0:15

Pushkin. When

0:21

we tape interviews for this show, a lot of small

0:23

things can go wrong. Planes fly

0:25

overhead, trains rumble by, recording

0:28

devices break, But more often than

0:30

not, the problem is usually somebody's

0:32

phone going off.

0:33

I turned the phone off, but they didn't

0:36

turn it off. I did.

0:37

Yeah, this isn't

0:39

the kind of exchange you might have expected from

0:41

relationship experts John and Julie

0:43

Schwartz Gotman. You might have thought

0:45

that Julie would just brush over John's mistake

0:48

with some loving, yet sacarine comment.

0:50

Oh, honey, I simply adore your forgetfulness.

0:53

It fills our lives with so many surprises.

0:56

But the Gutmans are realists. They

0:58

don't like shying away from the disagreements, disputes,

1:00

and downry arguments that happen in every

1:02

partnership, and in their decades together

1:05

as a married couple, they've had their fair

1:07

share of conflicts. Some of the were

1:09

pretty fundamental.

1:10

This was like thirty years ago. It

1:12

had such a big fight there that we

1:15

actually went to couple therapy.

1:17

That must be so intimidating for the poor

1:19

couple therapists. When the Gotman's walk in

1:22

throughout their careers and now at the institute

1:24

that bears their name. The Gotments have studied

1:26

countless couples, paying particular

1:29

attention to the different ways they bring up complaints

1:31

and solve conflicts, and the central

1:33

lesson they've observed is that the key to a

1:35

long and healthy relationship lies in confronting

1:38

disagreement rather than burying it. But

1:41

as they explain in their new book, Fight Right,

1:43

how successful couples turn conflict

1:45

into connection. There are ways

1:47

we can argue a bit smarter, and the

1:49

Gotments think we need to heed this advice

1:51

now more than ever.

1:53

When COVID started, actually

1:56

we did a number of

1:58

interviews and podcasts to give

2:01

tools and rice for couples

2:03

who were struggling so hard, you

2:06

know, especially under quarantine, was

2:08

so painful because most people

2:10

are used to separation

2:13

during the day with work and kid

2:15

care and variety of things, and then

2:17

coming together. Now they were together twenty

2:20

four to seven. Oftentimes they didn't

2:22

have space to themselves, you

2:24

know, nothing of solitude

2:26

for themselves if they needed that, And

2:28

that has carried over people.

2:31

At least the people who had distress marriages

2:34

became more and more unhappy.

2:37

They became more domestically violent,

2:40

more hostile, towards one another,

2:43

and there was emotional

2:46

damage occurring that

2:48

still festers inside

2:51

a lot of couples today, even

2:53

though COVID is much more

2:55

under control. So I

2:59

think we're in a sorry state right

3:01

now. The other thing, too, is

3:03

that kids, especially teams,

3:05

have suffered tremendously

3:08

from COVID. That puts

3:10

more pressure on the parents because

3:13

now they're dealing with kids who are seriously

3:15

depressed, who may even be suicidal,

3:18

who don't want to go to school, who don't

3:21

want to connect socially because

3:23

they've almost forgotten how except through

3:25

technology, and kids

3:28

are a loss for whom

3:30

we got going back to what was normal,

3:32

what is normal, and parents

3:35

are coping with that too. That puts

3:37

more strain on parents too.

3:40

So we think that fighting isn't

3:42

broken here in this country.

3:44

You know, there's so much polarization, political

3:47

polarization, and

3:49

in good relationships, people

3:52

fight in ways that are destructive, that

3:54

create antagonism.

3:56

I mean in bad relationships.

3:58

In bad relationships, thank you, there's

4:01

a need to really re examine the way

4:03

we do with conflict. And what this

4:05

book is about Fight right, is turning

4:08

conflict to connection and

4:10

what are the tools for doing that?

4:12

Yeah, and the great thing about your work is that you've been

4:14

able to look predictively

4:16

at the way people fight to try to figure out

4:19

how that's going to play out and the rest of

4:21

their relationship. And in the course of doing

4:23

that, you've identified what you like to call

4:25

the four horsemen of

4:28

the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse,

4:31

I think is what we're going for. And so you

4:33

know, walk me through what these

4:35

are and why they can be so problematic.

