Bring Back the Gottmans

This month we will have been married for 25 years.

We are pretty excited. We’ve been together for more than half our lives.

And we know that being married means a lot of things to a lot of people. For us, it is being able to end each day, most days, with our best friend.

I was around a bend this week listening and watching things that were so outside of my lane that I had to literally cut myself off from Spotify. It started with the Manosphere documentary and then a deep dive into Arthur Brooks new book (I do NOT recommend) and then this podcast about a kidnapping from the 80s. On the podcast this week I shared how Brooks says the key to marriage is upping dopamine; for women—look deep into their eyes and for dudes, touch them. And fine but fuck. What if I really don’t like eye contact?

And what if I know better?

I literally have a degree in Marriage and Family Studies and I am working on one in Education Leadership that focuses on Connection and Belonging. We have, in real life, worked on our marriage with John and Julie Gottman. We have been to marriage retreats and have considered running one. So why do I get so upset by this one guy spreading this kind of message? I know better so just go on with my life. Right?

No.

No, because people believe him. Women are going to bed at night pissed because their man didn’t give them the eye contact that Brooks said they need rather than saying to their man—hey, I need your full attention. Even if they don’t want eye contact.

First, research matters. I’m saying this as one that has read and understood research for a long time and one that is currently in the middle of doing the work. It is hard and slow, methodical and at times overwhelming. It is niche. It is so very precise and so very often meant for a very narrow audience and population.

But we as a human race are so desperate for connection that we take elements out of context to find the way to do life to win.

Second, patterns are nice, but when we lose our humanity in the numbers then what is it all for?

Brene Brown and Adam Grant have started a new podcast and it is great, if not a little testy from time to time. Adam represents the quantitative research—what do the numbers tell us, often times at a level that may no longer matter. And Brene is from the camp of lived experience and finding meaning from the words of the masses, specifically grounded theory but often uses qualitative research. This means that they can disagree and see things from different perspectives.

And for me what it means is that the research is lovely and a starting point to find out about the actual humans in your life.

If you are using research to solve a problem you have in your relationship, you can read a lot of things or you can talk to the people you are in relationship with.

If you are using research to sell the ONE right way to do anything, you are probably oversimplifying.

The Gottmans teach about a lot of different things that come from their research.

I am certified to teach their programs and within those we talk about the Four Horsemen that predict divorce: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. We spend a lot of time talking about the Magic Ratio of 5:1 (we use this in schools a lot, too). Every healthy relationship needs five positive interactions to every one negative.

And my favorite, bids for connection. And the Gottmans will tell you the bid—the eye contact, the touching, the whatevering means less than your reaction to it—when you turn towards your partner, you are in the flow needed to achieve relationship bliss but when you turn away or worse yet against, shit is going to break.

We learned a long time ago that learning the love maps of your partner is a key to finding joy in the relationship. Knowing how your partner responds to stress, what their dreams and fears are and discovering the ways that make them happy will be the things that bind you together over time. Call it dopamine or love languages, talk about your earth and moon sign, or where you fall on any personality test but share about yourself with your partner and find out about them.

This goes for partners, parents and children, friends and co-workers. When we build healthy relationships then the world is better for it as are we.

When we feel connected, we can feel like we belong. When we belong we can do better work—we contribute more, we feel satisfied (or competent from my research), we find our place on a team, in a family, in a partnership.

When we don’t feel connected, when we aren’t in relationship with others, we treat others like property, we talk like we know everything, and we bomb other countries. I’m around a bend but the more I think about it, we are all in this together and the way back is by engaging with each other, talking, seeing, understanding, loving. Even the ones that are unlovable because, like we say in school, it is better to think, what happened to them rather than what is wrong with them.

What I think I’m bristling against right now is attention seeking behavior at volume 10, both from our leaders and so called experts in the field. Am I jealous that Brooks books become best sellers and I’m still looking for an agent? Probably yes. AND also that he oversimplifies. Both can be true.

Am I frustrated that our president does outrageous things to get attention? Yes. Do I think we can do something about it? I’m not totally sure. Is it pathology or behavior? Could we try giving him positive attention and see if it reduces the negative attention seeking behavior? Can we find anything positive and try it just to get a moment of peace?

I’m not sure, but I do know that when you ignore attention seeking behavior, bad behavior increases.

So, yes, I am around a bend finding my way home by focusing on what I know to be true one bid at a time. Even if that bid means deep eye contact.