March 2, 2026 • 47 mins
In this classic episode, Dr. Laurie speaks with two of the world’s most influential relationship scientists, Drs. John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman.
In their renowned “Love Lab,” the married researchers have studied thousands of couples, identifying the subtle interaction patterns that predict whether partners will drift apart or stay happily together for decades.
They join Dr. Laurie to share what we can learn from these “Masters of Relationships” — and how to build partnerships resilient enough to withstand life’s inevitable stresses and strains.
Further reading: Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict into Connection by Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. One of my favorite things about hosting this podcast
is having a chance to meet longtime fans of the show.
I love hearing what listeners like you take away from
different episodes and answering burning questions. But there's one question
from long term listeners that I get a lot. It's this,
(00:37):
is there an episode that you, as the host, returned
to again and again, one that has advice that you
continue to need even as an expert on this research. That,
of course, is a tough question to answer, because I
love pretty much all the episodes we've had a chance
to share with you, but there is one pair of
episodes that I do come back to again and again,
especially when I've been thinking about the science of relationships,
(00:58):
as we've been doing over the past few shows. It's
a double episode that I did with John and Julie Gottman,
a scientist couple who spent over fifty years studying the
science of love. Of this season on the Science of Relationships,
I wanted to share this set of episodes one more time.
In the first episode, which you'll hear today, the Gotments
share what research shows about the surprising power of attention
(01:20):
and curiosity for strengthening our relationships. You'll get to hear
all the Gotman's insights right after the happiness Loud returns
from this quick break. These days, there's really no shortage
(01:44):
of relationship advice out there. There are the usual Dear
Abby and Modern Love type columns and newspapers and magazines.
There are also reality TV dating shows, couples podcasts, TikTok videos,
Instagram reels, Reddit dating threads, and on and on and on.
Some of this advice is helpful, but a lot of
it isn't backed up by empirical evidence. I wanted to
(02:05):
explore what the science says about building happier relationships, and
what better way to begin than with a husband and
wife team that not only has decades of married life
experience to draw on, but also a wealth of knowledge
gained from some truly elegant scientific studies.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Julie's walking around without grandson on her arms?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
How well does he?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
He is going to be two in January? He just
started doing imaginative play this morning, Okay, Jules included.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Doctor Julie Schwartz Gotman is a clinical psychologist who's helped
people facing challenges in many domains of life, including in
their romantic relationships.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
By the way, the book is called fight right. I
bet it would have been good title too.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I thought of it, so that means it's really great.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Doctor John Gotman is an academic psychologist and pioneering relationship researcher.
Back in nineteen seventy six, John used the primitive video
technology of his day to capture real life couples interacting
with one another. Collaborating with his then research partner, doctor
Robert Lovesen, John analyzed hours and hours of taped interviews
(03:12):
in order to learn how some couples are able to
maintain healthy relationships and to spot the warning signs that
a partnership could be doomed. Today, Julie and John run
the Gotman Institute, an entire research center devoted to studying
romantic relationships. You probably won't be surprised to hear that
they have a lot of wise things to say, so
(03:32):
much so that we've decided to split their interview into
two chunks. Today, the Gutmans will share what's so called
masters of relationships can teach us about avoiding the pitfalls
of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. These are the traits
that John and Julie have christened the four horsemen of
relationship destruction. They've found that their presence in a partnership
(03:53):
pretty much guarantees and impending apocalypse. But the real story
started way before John and Julie even got together, back
when John and his colleague Robert Levinson were dreaming up
a way to robustly study relationships inside the laboratory.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Richard God to really have a good theoria or anything.
So we just had couples come into this lab talk
about how their day went after they'd been apart for
eight hours, and interviewed about the major problem in their
relationship and asked them to resolve it. And then they
looked at their videotapes and turned the dial to tell
us what they were feeling that ranged from very negative
to very positive. And then we just sent them home
(04:30):
because we had no clue about how to help anybody,
you know. And three years later, we recontacted these couples
to see if they were still together and how happily
married they were, how their relationship had changed, and then
we started really looking at the data to get hypotheses
and really determined over time by doing this study over
(04:51):
and over again, also with Gahm Lesmian couples that there
really are masters of relationship and disasters like Bob and I.
So you know, we actually learned from the research. And
then twenty six years ago, Julie and I decided to
work together in the I knew, you know, we were
paddling in the ocean, and Julie suggested they we work together.
(05:14):
And it was a great combination because Bob and I
had no idea to help anybody, and Julie, with our
clinical experience, we were able to combine and create a
theory of how relationships work. And then for the last
twenty six years that we've been testing it out in experiments.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And so, Julie, I was going to ask your version
of how you two got together in the first place.
I guess it involves a canoe.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
How we got together in terms of our studies and
so a little.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Bit of both together in terms of the studies and
in terms of the forever together.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Okay, let's see, we both moved to Seattle at around
the same time, so I just finished my PhD. John
has already been a professor and was moving to University
of Washington. So we actually met in a coffee house.
John came over to me and said, I wish you
would have said you're the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen.
(06:07):
I really want to have coffee with you. But you know,
he said, what would you think about having coffee with me?
You know, kind of a nice try professariat question. So
I said sure. So he sat down and we had coffee,
and we had the most incredible conversation, was fantastic, and
the next conversation we had over the phone was four
(06:29):
hours long. So there was obviously a connection. And I
think on our second date, John said, you know, I
was in another relationship, but I've told her I'm not
going to see her anymore. I found somebody I want
to try and work things out with. I immediately had
a panic attack. It was like really already. But five
(06:53):
months later he proposed I said yes. And I was
working purely in clinical work, so I was working with
really the sickest of the sick. I was working with
folks who were psychotic, who had severe PTSD, who come
back from various wars and torture, who might have had
(07:13):
addictions and so on, and so I was working quite
intensely with those folks in private practice for about five
or six years or something. But every night over dinner,
John would come home and tell me about his research.
And I kept thinking to myself, maintain your boundaries, stay
in your old world. You know, it's okay, it's interesting,
(07:36):
but stay in your own world. And then I didn't.
So we were out canoeing outside of Orcas Island in
the sea. It was just absolutely gorgeous, and you suggested
and let me finish. And I said to him, honey,
what do you think about taking this stuff out of
(07:59):
the ivory tower. It's such good knowledge and people have
no idea of how to have a relationship. So how
about our try to work on this stuff and create interventions,
create theory to really prevent what made the disasters fall
apart years later, and then we'll test it, see how
(08:22):
it works, and the rest is history. We immediately started
jumping into that, then formed the Dartlin Institute to start
having couples workshops, continued our research and.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So on, and we built this apartment lab like a
Colder love lab, and saw one hundred and thirty newlywed
couples just a couple of months after the wedding, and
followed them as many of them became pregnant and had babies,
and you know, I learned to study babies and it
was really fun. And it led to our Bringing Baby
(08:57):
Home intervention, which has been a most powerful intervention because
when the first baby arrives in the first three years
of the baby's life, many couples go through a big
drop in relationship happiness and fight a lot a lot
of conflict. But about a third of them don't. And
we were able to look at the differences between those
(09:17):
two groups and build this workshop and test it and
evaluate it and it's very effective.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And so when we hear your story about getting together,
it's such a lovely story, I think it can lead
people to experience a little bit of a misconception that
I think a lot of us have when it comes
to love, right, that love just happens. Right. You see
somebody in a coffee shop, you ask them to coffee,
and the rest is history. But your work shows that
that's not really how good love works. Tell me how
love in some sense really works well.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
First of all, the first phase of a loving relationship,
which people adoringly call in luck, is basically chemistry. It's
basically pheromones. You are sensing one another at every level,
and all the stars come out in the sky. You know,
you're very excited, you're very happy. Everything is wonderful. It's
(10:08):
a big honeymoon. You move towards marriage, You get married,
and then boom, the bond drops. You find out your
partner is really messy and you're not. You find that
you know all the differences between you that are significant,
and that are true for every single couple. Every person
(10:28):
has their own unique personality and lifestyle preference, and nobody
is a clone of each other. If they were, we'd
be bored to tears. And so people are really different,
and as a result, people have to learn how to
manage their differences, manage conflict, create a path, a journey forward,
(10:51):
especially with commitment, in which you're creating a culture that
honors both of you, honors both of your traditions, your rituals,
your preferences, and that's not always an easy thing. The
other thing, too, is that none of us has a nice, stable,
flatline of the mood. We're always going up and down
(11:14):
and up and down, and sometimes we're crabby, sometimes we're
full of delight. Sometimes we just want sleep all day.
