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.
