The secret of happy love

Healthy and stable relations - hard work, but it stoit

Every year in August, the "wedding" month of the year, thousands of couples say 'yes', thereby bonding relationship that will last throughout their lives and will be full of joy and love until the end of their days.

Here are just a majority of it is not working. At least half of all marriages fail and end in divorce. Of all married an average of only three out of ten will consist in a healthy, happy marriage, says psychologist Ty Tashiro.



Sociologists began a serious study of marriages in 1970, in connection with the crisis: couples divorce just started an unprecedented pace. Concerned that the impact divorce can have on children left behind ruined marriages, psychologists began to observe the different couples, trying to learn the "ingredients" necessary for a healthy and lasting relationship. Was every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, or between marriages disintegrated all have something in common?

One of the researchers was the psychologist John Gottman from New York. Together with his wife, Julia, he created "Gottman Institute", whose main task - to help couples maintain healthy relationships through the use of research.



Gottman began collecting data on the relationship back in 1986 when he, together with his colleague Robert Levenson created the "Love Lab" at the University of Washington. Gottman and Levinson invited the newlyweds to the laboratory and watched how they interact with each other. Together with a team of other researchers are connected to a special test electrodes and asked them to talk about their relationship, about how and when they met, about when they first originated the conflict, their overall positive memories.



While the couple was told, electrodes measured the blood pressure of the test, heart rate, and even the amount of sweat that are identified in the course of conversation. The researchers then sent a pair of home to meet with them six years, unless of course they were still together.

After analyzing the data collected Gottman pair broke into two large groups: the "master" and "unfortunate." "Masters" and after six years together. A "poor" in six years or were divorced, or were chronically unhappy marriage.

"Accidents" in the interview looked calm, but their physiology, which has been monitored by means of electrodes, told a very different story. Their pressure was higher, their sweat glands are more active, their heart beat faster.

After analyzing thousands of couples, Gottman found: the higher the physiological activity of the newlyweds in the laboratory, the rapidly deteriorating their relationship.

Organisms "accidents" showed all the signs ... like before the fight. It seemed that at any moment they are ready to face the saber-toothed tiger (the reaction of "fight or flight"). Even if they were talking about some pleasant aspects of their relationship, they still were ready to attack and attack. This eventually made the partners more aggressive towards each other.



But the "master" on the contrary, showed a very low degree of physiological ... They felt peace and unity that filled their behavior warmth and kindness, even when they quarreled. "Master" managed to create an atmosphere of intimate confidence that made them more emotional. Thus relationships become physically comfortable.

Gottman would like to learn more about how to "master" this creates an atmosphere of love and intimacy, and about how "unfortunate" it destroys. The next study he conducted in 1990, and participated in it 130 newlyweds. He watched them while they lived in the university campus, and doing what couples usually do on holiday: cooking, cleaning, listening to music, eating and chatting. During observations Gottman made another discovery that brought him to the answer to the question of why some couples break up, while others do not.

During the day, the partners make each other so called "connection requests" that Gottman calls "suggestions." For example, my husband is very like a bird, and he notes that in the yard fly goldfinch. Then he can say to his wife: "Look at this beautiful bird in the yard»!

He did not comment on the appearance of a bird. He asks for an answer to his wife. He wants to see signs of interest and support. He hopes that she quickly "connect" to the object of his interest, while the bird is still close.

The wife in this situation has a choice: it is, in the words of Gottman can answer either "turned" to her husband, or "turning away" from him.

Although this "offer" a bird can someone seem silly, it is very much to say about the nature of the relationship: the husband thinks the bird is important enough to mention it in a conversation, and the question is, would support his wife this point view or not.



People look to their partners using the "proposals" may get different answers. Someone answered demonstrate their interest and support. Someone "turn away" from them, that is, his reaction will be minimal. And someone can respond to "offer" to outright hostility, saying something like: "Stop stop me, I'm reading." Such interaction has a very serious impact on family well-being.

The couple, who divorced six years later, "turned" to each other only in 33% of cases. Only three out of ten "proposals" emotional connection received a response.

The couple, who after six years of marriage to stay together, "turned" to each other in 86% of cases. That is almost nine times out of ten they maintained emotional "suggestions" of its partners.

After watching this kind of interaction, Gottman can be with a probability of 94% to say what will happen with a pair of six years: whether she is happy or unhappy, disintegrate or not. It does not depend on whether they are rich or poor, whether they have children, and so on. N. It depends on what kind of spirit they bring to their relationship. This can be a kindness and generosity. Or it might be a criticism, contempt and hostility.

Contempt - the number one factor, because of which breaks most couples. People who are focused on the constant criticism of his partners, passed about half of the positive things that make those, and tend to see the negative, where it is not.

People providing its partners "cold shoulder" - deliberately ignoring partner or reacting to a minimum - will inevitably spoil the relationship, because it makes the loved one feel useless empty space.

On the other hand, kindness "glues" the pair. The study found that kindness (along with emotional balance) is the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in marriage.



There are two ways to think about kindness. You can think of it as a fixed capacity, which means it's either there or it is not. Or you can think about it as a muscle: the muscle in some people more than others, but poor people can become stronger through exercise. "Masters" tend to think of kindness as a muscle. That is, they know they have to regularly show kindness to keep it "in form." In other words, they know that maintaining a good relationship requires constant hard work.

And the most difficult to practice kindness, of course, during an argument. However, at this time it is very important to be kind. If the conflict give vent to emotions, and to release from the control of contempt and aggression, it can cause irreparable damage to the relationship.

"Compassion does not mean that we do not express anger, it gives the opportunity to choose a way of expressing anger. You can furious pounce on his partner. Or, you can explain why you hurt and why you are so angry. And this method is much kinder ", - says Julie Gottman.

For hundreds of thousands of pairs of lesson that can be drawn from these studies is this: if you want to have a long, stable and healthy relationship begins to "train" the kindness as soon as possible, and do it as often as possible.

via factroom.ru