Thank you John. Very well done with practical steps a couple can take. We're working on some of these issues and it was very helpful to see them summarized
I’d argue that there is an element of stonewalling that doesn’t always manifest as an internal overwhelm, raised heart beat or “checking out”.
If at some point, all filters are off and your partner is going for it attacking your very DNA, distancing yourself temporarily and letting one’s attacks float right past you may be a healthy mechanism to pull, albeit briefly.
…And one can only help that a break in explosions can come soon after.
I agree totally. That’s a complex situation because we may be a bit flooded (or not) while we are essentially just weathering our partners emotional storm (which probably includes a lot of criticism and contempt based on how you’ve described it). So yeah, it can be a reaction or a strategy, or a little of both, depending on the situation. Good point!
The Gottmanns do a weekend workshop (I think quarterly) in Orcas Island, which is in Washington state and is lovely to visit. My wife and I went to Orcas for our five year anniversary and it happened to be one of those weekends. We were the only guests in the B&B who were not there to see the Gottmanns. It was a bit awkward when the other guests assumed we were and we didn’t know what they were talking about. We had some funny conversations about it later with the B&B proprietor.
I came up with a couple of these independently, and it is good to see the ideas fleshed out and expanded. It seems more likely to be true simply because someone else also had the same idea. This is a good essay.
I was an abused child and never learned healthy....anything. Regulating my emotions is impossible; (I hope some day they will not be so overwhelming); but recognizing and taking responsibility for them is not. I read and counseled and spent a great deal of money to learn what you just posted; different names but same methods. I still need reminders. Thanks for writing this! I will definitely be reading more!
Thanks for sharing that, Michelle. I know from personal experience how hard it can be to regulate emotions inside our relationships after a childhood like that. I’m so glad you’re on the path of growth and that you’ve got the recognition and ownership side of the emotional equation down. To me, that’s the most important part. Glad you’re here.
While I really liked, appreciated and agree with the observations - such pieces come across as academic and written within a cleanroom. Life is messy and I would suggest elaborating further on the ways to anticipate conflict/pitfalls before they happen so one isn’t fixing a situation. The idea being “a stitch in time saves nine”. Just a suggestion…again really liked the piece as it was very good. Pax
That’s good advice Roger, and I think I’ll get there. This is a new blog so I feel like there is a lot of foundational information I need to lay down because I’ll need it in a relatively clean form to refer to later. But I’ll think about how to make it less sterile.
Very helpful. I stonewall when I become incapable of forming cogent thoughts. I know this comes off as looking like I dont care. But I literally don’t know what to think. I can’t think. I’m just dismayed, anxious, and have zero ideas. So I stammer or am silent. I stare off into space. And it alternatively makes me absolutely contempuous, or self-loathing. I tend to allow this to make the big picture seem hopeless. I am not naturally a suicidal type of person, but sometimes has made me think it would be nice to remove myself from the situation.
I should add that this is when it has gotten bad, but we haven’t gone there in a year or so. Most of the time it is good.
This provides a good roadmap for even maybe looking forward to some conflict so that that part of the relationship can be dealt with sooner than later, thus improving the whole thing. Most marriages in acquainted with could use this advice
I stumbled on to the adoration method on my own 3 years ago, and it is very effective when practiced daily, especially important I’ve found is starting the day out reviewing the good in her. Then just see the good all day. No need to be a Pollyanna. But reality is generally more beautiful than most people default to seeing.
I’m sorry to hear that — without knowing more I can’t evaluate what may have gone wrong to give you that impression but I wish you the best. Thanks for checking in.
I've seen that one and it's an 8000-word straw man fallacy. It's hard to see unless you know the couples therapy literature really well, but the basic problem is that the author assumes that the research base for the Gottman Method is the same as John Gottman's own research, but it's not. The Gottman Method research base is distributed across the entire couples therapy literature in the form of other well established findings and is essentially an aggregation of what works. Gottman's own research is an addition, not a foundation. I'm not sure why this author doesn't know that. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that it's not an intentional misreading of the literature, but who knows.
Throw in a career with co-workers of opposite sexes affirming a victim mentality for their own nefarious reasons and you have a time bomb on your hands.
Well, you’re right that if it goes on long enough without any attempt to change it, it can kill the relationship. But in my experience, almost all couples come in with bad communication habits, unproductive conflict strategies, and the tendency to escalate. Add in a bunch of built up resentments and other bad feelings and it’s easy for couples to display all four Horsemen every time there’s a fight. But a lot of the damage can be healed by unlearning those bad habits. It’s not that hard really. It’s like learning any new thing — it just takes some effort and patience.
The Gottmans are the only ones who actually want to help couples stay together and be happy, based on data. Everyone else is either spitballing or just trying to “help” people to blame each other and split up.
Yes! we signed on to an online platform because I was lost how to start but knowing I had to do something The guy they matched us with was helpful and identified some of these points but could have done a better job. The platform support sucked and I won't go back to them.
Thank you John. Very well done with practical steps a couple can take. We're working on some of these issues and it was very helpful to see them summarized
I’d argue that there is an element of stonewalling that doesn’t always manifest as an internal overwhelm, raised heart beat or “checking out”.
If at some point, all filters are off and your partner is going for it attacking your very DNA, distancing yourself temporarily and letting one’s attacks float right past you may be a healthy mechanism to pull, albeit briefly.
…And one can only help that a break in explosions can come soon after.
I agree totally. That’s a complex situation because we may be a bit flooded (or not) while we are essentially just weathering our partners emotional storm (which probably includes a lot of criticism and contempt based on how you’ve described it). So yeah, it can be a reaction or a strategy, or a little of both, depending on the situation. Good point!
