Being married or in a committed primary relationship is a puzzle with an amazing prize. Figuring out how to make the relationship work beneficially for both parties is challenging but well worth the effort. Members of constructive, happy, primary relationships have improved health, well-being, longevity, resilience and income. (1) One renowned psychologist expanded on the finding of a colleague and made the following empirical finding:
Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson discovered that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones leads people to a tipping point beyond which they naturally become more resilient to adversity, and effortlessly achieve what they once could only imagine. (2)
Another psychologist John Gottman, however, found a different ratio in a different context. He found that for a marriage to succeed, there must be at least five times as many positive interactions in the relationship as negative ones, a 5:1 ratio that Gottman dubbed the “magic ratio,” more commonly known as the “Gottman ratio.” (3)
If you put these two ratios together side by side, you immediately understand why marriage is so tough. We demand a 3:1 positivity ratio for all our daily experiences, except in our marriage, from which we demand even more. In that sense, we all behave more sternly toward our partner, and we judge them far more harshly than we judge mere acquaintances. Maybe if we understand that, we could give our partner a little bit of a well-deserved break, and maybe marriage would not be quite so tough. (4)
Acts of kindness and expressions of gratitude towards your partner sometimes go undone or unsaid because of the busyness of life. Similarly, partners can judge the other too frequently or bluntly. Time to go back to the basics: pro-actively love your partner as yourself.
Reflection Source: www.Smallercup.org
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(1): Ilona Boniwell, Positive Psychology In A Nutshell: The Science Of Happiness (McGraw-Hill, 2012)
(2): Barbara Fredrickson, Positivity, www.positivityratio.com.
(3): John Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail . . . and How You Can Make Yours Last (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994)
(4): Chade-Meng Tan, Daniel Goleman, Jon Kabat, Search Inside Yourself: Increase Productivity, Creativity and Happiness [ePub edition]