How to save a marriage on the brink of divorce? Do you think I've done that
before? I've got a little bit of experience. Listen in.
Okay, time to get to
work today. What I am going to share with you is not easy. The principles are
simple, simple and easy aren't the same thing.
If you want an easy solution, you're going to have to go find another channel. If
you want one that works, stick around because I'm going to share with you some
things that you can do starting right now today that can save a marriage
that's on the brink of divorce but it's not going to be easy, you need to be
ready to do some hard things so with that little disclaimer, let me review for
you some research that illuminated what direction we need to go. Dr. John Gottman,
one of the nation's leading researchers in marriage and couple relationships
found in a monster study that he pulled off over 20 years ago that roughly
70% of all of the problems in a relationship are unresolvable.
Unresolvable? I share that with some couples and they just throw their hands
in the air, it's like well, what's the use, right? And others are just relieved
because they realize they're not so weird after all. The problems that we
face are because of differences. Differences create conflicts but
differences also give us a purpose for that relationship in the first place.
It's the differences that make us meaningful and relevant and interesting
to each other and even at the level of gender this is true, in a marriage is the
differences that are interesting. So differences are essential to a
relationship but they also create conflict.
Now here's what Gottman found as well, that 70% number is true for miserable
highly conflicted headed for divorce couples. Not too surprising that number is
also true for happy well-adjusted stable satisfied couples, there was no
difference between these two groups in the number of unresolvable problems that
they had or the nature or magnitude of those problems, that's not what
distinguished these two groups, this is huge and it put on a little lightbulb in
my head to realize you know what, it's not about the problems cause back in
shrink school, they taught us bring a couple in, sit them on your couch. Yes, I
have a couch right over there and talk to them for an hour or more about their
problems and people would leave here feeling worse than they did when they
came in or like they're being beat up or there's no hope. Doesn't work. What we
need to do is figure out what's the difference between these miserable
highly conflicted headed for divorced couples and the ones that are stable and
satisfied and just feeling good about their marriage. They've all got problems
so that's not it. Here's the difference.. How did they handle those problems? So
really quickly.. A recap of what Dr. Gottman found on this side, on the
miserable side, he called it the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's a
four-part process that led people to handling their problems in a way that
put them on the miserable side of the board so here's what he identified..
Number one, criticism. Number two, defensiveness. Number three, contempt and
number four, stonewalling which is kind of like turning away from each other
instead of turning toward each other. Without getting into all of the details
about what those four horsemen are all about, notice that you do this in your
relationship. Yeah, and I don't share this with you to alarm you, I just want you to
be aware of what's not working because if we persist in doing what's not
working, what kind of results do you think we're going to get? Yeah, this isn't
rocket science, brain science, psychology, it's a
different field. So basically what we need to do is more of
what works and less of what doesn't. Does that make sense? Yeah, so what works,
that's what we need to get down to. Here's what I want you to try. You know,
what I said that kind of funny because it's not about what I want, it's about
what you're looking for. How do you save a marriage that's on the brink of
divorce, try this, try a 5-day experiment and we're going to call it an
experiment because that's brain friendly, meaning, you're not going to resist it as
much if it's just an experiment, right? You don't have to change the way you're
doing anything, you're just doing an experiment. Do you see how we're going to
kind of go in the back door of your brain there? 5-day experiment, find a
way, write this down, get you a notepad or
something so that you can jot this down we're working today.
Write it down and give it a try. Starting today and then after the 5-day
experiment, you can do a little evaluation and see well is this working
or not working and you'll be able to tell the difference so here's your
5-day experiment. The first task in your 5-day experiment is called 95:5.
This is the hardest thing I'm going to ask you to do, it's a simple principle
but simple and easy aren't the same thing, we already talked about that. Here's what
I mean. 95/5 is a ratio, okay. A lot of people go
into marriage thinking that it's a 50/50 kind of a proposition, right? You do your
half, I'll do my half, everybody's happy, right? No, that never works and think
about it, you're already doing your half, aren't you? Yeah so it's not about a
50/50. Here's what 95:5 is. I want you to assume 95% of the responsibility
for this marriage and you're going to expect about 5% from your spouse,
alright? Now anyone with a pulse can do 5%, what that means is your spouse is
already doing enough. Now your mind is going to resist that idea because you
already know all these things that your spouse could be
doing better and you're right but that's not helpful. See the temptation is to
think you know what, this thing would be so much better if my spouse would just
shape up and you're right, I'm going to give that to you, this would be better if your
spouse would shape up but as soon as we identify what someone else can do, what
does that look like, feel like, sound like to them?
