← Mayim Bialik's Breakdown
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- [00:04]
Jonathan Cohen
My ambulance breakdown is supported by Helix Sleep.
- [00:08]
Mayim Bialik
Like so many of us spending a lot more time indoors as winter's in full swing, sleep's even more important. During the colder season, it's peak cold and flu time. So now's the perfect time to invest in a new mattress. I've had every sleep issue you can imagine. Night sweats, back pain, motion transfer. We are so excited when we heard that Helix wanted to partner with us years ago after all the incredible feedback. We've heard about them over the I've had my Helix for about, gosh, five years now and it's made a huge change in our lives. Jonathan loves his Helix. My our kids love their Helix. We highly recommend taking the Helix Sleep quiz to find your perfect mattress in under two minutes. That's how we did it. Everyone sleeps differently. We're confident you'll find a Helix mattress specifically designed for your specific sleep positions and feel preferences. When I took the quiz, I was matched with a midnight because I like something a little firm and I sleep on my side. Jonathan, though, is a Twilight person. But both of our mattresses are a huge upgrade from their models with memory foam layers, provide optimal pressure relief and cradle your body in the areas that it need it most. It's the perfect combination of comfort and support. And Jonathan loves the cooling features of his Helix Mattress. Go to helixleep.com breakdown for 27 off site wide exclusive for listeners of mind Bialix breakdown that's helixsleep.com breakdown for 27 off site wide.
- [01:26]
Jonathan Cohen
Make sure you enter our show after checkout so that they know that we sent you helixsleep.com breakdown Carvana is so easy.
- [01:35]
Dr. John Gottman
Just a click and we've got ourselves a car. See so many cars.
- [01:39]
Mayim Bialik
That's a clicktastic inventory.
- [01:42]
Dr. John Gottman
And check out the financing options payments.
- [01:44]
Dr. Julie Gottman
To fit our budget.
- [01:45]
Dr. John Gottman
I mean that's Clickonomics 101 delivery to our door.
- [01:49]
Mayim Bialik
Just a hop, skip and a click away.
- [01:51]
Dr. Julie Gottman
And bought no better feeling than when everything just clicks.
- [01:57]
Mayim Bialik
Buy your car today on Carvana.
- [02:01]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Delivery fees may apply.
- [02:03]
Mayim Bialik
Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.
- [02:04]
Jonathan Cohen
And I'm Jonathan Cohen.
- [02:06]
Mayim Bialik
And welcome to our breakdown. This is fun. It's Valentine's Day tomorrow, so what better episode for us to talk about than this really, really special episode from 2024 with doctors John and Julie Gottman, the relationship experts. They are world leading researchers in the field of relating and connecting. They've been studying couples for over 40 years, publishing over 200 academic journal articles, 46 books. They're also the co Founders of the Gottman Institute and the Love Lab.
- [02:43]
Jonathan Cohen
Guess what? People who you choose to spend your life with will impact the quality of your life more than you can ever imagine. It will impact your immune system. It will impact your nervous system. It may also impact how you succeed at work. So why not work on that relationship? Dr. John and Julie Gottman are able to Predict divorce with 95% accuracy. It's unbelievable.
- [03:10]
Mayim Bialik
Also, what are the four predictors of the demise of a relationship? Learn them before they destroy the one that you're in. Also, what's the number one skill for connection? How do you have an improved sex life? For real, what's the number one cause of cheating? Where does trauma fit into relationship dynamics? Why is our culture so afraid of long term commitment? Also, is porn addiction killing relationships? We're also going to talk about the power of a six second kiss. We can't wait for you to hear this very special Valentine's Day airing of our episode with doctors John and Julie Gottman.
- [03:48]
Jonathan Cohen
As always, check out Mind Bialix Breakdown on Substack where you can get more on this content and content that we do not release anywhere else. Mayim Bialix Breakdown on Substack and now.
- [03:58]
Mayim Bialik
Here is our episode with Doctors John and Julie Gottman. Break it down.
- [04:03]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Okay.
- [04:04]
Dr. John Gottman
We're really big fans.
- [04:05]
Dr. Julie Gottman
We have to say we've only watched the Theory a hundred times and we're gonna watch it in honor of you. Now. We're gonna watch it for another 12. The whole thing. All the CDs.
- [04:17]
Dr. John Gottman
We have all the CDs.
- [04:19]
Dr. Julie Gottman
We do. And we play them like whenever we're really depressed. Like yesterday after the Supreme Court. We play them religiously. We worship you.
- [04:31]
Interviewer/Host
That's really bizarre.
- [04:34]
Dr. Julie Gottman
And listen, I want to ask you if you would run for president.
- [04:38]
Interviewer/Host
I will not run for president. No one wants that. No one wants that, especially my children. Well, during the time that you watched me on Big Bang Theory, I was reading your books, so that's kind of funny.
- [04:58]
Dr. John Gottman
Oh, thank you.
- [04:59]
Interviewer/Host
Yay. Were you reading the New York Times also before we started?
- [05:03]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Of course. Wow. He was.
- [05:06]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah, I was reading Science Times.
- [05:08]
Interviewer/Host
Unbelievable.
- [05:09]
Dr. Julie Gottman
It's Tuesday. It's Tuesday.
- [05:11]
Dr. John Gottman
My favorite day.
- [05:13]
Interviewer/Host
Dr. Scottman, Dr. John and Dr. Julie, welcome to the Breakdown. It's really so incredible to have you here. I've known about you and have read your books for decades. You should know both Jonathan and I are divorced. So we are on our second go in life as adults. But we appreciate so much the work that you do. And in particular, you know, I'M I'm, I'm partial to the scientific rigorousness with which you have constructed your practice for, I don't want to say how many decades, but for the better part of this century.
- [05:56]
Dr. Julie Gottman
And you know, it's true, we're really old. Mayim, you can say, I saw that.
- [06:01]
Interviewer/Host
In your afterword, that this will be the last book, the last revision of this book, because you said you're both really old, but. No, but, you know, you, you really have absolutely changed the face of not only how we view marriage or how we view divorce, but really how we, how we view how people interact. I kind of refer to the two of you as sort of the industry standard, you know, for all things relationship.
- [06:26]
Dr. Julie Gottman
And somehow that sounds like a piece of iron or steel or something.
- [06:32]
Interviewer/Host
I love your origin story of how this work began. So maybe you can talk a little bit about how you went from being, you know, two young kids interested in various aspects of interpersonal relationships to literally the experts in this field.
- [06:48]
Dr. John Gottman
Back in 1976, my best friend Bob Levinson and I became aware of the fact that we were completely incompetent in our relationships with women. We went from one disaster to another. And Bob once said, well, there are some people who have relationships, and there are other people who just study relationships, and that's you and me. So we built a lab and we thought that there were some people who were probably really good at relationships. And, and so we recruited couples who varied a great deal on how happily married they were. And eventually we spent a dozen years studying gay and lesbian couples as well and just had them come to the lab and wear these physiological sensors that were synchronized to the time code on the videotape. And that was done by this gigantic computer that has less computing power than your, your cell phone, but it synchronized the physiology with the video timecode. And so we had couples come in at the end of the day, talking about how their day went and trying to solve the major problem in their relationships and talking about a positive topic. And then we had no clue about how to help anybody, so we just waited three years. Reta contacted the couples and found that our measures were able to Predict with over 90% accuracy how the relationships changed over that three year period. And the predictions were really very simple. The faster these people's hearts beat, the faster their blood was flowing. The more they were sweating from the palms of their hands, the more they were jiggling around in their chairs, the more their relationships deteriorated.
- [08:54]
Interviewer/Host
You just described every first date I've ever been on, and Most of my.
- [08:58]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah, me too. Yeah, I, you know, I. I like to say, you know, Julie's really the therapist and in this family, and, you know, she's worked with every possible psychopathology in her therapy, but I've dated them all, so I have inside knowledge of all the psychopathologies known to humanity, and so does Bob. And so over time, we kind of learned from our data how to have relationships. And Bob is happily married now, and so am I. And we're really fortunate that we learned from our data.
- [09:43]
Interviewer/Host
Can you talk about what the disasters looked like for you? You know, I know what a lot of dating disasters look like now, but I'm sort of curious if you're open to sharing what specifically you struggled with.
- [09:55]
Dr. John Gottman
Sure. You know, the. Even in the way couples talked about how their day went, the disasters of relationships went out of their way to communicate boredom. And when their partner was talking, they just. They did a whole bunch of things that Irving Goffman, famous sociologist, called away behaviors. You know, I'm not here. I'm away. I'm not listening to you. That ceiling is much more interesting than what you're saying. Playing with my hair is more interesting than what you're saying. And the masters of relationships went out of their way to communicate interest and fascination with their partner's day. So it was very simple, very simple differences. But when you actually look at the videotapes, the differences are quite dramatic. In one case, somebody's enthusiasm about what happened during the day. Oh, you'll never guess what the baby did today. He spent 20 minutes looking at a flower. And meanwhile, their partner's looking totally bored. And eventually they. The first person stops talking. And during conflict, again, the differences were so dramatic. The disasters of relationships pointed their fingers at their partner and said, I've been watching you, and I have concluded you're defective. And here's what's wrong with you. As far as I can tell, I'm pretty much fine, you know, but you really need therapy to change your personality if we're ever going to have a happy marriage. And they hope that their partner will respond by saying, oh, thank you, John, for pointing out all the ways in which I've screwed up my relationship with you and all the ways I'm failing as a human being. Wife and mother. But of course, they get a response that's the opposite. Counterattack, defensiveness, whining, contempt, you know, and all these things just keep escalating. Whereas when the masters present a problem, they point their fingers at themselves and they say, you know, everything's really okay. I love you. But we're in this lab talking about problems. So let me just tell you in this one small way, I'd like it if you turn off all of your electronic equipment during dinner and we can just talk. So they're giving their partner a recipe for success with them, and even if their partner is critical. And my hero in this regard is a lawyer who's helping his wife identify what it is about his personality that makes her the most angry. And he's saying, well, is this the way I talk? She says, yeah, it's the way you talk. Well, do I sound authoritative? No, you sound authoritarian. Oh, yeah. I guess I can be like that, you know? And that. That bugs you? Absolutely bugs me. Well, it works okay in the courtroom. Well, it doesn't work with me. Okay, I get that you want to say more. So rather than shutting the other partner down and counterattacking, they're saying, tell me more. I really want to hear what. What you're feeling and what you need. So the differences are very dramatic.
- [13:13]
Interviewer/Host
Dr. Julie, if you can kind of speak a little bit to some of the underlying, you know, as John said, psychopathology here, because where my brain automatically goes to is what if people are coming to the relationship with past trauma, you know, past history and inability to even understand how to start or where to go from, you know, can you build something from that? Or is that kind of, you know, what we're trying to teach people?
