May/June 2011

If you’re an average Coloradan chances are good that a quarter of your adult friends over 30 have been divorced – and some of them, more than once. Why has the dissolution of marital bonds become such an epidemic? Are we ill-suited to monogamy, or has the sanctity of marriage simply lost its luster?

John Gottman, Ph.D., has been scrutinizing such questions for more than 40 years. As a world-renowned researcher on marital stability and divorce prediction, he has studied how emotions, physiology and communication affect a couple’s likelihood to stay or to split. Along with his wife, Julie Schwartz Gottman, Ph.D., he founded the Relationship Research Institute, in Seattle, WA, a non-profit organization that conducts scientific studies of couples and families.

Gottman has won many national awards for his research, has appeared on numerous television shows, teaches workshops around the country, and is the author or co-author of 119 published academic articles and 37 books, including the New York Times bestseller, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Three Rivers Press, 2000). In his most recent book, The Relationship Cure (Three Rivers Press, 2002)), he presents a five-step plan for improving relationships not only with marriage partners but also with children and friends. Here, Gottman talks with Nexus about the importance of honesty, ways to create shared rituals in your marriage, and how to survive the inevitable bumps in any relationship’s road.

RD: Those of us who have been in any long-term relationships or marriages know that we hit bumps in the road. Sometimes those bumps break up the relationship; some of them make us grow stronger as couples. What kind of bumps are deal breakers and which ones can we move past?

JG: Those things you’re calling “bumps” are what we call “regrettable incidents.” And they happen with considerable regularity, even in very good relationships. These are times where you say something you don’t mean, there’s a miscommunication, there are hurt feelings. You have two minds in a relationship, so mathematically the probability of these regrettable incidents occurring is high. For example, here’s a mathematical equation estimating the frequency a regrettable incident might occur for you. Estimate the percent of time that you’re completely emotionally available to your partner at the moment she wants to talk about an issue. This is the percentage of time you are willing to listen –without being defensive, and with an open heart. Would you agree that 50 percent is a pretty generous estimate?

RD: Yeah.

JG: Okay, so that’s like the probability of getting a “heads” when you flip an unbiased coin, right?

RD: Right.

JG: So now you ask what’s the probability that both people will be emotionally available at the same time. And, assuming independence, it’s like flipping two coins and trying to get two heads. So the probability is 25 percent. In other words, 75 percent of the time – even given a generous estimate of emotional availability – both people would be either unavailable, or one person will be available and the other person won’t be. So they’ll happen with some regularity. Even so, people assume that, when they happen, they’re indicative of a bad relationship. It’s quite the contrary. Emotional connection and people being in synchrony is the rare event, rather than miscommunication.

RD: So are the couples that survive bumps in the road doing so because they’ve learned more and grown closer from having them?

JG: No. It’s just that they’re taking care of all the small bumps in the road all along the way. They are repairing the hurt feelings that accompany regrettable incidents, which, by the way, arise out of nothing most of the time.

In our research, one question we ask is, “What do couples mostly argue about?” They argue about nothing.

I’ll give you an example. A couple is watching television, and he’s got the remote, and she says, “Let’s leave it on that channel.” He says, “Well, let me see what else is on.” She says, “No, leave it.” He says, “Wait just a minute. There might be a good film on.” And she says, “I said leave it.” He says, “Fine!” and throws the remote into her lap. Not in a hostile way, but she says, “Well, the way you said ‘fine,’ that pissed me off.” And he says, “Well, you’re going to get it your way anyway. You always do.” And she says, “I didn’t even want to watch television.” And he says, “Me neither.” And he walks out of the room.

So there’s a regrettable incident that’s about essentially nothing besides momentary irritability. Maybe they process it the way many couples process something like this. He’ll come up and say, “You want a piece of cheesecake?” And she says, “Oh, okay,” and they’re eating cheesecake. And he says, “I’m sorry.” And she says, “Yeah, me too.” He says “What was that about?” and they have a little talk about it. Then they drop it, and they forget about it.

Maybe another couple doesn’t do that repair. They just let it sit there; they think the passage of time will take care of it. When that happens, even though the incident is not very important, it’s a little bit like having a stone in your shoe that you don’t take out. It becomes a place where you’re a little bit uncomfortable with the relationship.

And what I call the “Zeigarnik” effect takes over. That means that we remember things that are unfinished about twice as often as we remember things that are finished—actually, 1.9 times on average. So we keep thinking about these small events, these little bumps or potholes in the road.

