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S8.E1 - 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work
20 Plays10 days ago
Welcome to Season 8! Garrett : The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman, PhD.
(1:06) - “They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To”
(7:00) - “The One Thing” - Stehlin shares why he recommended the book to read for this season
(9:28) - Chapter 1 Discussion: What myth about having a happy marriage did you believe in the most?
(28:39) - Chapter 2 Discussion: How have you seen Positive Sentiment Override (PSO) and/or Negative Sentiment Override (NSO) impact your marriage? If you've experienced NSO, how did you combat it?
(37:29) - Which of the 4 Horsemen do you struggle with the most in your marriage? If willing to share, which stages have you experienced in your own marriage? With both questions, how did you respond in your relationship, and what was the result?
Next week, we’ll discuss Principle 1: “Enhance Your Love Maps” (pgs. 53-66).
You can buy the book on Amazon by clicking here.
You can also borrow it at your local library. Don’t have a library card, or unsure where your local library is? Search on Google Maps, or find your local library by clicking here.
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Email us at connect@booksbrotherspodcast.com
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Until next week, read, reflect, and connect.
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Transcript
Season Eight Introduction
00:00:21
Speaker
Whether you're a diehard bookworm or just here for the conversation, welcome. I'm Garrett. I'm Thomas. I'm Flezz. And I'm Rob. Guys, here's something crazy. We are season eight.
00:00:40
Speaker
But we're shaking things up a bit. We'll still do our usual recaps and discussions, but this season we're rolling out segments. We'll poke fun at our age.
00:00:54
Speaker
And perhaps best of all, based on the overwhelming feedback we've received, ads are back, baby. I'm pumped to try this new format. So let's jump right in.
Nostalgic Tech Segment: 90s Failures
00:01:05
Speaker
So as millennials, we've officially hit that stage where we get nostalgic about the good old days, the ninety s So we're going to kick it off with a segment this season called They Don't Make Them Like They Used To.
00:01:18
Speaker
Rob, this was your idea for this segment. Why don't you tell us what you think we should all... Talk about. What did it not make it like they used to? be Technological fails.
00:01:33
Speaker
You know, back then they were big back then. They were revolutionary. You remember the time we were all convinced that this was the future of communication? Beepers.
00:01:45
Speaker
Everyone thought being paged with numbers was high tech, but all it meant was that you were dying to get to a pay phone to call someone back. Like, hey, I got a 911, but I'm on a subway.
00:01:56
Speaker
You're going to have to wait for me to find a phone booth to call you back.
Past Technologies and Childhood Memories
00:02:00
Speaker
Dial up internet. The sound of dial up like a haunted house mixed with a spaceship trying to take off. well Well, when did you guys actually get a PC, like a home computer? Like what, what era was it?
00:02:12
Speaker
Because for us, it wasn't until I think 95 or 96. And we, we hit the night, the windows 95 pretty hard right off the bat. i I feel like my dad was always an early adopter. I remember it. I actually have a visual memory of it at our first house.
00:02:28
Speaker
So I would have been younger than five. So yeah, probably around 94. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Dude, i we were later. ah think we were like third, maybe fourth grade. i don't know, which would have put us at like 97, 98.
00:02:40
Speaker
andda But I remember specifically being in daycare and we knew that we were going to be getting internet that night and it was like a big deal. And they loaded up some bowling game that was like... took place in the frozen era and you were like polar bears or something and you were bowling into polar bears. Like, I don't know.
00:03:03
Speaker
You should find these games and play them. I remember Do you remember the windows pinball? That was a great one. There were some good ones for sure. heard that a lot. Honestly, as a kid I never got on the internet because it was so boring because the internet was so slow. i just played PC games that came on CD-ROMs and stuff like that.
00:03:21
Speaker
Remember Age of Empires? Y'all ever play that? Oh, yeah. Learning what the cheat codes were. The Chevy Cobalt. No, no, no. It was not a Chevy Cobalt. Gosh, what was it?
00:03:32
Speaker
The Ford was in Ford versus Ferrari. Anyways, where you just had this car that shot cannonballs. That was my favorite. But
First Internet Memories and Early PC Games
00:03:40
Speaker
yeah, I mean, i I remember you get on the home phone and it would just be busy.
00:03:44
Speaker
So, oh, i I can't make a phone call because got wait for mom or dad to get off the Internet. Pretty wild. You had to make sure no one else was on the phone and holler out, hey, I'm going to get online.
00:03:57
Speaker
announce yourself. My dad was a software engineer, so we had computers early on. But my first memory of the internet is using Napster to download a bunch of legal music. LimeWire. use LimeWire sometimes.
00:04:09
Speaker
Napster was the OG though. Yeah, Napster was probably earlier. i think that was when dial-up was still a thing. Even. It's funny to think about. I really didn't get online that much.
00:04:21
Speaker
Probably until like break um and YouTube started becoming more popular because you guys know I'm all about videos. Oh, yeah. Maybe there's something to that where you slow down the Internet connection.
00:04:35
Speaker
You make it to where only one person can use it at a time. Not spending around spending as much time wasting time on the Internet late at night and doing nefarious. island Yeah. Bring it back.