4:38

All right, So number one is criticism.

4:40

That you know, the thing we do the most

4:44

is one of the most distructed. So

4:46

criticism means blaming

4:49

a problem between you and your partner

4:51

on a personality flaw of your

4:53

partner. So it will sound

4:56

like you're so lazy, you're so thoughtfuk,

4:58

you're so inconsiderate. All

5:01

those put downs are criticisms.

5:04

That's one.

5:05

The second one, we call contempt.

5:09

Temp is really awful. It's

5:11

like sulphuric acid for the relationship.

5:13

It destroys it and not

5:16

only does it predict

5:18

the relationship demise,

5:21

it also predicts how

5:24

many infectious illnesses

5:27

the listener of contempt will have

5:29

in the coming years. That's

5:31

incredible. So caring

5:33

Contempt destroys the immune

5:36

system of the listener. So

5:39

do we want to do that to the person we

5:41

love? I don't think so, so different,

5:44

and I was about to say that

5:47

thank you. Contempt

5:50

is looking down your

5:52

nose at your partner from a position

5:54

of superiority. So there's

5:56

often a smear or

5:59

some scorn or you

6:01

know, sarcasm, mockery

6:04

at times, and of course name

6:07

calling, calling your partner name,

6:10

which we don't have to repeat here.

6:13

All of that is contempt.

6:16

Now, the response to criticism

6:18

and contempt is defensiveness.

6:21

Those two first ones make

6:23

us feel attacked. What do we do

6:25

when we feel attacked, Well,

6:27

we're going to fight back or we're

6:30

going to play innocent victim. So

6:32

in defensiveness, you either will

6:35

counterattack or reline

6:38

and say I did to pay the bills

6:40

on time, like the ws

6:42

the whiners. Yeah, our friends

6:45

the whiners. And so that's

6:47

number three and number four we call stonewall.

6:50

Stonewalling literally is

6:53

what it sounds like. The listener

6:56

who's supposed to be engaged with the

6:58

speaker shuts themselves

7:00

down, acts like a stonewall.

7:03

May not make icontact, doesn't

7:05

show any response,

7:07

any movement, any words

7:10

that indicates they're actually listening

7:12

and participating. They turned

7:15

into a stone wall. We discovered

7:17

that people who stonewalled, and eighty

7:20

five percent of those were men

7:23

inside, were actually in fight

7:25

or flight, which is really interesting.

7:28

Their heart rates would be sitting

7:30

there over one hundred beats a minute,

7:33

sometimes way higher, or

7:35

for an athlete over about eighty

7:37

eighty five beats a minute, and they

7:40

were in fight or flight or

7:42

freeze, which is a horribly

7:45

uncomfortable feeling inside.

7:48

Thus, the person was actually

7:50

going inside themselves, trying

7:53

to shut out stimuli coming

7:55

from outside, including

7:58

the partner's boys, in order

8:00

to soothe themselves because

8:02

they were feeling so awful. That's

8:05

the stone waller. So those are the four

8:07

criticism, contempt, defensiveness

8:10

in stonewaller.

8:11

And so it seems like one of the reasons we wind

8:13

up entering this path of the four horsemen of

8:15

bad relationships is that we kind of don't realize

8:17

what we're fighting about. We need to kind

8:19

of figure out what the deeper hidden agenda is

8:22

in some of these fights. But at a very kind

8:24

of basic level, what are most fights about.

8:26

It's kind of surprising, right, They're about absolutely

8:28

nothing. They're watching TV

8:31

and he's got the remote and he's

8:33

cattle surfing and she says, leave

8:35

it on that show that's interesting. And he says, well,

8:37

well, let me see what else is on. She says, no,

8:39

leave it. He says, well, let me see what else

8:41

is on and she says, no, leave it.

8:44

He says, fine, have it your way. She

8:46

says, why did you say find that way? You

8:48

know, I don't even want to watch

8:50

television with you now, oh you know? Okay,

8:53

fine, and then they stop relating.

8:56

So what are they fighting about. They're

8:58

really not fighting about money,

9:01

sex, in laws, parenting,

9:04

you know, they're fighting about the lack of connection,

9:06

you know, that inability to seat one another

9:09

point, and that

9:11

really gets in the way of a

9:14

deeper understanding of what's going

9:16

on in the moment.