The couples I see who are going through a big bump in the road are the ones who haven’t processed the little potholes all along the way. They have not been available to each other when these crappy things happen that are kind of normal and natural. They’re not getting past them. They’re not being there for each other to talk about more important things, like when one person is sad about something, or upset or stressed or angry. When one partner isn’t available, he or she is saying to the other, “You know, I don’t have time for this, and I don’t want to talk about it. This is such a downer. Try to be positive.” That’s what erodes trust in a relationship: not being there for one another.

My recent research shows that if you turn away when your partner is angry, for example, you’re saying “I don’t want to deal with her anger. I have more important things to do right now. Just get over it.” And then maybe you turn away with the thought that you could do better in another relationship. Who needs your partner’s crap and old baggage? Negatively comparing your partner to a real or imagined other person is what begins to create ripe ground for betrayal. That, and turning to other people to get your needs met, rather than getting them met in the relationship. Those two things are eroding trust, increasing the probability of betrayal, and leading to the end of the relationship.

RD: If you do find yourself turning away, could you still recognize that the thought, “I could do better elsewhere,” is corrosive?

JG: Yes, exactly. And that’s one of the interventions we’re experimenting with: how do you build trust? How do you eliminate the probability of betrayal and create loyalty, how do you cherish your partner, rather than trashing him or her in your mind and turning toward others?

RD: And what about the theory that we choose our mates to push old buttons that are left over from childhood? Have you found that to be true in your research?

JG: Well, that is a popular hypothesis, but there’s not any empirical support for it. It actually seems that we choose our mates much more randomly. We go through this initial period, where we’re very excited about the possibility of a new relationship. Then, gradually, that in-love state gives way; lust and fantasy give way to deeper knowledge about one another. When we encounter negative traits in our partner, we either adjust to and minimize them, and cherish and have gratitude for the positive things our partners bring to our lives, or we do the opposite. We magnify the negativity and feel resentment about what’s not there, rather than gratitude for what is there. That process moves as slowly as a glacier, yet it’s very predictable. People are either on the path of appreciating the positive, or they’re on the path of feeling resentment about the negative.

RD: What about increasing your level of honesty, and disclosing more of what you’re thinking and feeling to your mate?

JG: It’s absolutely critical. In fact, the avoidance of talking about what you feel when you’re not happy with the relationship leads to you having a secret. It leads to not giving your partner a chance to say, “That sucks. Let’s try to change that.” You can see this pattern of conflict avoidance and of avoidance of self-disclosure in every single affair. Transparency and honesty, particularly about stuff that’s causing dissatisfaction in the relationship, is absolutely critical to make a relationship work.

RD: So in terms of conflict avoidance, in that earlier scenario – where the husband throws the remote in the wife’s lap – the next time, she might not even mention her desire to keep the television on just one channel because she doesn’t want the conflict.

JG: That’s right.

RD: So you’re tiptoeing around each other all the time.

JG: Exactly. That’s the basis of conflict avoidance; you’re suppressing your negative feelings, and your partner doesn’t even know you feel negatively. Interestingly enough, this pattern of suppression versus self-disclosure leads to big blow-ups. We know from the work of James Gross and Bob Levenson (psychologists and researchers in the field of emotion and neuroscience) that suppression of negative feelings just leads to heightened physiological arousal. You’re carrying around this little grudge. Then, at some point, some real thing happens, and there’s a big blow-up. It seems to come out of nowhere, but it’s because of all the negativity that’s been suppressed.

RD: I’ve seen an aspect of that kind of conflict avoidance play out in relationships: one person feels as if his or her needs, visions and dreams for life are taking a back seat to the other person’s. It’s as if one person is driving the bus, and you’re just on for the ride.

JG: Yes, and that’s addressed in two parts of our seven-part “Sound Relationship Paths” theory. If each person’s dreams are not honored, it leads to increasing emotional distance and more conflict about other things. In other words, a lot of conflict in a relationship is about the conversations the couple never had, but needed to have. And that conversation about one person’s dreams taking a back seat to the other’s is a crucial conversation to have. Typically, it’s women who suppress their dreams rather than guys, although a conflict- avoiding guy might suppress his dreams because he prefers peace to duking it out.

RD: Or he feels responsible for making a living for the household, so he stays at a crappy job.

