O'Grady Psychology Associates

Psychotherapy, Marriage Counseling, Neuropsychological Assessment

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Using Softened Startup in Conflict Discussions

Dirty Dishes in the Sink, Smelly Socks on the Floor

Sometimes the things that drive us most crazy in a marriage are the most mundane and trivial: dishes piled up in the sink, socks dropped on the floor. We may complain, criticize, and yell, but the end effect is that the dishes don’t get done, the socks eventually migrate back to the floor, and we end up feeling even more distanced and angry toward our partner. If complaining doesn’t work, neither does ignoring what drives us crazy. Over time, a couple can see their relationship with what John Gottman describes as “negative perspective.” We get so focused on the negative that we become unable to recognize even neutral or positive actions from our partners, snowballing our unhappiness.

As a couples therapist for many years, I’ve seen the situations that bring clients to treatment range from catastrophic events like affairs and severe illness to the mundane, like smelly socks and cluttered countertops. A sampling of conflicts:

 

  • An older couple squabbles over the bedcovers: the wife says her husband hogs the blankets, leaving her freezing much of the night; she feels her husband is selfish and inconsiderate, while he thinks she should just tug harder on the covers.
  • A young husband says that his stay-at-home wife leaves dirty dishes in the sink for days on end and he ends up cleaning the kitchen every night, even if he made the meal; he feels his wife is lazy, and she feels he’s ignoring the work she has done.
  • A couple complains that they’ve stopped sleeping together because their child is too afraid to sleep alone and needs to be consoled, even at age eight. The father, now sleeping on the couch, feels left out of the closeness and warmth that mother and child enjoy, and soothes himself through weed, drinking, and internet games or porn; the mother feels she must put her child’s needs first and co-sleeping is best.

 

Without help, such situations can drive a wedge between couples that can go on for years. Research has shown that couples wait an average of six years after becoming aware of problems in their relationship to seek counseling. That’s a lot of water under the bridge, and a lot of built-up hurt, anger, and distance. By the time couples do come to counseling, their relationship has usually crumbled, with deeply entrenched negative thoughts about the marriage. Fighting about the dishes is no longer about the dishes–it’s about a partner’s poor character. “She is so self-centered”; “He is so lazy.”

How does a couples therapist help when each partner blames the other and feels like the victim? Taking sides is not an option: the partner who feels ganged up on will bolt from therapy, and nothing will change. There may occasionally arise a need to confront one partner about issues that are causing harm, such as abuse, but in my practice, that is rarely the case. That said, helping untangle years of accumulated misunderstandings is not an instant fix. Everyone becomes invested in seeing things our own way, so opening our eyes to a partner’s viewpoint is something that takes time and skill. The good news is that these skills can be taught by a therapist who helps change the dialogue.

Softened Start-up Rather than Harsh Start-up

One of the most useful and yet seemingly simple skills to teach is to complain without blame and to begin a conflict discussion with a softened start-up.

How does this look? Well, take the older couple who fights about the blankets. With a harsh start-up, the freezing wife might say “You have no idea how selfish you are! You take all the covers every single night, leaving me with just the sheet—and a thin sliver of a sheet at that!” Her husband becomes defensive: “Well, what a complainer. Just tug on the blankets, and quit blaming me! I’m asleep, I can’t help it.”

It may feel momentarily satisfying, but coming out swinging engenders a harsh reply and an unhelpful one at that. A seemingly small squabble becomes gridlocked. A softened alternative might go like this: “I realize you’re asleep and unaware of my getting cold at night when I have no blankets. It probably happens as you roll over several times during the night, leaving me uncovered. When my sleep is disturbed, I get grouchy the next day, and unfairly blame you for something you’re unaware is happening. I wonder if we can come up with a solution?”

Of course,  her partner might try to laugh it off with  “Why don’t you just sleep in the guest room?”  But, soothed by a soft start-up, he could reply sincerely, without defensiveness: “I know this has been a problem for you for awhile, and I’m sorry. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable and cold at night. Maybe we can devise a way to fix this together. Let’s go to Target and see if there are blanket fasteners or something, and if not, let’s buy a fluffy down comforter and duvet.”

