone was
Speaker 3: four hours long, so there was obviously a connection. And
Speaker 3: I think on our second date, John said, you know,
Speaker 3: I was in another relationship, but I've told her I'm
Speaker 3: not going to see her anymore. I found somebody I
Speaker 3: want to try and work things out with. I immediately
Speaker 3: had a panic attab it was.
Speaker 2: Like really already.
Speaker 3: But five months later he proposed I said yes. And
Speaker 3: I was working purely in clinical work, so I was
Speaker 3: working with really the sickest of the sick. I was
Speaker 3: working with folks who were psychotic, who had severe PTSD,
Speaker 3: who'd come back from various wars and torture, who might
Speaker 3: have had addictions and so on, and so I was
Speaker 3: working quite intensely with those folks in private practice for
Speaker 3: about I don't know, five or six years or something.
Speaker 3: But every night over dinner. John would come home and
Speaker 3: tell me about his research, and I kept thinking to myself,
Speaker 3: maintain your boundaries, stay in your old world. You know,
Speaker 3: it's okay, it's interesting, but stay in your own world.
Speaker 3: And then I didn't. So we were out canoeing outside
Speaker 3: of Orcas Island in the sea. It was just absolutely gorgeous,
Speaker 3: and you suggested it and let me finish. And I
Speaker 3: said to him, honey, what do you think about taking
Speaker 3: this stuff out of the ivory tower. It's such good
Speaker 3: knowledge and people have no idea of how to have
Speaker 3: a relationship. So how about our trying to work on
Speaker 3: this stuff and create interventions, create theory to really prevent
Speaker 3: what made the disasters fall apart years later, and then
Speaker 3: we'll test it, see how it works, and the rest
Speaker 3: is history. We immediately started jump into that, then form
Speaker 3: the Dtwin Institute to start having couples workshops and.
Speaker 2: So on, and we built this apartment lab like a
Speaker 2: cold love lab, and so one hundred and thirty newly
Speaker 2: led couples just a couple of months after the wedding,
Speaker 2: and followed them as many of them became pregnant and
Speaker 2: had babies, And you know, I learned to study babies
Speaker 2: and it was really fun. It led to our Bringing
Speaker 2: Baby Home intervention, which has been our most powerful intervention
Speaker 2: because when the first baby arrives in the first three
Speaker 2: years of the baby's life, many couples go through a
Speaker 2: big drop in relationship happiness and fight a lot and
Speaker 2: a lot of conflict. But about a third of them don't.
Speaker 2: And we were able to look at the differences between
Speaker 2: those two groups and build this workshop and test it
Speaker 2: and evaluate it and it's very effective.
Speaker 1: And so when we hear your story about getting together,
Speaker 1: it's such a lovely story. I think it can people
Speaker 1: to experience a little bit of a misconception that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us have when it comes to love. Right,
Speaker 1: that love just happens right. You see somebody in a
Speaker 1: coffee shop, you ask them to coffee, and the rest
Speaker 1: is history. But your work shows that that's not really
Speaker 1: how good love works. Tell me how love in some
Speaker 1: sense really works well.
Speaker 3: First of all, the first phase of a loving relationship,
Speaker 3: which people adoringly call in love, is basically chemistry. It's
Speaker 3: basically pheromones. You are sensing one another at every level,
Speaker 3: and all the stars come out in the sky. You know,
Speaker 3: you're very excited, you're very happy. Everything is wonderful. It's
Speaker 3: a big honeymoon. You move towards marriage, You get married,
Speaker 3: and then boom, the bomb drops. You find out your
Speaker 3: partner is really messy and you're not. You find that
Speaker 3: you know all the differences between you that are significant
Speaker 3: and that are true for every single couple. Every person
Speaker 3: hands their own neun unique personality and lifestyle preference, and
Speaker 3: nobody is a clone of each other. If they were,
Speaker 3: we'd be bored to tears. And so people are really different,
Speaker 3: and as a result, people have to learn how to
Speaker 3: manage their differences, manage conflict, create a path, a journey forward,
Speaker 3: especially with commitment, in which you're creating a culture that
Speaker 3: honors both of you, honors both of your traditions, your rituals,
Speaker 3: your preferences, and that's not always an easy thing. The
Speaker 3: other thing, too, is that none of us has a nice, stable,
Speaker 3: flat line of a mood. We're always going up and
Speaker 3: down and up and down, and sometimes we're crabby, sometimes
Speaker 3: we're full of delight. Sometimes we just want sleep all day.
Speaker 3: And how does our partner hold that in their hands?
Speaker 3: Are they there for us? There for them? That building
Speaker 3: of trust is incredibly important. Are you there for me
Speaker 3: when I'm sick? Are you there for me when I'm depressed?
Speaker 3: Are you there for me when I'm triumphant and I
Speaker 3: just got a big raise and I want to celebrate.