- [13:39]
Dr. Julie Gottman
That's exactly what we are trying to teach people. You know, most of us come from families that are a mess, Right? We don't come from families that were completely healthy and normal. We didn't see good role playing in terms of how to handle conflict, how to reach out and sustain romance, sustain friendship, sustain passion. So in terms of psychopathology, Mayim, you're so right. So many people have experienced trauma. In fact, that's one of my specialties that started in 1972, partially. So I've been working with PTSD all along. And when people feel attacked in relationship, and that can be just by somebody saying, you know, the kitchen is really a mess, you know, how come you're so lazy you're not cleaning it up? They feel like they are being attacked by a saber tooth tiger. And it could be because they grew up with a mom, let's say, who was very critical of them, very contemptuous of them, and perhaps humiliated them in front of other people. And they sustained a lot of emotional injuries from that early criticism and contempt, maybe even physical abuse, maybe Sexual abuse. And that never goes away entirely. You know, a lot of people want PTSD to disappear. It doesn't. You know, you learn how to handle it. And in working in relationships, what we've figured out is given somebody might be traumatized in a relationship, then how can the other person support them? Let me give you a good example. I treated a guy and his wife and he had been deployed for several times in Vietnam and still came home with lots and lots of trauma. Fast forward 15 years, he still, when he heard helicopters, would dive under the dining room table, right, because he was afraid it was going to be one of those machine gunning helicopters in Vietnam that would shoot him. So here's what he asked his wife to do. Please get under the table with me. Get under the table. Just hold me while that's going on and I'll feel 100% better. And so they established a routine and a ritual for how to support one another if trauma came up. Another thing that we deal with a lot of lot, you know, especially in this country, is addiction. It's everywhere. You know, there's what, what did we hear? 107,000 overdoses are happening per year now. It's crazy. So that's not accounting for all the people who actually survive the drugs they're on. They bring that dynamic into the relationship and the individual who is the partner doesn't know who they're relating to because the addiction creates a mask over their face, one of blurry outline at best. And so people really struggle for some kind of emotional connection when there's addiction plaguing the family. You know, depression is another one. So, you know, just about every psychopathology you think of comes into distressed relationships very frequently.
- [17:36]
Jonathan Cohen
My ambialix breakdown is supported by our ritual.
- [17:40]
Mayim Bialik
Our ritual, this is not your parents couples therapy. This is a modern approach blending weekly sessions with with licensed experts and science based digital exercises that you do on your own right in the app between sessions.
- [17:55]
Jonathan Cohen
I'm going to say right here that while I love therapy, I have always said it needs an extra component. How come we're not practicing once a week isn't enough? It's about implementing what we learn and the insights we get to expedite the change.
- [18:14]
Mayim Bialik
Well said, Jonathan. No couch, no pressure, no pretending everything's fine. All you do is start by answering a few questions and then our ritual is going to match you with an expert who actually gets your situation. You meet weekly together or separately with your partner. And here's the thing, in between sessions, our ritual offers self guided Work via the app Videos Exercises tailored just for you. Only one of you ready. I've never been in that situation. Totally fine. Busy life sessions can be 20 or 40 minutes. Experts around the world means flexible scheduling that actually works and the best part costs a lot less than traditional therapy. Starting at just $32 a week.
- [18:55]
Jonathan Cohen
I'm going to say something that may blow your mind. Who you are most connected with is the largest influence on how your life is going to go. Why not work on it?
- [19:07]
Mayim Bialik
Learn how to communicate without blowing up. Break out of the same old conflict loops. Reconnect emotionally. Navigate parenting. Navigate being long distance from your partner. What is an emotional trigger? Learn about them from conflict mastery and emotional intimacy to rebuilding after infidelity, our ritual helps you do the work between sessions so progress doesn't stop when the call ends. That's where the real change happens. Our ritual delivers way more than just talk. Whether you're a couple, an individual, a parent, lgbtq, figuring things out from a distance, our ritual meets you where you are. Real support, real tools, real change on your terms. Also unlike traditional therapy, our ritual app offers video series and exercises in between sessions. Members do the work make progress independently, which contributes to overall progress. The video series discusses a variety of topics, for example, love after kids, helping you navigate a new normal, growing as parents and partners. Choosing Me video series helps individuals build a better relationship with themselves. From setting boundaries and creating healthy relationship patterns to moving from self doubt to self trust. Really anything you need, please go to our ritual.com answer a short questionnaire use the coupon code breaker 20 for 20% off your first month that's our ritual.com code breaker 20 for 20% off YOUR first month.
- [20:31]
Jonathan Cohen
Mind Balak's breakdown is supported by Remy.
- [20:33]
Mayim Bialik
If you've listened to our podcast, you know that Jonathan and I both have some teeth issues at night clenching and grinding. When we're stressed, our jaws get tired and it's really not good for our teeth. It's not a fun problem to deal with. If you're like us and part of the 30% of Americans who grind their teeth, your smile needs protection. In 2026, Remy's custom night guards are clinically tested to prevent teeth grinding, reduce jaw tension and facial muscle strain, and improve sleep qual. You get the same professional quality and comfort as a night guard from the dentist, but remy costs you 80% less, no joke, and is much more convenient than having to go into the dentist's office because you get the kit right to your mailbox, right to your door and you follow the step by step instructions to get a perfect impression. Then Remy crafts and ships your custom fit night guard. Once you receive it, that's it. You just start protecting your teeth. Start the new year right. Use the Code break to get 50% off your purchase of a new night guard. That's 50% off at shop r e m I.com break with code break.
- [21:33]
Jonathan Cohen
Thank you Remy for sponsoring this episode. My Amb Alix breakdown is supported by MudWTR.
- [21:39]
Mayim Bialik
Jonathan and I are huge fans of Mud Water. I'm very into the turmeric latte and if you add a little agave makes.
- [21:47]
Interviewer/Host
It just a little sweet.
- [21:48]
Mayim Bialik
It makes us feel energized without the jitters which is a real problem for those of us who don't like that jittery feeling. And I've noticed it makes a huge difference in Brain Fog. It's the best tasting functional mushroom blend on the market and with the best results. Also, Mud Water's new Low Calf Coffee is a great go to for an afternoon pick me up. It's made with organic Arabica coffee, Swiss water, decaf L theanine and functional mushrooms like Lion's mane and Cordyceps so you still get that rich full bodied taste that coffee lovers crave, but with only 45 milligrams of caffeine because research shows low doses support focus, mood and reaction time minus the crash or anxiety that comes with a full cup. And if you want something even gentler, the original blend is still there for you. The coffee alternative made with cacao chai, turmeric and functional mushrooms plus Chaga and Reishi to support a healthy immune system and caffeine +L theanine, one of the most effective cognitive stacks known in neuroscience. Every single ingredient in Mud Water's products are 100% USDA certified organic, non GMO, gluten free, vegan and kosher. There's also zero sugar and no sweeteners added. To use Mud Water, you just drop the powder into your favorite mug, pour some water on it, give it a mix, some go wild and add creamer, honey or even cbd. There's also caffeine free blends available ready to make the switch to cleaner energy. Head to mudwtter.com and grab your starter kit today. Right now our listeners get an exclusive deal up to 43% off your entire order plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother which I love when you use the Code Break. That's right up to 43% off with code break at m u d w.
- [23:20]
Jonathan Cohen
T r.com after your purchase, they'll ask you how you found them. Please show your support for the show and let them know that we sent you.
- [23:32]
Interviewer/Host
I feel depressed now. No, but that's it.
- [23:35]
Dr. Julie Gottman
I'm so sorry. I have some pros.
- [23:39]
Interviewer/Host
No, I mean I, I think it's. Look, I, I think, I think that the, the reality of the work that you do has only gotten more necessary and more important and more significant as all of this complexity, you know, both emerges, is identified, is named. You know, I, I often, you know, think back to, you know, a lot of people talk about like, oh, back in the good old days or it was better when, or you know, greatest generation. And I'm kind of thinking because, you know, my parents were born during World War II and you know, when I think about my grandparents lives, you know, there was a real need to have a sort of veneer of normalcy. And I think there was for a lot of people. Um, but I also feel like maybe that's just how it's been for all of history. It's like everybody acts like things are okay, but really underneath there's terrible things going on and there's, you know, a real eroding. And it's only when we sort of start to name it that we get to uncover it and explore it. So I want to go back to sort of, you know, you mentioned the masters, the people who are sort of masters at relationships. I wonder if you can talk about what are some of the things that those kinds of people, the people who not only succeed in relationships but feel a sense of contentment and elevated partnership. What are those things that people are doing right?
- [25:04]
Dr. John Gottman
One thing that we discovered that really is different about the masters is they have a different habit of mind. As they scan their social environment, they're looking for things that their partner and other people are doing right, even their children. When they teach them something, it turns out they're looking for how their kids are succeeding. And then they praise them directly and encourage them. Whereas the habit of mind of people who have disastrous close relationships is the opposite. They're scanning their social environment for other people's mistakes and they see their role as correcting them and giving them constructive feedback. And it's almost like they're cops trying to really monitor the world. Some people drive too fast, some people drive too slowly. They're perfect. And so that habit of mind is a very important quality of the masters.
- [26:06]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah. Let me add another thing and that is that, you know, it's kind of A ironic twist. People have high expectations of being loved, of being cared for, but at the same time, there's also a tremendous amount of acceptance that your partner is actually a human being with lots of cracks, lots of flaws. So are you. And so, you know, there's much more acceptance of the fact that your partner's not going to be perfect. And an example of this is in our apartment lab, where couples came for 24 hours, and they were coming to a room that was just like a B and B, except there were four cameras bolted to the walls, and we took their urine. Every now and then, we took them.
- [26:56]
Interviewer/Host
That's the kind of Airbnbs Jonathan and I go to.
- [26:58]
Dr. Julie Gottman
There's always cameras and they take our urine. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they're really, really comforting because you get to an exhibitionist, I mean, they're wonderful. So anyway, and you know, what we saw is how much did people turn towards their partner. And I'm not talking physically, but more emotionally or just with interest when their partner made a bid for connection. Well, you know, maybe you'd think in an ideal world the masters would do that. I don't know. 99% of the time. Well, they didn't. They did it 86% of the time, which is great. You know, that's pretty high. But it's not perfection. Right. There's going to be times when, for example, you go to your partner, you want to talk to your partner about something, they're on their computer, they've got a work assignment to finish. Okay? So they're not going to be there for you in that moment. All right? So is that a crime? Is that a terrible thing? No, it's not. So the person on the end of that, the receiving end of it, is accepting that, okay, they're busy. I'll find another time to talk to them. Meanwhile, the disasters only turn towards each other in terms of really responding to their partner's bid for confidence action 33% of the time. So look at that difference. There's a 53% difference in the time that masters turn towards one another versus disasters. Nonetheless, it's not perfect. So you're accepting the fact that your partner isn't perfect, but they're doing their best.
- [28:48]
Interviewer/Host
Can you talk about these bids? Because one of the. One of the things that Jonathan and I often talk about, you know, in our work relationship is Jonathan really likes to brainstorm. He likes to, you know, think up things that haven't yet been created and see if we can create them together. And he. I think what he's doing is making bids, and I normally shut them down, and I don't want to do that. Can you talk a little bit specifically about bids for connection? And can you also talk about the difference between turning towards a hundred percent of the time and what can be. You know, I don't mean to use a flashy term, but, you know, where does codependency come in to this conversation? Is there a fine line here?
