Building Strong Relationships
By Rich Bayer, Ph.D.
John Gottman studies married couples. He probably
knows more about marriage than any other researcher in the United States. After a one-hour interview with a pair of newlyweds, he can predict with
great accuracy whether they’ll still be together in five years.
How does he do it?
He evaluates how couples communicate. He has
identified a few key factors that can make or break the relationship. More
importantly, he has found that couples who pay attention to these factors
can actually change their relationship and improve their chances of
staying together for the long haul. Through the words we use with one
another, we influence behavior. What we say has a powerful impact.
How you talk to your partner, and how he or she talks
to you, reveals a lot about your relationship. Positive comments help to
keep relationships alive while negative comments spell trouble.
The more negative comments between partners in a
relationship, the greater the threat to the relationship. Gottman uses the
analogy of banking and finances. He views any positive comment between
partners as a deposit in the bank and any negative comment as a
withdrawal. Positive comments help to build your funds and provide
security. Ongoing negative comments create a constant draw on your
account. No relationship can continue very long on deficit financing.
In his book The
Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Gottman reveals various
problems couples might have and what they can do to solve them. He also
offers ways to make good relationships even better.
He notes first and foremost that if there’s
violence or substance abuse in a relationship, these problems take
priority. Couples must deal with these before they can work on the finer
points of their relationship.
So what are the finer points? How can partners
improve the way they talk with each other?
Improving Relationships
As a starting point, take a look at the negative
comments made by each partner in the relationship. How many harsh
statements do you say to each other? Gottman has classified these harsh
statements into four categories. He calls them the four horsemen:
1)
Criticism – This negative comment personalizes a
complaint. A complaint is a behavioral description of the problem such as,
“You haven’t been doing any dishes this week.” This becomes a
criticism when you say, “You are really lazy! You haven’t been doing
any dishes.”
2)
Contempt – This is a put-down of the other person. You
show contempt by adding a negative emotion. Example: “You are really
lazy! You haven’t been doing any dishes. The way you are really disgusts
me!”
3)
Defensiveness – This is a reaction, in kind, to criticism
or contempt. Example: “Oh shut up! You’re much lazier than me.
When’s the last time you picked up after yourself in the living room? I
hate that! You’re such a slob.”
4)
Withdrawal – One partner turns away from the other, often
after a period of criticism, contempt, and defensiveness. In this case the
withdrawing partner believes it’s better to be apart than to endure the
fighting. A planned withdrawal for cooling down is OK, but when there is
no attempt to get back together later to work on the issues – that’s a
problem.
These four harsh statements often evoke strong
negative responses. This becomes a problem in itself as the pattern—one
negative response after another—can be hard to break.
But for marriages to be successful, this pattern must
be broken. What people can do, Gottman says, is begin making more
“repair attempts.” Every time we hear a harsh comment from our
partner, we have the option of responding harshly back or attempting to
“repair” the situation.
Instead of saying, “You lazy bum. You haven’t
been doing any dishes. The way you are really disgusts me!” you can say,
“I am concerned that the dirty dishes are piling up, is there a
problem?” This is much less likely to provoke an angry response. Even if
the response is a lame excuse, you are still talking about it rather than
fighting about it, so you can still focus on the issue of getting the
dishes washed as opposed to getting sidetracked into a fight that leaves
each of you unhappy.
In his extensive research, Gottman has found that
partners in successful marriages routinely make repair attempts. They make
enough repair attempts to keep things on a friendly basis.
So successful repair attempts help couples to
maintain their friendship. In fact, this is the secret to successful
relationships. “The simple truth,” says Gottman, “is that happy
marriages are based on a deep friendship… Friendship is the foundation
of the love.”
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Rich Bayer,
Ph.D., is the CEO of Upper Bay Counseling and Support Services, Inc. and a
practicing psychologist.
For More Information Contact:
Upper Bay Counseling and Support Services, Inc.
200 Booth Street, Elkton, MD 21921
Tel: 410-996-5104
Toll Free: 877-587-7750
FAX: 410-996-5197
Internet: info@upperbay.org
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