Dr. John Gottman
Appearances
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
That's a bad way to express concern.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
You know, I'm not sure that's true because people love you.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
Well, the problem is that the person who's contemptuous, that person's immune system also degrades over time. Right.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
I was thinking of this couple where her husband got very upset and said to his wife, Joyce, do you think you're better than me? And she said, better than I. Oh, yes.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
So that's information, but in the context, it comes off as contempt.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
I was thinking about. Can I finish? Sure.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
In fact, I was really moved by your story of how when you were at Harvard, and you went along with your friend to the Harvard Lampoon, you really found yourself. I did. You really found, you know, humor as a way of really expressing who you are.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
But sometimes it's like the shield that Julie was just talking about. Sometimes humor itself is like a shield. I mean, it's a wonderful gift, obviously, you know, and it's a great talent you have with humor. But sometimes it also blocks out the love.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
That's a friendship that is very palpable.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
And put downs. It's that counterattack. I think one of the other things is that what makes this show so important to people all around the world is that they feel the love and they see the hostility and put downs. They see both at the same time.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
And it's a very powerful thing because here you are having all this love for one another and yet pushing each other away and then coming back together and pushing each other away. So it's a very powerful dynamic.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
If I'm going to be honest, there's a lot about you that annoys me.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
Okay. So when you go on about Italy and wines and all the things you know, it makes me feel insulted. Like, you know, like my father was a microbiologist. My mother was a great lawyer. This is scary.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
And I, you know, I felt put down at the table all the time. at the dinner table. Really? And so when you expound, you know, my father's a learned man, you know, and how could I, you know, match him? So I kind of feel that way when you go on about wines or how things are pronounced in ancient Greece.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
Maybe ask me if I want to hear what you have to say. There's a plan.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
Like if you want to expound about something, ask me if I want to hear it. Okay. If I want to hear it, then, you know, great.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
My father. My father. The great microbiologist.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
Who throws a cyclotron? I really appreciate your saying that. That's really great.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
Well, one of the things that... I think needs to happen in this relationship is for you guys to recognize how indispensable you've been to one another these almost 30 years. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
In lieu of that, have a copy of our book. Thank you very much.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
Yeah. Yeah. So the first thing we want to offer are these two pulse oximeters for you to put on.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
So it's looking at your blood. It's measuring heart rate. and it's also measuring the percent of oxygen in your blood. And it's set an alarm, and the alarm is if your percent oxygen goes below 95% or your heart rate goes above 100 beats a minute, that's around when we start secreting our two stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. Cortisol and adrenaline. He's still going.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
Well, it beeps, but it gives an alarm.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Conan and Jordan Show – Marriage Counseling
Well, the problem arises when it becomes non-adaptive, which means that it's a chronic elevation. I see. If it's there all the time, then it kind of spirals down. I understand. And neither one of you then can really ask one another for what you really need. Right. And that's part of what we want to help you do.
Dhru Purohit Show
Want a Better Relationship? Use These 3 Super Hacks to Improve Your Communication, Sex, and Intimacy
And it needs to contain those little bids for connection and a lot of yeses to those bids for connection.
Dhru Purohit Show
Want a Better Relationship? Use These 3 Super Hacks to Improve Your Communication, Sex, and Intimacy
Okay, so this came out of a seven year long study and it really took a long time to figure this one out because it was so subtle, but also so simple for all of us to do. So here's what it looks like. Let's say you're sitting in the living room and you happen to notice this beautiful blue jay out the window. You might say out loud, wow, look at that incredible bird.
Dhru Purohit Show
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You know, I remember one of my teachers actually saying to me a sentence that has accompanied me in my work for decades now. And he said, it's not difficult to be right, but then you will be right and alone.
Dhru Purohit Show
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The challenge of being right is to not disconnect, to not sever the connection with the person with whom you're having the conversation with, so that you can hold multiple realities, multiple truths, multiple perspectives at the same time.
Dhru Purohit Show
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And when you are close to someone, be it your friend, your family member, your partner, and you see this is blue and they tell you this is not blue, this is green. How can you even think that this would be blue? And you experience this as there is no room here. It must be one or the other. This is what happened, right?
Dhru Purohit Show
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Rather than this is how I remember what happened or this is my experience of what happened. You know, a lot of talk in the relationships is pseudo factual talk. It's our subjective experience, but we present it like we know this is it. And therefore, if you have a different experience, it becomes an either or. One of us must be right and one of us must be wrong.