Speaker 3: Are you there for me when I just am so
Speaker 3: stressed out I can't see street. So there's a lot
Speaker 3: of back and forth in terms of testing one another.
Speaker 2: That's a reality. And yeah, all of the trust, all
Speaker 2: of the conflicts of those one hundred and thirty uliwds,
Speaker 2: we're basically about trust. About what Julie's talking about, Are
Speaker 2: you going to be there for me? Can I count
Speaker 2: on you? And the couples who build trust really go
Speaker 2: on to have a very good relationship, and usually there's
Speaker 2: more commitment. With commitment, there really are saying you have
Speaker 2: the love of my life. There's nobody on the planet
Speaker 2: that can compare to you. I'm old men, And I think.
Speaker 1: This importance of trust gets to another misconception that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us have, right. I think when
Speaker 1: we think of successful couples, a lot of us mistakenly
Speaker 1: think that they're couples that exist maybe without conflict, or
Speaker 1: they don't fight very much. They don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of negative interactions, But your work has shown that the
Speaker 1: negative interactions might not be as important as the flip side.
Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Even a woman's anger, for example, which men find unpleasant
Speaker 2: in the moment, in the long run, really is good
Speaker 2: for the relationship. You know, what a lot of couple
Speaker 2: therapists thought was the destruction of anger is actually a
Speaker 2: good thing. So if people can talk about what they
Speaker 2: feel and what they need with one another, then you know,
Speaker 2: these emotions really can be very constructive. And the goal
Speaker 2: of conflict is mutual understanding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me say a little more about that. Most people,
Speaker 3: when they have conflicts, what they imagine is just skating
Speaker 3: on the surface. They have this current problem. They've got
Speaker 3: to come up with a fix for that current problem.
Speaker 3: They are not necessarily aware of all the underlying subterranean messages, history, values,
Speaker 3: ideal dreams that lie beneath that surface that they're arguing about.
Speaker 3: And so part of what we saw Laurie with the
Speaker 3: Masters of Relationship is that they almost always dug deep
Speaker 3: when there was a really significant issue at stake, and
Speaker 3: they would reveal their enduring vulnerabilities. The old scar tissue
Speaker 3: from childhood, baggage they were still carrying, or another relationship,
Speaker 3: an old relationship. Nobody really escapes childhood without some kind
Speaker 3: of baggage. I mean, I've never seen somebody who has.
Speaker 3: And thus, when we are fighting for something we believe in,
Speaker 3: some of that baggage can get kicked up, right Like,
Speaker 3: we may feel judged, we may feel rejected, we may
Speaker 3: feel down. Even when our partner is saying, honey, you're
Speaker 3: the most wonderful thing on the planet. Still, you know,
Speaker 3: we're hearing old messages in that brain of ours and
Speaker 3: misinterpreting what our partner is saying. So the successful couples
Speaker 3: are people who really check deeply, am I hearing you correctly?
Speaker 3: Is this what you're saying? Tell me where that comes from?
Speaker 3: Where did that value get established in your life? Because
Speaker 3: it sounds like it's relatively new and before that you
Speaker 3: had a different set of values.
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 3: It's people really exploring each other's internal landscape to find
Speaker 3: out where does their partner live inside? Who is their partner?
Speaker 3: Really that's the beauty of conflict that you're opening up
Speaker 3: these aspects of people's inner world that you may not
Speaker 3: have really been aware of fully and through conflict you
Speaker 3: learn all about that, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: And so I think we're going to dive much more
Speaker 1: deeply into the conflict work. I want to get totally
Speaker 1: to fight right. But I also wanted to start with
Speaker 1: some of your earlier work just on the power of
Speaker 1: positive interactions, because I think when we think about couples
Speaker 1: that aren't doing so great, were mostly thinking about couples
Speaker 1: that are having fights or having conflict or things like that,
Speaker 1: but we often don't realize that sometimes it's really about
Speaker 1: couples not investing in the positive side of things and
Speaker 1: kind of getting to some of these bids and things.
Speaker 1: And so you talk about this kind of misconception that
Speaker 1: the investment really needs to be in the positive side
Speaker 1: of things too.
Speaker 2: And we noticed very quickly in the Apartment Land that
Speaker 2: there were these small moments where one or both people
Speaker 2: were trying to make a connection, get their partner's attention
Speaker 2: or interest, or have a conversation, get some affection, tell
Speaker 2: a story, tell a joke, and how the partner responded
Speaker 2: to this bid for connection really predicted the future of
Speaker 2: a relationship. And it's now been called the Bird test
Speaker 2: on TikTok, And the idea is, you know, if you're
Speaker 2: trying to get your partner's attention just to look at
Speaker 2: a bird outside and they do, they say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: beautiful bird, then that really predicts a very good relationship.
Speaker 2: And in fact, the couples who divorced and the love
Speaker 2: lad had only turned toward bids thirty three percent of
Speaker 2: the time. The couples who were still together six years
Speaker 2: earlier had turned toward these bids eighty six percent of
Speaker 2: the time. So a really huge difference.
