March 18, 2025 • 50 mins
All relationships have ups and downs. It’s not those differences that matter, it’s how those conflicts are resolved that makes a relationship a success.In this episode, Howard Markman, PhD, an internationally renowned relationship therapist, professor and author, dives into his latest research on what it takes to have the best possible relationship with your significant other. He talks about how to maintain fun, intimacy, navigate challenges, and resolve conflict. His book Fighting For Your Marriage is now in its 4th edition. He provides actionable tools, including using a “Fun Deck”, that we can implement to improve our relationships today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone who doesn't want a lasting and loving relationship
with their partner, and who hasn't been through some ups
and down, some conflict about job changes, moving the teenage years,
your own evolution, COVID, and now technology all play a
part in our relationships. It turns out marriage today requires
skilled communication, conflict management, and negotiation skills more than ever before.
(00:24):
My guest today is professor and author Howard Markman, PhD.
He is a distinguished Professor of psychology at the University
of Denver and the founder of the internationally known evidence
based couple's relationship education program called PREP Prevention and Education Program.
He's also one of four authors who came together to
(00:45):
write Fighting for Your Marriage, which is now in its
fourth edition. He joins me now to talk about positive
steps to talk more, fight less, and keep the fun
alive grand by.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Going love.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
You've been talking about this about marriage, relationships, keeping it
all together, keeping it fun for a few decades now.
But you've got a you know, new information on this, right.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Right, some new information and some basic, tried and true
research based skills that if people apply in their relationship,
that increases the chance for success.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So, in talking about this for so long and now
having new information. What goes through your mind ten seconds to.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Air, well, it's to have fun. So my goal is
when I do whatever I do, teach a class, give
a lecture, give a talk, get ready for your show.
You know, the goal is for me to have fun
and for the audience to have fun. And it also
is related to what makes a good relationship. Too often
(02:09):
we do focus too much on conflict in handling conflict,
and that's vital, but too many people put their relationship
on the back burner when it comes to the positive
connections to fund the friendship, the sensuality, the sexuality. So
I think let's have fun and once in a while,
since I'm a big sports person and I saw it
in your bio that you used to do some sports recording,
(02:32):
that will also visualize what success is as well. You know,
like when I play baseball, for example, or racketball or tennis,
I'll kind of visualize, you know, what I'm working on,
IF's you know, a stroke in tennis or backhand and
pick ball, that sort of thing. Kind of a combination
of thinking about having fun and then visualizing success.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
So you're saying that it's similar to the you're saying
a relationship similar to pickleball and tennis. You can find
a correlation there.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, in the sense that as I prepare for talking
about relationships or for a big relationship talk, you know,
the goal is to have fun as well as to
visualize what successes. So there's some overlay there.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
All right. I like the overlap. I'm a tennis player
and pick a ball player too, so let's let's just
overlap it, you know, And that is fun. And I
agree with you so many times it's hard to keep
the fun in your relationship because you're dealing with so
much work. Kids, something may have happened, you know. You
you start off in this really fun, just like when
(03:35):
you're a kid. You start off with all this fun
as a kid, and then something you get more serious,
gets more serious, and I find the same thing does
happen with the relationship. It's it's you know, the fun
was always the default, and now it seems like the
default is getting everything done in the day, and you
have to really think about the fun.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, that's the way to think about it that we
want to. When you're thinking about your relationship from anything
else that you've decided as a priority for you is
that you want to kind of build in time for
the things that are important, and too often people are
kind of slipping in, you know, focusing on the relationship
whatever that may be, around everything else. So it's kind
of like when you're trying to like put a bunch
(04:14):
of rocks and pebbles and stuff into a barrel. In
order to make that work, you have to put the
big rocks in first, and then the other things around it. So,
you know, so having you know, a regular date night
or time to talk about issues or just kind of
thinking about your partner or your family or whatever is
important to you and making sure that you're investing some
(04:35):
time and energy, you know, on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So you've been talking about this for decades now. Has
it changed over the course of the three or four
decades that you've been studying marriage and relationships.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, I think there's been a dramatic changes. And you
know the uh, you know, the function of families and
the parobulas that are around families, and you know, there's
so many other distractions, social media, lack of attention to uh,
you know, getting marriage, more attention to living together and
(05:14):
what what people and people are meeting in many different
ways obviously, so we don't have the kind of proximity
and similarity that we had in the past. So that's
why we say that the communication and conflict management and
talking without fighting about issues and differences is really important.
Like one of the take home points from our research
(05:35):
and other research, and this has continued over time, it's
it's not the differences between people that matter, you know,
political differences, or differences in religion, or differences in personality
or goals in life parenting. It's how those differences are
handled that's really the key. And too often slide we
(05:56):
talk about sliding into conflicts, uh and escalations and you know,
and fighting in ways that really destroy the love and
connection that brings us together in the first place.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So let's talk about that communication. Start us off right there.
What how do you define the communication in a relationship.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well, we define good communication really simple, and it's when
when you have something you want to get across to
communicate to another person that is really important that your
intent gets across to the other person that they're hearing,
not agreeing. And this is so critical. We talk about
good communication, we're not talking about agreement, which is listening
(06:39):
and the Dalai Lama once wrote, and jam Levin Winiborough
co authors writes this in the book that to love
means to listen. So listening is really really important no
matter how much you agree or disagree. So a lot
of times when we're talking about difficult issues, you have
to slow things down, put some structure around, there's some guardrails.
(07:00):
So when we're talking about an important issue, if things
aren't going right naturally, often they're not. We talk about
engaging the speaker listener technique, which is a really simple tool,
but basically you start off you ban trying to change
the other person's mind. You can agreement or disagreement, but
the goal is just to understand the other person's perspective.
(07:23):
And this is kind of an active listening to that
we all learn in various ways, but it's really hard
to use when we really need it. So if you
and I were having a conflict in a relationship, you
know you need first of all, skill, time out, stop action,
stop the negativity, take a deep breath, come back to
it later on when you both decide to talk about it.
(07:44):
And then one person has the floor. Would ever you
want to use for a floor, the phone or an iPad,
I putt and the speaker has the floor, and the
speaker says what they want to say about the issue,
and then the listener paraphrases, and then the speaker kind
of judges, yes, is that what I'm trying to get across? Yes,
(08:04):
and then kind of move forward and really important to
put a time limit around it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, I was just going to say how long did
how long does that person get the floor? How long
did they get the floor? And how long are you
the listener? Right and recommendations.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Sometimes it's just really I may really want to say
something really important. Listen. I just want to be able
to talk to you what I'm thinking and feeling about
this issue, about our future, about our kids, and right now,
I just want you to listen and understand, and then
maybe later on today or if we have more time,
then you can talk about your perspective on it. And
you know a lot of times just that talking. And
(08:43):
I was on Oprah ones a while back and the
show wasn't going very well, but then we started talking
about about the importance of listening and problem solving. I
said to Oprah, you know, Oprah, I think most issues
in relationships don't need to be solved, just good listening
and understanding. And Oprah said, no, Howard, I don't believe you.
(09:04):
I said, oh, here we go again. But he said,
I said sixty or seventy percent, and Oprah said, no,
it's eighty or ninety percent. Howard. I said, yes, doctor Oprah,
you got that right.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Wait, wait, back up a second. You were on Oprah
and it wasn't going well. What wasn't going well?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Oliver? That we had some couples on the show and
they were really kind of getting into it and fighting,
which is what they wanted. And I was really working
on kind of having them learn some timeout skills and
so on and so forth. And then finally when we
kind of got the couples to kind of start listening
to each other, and then Oprah and I could start
talking with each other, and then we got out this
(09:42):
point about listening versus solution, and too often we try
to solve something first, and rather than banning the solution
and just talk about thoughts and feelings about whatever the
issue is. You know, it's a big issue, it's a
smallish and most fights think about the last time, you know,
audience can think about the last time I had a
fight with somebody, usually started about something really really small,
(10:06):
an event that triggers and numbers off issues and negative emotions. Boom,
you're off.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Right, but don't you think howard? Isn't that really hard
to identify? Because let's say we do have a conflict, right,
you have a conflict with your and you the conflict
is about and you know, I've been told it's never
actually about the dishes. The conflict may be about the dishes,
is what you're trying to talk and I hate when
you don't do the dishes and whatever. It may be, right,
(10:32):
but it's really not about the dishes. So it's hard
to identify what it really is about. I would say
in the moment, or do you have any suggestions on that,
because that's really what you want to get down to,
don't you Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So when we ask our partner to do something small
like you know, put the dishes in the dishwashers, or
you know, do the dishes or you know, clean up
or whatever we may ask our partner, we're often asking
our partner to do things, you know, for us or
for the family. And when these things get don't get done,
(11:08):
what happens and there's a kind of a deeper issue
that gets triggered, and more often than not, the issue
is caring. Like if I asked you a couple of
times to put the clothes in the washing machine and
then put in the soap or vice versa, and it
(11:28):
doesn't happen, I'm going to start thinking, Wow, if you
love me, if you care about me, you would do
this small thing. And when the small things don't get done,
and then we start feeling uncared for and unloved and
unimportant and not a priority. And that's one of the
biggest themes. So a lot of times, you know, when
(11:50):
we're arguing about something small, it's really important not to
start making those negative interpretations. And sometimes it is the dishes,
you know, you know, it's like once in a while,
the cigar is just a cigar kind of thing. But
if it's really about your feeling uncared for on love,
a lot of times were fighting about the small stuff
(12:11):
is really because we're not putting enough time and energy
into communicating love and appreciation for a partner.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
And if you are fighting about something small or whatever
whatever it may be, or if you end up determining
it's not really about this, but I have identified what
it is about. How far does an apology go? How
do you repair that little tear?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Well, if you feel that you've committed a misdeed and
you know, I'm Jewish and we just had our day
of atonement a couple of days ago, young Kie Poor,
which really talks about, you know, reaching out to people
that we may not have cheated right, or reaching out
to people who have not treated USh right. An apology
can go a really a really long way because it's
(12:55):
being humble or not perfect. Yeah, I'm sorry I to
you that way. You know, I'm going to work on
not doing it, but I'm really sorry. Will you forgive me?