00:04:47
Speaker
I'm like, they don't make it like they used to. Bring back that. What was your guys' AOL well
Humorous AOL Username Reflections
00:04:55
Speaker
names? Do you remember? Football Freak with two E's. 07-01.
00:05:01
Speaker
Football Freak 07-01. Dang. Mine was Scorer 23. Like you were scoring like art or soccer? Soccer, Scorer, like scoring goal.
00:05:13
Speaker
and I assumed. I didn't actually have one. and was just You didn't have I didn't have any friends for AIM, I guess. Mine was just AdFlyze. But my Hotmail email address was bbplayer100 at hotmail.com. Let's go. oh Dude, let's go.
00:05:30
Speaker
BB Player.
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, it was like, for bad like oh, sorry bb Player has already been a bbe that bbe player one thousand one already you you're after like bbe player twelve seventy four
00:05:51
Speaker
It was was probably like middle school for me. and My mom had opened a savings account, like a savings, yeah, with a bank. I don't know why I'm having trouble talking. And I remember having to call customer service for an issue, resetting my password or something.
00:06:07
Speaker
And that was, I just like, I just went with that username or email and I'll never
Introduction to Gottman's Marriage Principles
00:06:14
Speaker
forget. It was the first sign to me that I needed a more professional sounding account.
00:06:19
Speaker
username because I'm waiting on it. He's like, yeah, let me, let me access your account. There's, there's a little silence. He goes, so what's your favorite football team? And I go, what?
00:06:30
Speaker
but it It just came out of nowhere. where I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, well, your username's football freak. So I thought to myself, yeah, I should, I should probably get a more professional sounding name as I get older.
00:06:45
Speaker
If you're if you're listening, let us know what you think about dial up Internet. If you grew up in that age, if you think we should go back to it or if there's something else that you just really have a lot of nostalgia for because they don't make them like they used to All right. As we transition now into a little bit more of the actual book content.
00:07:06
Speaker
We're going to kick off the book, but this next segment is called The One Thing. So a key takeaway that we should walk away from ah today. But since it's episode one, we're going to hear from Stalen about why he chose this book. he He recommended it to the group. So Stalen, what makes seven principles for making marriage work a must read for the book club this season?
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, so sorry I had to miss out on the call this week, guys. But yeah, I'm really excited to read The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman. Read this book a couple years ago, maybe five, six years ago. And it's been one of the more referenced books that I would say that I have come across and in my personal marriage. It's been one that...
00:07:51
Speaker
I feel like I've talked to individuals in the counseling world. They've recommended this book and a lot of other just friends that have spoken well of of this book about how it's really benefited their marriage, helped them understand themselves better as well as understand their spouse.
00:08:04
Speaker
And so I'm really excited to read it. It's a little bit different than last couple of books that we've done. So, you know, being that, you know, most of us here are married men or trying to become married men, I'm really looking forward to diving into this book and hopefully,
00:08:17
Speaker
becoming better people at being married. All right. Thanks, Daylon. Yeah, I've read this myself and this is the best marriage book I have ever read. So I'm thrilled that we're reading it again. I was telling that before we hopped on the call today.
00:08:33
Speaker
that I'm stoked. to If there's a book to read a second time, it's this one. Yeah, so for future episodes for The One Thing, we'll have one of the guys share how he applied the previous week's discussion to his life and bonus points to whoever is able to get his wife to join and share her perspective as well.
00:08:55
Speaker
It's really, really hard to focus. Yeah.
00:09:02
Speaker
What is going on? How are you moving like that? I just needed to lower my desk.
Mock Ad for ZapTrack
00:09:08
Speaker
so That was incredible. That was incredible.
00:09:13
Speaker
All right. ah Sorry. I was getting uncomfortable standing up. Ergonomics. Now let's actually get into the book itself. We read chapters one through three.
00:09:25
Speaker
But before we get in to this discussion, We need to take a break to hear from a word from today's sponsor, ZapTrack.
00:09:37
Speaker
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00:09:58
Speaker
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00:10:10
Speaker
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00:10:27
Speaker
That's good. I like that one. All right. Now for the main reason we're here, let's talk about the seven principles for making marriage work by John Gottman.
00:10:37
Speaker
We decided to take one episode to go over the kind of, I wouldn't call them introductory chapters, but there's three chapters prior to the actual seven principles. The first principle is in chapter four. So,
00:10:52
Speaker
We read chapters one and two, and we're just going to kind of go through a quick recap of each one and and
Challenging Marriage Myths
00:10:59
Speaker
talk about them. So chapter one, ah Gottman kind of paints the picture for his love lab in Seattle where he's based.
00:11:08
Speaker
And chapter one is just that he talks about what the truth about happy marriages is. He gives an overview. and about his research on marriage and explains how he and his team have studied thousands of couples to identify patterns that predict marital success or failure with remarkable accuracy.
00:11:27
Speaker
Using scientific observation, he found that happy marriages are not built on avoiding conflict, but rather on how couples handle disagreements and maintain positive interactions. The chapter debunks common myths about marriage, such as the idea that compatibility is key,
00:11:44
Speaker
and instead emphasizes the importance of small, everyday moments of connection. Through his research, Gottman discovered that successful couples cultivate a strong foundation of friendship, respect, and emotional intelligence, setting the stage for the seven principles that follow in
Misconceptions of Sacrifice in Marriage
00:12:01
Speaker
the book. And myths were particularly intriguing to me, so I wanted to ask you all, what myth about having a happy marriage did you believe in the most? from the book, they were neurosis or personality problems, ruin marriages.
