9417 St. Joe Center Rd.
Fort Wayne, IN 46835
ph: 260-415-5967
mnitz
More than half of all ‘first’ marriages end in divorce, and the numbers seem to be climbing. Recent indicators are that the percentages of second marriages that end in divorce is 67% and for 3rd marriages it climbs to 74 %. What makes these numbers even more troubling is that no one ever really seemed to know the reason why.
That has changed significantly in the past several decades, thanks to a man named John Gottman. Gottman has spent over 20 years literally studying marriages to find out what couples that ‘are doing it right’ seem to have in common. Instead of relying on ‘conventional wisdom’ to guide his ‘intuition’ about what might be helpful to marriages, Gottman took the scientific route. He actually observed, coded, measured and recorded relational interactions looking for the answer to one compelling question: “What are the things that couples in happy and healthy relationships seem to be doing right? What, essentially, are the common denominators for healthy relationships?”
Gottman reasoned that if he could identify, empirically, the actual common denominators found in healthy relationships he could identify predictive indicators for relationships and more importantly, devise interventions for teaching couples how to realize such common denominators in their own relationships.
In pursuit of this goal, Gottman found that much of conventional wisdom regarding what deteriorates a marriage or strengthens it, was either ‘misguided’ or ‘just plain wrong.’ Gottman is quick to explain that he did not set out to expose ‘myths’ commonly held to be true in conventional marriage therapies, it ‘just sorta happened that way.’
What Gottman found is that a lasting relationship is really derived from a couple’s ability to ‘resolve the conflicts that are inevitable in relationships.’ Ironically, it turned out to be less about the level and frequency of conflict. When the numbers were actually ‘crunched’ to everyone’s amazement, there was virtually little difference in the amount and frequency of conflict across the boards (both healthy and unhealthy relationships), what mattered most was how the conflict was resolved. Even more ironically, what mattered even more was how conflict was not resolved. Yes, you read that right – how couples go about the business of ‘not’ resolving the conflict (conflict is simply inevitable.)
You see, when you actually look at the numbers, you find some very surprising things that intuition doesn’t tell us. When you actually count and code the conflict, for instance, you find that it occurs at virtually the same rate and intensity in ‘healthy’ couples as ‘unhealthy couples.’ Intuition and casual observation are simply not reliable.
For example, the most important dynamic in a relationship is the balance between positivity and negativity in a relationship. Gottman calls this balance the ‘ecology’ of marriage. Gottman, using ingenious scientific experiments, was able to empirically identify a ratio between positivity and negativity that represents the defining line between health and demise in a relationship. He identified 5:1 as the threshold. This finding alone has enormous implications for how we go about the business of attempting to fix relationships.
At Take Charge, we fully appreciate and integrate the work of John Gottman and others like him who have gone to the trouble of spending 30 years of their lives to find out what is really going on in marriages and develop techniques to build the healthiest of relationships.
To learn more about how these techniques, schedule a free consultation today.
This is powerful stuff!!!
Copyright Take Charge Counseling and Consulting Services 2008 All rights reserved.
9417 St. Joe Center Rd.
Fort Wayne, IN 46835
ph: 260-415-5967
mnitz