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(9/7/96)

CHAPTER IX. A

HOW TO KEEP A PARTNER

After one understands the elements of affiliate love -- what to expect of a love relationship and its important features (Chapter VII) -- finds the person of their dreams (Chapter VIII), and they become married, then there is the challenge to stay married. Where is the guidance to help make this a satisfying and successful marriage? Fortunately, such guidance is available. John Gottman, Ph.D., with Nan Silver provides instruction, recommendations, and counsel in his amazing book, WHY MARRIAGES SUCCEED OR FAIL [1].

As the author says in the preface (p. 11), "This book is not about me, nor is it just another opinion about how to have a good marriage. My expertise is in the scientific observation of couples. Over the course of more than twenty years of research with hundreds of couples, I have found that many of my personal ideas about what holds a couple together -- and much of the conventional wisdom among professionals -- has been wrong. But the power of doing research is that you can go far beyond your limited intuitions or the hunches of a lone therapist. With impartial observations and statistics you can hear nature tell you what is true. The couples who have participated in my studies, who share their stories in these pages, have revealed the hidden natural laws of relationships.

"These couples have shared their pain, but they have also shared their joy, showing me the splendid possibilities of a relationship -- the sense in which, as Ecclesiastics has it, 'Two are better than one.' It is as though each of us were singing a solo in some grand, mysterious choir, and our voices rose to the heavens the moment we found a partner to blend with in two-part harmony."

Gottman's book is not only an invaluable resource to help couples improve their marriage. It is also an almost perfect model for one aspect of how a Wisdom Group should function. Like Gottman, working to understand the elements of a stable marriage, a Wisdom Group would be working to understand the elements of a SFLIHM (Sustainable Feeling that one's LIfe Has Meaning). It would need to conduct research and draw on the research of others. It would assemble, organize, and analyze this research so it could be utilized by individuals desiring to become Wise Persons.

From this research and study it should become clear whether or not different individual styles exist that require different approaches in order to achieve the SFLIHM state. Secondly it might be able to develop a series of tests comparable to Gottman's that would help any person assess their progress toward becoming their best self. Third, it would develop the resources necessary to help individuals develop in whatever ways are necessary to achieve a SFLIHM. At each step they would have assistance to evaluate their growth and learn what is needed to continue their development.

Gottman's book should be analyzed in depth, his research and ideas expanded as necessary, and used as a guide and inspiration for developing and applying a Science of Religion and a Religion of Wisdom.

P. 15[1]: "Today, as we witness the dissolution of so many marriages, it becomes more crucial than ever to find an answer [to what makes marriages work]. And finding that answer has been the mission of my research these past two decades. Through intense, detailed observations of hundreds of couples...I have charted the invisible emotional currents between husbands and wives, underground streams of feeling that can burst to the surface either as a spring of harmony or a well of discontent."

"In pursuit of the truth about what tears a marriage apart or binds it together, I have found that much of the conventional wisdom -- even among many marital therapists -- is misguided or dead wrong. For example, some marital patterns that even professionals often take as a sign of a problem -- such as having intense fights, or avoiding conflict altogether -- I have found can signify highly successful adjustments that will keep a couple together. And fighting -- when it airs grievances and complaints -- can be one of the healthiest things a couple can do for their relationship (indeed, how you fight is one of the most telling ways to diagnose the health of your marriage). You will see more clearly why such conventional assumptions are dead wrong as you read my explanation of the often elusive emotional dynamics of marriage, dynamics I have mapped in a simple model that can serve as a template for seeing your own marriage with new eyes."

"The good news is that if you become familiar with these maps of what shapes the emotional currents in marriage for better or worse, the seemingly elusive forces that are at work in your own relationship need not be so mysterious to you, nor are you at their mercy anymore. In this book I will show you how to detect these forces in your own relationship so that you can see the hidden emotional profile of your marriage as though through an X ray. By making these hidden forces visible, you can start to control the direction of your marital journey -- calling a final truce on destructive arguments, corrosive ways of thinking about each other, and the downward spiral of reactions that can destroy a marriage. Instead, you can open the door to a more vital, fulfilling relationship."

RESPONSE: And a critical question for a Science of Religion is, does Gottman's models provide clues about the range of styles for Wise Persons, or would Wise Persons find any of Gottman's styles limiting for their growth and development?

P. 16: "...the reason marriage and its troubles seem so mysterious is really quite simple; until recently, almost no scientific studies of this complex relationship had been done. The vast majority of books of advice to couples have been based, at best, on the insights marital therapists have gained from the couples they happened to see, and, at worst, on mere anecdote and theoretical musings."

"The solution, of course, is to conduct solid experiments that examine stable and troubled marriages, systematically tracing the emotional currents that lead one couple to drift apart and another to flow through life together. For the past two decades my research teams have been doing just that. The result has been a number of surprising, scientifically sound findings that go a long way to filling in the knowledge gap. I have written this book to share our latest results with you and to offer my best understanding of just how you can strengthen your marriage, no matter how rocky it may seem."

"Of course, not all couples ought to stay married. But I do think it's disturbing that the majority of people marrying today will be unsuccessful at nurturing and holding onto their most precious relationship -- all the more disturbing because, I believe, an accurate diagnosis of the fault lines in a marriage can help any couple build a stronger union."

RESPONSE: It seems to me that a great deal needs to be said on the issue, "not all couples ought to stay married." First, individuals need help of the kind a Wisdom Group would provide to establish nurturing relationships of a loving and sexual nature which have the potential for long term existence. Secondly, they need greater clarity in finding out what to expect in a relationship and how to keep it satisfying and how to know when to end it.

P. 19: In the early 1970s "...sound, systematic research had not been conducted among divorced and stable couples, to ease out the differences between them. Trained as a mathematician and a research psychologist, I decided to take such an approach. Using scientific methods, I would observe the conversations of husbands and wives, distilling out of the mists and confusions of anger, frustration, and isolation the differences that lead some couples to stay married and others to divorce."

P. 20: "Two decades later, this strategy has reaped an enormous reward. For the first time we can name with precision the subtle early warning signs of a troubled marriage, and tell you how to put these insights to good use, setting your own marriage on the right track and keeping it there for years to come."

"My laboratory conducts what amounts to the most intensive studies of couples interacting ever attempted....My research teams have compared, microsecond to microsecond, how couples talk to one another. We've examined their facial expressions, monitored how much they fidget, and how they gesture. We've asked what happens to partners' heart rates when they try to work out their conflicts together. Do unstable couples express more sarcasm or contempt in these situations than stable couples? Do they breathe harder? Do they find it more difficult to listen? How well do they understand one another's emotions? And what about discrepancies in the way couples describe the history of their relationships? Does it make any difference if he recalls she wore yellow the first time he saw her? Does it matter whether they laugh when they reminisce about hard times?"

"What we have found is that all of this matters. What's more, gathering such information has allowed us to identify the specific processes that lead to the dissolution of a marriage, and those that weld it more firmly together. To use the heart disease analogy, again, preventing heart attacks requires an ability to predict the events leading up to the crisis: plaque formation on arteries, high blood pressure, chest pain, and so on. Divorce prevention requires this same foresight. That's why I have geared my research to identifying which responses, thoughts, and physiological reactions place couples on a path toward divorce. In doing so, we have been able to predict with startling accuracy which couples will stay together and which couples will split."

RESPONSE: As indicated before Gottman has performed a tremendous service to humanity. His procedures would be of value not just for studying marriages, but for studying all areas of human living. His model could be used to study family living and child rearing practices, work environments, athletics and other social events, etc.

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1. WHY MARRIGES SUCCEED OR FAIL, John Gottman, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994.

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