00:12:19
Speaker
The second one he shared was common interests. Keep you together. Third one is you scratch my back. And the fourth one, avoiding conflict will ruin your marriage. So he said, that's a myth.
00:12:31
Speaker
Another one, affairs are the root cause of divorce. Another one, men are not biologically quote built unquote for marriage. And then the last one,
00:12:41
Speaker
that he shared, there are more he alluded to, but the last one he shared is, Men and women are from different planets. I'm not sure if this falls into the category of any specifically described in the book, but I guess earlier before, maybe before college or during college, before I had really gotten into like a super long-term relationship that I could see kind of marriage in the future, I had imagined that it required a lot more sacrifice that would feel uncomfortable personally.
00:13:14
Speaker
Than it actually did. Because a lot of sacrifice when you're married to somebody and you had enjoy them for the most part, your friends, you're actually kind of happy to do it because you can see the positive outcomes that whatever it is you're sacrificing sort of results in.
00:13:30
Speaker
And typically, you know, if it's positive for the relationship, you kind of get used to that, that small sacrifice and kind of accept it as a necessary thing that makes everything better.
00:13:40
Speaker
So I guess I just assumed that, you know, based on the way people talked about it and popular culture, you know, there would be more negative feelings associated with some of those sacrifices, those small things.
00:13:53
Speaker
think for me, the one that stuck out was common interests. Keep you together, being a meth. Sarah and I have been laughing about that one lately, or did. um The first couple times we went to the gym together, i get in a very different headspace when I'm at the gym. I've become very focused.
00:14:10
Speaker
And like my attention is to what I'm doing there. And so like if it's like an activity where like you're a couple and you're going to do this thing together, for me, that's like one that's hard to separate my like strong, attentive behavior towards lifting weights and like being in a relationship with this person.
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, means I mean, the weights need attention too. Yeah, but I just get in like a different, i get in a different headspace when I'm in the gym. Like it's not the boyfriend headspace. It's the like, I'm here to get a shit done
Marrying Young vs Older: Effects on Development
00:14:44
Speaker
headspace.
00:14:45
Speaker
And it's not really conducive to like, we're enjoying an activity together, if that makes sense. And so, but now like she knows that about me and she knows like how my brain works and we communicate well about that. So like we can go to the gym together and have fun. But I just thought that was an interesting thing. It's like, I think he uses the um example of like two people enjoying kayaking, but they go together and they get in fight.
00:15:09
Speaker
It's like just, you know, if they're fighting while they're both doing something they both enjoy, that takes away the point of the thing that they're interested in And if they can't enjoy the activity together because they're competing against each other, you know, it's like defeats the purpose. So maybe they shouldn't do that activity together.
00:15:27
Speaker
But i thought that one was interesting. I always thought like, oh, the girl I'm with has to go to the gym with me, you know, and it's not necessarily the case. So we both like working out, but I feel like we've moved in and out of seasons where it just doesn't make sense because of either our schedules or our goals.
00:15:45
Speaker
So it's like sometimes working out together has been a joy and sometimes it's like you're trying to force it to work when it just shouldn't work. And then it just frustrates everyone if you try to force it. you know the Rob?
00:15:57
Speaker
Yeah. was one of the one. Rob, do you need the zapper dog?
00:16:05
Speaker
Maybe. Yeah. if If you have conflict, your marriage is in trouble. Obviously, like everybody knows that here it's not going to be sunshine and roses 100% the time.
00:16:18
Speaker
you know For my wife and I, it's like you know I think we walk away always becoming closer whenever we have conflict. And that typically brings us together more than it does separate us apart.
00:16:32
Speaker
Just it recognizes the team component to that, you know, at the end of the day, like we are a team and we want to come together and learn and understand where each other is coming from and You know, there's a continuous improvement component of wanting to love each other better. And how do we show up for each other? And I think it's unreasonable for people to think that if you have a fight here or there, if you have conflict, that that means you're doomed. Right. i mean, that's pretty immature way of thinking on that.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah. But I once, I once, uh, I don't know if this fits in here, but somebody once told me that getting easy, getting married younger, I'm curious what you guys think on
Personal Experiences of Marrying at Different Ages
00:17:13
Speaker
this.
00:17:13
Speaker
Getting married when you're younger kind of helps you both form into like who you are together because, and and like maybe you're, i don't know, there's less friction because when you're younger, you're, you're like lesser of an adult.
00:17:30
Speaker
And so you both are kind of like figuring out who you are as you're like growing in your relationship together where you take like me where I was what, 31 when I got married. So I had a lot of like stuck in my ways and rigidity and there was more like could be more friction and like, no, this is like this is how I've been living for the past decade. Like this is, you know, it's harder for me to unlearn those things at 31 versus if I got had gotten married at 22, you know?
00:17:59
Speaker
you know And so, i mean, I know Garrett and you, you, you got married at a young age and Flez and Thomas as well. I think you guys are probably closer to that than, than me, but I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?