- [29:41]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Oh, God, I love that question. Okay, so let's see. So first of all, in terms of turning towards one another, what are we talking about? So when somebody makes a bid for connection, what that means is it can be as simple as saying, hey, John, look out the window. There's a beautiful boat out there, or something like that. Okay? So John might say, huh, pretty nice. That is. Turning toward it can be the smallest little thing. Little bitsy. So when Jonathan is brainstorming, right, and bringing up lots of, you know, cool, creative ideas, birds in trees, you know, that's been on, I don't know, Instagram or something, then all you really have to do to turn towards him is say, huh, that's interesting, period. You don't have to give a long exposition about why that idea is a good idea or not such a great idea. So, you know, it's just a matter of saying, your words matter to me. You count. You're not invisible. Your thinking matters to me, even if I don't agree with it, even though it's, you know, not my favorite thing to do to brainstorm. Nonetheless, it's kind of parallel to John and I driving down the road. You know, I'm usually the driver, and he says, let me tell you about this incredible mathematical discovery I made. Boom, I glaze over, right? So I'm like, what? You know, I don't know what he's saying, but. But what I do is say, oh, gee, tell me more. And then I, you know, think about our grocery list or something, but I try to listen and try and understand. Okay, so that's turning towards.
- [31:46]
Interviewer/Host
And also, I just want to clarify, you're not talking about pretending that you're interested in things or being interested in things that you're not interested in because you want to maintain a connection and feel like you need to coddle your partner. We're not talking about, like, you're so amazing. Tell me all about your socks that you bought. You're talking about, you matter. Whatever matters to you, matters to me, because it matters to you, even if it's not to the same degree, and even If I don't necessarily agree with it, the common denominator in with me and Jonathan and me and my children is me. In terms of what do I feel I have patience for, what do I have tolerance for? What's acceptable, what's. I mean, I didn't know any of these things as a parent or in my marriage, so that's why we got here. But I just wanted to clarify that you're not talking about pretending to be enamored with some aspect that is not for you, but it's giving enough attention so that that person gets validation that they matter.
- [32:47]
Dr. Julie Gottman
That's correct. Yeah, sure, I was being facetious. I really do try and understand. But the glazing over part actually does happen after about 10 minutes. I have to confess.
- [32:59]
Dr. John Gottman
Julie, say something about the codependency thing.
- [33:01]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah. Okay. So, you know, codependency is one of those words that actually cropped up in the 80s around the adult children of alcoholics movement, where people were enabling somebody in the family who was alcoholic. Um, and it. That was its original meaning. So you were covering for somebody if they were hungover one day.
- [33:25]
Interviewer/Host
And it's often called a co or a para. Alcoholic.
- [33:29]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah, something like that. So that's where the term codependency came from. And over the decades, it's gotten generalized into meaning the wrong thing. What people think it means now is that, oh, gee, you lean on your partner too much, you're too needy, right? You're. You're expecting your partner, wanting your partner to fulfill, you know, too many needs. You depend on them to be the one and only for all those. And therefore, that's a bad thing. You shouldn't express as many needs. You shouldn't be needy. And this comes from a movement in psychotherapy, both individual and couples therapy, where people are supposed to be individuals. They're supposed to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, right? Sounds very American, doesn't it? And you're not supposed to really need people. And in particular, this hurt women. Women who, yeah. Had emotional needs and would express them. And therefore they were called irrational, illogical, not individuals, and, quote, codependent. Okay, well, here's the thing. Human beings are pack animals. We do not survive unless we depend on one another. Right? We have to lean on each other in order to survive. And we've actually seen this in the research in longevity, where people who live alone, who don't have a support system, who don't express their needs, live a shorter time with a lot more illness than folks who are in a family, where they do depend on one another. The reality, and this is what we saw in our research, is that turning toward, where one person is expressing a need towards the other person and the other person is responding to it, which could be called codependency, is actually one of the most functional things you can do in a relationship. So there isn't really a line between codependency and turning towards except when it comes to addiction. And again, women are the ones who've been criticized the most for being codependent because they often want to express their needs a little bit more than men, who are even trained and socially conditioned more so to not depend on anyone and be autonomous. Whoa, whoa.
- [36:18]
Interviewer/Host
That's a huge point. I really would love for you to talk a bit more about that because, you know, a lot of, a lot of what, what I got in looking at the new marriage clinic and you know, kind of knowing about how you counsel people, you know, how your books and also, you know, you individually counsel people, is. I'll be honest, I feel like you're asking too much of men in particular. And I know, I know that's not true. And it's not that I don't believe that men cannot rise to the occasion. But you know, part of me wonders, and this is, you know, really kind of devil's advocate here, part of me wonders if like these techniques, and I want you to tell me that I'm wrong, if these techniques are, you know, kind of a luxury mind.
- [37:08]
Jonathan Cohen
Bialix Breakdown is supported by Odoo.
- [37:11]
Mayim Bialik
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- [38:48]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Today.
- [38:51]
Jonathan Cohen
My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink, then straight to the gym, pre K pickup back home to meal prep time for my fire station shift. One more Celsius.
- [39:00]
Dr. John Gottman
Gotta keep the lights on when the three alarm hits.
- [39:02]
Jonathan Cohen
I'm ready. Celsius Live Fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com.
- [39:13]
Dr. Julie Gottman
How.
- [39:13]
Dr. John Gottman
Many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount, Safe driver discount, New vehicle discount, Storage discount.
- [39:22]
Mayim Bialik
How many discounts will you stack up?
- [39:24]
Interviewer/Host
Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts restrictions apply. You know, part of me looks at some of the conversations that you're facilitating, and my fear is that a lot of, and forgive me for being gendered about it, but that a lot of men are, you know, culturally and socially constructed to not really engage this deeply in this kind of emotional understanding and conversation. And I know a lot of women who have decided to date women not because they feel particularly lesbian, but because they want to be with someone who has more of an emotional vocabulary from the get go. And the fact is, you know, men can go along their merry way and there's plenty of women who don't want that level of emotional connection with men and want other aspects of a relationship with a guy. Um, but I wonder if you can sort of talk about this notion of, you know, women have very specific needs as homo sapiens. Men do as well. But the the kind of pack animal structure typically revolved around women and children hanging out together and the dudes who were farsighted because they would, you know, make baskets with the ladies. Your primary emotional connection as a primate female really has not been a male that you have to live in a box with for your whole life. You, you know, you. You typically were getting a lot of stimulation, validation, information from other women, who, for the most part, were more interested in the kind of connection that you were. But the need to procreate or the need to be intimate in a sexual sense was often satisfied by a communal need to further the species. But, you know, oftentimes, you know, when I was married, like, I would look at this person and be like, I don't know if we're supposed to be doing this, raising our kids with nobody else in this house for decades help.
- [41:24]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Right?
- [41:24]
Dr. John Gottman
Can I say something about that? I. I think that men's need for friendship and emotional connection is really undervalued. When men, you know, our ancestors who survived, hunted cooperatively or protected the tribe or were involved with their children, as men were in the past and still are now, there's a tremendous need that men have for being connected. Even in war. It's the connection between soldiers that really matters in the success of any battle. It's that connection that is so deep and powerful. And in some ways, men are different stylistically. We stand shoulder to shoulder rather than eye to eye and face the world together, but it's stylistically different, but it's not really very different. You know, in research that studied friendship among men, sometimes it takes a little alcohol before men wind up actually putting their arms around one another and, you know, and saying, you know, you're such a great guy. I really need you. Thanks for being there with me, and I'll be there for you forever. You know, camaraderie is really important to mention among men and very important between men and women. Very often, the only confidant a man has really is his female partner.
- [43:02]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Let me jump in here as well. You know, I think what you're describing, Mayim, you know, is absolutely true. In prehistoric times, back to our primate ancestors and so on, men would disperse amongst themselves, go out into the field, go, you know, kill game and so on, or protect the women and the children who gathered, at least that's the theory at this point, who gathered food from all the growth around them, the vegetable growth and the roots and berries and so on. However, a lot of stuff has changed. And I think women, the women's liberation movement, which took women out of the home and out into the field to work, to achieve, what do I want to say? Fulfillment of other parts of themselves, left men with more responsibility, or at least women hoping men would take on more responsibility for the home, for the family, I know, I know where you're going with this. And but you know, I'm here to say that since the 60s when what was the guy's name? John something or other, he chained himself to his wife's bed in a hospital to be participating in the birth of a child. John Quinn, right. Knew it was huge anyway, and wanted to be there for the birth of the child, wanted to take the child as the mother gave birth and so on. Fathers have been so much more involved with their children than they ever have been been before, at least more than I've ever seen in my 73 years. And with that comes emotional connection, comes more freedom to feel. When men were separated from their families, you know, with the assignment really to go out, make money, provide, you know, it's kind of a parallel to going out and hunting. Bring the food back, bring the money back. Right. But all of that is changing now. Men don't have as much of a burden in terms of supporting the whole family that men used to have. Women now are helping participate in that. There's much more of a trade off and a balancing of honoring each other's dreams in terms of career, in terms of schooling, education, you know, whatever it is. And as a result, there's nothing like having a child to connect you with a love that is beyond anything you've ever experienced before. That's true for most people, no matter how pathological they are or what gender they are. So as men connect more with their children, they crack open their hearts and they begin to feel things that they haven't felt before, at least not expressively before. They feel sorrow, they feel compassion for their kids. They feel fear all the time that something terrible is going to happen to their kids. They can talk about that. They can talk about that with their mates as well. And so it's a changing world slowly, slowly, slowly, where men are getting freed really from the chains of their social conditioning to be able to voice more vulnerable feelings that used to be very, very, very critically labeled as feminine feelings, I. E. The ones that are more vulnerable. So thank goodness for that, that men are experiencing more emotional freedom and women are getting to experience both emotional and more intellectual freedom.
- [47:39]
Interviewer/Host
Why has this become politicized? Because a lot of the things you're talking about are often viewed from the lens of that's for, you know, I grew up on Free to Be youe and Me, right, The record and, you know, the Alan Alda was sort of like that image of that man. But a lot of this has become politicized where I don't think it should be. And I'm sure that there are exceptions, but I feel like there's this sort of notion of like, that's for the, the liberal hippies, you know, wanting to like, talk about their feelings and the dad wanting to, you know, be so loving and communicative. And you know, I, I do, I hear this sort of like, you know, I, I, I speak lots of places in this, you know, great country. And, you know, there's a lot of places in the country where I interact with a lot of people who are really not interested in having men who have this level of feeling, involvement or opinions. So why has this become politicized and why shouldn't it be?