Speaker 1: So give me a side how couples can react to
Speaker 1: one another's bids, you know. So maybe because you've talked
Speaker 1: about like three different ways people can kind of react.
Speaker 2: So yeah, let me start with a bidwn. You know,
Speaker 2: I had a really disturbing dream last night about your mother.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm reading? Would you stop interrupting me.
Speaker 3: I don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 2: Boo.
Speaker 3: That's hostile, right, that's turning against That's what we call
Speaker 3: it turning against. Try to get I really had a
Speaker 3: disturbing dream last night about your mother.
Speaker 2: I'd like to talk to you about it.
Speaker 3: Silence. It's as if your partner didn't say a word.
Speaker 3: They don't exist. That's called turning away, and it makes
Speaker 3: people feel unimportant, devalued, disrespected, invisible. Now let's try it again.
Speaker 2: I had a really disturbing dream last night my mother,
Speaker 2: you did? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Really, my mother got into your dream?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was right in there.
Speaker 3: Oh no, So what happened to tell me about it?
Speaker 2: She was so nice to me?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I was really surprised that she was
Speaker 2: so affectionate.
Speaker 3: That's called turning towards, where you're immediately responding with interest,
Speaker 3: with attention, and with connection to your partner's bid for connection.
Speaker 2: It feels so different, you know, when you try to
Speaker 2: connect and your partner doesn't. So the probability we discovered
Speaker 2: a rebidding when your partner turns away is almost zero
Speaker 2: in relationships that are doomed. It's only twenty two percent
Speaker 2: in relationships that are going to stay together. So it's
Speaker 2: very low all the time. So people kind of crumple
Speaker 2: inside a little bit. Can I describe an image? If
Speaker 2: you imagine a sea anemone, those are those creatures you know,
Speaker 2: that have about one hundred little tiny fingers, and those
Speaker 2: fingers will stretch out, straightened out, and open up when
Speaker 2: they're relaxed and they're happy. Imagine just poking a little bit,
Speaker 2: poking in the center, which is the equivalent of turning events,
Speaker 2: and what happens the cnemone folds up its fingers very
Speaker 2: quickly and tightly and is very reluctant to open them
Speaker 2: up again. That's, you know, classically, what happens inside of
Speaker 2: us when somebody turns against our bid. You know, when
Speaker 2: we're opening up to our partner, they turn against away.
Speaker 2: We shrink down inside of ourselves and again feel unsafe,
Speaker 2: so we don't want to open up again, not for
Speaker 2: a while. So love occurs in these very small moments,
Speaker 2: which is why we say love's a verb, because it's
Speaker 2: what you do moment to moment that makes the difference.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I find this works so powerful
Speaker 1: is that, you know, I get the sense, of course,
Speaker 1: that when you're kind of being adversarial when your partner
Speaker 1: makes a bid, if you say why are you talking
Speaker 1: to me or something, that that's negative. I think the
Speaker 1: striking thing from your work is that it's just as
Speaker 1: bad when the partner just reacts with silence, when you're
Speaker 1: not paying attention. After reading your work, I've been much
Speaker 1: more careful about this with my husband, But there are
Speaker 1: definitely times when I'm you know, checking my email or
Speaker 1: looking at a screen that you know, he's mentioning something,
Speaker 1: and my sense like, h this is not interesting, Like
Speaker 1: it's so easy not to pay attention. But when you realize,
Speaker 1: like the person on the other end of that email,
Speaker 1: they're not going to care that I took you know,
Speaker 1: time away for two seconds. But my husband, you know
Speaker 1: that bid it matters a lot if I turn away.
Speaker 1: I mean, is this the kind of thing you see
Speaker 1: in couples nowadays? There's so many more distractions for our
Speaker 1: mid time.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, you know. I mean, I'm sure all
Speaker 3: of us have gone into a cafe and we've seen
Speaker 3: a table of four people, maybe every single person is
Speaker 3: on their phone and they're looking at their screens, they're
Speaker 3: not looking at each other, and there's absolute silence at
Speaker 3: the table. What kind of community connection is that? It's nothing,
Speaker 3: which for me anyway, is very painful to see because
Speaker 3: there's the opportunity all these people sitting together, or a
Speaker 3: couple sitting together, where they really could be having interaction, connection, laughter, delight, enjoyment,
Speaker 3: sharing stories. Nope, silence that feels very empty, like a
Speaker 3: vaccine exists between them.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what's really amazing RRI is that these
Speaker 2: small moments mount up. You know, either we an emotional
Speaker 2: bank account that has a lot of good stuff in
Speaker 2: it or one that's bearing. In the latter case, it
Speaker 2: leaves people feeling very lonely and in the other very
Speaker 2: full and very connected. And it affects not only love
Speaker 2: in the moment, it affects our physical health and longevity.
