365 Simple Ideas to Improve Your Relationship
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No. 1 Dr. John Gottman found that couples who had great relationships that were close, connected, and long-lasting spent time every day getting to know their partners just a little bit more, paying attention to how they were changing over time and developing deeper understanding of their inner worlds and emotional landscapes. Gottman called this “building love maps.” Having a detailed love map of your partner means that your partner will feel wellknown, accepted, and valued. Today’s Task: Find five minutes to ask your partner at least one of the following questions. • Who is your favourite author, and why do you like him or her? • What are you most looking forward to over the next year? • If there is one thing you could accomplish in this life, what would it be and why? • Who is your favourite relative right now, and why? • Where do you most want to travel to in the world, and why? Keep thinking of questions to ask and make this a daily ritual. No. 2 Ask for your positive needs to be met. We are somewhat programmed to focus on the things that aren’t working rather than on what we do want. For example, my partner brings in the laundry before it rains. I might say, “I hate it when you leave the laundry all scrunched up in the basket like that!” Or I could say with a big, cheeky smile and a warm hug, “Thank you for getting the washing in before it rained. I love that you thought of that. I would love it even more if the clothes were folded and put away.” Which version do you think will make us feel closer and loving towards each other? Here are other examples: “I love being kissed like that” rather than “You never kiss me passionately anymore.” “I love discovering my car has a full tank of petrol” rather than “You never fill my car after you use it.” “I love cuddling on the couch with you” rather than “You don’t show me enough affection.” When you communicate what you do want in this positive way, you will get more of it. Today’s Task: Write down five things you know you frequently complain about. Then write down how you could ask for your positive need to be met for each of those things. Try communicating one of these things to your partner. No. 3 Show interest in your partner’s interests. This does not mean you need to take up the passion. Bill is a passionate golfer, and Rosemary is not so much. However, when Bill regales Rosemary with great excitement about the finer detail of his birdie on the ninth, she listens very carefully, taking delight in his excitement. She cheers him on or sometimes commiserates with him. She is no expert in golf, but she can join with his emotions when he talks about it. This is showing interest in his interest. It’s a few moments of connection when he is in the spotlight. Try it. Today’s Task: Spend ten minutes asking your partner a few questions about his or her favourite pastime. No. 4 When your partner says, “I’m upset about…” turn towards the emotion instead of away or against. Respond with, “Tell me your concerns,” and then listen nondefensively. Summarise the position, focussing on your partner’s feelings and needs. Validate the feelings and try to empathise. If you do this, your partner will feel fully heard and understood and is much more likely to listen to your perspective. Today’s Task: Think about the last disagreement you had. In your journal, explore how you think that conversation might have been different if you had stopped defending, dismissing, disputing, or debating your partner’s perceptions, feelings, and needs and had simply listened for understanding instead. No. 5 Through continuous Gottman research, we have learnt a lot about conflict and conflict management. It turns out that conflict management is not just about what and how we communicate with our partner using gentle start-ups, making repairs, and accepting influence. It is also about what our bodies and brains are doing during conflict. While observing his research couples in the Love Lab, John Gottman noticed that when couples fought sometimes their physiology would rise, heart rates would increase, blood pressure would rise, and the quality of the conversation would descend into negativity. He became curious about this and started to do simple experiments to understand this phenomenon more. When he noticed a couple in a conflict conversation with heart rates at or above 100 beats a minute, he would interrupt the couple by saying something like, “unfortunately our research recording equipment has gone offline and if both of you could take a seat and read a magazine while we remedy the situation that would be great because we do not want to miss recording all your interactions and conversations”. So, the couple would sit and read, and John Gottman would wait until their heart rates dropped back to rest, normally taking between 20-40 minutes. Once this occurred, he would go back to the couple and request they continue their original conversation, interestingly couples would say things like I can’t remember what we were fighting about now, which goes to show couples can fight about absolutely nothing. Or often, they would recommence the conversation in a gentler more responsive way. John Gottman believes there are two relationships in one, one where your heart rate is above 100 beats a minute, where conflict becomes escalated and negative (Flooded) and the other where your heart is below 100 beats a minute and conflict conversations are gentler and connected. The solution to flooding is learning to self-soothe. In good relationships, couples help one another soothe, slow down, step back from the escalation, and regain a sense of calm and care in the conversation. Today’s Task: Identify your signs of flooding. Then think about a sign or a word you can use to indicate to your partner that you are beginning to escalate and would like a couple of moments to do some deep breathing together.
