Transcript Balancing Work and Family Relationships in the *Real World

Marriage Expectations
and Relationships
Chapter 8
Ocean in Fiji, scuba and fish, 4.50
Father of the Bride, meets Franck
Chinese female bicycle acrobats, 4.05
Cosby’s gift for Claire
Gottman, four horsemen,
Doghouse 1, 4:45
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Marriage Expectations
• Do you expect to get married?
• ~ 90% of adults in the U.S. marry by age 40
~95% by age 70
• Push into marriage, social pressures and stigma
about being unmarried
• “Spinsters” and “old maids,” “bachelors”
• Religious teaching, “it is not good for man to be
alone…”, “marriage is ordained of God”
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Marriage Expectations
• Pull toward marriage
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Personal reasons, practical reasons
Intimacy, closeness, sex
Fulfillment
Have children
Work and life partnership
• Hopes for a close relationship (Charlie Brown)
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Marital Benefits
• Married people, on average, happier than
singles
• Society has stake strengthening marriages
• Utah e.g. Utah Stronger Marriage PSAs
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Marital Benefits
1. Healthier lifestyle… eating, drinking,
exercise, and avoiding harmful behavior
2. Longer life expectancy…from emotional and
economic support
3. More frequent and satisfying sexual
relationships
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Marital Benefits
4. Greater wealth and economic assets based
on increased income and sharing costs
5. Advantaged children (greater parental
attention, resources…emotional adjustment
and academic success)
• Average--not experienced by everyone
• Causality controversy
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Marriage Norms
• Norms = expectations about how people
should act in various roles
• Marriage norms = define what marriages
are expected to be like, or what we
expect husbands and wives to do
• Spouses expect same things or not? Need
to figure this out together…
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Core Norms of Marriage
• Fidelity = faithful, sexual exclusivity
• Permanence = “until death”, forever
• Kindness = civility, caring, partner’s needs
• Less general norms arise culturally, within
lineages, with each couple (examples)
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Traditional Marriage and
Family Norms
• Some norms defined by Tradition…
• Fiddler on Roof, Tradition 3.30 of 7 min
• “Here in ….everyone knows who he is,
and what God expects him to do”
• Pappa, scramble for a living…
• Momma, keep a proper home…
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Traditional Family Norms
• Breadwinner & homemaker
• “Instrumental” roles = Husbands
protect and provide economically
• “Expressive” roles = Wives nurture
husband and children
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Marital Norms Today
• Contemporary marriages and families
mostly diverse, nontraditional
• Marriages egalitarian, partners decide
who does what based on preference,
interests
• Roles vary by culture
• Islamic societies patriarchal
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In my marriage, who will be in
charge of child care?
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A
B
C
D
E
WIFE all or mostly
WIFE more than HUSBAND
EQUAL
HUSBAND more than WIFE
HUSBAND all or mostly
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In my marriage, who will earn
money?
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A
B
C
D
E
WIFE mostly
WIFE more than HUSBAND
EQUAL
HUSBAND more than WIFE
HUSBAND mostly
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In my marriage, who will do
the laundry?
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A
B
C
D
E
WIFE all or mostly
WIFE more than HUSBAND
EQUAL
HUSBAND more than WIFE
HUSBAND all or mostly
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Communication, general
• Communication = process of conveying
meaning. Requires listening, speaking.
• Fundamental process underlying all
relationships…marriage especially
• Key to close relationships
• Coaching husband to listen, skip 0-1.15,
use to 3.25 (4;6)
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Communication, general
• Emotions, ironies, multiple meanings
• Direct communication = saying what you
think without filtering or screening
• Indirect communication…hard time
saying what you really think or feel
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Communication, general
• Verbal and nonverbal
• Usually go together, not always
• Importance of nonverbal; trumps talk
• Voice only and text only = less meaning
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Types of Marital
Communications
• Maintenance communication = common
or mundane…most marital
communication
• Ex. Who is going to get the groceries?
