The Art of Manliness - #550： How to Strengthen Your Marriage Against Divorce

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.360 While the divorce rate has fallen over the last several decades, plenty of couples still

00:00:14.840 don't pass the test of time. Fortunately, the odds as to whether or not you divorce

00:00:18.740 are not a matter of pure chance, but something you can improve with intentionality. My guest

00:00:22.600 has some research back advice on how. His name is Scott Stanley. He's a professor of

00:00:26.140 psychology at the University of Denver and the co-author of the book Fighting for Your

00:00:29.380 Marriage. We last had Scott on the show to talk about the problem with ambiguity in

00:00:33.300 relationships, and that was episode number 349 if you want to check that out. Today, we

00:00:36.760 begin our conversation discussing how marriage issues have changed since he originally published

00:00:40.420 Fighting for Your Marriage in 1994 and the state of American marriage in the 21st century.

00:00:44.840 Scott then shares the biggest issues he sees pop up in marriages over and over again, such

00:00:49.020 as escalating arguments and avoiding conflict. We then discuss communication skills you can

00:00:52.920 use to diffuse these common marital conflicts, including uncovering hidden issues and establishing

00:00:57.040 ground rules for arguments. Scott then makes the case that in addition to mitigating conflict,

00:01:01.080 happy couples need to focus on creating positive encounters with one another, and we end our

00:01:04.620 conversation discussing how to grow in your commitment to your marriage. After the show's

00:01:08.300 over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash fighting for marriage. Scott joins me now via Skype.

00:01:13.860 All right, Scott Stanley, welcome back to the show.

00:01:26.460 Hey, thanks. I'm really glad to be back.

00:01:29.100 So the last time we had you on, we talked a lot about your concept of sliding versus deciding,

00:01:34.620 and we'll talk about that as well today. But I want to go even broader and even more in-depth

00:01:39.120 in some of the research and work you've done with marriage. You have this great book out. It's

00:01:45.820 called Fighting for Your Marriage. Original edition was published in 1994. It's been updated a few

00:01:50.480 times. And this book is based on a marriage prep program called PrEP. So what is PrEP? How to get

00:01:57.480 started and what kind of issues are you trying to address with it? So PrEP is a program that my

00:02:02.980 colleague, Howard Markman, really started, founded around 1980. He and I have been working together

00:02:10.260 since then on improving and refining it. And it started out as a program for couples to use

00:02:17.900 premaritally and for organizations to use with couples. And it's become much more than that. We

00:02:23.180 started focusing just on married couples and any couples actually decades ago. So it's much broader now.

00:02:30.020 PrEP stands for the Prevention and Relationship Education Program. And one of its distinctive

00:02:35.480 features is it's based on over 40 years of research on marriage and relationships about

00:02:40.960 what happens in relationships, how people kind of mess things up, what people can do to

00:02:46.520 give themselves a better chance to really strengthen their relationship and strengthen their marriage.

00:02:52.580 And we've had a really good run at it. So that's a bit about PrEP. And the book is sort of like

00:02:58.360 the heart of the things that we teach in PrEP. One other thing about PrEP, it's a program that a lot

00:03:04.100 of people use in communities in terms of workshops for people to come to, to strengthen their marriages,

00:03:09.700 to strengthen their relationships. So we do a lot of different things, but our real distinction

00:03:14.440 is that it's an evidence-based program to help couples do better in marriage.

00:03:19.540 And so, like I said in the beginning, this was originally published in 1994.

00:03:23.120 Has anything changed with marriage since you published the original edition?

00:03:26.260 Well, you know, it's funny just to think about that question because

00:03:31.680 a gazillion things have changed about marriage. There's the broader sort of context of society and

00:03:38.360 all the kinds of changes. We can come back to that in a minute. But in some ways, one of the biggest

00:03:44.560 changes that's relevant to the book and the kinds of things that we talk about and that makes our work

00:03:50.420 in some ways even more pertinent than it was when we started is marriage now, while it still has a

00:03:58.760 certain definition and people kind of have a sense of what they expect from marriage or what marriage

00:04:04.180 is, you know, there's a clear sense that people believe that they're making a commitment for life and

00:04:09.820 that's what most people want. But other than that, there's many things that have changed about

00:04:14.900 expectations within marriage and beliefs about marriage and beliefs about relationships.

00:04:19.920 And one of the things that that's done is it's moved marriage from something where people just

00:04:24.400 kind of, well, you got married and you had a script and you had a sense, well, this is what we do.

00:04:29.980 This is what everybody does in marriage. To now, there's so many things that are up in the air

00:04:35.300 other than the broad framework of what it means to be committed for the long term,

00:04:40.460 that it's moved to what we think of now as sort of a negotiation-based relationship where if people

00:04:47.800 are smart about it anyway, they have to actually talk through what they're each thinking it means,

00:04:54.100 what they want in their relationship, work through expectations, because you just can't trust anymore

00:04:59.940 that everybody's on exactly the same page. And that puts a lot more pressure on the ability of

00:05:05.440 couples to talk well, talk clearly, talk safely, and talk openly.

00:05:10.340 And I guess the big issue that pops up with all these, this negotiation-based marriage is

00:05:14.740 people have these factors they're negotiating in a marriage, but they are on that old script that,

00:05:20.140 oh, you know, we're in a marriage, we're in it for the commitment in the long haul,

00:05:23.380 but then there's sort of that unspoken friction that pops up.

00:05:27.420 Yeah. And some of the unspoken frictions are about, you know, expectations that people haven't

00:05:32.820 really talked through or haven't really clarified. This happens to a lot of people. You know,

00:05:36.760 you're thinking you're modern, you're thinking you're not going to do things the way your parents

00:05:39.580 did, you're thinking you're like the new generation. And the fact is, it's really easy

00:05:44.620 for us to like settle right into what we grew up with. And that may or may not have been with parents

00:05:50.760 that were happily married or successfully married or that handled things well. And even for those that

00:05:57.360 grew up with parents that were really stable and sort of happy, there's still maybe things about how

00:06:02.240 they did things that isn't what's going to work in your relationship. And that's the default if you

00:06:08.040 don't really talk things through and figure it out. So what's this? What does the research say

00:06:12.020 about the state of marriage in America today? Well, there's a lot of things that have changed.