9:17

And so sometimes finding this deeper understanding

9:19

really requires going to that hidden

9:21

agenda. You talking what you mean

9:24

by a hidden agenda and why it can lead to so much

9:26

kind of conflict and relationships.

9:28

Okay, So by hidden

9:30

agenda, what we mean is

9:32

again that internal world

9:35

inside somebody where resuldes

9:38

their values, their core

9:40

needs, their ideal dreams,

9:43

their history, which may include

9:46

some old scar tissue from past

9:49

parenting, or relationships,

9:52

being abused, all kinds of things, and

9:54

that remains underground.

9:57

They're not talking about that. They're talking

10:00

about something on the surface. So let

10:02

me give you a good example. Let's

10:04

say that. Well, I can

10:06

just take our situation with the books.

10:09

On is an avid book collector.

10:11

We're getting books all the time.

10:14

Where are you going to put them? There's piles of

10:16

stuff all over the place. Okay, So

10:19

John has a personality type.

10:22

He can focus his attention completely

10:25

on whatever he's choosing to attend

10:27

too, and everything else is blocked

10:29

out.

10:30

You know.

10:31

It's a phenomenal skill

10:33

that he developed growing up in

10:36

a very crowded tenement

10:38

apartment in New York. I.

10:40

On the other hand, the whole environment

10:43

totally affects me. The

10:45

colors of the walls, the

10:47

sounds, the noise, the tidiness,

10:50

everything affects me. And I can't

10:52

think straight if things are disorganized,

10:55

right, So that's

10:58

a fundamental difference between

11:01

John and I. So my ideal

11:04

dream here, I actually

11:07

have a little postcard that shows a woman

11:09

sleeping and just waking up. I dreamed

11:11

of a tidy house, you

11:13

know, I mean, it's it's like, yes, exactly,

11:16

and to John, that's completely

11:20

arbitrary, unimportant, right,

11:22

Okay, But if we don't bring

11:24

up those differences between us, his

11:27

dream is to not be nanged

11:29

because he just wants to do what he wants to

11:31

do, you know, which, of course most of us

11:34

do. We want to have a little bit of control

11:36

over our.

11:36

Time, and so sometimes those hidden agendas

11:39

seem to be about these personality differences.

11:41

But I know you've talked about cases where you

11:43

really had these hidden dreams, right,

11:45

these these deeper values that you had

11:48

for your life and what you want your choices to be, and

11:50

that that can lead to conflict too.

11:52

So really wanted to buy a small cabin

11:55

on Arches Island, and we have been renting

11:58

places and even rented

12:00

a lovely place on the ocean,

12:02

you know. And I didn't think it was I didn't think it was a

12:04

good idea to buy buy another

12:07

place. I thought it was a waste

12:09

of money and we could rent,

12:11

and why did we have to do this? And

12:14

so I was adamant about not doing it.

12:16

She was adamant about doing it. So we

12:18

went to therapy, and the

12:20

therapist one day said, John,

12:24

relationships are about creating boundaries,

12:26

and you can say no to her and she has

12:28

to live with it. And when we left

12:31

you, I said, do I sound like that?

12:34

And she said, yeah, you do, and I said, well,

12:36

I don't want that kind of a relationship. I think

12:38

we have to talk more about this cabin thing.

12:41

And so we really developed

12:44

a way of going deeper into

12:46

why was it so important to her to

12:49

have her own place there rather

12:51

than renting? What was the big thing about

12:53

this?

12:54

Needless to say, we fired the therapist

12:56

immediately.

12:58

But what we did.

12:59

We came home and we sat

13:01

down, I'll never forget this evening, and

13:04

we started asking each other these

13:06

huge questions that

13:08

later became our intervention called

13:11

the Dream within Conflict, And

13:13

we asked questions like, honey,

13:17

is there some value or ethics

13:20

or guidelines that are part

13:22

of your position on this issue? We

13:24

would ask, do you have

13:27

some childhood history that somehow

13:29

is relating to this? Why

13:32

is this so important to you? Do

13:34

you have some ideal dream

13:36

here that was a biggie? Do you have

13:39

some ideal dream that's part of

13:41

your position on this issue? And

13:44

oh my god, this whole world

13:46

opened up.

