Do you know how to wreck a marriage?
If we’re not aware of how we do it, it’s only too easy. Unfortunately.
Is it me?
Or are relationships hard work sometimes?
I get clients complaining to me all the time that, “it shouldn’t be this hard.”
But sometimes it is, isn’t it?
And according to Stephanie Coontz, (professor of history and family studies and author of, “The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap“) marriage is necessarily harder work now than it’s ever been before.
Oh joy!
The Marriage Paradox
“The very things that have made marriage as a relationship more rewarding, have made marriage as an institution, less stable. When it works, a marriage today is fairer, more fulfilling more intimate, passionate more faithful, more loving than most couples of the past would ever have dared to imagine.
But if it doesn’t work that way it seems less bearable to people… as our expectations have arisen.”
How to wreck a marriage (or indeed any relationship)
Several decades of research, by Drs John and Julie Gottman, have discovered certain patterns, that contrary to their expectations can be distilled to just 4 top ways to damage your relationship and if you keep doing it, it gets harder and harder to find your way back to each other.
Find out how to wreck a marriage
The Four Horsemen of the Relationship Apocalypse
Fortunately, they also identified what more successful couples did instead, so keep reading!
There’s hope for us all!
Wanna improve your relationships?
If there was just one thing that makes the biggest difference, is one’s response to our partner’s ‘bids’. Know what I’m talking about? If not, make sure you read the excellent article above.
Recommended reading