argue fashionably.

All couples argue and disagree. Yes, healthy happy couples too. What differentiates the happy couples from the unhappy couples is the way they argue. Most couples are arguing about the same things the couple across the street are arguing about; finances, the kids, house chores, etc. Problems arise when we begin to treat each other poorly during these arguments.

Dr. John Gottman is a famous researcher who began to study couples over 30 years ago. He studied couples in his "Love Lab" where he hooked them up to equipment reading their physiology and video taped them as they talk to one another. He analyzed thousands of couples in this way. He coded facial expressions, verbal language, body language, heart rate, and skin conductivity. After extensive research, he was able to come to some extremely interesting conclusions and theories. The glory of his ongoing research, that still continues after 35 years, is he is able to follow up with these couples to find out if their marriage failed or succeeded. This gives his theory so much credibility! His claim to fame is that he is able to listen to a couple speak to each other for 15 minutes and know if their marriage will succeed or fail. Eek! Kind of makes you want to see if he is sitting next to your table at dinner tonight. It's not surprising he was voted one of the top ten most influential psychotherapists of the past quarter-century by Psychotherapy Networker.

Gottman determined that there were four styles of communication he saw persistently in unhealthy marriages that usually ended in divorce. He named these, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Below is a video that gives an explanation and an example of real couples from his love labs. Each of the four styles will be covered. It is important to note that all couples engage in this type of communication and behavior at some point or another. However, the couples who habitually treat one another in this way could be on their way to divorce.

Once again, many happy healthy couples engage in this behavior at times. How often this sort of communication is happening is the key. Gottman found that contempt was the most dangerous of the four to have in a marriage. If this behavior was consistent and the person failed to change this behavior, the marriage almost always failed. Contempt seems to look very much like criticism. The difference is contempt has an underlying motive of wanting the other person to feel inferior to you and also having a complete lack of respect for them. Contempt forms a hierarchy in a marriage, putting one person above the other. Contempt is also very prominent in verbally and/or physically abusive relationships. Not to say that all couples who experience contempt in their relationship also experience abuse.

A huge non-verbal sign of contempt that Gottman found is...eye-rolling. Yup, that's right. Think of that next time you roll them back there. Let's face it, when we do that, we are pretty much saying "I'm strongly judging something you are doing as stupid". An article in healthnewsdigest.com calls eye rolling "the kiss of death to a relationship".

If you are guilty of having some of the Four Horsmen of the Apocalypse over for dinner almost every night, there is still hope for your relationship to succeed. Please do not assume that your relationship is doomed. These four behaviors can be changed when you become aware of them and make an effort to change your style of communication. You have the control over your own behaviors. The effort will have to be conscious and deliberate on a daily basis until it becomes natural. It can be very difficult to alter your communication style, especially if you feel incredibly disconnected or hurt in your relationship. If you feel you or your spouse are beyond changing these behaviors you may want to consider couples counseling.

Here is an article that has some helpful tips on how to alter the way you and your partner or spouse interact in order to have a long-lasting and happy relationship.

More on Gottman to come...

What's something you do in your relationship that seems to help when you are having a disagreement ?

So many friends...so MUCH time...

So, we have all heard people talking about how facebook keeps us connected but at the same time it furthers us physically from one another. We have less physical and verbal contact with people like we used to. Really...do we need to go see Susie's new baby in person, we saw lots and lots of pictures of her on facebook! AND, I can watch her grow for the next 18 years and never really meet her. What does all of this really mean? Why are we all so obsessed with this site and why is it making us connected and isolated all at the same time?

A brilliant psychotherapist named Alfred Adler came up with a theory called Individual Psychology. He actually worked closely with Freud for much of his career. Too bad he is not still alive, because Adler would have loved to witness the world of facebook.com. He believed that healthy people have "social interest". This means we strive for belonging in a community. We want to feel connected to others and this helps us to protect ourselves from feelings of inferiority. The more connected we are to others, well, the more superior we feel. And that feels gooooood. He also believed that social interest is manifested through how we view ourselves in relation to the external world. What better way to compare our lives to others than facebook!? Of course we are LOVING this! Wait. But Adler also said that if we do not have social interest we can become too self-involved and isolate ourselves from the world. Facebook-- self-involved? YES! Feelings of inferiority arise as we begin to consciously or subconsciously compare our lives to others. So, we are trying to become connected to others, while isolating ourselves from real physical connections, and being incredibly self-involved. It's only natural, people. It's our human nature. Technology has found a way to completely take advantage of our weaknesses and our strengths all at the same time. (oh, and thanks for reading my blog :)

With that said, there is a lot of talk today about "facebook depression" Some people believe it's an issue. Some people do not. What do you think about it?

what came first...the brain or the heart?

We love to say our emotions come from our heart. We have "sayings" that we all use that help others understand how we are feeling.

*♥broken* a heavy ♥*

*from the bottom of my ♥*

*♥ache * cross my♥*

*♥ less*

Do our emotions actually come from our heart or our brain? Researchers maintained for a number of years that our emotions were strictly connected to thoughts developed by the brain. But there must be a reason that we have all literally felt emotions coming from our heart at some point or another. This article makes sense of it all.

It's all the same in the brain.

When talking about relationships we love to say things like "I was thinking with my heart and not my head". What we really mean is, we let our emotions rule us. And if we really want to get into it and strip it down, we mean that our emotions led us to choose a behavior that hurt us. And when we get hurt in relationships...sometimes it really hurts. That's because our brain perceives emotional pain (specifically rejection) the same as it does physical pain. This article explains this reality in great depth. And this is the actual study.

It's no wonder some of us protect ourselves by putting up walls and avoiding commitment after we have been hurt emotionally. In the same way we make sure we don't touch a hot stove, because our brain tells us it will burn us badly. Our brain processes these two experiences very similarly.

What are some of the ways you protect yourself?