13:48

With these six questions. You know, I

13:50

was able to really look deeply

13:52

at Hyo is so opposed to owning

13:54

property. And it really

13:56

had to do with my parents having survived

13:59

the Holocaust in World War two,

14:01

and my father's messages to me,

14:04

don't trust in anything but what you can

14:06

put in your mind, because you may have to

14:08

flee one day. Jus have always had

14:10

the fleet, you know. That was my objection

14:13

and Julie's. You

14:15

can tell.

14:15

Yourselves, and mine mine

14:18

was that I'd grown up in a very

14:21

unhappy household, very distressed,

14:23

and so I lived a

14:25

couple of blocks.

14:26

Away from a huge forest.

14:28

At night, beginning when I was eight

14:30

or nine years old, I would sneak out

14:32

of the house after everybody went to bed. I'd

14:35

go sleep in the forest overnight,

14:37

no matter what the weather was. Then I would

14:39

sneak back in before people got

14:42

up, and nobody knew I was

14:44

doing that for years, years

14:46

and years and years. I have my favorite

14:48

tree I would sleep in. So I think

14:50

I'm part monkey or something. I'm not, twere,

14:53

But anyway, what getting

14:55

a place on Orcas meant to

14:57

me was having roots

14:59

in the wilderness, which is exactly

15:02

what that forest had been to me as

15:04

a child. So you can see

15:07

both of our back rounds

15:09

our childhood histories and values

15:12

that those histories taught us,

15:15

which were very powerful, were

15:18

really significant in this difference

15:20

between us, right.

15:21

And once we understood that, we were able

15:23

to arrive at a compromise that really

15:26

worked for both of us, which was.

15:29

We agreed we would buy a little cabin

15:32

and live in it for two years

15:35

and see how it felt

15:37

to be there, whether or not we really

15:40

liked this, in trade for

15:43

keeping our house a kosher

15:45

house, which was a great big deal,

15:48

a lot of you know, different dishes for milk

15:51

and meat and you know, all kinds of stuff.

15:53

We did that in exchange,

15:56

and John discovered he

15:59

loved having

16:01

a cabin.

16:01

Non Orchestral really

16:03

loved it. Yeah, it was so quiet,

16:06

so peaceful, you know, we really

16:08

loved.

16:09

And so it just shows the power when you can actually get

16:11

to these compromises, when you can sort of look

16:13

at these hidden agendas and figure out a compromise

16:16

that maximizes both both parties

16:18

can be happy. I think often when we think of compromise, we think,

16:20

well, somebody's going to have to sacrifice something. But

16:22

sometimes if you understand what you're really fighting about,

16:25

it seems like you can get to like, you know, a

16:27

compromise that really works for everybody.

16:28

Yeah. The amazing thing is that the worst

16:30

issues in a relationship can

16:32

be the greatest sources of connection

16:35

and understanding.

16:36

Right, let me give you another example

16:39

of this notion of compromise.

16:42

We found that the successful couples

16:45

took an initial step when they

16:47

were working on compromise that was really

16:49

important, and that was to

16:51

take their own position on an issue and

16:54

divide it into two parts, an

16:56

inflexible part, the

16:59

part where nothing

17:02

could be given up in that

17:04

little circle, a core need,

17:07

an ideal dream of particular value.

17:10

They could not compromise on those

17:13

pieces of their position,

17:15

but there were also flexible

17:18

things that they could compromise on that

17:20

might have to do with who, what,

17:23

where, when, how much,

17:26

how long, you know, those fundamental

17:29

nitty gritty details. So we

17:31

had a couple in a workshop, for example,

17:34

where the woman and the

17:36

man were getting ready for retiring,

17:38

and they both wanted to sell their house.

17:41

But then his ideal dream

17:44

was to buy a sailboat sail around the

17:46

world forever and ever into

17:48

the sunset. Her ideal

17:50

dream was this. Her family

17:53

had owned a farm for over one hundred

17:55

years called a century farm.