It would be misleading to suggest that this conversation can happen during the first few sessions. To change the way you talk about the blankets, it’s important to realize that the blankets aren’t really the problem. A skilled couples therapist will further the discussion so that each partner feels heard and understood. By uncovering what’s underneath the blankets, so to speak, the couple can see what’s really been covered over.

For the wife in my example, blankets were just one of many ways she felt her partner had been selfish and uncaring. When we discussed some of the feelings that surrounded the blanket-stealing, she was able to see things in a new light. She took ownership for communicating this and her other needs, and responsibility for doing it in a better, less judgmental way. As for her husband, he was able to see that he had in fact been acting with self-interest and ignoring his wife’s needs in many situations. But—and this is equally important—they were also better able to see each other’s good attributes once negative thinking wasn’t squeezing out relationship-enhancing thoughts.

When the concept of a softened startup is introduced in therapy, many partners will exclaim, “But that’s not the way I talk, it isn’t me!” or “Won’t I need a frontal lobotomy to talk this way?”

I chuckle, saying, “No, nothing that drastic.” It takes practice, but eventually, this way of bringing up conflict becomes second nature and feels good. A partner who joins in with a positive response helps to sustain and reinforce this healthier way of handling conflict.

What I love about doing this work with couples is the ripple effect. Not only does the couple change the way they talk to each other, but they model this better communication for their families and children. It’s important to remember that kids pick up both the good and bad things we do in front of them.

The first workshop I took with Dr. John Gottman was in 2000. I began practicing this softened startup with my husband before trying it with couples. We had a CD with practice prompts, and listened to it on a long car ride, with our kids in the back seat. Eventually, our twin daughters began answering the prompts with the softened alternative. We made it a game—yet it became a powerful tool for dealing with conflict. When the girls left home for college, they noticed that most of their dorm-mates were not able to handle conflict so well. The techniques work beyond the family setting.

You don’t have to be a psychologist (or have psychologist parents) to practice these techniques yourself. Take the dirty-dishes example—a frequent conflict for roommates as well as couples. You come home from work and see the dishes stacked high in the sink, overflowing onto the countertops. You think your stay-at-home partner should have done them. A harsh startup would be, ” I can’t believe you still haven’t done those dishes! You’re such a lazy slob.”  To that startup, a defensive comeback would be,  “Well, look at you! You’re not doing them either. So you devalue what I do all day long just because you work outside the home? I work too! You’re so full of yourself!”

You can imagine how the rest of that conversation goes—but it doesn’t have to. Practice coming up with a softened startup for this situation from what you’ve learned so far—try it out!

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I’ll give you one way to do this, but it’s not brain surgery; you’ll find many ways to phrase a soft startup in your own words:

“You know I tend to be a neat freak. When the kitchen counters and sink are dirty, I feel uncomfortable. I know you work hard and having clean counters isn’t as important for you, but I wonder if we can together find a way to stay on top of it, as a team?”

The key to all this is to know yourself, take responsibility for your feelings and reactions, and speak about your needs and feelings without leveling a global character assault on your partner.

Now, imagine one of your ongoing conflicts, and try out in your mind a way to communicate using a softened alternative. It’s a surprisingly powerful technique.

 

 

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Expressing Fondness and Admiration for a Strong Foundation

Sound relationship House w copyright-1Healthy relationships are built on a strong foundation. In Northern California, where I live, houses are constructed on a solid footing to protect them in an earthquake. If a home is built on soft soil without proper engineering, strong seismic waves will cause a lot of damage. One way that a building is secured is by using lead-rubber bearings, which contain a solid lead core wrapped in alternating layers of rubber and steel. This combination of material is both strong and flexible, reducing damage.

Similarly, a relationship that has a strong but flexible foundation will withstand the slipping and sliding that accompany big life events, such as an illness, job loss, affair, or the birth of a first child. We need a core of strong support, but we also need elasticity for our relationships to flourish.

