[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 05:00 p.m. Or Wednesdays at 07:00 p.m. If you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, you can find us
[email protected] dot. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: All right, so we're going to get started, and like I said, this is John Gottman's book.
He wrote it with another lady named Nan Silver. But he's married. His wife usually does a lot with him.
One of my favorite quotes out of the book, it says, the basis for a happy marriage is a deep friendship with mutual respect and a positive attitude. If any of these elements are missing in a marriage, you've got some trouble brewing. Okay. Doesn't mean your marriage can't make it. It just means you've got some problems.
He can predict within 91% accuracy whether a couple will make it or not. He has what is called a love lab, and they kind of record the couples when they're in there. And he can see by their interactions, by the way they do their startups, how do they agree? Disagree, how do they do their repairs, et cetera. And from that, he can predict with 90% accuracy. Pretty cool affairs.
Are they the root cause of a divorce? You agree?
Anybody?
I think it's important because one of the biggest things I see in our practice are affairs. Okay. Affairs are not about sex.
That doesn't mean that doesn't happen. But it's usually about seeking friendship, support, understanding, respect, needing attention, wanting the care that comes from it, concern.
So I have a couple I was given permission to share. Won't give you their name, of course.
They went through a really difficult time. They kind of started living what we call parallel lives together. And what happened is he ultimately felt very neglected.
He didn't feel their friendship was there, etcetera. You can almost go down the list. And all of this was missing in their marriage. And he wound up having an affair three times and came to me and said, I would like to let my wife know. And I want to make my marriage work despite what I have done. And, oh, my.
One of the hardest sessions I probably experienced, because that disclosure happened in front of me so that I could help facilitate it. And we're about a year out from that disclosure. They are one of the strongest couples, so it can be repaired. It does get better. It is worth the work. So just food for thought. I didn't want you all to think an affair is just the end of a marriage.
I know what the Bible says, but I think you still have that option for forgiveness. And when you see it unfold that way, that marriage is very, very strong. So just wanted to share that with y'all.
The six signs of predicting divorce by John Gottman are. And we're going to go through each of these. It's a harsh startup. The four horsemen flooding body language, failed repair attempts, and bad memories.
So a harsh startup, an obvious indicator that things are not going to go well, is the way it begins. So, typically, this conversation starts off with criticism, sarcasm, lots of negativity and accusations.
The four horsemen. Becky, you and I use this. Probably you can use it not only within the marriage, but you can also use this just to help people be able to communicate better with anybody, family members, etcetera. So these are super important, so I want to go over them with you.
The first one is criticism.
It's verbally attacking the personality or the character of that person.
Saying something like, you never think of others. I can't believe how selfish you are. The automatic response you're going to get is defensiveness. You are so not going to get a great big hug and a kiss and thank you.
The antidote to that is talk about your feelings using I statements and express a positive need. Now, that doesn't mean you go in and say, I need you to get this done. That's not what the I means. The I means talk about yourself. Talk about what you're experiencing and what you're feeling, what that event feels like for you. If you can gently express that to them, it's going to be a far more open conversation that you get to have, and there'll be a better connection to your spouse with it.
The next one is contempt. This is a bad one, guys.
This is attacking the sense of self with an intent to insult or abuse.
This one actually goes beyond criticism. Okay. This is where you get the eye rolling, sarcasm, name calling, mocking the other person.
The example I put up there, I said, you come home, you're mad at your spouse because he gets home, and you say, you come home, you flop in a chair. You are less than a bum.
Okay. There wasn't anything good exchanged with that, okay? And contempt is really probably one of the worst, according to John Gottman as well. So build a culture of appreciation would be that antidote. And you want to remind yourself of your partner's positive qualities and find gratitude for those positive actions. There is good. And if you'll look at it, I want to do a quick exercise with y'all, because I love this. I did this in my office with people. When they come in and go, he always. He never. He does. So if you'll close your eyes with me. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Before you close your eyes, I want you to look around the room, and I want you to find everything blue that you can count. I'm gonna give you a few seconds. Everything blue that you can find and where it is.