17:57

She wanted to go live on the farm and

17:59

take her place in the legacy

18:02

of ancestors who had also done

18:04

so. Where was it in Iowa?

18:07

So how do you sail around the world from Iowa?

18:10

You cannot do this. So

18:13

when they looked at their positions

18:16

in his center circle,

18:18

that was inflexible he put sailing.

18:21

Hers was live

18:23

on the farm. But around

18:26

that the flexible things were whose

18:29

dream would go first? How long would

18:31

it last? How much would we spend,

18:33

where would we go, When would

18:36

it begin, when would it end?

18:38

Etc.

18:39

And they arrived through doing that at

18:41

this gorgeous compromise. They

18:43

would first buy a sailboat,

18:46

sail as far as they could for a

18:48

year, then put the boat up

18:50

on dry dock, and go for

18:53

living on the farm for one

18:55

year same amount of time.

18:57

That felt fair and just, And

19:00

after two years then they would

19:02

compare their experiences in

19:04

order to create the next

19:06

dream together. It was perfect,

19:09

even though they were coming from totally

19:11

opposite dreams.

19:15

Finding a compromise between Iowa and the open

19:17

ocean seems pretty impressive, But

19:20

what about the smaller relationship conflicts

19:22

that come up even more often in our everyday lives.

19:25

After the break we'll look at best practices

19:27

for starting these lower grade arguments off

19:29

right and what we can do if they wind

19:31

up going wrong.

19:32

Why do you always leave all the laundry

19:35

on themsels.

19:35

No, honey, I'm starting to feel defensive

19:37

here.

19:38

I'm just sick and tired of this stupid,

19:40

stupid laundry.

19:42

The happiness lab will be right back. Relationship

19:53

fights have a way of exploding when we least want

19:56

them to. Maybe we've been building up

19:58

small resentments over months or years

20:00

when something finally sets us off. We're

20:02

feeling angry, we're hurting, and we

20:05

open our mouths with a little plan for what

20:07

we're going to say. Expert

20:09

doctor Julie Schwartz Scottman has found

20:11

that these ad libbed openings aren't the best

20:14

way to start an argument.

20:15

The first three minutes of a

20:17

fight is incredibly important.

20:20

The first three minutes of

20:22

a conflict conversation not

20:24

only predicts how the rest of the conversation

20:27

will go, it also predicts

20:30

how well the relationship that's going

20:32

to go six years down the road with

20:35

over ninety percent accuracy.

20:37

So how we bring up our complaint

20:40

is absolutely crucial. Say

20:43

what you feel you're describing

20:45

yourself, I feel stressed,

20:48

I feel disappointed. Then step

20:51

two about what now.

20:53

Notice that's not about who, about

20:56

your partner and how rotten they are.

20:58

But you also have some backs practices once the fight

21:00

starts in order how to do it right. And

21:03

one of my favorite ones, because I

21:05

think this is a tendency that I need to work on with

21:07

my own husband, is to make sure I'm not kitchen

21:10

sinking in the middle of the fight. What

21:12

is kitchen sinking and why is it so

21:15

bad for a fight.

21:16

One of the things that we find that people

21:19

do that gets

21:21

in the way of mutual understanding

21:24

is that they don't feel entitled to their

21:26

complaints, so they kind of stockpile

21:29

their grievances. They try to live with it

21:31

and say, ah, it's no big deal, I don't

21:33

have to bring that up. But then there's another

21:35

one. They do that again and again until

21:38

resentment builds to such an extent

21:40

that all of the complaints spill out at

21:42

once. And that's what we call kitchen

21:44

sinking. Everything but the kitchen sink

21:47

is in there, you know, and they just let

21:49

it all out at once, And it's really

21:51

overwhelming when you do that. When you say,

21:53

hey, Fred, I've got this list of

21:55

fifteen things that you're doing wrong, and

21:58

here they are, and you know, you come up

22:00

with fifteen and to Fred it feels like an

22:02

avalanche. You know, he cannot listen.

22:05

He just immediately goes into the

22:07

flooded state, fight or flood. And

22:10

that's what Kinch's thinking is about. So you really

22:12

need to bring up your complaints when

22:14

they matter to you, one at a time,

22:16

one.

