Behaviors that negatively affect marriage

Early on our wedding day, my mother rode with my soon-to-be husband, Trent, and I to a location, 45 minutes away, where we were soon to be married on that beautiful August morning. She commented later that she knew that morning in the car that we would always have a good marriage, because of how we chattered the entire way, like best friends.  I guess this surprised me at the time – isn’t everyone best friends when they are getting married?

Fast forward 28 years, and yes, Trent and I are still best friends.  According to John Gottman of the Gottman Institute, it is probably what has saved our marriage over the years.  After many years of research, observing over 2,000 couples, Dr. Gottman has determined the best indicator of success in marriage isn’t communication, or the ability to resolve differences.  It’s friendship.  However even though my husband and I have always been good friends, our marriage has not been perfect.  We’ve had our share of ups and downs through challenges.  First of all, as we were getting our education and then over the years managing our busy household of six children. There were financial troubles, health issues, and difficulties raising troubled teens.

However, all of those were much more manageable than what I began to see a few years into our marriage when I began to notice some really negative behaviors from my husband - that Trent was distant when I needed him, that he didn’t make our home a priority, that he was withdrawn, and he was ALWAYS on his phone. And especially when there was conflict between us - when we had a really big disagreement - he’d get so upset he'd actually go days without speaking to me.  That was actually the most difficult for me. One evening I said to him, “Sweetheart, you have never hit me, but when you go into your cave (as I called it) and won’t speak to me for what feels like days on end, it hurts me as much inside as if you’d hit me on the outside.”  I know my words shocked him, and after that he was better.  It didn’t happen as often, but it still did bear its ugly head on occasion, which was always difficult to endure.

It’s funny to think that I could be best friends with someone who exhibits these behaviors.  However, Trent has a naturally sunny disposition and tends to be fun-loving and social.  He’s the fun dad, the cool scout master, a favorite parent on our street – always playing night games with the kids.  But over the years there was always a time of disconnect when tensions were high.  When he felt criticized, unappreciated, or overworked and tired.

My husband finally sought counseling and came to understand that he suffers from a detachment disorder.  It is usually caused by traumatic events as a child.  His father and sister both died in a very tragic drowning accident when Trent was only five years old.  His mother went through a marriage, a divorce, and several moves after that time, and Trent wonders if the difficulty of growing up in an ever-changing home environment made it easier, and safer, to disconnect rather than feel difficult emotions and deal with them.

            He is still in a state of discovery, and it is something he is working hard to understand right now and through it all, I believe because we had established a solid friendship early on, we have been able to weather the storms. 

The Gottman Institute, which offers a research-based approach to relationships says they can predict which couples will divorce with over 90 percent accuracy.  Their discovery was simple. The difference between happy and unhappy couples in addition to having a good friendship, is also the balance between positive and negative interactions during conflict. There is a very specific ratio that makes love last.  That “magic ratio” is 5 to 1.  This means that for every one negative interaction between spouses, there must be five positive interactions to counter it.

They then go on to teach that there are certain approaches we can take to keep our marriages positive while working through conflict.  Here are a few from John Gottman's book, The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work.

Show Intentional Appreciation
How you think about your partner influences how you treat them. By focusing on the positives of your marriage, such as the good moments from your past and your partner’s admirable traits, you put positive energy into your relationship.

Empathize and Apologize
Empathy is one of the deepest forms of human connection. When you empathize with your spouse, you show that you understand and feel what your partner is feeling, even if you express empathy nonverbally through a facial expression or a physical gesture.

Accept Your Partner’s Perspective
An approach that drastically improves conflict is understanding that each of your perspectives are valid, even if they are opposed to each other.  The book, Crucial Conversations, states that it’s important to recognize whether in a business setting, or on a personal level, that everyone’s opinion counts.  With shared perspectives, we can many times find better solutions together than what we’d come up with on our own.

Wallace Goddard, a Christian author and PHD cites in his book, Drawing Heaven into your Marriage, “Without [change], we will never be what we should be in marriage. We will drag our sick, troubled, tortured ways into every encounter and every relationship. God invites us to bury the diseased natural man and be born again as new creatures in Christ.”

I believe Christ can do this through his Atonement, which is the suffering he took upon himself for all our sins, our faults and challenges, and the things in life over which we have no control, but which control us. We can overcome these things, when we take them to Christ and ask him how.  He felt all these things for us when he suffered, and because of that, he knows us perfectly and can show us.

 I end with a quote from a very sweet man, a leader of our church who passed from this life several years ago, but who had a very good and kind and loving heart.  “True love lasts forever. It is eternally patient and forgiving. It believes, hopes, and endures all things. That is the love our Heavenly Father bears for us.” (Apostle Joseph B. Wirthlin, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).

References -

Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work.

Goddard, H. W. (2009). Drawing heaven into your marriage: Eternal doctrines that change relationships. Cedar Hills, UT: Joymap Publishing.

Patterson, Kerry. (Eds.) (2012) Crucial conversations: tools for talking when stakes are high. New York : McGraw-Hill.

Wirthlin, Joseph, October 2007 General Conference; The Great Commandment.