00:18:13
Speaker
I totally changed my worldview between the time I was like 20 and 30 in a lot of ways. So, you know, if you have somebody, i mean, but the thing is if, if you both change in the opposite direction, you're,
00:18:26
Speaker
it could mean the opposite. Right. So like part of me agrees with that. Part of me is like, well, as long as you change together and you both agree yeah on a lot of these things that you're changing on that are good, that that's the right direction instead of the wrong direction, it could definitely be easier because people do tend to get stuck in their ways as they age, I guess.
00:18:45
Speaker
Yeah, this is a, i have seen it from both scenarios, having been married to my high school sweetheart and then divorced and then dating and in a serious relationship at 33.
00:18:59
Speaker
i think for me, it's just different. It's like, ah yeah, we did Like, I didn't know what life was like without that person. So yeah, we molded, we grew our life together from when we were young. But I think that the some of the issues there though are like, you don't really get to know who you are as an individual. And like when you're older, ah feel like you tend to be a little bit wiser and have a better idea of who you are and maybe might have ah make a better decision.
00:19:28
Speaker
But that's not always the case either. It's like, it's not like a blanket statement on what's going to work and what's not going to work. But I know for me personally, i feel like much, a much more, know, I've learned more, I've made more mistakes. I've like learned from all of this stuff and like I'm way more emotionally intelligent than I was.
00:19:45
Speaker
when I was married, like I'm married in my younger twenties, know, like i I, used to stonewall. I'm sure going to talk about that a little bit. Um, but like the things that I struggled with in my marriage or things that i know I struggled with and like, I don't repeat them at all now, but that's because I have the knowledge that I didn't have when I was younger.
00:20:04
Speaker
So it's like, you know, my relationship that I'm in now is just, it looks completely different because of all that knowledge and I
Maintaining Individuality in Marriage
00:20:13
Speaker
don't know. It's a, yeah. Interesting thing to think about. It's a good question, Rob.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I don't know if there's a right answer necessarily, but because to get married when you're super young, like you, you still have a lot of growing up to do and you're going to do that growing up together.
00:20:29
Speaker
ah But does that take away from like your individuality in, in that too? Obviously you're, you're, you know, you're married, you're to become one. Right. So like,
00:20:41
Speaker
But you still have the individuality component as well. Like you're never not going to be just Thomas, Adam, Rob. Like you are still a person too.
00:20:53
Speaker
I bet John Gottman would have a good informed opinion on it. What are your thoughts, Garrett? I know you you were going to share about the myth too. Oh, what what myth? Going back to that.
00:21:05
Speaker
Well, or if you wanted to answer the question. Oh, yeah. I don't know if I have much more to add other than we have some coworkers getting married here and there at my current job. And it is a weird thing for me to think about being in my professional life, my career.
00:21:22
Speaker
fiance being in her professional life and then joining that because you do have years of independence after college where you learn a lot about yourself. You have a job, you know potentially a good one. And to me, i was a year out of college, but I was in the nonprofit world and had fundraised my own salary and I wasn't making a lot.
00:21:43
Speaker
And didn't have a lot. And then when we got married, she had just graduated college. So it really did feel like we became adults together. Yeah. and part of me likes that because we didn't know anything else.
00:21:58
Speaker
just yeah only know adulthood, helping each other out through that. And it does feel weird to think about if I had gotten married at 27 or 28 and had four or five years of independent living, that could have been quite an adjustment, especially because I'm a pretty independent person.
00:22:15
Speaker
Almost maybe it could have been a harder adjustment. I don't know. But. Yeah, i think I think probably so. like and but what What was your myth? The you scratch my back one, i yeah we've we've actually talked a lot about that in counseling. So we've gone to marriage counselors at various times in our 10 and a half years and...
00:22:37
Speaker
We have been seeing one now in Oklahoma City for about a year and a half. We didn't see it. We haven't. We saw her for the first time a couple of weeks ago after like four months off. And she's commented on that a lot where our marriage can sometimes be a courtroom.
00:22:50
Speaker
where we are kind of keeping tally of who did what and providing evidence to back up one's opinion kind of thing. And it's just not, you just can't do that in marriage.
00:23:02
Speaker
There's, there's times when one person's going to pull more weight than the other and vice versa. And there's gotta be grace and understanding and support. So i think, and I, and I've also learned just how I tick too is with Brooke being in, uh,
00:23:19
Speaker
The career she's in, there's just been a lot of times where she's had to fully focus on her work. And I've had to take care of a lot more of things domestically, financially, parentally, that's a word, and the scales are not necessarily balanced equally on a spreadsheet. And I'm actually fine with that.
00:23:40
Speaker
A big key for me is not, hey I've done 20 things. I need you to do 20 things now. Some of it is just genuine appreciation and admiration, just a kind word or something like that.
00:23:51
Speaker
So I've learned that a it's not helpful to have that perspective of the scales need to be balanced because they they they won't always if ever be based on different life scenarios, jobs, you know,
Balanced Reciprocity in Marriage
00:24:05
Speaker
parenting, right? Like one is literally like Brooke is carrying the child growing the child right now.
00:24:11
Speaker
I can't do anything. You know what So that was that was a myth that I had gone into marriage with. Garrett, does that kind of roll into the same behavior? Because I've dealt with this before where it's like, I really like it when people tell me x y or Z. So I'm going to tell my spouse X, y or Z in hopes that she reciprocates that action.