22:16

At a time, and so starting

22:18

with one particular positive need.

22:21

But that's the point where I think a partner needs to respond

22:23

after you've done that well. And so talk about

22:25

what the right kind of response is from a partner

22:28

after you've expressed those needs, how they can

22:30

sort of show that you've been heard.

22:32

Well. The right response

22:34

from a listener might be

22:37

some empathy and some validation,

22:40

maybe even beginning with summarizing

22:43

what you hear the partner say. That

22:45

might sound like, why don't

22:47

you express a need and then I'll

22:49

show it.

22:50

I really need you to be

22:52

with me in the morning and not

22:55

sleep in you know, because I feel really lonely

22:57

in the morning. You're just inconsiderate.

23:00

You don't think about my needs.

23:02

Okay, now do it right?

23:05

Okay? Okay, So I'm really

23:07

upset that a lot of morning you're

23:09

sleeping in and I feel really alone.

23:13

I wish you would make an effort to

23:15

be with me at breakfast. That's an important

23:17

meal and I'd like to be with

23:20

you and have your company. Wow.

23:22

Okay, so you're saying

23:24

that you missed me in the morning when you're having

23:26

breakfast alone. Yeah, I'm sleeping

23:29

Oh okay, Well,

23:33

I can understand feeling lonely.

23:35

You know, when you first wake up

23:38

and you're downstairs and

23:41

you're wanting some company. You have connection

23:43

first thing in the morning. That really makes

23:45

sense to me.

23:46

I get that.

23:47

Great.

23:48

Okay, so that should

23:50

proceed your response. And what

23:53

that was was empathy

23:56

first, empathy with there's summary,

23:59

then empathy with his feelings, and then

24:01

validating is right to have those

24:04

feelings. If I were him

24:06

stepping into his shoe,

24:09

yeah, I could see where he would

24:11

feel lonely and want

24:14

some company. That totally makes sense

24:16

to me. However, I

24:18

can still disagree with

24:21

his point of view. I can

24:23

respond by saying something

24:26

like if I want to say, no, honey,

24:28

you know, I really understand

24:31

what you're needing and why you're meeting, but

24:35

I'm usually up till about two

24:37

thirty in the morning.

24:38

Yeah, feeding the baby.

24:40

And getting very terrible

24:43

sleep, So getting

24:46

up at six o'clock in the morning is

24:48

really hard for me.

24:51

I get him.

24:51

So would it be possible maybe

24:54

we could compromise somehow. I

24:57

know you have to get up early some mornings,

25:00

but maybe on our weekends we could both sleep

25:02

in together.

25:03

Yeah, you're more of a night out, you're

25:05

saying in Europe later getting

25:07

up at six, so you want to get four or five

25:09

hours of sleep, right, and that doesn't

25:12

work for you, right, So yeah,

25:14

we can sleep in the

25:17

weekends because you're testing.

25:19

It's a possibility. Yeah, how would you feel

25:21

about that?

25:21

Kind of makes sense.

25:22

So that's kind of what it looks like.

25:24

That's beautiful. I mean I heard you each

25:27

hearing one another, or heard you quickly going

25:29

to compromising, and I heard something

25:31

else that you talk about, which is this lovely idea

25:33

that you call yielding to win, which

25:36

comes up during compromise. So explain yielding

25:38

to win and maybe how it played out in that scenario.

25:41

Yeah, it's very interesting. I mean, we

25:43

really discovered this when we studied domestic

25:46

violence and

25:49

these guys who were domestically violent,

25:51

just refuse to accept

25:53

any influence at all. I

25:56

mean they acted like they were baseball players.

25:58

Just whatever their wives asked for, they would

26:00

bat it back and say no. And when

26:03

you always say no, when you refuse

26:05

influence, you become powerless

26:08

because nobody wants to talk to you. When

26:10

you're like that, there's no give and take, So

26:12

why would anybody have a conversation with you

26:14

about what they needed? So that accepting

26:17

influence is the only way

26:19

to be influential in a relationship,

26:22

And that's kind of a surprising finding,

26:25

well counterintuitive that by

26:27

accept influence from Julie, she's

26:30

more likely to accept influence from me. If

26:33

I refuse to accept influence, she

26:35

is even unlikely to talk to me about an issue.

