Posts Tagged ‘Divorce’

The Golden Ratio

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

There is another Gottman nugget that I thought would be interesting to share with you concerning relationships. This time it is on the golden ratio of positive to negative phrases expressed in an interaction between two people, and that ratio is 5:1. The idea is that you need to say (and hear) at least 5 positive comments to every negative comment for a relationship to work well. Turns out this is a very important parameter and a good predictor of relationship’s ultimate success or failure.

In his research Gottman found that it is not whether the couples fight or not, not how much they fight or how often they fight, and not even the intensity of their fights, but rather that ratio of positive feedback to negative feedback that ultimately makes the difference. So wait, to make a relationship work, just say 5 positive things for every negative thing (and avoid contempt)? Seems like it! I love when something as complex as a relationship between two people can be boiled down to one or two simple, measurable factors. Amazing!

Until next time,

V

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Posted in Psychology, Relationships | 2 Comments »

Contempt – The Silent Killer

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

Last Friday I wrote about the work of John Gottman – the guy who can predict with amazing accuracy if the relationship is going to last after analyzing the intra-couple interactions. He actually does not even listen to what people say – instead he focuses on their facial expressions and looks for signs of certain emotions. The idea is pretty simple – even if you are trying to mask a given emotions with a fake smile, for example, the smile will not look ‘real’ and traces of the hidden emotion will still show up in your face. While this is not an exact science, and mistakes are made, there is a lot of evidence in favour of this technique. So what does Gottman look for? As you may have figured out with the title, he looks for signs of contempt.

Gottman says that contempt is a single most destructive emotion people can experience in relationships – it is when a person looks down on the other person with lack of respect and a feeling of dislike. When one person feel contempt, the other person supposedly picks up on that feelings; and let’s be honest – who enjoys being disrespected and looked down on? It seems like contempt turns into a downwards spiral, where it is expressed more and more often, to a point where the couple does not want to remain a couple and splits. So if signs of contempt show up during the observed interaction, Gottman essentially writes the relationship off (with stunning accuracy).

So there you go – avoid contempt and enjoy a lasting relationship. And if you are in a relationship where contempt shows up regularly, start moving assets out of your name and get a good lawyer. Or you can bet on the 5% chance that you’d be the odd ball out, but I personally don’t like those odds. My advice – visit the Gottman Institute in Seattle before getting married. :)

Until next time,

V

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Posted in Psychology, Relationships | 1 Comment »

Will This Relationship Last?

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

I remember reading about John Gottman who has developed a way to tell whether a relationship will be intact 15 years later with tremendous accuracy. After observing a couple interacting for 5 minutes, his predictions are 70% accurate; after 15 minutes, his predictions are 95% accurate. That blew my mind! I now know who I am going to see before proposing!

Now Gottman does not just observe a couple for 5 minutes and utters his verdict – he records and analyzes the entire interaction, and the big thing that he focuses on are facial expressions. Turns out there is a lot of correlation between different facial expressions and the true emotions that we feel inside, and this has very little to do with what the participants actually say.

Turns out there is one big red flag that comes up that indicates to Gottman the eventual fall of the relationship. What is the red flag? You’ll have to wait until next week to find out…

Until Monday,

V

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My Theory For Happy Living

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

My theory is very unorthodox. I may not be the first one who came up with this, but I have not heard it anywhere nor have I read it anywhere. But first, let’s lay a foundation.

One of the comments on a recent post talked about how we eliminate many personal hobbies and favourite activities as we get into a relationship, and how we dive into those activities when the relationship is over. Been there – done that – lost many friends in the process. I now see it as a ‘rookie mistake’ and will never again use a relationship as a reason to not do the things I love – ever! So here we have a need (and I believe that it is in fact ‘a need’) for individual expression.

The other aspect of the foundation for my theory is something that I have touched on only a little bit in the post on how we often treat strangers better than family and friends. I will talk more about it in the future, but for the time being, it seems to me that the more time people spend together (and the less time they spend doing other things they love), the higher the chance of them being frustrated with the little things. I have seen couples fight (and have fought myself) over the stupidest little non-issues and in my opinion, personal space is the solutions in many cases.

So my theory for happy living is *drum roll* to have separate residences with your ’significant other’. Revolutionary, I know! Yes, it would be more expensive (but so is good food), and will make the whole ‘raising the kids’ thing a little more challenging (if you want kinds), but I’m willing to bet that if people made the commitment to each other (this eliminates those early break-ups due to incompatibility) and maintained separate residences, the divorce rates would be significantly lower.

Alright…bring it on! I’m ready to take the heat!

Until Monday,

V

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Posted in Psychology, Relationships, Success | No Comments »

Living Together?

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

There is a very odd statistic regarding the divorce rates – they are higher for couples who lived together prior to marriage. It is rather counter intuitive since I think that if you live with someone, you’ll get to know all their habits that may be annoying and see, in general, if co-habitation is a good idea. If you don’t live together, you may never know what the other person is like to live with and may discover some deal-breaking habits after marriage. But statistics show otherwise. Why?

The answer, in my opinion, relates to yesterday’s post where I talked about chasing the dragon with the ‘I’ll be happy when…’ approach. We tend to live life looking for the next ‘when’, and in relationships one of the ‘whens’ is the wedding. There are a lot of expectations surrounding that day – just take a look at how much preparation and planning usually goes into it. But at the end of the day, the celebration is over rather quickly and the realities of married life begin to sink in. If you are living together, chances are you go back to the same house or apartment and continue on with your life as if nothing has changed. This is the reason…right here. There are a lot of expectations around the wedding day and some of them, I would imagine, are that the relationship will change for the better. But it doesn’t, and people get disappointed, which leads to divorce.

If you do not live together, however, a lot of things change with the wedding. The two actually move in together, often finding a new place. They have to get used to each other and each other’s habits and to their life together. A lot of things change, and that is congruent with the expectations. So even if there are some annoying habits, there is a better chance that the people involved will look at them and think something along the lines of “well, sure, this is annoying, but I’ve committed to this, so we’ll just figure it out”.

And here we go – mystery solved! I personally made a transition from the first camp to the second one in terms of my outlook on it. In fact, I’ve made another transition in my outlook to a third camp that may or may not stay so, but I’ll save that for tomorrow.

Until next time,

V

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