00:06:16.660 One is the divorce rates actually come down quite a bit. But part of why it's come down is that the

00:06:22.360 marriage rate has come down. And as the marriage rate has come down, part of that is people marrying

00:06:27.220 later and later. And I'll come to that in a minute. But part of what that means, part of

00:06:32.220 what's going on with the marriage rate coming down is that some of the people historically that would

00:06:38.320 have married that maybe were at higher risk are not marrying now. And that's some of why the divorce

00:06:43.960 rate is down. And part of what is a giant change culturally is marriage is increasingly becoming

00:06:51.200 something that mostly is reliably done by college graduates, but is less and less done by working

00:06:58.440 class and way less done by those in poverty. One of the other changes is, of course, cohabitation is

00:07:05.320 very common. And for many, it's become sort of more part of dating. Even for a short while,

00:07:11.720 a few decades ago, it kind of was a prelude to marriage. But for others, it's become a replacement

00:07:17.400 for marriage. So that's a big change. But I think one of the biggest changes of all is that we've moved to

00:07:22.940 a place where people now expect more than ever in a mate. I and my colleagues and others I know have

00:07:31.060 talked for a long time about the idea of people sort of looking for their soulmate and looking for

00:07:35.740 this sort of perfect partner who will perfectly accept and support them. So there's a lot of

00:07:42.300 pressure to that. And the other change that comes right along that is marriage for many has moved from

00:07:49.200 sort of being the cornerstone that you build your life on to kind of like a capstone. You do it after

00:07:54.540 you've like achieved, you've gotten your job going, your education's all set. And these are some pretty

00:08:01.240 giant changes. But I think the biggest one is just expecting so much now that there's pretty much

00:08:07.220 pressure now on a marriage to kind of be perfect or a partner to be sort of perfect.

00:08:13.420 Do sociologists, have they figured out or try to, do they have any ideas of why we put this

00:08:18.200 pressure on marriage? There's a lot of different theories. One person that talks about it a lot

00:08:23.180 in his recent book, I think came out last year, the year before Eli Finkel and the all or nothing

00:08:28.800 marriage talks about this. Andrew Churlin talked a lot about this in terms of this idea of it being

00:08:33.980 sort of a capstone. I think in general, and my favorite idea about what's gone on is that we've moved

00:08:43.160 to a place where the society is, you know, our society is more and more focused on self.

00:08:49.740 It's more and more focused on us being a consumer and sort of finding the perfect good and replacing

00:08:57.880 things routinely if they're not perfect or they haven't stayed up. I just got a new iPhone. You

00:09:04.480 know, lots of people that, you know, we're used to now sort of this replacement cycle and the sense

00:09:09.020 that you should really be able to kind of get everything your way and that you should be sort

00:09:13.920 of completely self-actualized in your marriage so that, you know, it should be possible to find

00:09:20.360 the perfect mate. There's another angle to this that I talk about. A lot of people talk about those

00:09:26.540 themes. I think partly people are looking for the perfect mate or looking for their soulmate,

00:09:31.940 the one that would never reject them and accept them and everything. Partly because the way we went

00:09:38.000 through a divorce revolution through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and then really an increasing number of

00:09:44.840 people just sort of not getting married, people got used to and sort of freaked out by a lot of

00:09:50.020 instability about marriage and about family. And I think that partly led to people marrying later and

00:09:57.280 later as a way of self-insuring, you know, I'm going to get my whole life together as an individual

00:10:02.820 before I would join my life with another. And then the other piece that drops in is I think people

00:10:09.660 kind of had this naive belief that if I can find the perfect partner, the exact perfect person on

00:10:16.340 the planet for me, my marriage is going to work. That's the ultimate insurance is I'm going to find

00:10:23.040 the perfect person and I'm just not going to pull the trigger until I find that perfect person for me.

00:10:27.920 So marriages, marriage rate is down, which has led to a decrease in divorce rate. And that has

00:10:33.680 implications. We've had Brad Wilcox on the podcast discuss some of those bigger issues of, you know,

00:10:39.100 the problems that might come up when you have fewer people getting married. But let's talk about the

00:10:43.640 people who are getting married. What problems do you see the most often with couples who are married?

00:10:50.020 So I think there's two kinds of things that are, there's things that people argue about. So that

00:10:57.940 list is pretty common and it actually shares a lot with the list that people give for reasons for

00:11:03.280 divorce. It's things like, well, for married people, it's, you know, communication, children,

00:11:09.660 hassles about children is, you know, always pretty, but usually pretty high on the list. Expectations,

00:11:15.800 in-laws, you know, those are sort of the money, you know, all these are things that people have

00:11:21.340 commonly argued about over the years. But in terms of how relationships actually come apart,

00:11:27.580 I think there's two dominant things, two things that are intertwined that are part of the story

00:11:33.700 for marriages that are struggling. One is kind of a neglect and a loss of positive connection over

00:11:40.100 time, sort of letting that go, not nurturing it, not protecting it. And the other is not handling

00:11:46.740 issues well, not handling stuff that comes up well, so that there's kind of this chronic

00:11:51.920 undercurrent of conflict and negativity and being on edge that just sort of erodes the sense that I can

00:12:00.540 really be what I want most, which is to be comfortable and relaxed with you and that you can be my best

00:12:07.100 friend in life and I'll be your best friend. So, people are, everybody's struggling with one of

00:12:13.960 those two things and some marriages are really suffering by both of those two, neglecting the 1.00

00:12:19.100 positive time together or just not handling issues well together in a way that erodes the positive

00:12:24.680 connection. So, before we get into the specific tactics that can improve your marriage, let's talk

00:12:29.060 about the overarching principles of prep and you have five of them. What are those? Yeah, there's,

00:12:34.360 there's, we started talking about keys to really making a, keeping a relationship strong maybe

00:12:41.200 about 15 years ago and I love these and I'll just, for the moment, I'm just going to highlight

00:12:45.900 three of these for what we're talking about today because these are the three we focus on most.

00:12:50.540 One is decide, don't slide. Now, the concept of sliding actually comes from a lot of the research that

00:12:57.700 Galena Rhodes and I have done on cohabitation that we've written a lot about. People can find a lot

00:13:02.740 about that on the web where one of the problems that couples get into is they, they slide into

00:13:07.740 that too easily and then they've made it harder to break up. But it's also, it's a, it's a great

00:13:12.900 mnemonic. It's a, it's a great idea. Decide, don't slide for just all kinds of things that affect our

00:13:18.920 relationships. For example, if, if I'm kind of worn out when I get home tonight and my wife is like

00:13:26.560 fried from something that happened today and we're seeing each other later today and something like

00:13:33.760 sets us off, it'd be really easy to like slide into a conflict or slide into like talking about

00:13:41.440 some problem that we have to solve right then when that may not be the good time to do it. That may be

00:13:47.380 like a really bad moment to even try to have that conversation. So, decide versus sliding. Deciding

00:13:54.880 instead of sliding can be like about the everyday minor things about getting drawn into stuff at the

00:14:01.060 wrong time and it can also be about how you make decisions in your relationship and whether you tend

00:14:06.040 to like just sort of slide into something happening versus let's sit down, let's make a good decision

00:14:11.540 about it so we both know what we're doing. So, that's one key. A second one is really to the individual

00:14:18.860 and it's do your part. A lot of times people get upset in their marriage and, and right, rightfully

00:14:25.340 so. I mean, you know, this person's important. The relationship's important. It has a lot of effect

00:14:30.180 on us day to day. Uh, but the first thing that we tend to reach for all of us is we tend to think

00:14:36.860 about what can I do to get my partner to shape up? How can I change my partner's behavior? How can I get

00:14:43.660 her to handle this different, do this different, be different in this way? Whatever it is, we think

00:14:50.140 about them changing more than we think about us changing. And I know it's a cliche, but some