Criticism. Sound familiar from the four horsemen? Yeah, doesn't work, okay. Even if
you're right, it can be right but not useful so we're going to go to
95:5. You assume 95% of the responsibility and you expect
about 5% from your spouse so whatever you're already getting from
them is enough. Now this switches the focus. Instead of what could my spouse be
doing better to hey, you know what, what could I be doing better and I guarantee
you, you're going to find some things to work on.
We've already posted some videos that have specifics around different things
that you could be working on, browse around the channel a little bit and find
some things that speak to you in terms of what you personally could be working
on. This is huge and that's probably enough to save a marriage that's on the
brink of divorce. If you'll practice this 95:5, do a five-day experiment and see
what happens.Okay, two more real quick. Now the second one is 25:5.
This is why I wanted you to write it down because each of these is a little
different. 95:5 is about your focus, 25:5 is a gratitude
exercise. I'm not going to give you all the rationale, I'm just going to give you the
experiment. For five days, that's the five part of 25:5. You make a
written list of twenty five things for which you are sincerely grateful. Now
gratitude has been shown in the research and in our clinical experience to be a
very powerful catalyst for all kinds of positive changes so
just trust me that there's a lot of rationale behind this. You're going to list
25 things for what you're grateful. Now you don't get to repeat anything on
tomorrow's list that was on today's list, whole new list tomorrow. Now here's
where we're going to pat power it up, okay. At least half of your list, that's 13 if
you're doing the math, at least half of your list every day is about your spouse
or your marriage the way it is right now without changing anything so we're not
talking about how it could be or how it might be or what we're going to create it
to be, no, the way it is right now. What are you grateful for? Now if you
feel some resistance that's good because it just shows that you're used to
thinking about this thing in a whole different way, we're flipping a switch in
your brain and in your mind to ask it to find something that you're grateful for
and you'll find it if you'll look. Your brain has the power to find this for you,
that's 25:5. Now the last suggestion that I'm going to give you
for this five-day experiment is a daily triple play where you get to give, send
and serve. Let's talk about all three. Give, what you're going to give in each
of these five days is a social gift to your spouse. There are four of them. I got
these from Dr. Ann Demarais who wrote a book called First Impressions and these are brilliant so here are
the four social gifts. Appreciation, that's just gratitude and you're already doing your
gratitude list so you can just pull something off of there and share it as a
social gift to your spouse. Connection, this is where you come together, things
that you have in common, where you acknowledge and give a social gift of
acknowledging the connection that you have with that person, something in
common. The next one is enlightenment, that's a gift of knowledge,
it usually starts with, hey, did you hear or did you know that
and then you give them some some knowledge, that's a social gift of
enlightenment and then finally is elevation. Elevation is exactly what it
sounds like. An elevator lifts people, right? So you're
going to lift your spouse, you are going to elevate and enhance and edify your
spouse. This can be done through a pleasant face. Smile. Oh my gosh, that
tends to lift people's mood, right? The appropriate use of humor is another way.
Keeping things light or be less uptight about stuff, alright, so you're going to
give one of those for social gifts to your spouse on each of the next five
days starting today, that's part of the experience.
I said give, send and serve so let's go to send next, what are you going to send?
A message. What is the message? It is simply this.. that you value this
relationship and that you are willing to do what is required on your own part to
make this work, okay. You send that message, find a way to send it five times
every day each of the next five days, it's part of the experiment. Send the
message that you value this relationship, it might be a little note, it might be
finding your spouse's favorite candy bar and leaving it on the pillow, whatever it
is, okay. A thoughtful text, a touch sometimes can convey this. So you find a
way to send the message. Number three is to serve. Serve your spouse, find a way to
step up and do something different from what you've been doing normally. I had a
guy in my office he said, well, I go to work and that's for her. No, no, yes, I mean
keep going to work but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about
do something special, do something that's out of your way to
serve your spouse. Give a social gift, send the message that you value this
relationship and serve your spouse, that's the triple
play, five days in your experiment. Hopefully you took notes on all of those
because this is going to be a lot of work but I guarantee you if you'll do these
things, you can and probably will save this marriage. Okay, so this is a work
video today. I gave you a challenge, a five-day challenge. Come back in five
days and share your experience of how that experiment worked for you.