How To Get Someone To Break Up With You
Last night, Parent Map, a "Monthly Newsmagazine and Online Resource for Puget Sound Parents", hosted UW Emeritus Professor of Psychology Dr. John Gottman for a talk called "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work," as part of their Pathways lecture series for parents. New parents can check this site out.
Actually, we were hoping to attend this suicide lecture at the UW, but of course in Seattle you have to be an early freaking bird with anything with "suicide" in the title. That lecture filled up over two weeks ago.
Gottman's talk was all right, but a bit skewed, if you ask us. He seemed horribly biased in favor of people working things out as couples. So we're going to apply the principle of reversibility to his advice so that you'll know exactly how to put a stake in the heart of that relationship you don't want. It's an easy 3-step process:
1) When you complain, make sure to logically connect your complaint with your partner being somehow defective as a person, and indicate -- firmly and consistently -- what they need is therapy (bonus points: select someone whose behavior drives you crazy in the first place, blame them for being themselves)2) Be sure your comments and behavior put the other person on the defensive -- you don't want to elicit sympathy or empathy here, you want a strong "Oh yeah? Screw you!" volley-and-return so hostility escalates (bonus points: use horror movies icons to describe your partner)
3) Exhibiting contempt and superiority is the keystone of a quick relationship flame-out: on average, stir in contempt, and you're out of your marriage within 5.6 years -- if you don't have the guts for open contempt, if you just retreat to opposite sides of the ring and live your own flat, emotionless lives, you're just adding years to the sentence, a total of 16.2 on average from nuptials to "have a nice life" (bonus points: mocking your partner in front of others)
We know what you're thinking and you're right to doubt us. You've been fooled before with promises of an escape hatch, and instead it's just been more warm, fuzzy emotional manipulation and self-control, day in and day out. But look, this is based on science, cold, clear-eyed science.
Gottman and crew have researched literally thousands of couples, from newlyweds, to couples in their 40s, to couples in their 60s, and have done longitudinal studies as well to see how people perform over the long term. You, you're just an amateur -- they have an installation at the Exploratorium in San Francisco where visitors can watch 3 minutes of two couples and try to predict which couple will divorce. People's responses are no better than chance -- Gottman can tell within three minutes who will get divorced with over 90% accuracy.
As he pointed out during the lecture, he's "made a living watching people deteriorate." It's funny, he's a very personable guy, sounds a bit like Alan Alda, cracks jokes like George Carlin, but he's serious about what he does. When he role-plays how a couple argues, his voice gets ugly, his face freezes, he sneers -- and then he holds it for a bit, so the audience can see itself and break into helpless laughter. If you ask a question during the Q&A, don't be thinking you can get away with the old "What advice would you give a couple who...?" Gottman wants to know if it's you, what the precise issue is, and if you are willing to talk about it in front of 1,000 other people.
The truth that will set you free is that negative emotions escalate easily. George Bach had it right -- get in there with your foam bats and take some practice swings. You'll work your way up in no time. Once you develop what's called "negative sentiment override," you'll blow up at the slightest thing, and walk around with a distorting chip on your shoulder that turns your partner's smile into a taunt. Hey, you enjoy a good fight. You won't be even aware of it; it'll be automatic. You may even be confused at why people are so edgy and prone to tears around you.
Gottman spent a lot of time of how to achieve positive sentiment override, and maybe a few of you are interested in that, so we'll mention it. Essentially, he feels that the root of romantic relationship is friendship -- people relate best when they don't have to question whether their partner is on their side or not. But you can't force trust -- it has to be built with a thousand little everyday gestures. Here again we have a 3-step process:
1) Love mapping: Gottman says friends know what their friends like and don't like, what gets them enthusiastic and what bugs them, how they respond in different situations, what they're likely to feel -- and they do all this by asking open-ended questions, being curious, being attentive (a common mistake is that people try to broadcast how interesting they are, rather than what a good listener they are)2) Giving your partner a chance to shine: Don't get involved with your partner's mistakes, said Gottman -- spend your time and energy noting what they do contribute, remarking on their successes, expressing your wants with admiration for how they can help
3) Responding to your partner's presence: This may seem like a no-brainer, but people can slip into the habit of ignoring each other's little ooh and ahs, throat-clearings, and other ways of asking for a brief moment of attention, and some people actively shut down bids for attention -- ("Why are you so needy!") -- removing the foundation for higher communication: if you can't notice each other's signals, it's hard to coordinate when you really do need to talk
On conflict, Gottman first pointed out that some level of conflict is always going to exist; there aren't many perfect communicators running around, so couples will disagree, and fight over things. Because some personality conflicts are long-lived, you may have to learn to deal with them without actually resolving them.
Many conflicts are not about the positions people are taking, but about a wish or dream they are committed to -- maybe one of you wants the feeling of a quick, easy drive through Seattle along the waterfront and the other wants a beautiful park-like environment to enjoy the waterfront in. Compromise focuses on helping the other person have their dream.
Partnership, according to Gottman, is about building meaning together, learning to understand the language of your partnership. People connect through conflict when they think or feel there's no other bridge to use. Successful couples form a culture that celebrates all kinds of bridges, through rituals that emphasize what's important in life, through constant exploration of each other's lives, through turning toward each other with love and respect.
Hey, whatever. We don't judge.