So having a way of asking for forgiveness, and we're
not talking about forgetting. Forgiveness is not forgetting. It's really
about letting go of holding your partner, you know, and
(13:18):
you know that. Okay, I'm going to keep on, you know,
coming back to this and coming back to as opposed
to just kind of letting things go.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, okay, So you talked about caring that some of
it goes back to feeling as if your partner doesn't care,
and which brings me to the love part of your
book here and how you define love and how love
evolves throughout the relationship, because I think we go into
our relationship with this definition of love that is often
(13:47):
conflicted with passion and other things, and then time goes
by and we think that love. I don't know what
we think that love is, but help us out with that, right.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I think that when you think about love over time
and a relationship, and you look at and we've studied relationships,
we start in our research often with couples before marriage
and following them up five, ten, even fifteen years later
and looking for what you predicts the future of the relationship. Now,
(14:17):
handling conflict is really important because we start out with
high levels of love however you want to define it,
and through negative interactions we kind of start tearing that apart.
So I like to think about love as one of
my colleagues and the psych field Sternberg talks about it.
The love is part passion and it is part friendship.
(14:41):
But the part we often forget about about love is
it's about commitment. It's about having a future and not
threatening that future when you're upset. And the good thing
about that kind of definition of love, So if the
passion's not going well, or if the passion's fading away
over time, which it often does, then you can focus
(15:02):
on commitment that we're together, you know, for a lifetime.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
You know my uh co author and you know, friend
for decades and decades. Scott Stanley I was going through
a period of working, working, working too hard on his
wife and Nancy said, well, you have to slow down,
you have to slow down. Uh, I'm going to be
the one changing your diapers, you know, later on, you know,
and I want to do that sooner than later. Now. Scott,
(15:30):
being a humorous says, well, that depends, which was kind
of but the point is that Nancy was communicating Scott,
we're together for a lifetime, okay, and uh, we have
this future together and that's a big part of love.
When passion may be fating, but you can always focus
on fun and friendship. Uh, you know, passion will kind
(15:52):
of come and go. There are ways to keeping passion
alive by making a priority and you know, being you know,
touching and massing and too often, you know, one of
the big things we talk about in the book is
that when it comes to kind of keeping the passion alive,
which is part of love and so we too often
focus on sex rather than sensuality.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Right, redirect us there, Then what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That two up? And like for example, when and then
we're talking about kind of people being so busy in
life and so on and so forth, and there's so
attraction and so and then people say, okay, we have
to check off making love, so you go make love
and it's okay, you know, but you know that time
might be better spent just kind of kissing and hugging
(16:35):
or holding hands or you know, talking in a sensual way,
or setting some time where you're having your favorite drink together,
whatever they may be, and talking and holding hands and
communicating about how much you care and appreciate the other person.
So the sensuality and you know, think about all the
(16:56):
things you can do with your five senses and that's
you know, how think about in our sentense of sensuality.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Is there a time frame that you have or that
you know you've studied where you can't let intimacy go?
You know, as time goes on, it probably becomes less
and less. And is there a time frame that is
studied that says you must And intimacy can mean many
different things. You talked about hugging, you talked about you know,
(17:26):
you can watch a movie together, sitting on the couch together.
You could be intimate and be having sex. But is
there a time frame that you need to make sure
that you have those touch points.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well, we haven't identified any any sweet spot for that,
but you know, I think a good thing to kind
of keep in mind is that, you know, on a
kind of a daily basis, just kind of thinking about
your partner, letting your partner know that your care about them.
It could be just a simple text that sort of thing.
(17:58):
But I think the key, the key might be is
just if you are feeling disconnected from your partner most
of the time, that disconnection has to do with some
conflicts that you're having and so on and so forth,
and you're not in the mood to hold hands or
kiss or a hug, and that's the time to actually
(18:18):
push yourself to focus on the positive connectionist you know,
we talk about like a stock market, you know, comparison,
like the best time to invest in the stock market
is when things are low, because your investment has you know,
a more positive game. And we think about relationship mathematics
(18:39):
that you know, one negative one zingers can start e
raising five or ten positive acts of kindness and this
is stuff that John Gotman, Clifflantarius, myself and others have
really identified. And conversely that if you have had a
conflict that didn't go well, then it's a good time
to think about, Okay, what are five or ten things
(19:01):
I can do positively for the relationship, including taking time
to apologize, but letting know the person that you love them,
focusing on the commitment. You know that was tough, but listen,
I'm not going anywhere. You know, we have a long
term view and having that cocoon of commitment around the relationship,
and that's a giant dissue. This is one of the
(19:22):
reasons why you know, if I asked you and your listeners,
you know, does living together before marriage increase your chances
of having a successful marriage if you marry that person?
What do you think does it help increase.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I don't I don't know. I mean, I'm gonna people
think it does. That's I think that's why they do it.
But I'm going to guess you're going to say, no,
that's not the case. What is it? What's the truth?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Well, when living together before marriage, if you don't have
a clear commitment to marry in the future, that this
is a risk factor because you kind of slow guide
into that living together and you start accumulating, you know,
lease a house, pet, kid, and if things aren't going
(20:10):
right when you decide, well my partner's great, well my
partner may not be great for me, it becomes harder
to break up. And that's why kind of living together
if you don't have a commitment to marry, is really
not a good idea. That's what the research shows because
you kind of you kind of slide. And we have
something on YouTube called Relationship d UI Decision under Influence,
(20:33):
which people can just go and google and this kind
of whole theory will kind of play its way out
and kind of a cartoon, but are very easy to,
you know, to watch and learn about. This point about
decisions and making decisions. Decide, don't slide when it comes
to important decisions or transitions in life.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
So so hold on that for just a second, because
you talking about before you get married, that's a that's
a decision, not a slide into situation. Do those also
happen later in life when you slide into decisions? So
you're saying talk about those in detail. How do you
avoid the slide?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But the best way to avoid the slide is to
decide to have times to really talk about whatever the
issues are in that transition coming up. You know, it
could be you know, when you're you know, graduating from
college and you want to be with you know, the
person that you've been going out with and you think
you want to be with for a long time or
(21:38):
maybe forever. You're sitting around talking about, you know, where
you want to live and do you want to have
kids and when you want to have kids, rather than
just say let's well be together and let's just see
how go. We will live together and then kind of,
you know, as you were saying, very wisely will be
at the beginning. So life kind of takes over, you know, yeah,
it does. It's kind of grabbing having life and taken
(22:02):
control over the way life is going. Not every single
moment thinking about got to make a decision, but when
it comes to you know, living together, getting married, having
a kid, a career change, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Because these slides can happen throughout your entire life. You're
going to have these pivotal points, so it's not just
early on. It could be. I mean, for my husband
and I, we've moved several times, we've had three kids,
we've had job changes, career changes, and now we're looking
at okay, now the kids are headed to college, and
that's kind of a moment of change also. And I really,
(22:38):
I really like how you put that, because I think
we've slid into a lot and then later on have
had to go, wait a second, you know, had we
end up here? Well, I never wanted to do that.
Well I never well you never told me, Well you
never actually we never even really talked about that, you know,
and then all of a sudden we find ourselves in
a place that I like how you put it, that
(22:58):
we've just slid right into. And now we have to
go back and say, well.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
You expressed that so well. And so many of us
have the kind of experience and it's kind of natural too,
you know, to kind of slide into things. But you know,
once in a while, uh, I like to, uh to
suggest to couples and you know, and it could be
you know, something with your kids or your your partner
or uh, you know, a partner in your uh you know,
(23:23):
Scott are having this discussion right now, about our our
our prep company with the program that we've developed, the
Prevention and Relationship ED program, where you know, we need
to think about the future of that and we don't
want to slide into you know, getting older and something
happening to one of us. We really want to say, Okay,
what are we going to do? You know, and uh
(23:45):
so and then taking a step back and I like
to This is something I got from one of my colleagues,
one of the lifetime friends, Don Balcolm, who's also a psychologist
marital therapist. You talk about your hopes and dreams, you know,
so you can sit down with your husband and say, okay,
here's where we are, kids are in college, you know,
let's talk about what our hopes and dreams are for
(24:07):
the next year or five years or ten years. And
just by doing that, you're amplifying two of the major
aspects of love, the sense of commitment in the future
and also the friendship and the intimacy.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
What's the biggest thing that happens when people end up
coming to you? Where where do things kind of go wrong?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Well, I'd say the two biggest areas are high conflict
where people just are fighting a lot, and destroying the
love and intimacy. And you know the goal for these
couples initially is to you know, to kind of curtail
the fighting, learn some basic rules of conflict management, and
(24:48):
then kind of decide to focus on whatever the issues
are you're fighting about. You know, maybe it is the dishes,
but more often it's going to be you know, or
is your partner making the relationship or priority you know,
or you know, is your partner spending too much time
on on social media? Well, you know, it could be
(25:10):
some really bigger things. So you know, trust, and you
know about fidelity, and you know, some really big issues
that might be going on with people that need to
be talked about. But the other big thing is what
we were talking about right at the beginning, is not
making a relationship or priority, just living life, Uh, you know,
take over. And you know, I was just talking to
(25:32):
one of my favorite couples of all time that I've
been seeing in couples therapy and they're just such a delightful,
delightful couple and they have kids, and they both have
careers and they're just not finding time for just talking
as friends or going out on a date. You know.