Speaker 2: So if we have a more connected relationship, we're going
Speaker 2: to live about seventeen years longer than if we don't.
Speaker 1: If living a longer, happier life isn't a good enough
Speaker 1: reason to pay just a little more attention to our
Speaker 1: loved ones, then I don't know what is. But being
Speaker 1: receptive to our partner's bids for attention are only one
Speaker 1: of the things that the Gatmans recommend. Their next challenge
Speaker 1: involves finding ways to remain curious about our lovers, no
Speaker 1: matter how long we've been with them. We'll hear more
Speaker 1: about why building curiosity is so important when the happiness
Speaker 1: labor turns in a moment. If you're months, years, or
Speaker 1: even decades into a relationship, you might be tempted to
Speaker 1: think that you know everything there is to know about
Speaker 1: your partner, But relationship experts Julian John Gotman say that
Speaker 1: can be a fatal assumption. It can also be a
Speaker 1: problem when life simply gets in the way of the
Speaker 1: usual relationship curiosity.
Speaker 3: When we get busy things to do, children, to pick up,
Speaker 3: meals to me, grocery shopping to do, busy, busy, busy.
Speaker 3: How much time do we actually have to give to
Speaker 3: conversation with our partner where we're simply just wanting to know,
Speaker 3: how is your day, what was the worst part about
Speaker 3: it for you? What was really happening that upset you
Speaker 3: at set, we're not asking each other those big questions.
Speaker 1: Julie says that retaining a deep curiosity is vital to
Speaker 1: the health of any relationship, but it's also something that
Speaker 1: often fades after the early days of courtship.
Speaker 3: You may remember when you were first dating or you
Speaker 3: first met your partner, you didn't know anything, and so
Speaker 3: you ask them lots of questions to find out who
Speaker 3: are they, what makes them tick, where did they come from,
Speaker 3: how did that legacy influence them now? But when we
Speaker 3: get busy with kids, with jobs, with careers. We take
Speaker 3: for granted that we really know our partner, so we
Speaker 3: don't need to ask those questions anymore. But think about it, guys,
Speaker 3: every single day is a new experience, and every new
Speaker 3: experience builds another layer of identity into each individual. Well,
Speaker 3: how do you keep up with that evolution of your partner,
Speaker 3: that development as they go through new experiences, politics, friendships,
Speaker 3: You know, who do they become? Because we're always in
Speaker 3: a state of becoming. We never have just arrived. That's
Speaker 3: an allusion. We're always becoming, and thus we have to
Speaker 3: keep asking open ended questions, that is, questions that have
Speaker 3: a great, big answer, not just a one word or
Speaker 3: two word answer, to learn Who are you today? Who
Speaker 3: do you want to be tomorrow? Those are important questions
Speaker 3: to keep repeating throughout our relationship. May I tell you
Speaker 3: a story, Lorie?
Speaker 2: Oh please?
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's the story how all of this got started.
Speaker 3: When John and I were first married, we didn't have
Speaker 3: much money. He was a professor, I was starting in
Speaker 3: private practice. But we wanted to go out on a
Speaker 3: date night once. So we lived in Seattle and there's
Speaker 3: a beautiful hotel called the Sorrento that has a magnificent,
Speaker 3: big stone fireplace in the lobby and gorgeous, beautiful soft
Speaker 3: couches that you fold into right in front of the fireplace.
Speaker 3: So what John and I would do is we would
Speaker 3: go to this hotel and we'd pretend we were guests
Speaker 3: and we would grab a couch, stay in the couch
Speaker 3: for three hours, have one drink, which was cheap, and
Speaker 3: at the end of the day we would walk out.
Speaker 3: So during the date, we would ask each other these
Speaker 3: big questions. John always brought a yellow pad and he
Speaker 3: would take notes about my answers, which men, Oh my god,
Speaker 3: I better be careful because one of those answers might
Speaker 3: wind up been a book. And so I was very
Speaker 3: careful about what I said. But we were never at
Speaker 3: a loss for questions because there was always more going
Speaker 3: on week to week that we wanted to learn about.
Speaker 2: And later on we developed this tradition of our annual honeymoon.
Speaker 2: We would rent a room at a bed and breakfast
Speaker 2: and for about two weeks we would ask each other
Speaker 2: three questions, what did you love about this year, what
Speaker 2: did you hate about this year? And what do you
Speaker 2: want next year to be like? So we do kind
Speaker 2: of like a review of the whole relationship for that
Speaker 2: year in that annual honeymoon. We've done it for twenty
Speaker 2: three years now, it's tradition. And we asked those open
Speaker 2: and the questions of each other just to kind of
Speaker 2: understand how our partner has been affected by the year,
Speaker 2: you know, and what they're thinking about.
Speaker 1: It sounds like this is so powerful to just kind
Speaker 1: of take the time to get to know your partner right.
Speaker 1: You could notice them changing over time and so on.