• Not fulfilling or intimate for partners
• Important, sometimes essential
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Types of Marital
Communications
• Deeper, intimate communications
• Satisfy need to feel closeness
• To be heard and understood
• Share intimate thoughts and feelings
• Disclosure and support
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Communication problems
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Gottman, four horsemen,
Criticism…attacking the partner
Defensiveness…deny own role, blame other
Contempt…insult, belittle, put down, mock
Stonewalling…tuning out, turning off
• Patterns of accusation, blame, and victimization
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Gottman Styles of Conflict
• “Happiness isn’t found in a particular style of
fighting or making up. Rather, our research
suggests that what really separates contented
couples from those in deep marital misery is a
healthy balance between their positive and
negative feelings and actions toward each other.”
• “But by balance I do not mean a fifty-fifty
equilibrium.”
John Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail
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Communication and Intimacy
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Positive communication enhances intimacy
Poor communication inhibits close relationships
Poor communication predicts unhappy marriage
Cannot not communicate, silence has meaning
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Overcoming Negative
Communication Patterns
• Communicate without putting partner on defensive
• Eye contact with partner
• Active listening – A conscious effort to focus
completely on the conversation, to “put away”
other thoughts
• Express specific complaints, gently
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Overcoming Negative
Communication Patterns
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Empathy, other’s view
Celebrating your story, good times…
Cosby’s gift for Claire
Spend positive time together
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Gottman Magic Ratio
• “As part of our research we carefully charted the
amount of time couples spent fighting versus
interacting positively—touching, smiling, paying
compliments, laughing, etc. Across the board we
found there was a very specific ratio that exists
between the amount of positivity and negativity in
a stable marriage, whether it is marked by
validation, volatility, or conflict avoidance. That
magic ratio is 5 to 1.”
John Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail
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Gottman Magic Ratio
• …”it all comes down to a simple mathematical
formula: no matter what style your marriage
follows, you must have at least five times as many
positive as negative moments together if your
marriage is to be stable.”
• “as long as there is five times as much positive
feeling and interaction between husband and wife
as there is negative, we found the marriage was
likely to be stable.”
John Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail
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Power and Authority
• Authority = legitimated power, the right
to make decisions, exercise power
• Power = the ability to exert one’s will
• What About Bob trailer, 2.10
• Authority clear, who has power?
• What About Bob Peace and Quiet, 1.40
• Both authority and power are relevant for
couple interactions
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Power and Authority
• Traditionally men had authority:
• “head of household”
• Initiated dating
• Proposed marriage
• Decided where to live
• Managed finances
• Decided who did what in the household
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Power and Authority
• Bases of Power
• Resources – education, money, job status
• Expert power, knowledge or expertise
• Reward power, bribes, sex
• Coercive power, punishment
• Personality, humor
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Your Family of Origin
Mother is (was)
A
B
C
D
Employed full time
Employed part time
Employed sometimes
Not Employed
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Power and Authority
• Egalitarian = marriage partners do things
jointly, make decisions together, based on
partners’ interests and talents, rather than
playing traditional marital roles assigned by
society
• Role taking = traditional roles
• Role making = contemporary roles
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Rules for Constructive Conflict
1. Refuse destructive conflict tactics
2. Gain and use the skills to disagree
constructively…”I feel ____ when….”
3. Focus on feelings first; then specific issues
4. Focus on one issue at a time
5. Identify patterns that reveal root causes
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Rules for Constructive Conflict
6. Think win/win
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10.
Learn to calm yourself
Learn to calm your partner
Be congruent in your communication
Seek closure, resolve specific issue ASAP
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Important relationship skills
• The Do’s
• Calm Down, soothe self and partner
• Complaint is specific, focused
• Speak Non-Defensively
• Validate partner views and emotions
• Overlearn Skills
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Important relationship skills
• The Don’ts
• Criticism
• Contempt
• Defensiveness
• Stonewalling
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Improving the Odds
• Both partners (Olson et al…)
• Are independent and mature
• Love themselves as well as each other
• Enjoy being alone as well as together
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Improving the Odds
• Both partners…
• Established in their work
• Know themselves
• Can express themselves assertively
• Are friends as well as lovers
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Commitment
• Commitment = devotion or dedication
• Good and bad examples of commitment?
• “Commitment-no-matter-what means that I
am faithful to a flawed human being, who is
faithful to me as a flawed human being, in a
moral covenant that does not have a lemon
clause and does not permit leasing and
trade-ins. We never stop working on being
married.” Doherty
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