00:24:32
Speaker
I'm not going to tell her that's what I want. I'm just going to do that more often for her. And she should just know that... ah You got to be direct at that point. Well, I know, but... early on, I feel like I was, I feel like we both did that sometimes where it's like, you know, you don't want to bring something up and be too direct because you're scared for some reason.
00:24:54
Speaker
So you just like act in a way that you hope will be reciprocated and then maybe get frustrated if it's not, but I don't know if anybody else it might just be like growing closer to the person that you're with and trying to feel them out. don't know.
00:25:07
Speaker
Oh, totally. I was the mind on that is just what I was saying. The, the words of affirmation or whatever, the words of encouragement, appreciation, whatever. To me, I sometimes view like domestic duties. And when I say that, I mean like there's that word duty again. ah ah I just, I just mean like making a meal for the family or doing the laundry or something. And For me, I view that as more so. It's not like I'm not grateful or don't say thank you.
00:25:38
Speaker
I view that more as, hey, these are like basic functions of maintaining a house. So if I do them, if I do the laundry, I don't necessarily care too much about individual thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks. thanks But Brooke does.
00:25:54
Speaker
So for me, I like there were times when I wouldn't thank her outright or not just say thanks as I walked by. um But I learned I needed to give a genuine Like, hey, i thanks for taking the time to do that.
00:26:10
Speaker
I really appreciate you serving or something like that. Whereas me, I'm not that way. And but in other ways, I do really want words of gratitude and in other situations. So, yeah, it's definitely a matter of learning how the other person ticks.
00:26:25
Speaker
And what's your what's your ace in the whole family dinner you like to make? Ace in the whole? The one that just slaps every time everybody's loving it. What is it? What do you throw? What do you throw down?
00:26:39
Speaker
I don't know if I have a go to, but we it's, this is probably cheating cause I don't have to do anything, but a really healthy meal. that tastes really good, that involves little work to do, you know, with two full-time working parents, is like some seafood, like salmon or something like that, or some shrimp. Oh, you fancy? just like, you get home, you put the shrimp on the stove, you, you know, get the rice ready, get some sort of sauce, put it all together. Kids love shrimp or so like salmon. just put that raw slab down on the platter and stick it in the oven. Let it bake. nice
00:27:14
Speaker
You know what it Very good. What do you think, Flezz? Slap those omega-3 fatty acids. Yeah, what do you think about those omegas, Flezz? Got to get them. a Got to get them.
00:27:27
Speaker
I remember us in college. like We'd be taking whey protein and then we'd make sure we had our fish oils and our flaxseed oils.
00:27:40
Speaker
We did some hyphy mud. You did in college? No, dude. Chia seeds. You remember those? Yeah, chia seeds. we' you know We'd take stock and inventory of just all the healthy things we were doing for ourselves.
00:27:53
Speaker
Look at you. I was still eating unlimited meal plan. I wasn't on your guys' level yet. Well, it's just funny. i'm like i had I had 800 bucks to my name, and it's the fact that I cared about taking fish oil was just it's just kind of funny.
00:28:11
Speaker
Flez and Rob and I used to go to that main grocery store. And we would buy like one of the pallets of eggs sometimes and just like cry over the fact that it was $12 back then or whatever the heck it was. Like it was so expensive.
00:28:27
Speaker
And now eggs are like $12 a piece. They don't make them like they used to. a All right, let's move to chapter two titled What Does Make Marriage Work?
Building a Strong Marriage Foundation
00:28:43
Speaker
So Goblin gives kind of a high overview of what does make marriage work, as the title implies.
00:28:50
Speaker
And he emphasizes that lasting relationships are not built on avoiding conflict, but rather fostering a deep sense of friendship, admiration and emotional connection.
00:29:01
Speaker
So he introduces this thing called PSO, Positive Sentiment Override. And then its counterpart negative sentiment override or NSO where it's like kind of like your easiest way I can describe it as your subconscious, your baseline view of your spouse so that when something happens in this case, probably like something that would could cause conflict or tension.
00:29:28
Speaker
If you have a PSO, you have you know, What Brooke and I would say is you're believing the best about that person. So if someone's overreacting or said something harsh to you, you kind of have your positive sentiment, your natural reflex reaction towards your spouse. You think positively like, OK, let's just be having a bad day.
00:29:47
Speaker
And then on the other end, the NSO is if you kind of don't have that view, then you can really take that and grow in your resentment and bitterness and anger. And so that that was something that really stuck out to me is the PSO, the and NSO, and then building up the sound relation, your sound relationship house.
00:30:07
Speaker
where you know, it's you're you're building a house together. You're sometimes you think of that as like a physical house. But in your marriage, you're building a figurative house laying brick by brick. And the foundation of that is trust and commitment.
00:30:23
Speaker
So without all these seven principles that he's about to lay out, if you don't have trust and commitment, towards one another, it's going to be hard to build that sound relationship house.
00:30:33
Speaker
So going to specifically to positive sentiment override, how have you seen PSO or, or and negative sentiment override and NSO impact your marriage? And if you've experienced and NSO, how did you combat it?