Speaker 1: But this is the kind of thing that we forget
Speaker 1: to do when we're busy. Another thing we forget to
Speaker 1: do when we're busy is to notice our partner's good features.
Speaker 1: But you've argued that we need to fight this tendency
Speaker 1: that another thing we can do to make love last
Speaker 1: is to notice the good stuff.
Speaker 2: Can I tell you about a study that is really amazing.
Speaker 2: We didn't do it. This study had observers in couple's
Speaker 2: homes just noting down everything positive that one person said
Speaker 2: to the other, and one observer was observing the husband,
Speaker 2: one observing the wife. The couple was also scoring what
Speaker 2: their partner was doing positive and what they discovered was
Speaker 2: that when the relationship wasn't going well, people missed fifty
Speaker 2: percent of all this positivity. They just didn't see it.
Speaker 1: So that is your partner's doing good things. They're taking
Speaker 1: the garbage out, emptying the dishwasher, you know, saying nice things.
Speaker 1: But it's just you don't even notice. It's just going
Speaker 1: over your head.
Speaker 2: You don't even notice it. Right, that's an amazing study,
Speaker 2: Robinson and Price to dead study. You know, it's so
Speaker 2: important because here's the positivity, but it's not getting noticed
Speaker 2: by the partner when they're really unhappy in their relationship.
Speaker 1: Right, and so how do we fix that?
Speaker 3: Well, so our model is look for what your partner
Speaker 3: is doing right and say thank you. Very very simple thing.
Speaker 3: It's a habit of mind. We've grown up in a
Speaker 3: very critical society. This is a very competitive, contemptuous place
Speaker 3: where critical we're being criticized. We're always comparing ourselves, sometimes
Speaker 3: negatively to other people. So you've come by it righteously,
Speaker 3: this habit to look for what's.
Speaker 2: Going wrong right.
Speaker 3: But it's not that hard to just shift to if
Speaker 3: my partner wasn't taking out garbage, wouldn't that be a drag?
Speaker 3: How wonderful that they're taking out the garbage. Thank you
Speaker 3: very much for taking out the garbage. So if you
Speaker 3: imagine your partner's not doing this positive thing, it means
Speaker 3: you'll probably have to be doing it, which will stress
Speaker 3: you out even more because you already have a lot
Speaker 3: on your plate, right, So it's practicing gratitude and it's
Speaker 3: seeing what are they doing, even those little subtle things.
Speaker 3: Every single morning For the last I don't know, thirty
Speaker 3: seven years since we've been together, John's been making our
Speaker 3: coffee every single morning, and it is really good and
Speaker 3: I love it, and I thank him every single morning,
Speaker 3: knows how I like it. And if I keep saying
Speaker 3: thank you, he'll keep making it.
Speaker 1: And I know you had, if I recall from the book,
Speaker 1: I know you had a story where you really noticed
Speaker 1: for the first time how important that was. When he
Speaker 1: wasn't there to make the coffee.
Speaker 3: Well, I was very sad that he wasn't there, and
Speaker 3: I was thanking God. Does it take five scoops or
Speaker 3: six scoops? And I can't remember what I did, and
Speaker 3: I don't know. I put in seven scoops just for
Speaker 3: the heck of it, and then I shot to the
Speaker 3: ceiling after drinking half a cup and stay.
Speaker 2: There for the next four hours. This was not a
Speaker 2: good thing.
Speaker 3: So the next time when John made the coffee, was like, oh,
Speaker 3: thank you for making I'm so relieved that you're here
Speaker 3: making a coffee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this can become a habit of mine. Really, Instead
Speaker 2: of focusing on your partner's mistakes and we all make mistakes,
Speaker 2: if you focus on what your partner is doing right
Speaker 2: and really express appreciation for it, then it's an entirely
Speaker 2: different relationship. And actually the person who shifts their habit
Speaker 2: of mind to noticing what's going right actually becomes less
Speaker 2: stressed and they become nicer. That's kind of surprising, but
Speaker 2: you know, when you have that positive habit of mind,
Speaker 2: the world looks a lot kinder and more generous.
Speaker 1: And this is something you've talked about a lot, that
Speaker 1: we really do have much more control over these habits
Speaker 1: of mind than we expect. Right that in some sense,
Speaker 1: this negativity bias not asking these questions in some ways
Speaker 1: there like an active choice, even though we don't realize.
Speaker 2: That's well said.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, you have to start with intention.
Speaker 3: So is it your intention to make this relationship better?
Speaker 3: You know, in the past, before a lot of this
Speaker 3: research got done, we had no idea of how to
Speaker 3: make relationships better. Did it take more sex, did it
Speaker 3: take better cooking? You know what did it take? But
Speaker 3: now with this research well rounded here and telling us
Speaker 3: what to do, then we have tools. We have alternatives
Speaker 3: as to the good habits to put into place in
Speaker 3: our relationship. And they're really not that hard. Laurie, here's
Speaker 3: how much it takes. Wow, look at that beautiful bird.