Okay? Go ahead and close your eyes and be thinking of where it is.
And I want you to tell me you can open your eyes. Oh, no, no, no. Don't open your eyes.
It's a joke, y'all. No, really. Okay. And I want you to tell me where something, if you can remember in your mind, where something that is white is located in this room.
Okay, go ahead and open your eyes. I saw a couple of hands go up. So some of you might know a couple of things. They're white, or you might cook gas. But what was your primary focus when you closed your eyes? What could you see in your mind? It was blue. Where is it you knew? Probably where several of these things were. So our focus becomes on that negativity and those things that they're doing wrong. So if you change your focus and start to see the good things that they're doing, it really begins to change your perspective about them. And you can begin to have a more healthier outlook.
Defensiveness. Victimizing yourself to ward off a perceived attack and reverse the blame.
Did you pick up the dry cleaning?
I work hard. Why can't you do it?
Okay. You see that automatic defensiveness came out. And even when you say always or never, those are typically the responses that you're going to get, is defensiveness. So the antidote. Accept your partner's perspective and offer an apology for any wrongdoing. I'm so sorry. I was in a hurry after work. I forgot to pick it up. You own it. It's done, it's passed, and you get to move on.
Stonewalling. Withdrawing to avoid conflict and convey disapproval. Distance and separation.
This one's tough to watch. I even see it in the office a lot when they'll just get quiet. They're just not going to talk. They're not going to share. They're not going to communicate. You have no idea what they're thinking. You have no idea what they're feeling.
Excuse me. And it's a tough one to watch. Okay. And when you Stonewall, it is a complete disconnect from your partner.
The antidote for stonewalling is take a break and spend some time doing something soothing and distracting. And I'm gonna go into a little bit more about this here in just a minute. Okay? But, Becky, you and I use that so much.
Okay. The next one is flooding. This is when you're feeling physically overwhelmed.
You become hyper vigilant for cues that. When is this blow up going to happen again? When is this going to explode in my face?
This one is usually the cause for that shutdown. Remember I said there's a disconnect that happens at this point, and that's where the stonewalling comes in. Because of what value is it to speak to you and share what I'm going through when I know exactly the outcome is you're going to get mad, you're going to blow up. There's going to be name calling. There's going to be a huge disconnect in the relationship body language. This one's pretty neat. I don't know if you've implemented it, Becky, but if you do like the heart finger heart monitors with your couples and you can begin to see when they start to get angry, like a resting heart rate, let's say it's 65 to 70, 75. You can see them go upwards to 100, 165 when they're talking.
In that moment, you have gone into what is called fight or flight. I think Becky has explained that to y'all in another session. So I don't spend a lot of time with it, but this is where I teach my couples, do a timeout. You know, you see this on tv, do a timeout. And some of them do this, hey, we're fighting. Let's take a timeout. During that timeout, you go and you do your breathing, you do your grounding. Takes anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how angry you are. And if you're really angry, do it again if you have to. But before you leave that discussion with your spouse, look at the clock. Give it 15 minutes. I'll see you back at 730.
And you come back at 730 and you try to talk when you're calm because you will absolutely not resolve anything when you are in fight or flight, you are looking for safety. And so what you're going to do is you're going to try to get safe.
This is one of the biggies that leads to divorce, because one partner is in severe distress almost at all times, and it is near impossible to solve a problem. Okay. Cannot do it when you're in fight or flight.
Then we go into failed repair attempts. The failure of repair attempts is an accurate marker of an unhappy future.
I had a couple come in Monday, and I had taught them the, you know, do whatever signal you have to each other. And he's sitting across from me. I was sitting him by himself, and he said, you know, he said, we do that. We do the time out, but it's not working.
And I said, so what happens after the timeout? Well, we just don't talk about it.