The Gottmanns do a weekend workshop (I think quarterly) in Orcas Island, which is in Washington state and is lovely to visit. My wife and I went to Orcas for our five year anniversary and it happened to be one of those weekends. We were the only guests in the B&B who were not there to see the Gottmanns. It was a bit awkward when the other guests assumed we were and we didn’t know what they were talking about. We had some funny conversations about it later with the B&B proprietor.
Ha that’s great. 😃
I came up with a couple of these independently, and it is good to see the ideas fleshed out and expanded. It seems more likely to be true simply because someone else also had the same idea. This is a good essay.
I was an abused child and never learned healthy....anything. Regulating my emotions is impossible; (I hope some day they will not be so overwhelming); but recognizing and taking responsibility for them is not. I read and counseled and spent a great deal of money to learn what you just posted; different names but same methods. I still need reminders. Thanks for writing this! I will definitely be reading more!
Thanks for sharing that, Michelle. I know from personal experience how hard it can be to regulate emotions inside our relationships after a childhood like that. I’m so glad you’re on the path of growth and that you’ve got the recognition and ownership side of the emotional equation down. To me, that’s the most important part. Glad you’re here.
While I really liked, appreciated and agree with the observations - such pieces come across as academic and written within a cleanroom. Life is messy and I would suggest elaborating further on the ways to anticipate conflict/pitfalls before they happen so one isn’t fixing a situation. The idea being “a stitch in time saves nine”. Just a suggestion…again really liked the piece as it was very good. Pax
That’s good advice Roger, and I think I’ll get there. This is a new blog so I feel like there is a lot of foundational information I need to lay down because I’ll need it in a relatively clean form to refer to later. But I’ll think about how to make it less sterile.
This is amazing advice. Thank you.
Add menopause
Very helpful. I stonewall when I become incapable of forming cogent thoughts. I know this comes off as looking like I dont care. But I literally don’t know what to think. I can’t think. I’m just dismayed, anxious, and have zero ideas. So I stammer or am silent. I stare off into space. And it alternatively makes me absolutely contempuous, or self-loathing. I tend to allow this to make the big picture seem hopeless. I am not naturally a suicidal type of person, but sometimes has made me think it would be nice to remove myself from the situation.
I should add that this is when it has gotten bad, but we haven’t gone there in a year or so. Most of the time it is good.
This provides a good roadmap for even maybe looking forward to some conflict so that that part of the relationship can be dealt with sooner than later, thus improving the whole thing. Most marriages in acquainted with could use this advice
I stumbled on to the adoration method on my own 3 years ago, and it is very effective when practiced daily, especially important I’ve found is starting the day out reviewing the good in her. Then just see the good all day. No need to be a Pollyanna. But reality is generally more beautiful than most people default to seeing.
How many people would reading this while horseman 4 is hanging above their heads, I wonder?
Haha gotcha — maybe the algorithm gods are predicting something for you!
I’m not sure what you mean — can you say more?
I mean people distracting themselves from their marriages by reading your blog about how to save their marriages.
I was being cheeky here. I'm not married myself. Yet the algorithm god deemed your post as an essential read.
Gottmann is pseudoscience and ruined my relationship with my father. So, just FYI.
Oh no — what happened!
Very long story, not going to get into it. But Gottman's methods are hopelessly compromised and nobody should take his advice about anything.
I’m sorry to hear that — without knowing more I can’t evaluate what may have gone wrong to give you that impression but I wish you the best. Thanks for checking in.
Here's a good overview of his pseudoscientific methodology https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/02/27/book-review-the-seven-principles-for-making-marriage-work/
I've seen that one and it's an 8000-word straw man fallacy. It's hard to see unless you know the couples therapy literature really well, but the basic problem is that the author assumes that the research base for the Gottman Method is the same as John Gottman's own research, but it's not. The Gottman Method research base is distributed across the entire couples therapy literature in the form of other well established findings and is essentially an aggregation of what works. Gottman's own research is an addition, not a foundation. I'm not sure why this author doesn't know that. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that it's not an intentional misreading of the literature, but who knows.
Throw in a career with co-workers of opposite sexes affirming a victim mentality for their own nefarious reasons and you have a time bomb on your hands.
Call in the bomb squad and defuse that thing!
Children
There is so much damage done before a couple gets to this point, its already over.
I appreciate that, and I hope your day turns around. :)
Hi Emma -- thanks for commenting, and I want to understand: gets to which point?
If a couple is so far gone engaging in that spiteful, hurtful communications like you gave as examples, the marriage was DOA at counseling.
Well, you’re right that if it goes on long enough without any attempt to change it, it can kill the relationship. But in my experience, almost all couples come in with bad communication habits, unproductive conflict strategies, and the tendency to escalate. Add in a bunch of built up resentments and other bad feelings and it’s easy for couples to display all four Horsemen every time there’s a fight. But a lot of the damage can be healed by unlearning those bad habits. It’s not that hard really. It’s like learning any new thing — it just takes some effort and patience.
I could have put this more gracefully. Starting sooner was a game changer for me. Sorry for the negativity. I'm not at my best today.
The Gottmans are the only ones who actually want to help couples stay together and be happy, based on data. Everyone else is either spitballing or just trying to “help” people to blame each other and split up.
I really have to do a post on choosing a competent couples therapist!
Yes! we signed on to an online platform because I was lost how to start but knowing I had to do something The guy they matched us with was helpful and identified some of these points but could have done a better job. The platform support sucked and I won't go back to them.
Good point — telehealth is only as good as the technology, and there’s a lot of variability in professional expertise out there.
Seems like some good options to end a bad marriage. Thanks for the tips.