The one of the partners said, well, maybe we have
(25:55):
to do something like really really big and grand, maybe
go out on a date. And I said, hold it
a second, you know, Randy, something else, you know, that's
that's going through now and recommitting you know, at having
your friends and family. You know, a date right, you know,
and you know even if just you know, taking a
walk for ten minutes, holding hands, that sort of thing.
(26:18):
But one of the nice things about a date is
that something you can look forward to that you're going
to be together, You're going to have a drink together,
You're going to you know, make love or you know,
cuddle and snuggle and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
So how do you so let's I'm gonna I just
want to dive into the both of those. I have
a follow up question for you in the high conflict
and then they're making the relationship a priority. So high conflict,
I just want to ask you where when should conflict
be okay? Because you can't it can't be perfect all
the time. So conflict does come in when is it okay?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, disagreements are inevitable, They're really inevitable. And once in
a while we identify and talk about in the fighting
for your marriage book, UH for danger signs that that
playue couples when they're not handling. It's really about managing
negative emotions, is what we're talking about. And we're human
(27:11):
and we're going to get upset and defensive, and you know,
sometimes we're gonna what we call invalidation, you know, hirl zingers,
or there's this escalation. I say something negative, you say
something negative, and then there's negative interpretations like feeling that
you partners don't care about you when it's they're not
doing the dishes and they do care about you, but
(27:33):
they're not not doing the dishes for whatever reason the
way you want. And then there's withdrawal, which is really
you know, avoiding some withdrawal when and there's something men
tend to do more than women, we find, but it's
also a sign of distress when one person doesn't want
to talk about issues in the relationship or just doesn't
want to connect, so you know you're going to enter
(27:54):
into One of the things that distinguishes couples that will
go on and be happy versus couples who or happy
but will go on and become unhappy and divorced is
that they're able to recognize when they're entering in these
danger signs and stopping the danger signs and not going
down the rabbit hole of escalation and not going to
(28:14):
physical abuse and verbal abuse. Right, those are all dangerous,
dangerous interactions. Now a lot of times it scares people
into health. You have kind of a flight into health.
And but you know there's gonna be some relationships that
are really toxic, and you know, not all relationships can
be safe. So if you're in a relationship and you're
(28:36):
being victimized, cheated on, hurt, humiliated, that you know that's
something you needs to take. You have to be safe.
Safety is just so important.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Right of course, I think my question is more related
to not big conflict like that, but conflict that's manageable.
So the first year of your marriage is should you
have conflict, real conflict or is that something really the
honeymoon stage is really such a thing and conflict really
doesn't arise until you have really big things to have
(29:07):
conflict about.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
No, it's it's really inevitable. And you know there may
be some you know of the couples where their relationship
is made in heaven and it stays there and they
just get along perfectly.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
But a lot of times really so you see that.
Wait a second, Howard, but I think this really happened.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
There a couples like that. There are some couples like that,
you know, there are some couples do a lot of
work in Oklahoma. There's a lot of young marriages in
Oklahoma and a lot of divorces of them. But there
are some couples we've identified, maybe five percent their high
school suite, Steve Hawks. They get married, they have kids,
they're doing great, ten twenty years and things are just terrific.
(29:50):
So do you want to be happily married? Move to Oklahoma? No,
a great state. But I think having a a time
to uh, you know, to sit down once in a
while and say, you know, how are things going? You know,
to do that. We talk about hopes and dreams and
if things aren't going well and you're feeling disconnected, I
(30:12):
think the sense of feeling disconnected is really a good
sign that that you need to do something. But don't
blame your partner, you know for the disconnection. You know,
you're not hugging me enough. We are I'm feeling a
weird disconnected. You know, how do you feel about that?
And how can we work together as a team. And
(30:34):
so the same thing where you know, we think every
couple should have a ground roup that that we're number
one that they can call a timeout or stop action
when things aren't going well in a discussion, and then
what that is, you know, it could be time out
or stop action, and then that keeps the conflict from
really degenerating into things that can become toxic over time.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Let's go to the relate making the relationship a price already.
I know we've we've been talking a lot about where
problems come in and things like that. Let's talk about
making the relationship or probably let's move into the positive
here and and and have a happy, healthy.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Let's wind on the positive here.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah, let's let's figure that out. How do we make
it a priority?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Well, I think the best way to make it a
priority is is make it a decision to have your
relationship be a priority. And it is often as simple
as that. You know, uh, but you don't want to
just do it internally to yourself, but you want to,
you know, say to your partner, and it could be
in lots of different situations that you know I'm feeling
(31:41):
that you know that you know we're not really focusing
on you know, we want to go as a team,
or I'm feeling that we're just not having time to
do the things we used to do once the left.
As a lot of times we will ask couples in
our research and our you know, just our general times
when we see couples in therapy and when's the last
(32:02):
time you've been out on a date? And you know,
if it's been a long time, then that might be
a sign that you know, maybe you need to kind
of decide to go out on more dates. But also
talk about what that is. You know, what's fun? And
this gets to what's fun for the two of them.
And you know, when you asked me that question, you know,
(32:23):
ten seconds before you go on air, what do I
think about? You know, it's kind of having fun and
you know fun for me and fun. You know, I'm
having fun now. And you know, Scott and I when
we started working together forty years ago, we said, you
know what, you know, we could have great lives and
we wouldn't have to do talks and write books and
do workshops and but you know, and if we're going
to do it, let's have fun. And so far, you know,
(32:46):
forty years of fun.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, and why not. I mean, if you're gonna stay
married to someone and you're gonna live in the same
house and you're gonna have a life together, you might
as well make it fun. You know, when it starts
to become for me, when things start to become work,
and not that I don't want to put the work in.
I do want to put the work in, but it's
nice to know you're putting work in that's leading somewhere.
(33:08):
You know, that's heading to fun, that's heading to date night,
that's heading to a trip, or heading to just going
for a walk. But life does take over. I mean
it really does. And then I love the book about
there are just different areas where there's such miscommunication or
when you think something that's not really true and then
(33:31):
you head down another road. And it's because you just
don't take that time to spend together or to take
all those little moments because they get sucked up by
so many other things. They get sucked up by life,
by kids, how many times. I mean people listening can
probably relate to this if you're married and you have kids,
but that you're having a moment of just a conversation
(33:53):
with your partner and it's interrupted by a kid, and
we rarely say, hold on a second, really jump right
to the kid and fix their problem or help them
or whatever. We're just so used to doing that. Now
that my kids are older, we will say can you
wait a second, But when they were younger, we just
let them write in. You know, we don't think about that.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
I mean, it's very natural we want to be with
your kids and love your kids, but also taking a
step back and saying, at a time when the kids
aren't around, you know, how can we increase the positive
connections between one simple tool. You know, I talked about
the speaker listener technique as a tool, and that's also
(34:35):
if people google that speaker listener technique from prep, we
have a whole uh you know, lessons or lessons of
how to do that. But one thing that people can
do to increase fun is create what we call a
fun deck. So, okay, I write down three things that
you and I like them in the next week that
(34:57):
I think would be fun for us. Uh. You could
be going to see the Dodgers play the Mets. It
could be taking a walk together, it could be going
to the symphony, something like that, so you know that
you can make the time to do that and that
you can do it financially. Uh. And then then my
partner writes down three things. Then we exchange cards or
(35:17):
however we do that, and I pick one thing from
your list that I decide to make happen in the
next week or two weeks, and vice versa. And that's
a good way to kind of love that native and
just to kind of get things moving if you're stuck
and you're not, uh, you know, feeling a lot of
connection and feeling not having enough fun or you know,
(35:39):
do doing fun things. And the reason people don't get
married to handle conflicts, you know, uh, right, have their
wedding vows. The one of my students to put this
in their wedding vows. But we don't promise to do
use the speaker listener technique. So death do we part
part You know, we don't don't get married to him
a conflict. But if you don't have a way of
(36:02):
talking without fighting about issues, then it's often going to
tear apart the love, the connection, the friendship, the sensuality,
the feelings and the passion that are there in the
first place, at least for many relationships.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Right, But I do want to note that it's not
just about conflict, because you may be in a relationship
that doesn't have conflict. You know, you may be in
a relationship where you've gotten to a point where you
don't even talk about it anymore and you're just kind
of so busy and you both sort of living, you're
happily kind of connecting, but not really connecting. So I
(36:39):
think it's important to note that it's those are not
It's not that you have conflict. Therefore we need to
repair that. You could also be in a relationship where
you don't have a whole lot of conflict, but you
also don't have a whole lot of fun and love
and romance and all of that too. So I don't
think you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
This is one of the interesting things find in our research.