I said, oh, boy. I said, well, remember, the part of it is you have to follow up with that repair. And that's what happens in that conversation. You do have to come back and work it out, because if not, you're building resentment.
When you add this to the presence of the four horsemen, this is where he gets his 91% accuracy for couples. Okay.
And the rest is, okay.
Bad memories. And they come in. We had the worst wedding. He was awful. He didn't do this. And, you know, it was a beautiful time when they got married. But their memory of their wedding day becomes something very negative. Everything about their marriage is negative.
A happy marriage, you talk to somebody who's happy, you're going to hear those positives about it. We had a great wedding. I remember this. I remember our honeymoon. You know, those are the positives that you want to have. So those memories are super important. Now. I teach my clients, anybody that comes to see me for marital, I always ask them, what's your departure? And what's when you come home, look like.
You'd be amazed at what I get to hear. Most people do not greet each other, hey, how you doing? If they even do that, they go to the office and they work. I tell all my couples, you have to be intentional. You have to make the effort to stop and make time for each other to have this moment. Can you imagine passionately kissing somebody you don't care about?
You can't. You're not going to be passionate about it. So be very, very intentional in those moments and those great memories, too.
The final stages that signal the death of a relationship are that you view problems as severe.
You begin solving problems on your own, because there's no point in talking. You've given up.
You begin living what I call parallel lives. You're doing your thing, he's doing his thing. And there isn't that mutuality in building the love maps or the relationship. You got to build those dreams together and you feel lonely. I had a couple sit in front of me today, and that was the very word both of them used. I am so lonely in the relationship, the strength of your friendship is the foundation of positive sentiment. Override positive sentiment. Ride is the overall positive perspective about the relationship. So again, how we view it. So done with the yucky of what we're trying to fix, and now we're going to move into the seven principles of making a marriage work. Okay, sharing love maps. How many of you have heard of making love maps together?
Anybody else? Oh, my. This is super important.
It's a desired and deep comprehension of your partner.
You know what makes them tick, you know what makes them happy, you know about their past, you know what they want for their future. What are their dreams. When I retire, I'd love to go see Italy. I'd love to go visit Israel, whatever that might be. If you don't know that about your spouse, or your spouse does not know that about you, work on that, have those conversations.
What I'm saying to you is, do not go home and attack and say, hey, we don't have this. We don't have this. If you don't have it, it's okay. Just build on it. This isn't, you know, this isn't a problem. This is just you guys. Learning something new that you can do within your marriage is going to help you. Okay.
Developing love maps for each other is a crucial part of a healthy and mutually fulfilling relationship. Okay.
Second, nurturing fondness and admiration.
I got this in there, and I probably should have put it on another slide, but people who are divorced almost 99% of the time, you're gonna hear there was a lack of respect in the relationship. They no longer treated each other with respect.
Contempt is usually what's there.
So respect. The way you build it is building the partnership, showing appreciation for each other and giving enthusiastic compliments and having date nights. Guys, if you are not dating your husband, date them. It does not mean you have to have this big romantic dinner and a movie, and it costs you a fortune to go out for the evening.
You can sit on the back porch and have a date holding hands. You can sit and watch a movie together holding hands.
Have those gentle on touches with each other, nurture that fondness and admiration for one another, and God's husbands love to hear. I'm appreciated. If you haven't told your spouse you appreciate them, go home and tell them today. They'll love it. It really builds that turning toward each other instead of turning away, choosing to purposefully and consistently be present in your partner's life, they can rely on you, which increases the intimacy and the trust.
Letting your partner influence you. Ha.
This is a toughie. This is one of the big ones that I see in my office.
Becky, would you say most of yours kind of come in with that? Most of mine do, at least.
There's that imbalance. And one of the couples I had today, they were. He was trying to fix everything, and so she became more and more silent, and through that silence, he was carrying all the load by himself. Does the marriage work? One sided? It doesn't. You can make a lot of effort. You can make a lot of, you know, maybe some improvement, but until both of you are equally invested, it does not work. Agree?
