what's up ladies and gentlemen I am Brad browning and you are watching my latest
and greatest relationship advice video and this particular video is gonna be
one that's specifically for anyone out there who's worried that their marriage
might be on the brink of collapse so if you are worried about divorce you know
if you're wondering whether your marriage is doomed or if you just want
to know you know whether there's still hope to to turn things around before
it's too late well keep watching because that's what I'm talk about right here in
this video now before I dive into it guys I should quickly mention that my
online quiz tool which you can take for free after this video at marriageguy.com
slash quiz is one of the best ways to to evaluate the health of your marriage and
figure out you know whether it can still be saved
basically you answer a series of questions and based on those answers
you're gonna see a detailed analysis of your current situation and your odds of
turning things around in your marriage as well as a series of personalized
recommendations based on your answers quiz takes maybe five minutes at most
it's completely free and again it's at marriageguy.com slash quiz right now
guys the five signs that I'm going to cover in this video in the next few
minutes here are actually based on proven science so this stuff you know it
isn't my opinion researchers have actually been studying this stuff you
know marriage psychology relationship dynamics that kind of thing for years
now and these five signals indicate a marriage that's likely to end in divorce
with an accuracy rate over 90% which is really when you think about it pretty
credible
now a lot of the research is based on studies done by Robert Levinson at the
University of Washington and John Gottman we've probably heard about from
some of my other videos of the Gottman Institute in New York and those two guys
have been spent 30-plus years studying this stuff in labs and in clinical
counseling settings as well so you know credit to those two gentlemen and all
the other academics who've studied and worked in this field okay now let's dive
straight into the five signs of an impending divorce so the first sign of
trouble in a marriage is criticism or complaining basically this just refers
to situations where one partner gets upset at the actions or behaviors of
their spouse and then they place the blame for it on them or their
personality generally so for instance you know let's say that you you aren't
really the type to help moat much with you know housework chores around the
house and you rarely clean up clean up the kitchen after dinner if your spouse
responded by saying you know you never help with the dishes you're such a lazy
slob you know that would be the kind of criticism that often can indicate that a
marriage is unhealthy secondly and this one goes often hand-in-hand with
criticism like I just talked about sign number two is defensiveness so if we
stick with the example that I just mentioned where your spouse calls you a
lazy slob a defensive reaction to that would be if you said in response you
know something like give me a break you're such a mess in the kitchen if I
cook dinner there would be barely any dishes at all in other words you know
defensive misses when one spouse responds to their partners critical
remarks by turning things around and it's something to shift the blame back
on their partner sign number three that a marriage is heading for divorce is
contempt now the word contempt can actually really mean a lot of things but
in this case it's basically anyone any time one partner has a negative opinion
of their spouse and believes themselves to be superior so for instance
statements like you're a moron or you're just clueless aren't you those are both
really good examples of this sort of toxic contempt in fact this is actually
what researchers believe to be the single biggest predictor of divorce so
of course this contempt is one that you really want to address immediately if it
does become an issue in your marriage all right and once assigned number four
which is actually pretty straightforward and that is emotional withdrawal or
stonewalling so in other words if your partner and you know simply becomes
distant doesn't really appear to be listening or or taking in what you're
saying when you try to bring up a point of contention or or a complaint with
them um this is actually most often associated with men and studies have
indeed actually shown that around eighty five percent of the time it's the male
partner in a marriage who's guilty of emotionally withdrawing sometimes that's
because men are unwilling to confront problems or or accept their partner's
criticism and sometimes it's more a result of you know his wife having
unfair or or unreasonable expectations or you know kind of bringing things up
in a toxic sort of nagging way regardless of whether it's the man or
the woman who's actually doing this stonewalling though it is bad news
for the future of any marriage when it does happen regularly all right and
finally let's talk about a sign number five which actually tends to be to be
more common among married couples who've been together for a decade or more the
other four ones that I just just covered they can really happen at any time in a
marriage but they tend to usually begin fairly early on and this final sign of
marriage that shows up generally after a decade or more is a low ratio of
positive to negative interactions all right I know what you're thinking at
this point what does that actually mean Brad well I mean I could really expand
on this one and spend you know twenty minutes talking about it but essentially
a happy and healthy married couple has an average of five positive interactions
things like laughing at a joke together complimenting one another cuddling or
kissing you know providing support and encouragement they have five of those
for every negative encounter which is things like you know criticizing lying
arguing and so on now an unhealthy marriage on the other hand it tends to
have a lot more of those negative encounters for every positive
interaction so basically you know if you and your spouse get along and enjoy one
another's company the vast majority of the time and you only argue or or get up
upset at one another you know once in a while then your marriage has a healthy
ratio of positive to negative encounters but you know unfortunately for a lot of
you watching this video right now that ratio is in your marriage is probably
far lower than that ideal five to one ratio that researchers have found to be
the magic number for the typical happy marriage relax though you know don't
panic quite yet folks even if you recognize all five of these signs in
your own marriage for most of you you know you could very well still be able
to avoid divorce and dramatic improve the dynamics of your marriage
before it's too late now how do you do that well that's to be honest that's a
really big topic that I can't really cover here of course one of my first
recommendations is to register for my best-selling mend the marriage program
which you can actually try risk-free for 60 days starting right now the program
is basically a comprehensive guide to turning your relationship around even if
your spouse is unwilling to put in the effort or has already said that they
definitely want a divorce I mean it's gonna give you a clear plan to to put
the marriage back on the right track you can get all the details about the
program and sign up at my website marriageguy.com now whether you you
decide to sign up for mend the marriage or not
there is one thing you absolutely must not do if you want to fix your marriage
and prevent divorce and that is to do nothing
look guys most couples wait far too long before they do anything about their
broken marriages and quite frankly things rarely get better on their own in
fact you know the longer you wait before you take action the lower the chances of
a happy ending for you and your marriage so please guys if you're watching this
video and you've seen several of the signs that I've talked about in this
video in your own marriage you know at the very least take ten minutes to watch
the full video my website marriageguy.com it's completely free
there's a men's and a women's version and in that video you're gonna learn a
few tips that you can start implementing today that could make the difference
between you know divorce and living happily ever after now I sincerely hope
that this video is gonna help some of you out there save your marriage while
you still can it is a really tough situation to begin
to be in so I definitely sympathize with anyone who is facing a marriage on the
brink and guys as always if you have a quick question any feedback leave it in
the comments below and I will get back to you personally as soon as I can and
that is it for now so we'll see in the next video