Episode #105
Why Marriages Succeed & CBT
Researchers believe it is often possible to predict which marriages will succeed and which will fail.
Dr John Gottman and his wife were two of the foremost researchers of these predictive situations.
What are the ‘4 Horsemen’?
How can I help my marriage or relationship to succeed?
Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I share with you how CBT, along with Dr John Gottman’s work, can help your relationships.
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Full Episode Transcript
Hi, welcome to My CBT Podcast! This is Dr. Julie. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.
Welcome and thanks for joining me. I'm going to start off by sharing an email I received on my Instagram account. I really appreciate you guys reaching out and giving me ideas and just sharing how my podcast has been helpful to you. That means a lot.
It says,
“Hi, Dr. Osborn. I love your podcast! I've never really been into podcasts, but I'm currently finishing my internship to give my LPC, which is a licensed professional counselor, and I've been listening to your podcast to get more hours for internship. I feel like I'm getting free therapy and I'm learning ways to better myself in tools I could use for my clients.
I appreciate this podcast you have and promoting CBT. I'm a CBT girl myself. The last semester of graduate school has been rough and especially the last few weeks. I enjoyed your episode on burnout and relate to it. But with grad school, I have to power through until I graduate in three weeks.
Thank you for all you have done and promoting mental health.”
Thank you very much. I appreciate the feedback. Again, reaching out, it makes a big difference for me. I love when she said she's getting free therapy because that's the goal here is to get CBT out there. I've heard from so many of you that it's literally helped. You've learned the tools and you've bought the books and you're doing the work, which is fabulous. For everybody out there listening, keep up the good work. Again, thanks for sharing and keep reaching out. Today's podcast, I'm going to share the work of Dr. John Goepperman and his wife. He's a psychologist here in the United States, and his work focuses on divorce prediction and marital stability through relationship analysis. He, as well as his wife, have done more literal research where they've had couples and they watch them talk and argue and been able to predict what relationships will work and which relationships will not work. Although Dr. Goepperman's work is focused on marital relationships, what I'm going to share with you, I believe, can be used across the board with any relationships. You'll understand more as I explain.
But he has a term he uses, the four horsemen, which are four behaviors that really eat away at a good relationship. Again, this could be an intimate relationship, I think, a parent child relationship, friendships, any relationship that you're in. If this is happening in your relationship, to be able to take notice, maybe even give it a name, and how to work through it and change it by using your CBT tools. I personally don't work a lot with couples. I have a couple, I have a few, but I mostly work with individuals. But I also want to share that working with individuals, it still can be couples therapy because it still comes down to what are you going to do to be a better partner, a better parent, a better friend, whatever relationship you're in? That's where it starts. In couples therapy, it's nice to have two people talking about what's going on, being able to get each person's perception. Sometimes I find that really important at some point if I'm hitting the wall with somebody and I'm like, I need your partner to come in so we can figure out what's going on. But normally, individually, you can do, quote, marriage therapy because I've heard a lot of people say, I can't even get my partner to come in.
I'm like, No problem. You can still work on the changes you want to make and you can still have a lot of success. In Dr. Göpman's book called Why Marriages Succeed or fail, again, he identifies four characteristics of marriages that signal that the marriage is beginning to deteriorate. So the four characteristics are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. So because these characteristics get in the way of communication, they definitely prevent being positive and asserting yourself in a healthy way in a relationship. And when you can start changing this and even identifying it, you can really make some really great changes. Some of you might say, I don't really experience those issues in my relationship, which is great, but now and then they may come up or maybe in other relationships. So it's worth knowing about them and being mindful. So let's first talk about criticism. In the scope of CBT, criticism is actually a behavior. It's something you're doing towards somebody. And it's like you're attacking their personality, and it often comes with complaints. So maybe your needs aren't being met within the relationship. Or again, if it's parent child, your kid isn't doing something you want, or you're frustrated with your boss.