Totally agree.
So letting your partner influence you is super, super important. Both should have the ability to inform and influence the other. Coming to a compromise and effectively communicating about big decisions and emotions.
It is not control.
It is respect.
Showing your value, their input, and are considering their feelings and opinions. There's that word again about respect, guys. Super, super important.
And you do this with a calm and a productive discussion. And again, if it gets heated, some decisions are tough. You know, I want this kind of car, I want this kind of house, or I want, you know, this trip.
They're not always going to agree. You may want to garden. They may want to go motorcycle riding or play video games, whatever that difference is. It's okay as long as you mutually influence each other with what you're doing. The result is that both of you will feel heard in this marriage, and it's important that you both be heard.
Solving your solvable problems is probably my favorite because I can relate to this. I don't have a perfect marriage. I have a very healthy, very, very good marriage. I have nothing bad to say about my spouse. I'm extremely happy. But do we have those little moments all the time?
Because we're both passionate people about what we believe in and what we do.
There are five steps toward this. You can soften your approach. We talked a little bit about how you come in. You talk about what you feel, what you're experiencing. Experiencing.
You learn to make and receive repair attempts. So let's say you're mad and your spouse comes to you, and they're trying to make up.
It's okay to say, I'm not available right now. I'm not feeling good. Let's give this another 1520 minutes. Whatever. Be comfortable with that. Okay. But talk about that before you have one of those problems or a spat or a fight. Come in. Because if you can do that, y'all can both equally support each other and see when you're getting angry or when things are getting a little difficult.
Calm yourself and each other.
Connor did not do this exceptionally well. And I have a video I'm going to show you, and it is us. To the t. You will laugh.
You also have to compromise. So important to compromise. Sometimes you're going to feel.
I call them negotiables and non negotiables. And so sometimes you can say, you know, I'm 15% that I can give in this area, but I'm pretty solid. I don't want to flex here. And let's say he looks at it and says, you know what? It doesn't matter to me. You go ahead and make that decision. That's how those compromises happen. So kind of look and see what's most important to you. What's most valuable?
Tolerate imperfection. No one is perfect. So there are two types of solvable problems. The solvable, which is easy, and then the perpetual. Every single marriage has perpetual problems. There is no fixing them. They're gonna keep coming up, and it's okay.
Have y'all seen this video?
[00:22:32] Speaker C: You get married, you're a guy. You get a little helper in the car.
I love my little helper in the guy.
She knows everything about driving. It's very convenient for me.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Sometimes I get confused.
[00:22:52] Speaker C: I don't know how I get anywhere with probably bouncing off trees and buildings and stuff, but she's. Damn it, I'll help.
She tells me when the white changes color, that's lenient. And alcohol, like it's green. Thank you. Hello. Cause I was confused. I didn't know.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Ah, that was wonderful. Okay, so that video, y'all, I'm telling you, it was, like 1030 at night. I couldn't sleep, and I got on this Facebook reel, which is a bad habit. Don't do it. I quit again. Cause it's. You just can't stop.
Say you fall down a real hole. You do. You felt you fall down a real hole. And so, anyway, I saw this video, and Conrad's next to me, and he's doing something on his laptop, and I am laughing. So hard. I said, I found a video about me and you, and I said, wait till you see it. I said, I can't wait till you see it. And we watched it together, guys. There were tears coming out of our eyes. We were laughing so hard because that's us, you know, it's like, did you know that was a stop sign, or, it's time to go, or it's your turn. And I wished I wasn't that way. I try so hard not to be. I can't make myself stop.
So it's kind of like the reals. But anyway, we laugh. So now, not only is the joke of my little helper in the car, we've also extended it to other, you know, arenas in our life, like, oh, my little helper would like to choose what I'm going to eat tonight or, you know, whatever. It's all. And you got to be able to laugh in those moments and enjoy them because they are beautiful, wonderful moments that you can have in connection with your spouse. Okay? So laugh. Learn to laugh if you haven't. I have a big sense of humor. I play, play, play, play, play. Sometimes too much, it gets me into trouble, but never stop playing. I think it's worth it. I think it keeps you very young, and I think it also keeps you and your relationship very healthy to be able to be playful with each other. Because even in the midst of a disagreement, my little helper's angry at me. Boom, it's gone. It goes away.
