Every day a couple decides to get married, and to be together for better or for worse. However, it doesn’t always quite work out that way. Unfortunately most marriages end either in divorce, separation, or unhealthy dysfunction.
According to Ty Tashiro, psychologist and author of The Science of Happily Ever After, only three in ten people who get married remain happily married.
When the rate of divorce started to skyrocket in the 70s, many social scientists began studying marriages to figure out the cause behind the new trend.
John Gottman was one of those researchers, and for the past 42 years, he has observed thousands of couples to figure out what makes a relationship last. Together with his wife Julie, Gottman runs The Gottman Institute, which helps couples build and maintain healthy, loving relationships.
In 1986, Gottman set up “The Love Lab” at the University of Washington with Robert Levenson. The experiment brought newlywed couples into the lab to observe interactions with each other. As they spoke about a variety of subjects, Gottman and Levenson measured the subjects’ blood flow, heart rates, and sweat with electrodes. Six years later, they followed up with the couples to see what state their marriage was in.
From the data that was collected, Gottman was able to separate couples into two groups: the masters and the disasters. Unsurprisingly, the masters were still happily married and the disasters had either separated or were very unhappy. The difference, as Gottman explains, is that the masters were able to create trust and intimacy between each other even in times of disagreement.
The state of a marriage ultimately comes down to weather the couple provides patience and kindness towards each other rather than hostility and criticism because every couple, no matter how ‘perfect’, will have disagreements.
Gottman explains that the number one commonality among couples in good relationships is have “repairing skills, and they repair early.”
The thing that all really good marriages and love relationships have in common is that they communicate to their partner a model that when you’re upset, I listen,” Gottman says. “The world stops, and I listen. And we repair things. We don’t let things go. We don’t leave one another in pain. We talk about it, and we repair.
This is where the attitudes of kindness and patience make all the difference.
“In really good relationships, people are very gentle with the way they come on about a conflict,” Gottman says. “They don’t bare their fangs and leap in there; they’re very considered.”
For example, he says: “Instead of pointing their finger and saying, ‘You asshole!,’ they say, ‘Hey babe, it’s not a big deal, but I need to talk about it and I need to hear from you.’ In bad relationships, it’s, ‘You’re defective, and you need therapy.'”
Gottman explains that the most effective repairing skills are based on making emotional connections rather than being right about a problem. He suggests that when there’s a disconnect or disagreement, couples focus more on how you feel, and less on who is right or wrong.
Now that you know the secret to a lasting marriage does it change how you interact with your significant other? Share with us in the comments below.
[Featured image credit: www.pixabay.com]
The Key to a Happy Marriage According to Science is a post from: LifeDaily