00:14:56.440 cliches are powerful because they're right that the thing we have the most control over changing is

00:15:02.500 ourselves. So, at any given moment, every given day, we want people to be thinking about, well, what's

00:15:08.080 your part? What can you do right now to make the relationship better, to keep it strong, to stay

00:15:14.060 on track, not be so focused on what your partner should be doing differently? Third key, and this is

00:15:22.940 really the, the central aspect of a lot of what we get to saying about communication and how people

00:15:29.900 handle conflict, make it safe to connect. I can't even say enough about that. The, the secret of a

00:15:37.440 really great relationship isn't that your partner's perfect, and it isn't that you're perfect. It's

00:15:43.660 that you're good friends and you have emotional safety. You, you have the ability to talk about

00:15:51.700 anything you need to talk about, to share, and most importantly, to kind of be yourselves, that you

00:15:57.420 don't have to be perfect with each other. You, you can talk about things that you're concerned about

00:16:03.680 or the things you're struggling with, and it's safe to connect around all the good stuff and around

00:16:09.000 some of the stuff that's not so good in life, because the two of you are handling things in

00:16:15.060 such a way that you both know that it's safe to be closer. It's safe to draw closer instead of push

00:16:21.740 each other away. And on any given day, I think we can each be mindful of things we can do as

00:16:28.120 individuals that can make it safer to connect with my partner and make it safer for her to connect

00:16:34.020 with me. Okay. So decide, don't slide, do your part and make it safe, make connection safe.

00:16:40.260 That's right. If people actually write those things down, if they, if they try to be more mindful of

00:16:44.820 those three things, any given day, any given week, any given month, and they act on one of those today

00:16:51.140 or tomorrow, their marriage is going to be stronger. So a lot of prep is dedicated to helping,

00:16:56.440 helping couples handle conflict more effectively, communicate more effectively. But before we talk

00:17:01.640 about what ideal marital communication look like, let's talk about the common destructive

00:17:07.080 communication patterns you see pop up that people slide into, right? So what are the most common ones

00:17:13.420 you see over and over again with couples? Well, the big one, the one that we, we always talk about,

00:17:19.660 there's, there's four we talk a lot about, but the one that I think people most, well, everybody relates

00:17:25.820 to all these actually, but the big one is escalation. And there's a number of ways you

00:17:30.660 can define it. Pretty simply the idea is something little, all of a sudden is led to us having this

00:17:37.820 really negative, nasty, perhaps intense conflict argument discussion that isn't going well,

00:17:46.600 where things are getting heated. So, so escalation would be sort of on the content. You know,

00:17:51.900 we started out talking about this tiny little thing. And one of my, one of my favorite videos

00:17:57.180 that we've had of all time that we show around the danger signs and our workshops and the workshops

00:18:03.560 that people do based on prep, this couple's having this blowout. I mean, just this, this real meltdown. 0.92

00:18:12.540 And we were fortunate to capture on the video that the guy sort of, as this is going on,

00:18:18.580 makes an unbelievable observation. He says, what's going on here? We started out talking about

00:18:24.860 cleaning the house and now we're talking about leaving me leaving. I mean, it had escalated from

00:18:31.020 something about chores, about something about not happening, right about expectations

00:18:36.560 or responsibilities in the house to talking about the whole relationship ending. So sometimes it's the

00:18:43.980 content that has escalated way beyond where it started, even to the point of threatening the

00:18:48.820 relationship, or it's just the emotional intensity has really ramped up because something right now

00:18:55.460 triggered this argument. And why does escalation occur? I mean, so how do you go from talking about

00:19:00.680 chores to, you know, having to define the relationship conversation? Well, I think what happens is

00:19:07.380 one of our favorite models, and I think one of the best things we write about is issues and events

00:19:13.320 model that we talk about. And the idea is that as we move along through life, we move in along on the

00:19:18.740 surface of our relationship, but under the surface for all of us in any of our relationships, any,

00:19:25.200 and especially the most important ones like marriage, there's a set of issues. And my wife and I,

00:19:31.540 we have a set of issues, different couples going to have another set of issues, that there's sort of

00:19:36.140 the chronic things that are the underlying problems that we struggle with that kind of keep coming

00:19:42.760 around in the relationship. And, you know, we could all work more on sort of solving some of those

00:19:48.600 issues, but some of them are just sort of part of the package that, you know, these are the things that

00:19:53.540 we struggle on. And the common things on that level are like money and communication and sex and

00:20:00.400 in-laws and children and chores and, you know, but different ones are more important in different

00:20:06.840 ways for different couples. On the surface of the relationship, though, we're just walking along

00:20:13.020 and there's what we call events. So, events can trigger issues. So, let's say, as is common for many

00:20:20.980 couples, money is something we struggle a lot with. Or let's, the example I gave before, escalation

00:20:26.440 or chores, you know, responsibilities around the house is one of our common issues. Well,

00:20:32.040 before that argument that day for them, something happened around chores. I mean, something came up

00:20:38.640 right then that triggered that issue that's just under the surface and they haven't resolved it,

00:20:45.780 they haven't learned how to talk about it well, and all the fury and all the energy of that issue

00:20:51.580 that's just under the surface comes exploding through that event that's triggered it right now.

00:20:57.740 So, what we're going to try to do as a couple, which is a bad thing, is we're going to talk about

00:21:01.440 it right now. We're not going to talk about it well. It's going to be an argument. It's going to be

00:21:05.020 nasty because the trigger and the issue chose the time. We didn't choose the time. So, here,

00:21:12.460 it's like a minefield. And so, and that's one of the consequences for couples of this having a lot

00:21:17.920 of things that routinely sort of trigger them into escalating conflicts is they feel like they're

00:21:23.580 walking in a minefield and they just can't relax. So, those are the things that trigger escalation.

00:21:31.260 There's little events that happen and we have all these issues that are just waiting to be sort of

00:21:36.960 exploding through the surface of our relationship because they're things that we haven't been able

00:21:41.500 to deal with effectively. And some of those issues that can be triggered by an event can be hidden.

00:21:46.740 The couple doesn't really know what the issue is. I mean, example with the chores, let's say

00:21:51.660 the husband doesn't want to mow the lawn. He wants to outsource that. But the wife, 1.00

00:21:57.580 they get an argument and it's not about outsourcing or paying. It's more like the wife had an expectation,

00:22:03.220 well, my dad mowed the yard. You should mow the yard too because it shows you're a good dad and a

00:22:08.860 good husband. That could be the issue that triggered or that could be the event that triggered that issue.

00:22:13.000 Yeah. And let's just add to that. And one of the things about hidden issues, the way we like to

00:22:18.680 talk about them, they don't even have to be, they could be subconscious. There's probably a lot of

00:22:23.660 times that they are, but more often they're kind of unexamined or they're unconnected. That it's maybe

00:22:30.920 obvious when somebody slows down and starts thinking about, well, where did the fury of that

00:22:35.700 come from? And so this is a great example. I'm glad you came back to it in that way.