00:30:49
Speaker
I think I'm worse than, than my wife is about just assuming that maybe be there's some bad intentions when there's not like maybe perceiving things sometimes when I feel like having a bit of a pity party kind of I think this is more of a manly response to having you know some sort of resentment about a situation would be kind of the me against the world attitude where anybody who tries to help doesn't understand or just like I have to do it by myself or, you know, I don't know.
00:31:24
Speaker
I guess I've dealt with that. And kind of after the argument or after the kind of emotions go away, realized like I was the one probably driving the NSO more.
00:31:35
Speaker
So than anybody, i would say, it's definitely a thing, though. The PSO, when you guys just both give each other the benefit of the doubt, kind of stops a lot of arguments in its tracks because you don't react to things the way that you would when you're in more of an NSO situation.
00:31:52
Speaker
You know, my relationship right now is still pretty early on. So it's obviously all, not all PSO, but mostly, i mean, there's conflict, which is good because I don't avoid conflict anymore.
00:32:02
Speaker
We just address it. But think one thing that we do well is definitely, or a few things are like showing gratitude, building admiration, and like intentionally responding positively to like bids.
00:32:17
Speaker
for connection. think that's huge. It's just like, you can recognize these bids that your person is trying to give to you to connect. I feel like when and NSO is just like overwhelming, you'll just like, don't even respond to bids.
00:32:32
Speaker
You don't even register. bids Yeah. Yeah. Like ah an attempt to connect. What did you guys first think when you heard the term love lab? The love lab.
00:32:43
Speaker
I was like, Hold up. Wait a minute. What are we talking about here?
00:32:50
Speaker
I mean, it feels like those love is blind or those reality TV shows like this is potentially that, you know, like there's people studying. What was it?
Appreciating Partner's Contributions
00:33:00
Speaker
Married at first sight. of first sight. Oh gosh. That's a great, that's a great, I don't know.
00:33:06
Speaker
they They had all these counselors on there, you know, like studying them and that's kind of the thought I got, but. I don't know. Going back to the PSO thing, it's like I feel for me that it's I don't really know that I get into the negative.
00:33:23
Speaker
ah Negative NSO as much. I just try and, you know, I know my wife is working. tremendously just doing everything that she loves and it's really cool to support her it means that she has crazy hours it means that she's doing shoots photo shoots during the day or a wedding on the weekend but then also performing and then dealing with our old dog and, you know, all these things. So it's just like, I know that she's, you know, any lack of energy she has is because she's just working really, really hard and I respect her and everything that she does for our family. And ah tend to just know that, you know,
00:34:07
Speaker
I give her the benefit of the doubt if she's super tired and maybe doesn't is short tempered with me because she's just tired on sleep. You know, it's just like trying to give her the benefit of the doubt versus like, gosh, you're, you don't have any time for me or you don't blah blah, blah, You're showing up poorly. It's like, that would be disregarding, you know, like her feelings and, and her energy. And I just, I recognize everything that she does like that.
00:34:33
Speaker
think it's easy for both, you know, say both, uh, both parties are feeling stretched thin in one way or another. think it's easy for both parties to get into an NSO situation because they already don't feel like they're either rewarded or recognized for all of the stuff they are doing. I mean,
00:34:54
Speaker
I think there's a lot of couples out there that in this modern world are both basically stretched to the max with the amount of time that they have to accomplish all their tasks, let alone spend time together.
00:35:05
Speaker
That's meaningful. And I think that puts anybody close to being in a negative sentiment override state. So it's kind of hard to stay that way if you're being stretched thin in any capacity.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think. Just NSO is something I struggle with a lot. and's a It's a pretty big deficiency, I would say, because it's and it's amplified in marriage, but I recognize it in a lot of areas of life where I just kind of have a default.
00:35:34
Speaker
like Maybe the easiest way to describe it is like a me against the world mindset, something happens and I immediately go to the I don't know, worst case scenario, maybe not necessarily, but just thinking the worst side, like, oh, she probably wasn't being thoughtful.
00:35:52
Speaker
I was like, no, I was dealing with a screaming child or something like that, you know, whatever the example is. But I will say, too, and again, this is something that we've talked about and it's actually been expressed.
00:36:05
Speaker
But I think there's actually been legitimate hurts where, you know, i mentioned earlier, like being appreciated or feeling valued was not the case. So I think there has been, for lack of better way to say it, legitimate reason to have NSO, if that makes sense, because there actually has been hurt.
00:36:25
Speaker
There actually has been wrongdoing. But the problem is, is that I can struggle with forgiveness, right? grace. You know what i'm saying? So there has been times where yeah, we've like I've, we've shared with each other, or Brooke shared with me like, yeah, I did not care about you.
00:36:45
Speaker
I did not value you. I was just trying to get through school or this residency month or whatever. And I like felt it, but it was it was like a good thing to hear it as much as it like sucked to hear.
00:36:58
Speaker
Because it's like, yeah, those, you know, that there's just, you know marriage is tough and, you know, we're not perfect towards one another. So there were some times where it was like, oh, yeah, I'm believing the worst because sometimes that has been the case.
00:37:12
Speaker
But then recognizing like, oh, when someone says they're sorry or when you apologize, you want to be be believed that you're being genuine and trying to change. And so how have we combated it?