When a relationship is new, we tap into a powerful current of affection and attraction that makes it natural and easy to express appreciation for the other’s positive attributes. Meanwhile, we’re less attuned to the negative—but undesirable traits will be revealed in due time. What then?

The more we feel appreciated and respected by our partners, the happier our relationships are. I often tell clients who come to me for couples’ therapy that “It doesn’t count if it doesn’t come out of your mouth.“ In other words, you may think your partner is beautiful, or funny, or brilliant—but if you don’t say so, your partner doesn’t know.

The Magic Ratio: Five positive interactions to one negative

 

As with any skill, it takes continued practice to nurture a relationship past its first blush. The research of Dr. John Gottman shows us that we can create a strong foundation by keeping a balance of five positive interactions to one negative.

More-damaging negative interactions are weighted more heavily than others. Whining, for example, is a negative of one point, while disgust is rated at negative 3, and contempt at minus 4 points. Contempt is the worst because it conveys a huge disrespect for your partner as a person. It’s hard to recover positive feelings when contempt is prevalent in the relationship. As with all negativity, the antidote to contempt is genuine fondness and respect.

So how do you cultivate more-positive interactions when life can be so challenging, our partners sometimes so annoying, and irritation comes easier than appreciation? That’s where the flexible stability comes in. For example, when Ken and Josie came to therapy, they had developed the habit of harping at each other for little things. Josie would come home after a long day and see that Ken had left his stuff all over the living room. She’d gripe, and in response, he’d grouse at her for something she did or didn’t do. These negative interactions became so habitual that Ken and Josie were almost unaware of the pattern. But they were very aware of their unhappiness in the marriage.

In therapy, we focused on learning to express fondness and appreciation—not as rote words of thanks or praise, but from practicing mindfulness, attention, and remembering. In mindful relationships, we stop running from task to task on autopilot. Instead, we slow down enough to scan our environments and pay attention to what’s good about our partners, rather than fine-tuning our list of grievances.

Here’s an example from child-raising. We’re attuned to catching children in bad behavior, but it’s actually very important to catch them doing something right.

When my daughter was in middle school, she’d come downstairs as I was reading at the kitchen table. Often, I’d automatically ask her to empty the dishwasher or some other household task. One day when she came into the kitchen she said, “Mom, if every time you see me here you ask me to do something, I’m going to quit coming into the room!”

I let out a hearty laugh. In that instant, I saw myself through her eyes and realized the power of Pavlov’s classic description of conditioned responses. If I didn’t want to condition my daughter to stay out of the kitchen, I’d have to change my ways.

Similarly, in long-term relationships, try to catch your partner’s good deeds instead of simply noticing the irritations. In the case of Ken and Josie, they were able to recall the qualities that attracted them to each other and made a point of expressing their positive feelings regularly. By expressing more appreciation they noticed they were complaining less.

It feels good both to give and to receive heartfelt compliments. But they don’t have to be huge—even just a simple thank-you for doing the laundry counts. In fact, noticing and acknowledging those daily, routine things our partners do goes a long way to shoring up the foundation of our relationship house. Although it may feel awkward at first, positive interactions become automatic with attention and practice.

What are positive things you can do?

 

Find good things about your partner. This rewards what they’re doing right, and daily practice becomes ingrained in the brain and will therefore likely continue and reinforces continued positive interaction. It’s almost magic.

Express appreciation. For example, say thank you for stopping at the market or for taking out the trash. Even if these tasks arise from a couple’s division of labor, it’s still important to acknowledge them.

Pay attention. For example, listen to the way your partner tells a story about his/her day and respond with sincere interest, Don’t rush to change the subject to your own day or allow yourself to become distracted by phones, TV, or other attention snags.