- [48:39]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Oh, God, what a great question. You are brilliant. Here are my thoughts about it, John. I'm sure you'll have some too, which is that this was a country that allegedly was born with the values of pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And I think that came from the fact that we are a country of immigrants. We're a country who had to flee, you know, other countries for different kinds of persecution and prejudice. Came to this country, of course, committed genocide in order to grasp this country, unfortunately. And we're pioneers. And the spirit of being a pioneer is literally to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, grow that corn, pray to God you don't get a drought and try to survive. Right. Well, it was a group effort, but men got a lot of the credit for that, I think. So that particular value of being an individual, being your own person, it's born and bred into this country. It's part of our capitalist economy. And this is obviously a country that's very anti socialist in the sense of Scandinavian socialism, where you provide safety nets for people. Right. Which is much more embracing of everybody and trying to take care of everybody. And no accident that Sweden, Denmark and Norway all have a minister of gender equality. Fascinating, isn't it? So we do not, for obvious reasons. And so, you know, I think that that value still holds today. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Don't lean on anybody else.
- [50:53]
Dr. John Gottman
Well, I want to talk about something about men that I think is very important and is true of all men. And that is that we really shine in the area of play with our children very naturally. Men are really great playmates. Women are kind, sensitive and gentle teachers of their children. But men are like another child. We just jazz them up.
- [51:24]
Interviewer/Host
I've never said that before, John.
- [51:25]
Dr. Julie Gottman
We noticed.
- [51:26]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah, we just get down on the floor and play with them, we become the jazz.
- [51:30]
Interviewer/Host
There could be dishes piled up, dirty laundry everywhere. Nobody, doesn't matter.
- [51:36]
Dr. John Gottman
We just want to have the most fun possible with our kids. We throw them around. We pick them up by their feet and hold them upside down and swing them around. And kids really prefer their dads as playmates. And by the way, it's not biology, so. But we shine in the area of play. And it turns out research shows that children's intellectual and emotional development is really greatly enhanced by developing the skills of emotion regulation, which kids learn from their dads primarily. Because dads get bored with the play, they start new play, the kids have to really follow along. And so that's independent of whether they're Republican or Democrat or rural or urban. And so the key really is that when men connect with their children, rather than being distant and punitive toward their children, but really are connected and loving toward their children, the children thrive and everybody thrives. So this politicization that you talked about of roles between men and women is damaging to everyone and really needs to be eliminated.
- [52:57]
Interviewer/Host
I would have a lot more time in general, is what I think a lot of women are thinking. I would have a lot more time to play and even have more time for myself if the bulk of housework and childcare in terms of, you know, food prep and stuff did not still fall on the woman even when she is the primary breadwinner. I think that's a more obviously more complicated. But I do want to, you know, honor this notion that there are different kinds of play that. That are, you know, important and fundamental for development and generally will fall on those kinds of gender lines. Although, of course, there are exceptions.
- [53:32]
Jonathan Cohen
John, who traditionally in the research has been more unhappy in a relationship.
- [53:40]
Dr. John Gottman
Women, overwhelmingly, yes.
- [53:44]
Interviewer/Host
Like, are we unhappy because we're unable to be pleased, or are we unhappy because there's really something wrong?
- [53:49]
Dr. Julie Gottman
There's too much laundry. That's the problem.
- [53:51]
Interviewer/Host
Too much laundry.
- [53:53]
Dr. John Gottman
Well, it is. It is. It is a research fact that men who do more housework and childcare get more sex.
- [54:05]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Specifically vacuuming. Vacuuming is the key to more sex.
- [54:10]
Dr. John Gottman
So. But. But it's true that I think women have more requirements, especially, you know, for intimacy than men do. Men are much more easily satisfied, I think, Jonathan. And. And part of it is that, you know, we're kind of stupid. You know, we, you know, we don't notice a lot of needs, you know, that people have, and. And we don't respond to them unless, you know, they really get our attention. So women, you know, typically have had a different relationship with the emotion of fear than men have. The world has always been a much more dangerous place for women and infants than it has been for men. So, you know, a national probability study that was done in the United States has shown that the probability that a woman will be severely attacked sexually and physically in her lifetime is 40%. And for men it's 9%. So the world is so much more dangerous place for women. In Japan they have a pink train so that women can just, just for women so they don't get groped, which they do in the regular train. So because of that and because women have traditionally had the responsibility for keeping their infants alive and being aware of danger sitting in a circle. Even our non primate, non human primate cousins, when they eat, the females with the infants sit in a circle so they can have a 360 view degree view of potential predators. Women have this different experience of fear. And so safety is absolutely important for a woman even to feel like a situation is erotic. They have to feel safe. And that means they have to feel emotionally connected to their men. You know, as, as Billy Crystal once said, women need a reason for sex. Men only need a place. Women have more requirements.
- [56:28]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah, so let me jump in here a little bit. So, yeah, John is this, John is absolutely right about this. You know, if you put these pieces together where men first of all are socially conditioned to be much more autonomous and to not express their needs as much as women. But sex is an important need for men and they're wanting sex as a way oftentimes to actually get physical connection. Men are not going to be asked to be held, to be cuddled. Right. To just cuddle with me on the couch. Right. They want to have sex because it's too soft, it's too wimpy to ask, it's too infantile to ask to be helped. Women on the other hand, as John said, 40% over a lifetime, it's 25% of girls by the age of 18 have been sexually molested. So think about that. You know, think about the kind of fear that women are living with all the time. And as a result, women are looking to have their needs met for safety. And what does safety look like? Well, it looks like knowing that they're loved, knowing that somebody wants to be with them, knowing that somebody respects them, which is in some ways very new phenomenon because there's a lot to respect in women. But it remained underground until women really started to get out in the world and work in the world itself. And so women's emotional needs for support are, I don't know, you know, they're more visible, they're more transparent. I guess especially too because we are conditioned to believe that it's okay to express the vulnerable emotions. It's not okay to express the powerful ones like anger. You know, we're called the B word. If we express anger, which is much more of an energized, empowering emotion, actually men get to experience and express that one, women don't as much so as a result, when women have a feeling of vulnerability, not necessarily being loved, not being important, a man, you know, choosing to go play golf instead of being with his wife when she's having a hysterectomy, you know, we've had cases like that. Well, women have a lot to complain about, you see, lots and lots and lots.
- [59:39]
Dr. John Gottman
But there is a fundamental biological difference. And we see this even in eight year old children. You know, when, when eight year old boys are playing run and chase games and there's a conflict that comes up between the kids, their ultimate goal is resolving the conflict quickly so that they can get back to the game and play the game and have the maximum amount of fun. When you look at 8 year old girls playing with one another, the conflict is the most important thing. And talking about the relationship is the most important thing. That intimacy, it's not at all about what they're doing, it's about how they connect face to face. Emotionally, it's totally different. You know, men and women are so different. And so men are satisfied by much less interpersonally than women are. Intimacy is so much more important to them. And I think part of that is really that they are the ones who nurture children.
- [60:40]
Interviewer/Host
I think that's, that's very well said. I, I do wanna, I wanna bring up the issue of monogamy because from the time that you, you know, started your work, which was at a time when we were sort of in the middle of a wellspring of consciousness expanding notions of sex, sexuality, you know, transcendental experiences, tuning in, turning on and dropping out. Um, you know, the, the, the free love era is sort of right when you know, the, the two of you, you know, we're sort of starting this work or at least the, the immediate aftermath of that. And you know, when you talk about the respect that women deserve, you know, we also, you know, we're seeing a really different perspective on relationships with a lot of young people and even some middle aged and older people. Um, there seems to be this sort of general notion in, you know, in the zeitgeist of social media, which I, you know, try and avoid at all costs. But, you know, this. This notion that, you know, taking back, for women, taking back our sexual power means having sex like men do or not feeling like you need to be attached or I can, you know, have that kind of freedom and see that as liberating. But what often happens is there really has been, I would say, you know, a kind of breakdown in the notions of serial monogamy. And, you know, I. I don't mean to put you on the spot like this, but I do want to know with your decades and decades of research about connection, about relating, about what feels safe, about what, you know, what predicts longevity and true contentment and, you know, personal growth that only comes from intimacy.
- [62:30]
Mayim Bialik
What.
- [62:30]
Interviewer/Host
What can we say about the kind of notion of, like, doesn't really matter if you're, you know, with one person, or you can have many sexual relationships and still feel connected, or you can have many sexual and intimate relationships, which, like, I can barely manage half of one. So I don't know how people do it, but this really seems to be something that's kind of like in the water right now, especially if you live, like, where we do in Los Angeles. Like, it's everywhere. And I feel like such a fuddy duddy. You know, you're not supposed to even ask someone, do you have a girlfriend or boyfriend? Because it's presuming, you know, monogamy.
- [63:05]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah. Can I say something about that? I. I think the answer to your question lies in a new field that's developed in the past 50 years old, social epidemiology. And epidemiologists who study, you know, disease and illness and pandemics were really interested, particularly this guy at Berkeley named Leonard Syme was really interested in longevity and thought that diet and cholesterol were the important ingredients and not having arteries that are clogged up with cholesterol and plaque. And so he's studying these immigrant populations, Chinese Americans and Mexican Americans and. And then Anglo Americans. And sure enough, the diets were different. But what accounted for the difference in longevity in these populations? And he did this classic study called the Alameda county study, with 9,000 people, was the quality of people's relationships, their closest relationships. And over the course of research in social epidemiology, what mattered the most to give people health and longevity and the ability to fight disease was the quality of their closest relationships. And those relationships had to have the ingredients of trust, high levels of trust and high levels of commitment in Other words, you're really cherishing another person and saying, there's nothing in the world that can replace you. You're it for me. And when a love relationship and a family relationship has those qualities of trust and commitment, people are healthier, they recover from illness faster, they live longer, and their children prosper more, Much, much more dramatically more. And so these casual relationships just don't give people those qualities. They don't get that if they have casual relationships, they have to have deep, committed and trusting relationships.
- [65:16]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah. Let me add to that again. I keep thinking of historical perspectives on some of these questions. You're right that our research began in the age of free love. Right. Where women were finally, you know, getting out into the. Into the world outside the. The home. And a lot of people think that women had fewer affairs before that time or were more monogamous because they didn't have access to men. They were in the home. All the other women were in the home. They had coffee, you know, in the backyard of somebody, and that was about it. That's who they met. But over time, I think what's happened as. Also as women have gotten out into the world has been compounded by another factor, and that is that our divorce rates have been high for quite some time. You know, they've been close to 50%. And when kids are raised, seeing parents break up, seeing parents divorce, what ends up happening is the kids grow up with less faith in the institution of marriage, in the institution of commitment, no matter, you know, what gender it is that you're committing to. Except lesbian women have a lot more monogamy, I think, than gay men. However, for heterosexual couples, there's fear. We keep coming back to fear. There's a lot more fear of people really committing themselves to another human being for the course of a lifetime because they've seen that fail over and over and over again in their own families and in the families of their friends. So it's very scary to really, quote, unquote, put all your eggs in one basket and commit to somebody for a lifetime. So they don't. And along with that, of course, has come social media, Internet access to people all over the globe and much more, availability of people who want some kind of oxytocin release, which. Which you get, which is the hormone of bonding and some joy there when you have sex with somebody. But still they're wanting to protect themselves from the failure they might feel if they committed and that commitment failed. Are.
- [68:15]
Interviewer/Host
Are people more able to voice being bored with only having one sexual partner? Is that part of what might be going on, like that people are finally free to be like, I don't want to have sex with the same person for the rest of my life. I don't know.