00:37:23
Speaker
How have I combated it? It's been a lot of having conversations, going to counseling. Chapter three, the last chapter before... Getting into the first of the seven principles is how I predict divorce.
Signs Predicting Divorce: Gottman's Insights
00:37:38
Speaker
So how the author predicts divorce through all of his studies and his groundbreaking ability to predict divorce with over 90% accuracy based on his research in the Love Lab.
00:37:50
Speaker
Gottman describes five signs of a marriage heading for divorce. One, a harsh startup. 2. The Four Horsemen, 3. Flooding, 4.
00:38:02
Speaker
Body Language, and 5. Failed Repair Attempts. So the sign 2, the Four Horsemen, are four types of negative interactions. Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
00:38:16
Speaker
So which one of the four horsemen do you struggle with the most in your marriage? And if you're willing to share, which of these five stages have you experienced in your own marriage?
00:38:28
Speaker
And yeah, how'd you respond to the four horsemen to those five stages? you know, what was the result? A few different questions there. Well, I'll say that I get flooded fairly easily.
00:38:41
Speaker
I'll admit that. Like in conflict, I get very overwhelmed pretty easily. like and i am he measured be just Just for context, he measured flooding a lot of times with ah great actual biological measurements, right?
00:38:54
Speaker
So how would you it? Yeah, when you feel flooded, fliz how would you describe that? Well, he talks about how it's more normal for men because like ah it's like a biological thing. like When women are more ah better at calming in themselves because of biology, yeah they want to stay calm.
00:39:13
Speaker
Whereas men are primed to attack. It's not exactly helpful in a situation where you're trying to have a conflict resolution between like a 21st century romantic partnership. You know, it's not helpful for and where blood pressure. when more Yeah, men like evolved to want to punch drywall and throw slippers.
00:39:35
Speaker
and i guess what Well, flooding is physically and psychologically shutting down, right? Flooding is getting
Managing Emotional Flooding in Arguments
00:39:44
Speaker
overwhelmed. So then you shut down yeah it can lean to like it can it can lead to stonewalling so i thought stonewalling could lead to flooding ah stonewalling no itd be both it could be funnying it's really just like an overwhelming sense of emotions you could either shut shut down or you could like tax a bunch of stuff you don't mean i think it can both right stwall i understood stonewalling as like disengaging from the moment
00:40:10
Speaker
but the flooding is like not only have you disengaged but now you're you're you're totally shutting down and i think flooding is more just about emotions and not being able to control yourself i think stonewalling is like actively making the decision to just ignore the situation and not face whatever's that's like you going you won't even acknowledge your spouse essentially is what like stonewalling is actually learned about flooding reading a parenting book believe it or not because
00:40:41
Speaker
i was learning about how to help my kids regulate their emotions and how i learned it from a child parenting standpoint is have different parts of our brain that operate different functions and when the emotions set in so a kid gets upset right and my son gets upset that i won't let him have dessert the emotions side of his brain floods or like takes over the whole brain so the other part of the brain that can make logical decisions
00:41:13
Speaker
is not active and so what that looks like and practicality ah a fiveyearold or a four-year-old is like what happened yesterday hey it's time to go eat or it's time to go get dress for school no i don't want to i want to keep reading it's like sorry it's time to go and just like he's like on the ground crying like hey you know we kind of go through our routine and hey you know we're going to lose privileges if we don't obey and get dressed and like basically he
00:41:44
Speaker
they took a small thing and then it just gets bigger and biggered because he's he's flooded he's not able to stop and so we try to help him stop and regulate there's times also where it's like hey you got to learn to just obey dude and not you're too old ah so on temper tantrums but as adults we do the same thing we may not be rolling around on the floor but we can be upset like i was tonight and like yeah that's not like a logical decision
00:42:15
Speaker
i should just walk away ah yeah so okay's talk about ah big proponent of walking away when upset taking a break taking the timeout i think he's already talked about that in the book literally resetting and calming down letting those emotions deflood if you will ah repair attempt yeah come back to center you know talk about a my ah a christian myth don't let the sun go down on your anger i think that's just misinterpreted sometimes the best thing is to go to bed
00:42:48
Speaker
because you wake up ah your your mind literally like rests and resets and you wake up it's like oh ah thing i was mad about wasn't that big of a deal or if it is and it still needs to be talked about you're actually calmed down and rejuvenated to have that conversation yeah it's funny because i love trying to go to bed to reset myself but it's also a form of stonewalling so that's like kind of unfair and then ah wife will be like we're just not going to talk about this i' like better in the morning we'll just well just
00:43:19
Speaker
wake up and it'll be fine like no like i can't go to bed until we talk about this like that's really unfair like i'm trying to go to sleep and i'm just thinking about this and so like yeah yeah usually have to talk about but yeah i kind of try to make that argument even though it's a form of stonewaing and i i will say the failed repair attempts is one that i feel like i sometimes when people have like want to have the last word they'll pretend at the end of an argument to be like okay all right you were you were right about this stuff like
00:43:51
Speaker
i agree let's just you know you know get over this problem and this argument's over now but you know like i kind of had a point right when i bob up but and then they try to like sort of justify everything all over again where it's like a half-ass repaired attempt i feel like i've done that multiple times and it just turns into like this revolving door of like opening up the argument again so that it can go in another circle and i feel like a lot of couples probably do that i assume yeah yeah i can i can definitely relate to that
00:44:23
Speaker
