The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships

by John Gottman

  Meaning C. Are you ready for the physical challenge you’re about to take?

  Questions Between Spouses

  1. Do you think it’s going to storm?

  Meaning A. You hope it will storm so that the two of you can enjoy watching the lightning together.

  Meaning B. You hope it won’t storm and ruin your plans for tomorrow’s outing.

  Meaning C. You’re asking for information. Did he or she see a weather forecast?

  2. Are you going to work on Thursday night?

  Meaning A. You’re expecting houseguests this weekend, and you would like help getting the house ready. You don’t want your spouse to work that night.

  Meaning B. You’re anxious because you were thinking you could use the evening to work, but somebody’s got to watch the kids.

  Meaning C. You’re reminding your spouse of his or her commitment to get a certain project done by Friday.

  3. Is it cold in here?

  Meaning A. You’re wondering if the room is cold, or if you’ve got the chills from an oncoming virus.

  Meaning B. You want the heat to be turned up, and you want your partner to do it.

  Meaning C. You want to snuggle.

  In this chapter we have examined several different components of emotional communication, including facial expression, movement, gesture, touch, tone of voice, descriptive words, and metaphor. But as you may have noticed while playing the Emotional Communication Game, we rarely use these elements in isolation. Most of the time we use them in combination, and almost unconsciously, to express what’s happening in our hearts. You can improve your skills at sending and receiving emotional messages, however, by becoming more conscious of the way you communicate through sound, movement, and so on. As you do so, you’ll be in a better position to bid for emotional connection and to turn toward other people’s bids.

  * * *

  *Ekman and Friesen did find one exception: The Fore people, a fairly isolated tribe in New Guinea, did not distinguish between fear and surprise.

  When Brian and Ron moved their families onto the same cul-de-sac a few years ago, neither man was looking for a new best friend. And even if they had been, they’d never have chosen each other. Brian is an oil company executive who frequently refers to environmentalists as “tree huggers.” Ron is a lawyer for an environmental group. He calls the oil industry’s environmental policies “despicable.” But, as luck would have it, the men’s young sons have become best buddies. That means Brian and Ron often find themselves sitting shoulder to shoulder at birthday parties, Scout meetings, soccer games, and more.

  Over time, the pair learned they had a few things in common: a passion for spy novels, woodworking, and folk music. But, more important, they discovered they see eye to eye when it comes to raising boys. They agree, for example, that it’s important to take your son to baseball games, to help him learn about computers, and to limit the time he watches TV. Because they agree on what it means to be a good dad, it’s easier for them to tolerate their differences in other areas. Maybe they don’t concur on environmental policy, but together they’re creating the social environment they want for their kids. And this shared meaning gives them the incentive to extend repeated bids for connection to one another. (“Have you read the latest John Le Carré?” “Say, I’ve got an extra ticket for the folk music festival. Do you want to go?” “Come take a look at this cabinet I’m building.” “Hey, how about those Cubs?”)

  This ability to discover shared meaning in our lives is the fifth and final step to building better emotional connections. It leads to greater stability in our relationships with friends, family, and coworkers. It helps people settle conflicts and collectively pursue the goals that really matter to them—goals like raising a healthy child, building a successful business, or helping an elderly relative die peacefully at home. When two people find meaning, they’re willing to support each other’s dreams, even when there’s little to gain personally from doing so. All of this is very good for relationships.

  We see examples everywhere of the way shared meaning bolsters relationships. Think about the politicians who run our government, for example. Their relationships are often some of the most contentious I can think of. And yet they keep coming together year after year to hammer out compromises that ensure the survival of social institutions like schools, courts, roads, the military, and so on. Why do they do it? Cynics might say it’s for personal power or financial gain. But on another level, legislators and council members must agree that their work is meaningful. They share the feeling that debating issues, finding compromises, and making laws makes a positive difference in people’s lives.

  The same thing happens in positive work environments and healthy families. When people agree that their relationships lend meaning to their lives, they keep coming together, turning toward one another, and strengthening those relationships—even in the face of conflict.

  How do we achieve shared meaning in our relationships? One way is to recognize that conflict often stems from people’s idealism. If we can uncover the ideals hidden within another’s position in a conflict, we can often find common meaning. Another way to achieve shared meaning is to talk about our dreams and aspirations, fostering one another’s support for these quests. And, finally, we can achieve shared meaning through the use of ritual—that is, regularly engaging in meaningful activities that draw people together emotionally.

  People in Conflict as Idealists

  In our culture, many people believe that having a conflict with another person indicates there’s something fundamentally wrong with the relationship. Marriage is a good example. A husband and wife who are having irresolvable conflicts show up in a therapist’s office feeling demoralized and saying, “We’re screwed up. We can’t figure out why we keep fighting about such ridiculous stuff.” And the therapist thinks, “They’re right. They’re screwed up.” He’s immature. Or she’s manipulative. He’s power-hungry. She’s mean-spirited. There’s something pathologically wrong with one or both of them, and we have to fix it.

