Week 4: Behaviors that Negatively effect Marriage

This week I read the first two chapters from John M. Gottman’s book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”. The whole key to creating a good foundation for your marriage to be built upon is to have an emotionally intelligent marriage. Meaning they develop an attribute or habit of not allowing the negative thoughts or feelings to overwhelming the positive ones. In unhappy marriages people experience not only emotional stress but also physical stress as well, and adds wear and tear to your body. So the fact that happily married people tend to live longer and healthier lives is true to some extent. There is also evidence that divorce suppresses your immune system making you more susceptible to illness. But divorce and unhappy marriages don’t only affect the couple or parents, but the children as well. In the book it mentioned a test done on children from divorced or stressed homes and they had “chronically elevated levels of stress hormones” when compared to the other children studied. “A peaceful divorce is better than a warlike marriage”. But unfortunately divorces are rarely peaceful.
I loved that Gottman made a point to mention that conflict resolution is not only a solution but a “tonic” that can prevent good marriages from failing. I loved how he mentioned and discussed the myths about how to save a marriage. Especially the one about that just learning how to communicate effectively isn’t going to solve your problems. But also that avoiding conflict will save your marriage, in fact it can actually ruin your marriage. Every couple has different styles of conflict. Happy marriages are based on friendship (“mutual respect for and enjoyment of each others company”). A happy couples secret weapon to preventing arguments from getting out of hand is rediscovering or reinvigorating friendship. Lastly, most arguments are about deeper underlying problems and issues not just the small petty things in our every day life. So look for the deeper meaning. Is there something at your spouses work or a stressful time in life that could be creating the base of the anger or lashing out? Be open minded and stay open minded through any and every argument or discussion. Try following the advice given in this quote from Katherine Miracle.