And how does our partner hold that in their hands.
Are they there for us? Are we there for them?
That building of trust is incredibly important. Are you there
(11:37):
for me when I'm sick? Are you there for me
when I'm depressed? Are you there for me when I'm
triumphant and I just got a big raise and I
want to celebrate. Are you there for me when I
just am so stressed out I can't see street. So
there's a lot of back and forth in terms of
testing one another.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's a reality. And yeah, all of the trust, all
of the conflicts of those one hundred and thirty uliuwds,
we're basically about trust. About what Julie's talking about. Are
you going to be there for me? Can I count
on you? And the couples who build trust really go
on to have a very good relationship, and usually there's
more commitment. With commitment, there really are saying you're the
(12:19):
love of my life. There's nobody on the planet that
can compare to you. I'm old men, And I think.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
This importance of trust gets to another misconception that I
think a lot of us have, right. I think when
we think of successful couples, a lot of us mistakenly
think that there are couples that exist maybe without conflict,
or they don't fight very much, they don't have a
lot of negative interactions. But your work has shown that
the negative interactions might not be as important as the
flip side. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Even a woman's anger, for example, which men find unpleasant
in the moment, in the long run, really is good
for the relationship. You know, what a lot of couple
therapists thought was the destruction of anger is actually a
good thing. So if people can talk about what they
feel and what they need with one another, then you know,
(13:07):
these emotions really and be very constructive. And the goal
of conflict is mutual understanding.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, let me say a little more about that. Most people,
when they have conflicts, what they imagine is just skating
on the surface. They have this current problem, they've got
to come up with a fix for that current problem,
but they're not necessarily aware of all the underlying subterranean messages, history, values,
(13:39):
ideal dreams that lie beneath that surface that they're arguing about.
And so part of what we saw Lorie with the
Masters of Relationship is that they almost always dug deep
when there was a really significant issue at stake, and
they would reveal their enduring vulnerabilities, the old scar tissue
(14:03):
from childhood, baggage they were still carrying, or another relationship,
an old relationship. Nobody really escapes childhood without some kind
of baggage. I mean, I've never seen somebody who as
And thus, when we are fighting for something we believe in,
some of that baggage can get kicked up, right Like,
(14:25):
we may feel judged, we may feel rejected, we may
feel put down, even when our partner is saying, honey,
you're the most wonderful thing on the planet. Still, you know,
we're hearing old messages in that brain of ours and
misinterpreting what our partner is saying. So the successful couples
are people who really check deeply. Am I hearing you correctly?
(14:50):
Is this what you're saying? Tell me where that comes from?
Where did that value get established in your life? Because
it sounds like it's relatively new and before that you
had a different set of values.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
It's people really exploring each other's internal landscape to find
out where does their partner live inside? Who is their partner? Really?
That's the beauty of conflict, that you're opening up these
aspects of people's inner world that you may not have
really been aware of fully and through conflict you learn
(15:28):
all about that and that's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So I think we're going to dive much more deeply
into the conflict work. I want to get totally to
fight right. But I also wanted to start with some
of your earlier work just on the power of positive interactions,
because I think when we think about couples that aren't
doing so great, were mostly thinking about couples that are
having fights or having conflict or things like that. We
often don't realize that sometimes it's really about couples not
(15:50):
investing in the positive side of things and kind of
getting to some of these bids and things, And so
you talk about this kind of misconception that the investment
really needs to be in the positive side of things too.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
We noticed very quickly in the apartment lad that there
were these small moments where one or both people were
trying to make make a connection, get their partner's attention
or interest, or have a conversation, get some affection, tell
a story, tell a joke, and how the partner responded
to this bid for connection really predicted the future of
(16:23):
a relationship. And it's now been called the bird test
on TikTok, and the idea is, you know, if you're
trying to get your partner's attention just to look at
a bird outside and they do, they say, oh, yeah,
beautiful bird, then that really predicts a very good relationship.
And in fact, the couples who divorced in the love
lab had only turned toward bids thirty three percent of
(16:45):
the time. The couples who were still together six years
earlier had turned toward these bids eighty six percent of
the time, So a really huge difference.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
So give me the size how couples can react to
one another's bids, you know. So maybe because you've talked
about like three different ways people can kind of react.
So let me let me.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Start with a bid now, Honey, you know, I had
a really disturbing dream westight about your mother.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Honey, you know what I'm reading? Would you stop interrupting me.
I don't want to talk about that. That's hostile, right,
that's turning against that's what we call it, turning against.
Try again, I really had a disturbing dream last night
about your mother.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I'd like to talk to you about it.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Silence, It's as if your partner didn't say a word,
they don't exist. That's called turning away, and it makes
people feel unimportant, devalued, disrespected, invisible. Now let's try it again.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Hey, I had a really disturbing dream last night. Mother,
you did?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah? Really, my mother got into your dream?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, she was right in there.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Oh no, So what happened to tell me about it?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
She was so nice to me? What? Yeah, I know,
I was really surprised that she was so affectionate.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
That's called turning towards where you're immediately responding with interest,
with attention, and with connection to your partner's bid for
a connection.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
It feels so different, you know, when you try to
connect and your partner doesn't. So the probability we discovered
a rebidding when your partner turns away is almost zero
in relationships that are doomed. It's only twenty two percent
in relationships that are going to stay together. So it's
very low all the time. So people kind of crumple
(18:43):
inside a little bit.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Can I describe an image? If you imagine a sea anemone,
Those are those creatures you know that have about one
hundred little tiny fingers, and those fingers will stretch out,
straightened out, and open up when they're relaxed and they're happy.
Imagine just poking a little bit, poking in the center,
(19:07):
which is the equivalent of turning evainst And what happens
the cnmone folds up its fingers very quickly and tightly
and is very reluctant to open them up again. That's,
you know, classically, what happens inside of us when somebody
turns against our bid. You know, when we're opening up
(19:29):
to our partner, they turn against her away, we shrink
down inside of ourselves and again feel unsafe, so we
don't want to open up again, not for a while.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
So love occurs in these very small moments, which is
why we say love's avert, because it's what you do
moment to moment that makes the difference.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
One of the reasons I find this works so powerful
is that you know, I get the sense, of course
that when you're kind of being adversarial when your partner
makes a bid, if you say why are you talking
to me, or something that that's negative. I think the
striking thing from your work is that it's just as
bad when the partner just reacts with silence when you're
not paying attention after reading your work. I've been more
much more careful about this with my husband, but there
are definitely times when I'm you know, checking my email
(20:14):
or looking at a screen that you know he's mentioning something,
and my sense like, h this is not interesting, Like
it's so easy not to pay attention. But when you realize,
like the person on the other end of that email,
they're not going to care that I took you know,
time away for two seconds. But my husband, you know
that bid it matters a lot if I turn away.
I mean, is this the kind of thing you see
in couples nowadays, when there's so many more distractions for
our bid time?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yes, yes, yes, you know. I mean, I'm sure all
of us have gone into a cafe and we've seen
a table of four people, maybe every single person is
on their phone, and they're looking at their screens, they're
not looking at each other, and there's absolute silence at
the table. What kind of community connection is that? It's nothing,
(20:57):
which for me anyway, is very painful to see because
there's the opportunity all these people sitting together or a
couple sitting together where they really could be having interaction, connection, laughter, delight, enjoyment,
sharing stories. Nope, silence that feels very empty, like a
(21:22):
vaccing exists between them.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well, you know what's really amazing, Laurie, is that these
small moments mount up, you know, and either create an
emotional bank account that has a lot of good stuff
in it or one that's barren. In the latter case,
it leaves people feeling very lonely and then the other
very full and very connected. And it affects not only
(21:46):
love in the moment, it affects our physical health and longevity.
So if we have a more connected relationship, we're going
to live about seventeen years longer than if we don't.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
If living a longer, happier life isn't a good enough
reason to pay just a little more attention to our
loved ones, then I don't know what is. But being
receptive to our partner's bids for attention are one of
the things that the Gtmans recommend. Their next challenge involves
finding ways to remain curious about our lovers, no matter
how long we've been with them. We'll hear more about
(22:19):
why building curiosity is so important when the happiness lab
returns in a moment. If you're months, years, or even
decades into a relationship, you might be tempted to think
that you know everything there is to know about your partner,
(22:39):
But relationship experts Julian John Gotman say that can be
a fatal assumption. It can also be a problem when
life simply gets in the way of the usual relationship curiosity.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
When we get busy things to do, children, to pick up,
meals to me, grocery shopping to do, busy, busy, busy.