Speaker 3: Huh nice, That's all it takes. Period, is just a
Speaker 3: couple of little syllables. All of us can do that.
Speaker 3: It's just a matter of our intention, our intention to connect,
Speaker 3: to be loving.
Speaker 2: Can I say something here about this? So you know
Speaker 2: my former graduates the Jennis Driver, discovered that when people
Speaker 2: increase their turning toward, which just takes really an awareness
Speaker 2: of how your partner is reaching out, then what happens
Speaker 2: is when there's conflict, people automatically have a sense of
Speaker 2: humor about themselves. They can laugh at themselves, and being
Speaker 2: able to laugh together when you're disagreeing reduces physiological arounsoal
Speaker 2: it really bonds you even though you're disagreeing on atopic
Speaker 2: so it's very powerful.
Speaker 1: And if it's with this other ratio that you figured out,
Speaker 1: which is that the positivity to negativity ratio overall seems
Speaker 1: to matter, right, so that little infusion of humor can
Speaker 1: be quite powerful. Explain what this ratio is and why
Speaker 1: it's so important for relationship success.
Speaker 2: So, you know, Bob Levinson and I counted in a
Speaker 2: fifteen minute conflict discussion, how many seconds people are kind
Speaker 2: to each other, interested, curious, generous, saying even small things
Speaker 2: like oh yeah, oh wow. You know those kinds of reflections.
Speaker 2: They really lubricate the wheels of conflict so that we
Speaker 2: arrive at more mutual understanding. What was a big surprise
Speaker 2: was that the Masters of relationships during conflict at ratio
Speaker 2: of positive to negative that interested in one another, that excitement, curiosity, agreement,
Speaker 2: understanding was five times as common as negativity in the
Speaker 2: Masters of Relationships, and in couples that were doomed, that
Speaker 2: ratio was zero point eight, just a little bit more
Speaker 2: negativity and positivity. It's very famous in Seattle. I was
Speaker 2: coming out of Starbucks a couple of months ago when
Speaker 2: this sky drone by in his truck and rolled down
Speaker 2: his window and said five to one. Right. You know,
Speaker 2: it's become well known at least in Seattle.
Speaker 1: When John says it out loud, it seems so obvious.
Speaker 1: Happy relationships spring from two people being warmed towards one another,
Speaker 1: willing to express interest in and concern for their partner
Speaker 1: in far greater proportion than any complaints they might air.
Speaker 1: After the break, we'll hear more advice that again sounds obvious,
Speaker 1: but seems to be followed only by those rare masters
Speaker 1: of relationships. That advice is not to treat your partner
Speaker 1: like a mind reader the happiness lab. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Are there things you want from your life, partner? Are
Speaker 1: there issues welling up that bother you or make you unhappy?
Speaker 1: Have you expressed these thoughts openly to your partner? Or
Speaker 1: are you storing these problems away as resentments that are
Speaker 1: slowly building up over time? When you say it out loud,
Speaker 1: it sounds like such a stupid strategy, but it's also
Speaker 1: one a lot of us follow. And doctor Julie Schwartz
Speaker 1: Scotman has a theory.
Speaker 3: Why let me just say first give it some context
Speaker 3: that in this country, at least, we have grown up
Speaker 3: with the value of your weak When you need somebody else,
Speaker 3: it's not okay to have needs, women especially are called
Speaker 3: too needy. And you know, here's the basic truth. The
Speaker 3: truth is that human beings are pack animals. We are
Speaker 3: pack animals. We don't survive without our tribe or are
Speaker 3: intimates who are really there for us. It's the lone
Speaker 3: wolf versus the wolf pack, right, Well, we're very similar
Speaker 3: to that. So what does that mean. It means we
Speaker 3: need to connect. We need to connect all the time.
Speaker 3: So when people feel terrible about expressing their needs, they
Speaker 3: can go two ways. Either they expect their partner to
Speaker 3: read their minds and then out of nowhere, the partner
Speaker 3: is hearing. Why didn't you actually see that I was
Speaker 3: sick and bring me tea? Why didn't you do that? Well,
Speaker 3: the partner number one didn't know that this first person
Speaker 3: was sick, didn't know they liked tea when they were sick,
Speaker 3: et cetera. How would they know the other person is
Speaker 3: not saying what they need? Right, So those needs can
Speaker 3: stack up over time and create huge amounts of resentment
Speaker 3: and anger that the other person is not there for them.
Speaker 3: But the fact of the matter is, how would the
Speaker 3: other know how to be there for the first person
Speaker 3: when the needs are not being expressed. So it's incredibly
Speaker 3: important for people to realize that interdependency is what creates
Speaker 3: a strength in a relationship. An interdependency is created by
Speaker 3: saying what you need in a positive way, saying how
Speaker 3: your partner can shine for you, and then hopefully your
Speaker 3: partner responds in that way, which is really fulfilling for
Speaker 3: you and fulfilling for them because it makes them feel
Speaker 3: valued and trusted that you're expressing a need to them.