If you know, if you read Tolstoy's book and a
Crinina and the first line I won't do the original Russian,
but it's like, you know, all all happy families are alike,
and all unhappy families are you know, different in each
of their own fashion. And the research tactically shows it's
(37:20):
the opposite that you know, the stress. And this is
across culture and economic lines and all the different diversity
we have in relationships. You know, it really comes from
you know, dealing with conflict in a negative way, you know,
being you know, being you know, angry and not treating
your partner well, you know, withdrawing from your partner, uh,
(37:42):
not showing enough love in ways that are meaningful to
your partner. So high conflict and high danger signs in
our terminology, you know, that cuts across most relationships that
are ongoing, well, not all, but relationship happiness. There's so
many splendid things. There are some couples that you know,
(38:03):
may make love every day or may like make love
every year. That there's all sorts of ways to have
a happy relationship. And it's kind of couple's therapists and
as people care about relationships. I can't tell you how
to have a happy relationship per se, but I can
tell you how to handle conflict well and how to
(38:23):
talk without fighting, And then I can kind of encourage
you to make your relationship a priority and have fun
whatever that may mean to you and your partner.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
You made a good point earlier when you talked about
that's not why we got married. You know, we didn't
get married to have conflict or not to have fun
together and all that kind of stuff. But it brings
me to kind of the question about marriage and what
it is and what it is for people today. Has
it evolved? Have you are people still getting married? I
guess is the question.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
People are still getting married, but the people you know
are getting married that less, uh, less races or less frequency.
But of course divorce is going down too, so you know,
people are living together. More people are choosing to you know,
be single and not be connected to one person, or
you know, to be involved with one person and another person,
(39:20):
and you know, all sorts of choices these days can
be supported uh in domains of society, so we have
a lot more choices. So but this is where I
think people need to kind of take a step back
and say, you know, do I want to be married?
Do I want to have kids? And if so, you know,
what does that mean? How can I move from where
I am now to You know, a lot of people
(39:43):
may feel that marriage is out of their reach because
the financial limitations and so on and so forth, and
that's something to kind of think about. You know, how
can we you know, have a wedding ceremony if we
want to be married, but to do that in a
way that's meaningful but doesn't cost us, you know, thousands,
thousands of dollars. And there are a lot of programs
out there. The government is invested in marriage. I mean,
(40:06):
we have something called the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood
Initiative in the country that you know, has been going
on for twenty thirty forty years now, started under Clinton,
and that you know, we're trying to help couples who
are in poverty, or people in poverty and don't have resources,
you know, have resources the education or like in Oklahoma
(40:30):
just to use an example, well they'll they'll help pay
for a wedding for people that are kind of part
of their programs. So there's a lot of thing and
I think governments need to invest you know, I don't
want to get too political, but I think investing in
relationships and investing in having people have healthy relationships whatever
(40:52):
they choose, you know, those relationships to be and to
make that possible is really important. The same thing that
you know, so there are barriers to marriage. A lot
of people feel barriers to having kids. You know, we're
having kids at much lower rate, and that's a you know,
a big issue. So how can we incentivize marriage, How
can we incentivize having kids? How can we incentivize and
(41:15):
provide resources for people to have a good relationship? And
you know, I think having you know, access to relationship
education of the part that we're talking about. You know,
all the things that you do in your work, uh,
you know, interviewing, you know, interesting people here, but all
the other things that you do helping people connect and
you know, get out of life what they want is
(41:36):
always really vital that we provide those resources to people.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Right right, Anything I didn't ask you that you want
to mention, we could talk about. I could talk about
this all day, get into the real details.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I think the uh that we talk about in the
book right up front, three keys for having just for
relationship And one and the one that kind of hits
home for a lot of people is to decide not slide,
which we talked a lot about. But another one is actually,
(42:11):
you know, do your part for the relationship and do
your part without expecting your partner to do their part.
You know, it's kind of like paraphrasing John Kennedy's famous
speech you know, ask not what your relationship can do
for you, but what you can do for your relationship,
and a lot of times kind of just investing and
(42:34):
doing something positive even when your partner is not doing
something positive in your mind. But again, this is kind
of the idea of investing when things are down, because
that's the best time. Even though you may be upset
about something your partner did or didn't do, you know,
that's the time to kind of step to the plate
and let your partner know, you know, this has been
(42:55):
a difficult time, and you know, I'm sorry that you know,
I did my part here or didn't do my part,
but I love you, I care about you, I want
to be with you, and so that kind of do
your part. And the other one is just really just
vital and it's could make it safe to connect. Uh
you know, I'm one of the reasons for podcasts is
(43:17):
so successful. I can just tell from my own experience
and I've listened to a few of them, is that
you make it safe for your guests to talk to you. Okay,
I feel at ease, and you know, uh, you know,
even though we're being videotaped or you know, I just
I just ignore it. And it's the same thing in
a relationship, any relationship that you want to you don't
(43:38):
want to be on eggshells. So that's why, you know,
when you're upset, not threatening the stability of the relationship. Now,
if you want to talk about breaking up or getting divorced,
you know you can talk about that, but do it.
Decide to talk about it, don't slide into talking about it.
So speaks are pretty important, and we decide to talk
(43:59):
about those right up front in the Finding for your
Marriage book.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Again, the three are if you can repeat them again.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Oh sure, decide don't slide, do your part and make
it safe to connect.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Decide, don't slide, do your part and make it safe
to connect.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Talk Those are really good.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
You know, whenever we're kind of around couples, whenever I teach,
you know, my course in Relationships that I've taught for
many years at the University of Denver, that we really
try to highlight because people can kind of you know,
this is something that people can kind of hold on to,
you know, if people are fondering in a relationship, they
can think about this. Okay, am I doing my part?
(44:42):
Am I making it safe to connect? What am I doing?
You know, am I making decisions? And whence the last
time I told my partner I love him or her
or my kids I love a lot of this also
goes with with our kids as well.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
And Howard, if you aren't, if you are not doing
those things where you haven't done them in the past,
how do you recommend getting on track? Uh?
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Think about ten seconds to air. Think about what you
can do in ten seconds to make your relationship better.
And so like you can do in ten seconds, you
can hug your partner, your partner, send them a text,
uh you know, uh, you know, hold their hand if
they're you know, hug them. So I like the ten
seconds you can you can tinse your partner for ten seconds. Okay,
(45:29):
I like this ten second idea.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
You're gonna you can use it. I'm gonna let you
use it.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
But I think you're right. I think but a lot
of people, you know, when when uh, when I was
listening to prior podcasts and I kind of got that sense,
you know, I had to think about, what what do
I do? You know, just kind of even you know
a lot of times we're just kind of on automatic
pilot when we just just go and.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
You were gonna slide right into this podcast. You're gonna
slide right into this podcas, And you had to think
about it, that's right.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
So I did think about it, and I decided I'm
gonna have fun.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, And I think that that's just Those are just
three great tools to keep in mind for all relationships,
not just not just your partner, but you know, don't
slide into your friendships and do your part in your friendship,
and and make it safe to talk and to listen
within your friendships. And when those things are broken in
(46:28):
a friendship, I mean break a few of those, and
I'm not quite sure what the relationship is made out of.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Right, And then you have to decide, you know, is
this a relationship you want to savor that you want
to improve? Uh? And you know it's a lot easier
to decide to you know, oh God, this this person.
You know, there's other people out there that I can
be friends with or better friends with, and that sort
of thing. But when you've made a commitment in a relationship,
(46:57):
a marriage or just a general commitment and the relationship,
you know, I think too often we let that relationship
go too easy. You know, I think people break up
with relationships and because they're fighting, or because they feel
in loved or they feel that, you know, the passion
is no longer there. And I think we, uh, you know,
we all too often just let relationships go when there
(47:21):
they can be saved or enhanced or improved. But again, decisions,
do I want to make this relationship with my wife,
with my husband, with my partner you know better? Or
do I want to work on kind of ending it
peacefully and kind of moving on. So again, it's that decision.
What's important to you?
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, some of us slide right into marriage and slide
right out of it.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
I guess, well.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I love all of these great tips. I love I
love it. I'm going to circle this. I'm supposed to
have coffee with my husband after this, so I can't.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I mean, I do think he'll enjoy you making your
relationship a priority, having coffee.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I am. I mean I like to think, I am.
We've definitely been through years where it hasn't been a
priority because we had three teenagers and they seem to
be the priority, and then you know, stuff happens and
life happens, and now I love this. I don't slide
do your part and make it safe to connect. I mean,
I think that those three principles are just fantastic and
(48:24):
can kick off, you know, your relationship and lead into
fun and good times. And I love that. I always
look for fun. I did a podcast with a gentleman
who talked about happiness and fun, and that night we
rode our bikes down to dinner and it was just
he just talked about these moments of creating, which is
(48:46):
a lot what you're talking about as well. Are just
these small moments of fun that you connect and you
have intimacy, even though it's not a sexual intimacy. You
get to do something together that you both enjoy that
is fun. And so that was great too. So I'm
getting all these great benefits out of the podcast. Actually
I think my husband's getting all the great benefits out
(49:07):
of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
And all your listeners, I assure.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
You and the listeners I hope so too.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
This has been a lot of fun and enjoyable and
just wish you the best in your work and thanks
for reading me on.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Thank you well, Thank you doctor Howard Markman, Thank you
so much. The book is Fighting for your marriage and
I'll have a link to it in the show notes
so that people can grab it if they need to,
and all the other resources that you have, because I
know this is not the only thing that you do.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Okay, well, in our last ten seconds together, thank you
very much Great Books, for the opportunity to talk to you.