00:22:40.480 Suppose, for example, like you said, that he hadn't, maybe that's on his list. That's one of

00:22:46.540 the things he's supposed to do, which is mow the lawn or do something in terms of house cleaning in

00:22:52.960 particular within the house. Maybe the toilets are his responsibility. I don't know, you know,

00:22:57.400 whatever it is. But maybe let's add to that in terms of the hidden issue level, because that's the

00:23:02.340 issue level. That's like the chores. And have we clarified who's doing what? And are we doing our

00:23:08.720 part to be responsible? But now suppose not only did her father maybe used to do those things,

00:23:15.680 but somehow she had encoded that deeply as that's a sign of his commitment to our family, to mom,

00:23:23.500 you know, it really meant a lot. She noticed that she saw it. So now what's adding to this escalation

00:23:30.480 for them might be not just that it's annoying that he didn't do this, or that I thought we

00:23:35.440 agreed on this, and he might think we agreed on that. But now it's got this much bigger thing to

00:23:41.820 it for her about the meaning of it related to the, does that mean he's not so committed?

00:23:48.660 And notice his comment, because what he does, when I say he says, you know, we talked about started

00:23:54.600 about talking about cleaning the house to talking about me leaving. He's actually also noticing their

00:24:00.860 commitment came up in another huge way in terms of a hidden issue in this fight, because now the whole

00:24:07.380 future of the relationship is on the table. And it sounds like maybe if you typed it out, it sounds like

00:24:14.960 we're talking about house cleaning. But you can really tell what the conversation has shifted to

00:24:21.060 is a big, ugly, nasty argument about commitment in our relationship. And that's going to take a lot

00:24:28.600 of effort to wind down now and get control of. And that's like a particularly strong and negative

00:24:34.860 form of escalation when so much is involved with so much meaning.

00:24:39.500 All right. So that's escalation. Another common negative communication pattern you talk about that

00:24:43.940 I thought was interesting was negative interpretation.

00:24:46.700 Yeah, this is actually one of my favorites, if I can have favorites of negative patterns

00:24:52.020 for couples, because it's a little more subtle, it's a little less obvious. And the basic idea is

00:24:57.920 that we all have beliefs that are wrong about our relationship. And we also have beliefs in any

00:25:05.800 given moment that might be wrong, where we've sort of taken a more negative interpretation of our

00:25:12.560 partner's behavior, what they were meaning, why they did what they did, what it's about. And you can see

00:25:18.360 that that's all over the example we just talked about, right? That that could be part of what's going

00:25:22.320 on for that couple. And the fact is that when we react to our partners, especially when there's

00:25:28.220 conflict and things are not going well, we're not just reacting to exactly what they said. And we're

00:25:36.180 certainly not necessarily reacting to what they really meant if everything was calm and said just

00:25:43.300 right. We're reacting to our interpretation of it. Another favorite example of mine is from another

00:25:50.700 couple we have on video, but this couple's having an argument. We didn't film them in the car, but we

00:25:57.320 know how the argument went in the car. So imagine they're driving down the street. He's driving,

00:26:02.860 pretty classic in that, you know, he's the one behind the wheel and he changes lanes in a way that

00:26:08.360 feels abrupt and not safe to her. And so back to the issues and events model, that's an event. So

00:26:15.380 driving, he moves over, maybe he sort of gets into somebody else's lane kind of abruptly.

00:26:21.980 Let's suppose that his driving is kind of a chronic issue for her. So, or for them. And here we go,

00:26:30.980 you know, that's the event. It triggers this. But in the heat of the argument that they're now going

00:26:36.540 to have, because this event has triggered this argument, she says, as they're arguing about it,

00:26:42.460 she says, well, you don't care about our safety. Now, the question is, is that actually likely? Does

00:26:48.980 he actually not care about the safety of her or the safety of their child? It's not really likely. I

00:26:55.200 mean, you can find people in the world and somebody that's listening to this right now

00:26:59.160 is married to somebody who's truly unsafe and doesn't care about their safety. But that's not

00:27:05.820 likely actually a true statement for her to really believe about him. In the heat of the moment, as

00:27:12.740 they're arguing, he says, well, you just want to yell at me. Well, how likely is it that she just

00:27:18.000 thinks, well, it'd be nice if we could just take a drive because I really, I want some time to really

00:27:23.360 yell at him today. I haven't had a good yelling time at him. So, I just, you know, what could I say

00:27:29.100 today that would light him up so I could yell at him? But they're reacting, they're each reacting,

00:27:35.140 and they each say this. They each say that negative belief in the heat of the argument, which shows

00:27:40.220 what the idea is behind the argument for both of them. You don't care about our safety. You just want

00:27:46.580 to yell at me. And both those beliefs are just wrong. Now, partly their struggle at that moment

00:27:52.120 is that they're, you know, they're sideways and they have to, like, calm things down. They have to

00:27:56.720 learn to take a time out, which is something that we teach a lot about. But there's a general principle

00:28:02.820 here that I like people to struggle with, which is this, that when we're really continually frustrated

00:28:09.360 with our partners about something, it might be that their behavior is actually really a legitimate,

00:28:15.020 reasonable problem that we should be able to talk about and express. But it may also be that we have

00:28:22.680 an interpretation of what they're doing that's unfair and not very reasonable. And here's where

00:28:28.600 the challenge comes in. My partner, if I have a negative belief about my wife that's pretty deep

00:28:35.040 or it's one that affects us daily, she can't do a darn thing to change it. She can't do anything to 0.99

00:28:41.440 change it because humans are amazingly good at seeing what they expect to see and disregarding

00:28:48.080 all the evidence of anything else. So, if there's a chronic issue of sort of negative interpretation

00:28:53.860 in our relationship, the only way it can change is I have to be willing as an individual to ask

00:28:59.620 myself, are there some beliefs about my mate that I have that I'm willing to think about? Well,

00:29:05.980 they're not only negative, but they might be unfair. And am I willing to push myself to look

00:29:10.580 for evidence that's contrary to that? That's one of the ways to battle negative interpretations.

00:29:16.580 And it sounds like negative interpretations contributes to escalation, right? So, like,

00:29:21.020 say there's an issue that pops up, like, husband doesn't mow the yard, right? That's an issue.

00:29:26.900 But the wife can have a negative interpretation that's like, well, he just doesn't care about 1.00

00:29:32.020 the family and he's not committed. And that just leads to escalation.

00:29:35.260 He's disrespecting me. He's whatever. Yes, I think negative interpretations are a big part of a lot

00:29:40.420 of escalation. And sometimes escalation doesn't have to have that. It's just purely frustrating and

00:29:45.660 annoying and there's nothing so much behind it. And other times you can slow it down and think about,

00:29:52.760 well, what was I actually reacting to that got us so sideways? And you might find a negative

00:29:58.020 interpretation once you allow yourself to just sit back and think it through.

00:30:02.140 And I imagine one of the hard things about overcoming negative interpretations is that,

00:30:05.780 especially if you've been married for a long time, you think you know your spouse really well.

00:30:10.860 And so, you think you know what they're thinking. Even though, you know, you might've been together

00:30:15.460 20 years, you don't know what they're thinking.

