DeClaire Joan - Ten lessons to transform your marriage : Americas love lab experts share their strategies for strengthening your relationship

JOHN M. GOTTMAN, PH.D.,

JULIE SCHWARTZ GOTTMAN, PH.D.,

& JOAN DECLAIRE

Crown Publishers

New York

Ten Lessons
to Transform
Your
Marriage

Contents

Our Analysis: A Cycle of Criticize/Defend/Countercriticize

Our Advice

One Year Later

Healthy Complaining Versus Harmful Complaining

The Oversensitive Partner

When One Partner Works Too Much

Quiz: Is There Too Much Criticism in Your Relationship?

Exercise: Listen for the Longing Behind Your Partners Complaints

Exercise: Whats Your Mission? Whats Your Legacy?

Our Analysis: Sidestepping Difficult Feelings Blocks Emotional Intimacy

Our Advice

One Year Later

The Hazards of Avoiding Conflict

The Affair-Prone Marriage

Quiz: Do You Avoid Conflicts, or Do You Talk About Them?

Exercise: Calm Down to Avoid Flooding

Exercise: Identifying Your Feelings

Exercise: The Marital Poop Detector

Our Analysis: Stress Creates Emotional Distance and Hinders Romance

Our Advice

One Year Later

How a Little Selfishness Can Help Your Marriage

Quiz: How Much Stress Have You Had Lately?

Exercise: Steps to a Healthier Lifestyle

Exercise: Keep Your Love Map Up-to-Date

Our Analysis: Attacks and Counterattacks Make the Marriage Unsafe for Conversation

Our Advice

One Year Later

The Antidotes to Contempt: Fondness and Admiration

Quiz: Is There More Room for Fondness and Admiration in Your Marriage?

Exercise: Three Things I Like About You

Exercise: Nurturing Fondness in Your RelationshipA Seven-Week Plan

Our Analysis: Ignoring Dreams Beneath the Conflict Stalls Communication

Our Advice

One Year Later

Your Hidden Dreams and Aspirations: The Prairie Dogs of Marital Conflict

Quiz: What Are the Dreams Within Your Conflicts?

Exercise: Responding to the Dreams Within Your Conflict

Our Analysis: Avoiding Emotional Intensity Postpones Healing

Our Advice

One Year Later

Helping Your Partner Through Depression

Quiz: Are You Depressed?

Quiz: Are You Anxious?

Exercise: Establish a Ritual for Stress-Reducing Conversation

Our Analysis: Harsh Words and Defensiveness Trump Good Intentions

Our Advice

One Year Later

Quiz: Harsh Start-up: A Problem in Your Marriage?

Exercise: Turning Harsh Start-up to Softened Start-up

Quiz: Are You Open to Your Partners Influence?

Exercise: Using the Aikido Principle to Accept Influence

Our Analysis: Failure to Express Anger Leads to Emotional Distance

Our Advice

One Year Later

How Anger Can Enhance a Marriage

A Special Message for Husbands: Embrace Her Anger

Quiz: How Do You Feel About Anger?

Exercise: When You and Your Partner Have Different Ideas About Anger

Exercise: Responding to Anger in a Helpful Way

Our Analysis: Focus on the Kids Disguises the Real TroubleFailure at Expressing Needs

Our Advice

Two Months Later

Whats Wrong with a Child-Centered Marriage?

Quiz: Is Your Marriage Child-Centered?

Exercise: Give Me a Clue

Exercise: Turning Toward Your Partners Bids for Connection

Busting the Myth of Spontaneity in Romance

Exercise: A Blueprint for Handling Conflict

Our Analysis: Perpetual Issues Lead to Conflict Avoidance, Lack of Connection

Our Advice

Two Years Later

Dont Get Gridlocked over Perpetual Issues

Quiz: What Are Your Perpetual Issues and What Are Your Gridlocked Problems?

Exercise: Creating a Culture of Shared Values and Meaning

Exercise: Thanksgiving Checklist

To our parentsLina and Solomon Gotthelfsman, and Selma and Marvin Schwartzin celebration of their long-lasting marriages

JMG and JSG

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Catherine Romano and the staff at Readers Digest for their collaboration on The Love Lab column, upon which this book is based. Thanks also to Virginia Rutter, who provided screening and logistical support for this effort, and to Sybil Carrere, Alyson Shapiro, Amber Tabares, and Janice Driver for making our laboratory work successful.

We also wish to express our continuing gratitude to the people and organizations that help to fund our marriage and family research. These include Bruce and Jolene McCaw, founders of the Apex Foundation and the Talaris Research Institute; Craig Stewart, president of the Apex Foundation; Dan and Sally Kranzler, founders of the Kirlin Foundation; Ron Rabin, executive director of the Kirlin Foundation; Peter Berliner and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation; Molly Oliveri of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH); and a grant from NIMH titled Basic Processes in Marriage.

In addition, thanks go to the staff of the Gottman Institute: Etana Dykan, Linda Wright, Venita Ramirez, Stacy Walker, Candace Marshall, and Belinda Gray. With great dedication and commitment, they have supported us to serve more than five thousand couples and to train more than fourteen thousand clinicians.

Joan DeClaire wishes to express thanks to Louise Carnachan, Carla Granat, and Debra Jarvis for their tremendously helpful comments on the manuscript. Her gratitude also goes to Wendy Townsend, Bob Heffernan, and the members of the Artists GroupNan Burling, Louise Carter, Rebecca Hughes, Wendy Slotboom, and Jan Short Pollardfor their never-ending support and encouragement.

And finally, thanks to all the couples who have so generously volunteered for this and other research projects throughout the years.

INTRODUCTION

From Predicting
Divorce to
Preventing It:

An Introductory Message from John and Julie Gottman

I ts been more than a decade since John and his colleagues at the University of Washington (UW) first announced their discovery: Through the power of careful observation and mathematical analysis, the team had learned to predict with more than 90 percent accuracy whether a married couple would stay together or eventually divorce.

This discovery captured the imagination of many. If research psychologists could now pinpoint specific behaviors that lead to divorce, then perhaps people in troubled relationships could change those behaviors and save their marriages. But as any weatherman can tell you, the ability to predict trouble is not the same as the ability to prevent it. Its one thing to detect a storm brewing on radar; its quite another to make those storm clouds disappear.

And yet thats the kind of work we at the Gottman Institute have been doing. Since 1994 weve been developing tools to help couples identify problems that are proven to destroy relationshipsand to turn those problems around. By experimenting with various forms of therapy, weve been learning how to help husbands and wives improve their marriages and prevent divorce.

Through our workshops, therapy sessions, and books, couples are gaining the tools they need to build stronger friendships and manage their conflicts. As a result, they are learning to work through a whole host of problems common to marriageproblems such as these: