Hey guys,
so in part one
of reasons why
your relationship is doomed to fail
you learned about how
differences in temperament
can cause havoc on a relationship
even if she's the right person for you.
Now, in this video we're going to talk about
the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse.
So, what will happen is
if you don't manage
your temperament differences
or other differences in your relationship
that are manageable
then you advance to the next level.
And at this stage,
there can be a 95% chance
of your relationship truly being doomed.
So, John Gottman
is the Godfather of relationship studies
and he's authored several books on relationships.
And he can actually
observe a couple for five minutes
and determine with over 90%
I think it's even 95% accuracy
if they're going to make it or not.
Just by watching them for five minutes.
And I'm going to tell you more about what he does
and what he looks for in a minute.
But as you know
and as I've said in many of my videos
in case you're new to my channel
and welcome if you are
you can't have a successful relationship
that's based solely on attraction,
chemistry, and connection.
That's not enough.
You need to have compatible beliefs,
values, long-term goals,
a little bit of lifestyle, temperament,
you can learn about that in the other video.
And if those are all in alignment
they don't have to be exactly the same
but they need to be compatible.
And you're still fighting
and it's escalating to
the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse
then yes,
your relationship is doomed to fail.
Even if you're with
the truly right person for you.
So, let's look at
how you can use this information
to save a good relationship.
What could be a good relationship
with the right person
and avoid a painful breakup
or a nasty divorce.
Welcome to just the tip.
Okay, so here's how
Dr. John Gottman
figured out whether or not
couples were going to be able
to stay together and be happy
and he's been studying this for decades
and he's got an over 90% accuracy rate
by only observing them for five minutes.
So, what he tells them to do
is to discuss
a point that
they've had conflict or arguments about
that hasn't been resolved.
Now, incidentally
over 65% of all arguments
in intimate relationships
never do get resolved.
Relationships are difficult
they're not for everyone
they're certainly not for the faint of heart.
But be also observed
seven other traits in couples
who end up staying together and being happy.
So first, let's look
at the four horsemen
of the relationship apocalypse
a.k.a path to relationship failure.
One, criticism
of the person
not necessarily their behavior.
Two, defensiveness
never conceding the other person's reality.
Three, stonewalling
also known as passive aggressiveness,
also known as silent punishment.
Four, the worst of all
if it gets to this point
could be one of the main reasons
why your relationship is doomed to fail.
Contempt.
After you've gone through one to three
for a period of time
couples tend to start
feeling contemptuous toward their partner,
which is basically utter disgust and disrespect.
Most of the people he's seen
who get to that point don't recover,
but there's still possibility
if you both
work on the other seven things and you start ASAP.
But if you are doing any of these things
then you need to stop, stop.
They're not serving you or your relationship
and they won't serve you in any of your
future relationships.
And I know it's not easy to remember these things
when you're in the heat of the moment
but you can go back
and make some repairs.
And I did talk about
reacting versus responding in
part one of this video.
So, if you haven't seen that
you might want to go back and have a look at that.
But in the meantime,
what can you do
to mitigate the negative responses
and accentuate the positive responses
so that you can have
a happy long-term successful relationship?
And it's simply to provide
more simple positives than negatives.
And if you're not used to doing that
it's going to feel awkward at first.
But what do we say?
What have I said in other videos?
If you always do what you've always done
you'll always get what you always got.
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
So, if you're not happy
with where you're at right now in your relationship
you might as well
take a chance on changing something
that will have a ripple effect
and get you a different outcome.
Maybe not right away
because sometimes when someone changes in the relationship
the other person's like oh, oh,
who's this new person?
Is this a trick?
So, it's going to take time
don't expect immediate positive results
if it's been
you've been going down the wrong path for a long time
or the relationship has been going down
the wrong path for a long time.
So, I suggest if you are on that wrong path
don't go overboard because your partner's just going to be
suspicious of you doing something wrong.
But do challenge your comfort zone
to save or enhance the relationship.
So, let's talk about the path to success
and the path off of failure.
One, love maps.
So, it's essentially
being interested in your partner's life
and curious about
what their experiences are.
It's knowing what your partner's love language is
and trying to express love to them in their way.
And yes, of course,
they should be doing the same thing for you but
sometimes you got to be the ripple in your own pawn.
You got to start the motion in the ocean
or something like that.
When you sincerely
want to know about how your partner ticks,
twitches, trembles,
and triumphs she knows you care.
So, learn about her favorite things,
her fears, her future dreams,
her stresses, and more importantly
why she feels the way she does about them?
The why is the most important.
Two, fondness and admiration.
Fondness and admiration
come from a place of respect.
Without respect you can't have attraction.
Without respect it's difficult to feel loved.
So, Gottman asks these couples
to recount the story of how they met
and he can determine
with a 94% accuracy
based on that one story alone
based on how they recount the story
if that couple is going to have success.
Are you excited about it? Are you bitter about it?
Cannot you not remember anything.
Do you not really care?
Both people need to feel
nurtured in the relationship
for it to have success.
How to nurture,
plan events together that you're going to go to together.
Try a new hobby together,
express appreciation
in their love language,
compliment sincerely.
Three, turning toward each other.
Okay, so what does this mean?
It means that when we're in a relationship
we tend to want to bid for attention.
So, a bid for attention
might be a subtle hint that there's
a desire for engagement.
So, maybe she comes home
and she wants to talk about her day
that's a bid for attention.