  This approach fails to recognize how common and normal it is to have irresolvable conflicts. Our studies, for example, reveal that a full 69 percent of all marital conflicts never go away. So, if a couple has an ongoing clash over a particular issue—money, housework, and sex are common—they’re likely to have that same conflict forever. If the husband’s spending was a sore spot in a couple’s relationship early on, it may well be an issue twenty years later. If they disagreed often about housework in 1982, they’re likely to be having the same dispute in the year 2022. If one spouse complains that there’s not enough sex and the other disagrees, they may keep disagreeing for many years to come.

  This leads me to believe that most conflicts don’t arise from pathology. I believe they develop because people attach different meaning to the same situations, which gets in the way of their ability to bid and respond to one another’s bids for connection. But if they can keep talking to one another and describing how they find meaning in their positions, they may reach some common ground, a place where meanings merge and compromise is possible.

  Consider these disagreements:

  EMPLOYEE: I can’t work late tonight. My daughter has a recital.

  BOSS: Then maybe you don’t understand what this project means to us.

  MOTHER: I always assumed that you’d marry one of our kind.

  SON: But, Mom, she is one of “our kind.” She’s a member of the human race.

  HUSBAND: How can you expect me to go to your cousin’s wedding? I’ve got tickets to the World Series that day!

  WIFE: That’s easy. Family means more than baseball!

  Such differences may be based on any number of factors—diverse emotional histories, for example, or reliance on dissimilar emotional command systems. But just because they have these differences doesn’t necessarily indicate that one or the other is screwed up. Dissimilarities may simply indicate that they’re trying to live according to what they f
ind meaningful. They’re idealists who choose to take different stands based on different understandings of what things mean. In the above examples, for instance, the wife believes that loyalty to family makes life meaningful, while the husband believes that loyalty to a baseball team gives life meaning. Although these ideas are in conflict, they both can be seen as idealistic.

  Recognizing the idealism in one another’s positions and talking about it can be a tremendously helpful way to build emotional connections. Think of all the relationships that might be forged if people in conflict could say, “I know that we don’t agree on this one issue, but I understand that you’re as committed to your vision as I am to mine. Therefore I respect you.”

  All of this comes from each person sharing the meaning he or she holds within the conflict. Such sharing allows people to recognize the source of their conflicts as idealism—a recognition that leads them to turn toward one another and to connect emotionally.

  Become a Dream Detector

  My research also shows that people form much more positive emotional connections when they encourage one another’s dreams and aspirations. In this way, shared meaning provides the common emotional ground that motivates people to stay in a relationship or a job even when those bonds are wracked with conflict and struggle. People “hang in there,” continually bidding and responding to bids for connection, because the relationship is part of what makes their lives significant.

  Focusing on dreams can also help people find shared meaning within a conflict. The idea is to focus less on the conflict itself and more on the dreams, goals, or wishes that underlie each person’s fixed position within that struggle. Some might call such dreams “hidden agendas.” And indeed, the issues involved are often the most contentious and least discussed. Take the example of the worker who wanted to leave work to go to his daughter’s recital, for instance. The employee may have a hidden agenda, or a hidden dream, of finding a better balance between the demands of work and family. But he doesn’t talk about it for fear that his boss might think he’s lazy and unworthy of a raise. Meanwhile, the boss’s agenda, or dream, might be to increase productivity so that the business will become more successful and benefit everybody. But he doesn’t overtly press this issue with his workers for fear that he’ll lose the workers he values.

  There’s a good reason for people in conflict to try to view one another’s perspectives in a more positive light: Digging into each other’s hidden agendas or hidden dreams offers a tremendous potential for intimacy and emotional connection.

  The trick to uncovering that potential is to stop trying to resolve the conflict. Instead, talk about the meaning your position holds for you.

  The worker, for example, might tell his boss what it means to him to hear his daughter play piano. He might even tell a story or two that supports that meaning. Perhaps the man’s own father was always too busy working to attend his football games when he was kid, and that hurt. So, when the man became a father himself, he vowed that he would always be there for the special events in his child’s life. If he shares this story with his boss, his boss might gain a better understanding of what the recital means to the man.

  Sharing such anecdotes gives people an alternative to simply arguing the pros and cons. So, when you’re faced with a conflict, you might ask yourself, “What are the stories that support my ideas of what this situation means to me? What are all the feelings that I have about this issue? What are my dreams, goals, or wishes related to those feelings?”

  I’ve found that when people in conflict start sharing their answers to such questions, they’re no longer trying to stake out one true position in an argument. Instead, the conversation becomes a revelation of what really matters in their lives. It becomes a bid for connection, an opportunity to turn toward one another with statements like “Now I understand,” or “I can see why you feel that way,” or “If I were in your shoes, I’d feel that way, too.”