How much time do we actually have to give to
conversation with our partner Where we're simply just wanting to know,
how is your day, what was the worst part about
(23:11):
it for you, what was really happening that upset you, etc.
We're not asking each other those big questions.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Julie says that retaining a deep curiosity is vital to
the health of any relationship, but it's also something that
often fades after the early days of courtship.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
You may remember when you were first dating or you
first met your partner, you didn't know anything, and so
you ask them lots of questions to find out who
are they? What makes them tick, Where did they come from?
How did that legacy influence them now? But when we
get busy with kids, with jobs, with careers, we take
(23:52):
for granted that we really know our partner, so we
don't need to ask those questions anymore. But think about it, guys,
every single day is a new experience, and every new
experience builds another layer of identity in to each individual. Well,
how do you keep up with that evolution of your partner?
(24:15):
That development as they go through new experiences, politics, friendships,
you know, who do they become? Because we're always in
a state of becoming. We never have just arrived. That's
an illusion. We're always becoming, and thus we have to
(24:36):
keep asking open ended questions, that is, questions that have
a great, big answer, not just a one word or
two word answer, to learn who are you today? Who
do you want to be tomorrow? Those are important questions
to keep repeating throughout our relationship. May I tell you
(24:58):
a story, Lorie?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Oh please?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, here's the story how all of this got started.
When John and I were first married, we didn't have
much money. He was a professor, I was starting in
private practice. But we wanted to go out on a date.
Night once a week. So we lived in Seattle, and
there's a beautiful hotel called the Sorrento that has a
(25:20):
magnificent big stone fireplace in the lobby and gorgeous, beautiful
soft couches that you fold into right in front of
the fireplace. So what John and I would do is
we would go to this hotel and we'd pretend we
were guests and we would grab a couch, stay in
the couch for three hours, have one drink, which was cheap,
(25:44):
and at the end of the day we would walk out.
So during the date, we would ask each other these
big questions. John always brought a yellow pad and he
would take notes about my answers, which men, Oh my god,
I better be careful because one of those answers might
wind up been a book. So I was very careful
(26:05):
about what I said. But we were never at a
loss for questions because there was always more going on
week to week that we wanted to learn about.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And later on we developed this tradition of our annual honeymoon.
We would rent a room and a bed and breakfast,
and for about two weeks we would ask each other
three questions, what did you love about this year, what
did you hate about this year? And what do you
want next year to be like? So we do kind
of like a review of the whole relationship for that
(26:36):
year in that annual honeymoon. We've done it for twenty
three years now, it's tradition. And we asked those open
and the questions of each other just to kind of
understand how our partner has been affected by the year,
you know, and what they're thinking about.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
It sounds like this is so powerful to just kind
of take the time to get to know your partner right.
You could notice them changing over time and so on.
But this is the kind of thing that we forget
to do when we're busy. Another thing we forget to
do when we're busy is to notice our partner's good features.
But you've argued that we need to fight this tenant.
See that another thing we can do to make love
last is to notice the good stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Can I tell you about a study that is really amazing.
We didn't do it. This study had observers in couple's
homes just noting down everything positive that one person said
to the other, and one observer was observing the husband,
one observing the life the couple was also scoring what
their partner was doing positive and what they discovered was
(27:35):
that when the relationship wasn't going well, people missed fifty
percent of all this positivity. They just didn't see it.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
So that is, your partner's doing good things. They're taking
the garbage out, emptying the dishwasher, you know, saying nice things.
But it's just you don't even notice.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It's just going over your head. You don't even notice it. Right,
That's an amazing study, Robinson and Price, the dead study.
You know, it's so important because here's the positivity, but
it's not getting noticed by the partner when they're really
unhappy and their relationship right.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
And so how do we fix that?
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Well, so our model is look for what you're partner
is doing right and say thank you. Very very simple thing.
It's a habit of mind. You know, we've grown up
in a very critical society. This is a very competitive,
contemptuous place. A lot of times where we're critical, we're
(28:28):
being criticized, we're always comparing ourselves, sometimes negatively to other people.
So you've come by it righteously, this habit to look
for what's going wrong right. But it's not that hard
to just shift to if my partner wasn't taking out
the garbage, wouldn't that be a drag? How wonderful that
(28:51):
they're taking out the garbage. Thank you very much for
taking out the garbage. So if you imagine your partner's
not doing this positive thing, it means you'll probably have
to be doing it, which will stress you out even
more because you already have a lot on your plate. Right,
So it's prappedic single gratitude, and it's seeing what are
(29:13):
they doing, even those little subtle things. Every single morning
For the last I don't know, thirty seven years since
we've been together, John's been making our coffee every single morning,
and here it is, and it's really good, and I
love it, and I thank him every single morning. He
(29:37):
knows how I like it, and if I keep saying
thank you, he'll keep making it.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
And I know you had, if I recall from the book,
I know you had a story where you really noticed
for the first time how important that was. When he
wasn't there to make the coffee.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Well, I was very sad that he wasn't there, and
I was thanking God. Does it take five scoops or
six scoops? And I can't remember what I did, and
I don't know. I put in seven scoops just for
the heck of it, and then I shot to the
ceiling after drinking half aco and stay for the next
four hours.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
This was not a good thing.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
So the next time when John made a coffee, was like, oh,
thank you for me. I'm so relieved that you're here
making a coffee.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, this can become a habit of mind. Really, instead
of focusing on your partner's mistakes and we all make mistakes,
if you focus on what your partner is doing right
and really express appreciation for it, then it's an entirely
different relationship. And actually the person who shifts their habit
of mind to noticing what's going right actually becomes less
(30:44):
stressed and they become nicer. That's kind of surprising, but
you know, when you have that positive habit of mind,
the world looks a lot kinder and more generous.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
And this is something you've talked about a lot, that
we really do have much more control over these habits
of mind than we expect. Right that in some sense,
this negativity bias not asking these questions, in some ways,
they're like an active choice, even though we don't realize.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
That's well said.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Well, first of all, you have to start with intention.
So is it your intention to make this relationship better?
You know, in the past, before a lot of this
research got done, we had no idea of how to
make relationships better. Did it take more sex, did it
take better cooking? You know what did it take? But
(31:31):
now with this research well grounded here and telling us
what to do, then we have tools. We have alternatives
as to the good habits to put into place in
our relationship, and they're really not that hard. Laurie, here's
(31:52):
how much it takes. Wow, look at that beautiful bird.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Huh nice.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
That's all it takes. Period, is just a couple of
little syllables. All of us can do that. It's just
a matter of our intention or intension to connect, to
be loving.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Can I say something here about this? So you know,
my former graduates to genis Driver discovered that when people
increase their turning toward, which just takes really an awareness
of how your partner is reaching out, then what happens
is when there's conflict, people automatically have a sense of
humor about themselves. They can laugh at themselves and being
(32:36):
able to laugh together when you're disagreeing, reduces physiological arousal.
It really bonds you even though you're disagreeing on atomic
So it's very powerful.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
And if it's with this other ratio that you've figured out,
which is that the positivity to negativity ratio overall seems
to matter, right, so that little infusion of humor can
be quite powerful. Explain what this ratio is and why
it's so important for a relationship success.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So, you know, Bob Levinson and I counted in a
fifteen minute conflict discussion, how many seconds people are kind
to each other, interested, curious, generous, saying even small things
like oh yeah, oh wow. You know, those kinds of reflections.
They really lubricate the wheels of conflict so that we
(33:24):
arrive at more mutual understanding. What was a big surprise
was that the Masters of Relationships during conflict, that ratio
of positive to negative that interested in one another, that excitement, curiosity,
agreement understanding was five times as common as negativity in
(33:46):
the Masters of Relationships, and in couples that were doomed,
that ratio was zer point eight, just a little bit
more negativity than positivity. It's very famous in Seattle. I
was coming out of Starbucks a couple of months ago
when this guy drove by in his truck and rolled
down his window and said five to one. Right, you know,
(34:08):
it's become well known our relation in Seattle.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
When John says it out loud, it seems so obvious.
Happy relationships spring from two people being warm towards one another,
willing to express interest in and concern for their partner
in far greater proportion than any complaints they might air.
After the break, we'll hear more advice that again sounds obvious,
but seems to be followed only by those rare masters
(34:32):
of relationships. That advice is not to treat your partner
like a mind reader. The happiness lap will be right back.