Express affection. Physical affection tends to diminish as a relationship matures, but it doesn’t have to. We know that happy couples give and receive lots of affection through gestures like holding hands, stroking an arm or cheek, winking, and even just smiling. While these may seem obvious and simple actions, they’re often absent among couples who come to therapy—not a good sign. Getting back to affection requires letting go a bit, being relaxed, and trusting that your partner will be responsive and not pull back.

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Look Into My Eyes: The crucial role of eye contact in relationships

Eye contact is crucial in couple and family relationship. People are innately attracted to faces, especially eyes. The human face is associated with our identity; we are recognized more through our eyes than through any other facial feature. ”Because the eyes offer such rich social information, adults and infants alike show a natural attraction to the whole face,” write contributors to the APA handbook of nonverbal communication (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2016, pp. 335-362). Those who have trouble processing or dealing with social information, such as people with autism, schizophrenia, or social anxiety, tend to avoid eye contact; job seekers are told that good eye contact will make a positive impression.

When a relationship is new, lovers can spend hours gazing into each other’s eyes over dinner or while lying in bed, enjoying all the nuances of thought, feeling, and passion that can be communicated through facial expression. Young parents watch their children intently, searching their faces to read emotional reactions to sad or exciting events.

The Importance of Eye Contact

But at some point, we stop making eye contact. The romantic relationship matures, distractions (kids, work, medical problems, financial troubles) come in; kids attend to their devices, ignoring parents; parents chauffer their kids while talking on their phones; we eat dinner in front of the TV or our tablets, looking down every time a notification pops up. Whole days can go by without really seeing our partner’s or our children’s faces. In fact, in a previous post on non-sexual touch, I admit to a time when our twins were young, we were both working a lot, and I failed to notice that my husband had shaved his mustache three days before! That was a wake-up call for me.

In couples’ therapy, I gather a lot of information about how my clients communicate by watching their non-verbal interactions. Let’s take Amy and Paul as an example. If Amy and Paul never look at each other, or if Amy looks at Paul but Paul doesn’t return the gaze—his eyes darting around the room instead—I learn something of their connection. Paul has trouble making eye contact with me as well, which also tells me something.

They are coming to therapy because Amy feels that Paul is distant and disengaged. The two seldom interact, whether after work or on weekends. On a typical evening, Paul will come home and turn on the sports channel. Amy will call out from the other room with a question. Distracted, Paul doesn’t acknowledge her. Amy feels neglected, Paul feels he can never please her, and divorce looms. It is important to make eye contact to know that your partner is really listening. Trying to communicate from different rooms will lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding.

This scenario is very common in relationships. The partner calling for attention feels innocent of blame, saying “He never listens, he never responds.” When I gently point out that she’s trying to get his attention when he’s otherwise preoccupied, she explains that he must have heard her and is just ignoring her.

Maybe, after going on for years, this is has become the case. But often the simpler reason is that Paul is watching the game and he literally doesn’t hear. Or he half hears, but the question never gets into his long-term memory.

As is often the case with couples by the time they get to counseling, their dynamic has become entrenched after many years of hurt feelings on both sides. Each blames the other, Amy criticizing Paul for his lack of engagement, and Paul keeping all his feelings to himself. This apparent sulking serves to infuriate Amy more, and she in turn harps on him with progressive intensity. Walls go up and prevent the vulnerability that is needed for true intimacy. Neither Amy nor Paul realize what they are doing to prevent connection.

Look at me when I’m talking to you!

When someone makes eye contact with you, they’re signaling that you’re the object of their attention. There are cultural differences regarding gaze and respect, but in general, we look at those who are socially relevant to us. An averted gaze, in contrast, signals disinterest, shyness, or evasion (although research is mixed about whether lying causes less eye contact). That’s why parents demand “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” or someone suspicious of another might say “Look me in the eye and say that.” It is astonishing how often couples, and kids and parents, try to communicate without ever looking at each other.

But getting back to Amy and Paul, it was important for Paul to understand how dismissed Amy felt when he didn’t answer her or make eye contact with her. Of course, it was also important for Amy to have Paul’s attention before speaking to him. By taking the time to really look at each other, Amy and Paul began to feel closer. Each felt they were being heard.