ah stonewalling and the flooding for sure i think for um'm thinking back to like couple months ago we were drive and somewhere and we were we got into a like ah disagreement or ah fight it had been going on for probably like a half an hour we had like ah three hour drive and i remember i just completely shut down and we probably didn't say anything for fifteen twenty minutes just looking ahead driving and it's like at that point i don't even know what we were fighting about
00:44:56
Speaker
like i'm genuinely like serious but i couldn't like rehash it because i had just completely shut down and i couldn i couldn't pick back up where where we had left off you know and it's gary you know that your body can like get to that point where i mean i pride myself on my memory memory but in some of these fights it's like i couldn't tell you what what we thought about you know like i couldn't explain it to the third party it's awesome but but
00:45:28
Speaker
and that's happening to me she can't she can remember oh yeah all you all can like good tell her you can't tell her so you like need you you need her to tell you like yeah yeah like you read believe if you say it side yeah understand what like where like what do we like what what are we fighting about again like help me understand why am i mad at you it's just it's weird it's weird i think the repair attempts have definitely helped at times i know they talked about it in
00:46:04
Speaker
and chapter two as well about like doing something silly yeah there's a song you know that that ah celebrate me home you know that song sing more of it basically there's a song that i butcher how to like the words to it every time and i sing it really really high and if i sing that song at any point marianne just dies laughing so like that's my my repair attempt i like it when we
00:46:36
Speaker
mock each other in each other's voice but of course our voice that we mock each other with is totally ah like unlike our actual voice and then we make a fun of each other's impression and then it's just funny because like oh is that really how i sound when i think when i think of walling i wonder what you all think about this i think of part of the reason that men might do it more often of stonewall i think he said what eighty five percent of the time it's men
00:47:07
Speaker
i think it's from emotional unintelligence perhaps or we haven't learned how to express and talk about how we're feeling so because we're
Stonewalling and Emotional Intelligence
00:47:21
Speaker
upset or hurt it's like hey i'm just gonna i don't know like and i'm also competitive maybe so maybe this is just me but always want to like win an argument or be the better person i du'nno so if i stonewall
00:47:38
Speaker
if i don't react i like yelling back or saying you know saying something harsh or whatever and just like i'm tough enough i can take this pain you know i can bury it deep down i can like i can outwork you at this argument
00:47:56
Speaker
yeah not i think it's just more of like um because is my but is my cross to bear or something and so i'm just going to remain silent i can tell you exactly for me why i stonewall it's because of impatience like if it takes me ten words to express my feelings about the situation and it takes you to six hundred i'm just so ready for it to be over like i'll just come on like let's just in this now i don't really care how we ended i'm just done
00:48:27
Speaker
and you know after like the fourth time listening to the feelings i'm just like all right i don't want to talk about it anymore doesn't matter to me anymore but that doesn't resolve it because because you're checked out you know it's obvious you don't care at that point not a good not a good strategy but yeah i think for sure men men don't have the capacity to just i think either listen as well and like absorb things as well from an emotional standpoint
00:48:59
Speaker
or the stamina to talk about them ah for you know hours on and i think for me it's physiology for sure because i am very emotionally intelligent but it doesn't matter when you're in that moment and your body's like literally blood pressure's going up like you're just like in shock you can't punch any more holes on the wall because it's just gone but you can't let you can't deadlift seven hundred pounds there it is
00:49:27
Speaker
there it is i was about to say it you took the words right out of my mouth i knew it i knew was a coming man did you guys find it kind of uncomfortable like reading some of these fights yeah it was like some of the words were so harsh i was like dang um but yeah like i mean it almost makes you wonder like if someone were to document the dialogue from one of our fights like would they look this immature like when you read them out and ah literally seem like high school fight
00:49:58
Speaker
you know or things that someone that's been married forty years so well when he was talking about the criticism versus the plane plane some of the criticism was were super harsh i mean like cutting to the core of who somebody was and just like demeaning them in front of their face and it was just yeah but throughtra imagine if we did record some of our fights and then shared it to each other we would be cigarette bears you know yeah like oh man wow i looked like a total du yeah so that that kind of was eyeopening
Impact of Words in Fights
00:50:30
Speaker
of just
00:50:30
Speaker
the weight of your words and just yeah if a neutral audience were to hear them or even if you were to hear them like you're saying record em for yourself to hear would you say those things again they say name callinglling isn't a good strategy but what if you call somebody a silly name in order to diffuse a situation that then is it okay you think you butt sniffer you flowerhead you probably just depends on the persone you honeycriappel o now we're getting into the romantic side of it
00:51:05
Speaker
what's the best bad insult you've heard your kids tell each other they're very obsessed with going to jail if you're bad yeah they're like hey you did that you're going to jail ah like all right that is a wrap on today's gu thank you for joining us this week next week we will read the first principles principle one we're reading the seven principles for making marriage work by john gottman grab yourself a copy read alongside with us
00:51:43
Speaker
if you've enjoyed our discussion please share with a friend or family member who might benefit from it please like and subscribe on apple music spotify and youtube and give us a review that really helps us out and you can follow us also on instagram at bo brothers podcast until next week lead reflect and connect