Best Marriages

Knowing Your Partners Dreams Improves the Relationship!

Dr. John Gottman, one of the top relationship experts in the world, who has studied couples for 35 years and written numerous books on the subject has discovered that there is an signifcant correlation between knowing your partners dreams, hopes and aspirations and a happy marriage.  He called this concept “Building Love Maps” and it means creating in your brain cognitive space for information solely dedicated to your partner.  It is what you know about your partner and how well you remember it that matters. It is just like that saying “What have you done for me lately, That’s what matters”. You would never head out on a unknown journey with an old outdated map, yet we often feel that what we knew about our partner when we met him or her is good enough. Just like computers, people are changing and evolving all the time and we have to keep up by updating and downloading new maps of our partner’s world.  The more space you allocate for your partner the more they feel known and loved.  Doesn’t it feel good to have someone know exactly how to order your coffee at Starbucks?   The only way this happens is to ask questions and pay attention to your partner.

A couple recently posted on our website their secret for a happy marriage and it was so perfect it must be restated here.
The husband wrote “Subject: commitment and goal setting”
Message Body:
we were coming from totally different backgrounds and cultures, but realized a stat indicating 97% of couples entering marriage have no long or short term goals-just hoping for the best! He who aims at nothing usually hits it-a famous quote. Every year we have 3-4 getaway times where we focus on goals and aspirations, and measure our progress. Recently at one of these getaways we each took on an assignment-to list 100 dreams, wishes or goals. Absolutely amazing, in fact we are still talking (communicating) about it weeks after. We have been best friends for many years and realized the importance of having strong marriage mentors throughout our journey. I love our marriage.
This couple of course scored very high marks on the “Extreme Relationship Makeover Quiz “

A great movie about love and marriage is Don Juan Demarco.  In this movie Johnny Depp’s character ( who thought he was Don Juan Demarco) , was trying to help the character played by Marlon Brando (a psychologist trying to help him through his delusions) get closer to his wife of over 30 years.   What finally worked is when Brando said to his wife (Faye Dunaway) “What are your dreams?”  She got very emotional and said “ I thought you would never ask”.
Next time you see your partner, instead of asking them if they paid the bills, ask about their dreams yet unfulfilled and see what happens.

Darren Wilk, MA, RCC and Co-owner of Bestmarriages.com

Darren and Lawrence share some valuable insights on the Kid Carson show on the Beat 94.5 Vancouver’s most popular hits radio station.

Listen to Darren and Lawrence talk about what causes divorce!

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How to ruin Valentine’s Day…and potentially a perfectly good relationship!

Having been a certified Gottman Marriage counsellor for years and being married for 22 years you would think love, romance and passion should be second nature.  Well, it doesn’t and every year during Valentine’s Day I am reminded to reflect on how to keep the romance alive in a long term relationship. One way to ruin this awesome reminder is to excuse it away by saying, “It’s all about the commercialism…  I will show love when I want too, not when some saint says I should.” This could be a grave mistake. Trust me, I have made it too many times!!!

Create rituals of connection.

It is true that commercialism and insane mark-ups are everywhere whenever a special holiday comes around and it can really ruin the intention of the holiday in the first place.  (I am so cheap that I make sure I buy flowers one week in advance and never go to a restaurant on the actually day.)  So get mad and stomp your feet in rebellion about this insidious practice and then step back and think for a moment. 

Why is this tradition important for relationships? It reminds you every year to make sure you are remembering to celebrate the love you have with that someone special.  Research is clear that couples that develop rituals of connection that they can count on are healthier than ones that pretend that love, romance and passion just happen by some freak accident. Marriages that end in divorce or those that are stable but miserable often rely on a myth that if we are not fighting and avoid all conflict that fun, friendship and passion will just magically appear in their relationship.  This is simply not true, the Best marriages that have been proven to last recognize that the passion stays alive because they create Rituals of connection, to keep it alive.

Rituals of connection are anything that a couple chooses to make more purposeful in order to stay connected and have fun doing it.  Happy couples have special ways they start and end their days, they know what makes a great weekend for both of them and they build in activities that are they both enjoy into their lives.  They can count on a date or two a month, they know what each of them wants or don’t want when they are sick and they definitely have talked about how they go about initiating and refusing sex.  There literally are hundreds of informal and formal rituals that begin to define a couple.  Valentine’s day is just a yearly wake up call reminding us all to say “ I love you” and celebrate your union.

Make it your own, talk about what it means to you and ask your partner what it means to them.  And to the need to make sure you are aware for what keeps you connected. Most couples that come to therapy say they feel taken for granted and unappreciated.  Valentines is not just a day, it is a reminder to build into your daily life rituals you can count on.