Getting the focus where it belongs

If your family or romantic connection feels cold and distant, consider the role that gaze may play in preventing closeness. Here are some tips for getting the focus where it belongs.

  • Ban screens of any type (TV, computer, phone, or game) and reading at the dinner table so you can all converse face to face.
  • Make a point of turning to look at someone when they speak.
  • If someone isn’t meeting your gaze, don’t assume they don’t care. They may be preoccupied with work stress. Ask if there is a good time to talk and make a point of coming together a bit later.
  • Kids can be big distractions. If your kids continually interrupt your conversations, let them know that they need to respect adult time.
  • Make sure you have your partner’s attention when talking to them. Don’t try to talk from different rooms.
  • Turning toward your partner builds intimacy.

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“I’d be better off single”: Distress-maintaining thinking

6523102125_059d03f888_bHow may times have you gone to bed thinking that you hate your partner, fantasizing how you would live on your own? Your thoughts snag on difficulties like how to tell your kids, your family, and the neighbors, and how much it would cost to live in two households.

If you’ve had such thoughts, you are not alone. Transient feelings of anger, dislike, or even hatred toward a partner are not uncommon. “Transient” is the important word: we all have those feelings from time to time, but they don’t become harmful unless we nurse these feelings of discontent, disappointment, and grievance—until they add up to a permanently negative perspective. Therapists call this “distress-maintaining thinking.”

The fantasy that life would be better without your partner feeds the cycle of negativity and keeps you unhappy. This is a huge danger zone, making our relationship vulnerable to secrets, even affairs. Thinking that there is a more perfect person out there who will meet your needs is usually wrong. Blaming your partner for your unhappiness is easier than understanding what role you play in the disharmony.

Fantasies of escape can abet distress-maintaining thinking, but so can fantasies of perfection. We grow up listening to fairy tales, and often form our expectations from them: The princess must love the toad, the knight gives freedom to the hag, and the beauty falls in love with the beast. Real marriage, though, requires confronting what you bring to the relationship—not just looking at your partner’s flaws or imagined imperfections. The fantasy of the perfect partner who always loves and understands you is a child’s fantasy. Children want to be loved unconditionally, but adult relationships take effort on both sides.

 For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

 Equally distress-maintaining is simply giving up on a relationship. I had a client who had grown so detached from his partner that he was paralyzed by his inability to leave the marriage. In his despair, he told me the phrase I was to hear many times from other partner-providers: “It’s cheaper to keep her.” He had resigned himself to a passionless life because paying spousal support would have significantly diminished the retirement accounts and portfolio he’d taken years to build. But despair and casting oneself as the victim also means taking no agency in improving the relationship.

Relationship Enhancing Thoughts

In contrast to distress-maintaining thinking, cultivate relationship-enhancing thoughts. This practice doesn’t deny a relationship’s problems, but allows you to think about them in a way that brings understanding and insight to the challenges you face. Giving time and attention keeps friendship strong, leading to more engagement and more passion.

Don’t wait to redefine yourself by imagining a life with a different partner. Don’t just give up. Look at what you want for yourself now. How can you change the way you think about your marriage? As I was writing this post, a friend called to tell me about something I said to her several years ago that really stuck with her. I had mentioned the importance of making bids for contact and the “turning toward” concept, and how failing to do this will weaken connections, leading to negative perspective. She told me the image that come to her mind was one of a stack of neglected vinyl records stacked on top of each other without their sleeves, collecting dust and warping. Each time she ignored a bid or turned away from her lover, it was like adding another record to the pile, making the music increasingly unplayable.

Expecting perfection and continually ignoring opportunities to appreciate and admire each other compounds our marital problems, setting us up for escape fantasies. When we do the work of love by making a conscious effort to notice how attracted we are to our mates, when we make a point of noticing their positive traits, we feel comforted and loved.