Are there things you want from your life, partner? Are
there issues welling up that bother you or make you unhappy?
(34:53):
Have you expressed these thoughts openly to your partner? Or
are you storing these problems away as resentments that are
slowly building up over time. When you say it out loud,
it sounds like such a stupid strategy, but it's also
one a lot of us follow. And doctor Julie Schwartz
Gootvin has a theory.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Why, let me.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Just say first give it some context that in this country,
at least, we have grown up with the value of
pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. You're weak when
you need somebody else. It's not okay to have needs.
Women especially are called too needy. And you know, here's
(35:31):
the basic truth. The truth is that human beings are
pack animals. We are pack animals. We don't survive without
our tribe or our intimates who are really there for us.
It's the lone wolf versus the wolf pack. Right, Well,
we're very similar to that. So what does that mean.
(35:53):
It means we need to connect. We need to connect
all the time. So when people feel terrible about expressing
their needs, they can go two ways. Either they expect
their partner to their minds and then out of nowhere,
the partner is hearing. Why didn't you actually see that
(36:16):
I was sick and bring me tea?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Why didn't you do that?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Well, the partner number one didn't know that this first
person was sick, didn't know they liked tea when they
were sick, et cetera. How would they know the other
person is not saying what they need? Right? So those
needs can stack up over time and create huge amounts
of resentment and anger that the other person is not
(36:44):
there for them. But the fact of the matter is
how would the other know how to be there for
the first person when the needs are not being expressed.
So it's incredibly important for people to realize that interdependency
is what creates a strength in a relationship. An interdependency
(37:08):
is created by saying what you need in a positive way,
saying how your partner can shine for you, and then
hopefully your partner responds in that way, which is really
fulfilling for you and fulfilling for them because it makes
(37:28):
them feel valued and trusted that you're expressing a need
to them. They're the chosen one that you are trusting.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
And let me say something else, Lorie. So far we've
been talking about asking open ended questions and now we're
talking about expressing needs. So if your listeners go to
the app store and type in Gotman card Decks, they
can download a free app that has expressing needs cards
that they can go through once a week, you know,
(38:00):
for a half an hour, and say, well, here's what
I need from you this week to feel loved, and
they can have a card deck that has all these
open ended questions on it that they can use. We
use these card debts all the time, and they've been
downloaded about three hundred and fifty thousand times, so they're
available for free.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
And I think that, you know, having like a little
bit of help when you're asking for what you need
can be really important because I know, you know, maybe
this is just in my own life that you Julie,
you mentioned that we need to ask with positivity, but
I think sometimes when you're feeling really resentful, that can
be hard. And sometimes when you finally go about asking
for help, it can come off sounding like a criticism.
It can sell it off like you didn't empty the dishwasher.
(38:42):
And I needed that talk about maybe a healthier way
to go about asking for those needs and like the
steps that we need to get in there to do
it effectively.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
First of all, let me just insert a little piece
of research here. What John and Bob and other colleagues
found is that the first three minutes of a conflict
conversation when you're bringing up your complaints not only predicts
how the rest of the conversation will go. That first
(39:10):
three minutes, it also predicts how well the relationship is
going to go six years down the road with over
ninety percent accuracy. So how we bring up our complaint
is absolutely crucial. We found that successful couples had a
formula for this, which we really try to practice and
(39:32):
to teach others to practice. Number one, say what you feel.
You're describing yourself, so you're saying things like I feel angry,
I feel resentful, I feel frustrated. You can't sabotage it
and say I feel that you are an idiot. No,
it's not going to work, or I feel like there're
(39:53):
such a schmuck that's not going to work right, So
it has to be a real emotion. I feel stressed,
I feel disappointed. Then step two about what Now. Notice
that's not about who, about your partner and how rotten
they are. It's about the situation. So it's going to
(40:14):
sound like I feel upset that there's a new dent
in the car. That's the situation. I feel angry that
here's the situation. The bills haven't been paid, I'm sick
and tired of cooking dinner every night, etc. So you're
(40:36):
describing the situation and you're feeling about it. Then the
all important step three. You say what your positive need is,
and let me distinguish positive from negative. Negative need means
what you don't want your partner to do. Positive need
means what you do want your partner to do. So
(40:59):
if you have a negative need, like stop leaving the
kitchen a mess, that's a negative, flip it on its
head and think, oh, what would be the opposite of
this that I would really like? I wish you would
clean up the kitchen nightly. That would be such a help.
And that positive need opens up your partner so much
(41:25):
more than your partner hearing a criticism, which feels like
a put down, which makes some want to withdraw and
pull away or get defensive.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
It's such a powerful strategy because when you say what
you're healing about what situation, and then stay to positive need.
Nowhere in there is a critique of your partner, right,
like you haven't said because you did this bad thing.
There's no kind of causal thing that your partner did wrong,
and that must mean that like people just don't get
as offended. Right, everybody's on board with trying to help it.
Lets your partner be a help rather than a hindrance
(41:56):
in this really important.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Way beautifully said. That's exactly right, That's exactly right. Yes,
so you're really telling your partner I love you, I
know you can be there for me, and and if
you would be there for me in this particular way,
it would make me so happy.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Have you all harnessed this kind of strategy for talking
about your own unmet needs and your relationship? Any good examples?
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Yeah? I would say the books. Probably the books, right, Okay?
So John is an avid book collector, which means probably
once a week we get seven books a week, maybe
something like that. We're getting books all the time. We
(42:44):
don't have bookshelf space for seven books a week, because
added up, that's almost thirty books a month. Where are
you going to put them? So they end up being
on the stairs, in the front entryway, on the dining
room table, on the kitchen island.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
You know, everywhere. I heard.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Side of the bed, on my side of the bed,
and on his side of the bed. There's such a
big pile that I risk breaking my neck to bend
over the books to make the bed. So you know,
it's a danger to my life. And so what I
have to do is I know this is his personality
(43:23):
and lifestyle preference, right, very different than mine. Okay, so
it doesn't make him a bad person, just makes him
different than me, right, with just different priorities. And so
I'll say, honey, would you please clean up the books?
And he may pay attention or he may not. We too,
(43:44):
I'll say, sweetie, those books are becoming a danger to me.
Would you please clean up the books. I'm afraid I'm
going to trip on them going down the stairs. See
there's no criticism in there. Okay, Week three, I'm going, honey,
you know, the voice tone has changed, and I'm saying, honey,
(44:05):
I'm at risk for breaking my neck. And you don't
want a dead wire, right, No, you don't, So please
please please clean up the books.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
I beg you.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
This is a warning. So I do it, and then
he finally does it, and the books are all cleaned away,
and then it starts to build again. So we have
this conversation, Yeah, book periodically once a long, I'd say regularly.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
But it's good that you've been able to figure out
a way to do it. That's not you know, attacking
the person's personality, like why are you this kind of
person who you know collects all these books. It's really
doing it in a way that's expressing what your needs
are and kind of giving a clear path to helping
to which I love.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
So right.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
You know the other thing too that people forget glory
is that we have to be humble. We have to
realize that. Okay, we're asking our partner to be perfect, right?
Are we perfect?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
No way?
Speaker 3 (45:01):
I drive John crazy with would you please clean this up? Well?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
You please clean? I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
I just want to sit and read my book. I'm
driving him nuts with my need for tidiness, right, So
he's tolerating that in me and being patient and eventually
supportive putting away the books. So I'm no perfect icon
(45:28):
either here. I can get grouchy, I can, you know,
go a little nuts with all the books all over
the place. He has to tolerate that, right the same
way I tolerate the difference in how he treats space.
So okay, I have to be humble about you know,
(45:48):
my flaws, my faults, And of course you know that
message is throughout most of our religious texts, you know,
whatever religion you're in, you know, look at yourself before
you start criticizing your partner. So I've really tried to
hone that to a fine heart.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
How you do a good job.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, As well as being wise, the Gatmans are just
a super fun couple to hang out with, and so
you'll be glad to hear that we've only just scratched
the surface of the advice that they have to share.
In the second part of our conversation, they'll let me
in on some secrets for dealing with one of the
most upsetting and destabilizing aspects of being in love, the
inevitable disagreements.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I turned the phone off, but they didn't turn it off.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I yea, not seeing I die with your partner is
perfectly natural.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
I'm really sick and tired of the laundry being all
over the floor.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Disagreements shouldn't be swept under the rug ti festa, but
they also shouldn't generate hostility either.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
I'm just second tired of the stupid, stupid laundry.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
The good news, says the Gotmans, is that there is
a way that we can all learn to argue better.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
The laundry is on the floor, I really don't like
seeing it. Would you please clean it up before we
got den here?