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About the Book
People in successful relationships deliberately build and attend to the friendship and connection in their relationship, skillfully manage conflict and physiological arousal and work together to create shared meaning and understanding in their day to day lives together. This book provides daily information, tips and tasks to make small lasting change often. Based on 40 plus years of research by Drs John and Julie Gottman these daily tips provide simple, commonsense, safe handrails to stabilise, strengthen and deepen intimacy and connection through doing small practical things with positive intention. What this book will give you is: * increased knowledge of your partner; * increased expressed appreciation and kindness towards each other; * increased attentiveness and focus; * increased positivity and resilience; * improved conflict management skills and strategies; * access to deeper, more meaningful communication; * tips to eradicate proven destructive negative patterns in conflict; * strategies for understanding and honouring each other's dreams, goals, wishes and needs; * tools for creating greater shared meaning and rituals of connection that are proven to stabilise and strengthen relationships; * pathways to strengthen trust and commitment. The suggested daily tasks are designed to assist you and your partner to discover a closer, connected, satisfying partnership. 365 Things to Improve your Relationship is the scaffolding to build a successful, lasting life together.
About the Author
Trish Purnell-Webb is an Australian clinical psychologist who became the first certified Gottman therapist in Australia in 2013. She then continued her training to become the first master trainer and consultant for the Gottman Institute in Australia in 2015. She has been in private practise as a psychologist since 1997 after a twenty-year career in organisational training and development in both government and corporate organisations while also raising three children with the help of her husband, Mark. Trish has always been fascinated by the impact relationships have on our sense of well-being and satisfaction, whether they are work relationships or intimate relationships. In her work providing executive coaching to senior members of organisations throughout Australia, she came to understand that intimate relationships had a profound effect on an individual’s ability to perform in life. This led her to explore the question “How can we help people have more successful relationships?” It also led her to the research work of John and Julie Gottman, and her fate was sealed. Since 2009, Trish has focussed on working with couples both in her private practise in Burleigh Heads, Queensland, Australia, and on training therapists throughout Australia, New Zealand, and Asia to become more effective in successfully working with couples. Along with her business partner, John, Trish also runs couple workshops across Australia and New Zealand using the evidenced-based Art and Science of Love Couples Workshop developed by John and Julie Gottman. Trish conceived of this book as a resource for couples to use as a relapse prevention tool after they complete either a workshop or couples therapy with Gottman-trained therapists. Trish still lives on the Gold Coast with her husband of forty-one years and is the proud grandmother of five beautiful grandchildren to whom she devotes much of her time. John Flanagan is a mental health accredited social worker in private practise, completing his bachelor’s of social work in 1988 and later a master’s in gestalt therapy. He was the first social worker to become a certified Gottman therapist in Australia in 2015, and he became the second master trainer and consultant in 2019. John has had an extensive history in direct service delivery with couples, families, and young people, as well as in organisational development and training. He has developed a practise that utilises a range of experiential therapies combining these approaches in his work style. John has also completed his Certificate IV in workplace training and assessment and has delivered a broad range of training, both accredited and non-accredited. John knows the incredible value in attending to relationships, as well as the importance of how they are formed, maintained and developed. In over thirty years of working within complex environments and relationships, he has developed a strong speciality in understanding and guiding complex interactions and relationships. He has provided training to many individuals and human service organisations in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the United States about creating positive work cultures, managing challenging clients, resilience, and communication. Over the last twenty years, John has provided a range of psycho-educational group programs to Australian veterans and their families in areas such as trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and resilience.