- [68:30]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Well, here's the thing. You know, there, there are some theories out there. Not going to name any names, but there are some theories out there that if you get emotionally close to your partner and you keep having sex with the same person and you're emotionally close to them, you get bored. You know, that's where the boredom comes from. You know this person so well inside and out that, ah, what's the big deal? You want a sense of mystery. You want to have sex with somebody you don't know really well because that's exciting and maybe more sexually arousing because.
- [69:11]
Interviewer/Host
They don't have needs that you have to tend to.
- [69:14]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah, no kidding. They don't have laundry. You have to wash. So, you know, laundry seems to be also the theme today. So as a result, there's, you know, people are just afraid, afraid, afraid to move forward in a relationship where they're emotionally close. And so it's kind of justified as, oh, it's boredom. But, you know, the reality is that, and this is what we've seen in our research, this is what a study that looked at 70,000 couples from 24 countries found that was written about in a book called the Normal Bar that, you know, the bakers does, the 13 characteristics of a couple where there's a lot of wonderful passion and romance that's sustained over decades. The characteristics of a relationship like that are actually emotional intimacy. You know, there. Closeness, there's friendship, there's dependency, there's cuddling, kissing, hugging, you know, all the stuff that connotes emotional intimacy. And so the whole theory that, gee, we get bored and we need mystery is actually wrong. And it's been shown to be wrong in study after study.
- [70:53]
Dr. John Gottman
It's called the Coolidge effect in our. In our field, because Calvin Coolidge and his wife were being shown this farm and, and, and there was a rooster there. And the farmer pointed out that this rooster had sex 15 times a day. And Mrs. Coolidge said, Tell that to the President. And when the president came by, the. The farmer said, you know, Mrs. Coolidge wanted me to tell you about this rooster that has sex 15 times a day. And the president said, with the same hen? And the farmer said, no, always a different hen. And Calvin Coolidge said, tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.
- [71:41]
Interviewer/Host
Maybe we can turn a little bit to other things that people are doing right. You Know, I think that the. You have this. This really, you know, beautiful, very long, you know, list, you know, of the things that you can do to sort of increase connection. I hate to keep playing devil's advocate, but I want to sort of hear you support, you know, support this in a way that I think will be helpful for people. You know, you talk about the managerial marriage, and I think a lot of people can relate to that. And I think that the managerial marriage for a lot of people is. I mean, it's a. It's a. It's a straw person or strawman, as we used to say. It's a straw person in that it's the things that we say are the actual problem for why we can't get close. Right. Can you talk a bit about the managerial marriage? Because I think parenting has changed so much. And I think one of the things is when you have, you know, two parents working or when you have a single parent, everything does feel like a schedule, something to manage or control.
- [72:54]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah.
- [72:55]
Interviewer/Host
Can you speak to the managerial marriage and sort of what. What happens when that takes over?
- [73:00]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah. The Sloan center at UCLA did a study of 30 dual career couples in Los Angeles. And they discovered they put microphones and cameras in there, in the. In these people's homes, and they discovered that they were in the same room less than 10% in an evening. 10% of the time they were in. 90% of the time they were in different rooms. And the average amount of talk that these couples had was about 35 minutes a week. And almost all of that talk was about errands, who's going to do what, when. And so these couples had really abandoned romance, adventure, playfulness, fun. We did a study with 40,000 couples about to start couples therapy, gay and lesbian and heterosexual couples. And 80% of them said fun had come to die in their relationship. It's not just sex and romance. It's really about adventure, learning together. A lot of these things get shut down in the interest of just managing the complexities of two careers and children. And that's something that couples have to intentionally maintain in the relationship. And when they do, as Julie mentioned that study in the book the Normal Bar, when they continue to maintain play and courtship and cuddling, they wind up having a great sex life for the rest of their relationship.
- [74:38]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah. Let me also put this in a cultural context again. You know, in this country, people who are out there working are typically working at least 40 hours a week. A lot of times they're working more than that. Well, that, you know, we don't realize, because we're so nearsighted, how skewed that is towards working so hard compared to, you know, folks in France, for example, who are working 35 hours a week as a standard, and they're fighting to make it 32. I mean, wow, wouldn't that be sweet? So as a result, you know, we are so stacked up over our heads with tasks, so many tasks that we have to perform. Plus, as a very competitive society, that means our kids have to beat out everybody else, which means our kids have to be engaged in 25 different extracurricular activities, including advanced math. What is it about math today anyway? Advanced math to, you know, prepare for the world, the competitive world. So parents are just over their heads with so much stuff that they're trying to navigate. So, you know, what we're talking about in our book is how crucial it is that the relationship not disappear beneath the waters of all that managerial stuff that we have to do, that the relationship not drowns. And thus, it takes concerted effort to carve out the time for what we call rituals of connection. Rituals of connection mean times you can count on. You can predict that you may even co design to spend time together, just being together, and maybe just talking about your day or not managing tasks, but talking about the emotional experiences of your day or the stresses of your day or your hopes and dreams. A beautiful example is a couple that I treated where he'd had a couple of affairs, and they were really trying hard to rebuild their relationship. And part of the problem with it was they were so busy. I mean, they had the executive. They had the executive, not even the managerial marriage. And so as a ritual of connection, they carved out time, once a week, that they called dream time. I just love that. Where they would sit on a couch together, facing one another and just sharing their dreams and how their dreams were taking shape over time and morphing over time as to what values they really wanted to uphold, to create meaning for both themselves individually and for the relationship itself and what they, as a couple, could contribute to the world. That's a ritual of connection, and we're needing more and more of those.
- [78:08]
Dr. John Gottman
And we're about to go on our annual honeymoon. Yeah.
- [78:11]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yay. Very soon.
- [78:12]
Jonathan Cohen
Yay.
- [78:13]
Dr. Julie Gottman
That's right.
- [78:13]
Interviewer/Host
What's your annual honeymoon?
- [78:15]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Oh, it's so cool. So we were actually married how many years? 37 years ago. But when our daughter was 8 years old, she went to overnight camp, you know, for a couple weeks, summer camp. We decided we would go to camp too. So we took Ourselves to a B and B without cameras in Canada on Salt Spring Island. We took our kayak and we just went kayaking for, like, nine days. And we talked not about work, we talked about how did the year go for us? You know, what were the great things about last year? What were the hard things about last year? Where are we now? And what do we want the next year to look like? Well, that's an expanded dream time, if you will. And it was, you know, the first year was just magic. Was incredible to have limitless conversation, at least for nine days. It was just so wonderful.
- [79:23]
Dr. John Gottman
And this is year 25.
- [79:25]
Dr. Julie Gottman
And this is year 25. Wow. Yahoo.
- [79:28]
Interviewer/Host
What are. What are some of the other things that you recommend people do? Because I think a lot of people, you know, probably feel like this is not the ideal relationship or it's not going well, or it's not exactly what I thought it would be. How do you get things sort of to a place of seeing if you can get it on track. What are some of the other suggestions you have?
- [79:52]
Dr. John Gottman
One. One story that. That we love to tell is about a couple who really had a managerial relationship for quite a long time, and their daughter was 8 years old at the time, and they were really thinking about getting a divorce. And one of them suggested going to couples therapy. So they went to this couples therapist, and the couples therapist said, you know, the problem in your relationship is that you don't play anymore with each other. So I want you to go into the backyard and it's summertime. Get your hose and create a big pile of mud and have a mud fight. And they left that therapist, and they said, this guy's nuts. Let's fire this guy. And they told their daughter about this, and she said, let's try it. They did it, and pretty soon they were covered with mud and laughing with each other. All three of them were laughing and throwing mud at each other. And something broke open in that relationship, and they started realizing how much they had missed adventure and play and really loving each other. And it turned the marriage around, just that one mud fight. So that's what we recommend for a lot of couples, that they really open up those worlds of play, adventure, learning together, taking a cooking class together, almost.
- [81:28]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Anything, and having a mud fight. You know, that's the key to a great marriage, unless you live in Arizona when it's a waste of water. But let me talk about a few other things that really help a marriage that is struggling. You know, one is that when marriages are struggling, people grow distant from one Another, they're really afraid to bring up problems in the relationship because it's going to lead to conflict. Conflict won't be resolved. They'll use the wrong methods of speaking to one another. It will hurt one another and cause, you know, some emotional wounds. And so they stopped bringing up their problems in order to just have peace and quiet. And they grow more and more emotionally distant over time. So, as we like to say, marriages don't end with a shout. You know, they end with a whimper. What couples often really need to do, first of all, is to carve out time to talk about what they need from the relationship. And they don't bring up what their needs are by bringing up criticisms or contempt, you know, which are the big predictors, a couple of them, of relationship demise. Instead, they may speak something like this. They may say, you know, honey, I've been really feeling lonely lately. I've really been missing you. And it just seems like we're ships, you know, passing in the night, and we almost never connect. And I would love to have time every week. That's just a couple of hours of us either taking a walk or just connecting at a deeper level with you, because I miss that connection. Now. Listen to how different that sounds than somebody saying, man, you know, you're so rejecting. You've been abandoning me for the last year, and you're making me miserable. And why are you doing that? You know, are you having an affair? You know, it's just. It sounds so different when you describe the other person versus describing yourself and what you're feeling inside and what you need from your partner. That is a positive need, not a negative need, which means expressing a resentment and saying, I wish you'd stop doing that, but a positive need, which means, here's how you can shine. For me, this would feel so good if you could just do this, you know, a little bit more. Give me a hug. When you walk through the door at the end of the day, as opposed to just going straight into your den and going to your computer. So, you know, things like that can really make a difference where you're being honest and forthright about where you're living inside you, letting your partner inside that space and knowing who you are, and also getting instruction about how to make you feel better, which in turn will probably make that partner feel better.
- [85:05]
Interviewer/Host
Well, that is super helpful. And I think also, as someone who has spent some time in couples therapy, you know, that kind of conversation, in my experience, really often does need some support, some guidance, some guardrails. And you Know, I don't mean to be, like, touting your book like this, but that's what this book does, is, you know, for a lot of people, it's cost prohibitive to get resources for a good therapist. There's a lot of bad therapists. But to get a good therapist who really understands this kind of work, that's kind of what, you know, the. The book, which is, you know, it's meaty. It's a reference book. Like this is sort of your book that sort of walks you through. And there's a lot of really great examples. I wonder if we could do another example, because I like how you talk. So, Jonathan, do you want to suggest one? Why don't you suggest something that I'm always picking on you about and we can see the better way for me to do it.
- [86:01]
Jonathan Cohen
I think we should tie this to the area of bad conflict. Because, Julie, what you're suggesting is we're presenting a need. And when we present a need in a specific way that isn't in criticism, we have a much higher chance of being met by our partner and for that need to be going to be received. However, a lot of people, especially if they're used to finding the faults, pointing out what doesn't work, they may fall into the category of the Four Horsemen. So maybe we can describe some of those Four Horsemen, explain how they're playing out, and do the opposite of them. Contempt being obviously a huge one.
