George and Joanne Nicholson have been happily married for over thirty years.
Every night before bed, they tell each other how much they love one another.
They embrace, kiss, and go to sleep.
And they’ve done this over 10,000 times… pretty incredible, right?
The big question is… what’s the secret sauce to having a long, lasting marriage like
George and Joanne’s?
Hello again, YouTube!
My name is Brad Browning and I’ve been a marriage coach for the last 10 years and I’ve
helped thousands of ailing couples save their marriages from the brink of divorce.
And in this YouTube video, I’m going to talk about the secret ingredient to a long
lasting and loving marriage.
Every year in the US, around 2.3 million couples get married.
That breaks down to about 6200 marriages every single day.
Unfortunately, however, the vast majority of these unions end prematurely… and the
percentage of marriages that end up in a divorce or separation is steadily increasing.
Not to mention the recent Ashley Madison hack exposed millions of men and women around the
world that were at least interested in having an affair behind their partner’s backs.
This begs the question: Is marriage really this difficult?
How can two people go from wanting to spend the rest of their lives together to calling
it quits in just a few short years?
How do the remaining 40% of marriages, the ones like George and Joanne’s, end up staying
strong and resilient?
Of course, you might guess that the secret to a loving marriage is trust, loyalty, and
shared interests, and you’d be right to a certain extent, but a recent study has shown
that the secret to a lasting and loving marriage comes down to two just two simple traits:
kindness and generosity.
Sounds a little too easy, right?
The Gottman Institute conducted a study involving hundreds of married couples.
With the help of a team of researchers, they hooked up all their subjects to electrodes
and began asking them a series of simple questions in front of their spouses.
For example, questions relating to how they met, what they did that week together, and
what their social lives were like were asked in a calm and controlled manner.
As the subjects answered the questions, the researchers analyzed the subject’s heart
rate, blood flow, and sweat production.
After collecting the data, they sent all the couples home and followed up with them six
years later to see which couples had stayed together and which couples had separated or
divorced.
And the results were pretty clear.
The researchers divided the group into what they called “masters” (that is, the couples
that ended up staying together after 6 years) and “disasters” (or the couples that had
broken up).
The “disasters”, or the couples that broke up after 6 years or less, showed many signs
of physiological arousal during the Q&A session – meaning, when the “disasters” were
asked questions about their marriage, their heart rates increased, they began to sweat
more, and they were sent into “fight or flight” mode.
In short, the “disasters” were fearful of their partners’ reactions to their answers.
Instead of expecting to receive kindness, each of the “disasters” expected their
spouse to attack them or belittle them during the interview process.
The “masters”, on the other hand, showed extremely low levels of physiological arousal
during the interview period.
This calmer energy translated into more affectionate behavior, even during times of argument!
The “masters” were able to create a sense of comfort and ease that resulted in a more
relaxed environment.
Instead of expecting to be attacked during the interview period by their spouses, they
expected kindness and respect.
So how does this information help you?
Will treating your spouse with kindness and respect help you fix your marriage overnight?
It’s possible…but it is unlikely.
A marriage must be built from the ground up.
I mean, think about the house you live in… it doesn’t matter how well-built the kitchen
is -- if the foundation of your house is built on quick sand, your house will collapse.
So how do you rebuild the foundation of your marriage?
That’s a question I don’t have time to answer in this short video… but if you want
to learn more, simply head over to my website, MarriageGuy.com, and watch the free, video
presentation on that website.
In it, I’ll tell you the three things you must do right now if you want to get your
marriage back on track.
Again, the URL to that free presentation is MarriageGuy.com.
And if you have any quick questions you want to ask me about this topic, please don’t
hesitate to ask me in the comments section below.
I do my very best to get back to everyone!
But back to the topic at hand…
there a few small changes in behavior that you can make right now to start improving
your marriage.
For this, let’s shift our focus back to the Gottman Institute study.
After the first test, they decided to run another experiment.
They invited over a hundred married couples to a gorgeous bed and breakfast retreat and
studied their behaviors over the course of a few weeks.
They analyzed, specifically, how each partner reacted to their spouses attempt to “connect”
with them.
For example, say a husband was trying to connect with his wife during a breakfast – he might
say something like, “Aren’t these pancakes bloody fantastic?”
At this point, his wife has one of two choices to make.
She can acknowledge and engage with her husband in a positive manner, or what the study called
“turning towards her spouse”…or she can choose to either ignore or belittle him,
or what the study called “turning away from her spouse.”
For example, to “turn towards her husband”, she could say something like, “Yes, love!
These pancakes are just delicious.”
In contrast, she could also say something like, “Don’t you have anything better
to say?”
or outright ignore her husband to “turn away” from him.
Like the first experiment, the researchers followed up with every couple six years later
to see which couples had stayed together and which couples had separated or divorced.
The findings in this study told a similar story to the first study; the couples that
ended up getting divorced or separated responded negatively to their spouses more than 70%
of the time.
The ones that remained happily married responded positively or “turned towards their spouse”
almost nine times out of ten!
Of course, like I said, changing your behavior overnight will probably not solve all your
marital problems overnight.
Kindness and generosity are some of the most important traits to have in a marriage, and
it’s important to keep that in mind moving forward.
But if you are in a rocky marriage and you’re worried that you and your spouse might be
calling it quits soon, then I highly recommend that you head over to my website, MarriageGuy.com,
and watch the free video presentation there.
Again the URL is MarriageGuy.com.
Alternatively, you can receive personal email coaching from me directly.
For more details on my personal coaching program, just head over to MarriageGuy.com/coaching.
That’s it for this video.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment right below this
video – I always do my best to reach out to every single one of you.
And please remember to like this video if you’ve found it helpful.
Thank you and see you next time!