But that only comes because you have a healthy marriage. That doesn't come. If you're in contempt and you're stonewalling each other and you try to use humor, it's going to backfire because you don't have the relationship to support that. I hope that makes sense, because I don't want it to create a problem for you. Okay, so gridlock is the next one.
Overcoming gridlock. No productive resolution about ongoing problems, but a willingness to cooperate and compromise.
Four steps to having a healthy conversation. Understand the root cause of an issue.
Communicate calmly, expressing areas of flexibility and non negotiable. We talked a little bit about the non negotiable, ending calmly with a note of gratitude and appreciation for each other.
And I'm going to finish early, you guys.
Creating shared meaning together.
Your goals, your rituals, your beliefs, your perspectives, etcetera, should fuse together.
Encourage each other to follow your passions and dreams. Build intimacy and affection for each other. So I decided what, I was a little bit younger than what I am now, and I decided to go back to school, and I just couldn't stay home and just sit. So I went home and I told Conrad, I said, listen, I want to go back to school and I want to get my counseling degree. He said, okay, where do you want to go? I said, I would love to go to Harding. I've always had a christian education. Goes, go. So what about the cost? Goes, don't worry about the cost. We'll take care of it. But you go. You go do what you want to do. That's the kind of support you want to have in your marriages for each other. Okay? Doesn't just work one way, although it'd be nice.
Repairs.
That is the secret weapon for a happy couple.
There are couples who yell, who scream, who do all kinds of things to each other.
Why do they stay married longer than so many other people that we see? Be kind because they know how to do those repairs effectively with each other.
Okay. Left lots of time because we're not going to have a q and A at the end of all this because we added another session. So this is y'all's platform. It's a freebie. If you have any questions I may or may not be able to answer, I got Becky as my backup. If I don't anybody have a question regarding marriage communication, I will tell you, I think it's important. I debated on talking about this, but since I've got a little bit of time, I'm going to go ahead and tell you a little bit.
Pornography is killing a lot of our marriages.
It is rampant in what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing in the counseling room, not just from the youth. I'm talking even brand new newlyweds. Guys, it is a problem if you are being asked ladies to do things that are so out of the norm of what you've been engaging with.
Be mindful. I'm not accusing your spouse of that. In no way am I saying that. I'm just saying be mindful that pornography is wrecking so many of our marriages and so many of the relationships these little phones have given access to, where you can be anywhere and you can watch this. And it's not just men. It's also the women. So don't want that to come across that I'm badgering the guys because I'm not. Okay? So just be attentive to that and know that that is very, very prevalent.
That doesn't mean everybody's doing that. I'm just saying it's prevalent and it is very, very problematic.
And I'll leave it at that. So, any questions?
You mentioned a love map. Is there a resource? Or, like, could I find that online? Like, if you can look it up and it's Jim Beam, I believe is the one that had the love maps. There's a book called the act of active marriage.
[00:29:59] Speaker D: The act of marriage is Lahaye.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: What? Hey, no, it's not that one. Then it's.
I'll give you all that resource, but, yeah, there's one. And it just kind of goes through the initial phase of meeting somebody. What it takes in order for you guys to get to know each other.
If you make it past that attraction phase, then you go into the next phase of the. Of the relationship, and that becomes where we exchange. I'm sorry, is it Willard Harden? No, no.
[00:30:31] Speaker D: And Gottman has some things that you can work through.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: And you can look up marriage helper with Joe Beam. You can look up John Gottman. Love maps. It's all over the Internet. It's everywhere. You'll be able to find it.