- [86:49]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Okay, so when John and Bob did the original research following couples without intervening, you know, for as long as 20 years, and doing that with over 3,000 couples, they found there were four really significant predictors of relationship demise. You're referring to, Jonathan, called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse big predictors of disaster. So what they are, first of all, is criticism. Criticism means blaming a problem on a personality flaw of your partner. You're so lazy. You're so thoughtless. You're so inconsiderate. What's the matter with you?
- [87:31]
Dr. John Gottman
Never.
- [87:32]
Dr. Julie Gottman
You always. You never. You know those words imply personality flaws, right? Or what's the matter with you? I mean, how are you supposed to answer that question?
- [87:41]
Interviewer/Host
Where do I begin? I can't answer that.
- [87:45]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Don't give them an opening for that. Okay, so that's criticism. Okay, Contempt is real sulfuric acid for a relationship. It totally destroys relationships.
- [87:57]
Interviewer/Host
Is that eye rolling?
- [87:59]
Dr. Julie Gottman
It includes eye rolling. So it can be both facially expressed or verbally expressed. And what it means is criticism with the extra spice of disgust. Scorn, really, looking down your nose.
- [88:20]
Dr. John Gottman
Disdain.
- [88:21]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Beautiful, yes. Superiority that's right. You are superior. Your partner's inferior sarcasm fits into that. Mockery fits into that. Name calling, you know, calling your partner nasty names, that kind of stuff. All of that is contempt. And it not only destroys the relationship, it also destroys the immune system of the listener, which blows our minds. Yeah. Another study found that the number of times a listener heard contempt from their partner in 15 minutes correlated highly with the number of infectious illnesses that listener would have in the next four years. I mean, it's incredible. So contempt is awful. Defensiveness is another one. That's the hardest one to overcome, where we're either whining in refusal to admit something that's wrong, like I did too pay the bills, or we are counterattacking. Oh, yeah, well, you never pick up the dry clean. You know, it's something that just pushes back on what the person is saying as opposed to actually taking it in and listening to it. And then the fourth is stonewalling. And what that is a really painful one. Stonewalling is horrible. Yeah. What we found with stonewalling is that people will shut down as if the other person isn't even there. They will not give any facial recognition, like nodding their heads, you know, smiling, or just looking at them with recognition of what they're saying. They won't speak to them. They may turn away from them. And. And that doesn't go on just for seconds. It may go on for minutes or even longer, sometimes even days. So stonewalling, we found, was highly correlated with the individual who was stonewalling being physiologically in fight or flight. Inside their bodies. They were feeling attacked, and the attack caused that reaction of fight or flight. I got to get the heck out of here. Or fight back. And they would go inside themselves, cutting off the external stimuli, I. E. The other person, in order to self soothe, because physically sitting there in fight or flight feels horrible physically. So they would try and self soothe and talk to themselves, you know, rather than the other person. So what to do when you have a terrible conflict? The first step, as I mentioned, was describing yourself and what your needs are, your feelings and your needs. The second thing, though, that really creates emotional connection and intimacy is something we've called the dream within conflict. And this is what it looks like. One person will simply ask the other partner a series of questions to more deeply understand that first person's point of view. What are they really saying, and where does that come from? So they put their own point of view on the back burner, just temporarily in order to just listen to the answers. Of the other person with questions like, do you have any values, ethics, or core needs that are part of your position on this issue? Is there some background history or childhood history or other relationship history that's part of your position on this issue? Why is this so important to you?
- [92:36]
Interviewer/Host
This is the third level in difficult conversations. There's what happened, there's how you feel about it, and then there's the meaning that you give to how you feel about it. So you're asking people to kind of get to that level.
- [92:48]
Dr. John Gottman
Exactly.
- [92:49]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Well, except. Except. Let me just.
- [92:51]
Interviewer/Host
I got an exactly from John and I got an except from Julie.
- [92:54]
Dr. Julie Gottman
I'm going with, you know why. No, don't go with John because I'm the one who's OCD and, like, really perfectionistic. So. So, okay, so here. Here was the only little. Little tiny divot in that answer, which was, it's not about a past, past thing. It's about a current problem. We have a different way of dealing with past big fights. Okay, so with a current conflict, it's step two. It's okay. Before we try and work on a resolution, I want to really understand where you're coming from, and I want you to understand where I'm coming from. So why is this so important? Is there some underlying purpose or meaning to your position on this issue that is really crucial to you? And of course, what do you think?
- [93:46]
Dr. John Gottman
Is there an ideal. Ideal dream?
- [93:47]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Exactly. Is there an ideal dream here? There we go back into dreams. And when you do that for a conflict where you really have a difference of opinion about something, what happens is your understanding of the other person, as well as your feeling of being understood, is really expanded in a way that allows you a little more room for compassion, a little more room for understanding. Let me give you an example of that. I mean, this is a basic example, but it's really common in a heterosexual relationship. The guy wants more sex, the woman doesn't. The woman is exhausted. She's got twins, you know, she's just. By the end of the day, of course, she has laundry, and there's like seven loads of it, and it's all over the hallway. Right. So what do you do there? Well, when she talks about, look, you know, I just really can't have sex, don't want to have sex as often as you may want it or need it. And he'll say, well, do you have any values or beliefs or ethics that are part of this? Well, she might say, yeah, one of them is that I. I have to be emotionally close to you. In order to be sexually open to you. I can't do it unless I really feel emotionally close. Okay, all right, so that's 1, 2. You go to background history. Well, it just so happened that I was molested when I was 12 years old by the neighbor. And I've never been the same since. I've always been a little afraid about sex. And when you approach me sexually, it's really hard for me to get pictures of that neighbor out of my head. When you're approaching me and the husband says what? You never told me that. That is a typical example of stuff that we see all the time when it comes to. To conflicts that could be as simple as who's going to drive the kids to school on Friday. Then you find out, you know, there's some history in there that jams up the gears and makes just saying yes much more difficult.
- [96:30]
Jonathan Cohen
John, can you talk a little bit more about contempt in the nervous system and the immune system? That was just a such a striking comment. Yeah, I think we need to understand more because we're not just talking about, oh, are we going to be at peace? We're talking really about how we interact with each other is literally impacting our. Our fundamental health.
- [96:54]
Dr. John Gottman
Exactly. Well, this relationship was really spelled out so we actually know the mechanism through which people get sick through contempt. And this was research done at Ohio State University by Jan Kiko Glaser and her husband, Ron Glaser. Jan is a psychologist, Ron Glaser an immunologist, and they also had an endocrinologist on their team. So rather than getting these signals that Bob and I got from electrodes, they actually had an indwelling catheter in each person's arm. And they took small bits of blood from them while they were discussing a conflict issue. And what they discovered was the amount of stress hormones that are secreted. Our two stress hormones are cortisol and adrenaline. That predicted whether the couple would get divorced or not in the next 10 years. So the couples who got divorced eventually, these were newlyweds they studied, had much more cortisol and adrenaline getting secreted during the conflict discussion. And then because of Ron Glaser being an immunologist, they looked at the white blood cells, natural killer cells, T cells, B cells, macrophages, and so on, and found that even in the course of a half an hour argument, the ability of the immune system, these parts of the immune system, to fight off a potential infection was decreased in 30 minutes. And overall was much lower in those couples that were secreting adrenaline. And cortisol. So that's the mechanism by which people get sick. Not only are T cells and B cells and macrophages problematic, but natural killer cells also are less cytotoxic, and those are the cells that are guarding against tumor formation in the immune system. So you can see that overall health really gets compromised by contempt.
- [99:02]
Interviewer/Host
Well, and also, I just want to add a little caveat to that. This is not necessarily to say that the relationship alone can make you sick, but if you look at people as, you know, Julie, you have for your whole career, if you look at people who come from histories where their cortisol is already going to be elevated or they already have a dysregulation, Jonathan and I are, you know, kind of fixated on the number of autoimmune diagnoses that women in particular get. Right? So you have all of these systems, which we also know has a link to complex PTSD and to. To trauma. So when people come into a relationship, if you already have a system that was not primed, let's say, for optimal receptivity, what you're then having is when conflicts arrive, which they're going to. They have to. It's part of the normal, healthy course of relationships. As you talk about, the idea is not to have no conflict. The idea is to know how to have the right kind of approach when conflict arises. So if you have someone with an already compromised system and you add more to that, that's where it feels like not speaking for myself. Why would I do that? I don't know how to be in a relationship. Right. Everything feels too hard. Everything feels scary. I keep needing to shut down. I'm using compensatory mechanisms. I need to drink or I need to smoke pot in order to have sex. Right. Like, this is like the epidemic that we're living in, Right, Jonathan?
- [100:31]
Jonathan Cohen
Yes. And your bid for connection is received. And I think that was a great point, John. Is it only contempt? Does criticism do the same thing? Does defensiveness is.
- [100:46]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah, it was. It really.
- [100:48]
Dr. Julie Gottman
They.
- [100:48]
Dr. John Gottman
They used an observational coding system called the mix marital interaction coding system that Robert Weiss designed. And it's really all four Horsemen that create this cortisol and adrenaline secretion that suppresses the immune system, you know, and. And you're absolutely right. You know, if there is any kind of PTSD response in. In a person, it lowers the threshold at which people start secreting adrenaline and cortisol. And that's been documented. It's true of combat soldiers coming back from war. The threshold is lower so it takes less to set the whole thing off. And that's why safety is so important. Emotional safety is so important for everyone in a relationship, male or female.
- [101:42]
Jonathan Cohen
Do men or women tend towards one of the four Horsemen exhibiting them more than others?
- [101:50]
Dr. John Gottman
Yes. So everybody is equally defensive. I think guys tend to be a little bit more defensive than women, but criticism and contempt is much more likely.
- [102:04]
Interviewer/Host
For women than men, and stonewalling is much more likely for men.
- [102:08]
Dr. John Gottman
And stonewalling is. 85% of stonewallers were men. 85% stonewall. 85% of stonewallters were men. So it's really. Guys are sort of having an internal monologue of don't say anything. I can endure this and look to.
- [102:27]
Interviewer/Host
Your point, not to throw it back in your face. But, like, men want emotional connection. They want friendship. Friendship. They want intimacy. They're not going to get it if they keep stonewalling me.
- [102:36]
Dr. John Gottman
80% of the time, women are bringing up the issues in a relationship. Only 20% of the time are men bringing it up.
- [102:44]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Oh, I thought it was criticism. No. Oh, good. We're innocent.
- [102:48]
Interviewer/Host
Yay.
- [102:49]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Okay. But anyway, when we bring up issues, you know, we have to realize that what is creating the stonewalling is typically criticism or content.
- [103:00]
Interviewer/Host
Which is not to say that women deserve to be stonewalled, but this is a process we need to understand. No, but I want to make sure, because, you know, I'm like, the voice in the back of my head is like, oh, maybe if I don't say anything, I won't get stonewall.
- [103:12]
Dr. Julie Gottman
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not stone.
- [103:15]
Jonathan Cohen
Say it slightly nicer, and you won't get stonewalled.
- [103:19]
Dr. Julie Gottman
So, you know, it's. It's more about what you got role modeled for you as a kid, you know, and that it's almost like you learn the language of conflict a lot of times from growing up in whatever family you did. Right. So you learn that particular language and doing it any other way feels like a foreign language to you, or you.