Speaker 1 (47:02):
That's coming up next time on the Happiness Lab with me,
doctor Laurie Santos,
Pushkin. One of my favorite things about hosting this podcast
is having a chance to meet longtime fans of the show.
I love hearing what listeners like you take away from
different episodes and answering burning questions. But there's one question
from long term listeners that I get a lot. It's this,
(00:37):
is there an episode that you, as the host, returned
to again and again, one that has advice that you
continue to need even as an expert on this research. That,
of course, is a tough question to answer, because I
love pretty much all the episodes we've had a chance
to share with you, but there is one pair of
episodes that I do come back to again and again,
especially when I've been thinking about the science of relationships,
(00:58):
as we've been doing over the past few shows. It's
a double episode that I did with John and Julie Gottman,
a scientist couple who spent over fifty years studying the
science of love. Of this season on the Science of Relationships,
I wanted to share this set of episodes one more time.
In the first episode, which you'll hear today, the Gotments
share what research shows about the surprising power of attention
(01:20):
and curiosity for strengthening our relationships. You'll get to hear
all the Gotman's insights right after the happiness Loud returns
from this quick break. These days, there's really no shortage
(01:44):
of relationship advice out there. There are the usual Dear
Abby and Modern Love type columns and newspapers and magazines.
There are also reality TV dating shows, couples podcasts, TikTok videos,
Instagram reels, Reddit dating threads, and on and on and on.
Some of this advice is helpful, but a lot of
it isn't backed up by empirical evidence. I wanted to
(02:05):
explore what the science says about building happier relationships, and
what better way to begin than with a husband and
wife team that not only has decades of married life
experience to draw on, but also a wealth of knowledge
gained from some truly elegant scientific studies.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Julie's walking around without grandson on her arms?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
How well does he?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
He is going to be two in January? He just
started doing imaginative play this morning, Okay, Jules included.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Doctor Julie Schwartz Gotman is a clinical psychologist who's helped
people facing challenges in many domains of life, including in
their romantic relationships.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
By the way, the book is called fight right. I
bet it would have been good title too.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I thought of it, so that means it's really great.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Doctor John Gotman is an academic psychologist and pioneering relationship researcher.
Back in nineteen seventy six, John used the primitive video
technology of his day to capture real life couples interacting
with one another. Collaborating with his then research partner, doctor
Robert Lovesen, John analyzed hours and hours of taped interviews
(03:12):
in order to learn how some couples are able to
maintain healthy relationships and to spot the warning signs that
a partnership could be doomed. Today, Julie and John run
the Gotman Institute, an entire research center devoted to studying
romantic relationships. You probably won't be surprised to hear that
they have a lot of wise things to say, so
(03:32):
much so that we've decided to split their interview into
two chunks. Today, the Gutmans will share what's so called
masters of relationships can teach us about avoiding the pitfalls
of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. These are the traits
that John and Julie have christened the four horsemen of
relationship destruction. They've found that their presence in a partnership
(03:53):
pretty much guarantees and impending apocalypse. But the real story
started way before John and Julie even got together, back
when John and his colleague Robert Levinson were dreaming up
a way to robustly study relationships inside the laboratory.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Richard God to really have a good theoria or anything.
So we just had couples come into this lab talk
about how their day went after they'd been apart for
eight hours, and interviewed about the major problem in their
relationship and asked them to resolve it. And then they
looked at their videotapes and turned the dial to tell
us what they were feeling that ranged from very negative
to very positive. And then we just sent them home
(04:30):
because we had no clue about how to help anybody,
you know. And three years later, we recontacted these couples
to see if they were still together and how happily
married they were, how their relationship had changed, and then
we started really looking at the data to get hypotheses
and really determined over time by doing this study over
(04:51):
and over again, also with Gahm Lesmian couples that there
really are masters of relationship and disasters like Bob and I.
So you know, we actually learned from the research. And
then twenty six years ago, Julie and I decided to
work together in the I knew, you know, we were
paddling in the ocean, and Julie suggested they we work together.
(05:14):
And it was a great combination because Bob and I
had no idea to help anybody, and Julie, with our
clinical experience, we were able to combine and create a
theory of how relationships work. And then for the last
twenty six years that we've been testing it out in experiments.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And so, Julie, I was going to ask your version
of how you two got together in the first place.
I guess it involves a canoe.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
How we got together in terms of our studies and
so a little.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Bit of both together in terms of the studies and
in terms of the forever together.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Okay, let's see, we both moved to Seattle at around
the same time, so I just finished my PhD. John
has already been a professor and was moving to University
of Washington. So we actually met in a coffee house.
John came over to me and said, I wish you
would have said you're the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen.
(06:07):
I really want to have coffee with you. But you know,
he said, what would you think about having coffee with me?
You know, kind of a nice try professariat question. So
I said sure. So he sat down and we had coffee,
and we had the most incredible conversation, was fantastic, and
the next conversation we had over the phone was four
(06:29):
hours long. So there was obviously a connection. And I
think on our second date, John said, you know, I
was in another relationship, but I've told her I'm not
going to see her anymore. I found somebody I want
to try and work things out with. I immediately had
a panic attack. It was like really already. But five
(06:53):
months later he proposed I said yes. And I was
working purely in clinical work, so I was working with
really the sickest of the sick. I was working with
folks who were psychotic, who had severe PTSD, who come
back from various wars and torture, who might have had
(07:13):
addictions and so on, and so I was working quite
intensely with those folks in private practice for about five
or six years or something. But every night over dinner,
John would come home and tell me about his research.
And I kept thinking to myself, maintain your boundaries, stay
in your old world. You know, it's okay, it's interesting,
(07:36):
but stay in your own world. And then I didn't.
So we were out canoeing outside of Orcas Island in
the sea. It was just absolutely gorgeous, and you suggested
and let me finish. And I said to him, honey,
what do you think about taking this stuff out of
(07:59):
the ivory tower. It's such good knowledge and people have
no idea of how to have a relationship. So how
about our try to work on this stuff and create interventions,
create theory to really prevent what made the disasters fall
apart years later, and then we'll test it, see how
(08:22):
it works, and the rest is history. We immediately started
jumping into that, then formed the Dartlin Institute to start
having couples workshops, continued our research and.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So on, and we built this apartment lab like a
Colder love lab, and saw one hundred and thirty newlywed
couples just a couple of months after the wedding, and
followed them as many of them became pregnant and had babies,
and you know, I learned to study babies and it
was really fun. And it led to our Bringing Baby
(08:57):
Home intervention, which has been a most powerful intervention because
when the first baby arrives in the first three years
of the baby's life, many couples go through a big
drop in relationship happiness and fight a lot a lot
of conflict. But about a third of them don't. And
we were able to look at the differences between those
(09:17):
two groups and build this workshop and test it and
evaluate it and it's very effective.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And so when we hear your story about getting together,
it's such a lovely story, I think it can lead
people to experience a little bit of a misconception that
I think a lot of us have when it comes
to love, right, that love just happens. Right. You see
somebody in a coffee shop, you ask them to coffee,
and the rest is history. But your work shows that
that's not really how good love works. Tell me how
love in some sense really works well.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
First of all, the first phase of a loving relationship,
which people adoringly call in luck, is basically chemistry. It's
basically pheromones. You are sensing one another at every level,
and all the stars come out in the sky. You know,
you're very excited, you're very happy. Everything is wonderful. It's
(10:08):
a big honeymoon. You move towards marriage, You get married,
and then boom, the bond drops. You find out your
partner is really messy and you're not. You find that
you know all the differences between you that are significant,
and that are true for every single couple. Every person
(10:28):
has their own unique personality and lifestyle preference, and nobody
is a clone of each other. If they were, we'd
be bored to tears. And so people are really different,
and as a result, people have to learn how to
manage their differences, manage conflict, create a path, a journey forward,
(10:51):
especially with commitment, in which you're creating a culture that
honors both of you, honors both of your traditions, your rituals,
your preferences, and that's not always an easy thing. The
other thing, too, is that none of us has a nice, stable,
flatline of the mood. We're always going up and down
(11:14):
and up and down, and sometimes we're crabby, sometimes we're
full of delight. Sometimes we just want sleep all day.
And how does our partner hold that in their hands.
Are they there for us? Are we there for them?
