Here are some of the experts whose work influences my thinking and my behavior.

John Gottman - He's a well-regarded psychologist who researches what's different about marriages that survive and marriages that end in divorce. Two big takeaways.

First, the ratio of positive to negative interactions between spouses is 5:1 or greater in successful marriages. Interactions include our words, our body language, and our facial expressions. Fighting, teasing, and defending your boundaries are indeed OK in a marriage, but only when outweighed by smiles, kind words, gentle touches, enthusiastic agreement, kisses, hugs, and other good stuff.

Second, there are four horsemen of divorce. If they ride into town, get help right away. They are Criticism (of your mate's character or personality), Contempt (insults, name-calling, eye-rolling, sneering, mocking), Defensiveness (acting like a victim, justified in your critical or contemptuous response to what you don't like), and Stonewalling (stony silence, icy distance, the silent treatment, changing the subject).

Shelly Gable - She's a well-regarded positive psychologist whose research shows it matters more what we do when a spouse is capitalizing (sharing good news) than looking for sympathy.

There are four possible capitalization responses: active-constructive, passive-constructive, active-destructive, and passive-destructive. Active-constructive responses lead to strong marriages.

The constructive part means you focus in your initial response on the upside of the good news and ignore any possible downside. Sure, winning the lottery may bring moochers out of the woodwork and getting on the bestseller list could make it harder to eat out anonymously, and getting a promotion might require more overtime, but now is not the time for that discussion. It is also not the time for discussing when you will get fed or what a bad day you had or some good news of yours from your childhood.

The active part means you give it more than a passing, "That's great." You join in telling the story of this good news. You recall the hard work that led to it or label it a well-deserved turn of events. You ask questions about how your spouse wants to celebrate or what good things will come from this.

Harriet Lerner - She's not a researcher, but her analogy in The Dance of Anger thirty-some years ago struck a chord with so many of us for so long that it's well worth paying attention to.

Your initial attempts at a change in your marriage are likely to be met the same as a new step in a dance. Without even being aware of it, your spouse may try to lead you back to the familiar and expected steps, and more than once. Give a strong signal that you will be trying a new step and keep trying until it feels comfortable to your spouse, even if it means being led back to the old one a few times.

Gary Chapman - He's a preacher who observed that we don't all regard the same things as signs of love. This leads us to misinterpret our spouse's actions or to get poor reactions to our best attempts at being loving.

He named Five Love Languages that seem to cover most of our misunderstandings, and millions of us have shared them and his books about them with others. The languages are Receiving Gifts, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Acts of Service, and Quality Time. If your spouse speaks a different one from you, it's time to learn more about it.

Emerson Eggerichs - He's another preacher, and I must admit I did not buy his advice at first. He backed it up not with research but with Bible verses I thought were taken out of context. And then I heard him speak. In a room of 2,000 marriage educators, half men and half women, all well-trained in what makes marriage work and what does not.

The 1,000 men in that room were my research sample. Hearing their response to his questions opened my eyes. Since then, I have seen brain research backing it up. To men (unless you mess with their testosterone and estrogen levels), feeling loved means feeling respected, not cherished. And just as women who stop feeling cherished often lose respect for their men, men who stop feeling respected lose every romantic impulse. Eggerichs calls this stepping on each other's air hoses, because we behave frantically when we feel we have lost the love we need to live.

The takeaway: If you feel you are losing your wife's respect, cherish her anyway. And if you feel you are no longer cherished by your husband, give him your respect anyway. Because your partner goes into panicky survival mode when you don't.

Gottman's Four Horsemen (Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling) convince us we are no longer respected or cherished, even when Chapman's Words, Gifts, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, and Quality Time try to say otherwise. Gable's Active-Constructive responses show respect and speak the Love Languages of both Quality Time and Words of Affirmation. Defensiveness (one of the Four Horsemen) is all about trying to lead the Dance of Anger back to the old, familiar steps. And I don't know about you, but I get such a thrill from dancing with anyone whose body language feedback is positive five times as often as it says I goofed up that I will try my best to follow any change in the steps.

Today would have been my 40th wedding anniversary if my first husband had lived -- and if I had not foolishly believed divorce was the only alternative to the resentments in our marriage. I am so thrilled that you had the good sense to look for alternatives and glad you found this blog. May all your anniversaries be filled with awe at how well you two function together and how thoroughly you are known, accepted, respected, and cherished by your spouse.

Posted by Patty Newbold at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

If your marriage is going downhill because you don't feel needed, maybe you can stop it.

Remember to Expect Love from your partner in marriage. In other words, don't expect other things and thereby overlook the love you long for.

For example, some folks profess their love with words like "I cannot live without you." And they mean it. Or they believe they do: death by broken heart is actually rather rare. But the important thing to remember here is that these are the words of someone who loves with words. The generous person who loves with gifts or the helpful person who loves by helping won't feel loving saying such a thing, even if they feel they need you.