It's been terrific.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
This podcast is for information only. It is in no
way medical advice. As always, consult your doctor for medical advice.
Hey, everyone who doesn't want a lasting and loving relationship
with their partner, and who hasn't been through some ups
and down, some conflict about job changes, moving the teenage years,
your own evolution, COVID, and now technology all play a
part in our relationships. It turns out marriage today requires
skilled communication, conflict management, and negotiation skills more than ever before.
(00:24):
My guest today is professor and author Howard Markman, PhD.
He is a distinguished Professor of psychology at the University
of Denver and the founder of the internationally known evidence
based couple's relationship education program called PREP Prevention and Education Program.
He's also one of four authors who came together to
(00:45):
write Fighting for Your Marriage, which is now in its
fourth edition. He joins me now to talk about positive
steps to talk more, fight less, and keep the fun
alive grand by.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Going love.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
You've been talking about this about marriage, relationships, keeping it
all together, keeping it fun for a few decades now.
But you've got a you know, new information on this, right.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Right, some new information and some basic, tried and true
research based skills that if people apply in their relationship,
that increases the chance for success.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So, in talking about this for so long and now
having new information. What goes through your mind ten seconds to.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Air, well, it's to have fun. So my goal is
when I do whatever I do, teach a class, give
a lecture, give a talk, get ready for your show.
You know, the goal is for me to have fun
and for the audience to have fun. And it also
is related to what makes a good relationship. Too often
(02:09):
we do focus too much on conflict in handling conflict,
and that's vital, but too many people put their relationship
on the back burner when it comes to the positive
connections to fund the friendship, the sensuality, the sexuality. So
I think let's have fun and once in a while,
since I'm a big sports person and I saw it
in your bio that you used to do some sports recording,
(02:32):
that will also visualize what success is as well. You know,
like when I play baseball, for example, or racketball or tennis,
I'll kind of visualize, you know, what I'm working on,
IF's you know, a stroke in tennis or backhand and
pick ball, that sort of thing. Kind of a combination
of thinking about having fun and then visualizing success.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
So you're saying that it's similar to the you're saying
a relationship similar to pickleball and tennis. You can find
a correlation there.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, in the sense that as I prepare for talking
about relationships or for a big relationship talk, you know,
the goal is to have fun as well as to
visualize what successes. So there's some overlay there.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
All right. I like the overlap. I'm a tennis player
and pick a ball player too, so let's let's just
overlap it, you know, And that is fun. And I
agree with you so many times it's hard to keep
the fun in your relationship because you're dealing with so
much work. Kids, something may have happened, you know. You
you start off in this really fun, just like when
(03:35):
you're a kid. You start off with all this fun
as a kid, and then something you get more serious,
gets more serious, and I find the same thing does
happen with the relationship. It's it's you know, the fun
was always the default, and now it seems like the
default is getting everything done in the day, and you
have to really think about the fun.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, that's the way to think about it that we
want to. When you're thinking about your relationship from anything
else that you've decided as a priority for you is
that you want to kind of build in time for
the things that are important, and too often people are
kind of slipping in, you know, focusing on the relationship
whatever that may be, around everything else. So it's kind
of like when you're trying to like put a bunch
(04:14):
of rocks and pebbles and stuff into a barrel. In
order to make that work, you have to put the
big rocks in first, and then the other things around it. So,
you know, so having you know, a regular date night
or time to talk about issues or just kind of
thinking about your partner or your family or whatever is
important to you and making sure that you're investing some
(04:35):
time and energy, you know, on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So you've been talking about this for decades now. Has
it changed over the course of the three or four
decades that you've been studying marriage and relationships.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, I think there's been a dramatic changes. And you
know the uh, you know, the function of families and
the parobulas that are around families, and you know, there's
so many other distractions, social media, lack of attention to uh,
you know, getting marriage, more attention to living together and
(05:14):
what what people and people are meeting in many different
ways obviously, so we don't have the kind of proximity
and similarity that we had in the past. So that's
why we say that the communication and conflict management and
talking without fighting about issues and differences is really important.
Like one of the take home points from our research
(05:35):
and other research, and this has continued over time, it's
it's not the differences between people that matter, you know,
political differences, or differences in religion, or differences in personality
or goals in life parenting. It's how those differences are
handled that's really the key. And too often slide we
(05:56):
talk about sliding into conflicts, uh and escalations and you know,
and fighting in ways that really destroy the love and
connection that brings us together in the first place.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So let's talk about that communication. Start us off right there.
What how do you define the communication in a relationship.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well, we define good communication really simple, and it's when
when you have something you want to get across to
communicate to another person that is really important that your
intent gets across to the other person that they're hearing,
not agreeing. And this is so critical. We talk about
good communication, we're not talking about agreement, which is listening
(06:39):
and the Dalai Lama once wrote, and jam Levin Winiborough
co authors writes this in the book that to love
means to listen. So listening is really really important no
matter how much you agree or disagree. So a lot
of times when we're talking about difficult issues, you have
to slow things down, put some structure around, there's some guardrails.
(07:00):
So when we're talking about an important issue, if things
aren't going right naturally, often they're not. We talk about
engaging the speaker listener technique, which is a really simple tool,
but basically you start off you ban trying to change
the other person's mind. You can agreement or disagreement, but
the goal is just to understand the other person's perspective.
(07:23):
And this is kind of an active listening to that
we all learn in various ways, but it's really hard
to use when we really need it. So if you
and I were having a conflict in a relationship, you
know you need first of all, skill, time out, stop action,
stop the negativity, take a deep breath, come back to
it later on when you both decide to talk about it.
(07:44):
And then one person has the floor. Would ever you
want to use for a floor, the phone or an iPad,
I putt and the speaker has the floor, and the
speaker says what they want to say about the issue,
and then the listener paraphrases, and then the speaker kind
of judges, yes, is that what I'm trying to get across? Yes,
(08:04):
and then kind of move forward and really important to
put a time limit around it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, I was just going to say how long did
how long does that person get the floor? How long
did they get the floor? And how long are you
the listener? Right and recommendations.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Sometimes it's just really I may really want to say
something really important. Listen. I just want to be able
to talk to you what I'm thinking and feeling about
this issue, about our future, about our kids, and right now,
I just want you to listen and understand, and then
maybe later on today or if we have more time,
then you can talk about your perspective on it. And
you know a lot of times just that talking. And
(08:43):
I was on Oprah ones a while back and the
show wasn't going very well, but then we started talking
about about the importance of listening and problem solving. I
said to Oprah, you know, Oprah, I think most issues
in relationships don't need to be solved, just good listening
and understanding. And Oprah said, no, Howard, I don't believe you.
(09:04):
I said, oh, here we go again. But he said,
I said sixty or seventy percent, and Oprah said, no,
it's eighty or ninety percent. Howard. I said, yes, doctor Oprah,
you got that right.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Wait, wait, back up a second. You were on Oprah
and it wasn't going well. What wasn't going well?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Oliver? That we had some couples on the show and
they were really kind of getting into it and fighting,
which is what they wanted. And I was really working
on kind of having them learn some timeout skills and
so on and so forth. And then finally when we
kind of got the couples to kind of start listening
to each other, and then Oprah and I could start
talking with each other, and then we got out this
(09:42):
point about listening versus solution, and too often we try
to solve something first, and rather than banning the solution
and just talk about thoughts and feelings about whatever the
issue is. You know, it's a big issue, it's a
smallish and most fights think about the last time, you know,
audience can think about the last time I had a
fight with somebody, usually started about something really really small,
(10:06):
an event that triggers and numbers off issues and negative emotions. Boom,
you're off.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Right, but don't you think howard? Isn't that really hard
to identify? Because let's say we do have a conflict, right,
you have a conflict with your and you the conflict
is about and you know, I've been told it's never
actually about the dishes. The conflict may be about the dishes,
is what you're trying to talk and I hate when
you don't do the dishes and whatever. It may be, right,
(10:32):
but it's really not about the dishes. So it's hard
to identify what it really is about. I would say
in the moment, or do you have any suggestions on that,
because that's really what you want to get down to,
don't you Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So when we ask our partner to do something small
like you know, put the dishes in the dishwashers, or
you know, do the dishes or you know, clean up
or whatever we may ask our partner, we're often asking
our partner to do things, you know, for us or
for the family. And when these things get don't get done,
(11:08):
what happens and there's a kind of a deeper issue
that gets triggered, and more often than not, the issue
is caring. Like if I asked you a couple of
times to put the clothes in the washing machine and
then put in the soap or vice versa, and it
(11:28):
doesn't happen, I'm going to start thinking, Wow, if you
love me, if you care about me, you would do
this small thing. And when the small things don't get done,
and then we start feeling uncared for and unloved and
unimportant and not a priority. And that's one of the
biggest themes. So a lot of times, you know, when
(11:50):
we're arguing about something small, it's really important not to
start making those negative interpretations. And sometimes it is the dishes,
you know, you know, it's like once in a while,
the cigar is just a cigar kind of thing. But
if it's really about your feeling uncared for on love,
a lot of times were fighting about the small stuff
(12:11):
is really because we're not putting enough time and energy
into communicating love and appreciation for a partner.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
And if you are fighting about something small or whatever
whatever it may be, or if you end up determining
it's not really about this, but I have identified what
it is about. How far does an apology go? How
do you repair that little tear?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Well, if you feel that you've committed a misdeed and
you know, I'm Jewish and we just had our day
of atonement a couple of days ago, young Kie Poor,
which really talks about, you know, reaching out to people
that we may not have cheated right, or reaching out
to people who have not treated USh right. An apology
can go a really a really long way because it's
(12:55):
being humble or not perfect. Yeah, I'm sorry I to
you that way. You know, I'm going to work on
not doing it, but I'm really sorry. Will you forgive me?