- [103:45]
Dr. John Gottman
Rebel against what you've seen.
- [103:47]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah, that's right. It can be done kind of with this, with a different pathway, but still related to that origin.
- [103:59]
Interviewer/Host
So, yeah, what's really helpful about this book, the sort of 2.0 version, as you call it, is there's so much about it that reflects the times that we're living in, you know, both with your extra attention to different kinds of relationships, to homosexual and heterosexual relationships, and sort of presenting all of that research. But one of the things that that has changed since you Know, the first time I started reading your books when I was married, you know, many moons ago. I think that technology has presented an extra challenge and I actually see it, I see it a lot with, with my, my 18 year old, those earbuds in his ear, which seems to be this sort of like ever present soundtrack that he would like to, to his life. You know, this seems to be an extra new barrier to communication. Meaning every time I would like to interact with him about anything from, you know, where we're gonna eat breakfast or what time we're leaving or can you please grab like the laundry out of the machine? Like everything now involves me saying it, not being heard, needing to make myself heard, needing to forgive me, like walk upstairs instead of just being like, hey, you know, Meaning no one can hear me anywhere in the house and maybe they don't want to. But I see this also in relationships because so many people, you know, have this sort of like layer now of sort of protection. And it's funny because I was on a flight with my son recently and there was really, really loud chattering just like going on of people who clearly were not paying attention to the fact that there was people right behind them and were stuck, you know, in a metal capsule for hours. He heard nothing because he has his own personal soundtrack. But I've also just noticed that it's really shifted communication. And I wonder if you can speak a little bit to not only, you know, AirPods in people's ears, but this notion that there's always something that is pulling us away when that phone is in our hand. There's. You can tell when someone is waiting for you to be done because they want to check their phone. Can you speak a little bit to the shift in relationships with technology?
- [106:20]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yes, indeed.
- [106:22]
Dr. John Gottman
That'S a great question.
- [106:23]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Oh God, really? You know, technology is both a blessing and a bane to our existence. Right. And so there's been so much written now, especially about teenagers and how they are plugged into technology. God, almost all the time, you know, during classes, during dinner time, during bathroom.
- [106:50]
Interviewer/Host
They love a phone in the bathroom.
- [106:51]
Dr. Julie Gottman
They love a phone in the bathroom. No kidding. I mean, it's ideal. And when they take in their phone, you can count on the bathroom not being free for at least 45 minutes. Correct. Which is terrible. Which means you have to have two bathrooms in your home.
- [107:05]
Interviewer/Host
It's a first world problem. But still.
- [107:07]
Dr. Julie Gottman
I know, isn't it? So first of all, and all of this stuff also got complicated by the pandemic when literally we were cut off from each other for at least a year in terms of physical presence. So, you know, it was a very difficult time. So what also is happening is that. So people are cutting off because of the technology, cutting off from each other to some degree, but they're also going shallow. You cannot have deeper conversations through black and white text. You just can't. You don't see what people's facial expressions are. You don't hear the tone in their voice. You don't see what their body is doing. You're missing at least half of the actual language of communication, if you will, when you're doing it over technological devices. So as a result, language becomes very truncated, right? So it's just brief little phrases. And then we get into emotional battles or we get into conflicts because that's.
- [108:28]
Interviewer/Host
Where misunderstanding can happen so much the time.
- [108:31]
Dr. Julie Gottman
You got it right. That's exactly right. You know, there's so much misinterpretation of what's being said, and people haven't learned yet that technology shouldn't be used for any kind of emotional and relationship dynamic. It can be used for tasks, it can be used for, hi, how you doing? But anything of depth, it's gone. You know, you can't do it with technology. And yet here's technology in our faces. So it is a real problem.
- [109:09]
Interviewer/Host
Sometimes it is easier for people to communicate certain things in writing that they wouldn't in speech. Is there, is there an avenue where that can be helpful? I mean, obviously the distraction issue, meaning if I'm trying to talk to someone about anything and they're distracted, that's not what I'm talking about. But is there any avenue in which, I don't know, maybe men in particular finds it easier to sometimes communicate things in writing as opposed to speaking?
- [109:34]
Dr. Julie Gottman
You know, I think what I've seen, and actually there have been times when I have prescribed. Describe this in a couple. When somebody has a terrible time in the presence of their partner, especially a partner who is angry at them, trying to communicate what their internal world looks like, where they're at. And so sometimes, you know, in therapy, for example, I'll prescribe that that person who's really fearful of somebody jumping on them to write out, not, not in text, but actually handwriting, write out what your experience is, what you're feeling, what's going on with you, so that your partner doesn't have a knee jerk, reflexive response to it, which is immediate defensiveness or anger or cutting you off, but can actually contemplate what you're saying. Think about it and Give a more thoughtful response. Sometimes that's helpful.
- [110:46]
Interviewer/Host
Yeah. This feels like a good time to. To ask about sometimes that's, you know, recommended or prescribed when there's been an affair or when there's been betrayal. Right. To be able to accurately communicate what you're feeling. Can you talk a bit about affairs? Because, you know, for a lot of people, I mean, look, I. I'm a million years old, so used to be like, oh, affair, the relationship's over. Right. Or affair, we brush it under the rug and we never talk about it again and hope everything's okay. But there's a lot more conversation about, you know, and. And I have heard a lot of this under the rubric of, like, well, he didn't want monogamy, so he had to, you know, go have sex with someone else. But women also have affairs. It could be lots of things. And I think you would probably argue it's not about that. But can you speak a little bit about a relationship that is trying to recover from some sort of betrayal? I think the question that a lot of people want to know is, how do you know if your partner is repentant enough to make it work and to stay together? What are some of the signs that you should keep working to keep it together? And what are some of the signs that it's over?
- [112:06]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Great question. So this is actually something we've been doing research on, which is great. So we created a way for couples to recover from affairs, and so far, it looks like our treatment approach is early on now in the research having about 70, 75% success rate, which is great. But you have to do a variety of steps, and most therapists handle it really badly. They will either say, okay, you shouldn't talk about that. Let's just talk about what you're doing now and make it better. Nope, that's going to fail.
- [112:53]
Interviewer/Host
Why? Secondly, can you explain to the folks at home.
- [112:56]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yes, ma'. Am. So the reason is because affairs cause PTSD in the hurt partner. And that has been observed clinically, and it's being also observed now in the research that they suffer from ptsd. And let me explain why. PTSD is a response to something that turns their world upside down. That is something that comes out of the blue, is unpredictable, and is very, very destructive to your construction of your world, be it your body or your mind. So when you have constructed your world around the belief that your partner is faithful, is loyal, loves you, is perhaps, you know, the parent of your children, and really wants to be a part of this family, and knows that you're really, you know, dependent on them and loving them. And then they go out and they betray you. And affairs are not the only form of betrayal. There's lots. But deception is a key element of it. You find out that your partner is none of those things. And you typically find that out in a blast of white light, you know, hot light, where, you know, your kid discovers a text on the computer and then comes and tells you about it. Or you find a letter from the lover or something, and all of a sudden you are in shock. The person that you thought your partner was is not that person, has a whole secret life, doesn't love you enough to be truthful and transparent with you. Wow. What does that mean about whether or not they love you? Why should you trust them? So everything turns upside down. And when you're married to somebody, your whole foundation tends to be the relationship, right? And so, boom, you are turned upside down and in outer space, not having a foundation to stand on anymore. That creates ptsd. And the signs of ptsd. I mean, listen to this. You're looking, you're hyper vigilant for it to happen again. You're having huge emotional swings up and down. Some of the time you're numb. Some of the time you're enraged. Some of the time you're heartbroken. You never know what you're gonna feel. Feel. You have intrusive thoughts or intrusive pictures in your mind that may not be flashbacks like you have in a combat death, but are imagined pictures of your partner with that lover, with that other partner. And they come unbidden, you don't want them, they come anyway, and they are horribly upsetting.
- [116:22]
Interviewer/Host
So all those signs also you get dissociative episodes, right? People can also have somatic reactions. Can meaning like these are sort of under this umbrella of what happens to the body and the mind in trauma.
- [116:36]
Dr. Julie Gottman
So, okay, so the first thing one has to recognize is that the affair causes ptsd. So if you don't talk about it, what happens to the ptsd? You know, it's a burning fire that is never put out. You know, it's there in that individual. And we found that memory with PTSD operates very differently than ordinary memory, where if a person is triggered by the partner, let's say, coming home from work, all the feelings, all the hormonal output of stress hormones, all the physical sensations, everything comes back up in the memory in that hypervigilance of, oh, my God, they're sleeping with that partner again.
- [117:27]
Interviewer/Host
Right. The body keeps the score in that sense, yeah, exactly.
- [117:32]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Bessel van der Kolk. So how do you fix it? What we have done is we've realized that first of all, you have to explain the PTSD to the person who's had the affair because it looks like their partner's gone crazy and they don't understand why, especially if it's like a one night stand or something and it seems trivial to them but isn't to the other. Secondly, in that first phase, the person who's been betrayed gets to ask the person who had the affair any question they want to. And now that partner has to be transparent and honest because that's the only way you can rebuild a marriage. And we call it building marriage number two, because marriage number one has burned to the ground. So gets to ask any question. And oftentimes you have to do this in therapy. You can't do it on your own. And gets to express all the feelings they have had regarding this affair and they're still having and all the traumatic responses. And the job of the therapist is to help them do that without contempt and without criticism. And that's really hard because you want to throw every knife you can at the partner who's hurt you so badly. Also, the therapist has to support the person who's hearing all of this, you know, as the person who had the affair, because it's so hard, it feels so shaming to hear. Oftentimes if you know that partner has a conscience, what they have wrought in the relationship. So that phase can take a long time. Can take a long time when you begin to move out of that. And the other person has really. The person who had the affair has expressed a huge amount of remorse, of guilt, of responsibility, of God, you know, I'm so sorry. Sorry. I didn't realize it would have this impact, you know, whatever have this impact, has to really sit there and observe the pain of the other and try to empathize with it even, which again, comes with the help of the therapist, you can finally move in to the second phase of recovery. And the second phase has to do with the building marriage number two. And only here, only here. After that first phase, which is so kind of, you know, tipped in balance. Do you now look at the marriage itself, marriage number one, and what was wrong? Because usually what leads to affairs is loneliness. It's not, you know, God, they're really hot. I want to go, you know, have sex with them. It's loneliness. And the loneliness often is related to avoiding conflict and getting more and more distant. So you have to go back into rebuilding. How do you deal with conflict? How do you recreate trust? How do you recreate friendship? Sex may be off the table, though, not always, but it may be off the table for quite a while because sex may trigger the PTSD and the hurt partner. So you rebuild marriage number two, teaching both people how to really attune to one another on a whole different level, a much deeper level, a much more emotionally close level. And then number three, the third phase is recommitting, reattaching, and hopefully reestablishing a sexual relationship, if that hasn't already.
- [121:45]
Jonathan Cohen
John, are there any stats on how many marriages survive the rebuilding process after an affair?