So the criticism is like, Okay, so if my needs aren't being met, and I feel that when I do share what I need, the person isn't hearing them, usually criticism, complaints, or their statements, again, of your reality, maybe saying, I'm really disappointed we haven't been able to work this out, or I'm really disappointed that you're not hearing what my needs are. That's something that's a little healthier, expressing using I statements. But complaints really focus on the shortcomings of the other person. And they're really not expressed in a healthy way because now you're just angry. So there's the mood. So in CBT, I'm thinking, I've asked for my husband to plan a date night. He never does. He doesn't care about me. He's selfish. There's all your hot thoughts. The mood's angry, disappointed, and then the action is being critical and putting criticism towards him. And then that can start to deteriorate the relationship because people are then feeling bad about yourself. As a criticism, instead of saying, I'm disappointed you haven't planned this date night, you said you would, is there something you need help with or what can we do to make this happen?
Instead, I'd say, You're just a selfish person. I can't believe I married you. If we do anything I want, and that's just going to shut the other person down. That's where the criticism comes in. When you're dealing with criticism, the person you're talking to is left in a place to really get defensive. They take it personal. It can feel awkward at times. You might say something that you regret. They're going to get defensive. Because it's aimed at their character, it's really damaging to the relationship. So you want to think about, am I being critical? Do I criticize people in my life, my relationship that I'm in, whatever is going on that I'm struggling with? How is it that I'm communicating? And is it something somebody might say, God, you're really critical. Why are you always criticizing me? And you might be like, No, I'm not. I'm just telling you what I need. That's a red flag there to stop and say, Okay, let me hear what the other person is sharing. And is that something that I'm doing? I'm just so focused and frustrated myself because I'm not getting my needs met that I'm not being mindful about how I'm communicating that.
And if I'm communicating in a negative way, I am not going to get my needs met. People don't respond to criticism well. Again, they just get defensive, make excuses for themselves, maybe, and then we still don't get our needs met. And that's our goal is to feel good in our relationships, communicate well, be aware of what am I thinking that's causing me to feel this way and how am I acting out in that way? That's the behavior. And again, obviously, any relationship is your environment that you're in. So you want to look and say, What is going on here in my environment, in this relationship, maybe in this work environment also, that's making me feel so frustrated that my needs aren't getting met, that I'm being critical that I'm coming across in that way, and I'm actually pushing people away when I'm wanting to bring them closer to me. Again, it's just some self reflection, some insight. Am I a critical person? Am I criticizing? Am I always maybe blaming others for my needs not getting met? How am I getting in the way of that actually happening? You can also ask yourself, what areas in my life would I like to communicate better versus just complaining and being critical towards others and making them feel bad.
I have a lot of podcasts on communication, being a good listener. Those would be some that you can go back to listen to as well. But using the concept of the thought record where we look at a situation, we figure out what we're feeling, we identify our hot thoughts, our thoughts that are 100 % true. And then challenge those to come up with new thoughts and be able to communicate that. So what's the situation is I'm not getting my needs met. I feel un cared for, unloved. And that's what you want to express in the relationship versus attacking the person and being critical. And something else to ask yourself, right? What's your pay off when you're criticizing? Maybe it makes you feel relieved or justified, vindicated. There's something we're getting out of every action we take. We don't do behaviors for the heck of it. There is a point in the behavior that we're choosing to do. So to be honest with yourself, yeah, I do feel relieved, and I feel justified because this person promised to do something, they didn't do it. Right? So I should be able to criticize them. Maybe you could take that route, right?