Speaker 3: They're the chosen one that you are trusting. And let
Speaker 3: me say something else, Lorill.
Speaker 2: We've been talking about asking open ended questions and now
Speaker 2: we're talking about expressing needs. So if your listeners go
Speaker 2: to the app store and type in Gotman card Decks,
Speaker 2: they can download a free app that has expressing needs
Speaker 2: cards that they can go through once a week, you know,
Speaker 2: for a half an hour and say, well, here's what
Speaker 2: I need from you. This lead to feel loved, and
Speaker 2: they can have a card deck that has all these
Speaker 2: open ended questions on it that they can use. We
Speaker 2: use these card decks all the time and they've been
Speaker 2: downloaded about three hundred and fifty thousand times, so they're
Speaker 2: available for free.
Speaker 1: And I think that you know having like a little
Speaker 1: bit of help when you're asking for what you need
Speaker 1: can be really important because I know, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: this is just in my own life that you know, Julie,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that we need to ask with positivity, but
Speaker 1: I think sometimes when you're feeling really resentful, that can
Speaker 1: be hard. And sometimes when you finally go about asking
Speaker 1: for help, it can come off sounding like a criticism.
Speaker 1: It can sell it off like you didn't empty the
Speaker 1: dishwasher and I needed that. Talk about maybe a healthier
Speaker 1: way to go about asking for those needs and like
Speaker 1: the steps that we need to get in there to
Speaker 1: do it effectively.
Speaker 3: First of all, let me just insert a little piece
Speaker 3: of research here. What John and Bob and other colleagues
Speaker 3: found is that the first three minutes of a conflict
Speaker 3: conversation when you're bringing up your complaints not only predicts
Speaker 3: how the rest of the conversation will go that first
Speaker 3: three minutes, it also predicts how well the relationship is
Speaker 3: going to go six years down the road, with over
Speaker 3: ninety percent accuracy. So how we bring up our complaint
Speaker 3: is absolutely crucial. We found that successful couples had a
Speaker 3: formula for this, which we really try to practice and
Speaker 3: to teach others to practice. Number one, say what you feel.
Speaker 3: You're describing yourself, so you're saying things like I feel angry,
Speaker 3: I feel resentful, I feel frustrated. You can't sabotage it
Speaker 3: and say I feel that you are an idiot. No,
Speaker 3: it's not gonna work, or I feel like you're such
Speaker 3: a schmuck. That's not going to work. Right, So it
Speaker 3: has to be a real emotion. I feel stressed, I
Speaker 3: feel disappointed. Then step two about what now. Notice that's
Speaker 3: not about who about your partner and how rotten they are.
Speaker 3: It's about the situation. So it's going to sound like
Speaker 3: I feel upset that there's a new dent in the car.
Speaker 3: That's the situation. I feel angry that. Here's the situation.
Speaker 3: The bills haven't been paid, I'm sick and tired of
Speaker 3: cooking dinner every night, etc. So you're describing the situation
Speaker 3: and you're feeling about it. Then the all important step three,
Speaker 3: you say what your positive need is, and let me
Speaker 3: distinguish positive from negative. Negative need means what you don't
Speaker 3: want your partner to do. Positive need means what you
Speaker 3: do want your partner to do. So, if you have
Speaker 3: a negative need, like stop leaving the kitchen a mess.
Speaker 3: That's a negative. Flip it on its head and think, Okay,
Speaker 3: what would be the opposite of this that I would
Speaker 3: really like? I wish you would clean up the kitchen nightly.
Speaker 3: That would be such a help. And that positive need
Speaker 3: opens up your partner so much more than your partner
Speaker 3: hearing a criticism, which feels like a put down, which
Speaker 3: makes them want to withdraw and pull away or get defensive.
Speaker 1: It's such a powerful strategy because when you say what
Speaker 1: you're healing about what situation, and then stay to positive need.
Speaker 1: Nowhere in there is a critique of your partner, right,
Speaker 1: Like you haven't said because you did this bad thing.
Speaker 1: There's no kind of causal thing that your partner did wrong.
Speaker 1: And that must mean that like people just don't get
Speaker 1: as offended. Right, everybody's on board with trying to help it.
Speaker 1: Lets your partner be a help rather than a hindrance
Speaker 1: in this really important.
Speaker 3: Way, beautifully said, that's exactly right, that's exactly right. Yes,
Speaker 3: So you're really telling your partner I love you, I
Speaker 3: know you can be there for me, and if you
Speaker 3: would be there for me in this particular way, it
Speaker 3: would make me so happy.
Speaker 1: Have you all harnessed this kind of strategy for talking
Speaker 1: about your own unmet needs and your relationship? Any good examples?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I would say the books. Probably the books, right, okay?
