Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 35: One Simple Behaviour That Helps Relationships Last

Episode Date: July 4, 2020

What keeps relationships together? And what tears them apart? I've always been obsessed with looking at patterns of those in happy couples. Today, we share some research into a single behaviour that can make all the difference... Let us know your thoughts. Send us an email at [e-mail]!  >>> Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey >>> Follow Matthew @thematthewhussey Transform your core confidence...download the free training at GetCoreConfidence.com

Well Well, hello and welcome back to the Love Life Podcast with your host, which is I, Mr. Stephen Hussey, and we are doing another one of our delightful solo episodes today, where it's just going to be me talking through one of my very highly shared recent blog posts on the site, and this one is based on some really interesting research so I think it's gonna help lots of you think about you know when we get into relationships the kind of thing you can do that actually sets it up for success because I find repeatedly the biggest enemy in relationships is our own toxic habits or maybe the people we choose that can be a toxic habit as well right choosing toxic people but um there's so much about

i'm obsessed with the little behaviors that couples show towards each other and i think you can learn a lot from seeing the couples that succeed and the ones that fail and knowing what the differences are in the small little ways they behave. So let's dive into it. So I'm just going to read from the article as I usually do with these and then kind of give you ad lib and commentary as we go through um so here we go have you ever played the game where you guess which one of your friends in relationships are going to stay together it's not a habit to be proud of but most of us have found ourselves perhaps with our friends or partners idly criticizing the couples around us we say she always gives him shit when she's tired, you can tell it really annoys him.

Or, he's totally unromantic and never does anything thoughtful. Or, you can tell that she resents his mum when she's always trying to muscle in and help with the new baby. And maybe these flaws we identify are real. Often though, they tend to reflect our own prejudices and pet peeves as much as anything else we think to ourselves i would hate to be with someone like that how can they stand it this is why most of us are pretty bad fortune tellers when it comes to love. Yet there is a researcher who claims he can predict future

relationship success. John M Gottman, the executive director of the Relationship Research Institute, claims that just three hours with a couple is enough for him to predict whether they will stay together in the next three to five years with more than 90% accuracy. As he explains in an interview with Harvard Business Review, it sounds simple but in fact you could capture all of my research findings with the metaphor of a salt shaker. Instead of filling it with salt, fill it with all the ways you can say yes and that's what a good relationship is. Yes, you say, that is a good idea. Yes, that's a great point, I never thought of that.

Yes, let's do that if you think it's important. You sprinkle yeses throughout your interactions, That's what a good relationship is. This is particularly important for men whose ability to accept influence from women is really one of the most critical issues in a relationship. Now, that might sound like it mirrors one of the most sexist tropes some bore will repeat in the pub. Secret to marriage, just say yes to whatever the wife asks. Ha ha ha ha blah blah but i wonder how many couples actually heed this advice what if we made it a game or a mission how many times could you say yes to helping your partner if you really tried as gotman goes on to

say the worst thing we can do is shut our partners down. Marriages where the men say to their partners, gee, that's a good point, or yeah, I guess we could do that, are much more likely to succeed. He also says, in contrast, in a partnership that's troubled, the salt shaker is filled with all the ways you can say no. In violent relationships, for example, we see men responding to their wives' requests by saying, no way, it's just not going to happen, you're not going to control me, or simply, shut up. When a man is not willing to share power with his wife, Gottman's research shows, there is an 81% chance that the marriage will self-destruct. So I suspect that even just a pinch more conscientious effort in this would improve most couples' happiness enormously. So think of how often we hear the complaint,

They don't care about my opinion, they just don't listen, he or she doesn't respect my ideas, they just ignore me and do whatever they want. Maybe we can endure such feelings when they occur in one moment, but it's never about one moment. If all the relationship science and research I've studied over the years agrees on one thing, it's that frequency matters. More yeses, more compliments, more sexual attention, more I love yous, more favours, more appreciation. Everything we do to lift up our partner and smooth their path along the world

goes towards making them feel fulfilled, heard, understood and loved. And yeses indicate a partnership, they indicate teamwork, they indicate respect for someone else's ideas and it's very tricky because we've been taught so much about how important independence is and we all feel you know we're self-actualizing autonomous creatures and we have our own path and it's about you know what's stopping us from getting in our path and i'm not going to let anyone get in the way of what my goals my pursuits my wants are and there's something to be said for being unwavering in your commitment to the things that are really truly important to you but you know once we're in a partnership then it becomes

a question of well us together we need to be you know we're rowing a boat and we need to be rowing those oars together in unison in the same direction and we can't both have different ideas or ignore the other person's ideas we have to kind of talk and say okay yeah maybe let's veer that way for a moment or let's go in that direction or okay um let's try and figure out how we can both say yes in this scenario and both get what we want and once you're doing that and once you're thinking how can i say yes to this person that's what i like i and once you're thinking how can I say yes to this person that's what I like I like the flip of that how can I say yes to this or how can we accommodate the thing that they're concerned about here because that's often what it is right in a couple when

someone is saying a different idea to you or there's a different way they want to plan that that weekend that trip that thing with your family or there's a different way they want to plan that weekend, that trip, that thing with your family or there's a different way they want to do things around the house or whatever it is, you know, they're just expressing a need, they're expressing a desire to be listened to and even just saying, yeah, how could I say yes to that right now? How can I make them feel respected and understood and not dismiss it? I think that's the thing that really hurts couples is when you feel like I'm going to bring up a need and it's just going to get dismissed and I'm going to be made to feel stupid. That's

the worst thing of all. So yeah, I think figuring out how you can say yes more. And naturally, this can be confused with having no backbone. But good judgement in this area will mean ensuring that one person's needs don't get consistently prioritised over the others. That's where, as always, choosing the right person in the first place comes in. You need someone who will say yes back to you after all. Now, I'm always sceptical of any idea that's touted as a panacea or a cure-all to solve relationships, and certainly Gottman isn't presenting this as one of them. Just like the pursuit of happiness, there is never one secret there are many but finding ways to say yes

more to opinions suggestions concerns and open pathways for the person you love assuming your effort is reciprocated doesn't sound like a bad place to start okay that is it from me for today and if you want to start the process, if you are in a place right now where you think, I would like a relationship, but I really want to work on my deep inner confidence so that I feel ready, so that I feel self-fulfilled, so that I feel in a place where I'm going to be in a relationship

that I'm not going to sabotage, that I'm going to come to it with my best on the table, you can get started by going to getcoreconfidence.com and checking out our free video training there. And you're going to see Matt live talking about what it actually takes to start the process of building those foundations of core confidence. That's getcoreconfidence.com. And if you want to email the show and give us any comments on this episode and this idea of saying yes more in relationships and your experience with that, or just any general comments, you can email us at podcast at matthewhussey.com. Podcast at matthewhussey.com podcast at matthewhussey.com

okie dokie that is all from your pal Stevie today I'm sending you a big old warm hug from here in merry old England and I will see you all soon next week on the next episode. I'm going to go have a little relax now. Go play some Nintendo Switch. Maybe stick on a little bit of Animal Crossing.

Do something relaxing and fun. Alright, you enjoy your weekend. I will see you soon!