She might say oh, I had such a lousy day.
How you react to that
shows if you are nurturing
or if you don't care.
If you're nurturing you might say
do you want to talk about it
or you want me to make you a cup of tea
or something
that actually shows you care
even if it might not be that big a deal.
It's more of these bids for attention
and how you react
if it's positive
that will make your partner feel
loved and cared for.
Whereas if you say
oh, that guy's a jerk
or uh, I don't want to talk about this right now
or I'm too tired to deal with this.
Well, that's a rejection.
The more you reject your partner's needs for attention
the less loved she's going to feel.
And again vice versa,
this is for both partners.
Turning toward each other
means listening.
Trying to understand
and supporting your partner.
Think of it as
contributing to the love piggy bank
for times you're going to need it later
when things are challenging between you.
Four, let them influence you.
So, the couples that
lasted and were happy
were couples that were best friends
and on the same team.
It wasn't all his way
and she got nothing.
Or the other way around, wasn't all
her way or the highway.
It's making your partner's opinions matter
to feel like they're contributing
especially when you're making big decisions.
Even if you're the alpha
even if you're the lead in the relationship
it doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't
ask for your partner's
thoughts or opinions on the matter.
When you respect her enough
to consider her opinions valuable
then she becomes
your biggest cheerleader.
And of course, you're not going to agree on everything
and you're going to have to move forward
on things without agreeing
but the more you can
give each other nurturing feedback
the more those challenges
are going to be easier to navigate when they show up.
Five, solve the solvable problems.
So, as I mentioned
I can't remember if it was in this video or the other video but
over 65% of disagreements
in intimate relationships never get resolved.
So, don't worry about the ones that keep coming up
over and over and over again
because they're not going to get resolved.
Focus on the ones that can get resolved.
And in fact, accepting
that most of your arguments
or disagreements are not going to get resolved
makes it a little easier to accept
that you're going to have arguments and disagreements
that are never going to get resolved.
And of course, always
approach the problems that can be solved
as a team
with calmness and respect
and lovingness.
I know it's hard sometimes when you're in the moment
but you just got to try.
Set your ego aside set your pride aside
you're not going to cower to your partner.
You're just going to offer the same respect
you would expect and deserve.
Oh, yeah, by the way, what to never say
to an angry woman coming up
because it's just not effective.
Six, overcome gridlock.
Okay, so what do you do about those 65%
of arguments that are never resolved?
Well, the thing you can do
is come to the conversation
with curiosity
about how the other person thinks and feels.
So, it's more about getting to know
what's important to your partner
than to actually solve that issue.
Now sometimes these reoccurring arguments
are more about temperament
than the issue itself.
And if that is the case
then you want to watch my first
video on reasons why
your relationship is doomed to fail,
which focuses on temperament
and I will put a link at the end.
Now, Gottman thinks that
reoccurring conflict
comes from a place of unrealized dreams.
Now, to me that's really complicated
I like to simplify it,
sometimes we just don't know how to manage conflict
other times
you're really not with a compatible person in terms of
values and beliefs and long-term goals.
But regardless, now he's probably right
but I like my simplified version.
Regardless you're still going to handle it the same way.
Start by being calm,
look for the root of the issue,
sometimes it's not about the surface level
issue it's about something else.
She you know flips out because
the garbage is still there.
Meanwhile, it's not really about
the garbage because she's
you know dealing with something else
and maybe she feels like
she's taking on too much in the relationship
and she hasn't had the decency
or courage to ask you to help out in ways.
So, that's a resolvable issue.
You can figure out how to
lessen her burden maybe,
maybe I know this is a real life one actually.
I have a friend who at the end of the month
she has like it's payroll and super stressful
and most of the time
she's working 12 hour days out last week.
So, what would be ideal in her relationship would be
if her partner took over the cooking
for that one week of the month
normally she does the cooking.
So, if he could do that
then she wouldn't be so stressed out,
she'd feel a lot more relaxed
and he would get rewarded in other ways.
Win, win right.
So yes, stay calm,
look for the root of the issue,
focus on where you can be flexible
and again, stay calm.
But still when there's issues that can't be resolved
when you do find you're in gridlock
then it becomes more about
understanding your partner
than resolving the issue.
Seven, create shared meaning.
So, this one can be kind of tricky.
It's easy for couples who want to have children
because family becomes their shared meaning.
But if you don't want kids,
can't have kids, your past kids,
then you need to find a new shared meaning.
And it might be
planning a holiday together for down the road,
having something like that to look forward to.
It could be having
sort of set roles within the partnership
that you both agree on
whether it's spoken or unspoken.
So, it might be that you plan a holiday
but together you decide where you want to go
and she's the actual
person who puts it all together
and your role is
to create a budget for the vacation.
However it is
that's creating meaning together
and sharing physical or emotional intimacy
can also be creating a meaning together
that's the fun part.
Now I know
relationships are a lot of work
they're a lot of work forever after
but you don't go to the gym once
and then you're fit forever after.
That also requires a lot of work.
Lots of things in life
that are worth it
require work.
So, if you're a person who
wants to put in the work
for a successful happy relationship
then you're probably a person who
should be in a relationship.
And if this is like
oh, heck no I don't want to make any effort
then you're probably a person who
shouldn't be in a relationship.
But if you do
have a best friend and teammate
life can be so much more fun
and fulfilling.
Thanks for being here God bless.
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