00:30:19.040 Yeah. And I think what's important about that is, yeah,

00:30:21.740 you might've actually had an unfair interpretation of what they tend to think or do about X, Y, or Z

00:30:27.760 this whole time. But you've never examined it. That would be a great place for the do your part

00:30:34.760 kind of thing. You know, think about, well, one of my parts in this relationship is to actually push

00:30:41.940 myself to think about where maybe I'm being unfair and how I view something that I've resented or that

00:30:48.660 I've been concerned about. And maybe my partner doesn't have the motivation that I think.

00:30:54.360 We could talk about that. We could talk about it openly if we can talk safely. That's an important

00:31:00.300 thing for couples to learn how to do. But I can also push myself to really maybe think differently.

00:31:05.540 Maybe I've had this wrong or maybe I've had it right. But part of my negative interpretation is they

00:31:13.700 should be able to easily change it. Might not be that they can easily change that. So now you've

00:31:18.720 got some challenges within yourself about how you want your marriage to go.

00:31:23.960 So a common response or negative response to conflict. And like, as you said, you know,

00:31:28.200 conflict's going to happen in a marriage. It's normal, but the way you respond to it is what

00:31:31.740 is a big deciding factor, whether your marriage is healthy or not. But a negative response is what

00:31:36.820 you call withdrawal and avoidance. What does that look like in a relationship?

00:31:41.280 So this is a dance everybody tends to understand pretty well in their relationship. I'm sure there's

00:31:47.040 some relationships where there's virtually none of this, but it's a minority of relationships.

00:31:52.820 The idea is that in many relationships, when there is an issue, it may not even have escalated,

00:32:00.740 but it's just, you know, somebody's aware there's an issue, there's a problem, there's something to be

00:32:04.840 dealt with or talked about or whatever. Many couples can identify with the idea that one tends

00:32:10.720 to be more the pursuer and the other tends to be the withdrawer. Now we can say classically,

00:32:18.420 it does, you know, if you had to bet without knowing anything about a couple where there's a,

00:32:25.320 you know, husband and wife, who tends to withdraw more? Yeah, you're gonna win more often if you bet

00:32:32.100 that he's the one that pulls away. But it's not so simple in that regard, because there's some

00:32:38.200 really good research done by Andy Christensen and colleagues at UCLA, where they showed that who

00:32:44.280 tends to withdraw isn't, it's somewhat, it's related to some gender typical sort of dances that

00:32:51.180 couples do in terms of men pulling away and women, you know, we need to talk, you know, we need to talk,

00:32:55.920 come and talk to me about this, or pursuing them, you know, around the house to talk.

00:32:59.980 But what they found out is partly who pursues is related to who wants some resolution on something.

00:33:07.580 So it may be, it may be that women are more comfortable talking or feel more responsible

00:33:12.220 on average to like bring things up. But it may also be that women on average want more change 0.99

00:33:17.660 in relationships. That's not exactly a shocking thought for most people that are married. But the

00:33:24.240 one thing to keep in mind there is, it doesn't matter so much, whether it's the male or the female

00:33:30.200 who tends to withdraw, there's a lot of men that tend to be the pursuer with the female being the

00:33:35.380 withdrawer, maybe even about one third of the time, it tends to go more that way. But the thing we like

00:33:41.520 to highlight about that is, it almost doesn't matter so much who tends to be the pursuer and who tends

00:33:48.520 to be the withdrawer. The important thing is to get out of that dynamic, because it's, it's one of

00:33:54.220 the, well, it's why we call it a communication danger sign. It's one of the hallmarks of a

00:33:58.940 relationship that's not going to do well in life. And it also has negative interpretations that are

00:34:06.180 partly at the heart of it. Because when a couple gets really strongly into this dance, where one's

00:34:11.980 really pushing and the other's really pulling away, it's very easy for the pursuer to think that

00:34:18.040 the withdrawer doesn't care about the relationship. And it's very easy for the withdrawer to think that

00:34:24.320 the pursuer just wants to stir conflict up or control them or whatever. And the much better

00:34:30.680 interpretations there, here's just a couple examples. We think a lot of withdrawers, some of them,

00:34:36.120 yeah, they're just less committed, and they're just putting their partner off, and they're not going

00:34:41.140 to deal with stuff. That happens. We think much more often, if you've got a partner that withdraws

00:34:46.200 from you and doesn't want to talk with you, it might be because they associate talking with fighting,

00:34:51.300 and that they know that when we start talking about that, or talk about any one of these things,

00:34:57.120 it doesn't go so well, and we end up having a big, nasty conflict. And what they may be trying to

00:35:02.800 avoid is not you, but fighting with you. And that's not a bad thing. It's just, you have to learn to do

00:35:08.680 something different. And same with the other side. The withdrawer could really think more generously

00:35:14.620 about the pursuer that, well, it's not a bad thing to want to deal with stuff and try to deal with

00:35:19.500 stuff right now instead of waiting for an event to trigger it. So, partly it's a battle of changing

00:35:26.080 how we think about it. And then the real battle then as a couple is learning to talk more safely

00:35:32.040 and openly at times when you really need to. And let's talk about what couples can do

00:35:38.600 to be able to have this safe communication. So, you don't have these negative communication

00:35:43.580 patterns of escalation, pursuing withdrawal. And you talk about in the book that one thing a couple

00:35:49.440 can do, they can go a long way to help having productive communication about their marital conflicts 0.99

00:35:54.960 is to establish some ground rules. And that can be different for every couple, but what are some

00:35:59.500 ones that you found useful with your work in prep? So, let's talk about three ground rules that I

00:36:06.320 think are really important for couples to think about in the relationship. One's a little more

00:36:11.320 technical, but I'll give people the idea and we can tell them where they can see a video if they want.

00:36:17.720 But the first one, and I think the fundamental one, you can see how important it is from everything

00:36:22.140 we've been talking about, is agree to take a time out when things are escalating, when things are not

00:36:27.940 going well. Now, time out is one of the simplest things that we have taught forever in our materials.

00:36:35.400 And I like to say to couples, you know what? We mean simple conceptually. We don't mean that simple

00:36:40.240 always means really easy to do. Because the whole idea of a time out is it's something you have to do

00:36:47.180 together when things are escalating, when nothing good is going to come from what's happening right

00:36:53.120 now. You have to have a way to put the brakes on it because you're not going to convert it usually to

00:36:58.780 a great discussion right then. Sometimes that happens, but a lot of times you'd just be better

00:37:03.540 to have an agreed upon way to put the brakes on. And I like to tell couples, look, think about this.

00:37:09.060 This is not a time out where like you say to your three-year-old, you need to take a time out.