That building of trust is incredibly important. Are you there
(11:37):
for me when I'm sick? Are you there for me
when I'm depressed? Are you there for me when I'm
triumphant and I just got a big raise and I
want to celebrate. Are you there for me when I
just am so stressed out I can't see street. So
there's a lot of back and forth in terms of
testing one another.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's a reality. And yeah, all of the trust, all
of the conflicts of those one hundred and thirty uliuwds,
we're basically about trust. About what Julie's talking about. Are
you going to be there for me? Can I count
on you? And the couples who build trust really go
on to have a very good relationship, and usually there's
more commitment. With commitment, there really are saying you're the
(12:19):
love of my life. There's nobody on the planet that
can compare to you. I'm old men, And I think.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
This importance of trust gets to another misconception that I
think a lot of us have, right. I think when
we think of successful couples, a lot of us mistakenly
think that there are couples that exist maybe without conflict,
or they don't fight very much, they don't have a
lot of negative interactions. But your work has shown that
the negative interactions might not be as important as the
flip side. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Even a woman's anger, for example, which men find unpleasant
in the moment, in the long run, really is good
for the relationship. You know, what a lot of couple
therapists thought was the destruction of anger is actually a
good thing. So if people can talk about what they
feel and what they need with one another, then you know,
(13:07):
these emotions really and be very constructive. And the goal
of conflict is mutual understanding.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, let me say a little more about that. Most people,
when they have conflicts, what they imagine is just skating
on the surface. They have this current problem, they've got
to come up with a fix for that current problem,
but they're not necessarily aware of all the underlying subterranean messages, history, values,
(13:39):
ideal dreams that lie beneath that surface that they're arguing about.
And so part of what we saw Lorie with the
Masters of Relationship is that they almost always dug deep
when there was a really significant issue at stake, and
they would reveal their enduring vulnerabilities, the old scar tissue
(14:03):
from childhood, baggage they were still carrying, or another relationship,
an old relationship. Nobody really escapes childhood without some kind
of baggage. I mean, I've never seen somebody who as
And thus, when we are fighting for something we believe in,
some of that baggage can get kicked up, right Like,
(14:25):
we may feel judged, we may feel rejected, we may
feel put down, even when our partner is saying, honey,
you're the most wonderful thing on the planet. Still, you know,
we're hearing old messages in that brain of ours and
misinterpreting what our partner is saying. So the successful couples
are people who really check deeply. Am I hearing you correctly?
(14:50):
Is this what you're saying? Tell me where that comes from?
Where did that value get established in your life? Because
it sounds like it's relatively new and before that you
had a different set of values.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
It's people really exploring each other's internal landscape to find
out where does their partner live inside? Who is their partner? Really?
That's the beauty of conflict, that you're opening up these
aspects of people's inner world that you may not have
really been aware of fully and through conflict you learn
(15:28):
all about that and that's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So I think we're going to dive much more deeply
into the conflict work. I want to get totally to
fight right. But I also wanted to start with some
of your earlier work just on the power of positive interactions,
because I think when we think about couples that aren't
doing so great, were mostly thinking about couples that are
having fights or having conflict or things like that. We
often don't realize that sometimes it's really about couples not
(15:50):
investing in the positive side of things and kind of
getting to some of these bids and things, And so
you talk about this kind of misconception that the investment
really needs to be in the positive side of things too.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
We noticed very quickly in the apartment lad that there
were these small moments where one or both people were
trying to make make a connection, get their partner's attention
or interest, or have a conversation, get some affection, tell
a story, tell a joke, and how the partner responded
to this bid for connection really predicted the future of
(16:23):
a relationship. And it's now been called the bird test
on TikTok, and the idea is, you know, if you're
trying to get your partner's attention just to look at
a bird outside and they do, they say, oh, yeah,
beautiful bird, then that really predicts a very good relationship.
And in fact, the couples who divorced in the love
lab had only turned toward bids thirty three percent of
(16:45):
the time. The couples who were still together six years
earlier had turned toward these bids eighty six percent of
the time, So a really huge difference.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
So give me the size how couples can react to
one another's bids, you know. So maybe because you've talked
about like three different ways people can kind of react.
So let me let me.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Start with a bid now, Honey, you know, I had
a really disturbing dream westight about your mother.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Honey, you know what I'm reading? Would you stop interrupting me.
I don't want to talk about that. That's hostile, right,
that's turning against that's what we call it, turning against.
Try again, I really had a disturbing dream last night
about your mother.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I'd like to talk to you about it.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Silence, It's as if your partner didn't say a word,
they don't exist. That's called turning away, and it makes
people feel unimportant, devalued, disrespected, invisible. Now let's try it again.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Hey, I had a really disturbing dream last night. Mother,
you did?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah? Really, my mother got into your dream?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, she was right in there.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Oh no, So what happened to tell me about it?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
She was so nice to me? What? Yeah, I know,
I was really surprised that she was so affectionate.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
That's called turning towards where you're immediately responding with interest,
with attention, and with connection to your partner's bid for
a connection.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
It feels so different, you know, when you try to
connect and your partner doesn't. So the probability we discovered
a rebidding when your partner turns away is almost zero
in relationships that are doomed. It's only twenty two percent
in relationships that are going to stay together. So it's
very low all the time. So people kind of crumple
(18:43):
inside a little bit.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Can I describe an image? If you imagine a sea anemone,
Those are those creatures you know that have about one
hundred little tiny fingers, and those fingers will stretch out,
straightened out, and open up when they're relaxed and they're happy.
Imagine just poking a little bit, poking in the center,
(19:07):
which is the equivalent of turning evainst And what happens
the cnmone folds up its fingers very quickly and tightly
and is very reluctant to open them up again. That's,
you know, classically, what happens inside of us when somebody
turns against our bid. You know, when we're opening up
(19:29):
to our partner, they turn against her away, we shrink
down inside of ourselves and again feel unsafe, so we
don't want to open up again, not for a while.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
So love occurs in these very small moments, which is
why we say love's avert, because it's what you do
moment to moment that makes the difference.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
One of the reasons I find this works so powerful
is that you know, I get the sense, of course
that when you're kind of being adversarial when your partner
makes a bid, if you say why are you talking
to me, or something that that's negative. I think the
striking thing from your work is that it's just as
bad when the partner just reacts with silence when you're
not paying attention after reading your work. I've been more
much more careful about this with my husband, but there
are definitely times when I'm you know, checking my email
(20:14):
or looking at a screen that you know he's mentioning something,
and my sense like, h this is not interesting, Like
it's so easy not to pay attention. But when you realize,
like the person on the other end of that email,
they're not going to care that I took you know,
time away for two seconds. But my husband, you know
that bid it matters a lot if I turn away.
I mean, is this the kind of thing you see
in couples nowadays, when there's so many more distractions for
our bid time?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yes, yes, yes, you know. I mean, I'm sure all
of us have gone into a cafe and we've seen
a table of four people, maybe every single person is
on their phone, and they're looking at their screens, they're
not looking at each other, and there's absolute silence at
the table. What kind of community connection is that? It's nothing,
(20:57):
which for me anyway, is very painful to see because
there's the opportunity all these people sitting together or a
couple sitting together where they really could be having interaction, connection, laughter, delight, enjoyment,
sharing stories. Nope, silence that feels very empty, like a
(21:22):
vaccing exists between them.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well, you know what's really amazing, Laurie, is that these
small moments mount up, you know, and either create an
emotional bank account that has a lot of good stuff
in it or one that's barren. In the latter case,
it leaves people feeling very lonely and then the other
very full and very connected. And it affects not only
(21:46):
love in the moment, it affects our physical health and longevity.
So if we have a more connected relationship, we're going
to live about seventeen years longer than if we don't.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
If living a longer, happier life isn't a good enough
reason to pay just a little more attention to our
loved ones, then I don't know what is. But being
receptive to our partner's bids for attention are one of
the things that the Gtmans recommend. Their next challenge involves
finding ways to remain curious about our lovers, no matter
how long we've been with them. We'll hear more about
(22:19):
why building curiosity is so important when the happiness lab
returns in a moment. If you're months, years, or even
decades into a relationship, you might be tempted to think
that you know everything there is to know about your partner,
(22:39):
But relationship experts Julian John Gotman say that can be
a fatal assumption. It can also be a problem when
life simply gets in the way of the usual relationship curiosity.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
When we get busy things to do, children, to pick up,
meals to me, grocery shopping to do, busy, busy, busy.
How much time do we actually have to give to
conversation with our partner Where we're simply just wanting to know,
how is your day, what was the worst part about
(23:11):
it for you, what was really happening that upset you, etc.