  Here’s an example: Nancy and Amanda were administrative assistants who shared a small office in an accounting firm for more than three years. After spending so much time together in such intimate quarters, they got to know each other quite well and became close friends.

  Still, they had an ongoing conflict over one particular issue: clutter. Amanda’s habit of leaving junk mail, office supplies, and soda cans wherever she finished using them drove Nancy crazy. “How long would it take you to walk over to the cabinet and put this stuff back where it belongs?” Nancy often muttered.

  Meanwhile, Nancy’s penchant for constant straightening drove Amanda up a wall. “The minute I put something down, it disappears!” Amanda would gripe. “I feel like I’m working with Felix Unger!”

  Amanda was referring, of course, to the ridiculously fastidious character in Neil Simon’s play The Odd Couple, and the comparison didn’t make Nancy feel good. Indeed, she found it so hurtful that she once retaliated by writing a memo to their boss in which she called Amanda a “slob.” Ouch!

  Such verbal warfare is common when people get entrenched in their positions, when they take a stand and refuse to be influenced by one another. They become increasingly defensive, and their attacks get more pointed, more destructive. In fact, my marriage research shows that when husbands and wives do this, it often leads to divorce. Of course, you can’t divorce your coworkers. And for Nancy and Amanda’s small company, moving them to separate offices was not an option. So the two women just continued complaining and bickering about their differences.

  Then, one autumn, something surprising happened. Just for fun, Nancy took a community-college course on interior design. No, it’s not a form of conflict resolution I normally recommend. But it did create a shift in the women’s relationship that proved helpful. That’s because Nancy started talking to Amanda in new ways about her love for visual order and beauty in her environment. In other words, she started telling Amanda about the dream that existed beneath their argument about the clutter. She loved art. She loved design. And she wanted to see that passion reflected around her. She wanted to create it out of the chaos they called their workspace.

  Fortunately, Amanda understood. The reason Nancy kept insisting on having a neater office was not that she wanted to control Amanda, put her down, or make her work harder. It was that an uncluttered environment would fulfill in her a long and deep-seated need to express herself visually.

  Realizing this didn’t turn Amanda into an instant neatnik. But it did take the sting out of their clutter argument. In the past, when Nancy had complained, Amanda had automatically taken her words as criticism. Indeed, Nancy’s complaints often brought up childhood memories for Amanda of being harshly reprimanded for messiness. “You are so sloppy and so careless,” Amanda’s mother used to say. And, as children often do, Amanda translated her mother’s criticism as, “I am so worthless and so unlovable.” In fact, if you were to ask Amanda about the dream beneath her position in the clutter argument, she might say, “I just want to move about my workspace peacefully. I want to stop feeling like I’m not doing things the right way, that I’m not good enough.”

  Amanda made it a point to share this insight with Nancy. And now, whenever Nancy’s complaints feel hurtful, Amanda asks her friend to soften her tone and to remind her that she’s appreciated—even if she is a bit messy.

  By talking about the dreams behind the argument, Amanda and Nancy have been able to establish common emotional ground around the issue of clutter. Now Amanda can say to Nancy, “I understand what it means to you to have a neat environment, and I’ll try to help.” And now Nancy can say to Amanda, “I understand what it means to you to work with somebody who’s less critical and more reassuring. I’ll do my best to be that way for you.”

  Sometimes Dreams Are Hidden

  It’s easy to see the connection between Nancy’s dream of working in a well-ordered environment and her conflict with Amanda over clutter. Unfortunately, the link between dreams and conflicts is not always this clear. That’s because people often
keep certain dreams and wishes hidden—sometimes even from themselves. Unacknowledged dreams can still influence relationships, however, causing tension, resentment, and irritation.

  If you’re in a relationship where dreams are kept hidden, the two of you may find yourselves having the same arguments over and over, rehashing the same tired issues without ever reaching a satisfying resolution. You may try a broad range of problem-solving techniques, but it always feels as though you’re just spinning your wheels. Or you may negotiate a solution, only to find that you never follow through with the settlement.

  But once you stop trying to solve the problem and start uncovering the dreams hidden within it, progress is possible. Suddenly, you have the opportunity to address feelings woven into the fabric of that dream. These may be emotions that were never revealed before, feelings that are quite precious and deeply held. Two brothers, for example, might discover that their long-term bickering over the family business has less to do with money than with one brother’s dream of finally feeling loved by his father. A woman and her teenaged daughter might learn that their arguments over piano lessons have little to do with the girl’s skills. Instead, the conflict reflects the woman’s own unfulfilled aspirations of becoming an artist.

  As long as dreams stay hidden, people in conflict never get to explore the true meaning of their differences. They may also miss a chance for profound emotional connection.

  How do you sense the presence of such hidden dreams? As we discussed in chapter 6, paying close attention to the metaphors used in conversations can help. What stories and symbols do you and others use when discussing conflict? What unspoken wishes or aspirations lie beneath these elements? What do their messages reveal about people’s self-concepts and their roles in life?