Making Marriage Work

Jane Freeman, LISW

Akron, Ohio
March, 2009
 Why bother?
• Unhappy marriage increases chances of getting
sick by 35% and shortens life 4 years
• Happily married live longer, healthier lives than
either divorced people or the unhappily married
• Unhappily marriage experience chronic, diffuse
physiological arousal=hypertension, coronary
artery disease, anxiety, depression, suicide,
violence, substance abuse.
 Myths about Marriage
• Communication and conflict resolution
skills save marriages
– best studies indicate improvement in only 35%
of cases and only18% retain benefits long term
– successful conflict resolution isn’t what makes
marriages succeed; good will and respect do
• Neuroses or personality problems ruin
marriages
 More Myths
• Common interests keep you together
– it all depends on how you interact when
pursuing them
• Quid pro quo helps marriages
– happy spouses do not keep a running tab; they
do chores because they generally feel positive
about their spouse
 Still more myths
• Conflict (or conflict avoidance) ruins
marriage
– conflict style is not relevant as long as it works
for both people
• Affairs are the root cause of divorce
– less than 1/4 of time are affairs even partially to
blame. Not feeling loved and appreciated is the
real culprit
 …and still more
• Men are not biologically “built” for
marriage
– recent studies support that extramarital affairs
of young women slightly exceeds those of men
• Men and women are from different planets
– the determining factor in whether spouses feel
satisfied with sex, romance and passion is (by
70%) the quality of the friendship
 What doesn’t work
• Harsh startup-96% of time can predict outcome
of a conversation based on the first 3 minutes.
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
– Criticism vs. complaint
– Contempt (eg. sarcasm, cynicism, name-calling,
eye-rolling, sneering, mockery, hostile humor)
– Defensiveness vs. accepting responsibility
– Stonewalling
 What else doesn’t work
• Flooding-spouse’s negativity is so overwhelming
that feel “shell-shocked”, and hyper-vigilant to
cues that spouse is about to “blow” again
• Body “language”-heart rate, hormonal changes,
blood pressure, at which point ability to process
information is reduced and creative problem
solving is severely impaired. Biological fact: Men
are more physiologically overwhelmed by marital
conflict
 What else doesn’t work
• Failed repair attempts
• Bad memories-re-writing history from a negative
perspective
• The death knell
– see marital problems as severe
– talking things over seems useless. Try to solve
problems on own
– start leading parallel lives
– loneliness sets in
 So…what does work?
• In happy marriages spouses still had
significant differences in temperament,
interests and family values, conflict over $,
jobs, kids, chores, sex and in-laws
• Happy marriages are based on deep
friendship and are all alike in 7 ways
 7 principles of making marriage
work
• Enhance your love maps
• nurture your fondness and admiration
• turn toward each other, instead of away
• let your partner influence you
• solve your solvable problems
• overcome gridlock
• create shared meaning
 1. Enhancing love maps
Emotionally intelligent couples:
– remember major events in each other’s history
– keep updating their information as the facts and
feelings of spouse’s world change
– work to develop greater personal insight and
share it
 2. Nurture fondness and
admiration
• Maintain an idealized image of your partner
• Maintain the belief that one’s spouse is worthy of
honor and respect
• Fan the flames by expressions of appreciation
 3. Turn toward each other
• Make deposits in the emotional bank
account
• Say yes! to your partner’s invitations more
often than not
The stress-reducing conversation,
(when not the target)
• Take turns complaining
• don’t give unsolicited advice
• show genuine interest
• communicate your understanding
• take your spouse’s side (we against them)
• express affection physically
• validate emotions
 4. let your partner influence you
During conflict wives rarely responded to husbands by
increasing negativity; instead tried to tone it down or
match it.
65 % of men escalated wives’ negativity
“You’re not listening to me” met with
Ignoring (stonewall), be defensive (“Yes I am!),
be critical (“what you say never makes sense”) or be
contemptuous (“why waste my time?”)
Choose “Us” over “Me”
 The 2 kinds of marital conflict
• Perpetual: 69%. One doesn’t have to
resolve major marital conflicts for marriage
to thrive, rather learn to cope, accept the
inevitability of difference, develop
strategies to deal with them. Otherwise,
leads to Gridlock
• solvable: 5 steps to follow
 Signs of gridlock
• Conflict makes you feel rejected
• talking makes no headway
• positions become entrenched, no humor
• unbudgeable leads to vilification leads to
polarization leads to emotional disengagement
• Unrequited (unrealized) dreams are the core of
gridlocked conflict
 5. Key to solvable problems
• Soften your startup
• effective use of repair attempts
• monitor physiology to warn against
flooding (soothe self and other)
• compromise
• tolerate each other’s faults
 6. Overcome gridlock
• Become a Dream Detective-what’s really the
underlying issue
• Work on a Gridlocked Marital issue-
understand what this issue means to your spouse
• Sooth each other-guard against flooding
• End the gridlock-temporary compromise,
acceptance of differences
• Say thank You-tell spouse what you appreciate
 7. Create Shared Meaning
• Family rituals
• Roles
• Personal goals
• Shared symbols