But great thing to help build your marriage, I was going to bring you all some little tests that y'all could do and just kind of gauge yourselves of where you are. So, because I'm having some issues with my leg, Becky and Karen have allowed me to do the talk. Next week. It's going to be on anchor management, so we're going to do that. And I will bring you all some of the marriage stuff that I meant to copy. But I've. We've had a really, really full week, so I did not get to do that. So I will get you all some of those. They're just fun to do.
It doesn't mean 100%. Just dive in. Oh, my goodness, this is wrong. It just gives you something to work on, that's all. So I'll bring that next week, some copies of that for y'all.
[00:31:30] Speaker D: And one of the suggestions that I made last week is that if you have a question, write it down. And if you don't want us to do it publicly, just hand it to.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: Any one of us. Hand it to me, hand it to.
[00:31:41] Speaker D: Sandra, hand it to Karen. If it's having to do with the.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Pelvic floor therapy, hand it to Julie Lively, for sure.
[00:31:50] Speaker D: And she had an awesome class last week. But hand it to us. And just like this, if we get through early, we got these questions and we're ready to go, and we can just pull them out and go through them.
Somebody did ask me where they are on the website, and I'll try to get that information by next, and maybe I'll just send you a slide or.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: Something that you can jump in, because.
[00:32:15] Speaker D: I know David Tennison has already put them on.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Oh, good.
[00:32:19] Speaker D: I know that he's already started that, so. But any questions, you can email it to us, you can text it to us.
[00:32:26] Speaker C: But if you just get us the.
[00:32:27] Speaker D: Question, then we'll incorporate it into one of these last few classes.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And for anger management, I'll probably come in and we'll do. There's a little test that we do and kind of see where y'all are, because y'all know my best friend Jennifer is very calm, and I'm gonna get in trouble. But we did the anger management test.
Jennifer was angry, so you might. But it's good for you to know, you know, am I having some issues with anger? What do I need to do? And we'll come in. I have some resources for your kids, for you that we can kind of take a look at and we can do. But any questions on marriage? Anything at all, and we can do. You see a lot of couples that when they become empty nesters, they kind of. Because they focus on the kids so many years, and then they're like, what do we do now? So her question was, when people become empty nesters, what do you see happen with some of the relationships? Have you seen them go this way? Of course. I mean, that's. They focus so much on the kids and don't focus on their relationship. Remember, the key thing that I said is date your spouse because you will be dating them even after that. Okay. So, yeah, it's not as prevalent usually. It's the letting go of the kids that's problematic.
If your marriage was already in trouble, the kids leave, and that's usually when they go ahead and file for divorce, is what they do. So kind of your experience.
Yeah. So that's kind of how that codes.
[00:33:58] Speaker D: So before the kids leave, find reasons to like each other.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
And if you date. If you date. If you date, I cannot stress that enough to you. If you come see me for marriage counseling, that will be. I'll tell you that probably every time you come. How was your date? Have you been dating? Are you talking. What are you talking about? To get that relationship solidified, because that needs to be your very best friend, guys. And if he's not, work at making them your best friend.
Life just is a whole lot funner to walk it that way with them. It's a beautiful journey. So if y'all don't have any other questions, I'm gonna unplug and. Oh, yes, ma'am. I'm so sorry.
At the end of the day, we're just. Just burn out. We have nothing left.
What can you do? You still have to be intentional in making that effort for each other. You can cuddle, you can hold hands. You can sit on the couch, watch a movie, fall asleep together. Okay. There are lots of little things. And even in the morning, maybe you get up a little early before the kids are up and give yourselves a little bit of time to interact together.
It's called intentionality. I know it sounds easy. It depends if your kids are little. Hey, guys, it's just going to be part of the process, right? Because we've got to give them time to get older and their sleep schedules are going to be off. We're going to be tired. But be intentional. Get friends, get family. Watch the kids go on those dates. Okay? Is that helpful?
We can talk a little bit more if you need more details than that.
Is that it? Y'all make it so easy for me. All right, y'all are done.