One more thing… make sure you tell your partner how awesome they are and that you can’t wait til you can get your hands on them (in a good way).  Most of the time these loving thoughts stay in our head and rarely trickle past our lips.  When we at Bestmarriages.com counselling ask couples to say positive things about their partner they rarely have a problem coming up with three or four things to say from the previous week or two.  When asked if they verbalized this to their partner the answer is no but they did think about it. What good is that!!! If you don’t say it your partner cannot read your mind.  Make it a practice to catch your partner doing something right and tell them.  The results will speak for themselves.

Darren Wilk, MA, Certified Gottman Couples therapist

By Darren Wilk

Most of the calls I receive in my office for marriage help come from women who are tired of doing all the work in their marriage. They have asked their husbands, over and over again, to get into gear and take more responsibility for the relationship. The response they get is, “Why? There is really not much wrong here; and anyways, we can fix it on our own, without help”. (By the way, most men who come into counseling after their wife has left them say, “I don’t know what happened. I thought everything was okay”). Does this sound familiar?

Men typically don’t seek outside help for their relationships for much the same reason that men won’t ask for directions. They hate not being able to figure something out on their own. Men, by nature, are trained to be independent and self-sufficient. They would rather learn from doing than from discussing.

Think about this the next time you’re watching children’s at a playground. The boys are rarely sitting around talking. They’re doing something active. The girls on the other hand spend time walking around chatting or hanging out and talking. Do you know any men who love to talk on the phone with their best friend? It is just not in their nature. I know this may sound stereotypical, but it is a general rule. Of course there are always exceptions.

On top of this, the typical husband learns to tune out the cries for more involvement until the requests get really serious. Even then he’ll usually just change a few things for a little while to get the pressure off, and then gradually slip back into old habits. The reason the change doesn’t last is because he hasn’t really understood the reason for the change in the first place. He reacts to the pressure by switching into “solve” mode.

So what does a frustrated, at wits end, spouse do? You still love him and you don’t want a divorce. How do you get his attention?

1. Reframe the problem.

Leading marriage psychologists, Andrew Christianson and Neil Jacobson, asserts that one of the major relationship patterns is that one of the spouses is pursuing and trying to get closer to the other. This usually results in a polarization effect where the one being pursued actually moves away.

This is called a closeness-distance conflict. It usually occurs when one partner desires more intimacy and closeness, (usually the wife), and the other, (usually the husband), desires to maintain an optimal amount of distance. This is essentially simply a difference in the definition of an ideal relationship. But instead of seeing this as being just a difference of definitions one partner starts to want to eradicate this difference and sees it as a major problem. The difference is seen as a deficiency in the other person. Closeness seekers see the other person as afraid of intimacy and distance seekers see the other person as too dependent and needy.

The first step in getting more of what you want is to stop attaching value judgments on differences. The partner may be distancing because he misunderstands your need of closeness as an attempt to control and smother, rather than to enjoy mutual company. Not all differences need to be intolerable, problematic or distressing. For all you know your husband’s attempt at keeping his distance is more of an ingrained personality trait than an attempt to stay away from you. He also may simply lack the skills or has very little ability to articulate his fear of losing his independence. There is no need to take this personally.

Relaxing and accepting that you both have a different view of intimacy creates a space for conversation rather than conflict. A different definition of the problem gives you the ability to realize your husband’s distance as simply a neutral difference of styles.

2. Stop trying to get their attention — that usually gets their attention.

Have you ever been looking intently for something you lost and when you finally stop looking for it somehow magically appears? This principle works the same way. When you relax, stop pursuing your spouse and simply get on with your own agenda, a magical thing occurs. The distancer stops running and begins to move into the space you created as you moved out of it. They finally feel the freedom to come towards you and the relationship. When making the decision to let go it is often best to state it to the other. “ I am going to stop chasing after you and give up my personal time and energy when it just seems to push you away. I love you very much and I want to be closer. I hope this gives you the space you need.”

After saying this you must act on it. Stop checking up on them, doing stuff for them, and giving up things you want to do for your self. If he was supposed to be home for supper at five and he decides to stay out later, don’t hold supper; go out and enjoy yourself. Stop organizing your life around the other person. This is not a quick fix and takes time and patience, but it will happen that they feel the gap and start to move into it.

Do something different. Whatever you were doing wasn’t working anyways. Most marriage counselors agree that just doing something different, no matter what it is, creates opportunities for change. What have you got to lose?

References:
Jacobson, Neil S., Christiansen, Andrew: Acceptance and Change in Couple Therapy, W.W. Norton & Company; (September 1, 1998)