And they will stop doing their thing if it isn't working because you are waiting for these words.

So, maybe you don't want such over-the-top words. What you want is a little gratitude for all you do. This expectation is still a bit of premeditated resentment if gratitude is difficult for your spouse or if you two are locked in a competition to be the more helpful one. For you to feel needed, your spouse must feel needy, no? Maybe what he or she most needs is some relief from that feeling.

Maybe by now you're yelling at me through your computer or smart phone. You don't need the words. You don't need a fancy thank you. What you need is some sign you are needed, some hint you are not disposable, some guarantee you are doing enough to prevent your husband or wife from walking out the door, some inkling that all the effort you are putting in will not be for naught.

And I feel for you. I've been there. It's scary. It's awful. It's vulnerable.

And the only way out is to come, ever so slowly, to the realization that it is an impossible wish that is eating you alive.

No matter how great a husband or wife you are, there is no way to be good enough to guarantee your love will never be rejected. No way.

You must learn to love without this guarantee.

You are needed. Your money, your decorating savvy, your bug squashing, your laundry washing, your incredible sex moves may be needed. But the one thing you can be certain your spouse needs from you is your love.

And you cannot truly love while you are telling yourself you are not needed just because your mate has not announced you are.

Welcome to vulnerable, the place where the best marriages happen.

Posted by Patty Newbold at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I love the TV show Scandal. In it, the President of the United States is having a longstanding and very steamy affair with the show's main character, Olivia Pope, one of many scandals the title refers to.

Last night, the President addressed a news conference called after his wife announced she and their child had moved out of the White House because he is having an affair. He opened with this: "My marriage is none of your damn business!"

For all the crazy plots these folks have laid on us, this is the first line to get an audible scoff from me.

Because it is. And not just a President's marriage. Every marriage. Marriage is about our relationship to our community, our religious fellowship, our state, and our nation and not just our relationship with each other.

We The People would not give the First Date a platform for world-changing actions nor a budget. These go only to a spouse.

We won't let your cohabiting partner continue receiving your Social Security checks after you die. They go back into the pot for others. We won't cut you a break on the choice between risking perjury and risking loss of shared income if you move in with a criminal, but we will if you publicly marry that same criminal.

In most states, our courts will not help you lay claim to assets from the job your lover works while you care for the house and kids. But if you marry, we will. And we'll toss in a special income tax break for the year your spouse dies. And let you spread your shared income over the two of you in determining which tax bracket you fall in.

Why? Because, for one, marrying significantly reduces the odds your offspring will become a burden on the rest of us. It reduces how much you two will cost Medicare in your old age. It increases the odds you will have income to pay taxes on if you become disabled. And it decreases the chance you will spread or need financial help for treating a sexually transmitted disease. We benefit, so you two benefit.

Married men are statistically more likely to show up for work and perform their jobs well, too. This gives married men a better shot at landing a job than unmarried men.

But there is a downside for the rest of us. When we offer you benefits for marrying, we encourage secrecy when you violate your vows. If you rule a nation, guard our secrets, protect us, or work for any of us, your desire for secrecy could easily compromise our interests.

And this is why your marriage is very much our business, Mr. Made-for-TV President. If you want a more private life, turn down the package of benefits we offer for marrying before you break those vows.

Posted by Patty Newbold at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Would your marriage survive if you or your spouse had to deal with any of these?

• Firing


• Severe depression


• Blindness


• A home so small your visiting father can only get to the bathroom through your bedroom or by going outside


• Bulimia


• Painkiller addiction


• A rehab program you cannot leave that's so bad your counselor commits suicide


• A bad hiking fall with a serious head injury for the one spouse who can drive


• Wanting to move back to a more familiar place to escape a bad job when you cannot find jobs for both of you there


• The slow death of a widowed mother

If you have ever wondered, "How will I/we survive this?" — read this book. If you have ever thought divorce or suicide was the only way out of your current pain, read this book. If you are married to someone life seems to challenge at every turn, read this book, and pay attention to Jim's part of the story.

You need to know what remarkable things await someone who rides the waves that might have knocked them down. You need to feel, through Sue's story and the masterful way she writes about it, the other side of each wave, where anguish turns to exuberance and grief turns to peace.

If you bail while it's bad, you will never know the upside of crisis. And if you don't get this book, you will miss one great read.

Out of the Whirlpool: A Memoir of Remorse and Reconciliation, by Sue Wiygul Martin.

The book comes out in May 2013, so right now, let Sue know you want the announcement. While you're there, you can read early drafts of some of the chapters for free.

I am supposed to reveal when I receive anything from anyone whose work I tout. I received an autographed copy of the advance reader's copy of this book, with no requirement to do anything more than offer my feedback to Sue.

I received something much more valuable from her that I am not required to reveal. I met Sue while working for the US Department of Veterans Affairs on website and elearning accessibility. We met in person several times at meetings and conferences.