But am I getting my needs met? That's the bigger picture. What do I need to do in my life so I'm happier? I feel like my needs are being met and I feel good about how I'm communicating and what partner I am. A lot of times when you feel like there's a pay off, it can be negative, and that's what's getting in the way of you really getting to where you want to be in your life or getting the relationship where you want it to be. So that's something just to think about. The second one that Dr. Goepperman talks about is content. This usually runs off the heels of criticism. And although criticism isn't really the productive way to communicate, even though we wish it were. It often is the one resorted to, especially if it's the primary communication method that you saw growing up, that we tend to communicate with what we saw growing up in our home because that's all we know. But when criticism fails to work, as it usually does, we often become less enamored with the partner that we're dealing with. The effectiveness to bring about the outcome we want becomes more and more apparent.
Then our partner bears an everlasting burden for us because now we're expecting them to meet our needs. That's when contempt becomes more and more prominent. You can recognize contempt by the undercurrent of hostility and even sometimes name calling. So if I'm feeling contempt towards you, I am angry, I am not feeling loving, I'm also probably feeling like I'm not sure what else to do. And now I'm going to start calling you names, just being hostile. Even when you reach out to me, I might not be open because I'm just so frustrated that nothing's really changed and feeling that content. How can we change this? Right? Is, of course, first being aware of it. But to change being content or feeling content, right, is really respect and connection. So that's why you want to stay connected to yourself as well as your partners so you don't lose that love for each other. And it's about really recognizing it early. And I think that most of us, I think it's fair to say, really didn't learn great communication growing up. It's generational. People just repeat what they've lived with, what they've learned, what they've seen, unless they make a conscious decision that this isn't working for me, or I can't seem to find people that want to stay with me.
What part am I doing that's pushing people away or causing this hostility? I don't want this in my life anymore. I'm not happy. I'm not getting my needs met. I have to first recognize it, which is really the first step to be courageous in your life and make some changes. And if I'm feeling content, the other problem with that, I think, which is a hot thought is I deserve to feel this way. It's okay. This person isn't treating me well. I should, right, the should statements. I should feel this way about this person. If I'm going to criticize them and call them names, and that's just the way it goes because they're not meeting my needs. Super hot thoughts, super hot thoughts. And where is it getting you? Just more angry, depressed, insecure, frustrated, and your behaviors are just going to keep getting worse, keep getting worse, and just take away any hope to repair the relationship. I've also shared in the past that I believe that we create what we fear the most. Especially in relationships, a lot of people's fear is being alone and they end up creating that because when you're communicating and being critical and feeling content and having that come out in a hostile way, you end up creating...
You're going to be alone and you're thinking, How does this keep happening? This is my biggest fear. Because if you're not vulnerable enough to be open with yourself and see how you're behaving towards others and you're just reacting, it's going to be negative and you are going to end up being alone. Then you end up creating that, which is what you fear the most. We want to not have that happen or stop it from happening if you've been having this pattern. These are some ways to start thinking about, What am I doing that's really causing some problems that are definitely going to create friction and probably in the relationship that I'm in? Again, with contempt, what's your pay off? Again, you might feel relieved, justified, vindicated. It gives you an excuse to not have to engage with your partner because I'm so pissed off so now I just have contempt towards you and you're not a good person so I don't have to relate to you. Again, what's the pay off? What's the pay off? How does it make you feel when you act in a certain way? Remember, I always say mood to behavior.
We feel a certain way, we act a certain way. And you know what? Whatever that behavior is usually feels good and works for the moment. But it's definitely a bandaid because you're going to go back to feeling content for that person, feeling unloved and cared for. And then you go back with that behavior and being critical. So it's just a vicious cycle. So sure, it might feel good in the moment that you feel justified in feeling this way and behaving this way because of what's going on, but it's not a good pay off. It's a really negative way to look at the relationship. That's something you want to, again, just do some soul searching and saying, How do I feel when I treat this person? In that moment, how does it feel? Yeah, it feels good. No wonder I keep going and doing it. I got to stop that and really take a different action and see if I can get a different response. The third behavior Dr. Gutman talks about is defensiveness. That's a behavior, being defensive. If you're the person getting the criticism, someone is feeling content towards you, chances are you've gotten defensive with that person.