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Building and Keeping a Strong Relationship After Having Kids

Couples counseling to help cope with disappointments with partner. Marital conflict is bad for kids. While every marriage has conflict, especially after the first baby, persistent difficulties in the marital relationship expose children to increased chance of depression, poor communication skills, and conduct disorder later in life.

Cindy and Max came to see me after their daughter Sophie started pre-school and teachers called them in to discuss her inability to speak in class or to play with other kids. Cindy and Max thought she was just shy, but Sophie was diagnosed with a form of social anxiety. I learned that the couple, not wanting Sophie to suffer the anxiety of being left with a babysitter, had never gone out on a date after her birth. They were never alone together and had even stopped entertaining friends. At home, Cindy and Max spent no couple time, except perhaps when bickering about who was going to do certain chores. Most meals were eaten in front of the TV; when the family did all sit down at a table together, Sophie would be the focus of their attention.

Cindy and Max responded to these tensions by stonewalling. Conflict lingered without any closure. Sophie observed all this, of course, and her separation anxiety increased until she became mute in front of anyone but her parents. It was only the diagnosis of anxiety that spurred her parents to look at their unhappiness and how it was affecting their daughter.

The Best Way to Take Care of Your Kids is to Take Care of  Your Marriage

The most important thing you can do is to stay good friends with your partner. Handle conflicts with gentleness and positivity; repair arguments when they become nasty. These seemingly simple things can create a climate that fosters intimacy, romance, and emotional engagement because these things grow out of a couple’s friendship and their ability to manage conflict.

Couples of today expect a lot from marriage; in previous generations when roles were more clear-cut, expectations were lower. People become partners because they value time together, but a new baby shifts the balance. Couple time recedes and baby time takes the lion’s share. For women, marital satisfaction goes way down, from 62% of childless married women reporting being very happy to only 38% of new mothers reporting feeling happy.

Please note: While many women get the “baby blues,” a relatively brief emotional letdown after childbirth, some 8 to 19% of women reported having frequent postpartum depressive (PPD) symptoms in a CDC survey. These symptoms include having scary or negative thoughts about the baby, worrying about hurting the baby, and feeling ashamed about not being a good mother. PPD is a serious problem that can not only affect the sufferer but also impair infant-mother attachment and the marriage. If a woman has this more severe depression, it is important she discuss her symptoms with her physician, who will refer her to a psychologist for counseling and a psychiatrist for medication evaluation.

Protecting Your Sex Life is One Way to Stay Connected When Children Take So Much

Having kids puts a damper on a couple’s sex life in several ways. Nursing shifts the hormonal balance by suppressing estrogen, increasing prolactin, and lowering testosterone levels. This combination results in vaginal dryness, which can cause pain during intercourse and lower libido. Breastfeeding is literally draining, and it’s additionally tiring to have sole responsibility to feed or even pump, especially on a newborn’s two-hour feeding cycles. Nursing does increase oxytocin, the feel-good hormone. With the baby meeting the mother’s needs for happiness, warmth, and intimacy, fathers can feel left out. However, fathers can experience rising oxytocin levels when cuddling their babies—they don’t have to feel left out http://www.livescience.com/10784-dads-hormone-boost-caring-baby.html. Many women, whether they nurse or not, feel “touched out” by the end of a day full of clingy young children.

While it’s not possible to change your hormonal balance, looking at what you can change will go a long way. Understanding that loss of desire is normal and that it will return is reassuring. It can also be reassuring to know that couples can maintain good sex lives without gymnastics. As Dr. Helen Fisher says, “If you want to start a very active sex life with your partner, don’t wait for your sex drive to get you to the bedroom. Just get to the bedroom.” Quickie sex releases all the feel-good chemicals of long gourmet sex. I tell my clients that meat & potato sex is fine (or gluten free.) Not every meal is gourmet.  Even if you aren’t in the mood, the closeness you feel will increase warmth and affection when not in the bedroom.

There are many other ways to protect your relationship after having children. In future posts, I will discuss other important ways to take care of your children by caring for your marriage.