00:37:14.480 There's the corner, you know, get to it. Think about a sports team. When they take a time out,

00:37:21.400 they're not putting each other in time out. They're taking a time out as a team to get their

00:37:26.060 game together. They're, you know, if you think about the NBA, you know, here's a game and the

00:37:31.700 other team is just like running up the score on you. It's time to take a time out and get your act

00:37:36.800 together as a team and figure out what you're going to do to stop what's going on right now that you've

00:37:41.580 lost control of. That's the best way. The key to this are a couple of things that two people can

00:37:47.100 talk about and negotiate. Agree upon the signal, which could be verbal, could be the words time out,

00:37:53.380 could be the, you know, the hand signal for time out, could be any other word they want to use,

00:37:58.960 but they both have to agree. When one of us says that, it doesn't mean the other's blowing me off or

00:38:04.820 that it's withdrawal. It means that's the signal that we agreed to chill, to stop, to put the

00:38:11.440 brakes on, to each do the best we can at that moment to do our part, to rein that in. And then

00:38:18.780 the other thing is to agree that after we've calmed down, maybe in a day or so, they can work

00:38:24.500 this out. They can decide to, you know, come back together in a couple hours or the next evening,

00:38:30.200 or, you know, they can make that a key part of the decision, that you'll come back and talk about

00:38:35.640 what needs to be talked about from what happened. If something does need to be talked about,

00:38:39.800 they'll come back and talk about it later when they can talk better and things have calmed down.

00:38:46.020 Another ground rule that we recommend, and this gets to a whole communication technique that we

00:38:50.980 recommend for people, and I'll just describe it really briefly, is to use a more, to use what we

00:38:58.840 call the speaker-listener technique. We teach a particularly structured way to communicate better,

00:39:04.940 and it's not the way people will communicate most of the time. It's a way to try to communicate

00:39:09.720 better when you either know it's a really important conversation or you know we need to kind of chill

00:39:17.320 and bring more structure to it right now. And what we encourage people to do when they're using the

00:39:23.000 speaker-listener technique is to actually sit down, pick an object that they both agree is what they're

00:39:29.740 going to call the floor. It could be a pen, could be a piece of paper, could be our book, could be

00:39:34.380 whatever they want it to be. But basically, the idea is that you're going to have a conversation

00:39:39.360 where you make it really clear at any given moment who's the speaker and who's the listener.

00:39:45.100 The floor can go back and forth. In fact, it should go back and forth a lot. But let's say I start with

00:39:50.100 the floor. I've got that object. I'm going to say a bit, not a ton. I'm not going to give a,

00:39:56.400 you know, like a whole speech. I'm going to say a bit and stop. And what the listener is going to do

00:40:01.180 is just tell me what they heard me say. You know, just feed it back. Okay, so you're really frustrated

00:40:06.180 about blah, blah, blah. And then I'll say a little bit more. I'm still holding the floor through all

00:40:10.740 of this because the floor says, you know, who's the speaker? Who's the listener? And then she paraphrases

00:40:16.560 some more. Maybe I say a little bit more. She paraphrases. And I'm going to pass the floor. It's her turn.

00:40:21.620 Now she's going to say something. I'm going to tell her what I hear her saying. I'm going to be

00:40:25.220 listening carefully. I'm going to try to tell her what I hear her saying. I'm paying attention.

00:40:30.540 My message is off the table now because she's got the floor. What the floor is doing is it's sort of

00:40:35.980 like telling both of us whose radio station our couple radio is tuned to right now. So right now

00:40:42.700 she's got it. And that floor can go back and forth lots of times in a good conversation. And people will

00:40:49.500 say, well, that's so artificial. Yeah, it is. It actually is pretty, it gets way less artificial

00:40:55.040 if people practice it. But I like to say back to people, well, tell me what you naturally do.

00:41:00.140 You don't like artificial? Okay, great. Tell me what you naturally do. And what a lot of people

00:41:04.100 naturally do sounds a whole lot like the danger signs. So this is, it's a structured way to bring

00:41:10.100 a little bit of order to a conversation when you really need to do a good job and make it safe

00:41:15.500 to connect. People can find out more about that. We have a video on YouTube about the speaker

00:41:21.300 listener technique if they just look for the prep channel and look for that. We have a nice 17-minute

00:41:27.240 video there that does a great job of teaching that. One more ground rule I want to highlight,

00:41:34.480 Brett, because it really gets to the positive side. And I, in some ways, I think this could be

00:41:40.960 one of the most powerful things that we say to people because it's simple and basic.

00:41:45.880 Make the time for the positive things like fun, friendship, sensual connection, whatever kinds

00:41:51.580 of other ways we connect. Make the time and protect those times from issues and conflict.

00:41:57.700 So people are often not making the time anymore. And then when they finally do have time, like

00:42:02.960 they're going out or they're just taking a walk or they're kind of in relaxed mode together.

00:42:07.620 So they let things come up. They let things come up during that time that starts to trigger the

00:42:13.200 tough stuff. And away they go. And they've trashed that sense of peace and safety and time just to be

00:42:20.140 connected.

00:42:21.780 So these are great. And it seems like the first two, our first ground rules you establish,

00:42:26.140 are geared towards preventing or reducing those negative encounters with a couple. And that last one

00:42:32.980 is there to, or I mean, also that last one's there is also to prevent, it's sort of, you're playing

00:42:37.660 defense a bit.

00:42:39.180 Yes.

00:42:39.680 Yeah.

00:42:40.440 It's offense and defense.

00:42:41.920 Exactly right. That last one, it's bringing in one and two, because it's like, if you're getting

00:42:46.780 good at one and two, you're going to be good at three. You're going to have a better chance.

00:42:51.240 You think about this, a couple's going to, by the way, it doesn't have to be going out on a date.

00:42:56.600 That's just like an easy example. I think a lot of people have just really great time,

00:43:00.600 like walking around the block or, you know, or doing something together on a project,

00:43:05.680 whatever it is, it's the time where they feel most safe together and relaxed and as friends.

00:43:11.240 But then one thinks, oh, you know, right. We're going to have to deal with that visa bill.

00:43:18.360 Like time out right there. Like just get that back out of that time. You put that in a different

00:43:25.660 time where you're controlling things. You're deciding this is a good time to deal with things.

00:43:30.600 And have times in your relationship where all that kind of stuff's just off limits and you can

00:43:35.860 relax. Yeah. Don't kill the mood. Yes. So this goes to this idea of research from John Gottman

00:43:41.420 about this sort of ratio for a healthy relationship, this idea of five to one. So that, you know, that

00:43:47.540 for every one negative interaction you have with your partner, you have to have five positive

00:43:53.540 feelings, sort of keep that balance. And this is like rough. I mean, it's sort of, you know,

00:43:56.880 it's not exact. Exactly right. But this goes to this point, if you just spending your time on

00:44:01.180 trying to reduce or eliminate those, those negative encounters with your spouse can go a long way to

00:44:07.520 improving the quality of your relationship because that one single encounter can just,

00:44:11.520 you can do a lot of damage. So exactly right. You know, and if we're routinely having those sort

00:44:16.320 of negatives and, you know, a lot of the negatives are like, just they're like little hits. And I don't

00:44:21.040 even mean, you know, violence. I mean, they're a little like, ouch, you know, you just said that,

00:44:26.740 or you knew that would dig, or I think you knew that that would dig. Those little things that the