And if you're the one dishing out the criticism and content, you're probably on the defensive as well. When you're defensive, a lot of negative behaviors can come out. And you're definitely shut down when you're defensive because when people are being defensive, it's all about you. You're not really hearing the other person. Your brain is just like, Oh, I need to protect myself. I need to protect myself. So the conversation really ends at that point. You guys, if someone's being defensive, they're not hearing what you're saying and vice versa. So another way to communicate is to say, I'm feeling really defensive right now because I feel like you're attacking me as a person. I fell through with the plans. I didn't do what you asked me. I didn't do what I promised. I want to fix that. I want to repair that. But when you come and talk to me this way and attack my character, I get defensive and now I don't even want to meet your needs. There's no love there. There's no caring there. I'm just pissed off at you now. Now we're both pissed off because we're not communicating well. I feel like you're hidden below the belt and making me feel bad about who I am versus a mistake maybe I made and not giving me that opportunity to fix it or even wanting to fix it.
That's where I'm talking about pushing people away when you're wanting to really bring them in. When you can use cognitive behavioral therapy in a way to communicate, I go off the premise that I'm going to communicate what my thoughts are, not just how I feel. Because if I can communicate my thoughts by saying, I feel hurt and frustrated and all those things because you didn't come through for me, that's a conversation. If I just go to being critical and defensive and contentious and I'm being nasty and calling the person names or saying that they suck as a person or all of those things, now we're just getting defensive, right? Because now your brain is like, Oh, fight or flight mode. I need to protect myself because your partner is not going to hear what you're saying if you're not able to really communicate what you're thinking. That's how I think good communication works, at least. I know a lot of couples therapy, and there are lots of good couples therapy out there, for sure, but they're very focused on feelings. When I work with people, they're like, Oh, the last person, we're just talking about how our feelings were.
I'm like, The goal is to feel better, right? But we have to change the way we think. We have to communicate how we're thinking that's creating our feelings and let our partner respond to that. You're right. I did let you down. I am sorry. I understand why you feel frustrated. What can I do to make it up? Or this is what I'm going to do to make it up. And it can get fixed pretty quick going down that route. But I thought these are really good, these four horsemen, as he calls them, to be aware. These are the things that really deteriorate your relationships. So some ways that you can also get through the whole defensiveness behavior is staying connected with your partner, being a good listener. If you don't know if you heard right, ask them to repeat it or repeat what you heard and say, Am I getting that correct? And also realize how intense this is for both of you. And what it shows is really the depth of a lot of pain that you're both probably sharing at the same time, even if it's coming across differently. Everybody is in this relationship together.
It definitely, when they say it takes two to tango, it's not always 50 50. It might be 70 30, but it's never 100 % one person. Never, ever, ever. I don't say never very often, but that's true, because we're interacting with each other and we're reacting to each other. We always want to look at our part. At this point, both people are probably feeling a lot of pain. But if you can make that commitment in your relationship and know that you'll make it through this. We need to take a step back, take a breath, reengage. Both of you guys take time to say, What am I thinking about that's making me feel this way right now? And let me communicate that to my partner. That's the first step in getting past all of this. A couple of questions to ask yourself regarding being defensive is, what form of defense do you recognize within yourself? Do you deny responsibility? Do you make excuses? Disagreeing with what you imagine your partner will ay, playing like one upmanship with complaints, saying yes, but then you follow immediately with the but, you repeat yourself, you whine. What ways are you defensive?