26:38

Yeah, think about it this way.

26:41

If John makes a request and

26:43

I accept influence from

26:46

him, then

26:49

you know, basically when he makes a request,

26:51

he's opening up his arms and

26:53

he's saying, please be there

26:56

for me, And if I am,

26:59

I'm saying back to him, I

27:01

value you, I love you, I

27:03

want to be there for you. I'm going to

27:05

do the best I can to be there for you.

27:08

She, in turn, hopefully

27:11

is going to feel grateful about that and

27:13

appreciative, which draws

27:15

him closer to me. And

27:18

if he feels closer to me and

27:20

safer with me to express

27:22

his own needs, he's also more likely

27:25

to listen to mine, right, And

27:27

that's you know, part of that beautiful

27:30

reciprocity, going back

27:32

and forth being there for one another.

27:35

That builds trust and eventually

27:37

leads to commitment.

27:39

And that's why power sharing power

27:41

in a relationship is really the only

27:43

thing that works. You know, when you have this

27:46

dominance hierarchy one person's

27:48

in control and the other person's

27:50

subordinate, it just doesn't work.

27:53

It doesn't feel good. Eventually people

27:55

will withdraw from that kind of interaction

27:58

and then everybody gets lonely.

28:01

And this has kind of gets the beauty of kind

28:03

of what we can use conflict for overall,

28:05

which is that you know, again, we tend to think of fighting

28:08

in a relationship as this thing, but

28:10

ultimately, if you point it out, it's like a really

28:12

important moment where you can kind of get closer

28:14

together. It can kind of lead to something

28:16

better after the fact.

28:18

May I tell you a story, Laurie. So

28:20

when our daughter was about three or

28:22

four years old, you know, we'd be having

28:24

dinner and she would be listening

28:26

to our discussions about these relationships

28:29

and couples and so on. So one

28:31

night after dinner, we were

28:33

all hanging out in the kitchen, John

28:35

and I were cleaning up. She was there, maybe

28:39

four years old, and we turned

28:41

her and we asked her, honey, what do you think

28:43

it's like in a house when

28:46

mommy and daddy's don't get along

28:48

and they fight a lot. And

28:51

she ended up saying, well,

28:54

there's no rainbows in the house. And

28:57

it was like, oh, my god,

28:59

they say that. Can I use that in

29:01

our next book? I mean, you know, it

29:03

was It was really the

29:06

truth. The truth

29:09

right that the delight, the

29:11

warmth, the glow that

29:13

you have in a relationship that

29:16

is cooperative, an egalitarian

29:19

and caring of one another, that's

29:21

building trust and feeling safe

29:24

is what creates those rainbows.

29:27

One of my favorite things is when you

29:29

just kind of walk through the transcripts of

29:31

couples having these kind of conflicts

29:33

out and you kind of like annotate,

29:36

like, oh, they did a good thing here. I

29:38

thought it was so helpful because it really gave us the

29:40

sense that, like, you know, couples are

29:42

just trying, they're not going to be perfect. Sometimes

29:44

you can mess up, but you can sort of come

29:47

back if you sort of fix things. And I love that

29:49

in your book you have a list of like here's where

29:51

you can go to if you're having a tough time and you need to kind

29:53

of fix things too.

29:54

Yeah, repair is really as

29:57

good as it gets. And relationships really

30:00

you're trying to make repairs and accepting

30:02

your partner's attempts at

30:04

repair as really positive

30:07

things and receive the repair as

30:09

an intention to make things better

30:11

for both of you.

30:12

Give me, give me an example of maybe a repair

30:14

that you might say in a fight, Like if you're in the middle

30:16

of a conflict and you say something unfortunate,

30:18

what would a repair look like?

30:20

John, I'm really sick

30:22

and tired of the laundry being all over the

30:24

floor. Why do you always leave all

30:26

the laundry on the floor?

30:28

No, honey, I'm starting to feel defensive

30:30

here. You know, can you sing in a gentle

30:33

way?

30:34

Well, let's see if

30:36

I can. I don't think I can.

30:39

I'm just sick and tired of this stupid,

30:41

stupid laundry. No, wait a minute,

30:44

you know I'm just saying it the wrong way.

