-forgiving past faults of your partner is also important – grudges/bitterness at the spouse may wear at the relationship. Fondness and admiration must account for each partner’s imperfections!
Principle 4: Let Your Partner Influence You
Principle 4: Let Your Partner Influence You
- Meant for a partner who is unwilling to share power/influence in the relationship. More of a male thing, but females can also fault with this principle. 81% of couples where the men do not do this –will self-destruct. Women tend to match or reduce negativity. Men tend to escalate it, usually with one of the four horsemen (criticism, contempt, defensiveness or stonewalling) even if this does not happen every time, it does lead to the 81% self-destructive couples, as it obliterated the other’s opinion, instead of taking it into account. 65% of men did not automatically search for the partner’s underlying position, and escalated instead of de-escalated the negativity.
- The point is still to show honor and respect to the spouse [regardless of the culture/beliefs at hand]. Some men show latent resistance to have their spouses influence them. The point of this principle: don’t argue back to statements which are: harshly phrased, conflicting with one’s own agenda, or are inconvenient requests – rather, accommodate to them. The issue is not to express or not express negative emotions, but it is how one would accommodate to them. Accepting influence of wife reduces her harshness. Strong foundation of compromise leads to easier-found solutions. Accepting influence will make it easier for the husband to establish deeper love-maps, increase fondness and admiration, and to turn towards each other. Women tend to be more naturally oriented to relationships/emotions, whereas men tend to be more action oriented.
- Therefore, men have to make an added effort to learn about emotions and emotional/relational elements of the situation, even as benign as going shopping for home stuff and getting excited about patterns on the dishes in the store. Gottman (who is a male) called it “emotional intelligence”. Learning to yield is an important lesson in life: There are people who will regularly run into obstacles and others who will usually drive around them. The latter are the happier people in life. Women tend more often to bring up the sticky issues, while men tend to a first avoid them. Perpetual problems are better identified when the core issues behind the conflict situation are identified and delineated. Working with the delineation of the underlying issues helps the couple not escalate by identifying the real situation and thus they are better equipped to more truly turn to each other. If acceding power/influence in the relationship is difficult for one, s/he is best to acknowledge this disposition so that both partners can work at this issue in a way which is upfront, yet also comfortable for both.
Exercises:
- Accepting Influence Questionnaire– True or false questions which assess how much a person is accepting his (or her) spouse’s influence;
- Exercise1: ‘Yield To Win’–Common conflict situations are given to the couple – i.e. understanding the request behind the apparent negativity, and intensity the emphasis on how important the issue is for the partner.
- Exercise 2:The Gottman Island Survival Game: See if you can coordinate a hypothetical “survival list” for a deserted island stay. Then, see how you and the other responded to influencing each other.
THE TWO KINDS OF MARITAL CONFLICT:
There are two kinds of marital conflict: solvable and unsolvable. Therefore, one must customize the coping mechanism to whether the conflict is at hand is solvable or not. 69% of conflicts fall into the ‘perpetual problem’ category. Perpetual problems are underlying assumptions and issues which cannot be grounded and fixed situationally. Resolving major marital conflicts is not the essential component to happy marriages, many happy couples have not resolve their big issues. Since the perpetual issues are perpetual by definition, one must chose a partner whose differences you can live and cope with [i.e. strategies and routines to deal with unbridgeable differences). Otherwise, the perpetual problems become obstacles, as instead of coping with the differences in the couple, the couple gets into a gridlock situation. With the gridlock, the four horsemen become more present, while humor and affection is on the decrease, and the couple begin living in parallel lives [read: the decline and death of the relationship].
Signs of gridlock include:
- Conflict makes you feel rejected by your partner;
- You keep on talking about it, but make no headways;
- You become entrenched in your positions and are unwilling to budge;
- When you discuss the topic, you feel more frustrated and hurt;
- Your conversations about the problem are devoid of humor, amusement or affection;
- You become more unbudgeable over time, leading to mutual vilification during these conversations;
- The vilification leads to being further rooted in your position and polarized, more extreme in your views and less willing to compromise;
- Eventually, you disengage from each other emotionally.
Gridlocks happen as the couple’s entrenchment at an unsolvable problem allows conflict to influence more areas of their lives.
Solvable problems
No underlying issues in the solvable dilemmas. They are situational! They are less gut-wrenching, and are less intense than the perpetual problems. Many couples, manuals and therapists do not know how to solve them either, as offered techniques are hard to implement and/or master. Validation is not enough, especially as it is hard to apply when distressed. Principle 5 will go into further detail about this.
But the gist is:
- Soft and not harsh start-up;
- Effective use of repair attempts;
- Monitor your physiology during discussions for warning signs of flooding;
- Learn how to compromise;
- Become more tolerant of each other’s imperfections.
Solvable problems, if not addressed or coped with, can lead to perpetual problems due to resentment kicking in, and thus entrenchment in their positions. If the conflict is about the entrenched resentment due to a situational/solvable issue, then it may be in the realm of perpetual/unsolvable conflict. Gottman would give examples and ask the couple at hand to distinguish between perpetual and solvable issues.
Exercises:
- Assessing Your Marital Conflicts Questionnaire – Asks about various marital issues, whether they are perpetual or solvable, and how the partners each enter to and deal with the conflict. Solvable issues are discussed in chapter 8. Perpetual issues are discussed in chapter 10.
- Exercise 1: ‘Your Last Argument’:Answering the questions [and then the couple comparing their answers]:
- During this argument, I felt like _____
- What triggered these feelings? _____
- The recent argument was rooted in ______
- After self-soothing [discussed next chapter], discuss one’s own stress-maintaining thoughts/actions – the point is to make the partner’s realize that it is not a unilateral situation where everything is merely the other’s fault, but at least circular if not more complex.
- My contribution to this mess was _____
- How can I make it better next time?
- What one thing can my partner do next time to avoid this argument?
If this exercise does not work, do ‘fondness and admiration’ exercises first . The point of this chapter is to accept the quirks and oddities of the partner that will not likely change, let alone because a messy or chronic argument. The key to all conflict resolution is basic acceptance of the partner’s personality. Finding conciliatory comments within arguments are also important, when you know how to identify them. They are often more present than a partner may have realized – and could be discovered once one knows what to listen for. A judgmental/critical comment or even general great piece of advice will not be accepted before one feels fundamentally understood, liked and accepted. Just like in child development, acknowledging the other’s hard emotions as well builds self-image and effective social skills.
Nishan Foundation focuses on providing the most effective, evidence-based treatment, exceeding expectations by paying close attention to four key therapeutic principles