00:44:32.840 negative stuff, you know, whether it's five to one or 20 to one or whatever, the idea is we are so

00:44:40.880 reactive to the negative. It's so salient for us. And it really puts us in a hole. And you can think

00:44:47.360 about it as like deposits and the negatives. If you're writing checks all the time that you can't

00:44:53.400 cover, your relationship's going to suffer. And the importance of just having that regular

00:44:58.560 making deposits, putting it in the bank for our relationship by having that downtime, that fun time

00:45:05.020 is so crucial. I talked earlier about a minefield and it's a great metaphor for what's gone so wrong

00:45:13.800 for a lot of people in their marriage. Because instead of feeling like I can be more relaxed and

00:45:19.140 let down with you than anybody on the planet, if I have to keep my guard up because we have all these

00:45:26.300 negatives we're not managing, you're the last person I can relax with that way. If that's your marriage 1.00

00:45:32.540 right now, boy, you got to turn that around. You got to reverse that positive and that negative in a big

00:45:38.340 way. So let's talk about playing offense a bit more. And one way you talk about that couples can

00:45:44.300 increase those amount of, the amount of positive interactions they have is becoming your, the

00:45:49.500 friend of your spouse again. Yeah. What is, what is that? What is, what is a spousal friendship look

00:45:54.100 like? You know, I, I, it can probably look like a lot of different ways. I, uh, I think part of why

00:46:01.520 it's so important is it's the number, I think it is the number one thing that people really do

00:46:07.720 reasonably expect to have in their marriage. Uh, and you know, yeah, it may be, there may be some

00:46:15.260 gender things where, you know, a lot of, it's going to be true that more women than men have, 1.00

00:46:21.600 you know, some other female really best friends and stuff. And the male might have sort of a more

00:46:26.220 limited network on average where she is really kind of his best friend, but that's neither here

00:46:32.280 nor there. People really want like, you are my best friend in this regard in life. We're doing life

00:46:38.100 together as friends. And if you think about what friends do, it's pretty different. I mean,

00:46:45.200 I have a guy friend that we have lunch every, about every month. I mean, it's just a, it's a great

00:46:52.620 long-term friendship where, and that's what we like to do. You know, it's, we're not going out

00:46:57.120 hunting or whatever stuff we get done. We get, we get, we have lunch together and we'll, we have a

00:47:02.960 reliable routine. We will talk about tech, politics, and then maybe some other personal stuff, what's

00:47:09.280 going on in our lives. But it always, we always go through tech and politics and then that's sort of

00:47:14.000 the nature of our friendship. Uh, my wife and I have a different friendship, different things,

00:47:18.740 but think about back to my friend for a second. We do this about every month. How long would we stay

00:47:27.800 friends if the next time we sat down together, one of us said, you know, I want to talk about

00:47:33.300 something you said last time, you know, you said blah, blah, blah. And I didn't like the way you said

00:47:37.280 that, or I didn't like it that you were five minutes, you know, whatever you can sort of imagine

00:47:41.140 something that's sort of grinchy, something that's sort of more conflicted, something that sort of sounds a

00:47:47.420 little bit more like what marriage can be like for a lot of people. Well, now it's like, this isn't,

00:47:53.380 this isn't what I'm looking for in a friend. This isn't what I was looking for. And with your spouse,

00:47:59.580 yeah, you got to deal with that stuff. You got to have it. But what you really want in a friend

00:48:04.200 is to be relaxed, to be able to talk about whatever, to be able to be yourself, say things,

00:48:11.020 and to talk about the kinds of things that friends talk about, which are things that you're interested in,

00:48:16.420 things that are fun, things that you're curious about. That's the stuff friends talk about,

00:48:22.880 not about all the stuff that's conflicts of life.

00:48:27.440 And I imagine a lot of couples, they know what that is, because they probably,

00:48:30.340 when they first started their relationship, it was a friendship. That's when you're dating,

00:48:35.160 you're on the phone talking about life goals, politics, books you've read. But then, yeah,

00:48:41.580 that life stuff, you know, you get married, you have kids, there's bills,

00:48:44.000 that can start crowding it out and you forget how to be friends.

00:48:47.420 And that's where both the making the time part and the protecting the time from issues and conflict

00:48:52.600 becomes so important. Because everything else does conspire to crowd this out. Your kid really does

00:48:59.080 need stuff tonight and needs stuff tomorrow morning. And your work is demanding and you have to get in

00:49:05.860 there and you have to do stuff or you might not have a job. And there's probably more pressure of

00:49:10.600 that sort. Maybe, I don't know if there's more pressure like that than ever, but there's a lot

00:49:15.340 of pressure in a lot of ways. So life does get crowded and we really don't have the time like

00:49:21.780 we used to have, which makes it all the more important to make some pockets of time that work

00:49:28.080 for the two of you that are reasonable in the amount of time you have. One of the things that my

00:49:33.140 wife and I do pretty often that is like really good friend time is we take like a half hour walk

00:49:40.260 and we'll talk about stuff, whatever. It can be all kinds of things we'll talk about, but that tends

00:49:46.700 to be, it's a very relaxed time. We'd never have a conflict or a fight or an issue coming up during

00:49:54.060 that time. I think we just sort of both know this is the time for that and we make it happen often

00:50:00.560 enough. We could make it happen more often by the way, but, but that's like, that's the quintessential

00:50:06.120 essence of the friend time is having that sort of time where you're connected and you're not

00:50:11.920 working on anything and you're not working on each other. And to have that friend time, you have to

00:50:16.220 going back to that overarching principle, you have to decide not slide. Cause like the easy thing is

00:50:20.720 you said, talking about you get home from work, wife's home, you've been with the kids or she's been

00:50:24.260 at work. The sliding thing would be just like, well, we're just going to like watch Netflix and that's it.

00:50:29.900 But you have to, you have to purposely decide, no, we're going to set aside this day, this time,

00:50:33.460 it can be 30 minutes, an hour. We're going to do this thing.

00:50:36.760 Yeah. It's, and that it's perfect. I'm glad you put that in there because you have to actually make

00:50:42.840 that decision where you both understand we're trying to do this. We've decided, we've elevated

00:50:50.440 it to something. We're not just going to let slide anymore. And does that guarantee perfection in

00:50:56.320 your marriage? No. Does that guarantee that it happens? No, but it sure ups the odds because

00:51:01.360 you've looked each other in the eye and said, let's try to make this happen.

00:51:05.820 All right. So we've talked about avoiding conflicts or mitigating them. We've talked

00:51:09.440 about increasing those positive interactions. Another aspect of this prep program is growing

00:51:15.760 commitment in your marriage. What does that look like? And what do you mean by that?

00:51:20.160 So, and you know this from our earlier show, one of the things that I've done a lot of research

00:51:24.140 on and thought a lot about over the years is how commitment works in relationships.