We're not asking each other those big questions.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Julie says that retaining a deep curiosity is vital to
the health of any relationship, but it's also something that
often fades after the early days of courtship.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
You may remember when you were first dating or you
first met your partner, you didn't know anything, and so
you ask them lots of questions to find out who
are they? What makes them tick, Where did they come from?
How did that legacy influence them now? But when we
get busy with kids, with jobs, with careers, we take
(23:52):
for granted that we really know our partner, so we
don't need to ask those questions anymore. But think about it, guys,
every single day is a new experience, and every new
experience builds another layer of identity in to each individual. Well,
how do you keep up with that evolution of your partner?
(24:15):
That development as they go through new experiences, politics, friendships,
you know, who do they become? Because we're always in
a state of becoming. We never have just arrived. That's
an illusion. We're always becoming, and thus we have to
(24:36):
keep asking open ended questions, that is, questions that have
a great, big answer, not just a one word or
two word answer, to learn who are you today? Who
do you want to be tomorrow? Those are important questions
to keep repeating throughout our relationship. May I tell you
(24:58):
a story, Lorie?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Oh please?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, here's the story how all of this got started.
When John and I were first married, we didn't have
much money. He was a professor, I was starting in
private practice. But we wanted to go out on a date.
Night once a week. So we lived in Seattle, and
there's a beautiful hotel called the Sorrento that has a
(25:20):
magnificent big stone fireplace in the lobby and gorgeous, beautiful
soft couches that you fold into right in front of
the fireplace. So what John and I would do is
we would go to this hotel and we'd pretend we
were guests and we would grab a couch, stay in
the couch for three hours, have one drink, which was cheap,
(25:44):
and at the end of the day we would walk out.
So during the date, we would ask each other these
big questions. John always brought a yellow pad and he
would take notes about my answers, which men, Oh my god,
I better be careful because one of those answers might
wind up been a book. So I was very careful
(26:05):
about what I said. But we were never at a
loss for questions because there was always more going on
week to week that we wanted to learn about.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And later on we developed this tradition of our annual honeymoon.
We would rent a room and a bed and breakfast,
and for about two weeks we would ask each other
three questions, what did you love about this year, what
did you hate about this year? And what do you
want next year to be like? So we do kind
of like a review of the whole relationship for that
(26:36):
year in that annual honeymoon. We've done it for twenty
three years now, it's tradition. And we asked those open
and the questions of each other just to kind of
understand how our partner has been affected by the year,
you know, and what they're thinking about.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
It sounds like this is so powerful to just kind
of take the time to get to know your partner right.
You could notice them changing over time and so on.
But this is the kind of thing that we forget
to do when we're busy. Another thing we forget to
do when we're busy is to notice our partner's good features.
But you've argued that we need to fight this tenant.
See that another thing we can do to make love
last is to notice the good stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Can I tell you about a study that is really amazing.
We didn't do it. This study had observers in couple's
homes just noting down everything positive that one person said
to the other, and one observer was observing the husband,
one observing the life the couple was also scoring what
their partner was doing positive and what they discovered was
(27:35):
that when the relationship wasn't going well, people missed fifty
percent of all this positivity. They just didn't see it.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
So that is, your partner's doing good things. They're taking
the garbage out, emptying the dishwasher, you know, saying nice things.
But it's just you don't even notice.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It's just going over your head. You don't even notice it. Right,
That's an amazing study, Robinson and Price, the dead study.
You know, it's so important because here's the positivity, but
it's not getting noticed by the partner when they're really
unhappy and their relationship right.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
And so how do we fix that?
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Well, so our model is look for what you're partner
is doing right and say thank you. Very very simple thing.
It's a habit of mind. You know, we've grown up
in a very critical society. This is a very competitive,
contemptuous place. A lot of times where we're critical, we're
(28:28):
being criticized, we're always comparing ourselves, sometimes negatively to other people.
So you've come by it righteously, this habit to look
for what's going wrong right. But it's not that hard
to just shift to if my partner wasn't taking out
the garbage, wouldn't that be a drag? How wonderful that
(28:51):
they're taking out the garbage. Thank you very much for
taking out the garbage. So if you imagine your partner's
not doing this positive thing, it means you'll probably have
to be doing it, which will stress you out even
more because you already have a lot on your plate. Right,
So it's prappedic single gratitude, and it's seeing what are
(29:13):
they doing, even those little subtle things. Every single morning
For the last I don't know, thirty seven years since
we've been together, John's been making our coffee every single morning,
and here it is, and it's really good, and I
love it, and I thank him every single morning. He
(29:37):
knows how I like it, and if I keep saying
thank you, he'll keep making it.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
And I know you had, if I recall from the book,
I know you had a story where you really noticed
for the first time how important that was. When he
wasn't there to make the coffee.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Well, I was very sad that he wasn't there, and
I was thanking God. Does it take five scoops or
six scoops? And I can't remember what I did, and
I don't know. I put in seven scoops just for
the heck of it, and then I shot to the
ceiling after drinking half aco and stay for the next
four hours.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
This was not a good thing.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
So the next time when John made a coffee, was like, oh,
thank you for me. I'm so relieved that you're here
making a coffee.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, this can become a habit of mind. Really, instead
of focusing on your partner's mistakes and we all make mistakes,
if you focus on what your partner is doing right
and really express appreciation for it, then it's an entirely
different relationship. And actually the person who shifts their habit
of mind to noticing what's going right actually becomes less
(30:44):
stressed and they become nicer. That's kind of surprising, but
you know, when you have that positive habit of mind,
the world looks a lot kinder and more generous.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
And this is something you've talked about a lot, that
we really do have much more control over these habits
of mind than we expect. Right that in some sense,
this negativity bias not asking these questions, in some ways,
they're like an active choice, even though we don't realize.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
That's well said.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Well, first of all, you have to start with intention.
So is it your intention to make this relationship better?
You know, in the past, before a lot of this
research got done, we had no idea of how to
make relationships better. Did it take more sex, did it
take better cooking? You know what did it take? But
(31:31):
now with this research well grounded here and telling us
what to do, then we have tools. We have alternatives
as to the good habits to put into place in
our relationship, and they're really not that hard. Laurie, here's
(31:52):
how much it takes. Wow, look at that beautiful bird.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Huh nice.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
That's all it takes. Period, is just a couple of
little syllables. All of us can do that. It's just
a matter of our intention or intension to connect, to
be loving.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Can I say something here about this? So you know,
my former graduates to genis Driver discovered that when people
increase their turning toward, which just takes really an awareness
of how your partner is reaching out, then what happens
is when there's conflict, people automatically have a sense of
humor about themselves. They can laugh at themselves and being
(32:36):
able to laugh together when you're disagreeing, reduces physiological arousal.
It really bonds you even though you're disagreeing on atomic
So it's very powerful.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
And if it's with this other ratio that you've figured out,
which is that the positivity to negativity ratio overall seems
to matter, right, so that little infusion of humor can
be quite powerful. Explain what this ratio is and why
it's so important for a relationship success.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So, you know, Bob Levinson and I counted in a
fifteen minute conflict discussion, how many seconds people are kind
to each other, interested, curious, generous, saying even small things
like oh yeah, oh wow. You know, those kinds of reflections.
They really lubricate the wheels of conflict so that we
(33:24):
arrive at more mutual understanding. What was a big surprise
was that the Masters of Relationships during conflict, that ratio
of positive to negative that interested in one another, that excitement, curiosity,
agreement understanding was five times as common as negativity in
(33:46):
the Masters of Relationships, and in couples that were doomed,
that ratio was zer point eight, just a little bit
more negativity than positivity. It's very famous in Seattle. I
was coming out of Starbucks a couple of months ago
when this guy drove by in his truck and rolled
down his window and said five to one. Right, you know,
(34:08):
it's become well known our relation in Seattle.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
When John says it out loud, it seems so obvious.
Happy relationships spring from two people being warm towards one another,
willing to express interest in and concern for their partner
in far greater proportion than any complaints they might air.
After the break, we'll hear more advice that again sounds obvious,
but seems to be followed only by those rare masters
(34:32):
of relationships. That advice is not to treat your partner
like a mind reader. The happiness lap will be right back.
Are there things you want from your life, partner? Are
there issues welling up that bother you or make you unhappy?