And being mindful of that. And then again, just going back to like, what am I thinking that's making me want to behave this way? Our thoughts create our moods, which affects our behaviors and our physical reactions. And again, the pay off with being defensive is, again, you feel some relief, being justified again, vindicated. It gives you an excuse to relating or interacting with that person. I'm going to be defensive because you just said something mean. Now I don't have to deal with you. That's the payoff. Again, instead of it being a pay off of feeling relieved or vindicated or justified, maybe a different way of thinking about it is when I'm feeling defensive, I'm going to communicate and say, I'm really feeling defensive right now and I'm not going to respond in a productive way or way that I'm going to feel okay about. I'm taking a time out that gives you some space. When you take timeouts, you always want to tell the person, Hey, I need 30 minutes. I need after work. I need time to sleep on this. Give that other person a time frame that they know you're going to return to talk about the issue because when you leave someone hanging, it just increases intense anxiety and they tend to come back and be like, When are we going to talk?
When are we going to talk? Can we talk now? Are you ready? Have you thought through? So if you tell the person like, I need 5, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever that is, most people can live within that, knowing that we're going to engage again and we're going to try to work this out. So make your pay off being that you're going to resolve this and that your partner knows that you respect that this is important to them and you don't want to leave them with anxiety. It's not a way to punish somebody. Which takes us into the last one, which I think is the worst, is stonewalling. That's punishing someone in my mind. And that is a sure way to end the discussion. The research shows, sorry guys, unfortunately, most men, due to their upbringing, see this as the safest way to keep everything intact. And most women, due to their upbringing, see this as a great and personal insult. Not to get into details, but I can tell you, I ended a relationship once with someone who was a stonewaller. That ended real fast. To be with someone who stops talking to you, will not communicate, is so controlling, so manipulative, you could lose your mind.
Obviously, this brings some emotions up for me because I remember this relationship. I was just like, Are you out of your mind? Why would I be with somebody who is just trying to control, manipulate by literally not talking to me when we're trying to work something out? So I ended that one fast. And luckily, I've never experienced that one again. It is just a really horrible place to be, and there's nowhere to go. So a lot of times when you have these other four horsemen going through your relationship, that fight or flight reflex is always alive because I'm not in it. I can't trust my partner if they're being critical, if they feel content towards me. If I'm always feeling like I have to be on the defense or they're on the defense. Just to know, for men, their heart rate jumps when criticism appears on the scene. And for women, it's when content appears. So if your heart rates up and your blood's pumping and you're on the defense and it's always remaining, it's getting triggered all the time. Without some form of connection or repair, the intensity becomes so great to continue without obviously getting physical.
We don't want that. Stonewalling is usually when that starts to come out because that's resorted to. We just walk away from a situation that could get exponentially worse. Sometimes, of course, it's appropriate, but in general, this is what's going on in your relationship. When I say it's appropriate, meaning sometimes I'm like, I need to walk away because this is getting too heated, but I'm coming back. Stonewalling is I ain't coming back. I ain't talking. I literally am a stone wall. You can talk to me and you're getting no response. You can follow me around the house. You're getting no response. I am taking full control now and I'm giving you nothing. It's not this perfect cycle of criticism, content, defensiveness, stonewalling. Some people jump to stonewalling. Again, some people grow up and see this as a way for me to just end this I don't want to have the conflict. I don't want to deal with this issue. I can't get you to stop, so I'm just not going to talk to you. If your relationship has gotten to this point, my assumption is that you probably don't have good tools on how to communicate. I'd really recommend if you're resonating with what I'm sharing, this is when you reach out to go get some professional help.
Remember, it takes a lot of strength and courage to go for therapy, and it's the strong people that go. There's this stigma out there that if you go for therapy, it's because you're weak and you can't fix anything yourself, because if you're strong and you should be able to fix things. But how many of us have had good role models? How many of us really know how to communicate to a level of making change, not just placating and making somebody just, Okay, okay, I'll go along with that. It takes work. Any relationship, intimate relationship, parent, child, friendships. It takes work to really be vulnerable and open, willing to listen well, willing to hear what your partner says, even if it's difficult or you don't agree with it. There's so many levels. It's so worth it to find the tools and be able to have a really strong relationship with people in your life. It's totally worth the work. It's the strong people and the courageous people that show up and say, You know what? We need some help. We need some help. I think I've shared before on a podcast, me and my husband went to Mara therapy when we just had some bumps in the road.
