How to detect the silent relationship killer before its too late
Highlights
- The [[The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work - John Gottman]],
- intensity of relationship conflicts increases significantly
- fatigue makes it impossible to have an emotional connection
- Resentment: The inverse of appreciation
- Appreciation is defined as the “recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone.”
- paradox of delayed gratification – do you optimize for the journey or the destination?
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letting go of your ego is a much easier route than digging your heels and trying to win the battle of who’s got it harder.
- “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
- relationships need a “waste elimination system”
- apply the $10K Framework to this question and ask ourselves “what would truly move the needle?”,
- “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
- What are you feeling right now?
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Where is this coming from? (Note: not in a passive-aggressive tone)
- How can I best support you right now?
- Difficult Conversations, as Doug Stone,
- link between difficult conversations and our sense of self.
- What about your identity feels at risk?
- What does this mean to you?
- How would it feel if what you fear were true?
- Bids are “any attempt from one partner to another for attention, affirmation, affection, or any other positive connection”
- Bids are “little moments” that slowly build up mutual trust, funding what Gottman calls an “emotional bank account”
- 86% of couples that “turned into their bids” stayed married
- Yet to their subtle nature, bids can be easy to miss – especially once resentment has hardened a relationship.
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Turning away can be devastating. It’s even more devastating than “turning against” or rejecting the bid.
- Could or should I get better at making bids? How?
- What keeps me from making bids?
- What is my impulse for turning?
- Do I turn away or against more often than I turn towards?
- It helps to make the apology specific. “I apologize for raising my voice. I apologize for saying this mean thing.”
- “I appreciate you.”
- Say it as often as possible. Just make sure you mean it. Just make sure you feel it.
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