So having a way of asking for forgiveness, and we're
not talking about forgetting. Forgiveness is not forgetting. It's really
about letting go of holding your partner, you know, and
(13:18):
you know that. Okay, I'm going to keep on, you know,
coming back to this and coming back to as opposed
to just kind of letting things go.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, okay, So you talked about caring that some of
it goes back to feeling as if your partner doesn't care,
and which brings me to the love part of your
book here and how you define love and how love
evolves throughout the relationship, because I think we go into
our relationship with this definition of love that is often
(13:47):
conflicted with passion and other things, and then time goes
by and we think that love. I don't know what
we think that love is, but help us out with that, right.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I think that when you think about love over time
and a relationship, and you look at and we've studied relationships,
we start in our research often with couples before marriage
and following them up five, ten, even fifteen years later
and looking for what you predicts the future of the relationship. Now,
(14:17):
handling conflict is really important because we start out with
high levels of love however you want to define it,
and through negative interactions we kind of start tearing that apart.
So I like to think about love as one of
my colleagues and the psych field Sternberg talks about it.
The love is part passion and it is part friendship.
(14:41):
But the part we often forget about about love is
it's about commitment. It's about having a future and not
threatening that future when you're upset. And the good thing
about that kind of definition of love, So if the
passion's not going well, or if the passion's fading away
over time, which it often does, then you can focus
(15:02):
on commitment that we're together, you know, for a lifetime.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
You know my uh co author and you know, friend
for decades and decades. Scott Stanley I was going through
a period of working, working, working too hard on his
wife and Nancy said, well, you have to slow down,
you have to slow down. Uh, I'm going to be
the one changing your diapers, you know, later on, you know,
and I want to do that sooner than later. Now. Scott,
(15:30):
being a humorous says, well, that depends, which was kind
of but the point is that Nancy was communicating Scott,
we're together for a lifetime, okay, and uh, we have
this future together and that's a big part of love.
When passion may be fating, but you can always focus
on fun and friendship. Uh, you know, passion will kind
(15:52):
of come and go. There are ways to keeping passion
alive by making a priority and you know, being you know,
touching and massing and too often, you know, one of
the big things we talk about in the book is
that when it comes to kind of keeping the passion alive,
which is part of love and so we too often
focus on sex rather than sensuality.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Right, redirect us there, Then what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That two up? And like for example, when and then
we're talking about kind of people being so busy in
life and so on and so forth, and there's so
attraction and so and then people say, okay, we have
to check off making love, so you go make love
and it's okay, you know, but you know that time
might be better spent just kind of kissing and hugging
(16:35):
or holding hands or you know, talking in a sensual way,
or setting some time where you're having your favorite drink together,
whatever they may be, and talking and holding hands and
communicating about how much you care and appreciate the other person.
So the sensuality and you know, think about all the
(16:56):
things you can do with your five senses and that's
you know, how think about in our sentense of sensuality.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Is there a time frame that you have or that
you know you've studied where you can't let intimacy go?
You know, as time goes on, it probably becomes less
and less. And is there a time frame that is
studied that says you must And intimacy can mean many
different things. You talked about hugging, you talked about you know,
(17:26):
you can watch a movie together, sitting on the couch together.
You could be intimate and be having sex. But is
there a time frame that you need to make sure
that you have those touch points.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well, we haven't identified any any sweet spot for that,
but you know, I think a good thing to kind
of keep in mind is that, you know, on a
kind of a daily basis, just kind of thinking about
your partner, letting your partner know that your care about them.
It could be just a simple text that sort of thing.
(17:58):
But I think the key, the key might be is
just if you are feeling disconnected from your partner most
of the time, that disconnection has to do with some
conflicts that you're having and so on and so forth,
and you're not in the mood to hold hands or
kiss or a hug, and that's the time to actually
(18:18):
push yourself to focus on the positive connectionist you know,
we talk about like a stock market, you know, comparison,
like the best time to invest in the stock market
is when things are low, because your investment has you know,
a more positive game. And we think about relationship mathematics
(18:39):
that you know, one negative one zingers can start e
raising five or ten positive acts of kindness and this
is stuff that John Gotman, Clifflantarius, myself and others have
really identified. And conversely that if you have had a
conflict that didn't go well, then it's a good time
to think about, Okay, what are five or ten things
(19:01):
I can do positively for the relationship, including taking time
to apologize, but letting know the person that you love them,
focusing on the commitment. You know that was tough, but listen,
I'm not going anywhere. You know, we have a long
term view and having that cocoon of commitment around the relationship,
and that's a giant dissue. This is one of the
(19:22):
reasons why you know, if I asked you and your listeners,
you know, does living together before marriage increase your chances
of having a successful marriage if you marry that person?
What do you think does it help increase.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I don't I don't know. I mean, I'm gonna people
think it does. That's I think that's why they do it.
But I'm going to guess you're going to say, no,
that's not the case. What is it? What's the truth?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Well, when living together before marriage, if you don't have
a clear commitment to marry in the future, that this
is a risk factor because you kind of slow guide
into that living together and you start accumulating, you know,
lease a house, pet, kid, and if things aren't going
(20:10):
right when you decide, well my partner's great, well my
partner may not be great for me, it becomes harder
to break up. And that's why kind of living together
if you don't have a commitment to marry, is really
not a good idea. That's what the research shows because
you kind of you kind of slide. And we have
something on YouTube called Relationship d UI Decision under Influence,
(20:33):
which people can just go and google and this kind
of whole theory will kind of play its way out
and kind of a cartoon, but are very easy to,
you know, to watch and learn about. This point about
decisions and making decisions. Decide, don't slide when it comes
to important decisions or transitions in life.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
So so hold on that for just a second, because
you talking about before you get married, that's a that's
a decision, not a slide into situation. Do those also
happen later in life when you slide into decisions? So
you're saying talk about those in detail. How do you
avoid the slide?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But the best way to avoid the slide is to
decide to have times to really talk about whatever the
issues are in that transition coming up. You know, it
could be you know, when you're you know, graduating from
college and you want to be with you know, the
person that you've been going out with and you think
you want to be with for a long time or
(21:38):
maybe forever. You're sitting around talking about, you know, where
you want to live and do you want to have
kids and when you want to have kids, rather than
just say let's well be together and let's just see
how go. We will live together and then kind of,
you know, as you were saying, very wisely will be
at the beginning. So life kind of takes over, you know, yeah,
it does. It's kind of grabbing having life and taken
(22:02):
control over the way life is going. Not every single
moment thinking about got to make a decision, but when
it comes to you know, living together, getting married, having
a kid, a career change, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Because these slides can happen throughout your entire life. You're
going to have these pivotal points, so it's not just
early on. It could be. I mean, for my husband
and I, we've moved several times, we've had three kids,
we've had job changes, career changes, and now we're looking
at okay, now the kids are headed to college, and
that's kind of a moment of change also. And I really,
(22:38):
I really like how you put that, because I think
we've slid into a lot and then later on have
had to go, wait a second, you know, had we
end up here? Well, I never wanted to do that.
Well I never well you never told me, Well you
never actually we never even really talked about that, you know,
and then all of a sudden we find ourselves in
a place that I like how you put it, that
(22:58):
we've just slid right into. And now we have to
go back and say, well.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
You expressed that so well. And so many of us
have the kind of experience and it's kind of natural too,
you know, to kind of slide into things. But you know,
once in a while, uh, I like to, uh to
suggest to couples and you know, and it could be
you know, something with your kids or your your partner
or uh, you know, a partner in your uh you know,
(23:23):
Scott are having this discussion right now, about our our
our prep company with the program that we've developed, the
Prevention and Relationship ED program, where you know, we need
to think about the future of that and we don't
want to slide into you know, getting older and something
happening to one of us. We really want to say, Okay,
what are we going to do? You know, and uh
(23:45):
so and then taking a step back and I like
to This is something I got from one of my colleagues,
one of the lifetime friends, Don Balcolm, who's also a psychologist
marital therapist. You talk about your hopes and dreams, you know,
so you can sit down with your husband and say, okay,
here's where we are, kids are in college, you know,
let's talk about what our hopes and dreams are for
(24:07):
the next year or five years or ten years. And
just by doing that, you're amplifying two of the major
aspects of love, the sense of commitment in the future
and also the friendship and the intimacy.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
What's the biggest thing that happens when people end up
coming to you? Where where do things kind of go wrong?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Well, I'd say the two biggest areas are high conflict
where people just are fighting a lot, and destroying the
love and intimacy. And you know the goal for these
couples initially is to you know, to kind of curtail
the fighting, learn some basic rules of conflict management, and
(24:48):
then kind of decide to focus on whatever the issues
are you're fighting about. You know, maybe it is the dishes,
but more often it's going to be you know, or
is your partner making the relationship or priority you know,
or you know, is your partner spending too much time
on on social media? Well, you know, it could be
(25:10):
some really bigger things. So you know, trust, and you
know about fidelity, and you know, some really big issues
that might be going on with people that need to
be talked about. But the other big thing is what
we were talking about right at the beginning, is not
making a relationship or priority, just living life, Uh, you know,
take over. And you know, I was just talking to
(25:32):
one of my favorite couples of all time that I've
been seeing in couples therapy and they're just such a delightful,
delightful couple and they have kids, and they both have
careers and they're just not finding time for just talking
as friends or going out on a date. You know.