(34:53):
Have you expressed these thoughts openly to your partner? Or
are you storing these problems away as resentments that are
slowly building up over time. When you say it out loud,
it sounds like such a stupid strategy, but it's also
one a lot of us follow. And doctor Julie Schwartz
Gootvin has a theory.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Why, let me.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Just say first give it some context that in this country,
at least, we have grown up with the value of
pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. You're weak when
you need somebody else. It's not okay to have needs.
Women especially are called too needy. And you know, here's
(35:31):
the basic truth. The truth is that human beings are
pack animals. We are pack animals. We don't survive without
our tribe or our intimates who are really there for us.
It's the lone wolf versus the wolf pack. Right, Well,
we're very similar to that. So what does that mean.
(35:53):
It means we need to connect. We need to connect
all the time. So when people feel terrible about expressing
their needs, they can go two ways. Either they expect
their partner to their minds and then out of nowhere,
the partner is hearing. Why didn't you actually see that
(36:16):
I was sick and bring me tea?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Why didn't you do that?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Well, the partner number one didn't know that this first
person was sick, didn't know they liked tea when they
were sick, et cetera. How would they know the other
person is not saying what they need? Right? So those
needs can stack up over time and create huge amounts
of resentment and anger that the other person is not
(36:44):
there for them. But the fact of the matter is
how would the other know how to be there for
the first person when the needs are not being expressed.
So it's incredibly important for people to realize that interdependency
is what creates a strength in a relationship. An interdependency
(37:08):
is created by saying what you need in a positive way,
saying how your partner can shine for you, and then
hopefully your partner responds in that way, which is really
fulfilling for you and fulfilling for them because it makes
(37:28):
them feel valued and trusted that you're expressing a need
to them. They're the chosen one that you are trusting.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
And let me say something else, Lorie. So far we've
been talking about asking open ended questions and now we're
talking about expressing needs. So if your listeners go to
the app store and type in Gotman card Decks, they
can download a free app that has expressing needs cards
that they can go through once a week, you know,
(38:00):
for a half an hour, and say, well, here's what
I need from you this week to feel loved, and
they can have a card deck that has all these
open ended questions on it that they can use. We
use these card debts all the time, and they've been
downloaded about three hundred and fifty thousand times, so they're
available for free.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
And I think that, you know, having like a little
bit of help when you're asking for what you need
can be really important because I know, you know, maybe
this is just in my own life that you Julie,
you mentioned that we need to ask with positivity, but
I think sometimes when you're feeling really resentful, that can
be hard. And sometimes when you finally go about asking
for help, it can come off sounding like a criticism.
It can sell it off like you didn't empty the dishwasher.
(38:42):
And I needed that talk about maybe a healthier way
to go about asking for those needs and like the
steps that we need to get in there to do
it effectively.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
First of all, let me just insert a little piece
of research here. What John and Bob and other colleagues
found is that the first three minutes of a conflict
conversation when you're bringing up your complaints not only predicts
how the rest of the conversation will go. That first
(39:10):
three minutes, it also predicts how well the relationship is
going to go six years down the road with over
ninety percent accuracy. So how we bring up our complaint
is absolutely crucial. We found that successful couples had a
formula for this, which we really try to practice and
(39:32):
to teach others to practice. Number one, say what you feel.
You're describing yourself, so you're saying things like I feel angry,
I feel resentful, I feel frustrated. You can't sabotage it
and say I feel that you are an idiot. No,
it's not going to work, or I feel like there're
(39:53):
such a schmuck that's not going to work right, So
it has to be a real emotion. I feel stressed,
I feel disappointed. Then step two about what Now. Notice
that's not about who, about your partner and how rotten
they are. It's about the situation. So it's going to
(40:14):
sound like I feel upset that there's a new dent
in the car. That's the situation. I feel angry that
here's the situation. The bills haven't been paid, I'm sick
and tired of cooking dinner every night, etc. So you're
(40:36):
describing the situation and you're feeling about it. Then the
all important step three. You say what your positive need is,
and let me distinguish positive from negative. Negative need means
what you don't want your partner to do. Positive need
means what you do want your partner to do. So
(40:59):
if you have a negative need, like stop leaving the
kitchen a mess, that's a negative, flip it on its
head and think, oh, what would be the opposite of
this that I would really like? I wish you would
clean up the kitchen nightly. That would be such a help.
And that positive need opens up your partner so much
(41:25):
more than your partner hearing a criticism, which feels like
a put down, which makes some want to withdraw and
pull away or get defensive.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
It's such a powerful strategy because when you say what
you're healing about what situation, and then stay to positive need.
Nowhere in there is a critique of your partner, right,
like you haven't said because you did this bad thing.
There's no kind of causal thing that your partner did wrong,
and that must mean that like people just don't get
as offended. Right, everybody's on board with trying to help it.
Lets your partner be a help rather than a hindrance
(41:56):
in this really important.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Way beautifully said. That's exactly right, That's exactly right. Yes,
so you're really telling your partner I love you, I
know you can be there for me, and and if
you would be there for me in this particular way,
it would make me so happy.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Have you all harnessed this kind of strategy for talking
about your own unmet needs and your relationship? Any good examples?
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Yeah? I would say the books. Probably the books, right, Okay?
So John is an avid book collector, which means probably
once a week we get seven books a week, maybe
something like that. We're getting books all the time. We
(42:44):
don't have bookshelf space for seven books a week, because
added up, that's almost thirty books a month. Where are
you going to put them? So they end up being
on the stairs, in the front entryway, on the dining
room table, on the kitchen island.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
You know, everywhere. I heard.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Side of the bed, on my side of the bed,
and on his side of the bed. There's such a
big pile that I risk breaking my neck to bend
over the books to make the bed. So you know,
it's a danger to my life. And so what I
have to do is I know this is his personality
(43:23):
and lifestyle preference, right, very different than mine. Okay, so
it doesn't make him a bad person, just makes him
different than me, right, with just different priorities. And so
I'll say, honey, would you please clean up the books?
And he may pay attention or he may not. We too,
(43:44):
I'll say, sweetie, those books are becoming a danger to me.
Would you please clean up the books. I'm afraid I'm
going to trip on them going down the stairs. See
there's no criticism in there. Okay, Week three, I'm going, honey,
you know, the voice tone has changed, and I'm saying, honey,
(44:05):
I'm at risk for breaking my neck. And you don't
want a dead wire, right, No, you don't, So please
please please clean up the books.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
I beg you.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
This is a warning. So I do it, and then
he finally does it, and the books are all cleaned away,
and then it starts to build again. So we have
this conversation, Yeah, book periodically once a long, I'd say regularly.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
But it's good that you've been able to figure out
a way to do it. That's not you know, attacking
the person's personality, like why are you this kind of
person who you know collects all these books. It's really
doing it in a way that's expressing what your needs
are and kind of giving a clear path to helping
to which I love.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
So right.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
You know the other thing too that people forget glory
is that we have to be humble. We have to
realize that. Okay, we're asking our partner to be perfect, right?
Are we perfect?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
No way?
Speaker 3 (45:01):
I drive John crazy with would you please clean this up? Well?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
You please clean? I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
I just want to sit and read my book. I'm
driving him nuts with my need for tidiness, right, So
he's tolerating that in me and being patient and eventually
supportive putting away the books. So I'm no perfect icon
(45:28):
either here. I can get grouchy, I can, you know,
go a little nuts with all the books all over
the place. He has to tolerate that, right the same
way I tolerate the difference in how he treats space.
So okay, I have to be humble about you know,
(45:48):
my flaws, my faults, And of course you know that
message is throughout most of our religious texts, you know,
whatever religion you're in, you know, look at yourself before
you start criticizing your partner. So I've really tried to
hone that to a fine heart.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
How you do a good job.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, As well as being wise, the Gatmans are just
a super fun couple to hang out with, and so
you'll be glad to hear that we've only just scratched
the surface of the advice that they have to share.
In the second part of our conversation, they'll let me
in on some secrets for dealing with one of the
most upsetting and destabilizing aspects of being in love, the
inevitable disagreements.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I turned the phone off, but they didn't turn it off.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I yea, not seeing I die with your partner is
perfectly natural.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
I'm really sick and tired of the laundry being all
over the floor.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Disagreements shouldn't be swept under the rug ti festa, but
they also shouldn't generate hostility either.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
I'm just second tired of the stupid, stupid laundry.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
The good news, says the Gotmans, is that there is
a way that we can all learn to argue better.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
The laundry is on the floor, I really don't like
seeing it. Would you please clean it up before we
got den here?
Speaker 1 (47:02):
That's coming up next time on the Happiness Lab with me,
doctor Laurie Santos,
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