JG: Exactly. And then his life becomes drudgery. But again, it’s definitely more common in women. Generally, women are socialized in most areas of the world to suppress their own dreams, and to think about happiness as coming from connection and nurturance. Men, on the other hand, tend to be socialized to think about being strong for the family, about getting out there and being assertive and aggressive and competitive.

So a lot of women who are creative and capable tend to put their dreams in the caboose of the train, and maybe get to them only after the kids have left home, when they’re in their 50s. And, of course, a lot of discord arises when a woman finally says, “This is what I want to do.” Unfortunately, by the time that happens in the usual life course, the guy’s ready to connect. He’s realizing the bullshit about his lifelong dream that he’s going to be happy through achievement and career success; that’s the lie that gets handed to males. It’s the flip side of the lie women get handed that emotional connection is the secret to happiness. Neither one is true by itself; you need both.

So a relationship where both a woman’s dreams are honored and a man’s dreams are honored, is way ahead of a relationship where one of them takes the lead, and the other person’s dreams are invisible. That’s one of the big tragedies in relationships today.

RD: You write about having a shared narrative or myth for your relationship.

JG: Right. Some kind of meaning system that is intentional, that’s part of building a life together. Almost any kind of narrative or story that gives people a sense of purpose and glorifies their struggle is the existential part of building a life together. To the extent that it is shared and intentional, it can permeate the whole relationship.

RD: Would you give me an example?

JG: It’s very simple. There are a few ways people build this sense of shared meaning and purpose. One way is by what we call “rituals of connection.” These include formal rituals like holidays, religious or secular. It’s kind of like having a script, one in which you can count on having a sense of shared meaning, purpose and connection.

Thanksgiving is a good example of a formal ritual, especially because it’s about gratitude. Or Passover or Easter, because they’re about renewal. Other examples of rituals or connection are rites of passage, like kids’ graduations from kindergarten and high school, or formal events like weddings and funerals—when something is intentional, when it’s thoughtful, it enhances that sense of meaning or purpose.

Then there are the thousands of informal events, like eating dinner together, and talking about love-making, what it means, how to initiate it, how to say “no,” how to make it better. Or what a weekend should be, what should happen when one person gets sick. Those informal events happen all the time, but if they’re made more intentional, it gives the couple a sense of purpose and meaning. It’s how they move through time together.

Another big one is a couple’s shared goals, dreams and values. Another one is how couples support one another’s roles in life. We play many roles; we’re sons, daughters, friends, fathers, mothers, scientists, carpenters, lawyers, journalists. All of those roles we play can be supported by the relationship if couples talk about them. If one person makes it intentional and says “What do you need here?” or “How do you feel?” or “What’s going on for you?”

And there are hidden symbols in our life together. A good example of that is the home. In a relationship, we build a home together; it’s a place that has meaning, a place of connection. Maybe it’s a respite from the world, an island of peace. Or maybe it’s a beehive of activity – it can be whatever a couple wants it to be. That question, “What is a home?” is one example of all these symbols that exist in a relationship and in the small culture that we create when we build a relationship and a new family.

Children are another symbol of a couple’s life together. What kind of children do we want to raise? How do we do that?” Or what kind of community do we want around us? What legacy do we want to leave the world with? How do we want to be remembered after we die? What’s our mission? What are we all about? Those kinds of symbols of meaningful life are another way in which people build a shared meaning system.

RD: People my age and a lot of Nexus readers are in a unique time of our lives; for many of us, our kids have left home and our parents need a lot of care, because they’re old, or they’re ill. Women are going through menopause, and this has a huge impact on all kinds of things: their intimacy, the couple’s goals and shared meaning. Could you speak to that?

JG: I know that phase very well; it’s another unique time in a couple’s life cycle. Bob Levinson and I have been doing research for 20 years on two groups of couples. When we started, one group was in their 40s and one group was in their 60s. We followed these couples for the next two decades, and we saw how some of them dealt successfully with this transition, and how some of them felt victimized by it.

RD: Is that cycle often a source of divorce? The kids have left home, and a huge connecting point of shared meaning is gone.

JG: It can be a time when couples get divorced; but generally, the so-called empty nest doesn’t have to be a period of crisis. It is for some families, especially those who have ignored their relationship and become completely kid-centered, or those who, even as they were raising kids, weren’t much of a team, or never derived much purpose and meaning from child rearing.