Speaker 3: So John is an avid book collector, which means probably
Speaker 3: once a week we get seven books a week, maybe
Speaker 3: something like that. We're getting books all the time. We
Speaker 3: don't have bookshelf space for seven books a week, because
Speaker 3: add it up, that's almost thirty.
Speaker 2: Books a month. Where are you going to put them?
Speaker 3: So they end up being on the stairs, in the
Speaker 3: front entryway, on the dining room table, on the kitchen island,
Speaker 3: you know, everywhere, on her side of the bed, on
Speaker 3: my side of the bed, and on.
Speaker 2: His side of the bed.
Speaker 3: There's such a big pile that I risk breaking my
Speaker 3: neck to bend over the books to make the bed.
Speaker 3: So it's a danger to my life. And so what
Speaker 3: I have to.
Speaker 2: Do is.
Speaker 3: I know this is his personality and lifestyle preference, right,
Speaker 3: very different than mine. Okay, So it doesn't make him
Speaker 3: a bad person, just makes him different than me, right,
Speaker 3: with just different priorities. And so I'll say, honey, would
Speaker 3: you please clean up the books? And he may pay
Speaker 3: attention or he may not.
Speaker 2: We too.
Speaker 3: I'll say, sweetie, those books are becoming a danger to me.
Speaker 3: Would you please clean up the books. I'm afraid I'm
Speaker 3: going to trip on them going down the stairs. See
Speaker 3: there's no criticism in there. Okay, Week three, I'm going honey,
Speaker 3: you know, the voice tone has changed and I'm saying, honey,
Speaker 3: I'm at risk for breaking my neck. And you don't
Speaker 3: want a dead wire, right, No you don't, So please
Speaker 3: please please clean up the books. I beg you, this
Speaker 3: is a warning. So and then he finally does it,
Speaker 3: and the books are all cleaned away, and then it
Speaker 3: starts to build again. So we have this coverstage periodically
Speaker 3: once a long, i'd say regularly.
Speaker 1: But it's good that you've been able to figure out
Speaker 1: a way to do it. That's not, you know, attacking
Speaker 1: the person's personality, like why are you this kind of
Speaker 1: person who you know collects all these books. It's really
Speaker 1: doing it in a way that's expressing what your needs
Speaker 1: are and kind of giving a clear path. The helping too,
Speaker 1: which I love so right.
Speaker 3: You know the other thing too that people forget glory
Speaker 3: is that we have to be humble. We have to
Speaker 3: realize that. Okay, we're asking our partner to be perfect, right,
Speaker 3: are we perfect?
Speaker 2: No way?
Speaker 3: I drive John crazy with would you please clean this up?
Speaker 3: Will you please clean?
Speaker 2: I don't want to. I just want to sit and
Speaker 2: read my book.
Speaker 3: I'm driving him nuts with my need for tidiness, right,
Speaker 3: So he's tolerating that in me and being patient and
Speaker 3: eventually supportive putting away the books. So I'm no perfect
Speaker 3: icon either here. I can get grouchy, I can, you know,
Speaker 3: go a little nuts with all the books all over
Speaker 3: the place. He has to tolerate that, right, the same
Speaker 3: way I tolerate the difference in how he treats space.
Speaker 3: So okay, I have to be humble about you know,
Speaker 3: my flaws, my faults, and of course you know that
Speaker 3: message is throughout most of our religious texts. You know,
Speaker 3: whatever religion you're in, you know, look at yourself before
Speaker 3: you start criticizing your partner. So I really tried to
Speaker 3: hone that to a fine heart.
Speaker 2: How you do a good job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as well as being wise, the Gautmans are just
Speaker 1: a super fun couple to hang out with. And so
Speaker 1: you'll be glad to hear that we've only just scratched
Speaker 1: the surface. Of the advice that they have to share.
Speaker 1: In the second part of our conversation, they'll let me
Speaker 1: in on some secrets for dealing with one of the
Speaker 1: most upsetting and destabilizing aspects of being in love, the
Speaker 1: inevitable disagreements.
Speaker 2: I turned the phone off, but they didn't turn it off.
Speaker 1: I yeah, not seeing I die with your partner is
Speaker 1: perfectly natural.
Speaker 3: I'm really sick and tired of the laundry being all
Speaker 3: over the floor.
Speaker 1: Disagreements shouldn't be swept under the rug tofest, but they
Speaker 1: also shouldn't generate hostility either.
Speaker 3: I'm just second tired of the stupid, stupid laundry.
Speaker 1: The good news, says the Goatmans, is that there is
Speaker 1: a way that we can all learn to argue better.
Speaker 3: The laundry is on the floor. I really don't like
Speaker 3: seeing it. Would you please clean it up before we
Speaker 3: got dinner.
Speaker 1: That's coming up next time on the Happiness Lab with me,
Speaker 1: Doctor Laurie Sandos