- [121:52]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah, there are some statistics that our collaborators Paul Peluso and Taylor Irvine did with about 6,000 couples who had had affairs. And what they found was that almost 80% of them sought therapy. Only about 20% of them just, you know, didn't seek therapy at all. And that 20% that didn't seek therapy, most of them really broke up the relationship of the. Of the 80% who thought who sought therapy, they. Quite a few of them only had one session of couples therapy. About 35% of them had just one session and then made a decision either to stay together or break up. And it went 50, 50, one way or the other. And they also found that almost 40% of therapists were uncomfortable talking about the affair. You know, kind of said, well, you know, that's in the past, let's move forward, which, as Julie points out, you really can't do. And so. And fewer than 10% of the therapists had any kind of structured approach to dealing with affairs, even though, you know, we've discovered in that study of 40,000 couples that about 35% of couples presented with an affair and 45% of there were gay male couples presented with an affair, that really was disruptive. So therapists really need a lot of guidance in how to deal with affairs. So in general, most. Most affairs really wind up going 50, 50 even either just breaking up or, you know, in the other case, just trying to cope with it, you know, maybe by seeing a therapist for a session or two or putting it behind them. But of course, if you don't deal with it the way Julie's talked about, which is very unusual, you know, we actually did the first randomized clinical trial that's ever been done in this field, and with very good results. But most therapists don't have the equipment to really help people with an affair.
- [124:15]
Interviewer/Host
So this is sort of a. It's you know, many people also don't, don't have access or can't afford therapy, which already is now dooming a portion of the socioeconomic population that if you cannot afford support, you cannot get further support to see if you can even keep your family together.
- [124:36]
Dr. John Gottman
And then if you can afford it, most of the, most of the therapists you'll see will be incompetent.
- [124:40]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Right, yeah. Let me mention something, just as a side note, a tangent. We wanted to democratize our methods precisely because of the problem you're bringing up. And so we have created a software platform that couples can go on that will assess their relationship like, you know, within seconds after they fill out some questionnaires. And then they videotape themselves having a conversation or two and then gives them recommendations for all the interventions we've created, whichever ones fit their profile. That's terrific. Their relationship all on brief videos that.
- [125:33]
Dr. John Gottman
They can watch on their phone.
- [125:35]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Right. John and I made 87 brief little videos that demonstrate how to do something and how not to do something.
- [125:45]
Jonathan Cohen
Speaking about videos on our phone, John, there's another aspect of technology that I think has drastically impacted relationships and our sex drive, which is the access now, the ubiquitous access to pornography. Can you talk a little bit about the change from, you know, magazines at one point and the limited access to now, how prevalent it is? Are we seeing an increase in what some people are calling pornography addiction? And how is the access to pornography and viewing of pornography impacting relationships today?
- [126:23]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah, you know, let me, let me first answer your question. It's a great question again, Jonathan. Thank you. There's a great book by Jonathan Haidt called the Anxious Generation last week.
- [126:36]
Interviewer/Host
Yes.
- [126:36]
Dr. John Gottman
It's a best seller. Yeah. And. And for a lot of teenage guys, you know, their world consists of playing video games and, and visiting porn sites and masturbating, you know, not having relationships at all. Any kind of relationships now, you know. Yeah. Gen X is Gen Z. I'm sorry, Gen Z is what they. He writes about.
- [127:02]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Okay.
- [127:03]
Dr. John Gottman
It's a beautiful book. Really well researched and well argued. And so it's, you know, porn plays a really big role in that and people avoiding really close relationships. And that's what's happening for a lot of people as well. Is that for non Gen Z people, you know, porn has made it much easier to just get sexually fulfilled, you know, if you can't get it in any other way. But the problem is that in pornography you're in total control and there's no communication. It's so impersonal and if you bring that into the bedroom, it completely ruins your relationship with your intimate partner.
- [127:49]
Interviewer/Host
So just to. Sorry, just to underscore that the kind of interaction, especially for young boys, the kind of interaction that they're learning from pornography and especially the, you know, the increase in the types of content that are available and some of the more disturbing and violent and extreme things that, that young, young brains are having access to, that is not, it's not compatible with a real life relationship, either in terms of expectation or in terms of feedback.
- [128:23]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah. And because 60% of these pornographic websites degrade women and picture the degradation of women, both adolescent males and females have become more inured to rape and have, you know, and think it's kind of a normal thing because of that, because they're seeing women getting degraded in 60% of these websites. So it's really affecting adolescents in a very negative way.
- [128:52]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah, not only adolescents, but adults, you know, so I'm seeing. So, you know, just many, many, many, many, many couples where pornography is the big issue. And it feels, it's really interesting because for women, for the partners, it often feels like the women are being compared to these idealized photoshopped images of women in the pornographic films. Right. So they will some experience them like it's an affair. You know, even though it isn't a person, it's still a body that the other person is having a sexual response to, whether it's three dimensional or two dimensional. So they will feel cheated upon. It's often done deceptively where, you know, it's behind the partner's back. They don't know how often it's going on and they'll feel betrayed when they find out. And, you know, one has to realize, especially with heterosexual pornography where the man is the person observing it, that women, it's, it's thought that women are exposed by the age of, I don't know, 20 to about 6 million images of women with perfect bodies through advertising, through tv, through magazines, through billboards, through, you know, every medium. And as a result, most women feel horrible about how they look because they, you know, we're taught unfortunately in our bones that our value is in how attractive we are physically. Okay, so compare yourself to a photoshopped, you know, image and man, you're in trouble.
- [131:00]
Interviewer/Host
Or even plastic surgery, which now starts in your teens. It's apparently like a normal thing in many cities.
- [131:06]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Is that incredible crazy Botox. It is, it's totally insane. The other thing too is that, as John was saying, men are in control with pornography. They can, you Know, pick and choose what form of sex they want. They're totally in control. And then they go into their marriage expecting to have the same kind of control over their partner with the sexual erotic activity they participate in. And guess what? The woman doesn't want it. And the other thing is that the woman, or in fact the male, you know, whatever it can be, whatever gender may feel the emotional distance of impersonal sex. That feels horrible. I had a case where a couple came in. It was his third marriage, her first, though she was 32. And he was raised in a pretty fundamentalist religious home of a certain kind, where if you were married, you could have sex, but you couldn't unless you were sexually involved. And the most you. Unless you were married. And the. The only thing you could do and the only thing a woman could experience was a kiss on the cheek. Couldn't even have a kiss on the lips. Had to be a kiss on the cheek. So this guy had been married three times. One of them was to a porn star. But also this guy got into sex. He grew up in a trailer park. He got into pornography by a person in their trailer park when he was five years old. Incredible. So he was so accustomed to pornography, he watched pornography once or twice a day, every single day, sometimes more. He would masturbate all throughout that. So marriage number three, he gets involved with this woman from the same religious group, only had a kiss on the cheek. Meanwhile, he had experienced through pornography every kind of sexual. You can imagine. On their wedding night, he says, here's what I want to do. And it was a very traditionally based marriage due to their backgrounds. He wants her to do every single thing the porn stars have been doing. On his watching of porn movies, he demands she do all of that. So guess how she came out of that marital night. Traumatized. Through the roof, through the ceiling. And that continued for 14 years. He scheduled their sex. He would demand what kind of sex they would have. It was all based on the porn stuff he saw because he didn't really know what emotional sex look like. He had no idea. Porn was his entire education. And so by the time they came in, she was dissociating. She'd take herself into the ceiling every time they had sex, which was three times a week. Now, how do you repair that? Well, you know, clearly the poor fellow was horribly addicted to pornography, was terrified of emotional intimacy, didn't know what it looked like. And so I gave her a book called For Yourself Female Sexuality by Lonnie Barbach, one of the great pioneers of Women and their own sexuality and had her read that book, do the exercise in it, and sex was off the table. There was going to be a moratorium on all sex. Meanwhile, he needed treatment for his sexual addiction or his porn addiction. So was seeing him also individually for that as well as the couple. And she's learning and learning and learning and learning and getting to explore for herself, what the heck is sexuality in my body? What do I like? What do I not like? She had no idea. That went on for nine months. And finally, when she was ready and he was ready to try to have more, let's say physical activity, let alone sexual, we didn't get to sex for a while. She had all the control, which he'd never experienced before. And they had to rebuild a whole different sexual dimension to their relationship that neither had ever experienced before. That's the effect porn can have. Scary.
- [136:33]
Dr. John Gottman
Can I say one other thing before we leave this pornography thing, which is that porn doesn't have to be destructive. You know, it. It can represent female eroticism as well as male. It can be romantic, it can be exciting if both people, you know, are inclined to watch it. It doesn't have to be degrading to women. It doesn't have to be what it is and, you know, can change. So it's not so destructive.
- [137:05]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Yeah, yeah, True enough.
- [137:07]
Interviewer/Host
We really appreciate your time. You've given us so much of your time. We wonder if we can end with something fun and quick. John, tell us about the six second kiss and why it's important.
- [137:21]
Dr. John Gottman
Yeah. It turns out, and part of this is the work of a man named Paul Zachary, that when we kiss for at least six seconds or hug for at least 20 seconds, we both secrete oxytocin, which is the hormone of bonding and trust and connection. And so it's just a wonderful thing to do, especially at the end of a day when you haven't seen your partner all day. Just that last six seconds, a hug that lasts 20 seconds and secrete oxytocin together. And it really creates warmth, as does cuddling as well. Cuddling does that too.
- [138:06]
Interviewer/Host
John, what's your favorite thing about Julie? And Julie, what's your favorite thing about John?
- [138:11]
Dr. John Gottman
I guess my favorite thing about Julie is her sense of humor. She's just really, really funny. She makes me laugh.
- [138:19]
Dr. Julie Gottman
That's what she's supposed to say about you.
- [138:20]
Dr. John Gottman
Really?
- [138:20]
Dr. Julie Gottman
You cheated. You got to go first. That's not fair.
- [138:25]
Dr. John Gottman
She's very playful and I love everything about her.
- [138:29]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Aw.
- [138:29]
Dr. John Gottman
There's nothing I don't love about her.
- [138:31]
Dr. Julie Gottman
He's a big sweetie. Yeah, it's his sense of humor, too. Plus, he's so darn smart. When I first met him and started talking to him, I knew I'd never be bored. Speaking of boredom. Because he reads everything, you know, under the sun. I don't. So I get to learn everything just by listening. Even math.
- [138:54]
Dr. John Gottman
And quantum mechanics.
- [138:56]
Dr. Julie Gottman
And quantum mechanics. Right.
- [138:58]
Interviewer/Host
Well, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. It's really been an honor to get to talk to you. And we have so many more questions, but we will turn to your videos and hopefully get the answers there.
- [139:09]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Thank you so much.
- [139:10]
Dr. John Gottman
It's a real honor to meet you and both of you. Thank you for those great questions. Brilliant.
- [139:17]
Dr. Julie Gottman
Brilliant.
- [139:18]
Dr. John Gottman
It's Maya Bialik's breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two on fiction, and now she's gonna break down. So break down. She's gonna break it down.