Better communication seems to occur in less stressful marriages. But are you sure which one causes which? Those couples who communicate better experience less stress (as measured by cortisol in their saliva) while discussing a difficult topic. But when you give randomly selected couples a squirt of oxytocin nasal spray in a relationship lab, they communicate better than the couples who...
“‘Don’t wait until your kids leave home to schedule quality time with your partner,’ said UC Berkeley psychology professor Oliver John” in today’s UC Berkeley News. He and fellow researchers Ravenna Helson and Sara Gorchoff conducted interviews with 100 women starting when they were seniors at Mills College in 1958. They might also have added...
Here’s a great quote from Jim Collins’ book Good to Great that applies even more to marriages than to the businesses he writes about: “Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.” Most of us start out this way, vowing to keep at it through...
Wishing a happy 80th anniversary today to Clyde and Marie Barnes, and thank to Salt Lake’s Channle 5, KSL-TV, for letting us know what Marie says is the secret to their success. “We just try to love what the other one does and do it together. If he suggests something, I try to go along with it. And if I suggest something, he seems to do the same.” Sounds to me like Marie listens...
Don Imus says he’s “apologized enough” for his sexist, racist comment about the Rutgers Womens Basketball team. How many husbands and wives have you heard say the same thing? Imus will have apologized enough when the state of his relationship is acceptable to him. And he hasn’t yet tried the step most likely to rebuild it. A husband or wife is fortunate to have just one...
I am a widow who got it right the second time. I have been sharing here since February 14, 2006 what I learned from that experience and from positive psychology, marriage research, and my training as a marriage educator.