00:51:28.620 And you can break it down into two broad categories. There's kind of the things,

00:51:33.520 what I call constraint commitment. They're the things that sort of keep us together,

00:51:37.860 whether or not we want to be together. And that's not a bad kind of commitment, by the way,

00:51:44.020 but it's more the static side of commitment. It kind of just is. You have a life together and you

00:51:49.440 build up constraints and that's normal. And it's actually fairly healthy in some ways,

00:51:53.920 as long as your relationship's healthy. But the other side of commitment is the dynamic side.

00:51:58.820 It's the side where we can make decisions and we can decide and do things differently. And there's a

00:52:04.100 couple of things that I like to focus on related to it. It's what I call dedication. And it's the

00:52:08.740 part of commitment where it's what you can choose. It's, I want to, I'm going to act on this. I'm going to

00:52:16.600 make this a priority. And here's two specific things that people can do to really grow their

00:52:22.740 dedication, maintain their dedication, keep it going, whatever the right way to describe it is

00:52:29.160 for the person that's listening right now. One is, is to protect the priority of the relationship,

00:52:35.640 to make it a priority. We just, we just talked about all kinds of examples about that, making the

00:52:40.880 time. And the thing I want to layer into that, the secret to that for many of us, if you're,

00:52:48.020 if you identify with being a busy person with a lot of things you have to do in life and a lot of

00:52:53.520 requests on your time, you're going to find that the secret to making your relationship a priority

00:52:59.260 is not only making the time for your relationship, but it's getting good at saying no to stuff that's

00:53:05.740 lower on the list. A lot of us have trouble with, we say yes to too many things. And the secret to

00:53:14.780 maintaining priority in our relationship is actually saying no and saying no to the things that are

00:53:20.680 lower on the list. I, the best expression of this ever came from my second son. Before he turned six

00:53:29.140 of our two sons, he's the one that came from the factory sort of more than the other tuned,

00:53:34.440 let's just say less toward compliance and more toward the word no. So, you know, you'd ask him

00:53:41.080 to do something, say no. Hey, would you go clean up your room? No. You know, and sometimes the no

00:53:46.300 was nonverbal. Sometimes the no was very verbal. But one day before he was six, I said, why? And I

00:53:52.680 didn't, this is not a good psychologist question, but I was just sort of having some fun with him. I was

00:53:57.400 like, hey, you're, you're always saying no. Why don't you try saying yes? It sounds like this. Yes.

00:54:02.520 Come on. Say yes. Say yes. No, no, no. And so this is sort of verbal tickling and we're going back

00:54:07.200 and forth. And I asked him, not looking for any serious response. I said, why do you always say

00:54:12.340 no? And there was no pause. And he said, this, this is the exact sentence. I wrote it down in my

00:54:18.600 diary. I keep for both of my sons. He said, because yes takes too much time.

00:54:23.160 It's out of the mouth of babes. I love that. 0.70

00:54:27.980 It blew me away. I like sat down for a moment and I thought, wow, wow. I was like, that's like

00:54:33.980 profound. Cause that's the secret that many of us need to learn. Okay. The other thing about

00:54:39.260 commitment, here's something that people can do. And this, this, this will be a nice thing to focus

00:54:43.120 on in terms of what people can take right out of this show and in terms of something they can do

00:54:49.700 this very minute. It relates to the idea that one of the hallmarks of being really dedicated in

00:54:56.200 a relationship is, is we tend to feel good about occasionally sacrificing for a partner,

00:55:03.740 doing things that aren't maybe so much what we wanted or what were really sort of best for us.

00:55:09.140 But, you know, I can do this for him. I can do this for her. I can give a little bit here. I can,

00:55:14.580 we can go your way. You know, there's like a give and take and in a healthy marriage,

00:55:18.240 both have that mindset, both have the give and take, both sacrifice for the other.

00:55:25.340 One of the things I like to challenge people with though, is, is this thought that relates to sort

00:55:30.240 of deciding and not sliding with regard to some little sacrifices. And it's a task that goes like

00:55:35.920 this. Take out a piece of paper, write down just a few things that, you know, on any given day,

00:55:43.620 or at least any given week you can do. It's very doable. That's easy to do. Doesn't take a lot of

00:55:50.740 time. Doesn't take a lot of effort. And your partner really likes it. You know, they like it.

00:55:58.960 You're not like diluting yourself. When I do this little thing, she likes that. When I do this,

00:56:05.180 he likes that. Think about things that fit that list. It's small, it's doable. It's something I

00:56:11.640 can do probably yet today, certainly yet this week. And I know she kind of likes it.

00:56:18.420 And one more thing to define this list. I'm not really likely to do it this week. I'm not likely

00:56:24.200 to do that thing. I can write out the list. I know what's on that list. I know a few things that are

00:56:28.640 definitely on that list. And I'm not really likely to do any of those this week. And decide

00:56:34.100 to do that. Do one or two of those this week. Remind yourself next week. Do one or two of those

00:56:40.240 things next week. I think we all have this list where we know this works. It's totally within my

00:56:47.280 power. It's totally doable. But I'm not likely to do it. And we can nudge ourselves. We can remind

00:56:53.760 ourselves. Do more of that stuff. Because that's the stuff that's going to make the biggest difference

00:56:59.620 in your marriage day to day. I love it. Well, Scott, there's so much more we could talk about.

00:57:03.560 Where can people go to learn more about the book and the work you do? So, if they want to learn a lot

00:57:08.100 more just about what we do with prep and all the different kinds of things, the best single place

00:57:12.520 they can go is prepinc.com. P-R-E-P-I-N-C dot com. And the first thing there, if they want to 0.76

00:57:22.520 actually learn more about the skills and strategies, there's an online program we have

00:57:27.600 there that's the first link they'll see at prepinc.com. It's also at a web page called

00:57:33.620 lovetakeslearning.com is our e-prep program. It's an online program for prep. And it's a program they

00:57:43.000 can do in the privacy of their home. They can work through at their own pace. It's inexpensive. I think

00:57:48.640 it's about 25 bucks. It's got very good research on it in terms of getting results. And it will

00:57:54.680 teach a couple of the kinds of things we're talking about today and give them ways and more

00:57:59.520 information on how to avoid the negatives, how to increase the positives and protect their

00:58:04.720 relationship. Fantastic. Well, Scott Stanley, thanks so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:58:08.560 Thanks a lot, Brett. I really appreciate it.

00:58:10.920 Like I say with Scott Stanley, he's the co-author of the book Fighting for Your Marriage. It's available

00:58:14.760 on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. And if you want to find out more information about prep,

00:58:18.580 you can go take the online course at lovetakeslearning.com. And also check out our show

00:58:23.700 notes at aom.is fighting for marriage, where we find links to resources, where we delve deeper into

00:58:28.620 this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at

00:58:40.020 artofmanliness.com, where you can find our podcast archives. There's over 500 episodes there, as well

00:58:44.220 as thousands of articles we've written over the years over on relationships, how to be a better

00:58:47.880 husband, better father, personal finance, you name it, we've got it. And if you'd like to enjoy ad

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00:59:12.240 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think will get something out

00:59:15.760 of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. And until next time, this is Brett McKay.

00:59:19.280 Remind you not only to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - October 09, 2019

#550： How to Strengthen Your Marriage Against Divorce

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