I see a lot of couples like that in my practice, where now that the kids are gone, they don’t even know how to talk to each other. There’s a desperate sense of emptiness and loneliness. They’ve spent their relationship together avoiding conflict, avoiding talking about where they differ about children, so they’re faced with building a relationship for the first time. Once the kids leave, they realize they never had a real relationship before.

But the couples who pay attention to their relationship, and have all the way through—particularly in the transition to parenthood—are in pretty good shape during the empty nest period.

The loss or protracted illness of aging parents often happens during this period as well, so it can be extremely stressful. For example, the stress of being a caregiver for an aging mother with Alzheimer’s is tremendous. If you don’t have the resources to find a good nursing home or a setting for your mother who has Alzheimer’s, and she is living at home with you and your spouse, it can be so physically and emotionally stressful, it can rip apart a relationship.

RD: It’s tragic when that happens.

JG: Yes, it is. We’ve gone through it. My wife’s mother is now 94, and she’s had Alzheimer’s for about ten years, and it’s been tough. We see her gradually disappearing, and yet being alive. It’s hard.

RD: And on the other side of the coin, there are many people – especially women – who are single, middle aged, and dealing with their kids leaving and their parents aging, alone. They want to have a relationship, but they feel like it’s completely out of reach.

JG: Why do you think they feel that way?

RD: They think all the good men are married, or there are too many women looking for men, or their attractiveness has diminished because they’re of a certain age. Maybe it’s partly self-induced because they’re thinking, “I’m not going to go after that guy, because he’s not going to be interested in me.”

JG: It’s sad when people, especially women, feel that way. It’s quite possible to have fulfilling and successful relationships that begin in mid-life. Like any relationship, it’s a matter of knowing when the chemistry is right and the connection is real. And it’s better to have hope than resign yourself to loneliness; that’s a hard place to be, and even harder to get out of.

Research from John Cacioppo (founder and director of the University Of Chicago Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and a leader in the field of social neuroscience) shows that loneliness is a self-defeating and infinite loop: as people get lonely, they start expecting rejection, so they start being more hostile to strangers. They’re almost creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When people are alone in middle age, one of the most important things is to create a supportive social network of friends, one where the friends truly care about each other and become like an extended family; women are traditionally better at that than men are. And from that extended, supportive circle, without expecting it, a partner may emerge.

RD: Like the brother of one of your girlfriends, or a friend of a friend?

JG: Yes, or somebody recently widowed or somebody who’s divorced and ready for a relationship again. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. I think the choice of not trusting anybody and becoming lonely is self-defeating. Lonely people die about 10 years earlier than people who continue to trust other people and be interested in social contact.

RD: Does loneliness effect men and women equally?

JG: No. Women alone do a lot better than men alone. Women have close friendships, while guys tend to have more trouble creating a supportive social network; their ties are generally weaker and they’re not as deep. That’s even true of non-human primates: the female society is much more connected than male society.

Now, it doesn’t have to be that way. Guys can build very good social networks. We’ve seen the rise in men’s groups since the 1960s, with guys creating for themselves a supportive, nurturing environment. But for the most part, we men are not as good as women are at doing that. So while women who live alone fare well, men who are alone tend to become isolated, and they die earlier.

RD: So a prospective relationship has to meet a higher standard for a woman to want to exit the single world?

JG: Exactly. For guys, a relationship doesn’t have to be that good. For women, it has to be much better.

RD: I see. So a woman who is single is going to be more discriminating about which man she forms a household with?

JG: Well, theoretically, and it would be great if that were true. But it tends not to be. While women have a higher bar for relationship standards, they still may settle for less because they want the companionship and the social status of being paired with a man. So, quite often, a woman will get into a relationship that’s not good for her, and she’d be better off alone. So, while women do better than men at being alone, research also shows that women who are in an unsatisfying relationship are in much worse shape than men in an unsatisfying relationship.

RD: Wow. So men have lower standards.

JG: That’s right. It’s as if they say, “Well, this is good enough. Everything’s all right. I’m doing okay.” And the woman is saying, “No! We’re not close. We’re not connected. And I’m unhappy!” It has to be a happy relationship for women to get the health benefits. For a guy, it just has to be stable; he doesn’t have to be that happy. It’s one of the biological inequities in marriage.

RD: Then it sounds like it is especially important for guys, in particular, to work toward preserving or regenerating their close relationships.

JG: Yes – a good relationship has many positive benefits, both biological and psychological, and these benefits have been replicated in research many times over.