Nothing major was going on, but there's just these little things we just seem couldn't get past. We're like, Let's go talk to somebody. I'm not going to wait until things are really bad, which is way harder to get back from. We went in, we're able to identify really what was my stuff, what was his stuff, what was getting in the way, how we were assuming or projecting with each other. Then we're able to fix it and we moved on. We were good to go. I'm saying if you have bumps in the road, go talk to somebody. Let a third person give you some insight, some tools. Sometimes when you get to a point in this part in your relationship, it's so hard to hear each other. And as a therapist, I know I can share something, if I got both people there, let's say, and I can share something, say, with the wife in a different way than how the husband's trying to express it to her and she'd be like, Oh, okay, I get that. Or vice versa. Having a third person being able to express and help them understand what's going on, people don't get as defensive.
And then you can start making some progress, and then you don't feel like you have to defend yourself. And you're not feeling so critical or criticized and getting past that contempt. I believe when it comes to intimate relationships, especially when you talked about the divorce, I think way too many people get divorced that probably could have fixed things. Now, definitely there's sometimes divorce is very appropriate, but a lot of couples, when you talk to them, did you ever go for help? Oh, no. We were just, this happened, this happened. We didn't go back to try to repair it, and we just moved on. I've heard some people say, I look back and say, I wish I tried harder. I was willing to try more. I think we could have fixed it. I wish we could have communicated. I wish we went to therapy way at the beginning. I hear that often as well. You need to make a decision that's best for you, obviously. But I'm just saying that if you're at a place where you think you're done, if there's a little bit of hope, you know what? Just go find a therapist that you both can agree to go see.
Even if it's just you, maybe go find out how are you communicating, how are you handling this relationship, what are some things you could work on? Because remember, it's not what came first, the chicken or the egg. It's that we're reacting towards each other. So if you start, if you're the one that's critical and you stop being critical and you learn tools with a therapist, or maybe even with my podcast here, how to communicate with somebody, how to express your needs, how to say, These are my thoughts, even though they might not be true, but they're making me feel sad, disappointed, unloved. And being able to communicate that with your partner and let them hear that and respond to that is much different than just being angry and calling them names or just reacting off of how you're feeling. Your feelings are legitimate and you want them to be met. You want good feelings and you need to feel loved and you deserve all of those things you observe and you deserve and you want. But you have to be able to express in a way so your partner hears them. It doesn't feel like you're just putting them down.
Think about it. If you put someone down or someone puts you down and they're critical and call you names or stop talking to you, why would you respond in a loving way? You'd be like, What the hell? I don't feel the love. I don't want to respond. I don't want to meet your needs now. You're creating what you fear the most, which is losing this relationship. It's not going to work. So you want to think about, again, what I talked about here with the Four Horsemen criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling. You might have one going on, two, three, all four. But you can make changes. So again, using the Mind over Move book and learning the CBT tools and learning those to communicate are excellent tools. Dr. Goepper has a lot of books. The one I've been talking about today is Why Marriages Succeed or fail, but he has many other books that you can read about. I know he's got a lot on the internet, too, if you want to read more about his work. It's pretty interesting stuff. And again, it's the most actual researched marital therapy tools out there. And I know it's made a big difference.
And there's actually therapists out there that are certified gap mint therapists, they call them. So that's also something else if you want to look for that. So a lot of good resources, a lot of hope, you guys. Lots of hope. I've seen couples really turn things around when they're really motivated and able to look at themselves and understand how their behaviors are affecting the relationship. Again, we just don't behave for any reason. We need to understand, what am I thinking that's making me feel so hurt, disappointed, frustrated, and that's why I'm reacting and behaving this way towards my partner. None of the ways I talked about are productive or loving or caring, and none of them are going to get you what you really want and what you deserve.
Thanks for listening. I hope this was helpful.
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