30:46

Great, Okay, the

30:49

laundry is on the floor. I

30:52

really don't like seeing it. Would

30:54

you please clean it up before

30:56

we have dinner?

30:57

Yeah? Yeah, I will, thank

30:59

you.

31:00

That was a lot. You're welcome.

31:02

Okay.

31:03

One of the best repairs in the whole wide world

31:06

is when you start feeling criticized

31:08

or quit down, just say I'm

31:11

feeling defensive. Could

31:14

you say that another way instead of going

31:16

offensive? Right, just say

31:19

I'm feeling defensive, and it's

31:21

It's a great one.

31:23

I think you both are like the Jedi of understanding

31:25

relationships and how we can sort of build empathy

31:28

in them. I'm just curious, you know, do you ever take

31:30

this on the road? You know, I know you watch so many

31:32

couples in the lab, but are you ever

31:34

just out at a restaurant or hanging out in the grocery

31:36

store watching these couple in family dynamics?

31:39

And do you ever intervene.

31:40

One hundred percent of the time? And no,

31:42

we don't intervene. I've got enough

31:44

client, you know,

31:47

and they're not asking us to intervene, So

31:49

why would we do that? You know, that's

31:51

intrusive, it's mortifying

31:53

for them. So the last

31:55

thing I want to do is shame somebody

31:58

for how they're acting in a restaurant. So

32:00

we'll just sit back and watch, and I'll usually

32:02

feel sad if they're

32:05

having hard time.

32:07

Ah.

32:08

There is only one situation

32:11

typically where I might

32:13

intervene just a little bit, and that

32:16

is in a grocery store. We've all

32:18

seen it. When a child is having a temper

32:20

tantrum. The mother may have a

32:23

baby in the growthree

32:25

card along with this child who's

32:27

having the temper tantrum, and

32:29

you can see she's turning red. She's

32:31

feeling mortified, she's feeling embarrassed,

32:34

horrified, and getting more and more

32:36

stressed. Her voice is getting louder. I

32:39

may go over to her and

32:41

I may say to her, boy,

32:44

this is a hard day for you, isn't it. This

32:47

is really tough. God, it's so

32:49

hard when your kids starts screaming in a

32:51

grocery store. Now, notice

32:53

I'm not criticizing her, which

32:56

many people might want to do if she's yelling

32:59

at her kid. I'm trying to

33:01

use empathy to help her

33:04

not feel so alone. That's

33:06

the key to reducing somebody's

33:09

dress, helping them not feel

33:11

so alone with what they're going through

33:13

By using empathy and validation.

33:16

Validation meaning yet makes sense

33:18

to me that you're feeling that. Yeah,

33:21

And sure enough, that's what happens. Her voice

33:23

drops down, she makes contact,

33:26

you know, eye contact with me. I'm

33:28

smiling at her. We

33:31

share some warmth, and then her

33:33

voice gets quieter.

33:35

It's a very.

33:36

Simple little intervention. Otherwise

33:39

we sit back and watch and predict, you

33:41

know, what's going to happen to these couples in a

33:43

restaurant with their phones, not looking

33:45

at each other six years down the row.

33:49

And that can be fun to you should

33:52

try it.

33:55

That's all we have from our interview with the Gotmins,

33:58

but we're not done with the topic of love just

34:00

yet. So far we've learned from the

34:02

masters of relationships and the champions

34:04

of complaining. But in our next episode

34:07

we'll examine what we can learn about. Thriving

34:09

is a couple from super communicators.

34:11

What we know about these people is that they are not

34:14

super charismatic. They are not people

34:16

who are born with this. Oftentimes

34:19

exactly the opposite. They're folks who, if you ask them, they

34:21

say, my parents got divorced and I had to become

34:23

the peacemaker between them. There are people who had

34:25

to think just a little bit more about how communication

34:28

works. And it's that thinking about it just

34:30

half an inch deeper that makes us into supercommunicators.

34:33

But it's skills that anyone can learn,

34:35

and if anyone learns them, anyone can

34:37

connect with other people.

34:39

All that in our next episode of the Happiness

34:41

Lab with me Doctor Laurie Santos,