The one of the partners said, well, maybe we have
(25:55):
to do something like really really big and grand, maybe
go out on a date. And I said, hold it
a second, you know, Randy, something else, you know, that's
that's going through now and recommitting you know, at having
your friends and family. You know, a date right, you know,
and you know even if just you know, taking a
walk for ten minutes, holding hands, that sort of thing.
(26:18):
But one of the nice things about a date is
that something you can look forward to that you're going
to be together, You're going to have a drink together,
You're going to you know, make love or you know,
cuddle and snuggle and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
So how do you so let's I'm gonna I just
want to dive into the both of those. I have
a follow up question for you in the high conflict
and then they're making the relationship a priority. So high conflict,
I just want to ask you where when should conflict
be okay? Because you can't it can't be perfect all
the time. So conflict does come in when is it okay?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, disagreements are inevitable, They're really inevitable. And once in
a while we identify and talk about in the fighting
for your marriage book, UH for danger signs that that
playue couples when they're not handling. It's really about managing
negative emotions, is what we're talking about. And we're human
(27:11):
and we're going to get upset and defensive, and you know,
sometimes we're gonna what we call invalidation, you know, hirl zingers,
or there's this escalation. I say something negative, you say
something negative, and then there's negative interpretations like feeling that
you partners don't care about you when it's they're not
doing the dishes and they do care about you, but
(27:33):
they're not not doing the dishes for whatever reason the
way you want. And then there's withdrawal, which is really
you know, avoiding some withdrawal when and there's something men
tend to do more than women, we find, but it's
also a sign of distress when one person doesn't want
to talk about issues in the relationship or just doesn't
want to connect, so you know you're going to enter
(27:54):
into One of the things that distinguishes couples that will
go on and be happy versus couples who or happy
but will go on and become unhappy and divorced is
that they're able to recognize when they're entering in these
danger signs and stopping the danger signs and not going
down the rabbit hole of escalation and not going to
(28:14):
physical abuse and verbal abuse. Right, those are all dangerous,
dangerous interactions. Now a lot of times it scares people
into health. You have kind of a flight into health.
And but you know there's gonna be some relationships that
are really toxic, and you know, not all relationships can
be safe. So if you're in a relationship and you're
(28:36):
being victimized, cheated on, hurt, humiliated, that you know that's
something you needs to take. You have to be safe.
Safety is just so important.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Right of course, I think my question is more related
to not big conflict like that, but conflict that's manageable.
So the first year of your marriage is should you
have conflict, real conflict or is that something really the
honeymoon stage is really such a thing and conflict really
doesn't arise until you have really big things to have
(29:07):
conflict about.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
No, it's it's really inevitable. And you know there may
be some you know of the couples where their relationship
is made in heaven and it stays there and they
just get along perfectly.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
But a lot of times really so you see that.
Wait a second, Howard, but I think this really happened.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
There a couples like that. There are some couples like that,
you know, there are some couples do a lot of
work in Oklahoma. There's a lot of young marriages in
Oklahoma and a lot of divorces of them. But there
are some couples we've identified, maybe five percent their high
school suite, Steve Hawks. They get married, they have kids,
they're doing great, ten twenty years and things are just terrific.
(29:50):
So do you want to be happily married? Move to Oklahoma? No,
a great state. But I think having a a time
to uh, you know, to sit down once in a
while and say, you know, how are things going? You know,
to do that. We talk about hopes and dreams and
if things aren't going well and you're feeling disconnected, I
(30:12):
think the sense of feeling disconnected is really a good
sign that that you need to do something. But don't
blame your partner, you know for the disconnection. You know,
you're not hugging me enough. We are I'm feeling a
weird disconnected. You know, how do you feel about that?
And how can we work together as a team. And
(30:34):
so the same thing where you know, we think every
couple should have a ground roup that that we're number
one that they can call a timeout or stop action
when things aren't going well in a discussion, and then
what that is, you know, it could be time out
or stop action, and then that keeps the conflict from
really degenerating into things that can become toxic over time.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Let's go to the relate making the relationship a price already.
I know we've we've been talking a lot about where
problems come in and things like that. Let's talk about
making the relationship or probably let's move into the positive
here and and and have a happy, healthy.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Let's wind on the positive here.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah, let's let's figure that out. How do we make
it a priority?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Well, I think the best way to make it a
priority is is make it a decision to have your
relationship be a priority. And it is often as simple
as that. You know, uh, but you don't want to
just do it internally to yourself, but you want to,
you know, say to your partner, and it could be
in lots of different situations that you know I'm feeling
(31:41):
that you know that you know we're not really focusing
on you know, we want to go as a team,
or I'm feeling that we're just not having time to
do the things we used to do once the left.
As a lot of times we will ask couples in
our research and our you know, just our general times
when we see couples in therapy and when's the last
(32:02):
time you've been out on a date? And you know,
if it's been a long time, then that might be
a sign that you know, maybe you need to kind
of decide to go out on more dates. But also
talk about what that is. You know, what's fun? And
this gets to what's fun for the two of them.
And you know, when you asked me that question, you know,
(32:23):
ten seconds before you go on air, what do I
think about? You know, it's kind of having fun and
you know fun for me and fun. You know, I'm
having fun now. And you know, Scott and I when
we started working together forty years ago, we said, you
know what, you know, we could have great lives and
we wouldn't have to do talks and write books and
do workshops and but you know, and if we're going
to do it, let's have fun. And so far, you know,
(32:46):
forty years of fun.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, and why not. I mean, if you're gonna stay
married to someone and you're gonna live in the same
house and you're gonna have a life together, you might
as well make it fun. You know, when it starts
to become for me, when things start to become work,
and not that I don't want to put the work in.
I do want to put the work in, but it's
nice to know you're putting work in that's leading somewhere.
(33:08):
You know, that's heading to fun, that's heading to date night,
that's heading to a trip, or heading to just going
for a walk. But life does take over. I mean
it really does. And then I love the book about
there are just different areas where there's such miscommunication or
when you think something that's not really true and then
(33:31):
you head down another road. And it's because you just
don't take that time to spend together or to take
all those little moments because they get sucked up by
so many other things. They get sucked up by life,
by kids, how many times. I mean people listening can
probably relate to this if you're married and you have kids,
but that you're having a moment of just a conversation
(33:53):
with your partner and it's interrupted by a kid, and
we rarely say, hold on a second, really jump right
to the kid and fix their problem or help them
or whatever. We're just so used to doing that. Now
that my kids are older, we will say can you
wait a second, But when they were younger, we just
let them write in. You know, we don't think about that.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
I mean, it's very natural we want to be with
your kids and love your kids, but also taking a
step back and saying, at a time when the kids
aren't around, you know, how can we increase the positive
connections between one simple tool. You know, I talked about
the speaker listener technique as a tool, and that's also
(34:35):
if people google that speaker listener technique from prep, we
have a whole uh you know, lessons or lessons of
how to do that. But one thing that people can
do to increase fun is create what we call a
fun deck. So, okay, I write down three things that
you and I like them in the next week that
(34:57):
I think would be fun for us. Uh. You could
be going to see the Dodgers play the Mets. It
could be taking a walk together, it could be going
to the symphony, something like that, so you know that
you can make the time to do that and that
you can do it financially. Uh. And then then my
partner writes down three things. Then we exchange cards or
(35:17):
however we do that, and I pick one thing from
your list that I decide to make happen in the
next week or two weeks, and vice versa. And that's
a good way to kind of love that native and
just to kind of get things moving if you're stuck
and you're not, uh, you know, feeling a lot of
connection and feeling not having enough fun or you know,
(35:39):
do doing fun things. And the reason people don't get
married to handle conflicts, you know, uh, right, have their
wedding vows. The one of my students to put this
in their wedding vows. But we don't promise to do
use the speaker listener technique. So death do we part
part You know, we don't don't get married to him
a conflict. But if you don't have a way of
(36:02):
talking without fighting about issues, then it's often going to
tear apart the love, the connection, the friendship, the sensuality,
the feelings and the passion that are there in the
first place, at least for many relationships.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Right, But I do want to note that it's not
just about conflict, because you may be in a relationship
that doesn't have conflict. You know, you may be in
a relationship where you've gotten to a point where you
don't even talk about it anymore and you're just kind
of so busy and you both sort of living, you're
happily kind of connecting, but not really connecting. So I
(36:39):
think it's important to note that it's those are not
It's not that you have conflict. Therefore we need to
repair that. You could also be in a relationship where
you don't have a whole lot of conflict, but you
also don't have a whole lot of fun and love
and romance and all of that too. So I don't
think you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
This is one of the interesting things find in our research.