Sue possesses a presence, a fire in her belly that lets her move from outrage to laughter almost as fast an an infant does and to tender concern or all business as fast as that infant's mother. It's affecting. It's contagious. It's life-affirming. And she will tell you flat out that it and her blindness come from the time she took a rifle to her head to try to end a very unhappy time in her life.

So what does this have to do with marriage? Divorce is nowhere near as final as suicide, but it ends a family and a relationship. It keeps you from ever getting to the other side of the wave if there is one. Before you pull that trigger, you owe it to yourself to read Sue's story and try to catch a spark from that fire in her belly.

Posted by Patty Newbold at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

One of my fellow Success Teams leaders asked me a couple of interesting questions recently on behalf of some of her team members.

1. How do you get a partner (or a friend) who is resistant, to express THEIR goals, and
2. How do you get a partner who is threatened by your new enthusiasm to support YOUR goals?

The answer to the first one is simple. You don't.

You may hope to support a partner's goal in pursuit of more support for your own. This does not often work very well.

• Not everyone has goals.


• Some who have goals have process goals, like staying in the moment or maximizing flow or gratitude each day, rather than outcome goals, and outcome goal-setters may accidentally tramp all over their partners' enthusiasm because they are unable to see them as goals.


• Some need to be sure of their own commitment to a goal before mentioning it to anyone else, even a partner.


• Some are so afraid of creating conflict by mentioning a goal that they can do it only in anger.


• And some have grown to suspect strings attached to any support for their goals, like an expectation of their automatic support for a partner's goal. If you're rummaging about for something to support as you set your own new goal, the strings will be very obvious.

The second question is a lot more interesting. How can they court support for their own goals?

Start with the very reasonable assumption that your partner who pledged to love you does and wants to show it. This might not be true, but start with this assumption in your quest to discover how to get support, or you might get mired in fear of losing your mate.

If your spouse loves you, he or she wants to wholeheartedly support your goal. Any failure to do so results from resentment towards you over some other issue or fear of what your goal will impose upon your partner. We are usually rather aware of the first and clueless about the second, so let's talk about how your goal affects your partner.

Here is an example from the Success Team I mentioned earlier:

One has a hubby who has been really stressed about her taking time to go to our success team meetings and training with me to run a half-marathon.

Remember back when we were first falling in love, and a partner's distress over time apart seemed like a sure sign of a good relationship? Sometime later, it feels like we've lost our freedom. And we fall into either-or thinking: either I keep my freedom or my partner is really stressed.

But issues like this are seldom either-or. Finding that Third Alternative that allows for our goals and our partners' peace of mind is the answer. To find it, we need to see beyond the first-glance issues.

Her partner is not necessarily stressed by the time she spends on running or meeting. He may be stressed by having too many items on his to-do list. He may be stressed by the story in his head of why she's doing these these things. He may be stressed by how little time they now carve out for couple time. He may be stressed by a belief that she is not grateful for what he does with his time, when he would rather be spending it on a hobby or a new goal.

One of them needs to jump the fence and say, "I want you to have this. I really do. I want what I need, too, not instead, and I am eager to brainstorm together how we can have both."

One husband's stress level went through the roof when his wife went off for a five-day workshop to learn to be a writer. Both had recently retired, and he was becoming so obnoxious she wasn't sure she wanted to return from the workshop. And then she realized he might believe her new plans conflicted with his travel plans, even though she was looking forward to combining writing with travel, because they had never talked about how to have both. She's published two books now and can write off travel to places where she runs workshops or does book signings.

Here is another example from that Success Teams leader:

another has a hubby who is upset that I motivated her to go on a girls' only trip for her 40th birthday...He is insecure about the fact that she did not plan a special event for him to share with her on that day....(She went with me on my girls' trip on my 50th!)

Of course he's insecure. Telling your husband that you would rather not celebrate a milestone with him marks a change. It opens up all sorts of possible stories about the future. He cannot tell if it is a change in their relationship, a change in her approach to life that he will not like, or simply a different plan for a milestone day. And the human brain almost always goes for the most dangerous story it can invent. And then it embellishes on the danger.

If he's still important in her life, she should say so. If her milestone affects the man who loves her, she can surely come up with a second celebration to mark it with him. His insecurity has nothing to do with who she plans to be with on her birthday. It's all about what his future role in her life will be. The number of possible Third Alternatives for turning a conflict into an opportunity is huge, as long as she starts with, "I really want you to help you feel secure about our future, and I want to mark this milestone with you, and I want to travel with my girlfriends on my birthday. Let's figure out how to have all three."

By the way, if you have a dream you want to pursue, I will be launching my next international Success Team in May. We'll be meeting by phone from 10-noon EDT on Saturdays for 8 weeks. Leave me a comment if you're interested.

Posted by Patty Newbold at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)