If you know, if you read Tolstoy's book and a
Crinina and the first line I won't do the original Russian,
but it's like, you know, all all happy families are alike,
and all unhappy families are you know, different in each
of their own fashion. And the research tactically shows it's
(37:20):
the opposite that you know, the stress. And this is
across culture and economic lines and all the different diversity
we have in relationships. You know, it really comes from
you know, dealing with conflict in a negative way, you know,
being you know, being you know, angry and not treating
your partner well, you know, withdrawing from your partner, uh,
(37:42):
not showing enough love in ways that are meaningful to
your partner. So high conflict and high danger signs in
our terminology, you know, that cuts across most relationships that
are ongoing, well, not all, but relationship happiness. There's so
many splendid things. There are some couples that you know,
(38:03):
may make love every day or may like make love
every year. That there's all sorts of ways to have
a happy relationship. And it's kind of couple's therapists and
as people care about relationships. I can't tell you how
to have a happy relationship per se, but I can
tell you how to handle conflict well and how to
(38:23):
talk without fighting, And then I can kind of encourage
you to make your relationship a priority and have fun
whatever that may mean to you and your partner.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
You made a good point earlier when you talked about
that's not why we got married. You know, we didn't
get married to have conflict or not to have fun
together and all that kind of stuff. But it brings
me to kind of the question about marriage and what
it is and what it is for people today. Has
it evolved? Have you are people still getting married? I
guess is the question.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
People are still getting married, but the people you know
are getting married that less, uh, less races or less frequency.
But of course divorce is going down too, so you know,
people are living together. More people are choosing to you know,
be single and not be connected to one person, or
you know, to be involved with one person and another person,
(39:20):
and you know, all sorts of choices these days can
be supported uh in domains of society, so we have
a lot more choices. So but this is where I
think people need to kind of take a step back
and say, you know, do I want to be married?
Do I want to have kids? And if so, you know,
what does that mean? How can I move from where
I am now to You know, a lot of people
(39:43):
may feel that marriage is out of their reach because
the financial limitations and so on and so forth, and
that's something to kind of think about. You know, how
can we you know, have a wedding ceremony if we
want to be married, but to do that in a
way that's meaningful but doesn't cost us, you know, thousands,
thousands of dollars. And there are a lot of programs
out there. The government is invested in marriage. I mean,
(40:06):
we have something called the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood
Initiative in the country that you know, has been going
on for twenty thirty forty years now, started under Clinton,
and that you know, we're trying to help couples who
are in poverty, or people in poverty and don't have resources,
you know, have resources the education or like in Oklahoma
(40:30):
just to use an example, well they'll they'll help pay
for a wedding for people that are kind of part
of their programs. So there's a lot of thing and
I think governments need to invest you know, I don't
want to get too political, but I think investing in
relationships and investing in having people have healthy relationships whatever
(40:52):
they choose, you know, those relationships to be and to
make that possible is really important. The same thing that
you know, so there are barriers to marriage. A lot
of people feel barriers to having kids. You know, we're
having kids at much lower rate, and that's a you know,
a big issue. So how can we incentivize marriage, How
can we incentivize having kids? How can we incentivize and
(41:15):
provide resources for people to have a good relationship? And
you know, I think having you know, access to relationship
education of the part that we're talking about. You know,
all the things that you do in your work, uh,
you know, interviewing, you know, interesting people here, but all
the other things that you do helping people connect and
you know, get out of life what they want is
(41:36):
always really vital that we provide those resources to people.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Right right, Anything I didn't ask you that you want
to mention, we could talk about. I could talk about
this all day, get into the real details.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I think the uh that we talk about in the
book right up front, three keys for having just for
relationship And one and the one that kind of hits
home for a lot of people is to decide not slide,
which we talked a lot about. But another one is actually,
(42:11):
you know, do your part for the relationship and do
your part without expecting your partner to do their part.
You know, it's kind of like paraphrasing John Kennedy's famous
speech you know, ask not what your relationship can do
for you, but what you can do for your relationship,
and a lot of times kind of just investing and
(42:34):
doing something positive even when your partner is not doing
something positive in your mind. But again, this is kind
of the idea of investing when things are down, because
that's the best time. Even though you may be upset
about something your partner did or didn't do, you know,
that's the time to kind of step to the plate
and let your partner know, you know, this has been
(42:55):
a difficult time, and you know, I'm sorry that you know,
I did my part here or didn't do my part,
but I love you, I care about you, I want
to be with you, and so that kind of do
your part. And the other one is just really just
vital and it's could make it safe to connect. Uh
you know, I'm one of the reasons for podcasts is
(43:17):
so successful. I can just tell from my own experience
and I've listened to a few of them, is that
you make it safe for your guests to talk to you. Okay,
I feel at ease, and you know, uh, you know,
even though we're being videotaped or you know, I just
I just ignore it. And it's the same thing in
a relationship, any relationship that you want to you don't
(43:38):
want to be on eggshells. So that's why, you know,
when you're upset, not threatening the stability of the relationship. Now,
if you want to talk about breaking up or getting divorced,
you know you can talk about that, but do it.
Decide to talk about it, don't slide into talking about it.
So speaks are pretty important, and we decide to talk
(43:59):
about those right up front in the Finding for your
Marriage book.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Again, the three are if you can repeat them again.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Oh sure, decide don't slide, do your part and make
it safe to connect.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Decide, don't slide, do your part and make it safe
to connect.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Talk Those are really good.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
You know, whenever we're kind of around couples, whenever I teach,
you know, my course in Relationships that I've taught for
many years at the University of Denver, that we really
try to highlight because people can kind of you know,
this is something that people can kind of hold on to,
you know, if people are fondering in a relationship, they
can think about this. Okay, am I doing my part?
(44:42):
Am I making it safe to connect? What am I doing?
You know, am I making decisions? And whence the last
time I told my partner I love him or her
or my kids I love a lot of this also
goes with with our kids as well.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
And Howard, if you aren't, if you are not doing
those things where you haven't done them in the past,
how do you recommend getting on track? Uh?
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Think about ten seconds to air. Think about what you
can do in ten seconds to make your relationship better.
And so like you can do in ten seconds, you
can hug your partner, your partner, send them a text,
uh you know, uh, you know, hold their hand if
they're you know, hug them. So I like the ten
seconds you can you can tinse your partner for ten seconds. Okay,
(45:29):
I like this ten second idea.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
You're gonna you can use it. I'm gonna let you
use it.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
But I think you're right. I think but a lot
of people, you know, when when uh, when I was
listening to prior podcasts and I kind of got that sense,
you know, I had to think about, what what do
I do? You know, just kind of even you know
a lot of times we're just kind of on automatic
pilot when we just just go and.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
You were gonna slide right into this podcast. You're gonna
slide right into this podcas, And you had to think
about it, that's right.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
So I did think about it, and I decided I'm
gonna have fun.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, And I think that that's just Those are just
three great tools to keep in mind for all relationships,
not just not just your partner, but you know, don't
slide into your friendships and do your part in your friendship,
and and make it safe to talk and to listen
within your friendships. And when those things are broken in
(46:28):
a friendship, I mean break a few of those, and
I'm not quite sure what the relationship is made out of.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Right, And then you have to decide, you know, is
this a relationship you want to savor that you want
to improve? Uh? And you know it's a lot easier
to decide to you know, oh God, this this person.
You know, there's other people out there that I can
be friends with or better friends with, and that sort
of thing. But when you've made a commitment in a relationship,
(46:57):
a marriage or just a general commitment and the relationship,
you know, I think too often we let that relationship
go too easy. You know, I think people break up
with relationships and because they're fighting, or because they feel
in loved or they feel that, you know, the passion
is no longer there. And I think we, uh, you know,
we all too often just let relationships go when there
(47:21):
they can be saved or enhanced or improved. But again, decisions,
do I want to make this relationship with my wife,
with my husband, with my partner you know better? Or
do I want to work on kind of ending it
peacefully and kind of moving on. So again, it's that decision.
What's important to you?
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, some of us slide right into marriage and slide
right out of it.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
I guess, well.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I love all of these great tips. I love I
love it. I'm going to circle this. I'm supposed to
have coffee with my husband after this, so I can't.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I mean, I do think he'll enjoy you making your
relationship a priority, having coffee.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I am. I mean I like to think, I am.
We've definitely been through years where it hasn't been a
priority because we had three teenagers and they seem to
be the priority, and then you know, stuff happens and
life happens, and now I love this. I don't slide
do your part and make it safe to connect. I mean,
I think that those three principles are just fantastic and
(48:24):
can kick off, you know, your relationship and lead into
fun and good times. And I love that. I always
look for fun. I did a podcast with a gentleman
who talked about happiness and fun, and that night we
rode our bikes down to dinner and it was just
he just talked about these moments of creating, which is
(48:46):
a lot what you're talking about as well. Are just
these small moments of fun that you connect and you
have intimacy, even though it's not a sexual intimacy. You
get to do something together that you both enjoy that
is fun. And so that was great too. So I'm
getting all these great benefits out of the podcast. Actually
I think my husband's getting all the great benefits out
(49:07):
of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
And all your listeners, I assure.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
You and the listeners I hope so too.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
This has been a lot of fun and enjoyable and
just wish you the best in your work and thanks
for reading me on.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Thank you well, Thank you doctor Howard Markman, Thank you
so much. The book is Fighting for your marriage and
I'll have a link to it in the show notes
so that people can grab it if they need to,
and all the other resources that you have, because I
know this is not the only thing that you do.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Okay, well, in our last ten seconds together, thank you
very much Great Books, for the opportunity to talk to you.
It's been terrific.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
This podcast is for information only. It is in no
way medical advice. As always, consult your doctor for medical advice.
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