Dhru Purohit Show
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And people have all these ways of splitting the difference to kind of say we can agree to disagree. But when people agree to disagree, they're not staying connected. The ability to connect is really this. The research says that if we are describing a contentious situation, you and me, and you tell me what you experience about it, and I don't agree with it, I can listen for about 10 seconds.
Dhru Purohit Show
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And after that, I start to prepare my rebuttal. So when I ask people to repeat what they have just heard that the other person just said to them, If they have to repeat something that they can't agree with, they can't repeat it. It's much more difficult. And 10 seconds is three sentences. And after that, they're lost.
Dhru Purohit Show
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So this is how hard it is to enter the truth, the reality of another when it jars with our own.
Dhru Purohit Show
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Yes, but I'm going to give it to you more in phenomenological language than in brain talk. Because what is my experience actually when I am attacked? Here is this person that I usually or that I used to feel sees me. gets me, understands me. And now you're saying things that make me feel like you don't get me at all. And I feel completely lonely next to you.
Dhru Purohit Show
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And I feel completely disconnected from you. And I'm thinking, I can't take another moment of this. This is the phenomenology of what happens when the truths are butting heads. You know, you can do brain talk about that, but it doesn't really give you the actual experience of people. I want to shake you. I want to drill my truth into you is one response.
Dhru Purohit Show
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I'll repeat it one more time, exactly the same as the time before. Why would this time succeed? Beats me. But I'll say it once more just to see if I can get inside of you means if I can pour my heart, my feelings, my sadness, my disappointments inside of you so that you can get it and then let me know of that. It's really extremely rich, actually, what happens in those moments.
Dhru Purohit Show
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And it depends if we think that it is disconnect because there's conflict or it's simply that we have a very different view of the story. So when I meet you, it's easier when we just meet in the beginning and I say, Drew, what did you think of this play? What did you think of this movie? And you tell me, and I say, oh, I didn't see that at all. I saw something very different.
Dhru Purohit Show
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But don't you think that this character was really terrible? And you say, no, I actually think that character was really terrible. And we are interested in each other because there's a certain distance between us still that allows me to listen to you and you to me without thinking if he says so, what does that mean for me? How does that reflect back on me?
Dhru Purohit Show
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But after a few years or when we are in stress for all kinds of reasons of stress and you say, I didn't hear that at all. That's not what they said. And I'm like, how can you say that? I mean, this is exactly what he said. And on we go. And at that moment, you're right. We are in fight flight mode.
Dhru Purohit Show
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But fight flight mode is actually very active, but it doesn't give you enough of the relational description. What's happening inside of me and with you and between us, that is the relational narrative. And so I speak a bit of a different language on that.
Dhru Purohit Show
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So, you know, in where should we begin? In this couple sessions, you see me help people to listen. But the listening is not just in order to hear what the other person say. It's our ability to enter the experience of the other person, even if my experience is very different. I don't think that when I went upstairs to read my book that I was leaving you stranded all alone downstairs.
Dhru Purohit Show
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I just thought I went to read my book. How do I show you that I understand that in those moments you feel left out without having to agree that that's what I did to you? So that is the real challenge, right? How do I hold on to my experience while I still connect to yours? Or how do I connect to your experience without feeling that then I am subservient to mine?
Dhru Purohit Show
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That dance of differentiation in couples, that is the real struggle around being right or having the truth. is the ability to see multiple truths. Your experience of this behavior is really your experience of this behavior, but that doesn't mean that that's what I did. So what's one thing people can do when you're in that conversation?
Dhru Purohit Show
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Sometimes I'm going at it with my husband or my sons, and I'm thinking, ooh, it's so hard for me to hear them say this. And then I think, okay, reflective listening. Why? Just and everybody can do that, which is really to start with a very common technique. But it's very hard. It's simple when you don't disagree. Somebody says you're beautiful, you're smart. I love spending time with you.
Dhru Purohit Show
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You know, you're such a fun person to be with. You don't have a problem saying what I'm hearing you say is that you think I'm really smart and you love spending time with me flows very easily. But if you're saying you abandoned me, you left me stranded there. You don't pay attention to me. You don't really care about what I have. And I have to repeat that.
Dhru Purohit Show
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And I don't see myself in anything that you've just said. That is really challenging. So what I'm hearing you say is that when I go to read my book, it leaves you feeling very left out. Is this it? Do I get it? Hmm. Yes. Tell me more. Well, because the last three times you went to read your book, you never came back down and you stayed there in your attic for three hours in a row.
Dhru Purohit Show
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And what am I supposed to do here? I thought we were going to do something together. It's Sunday. What I'm hearing you say is that I stayed very long. And I want to start to argue, no, it wasn't three hours. I never stayed three hours in my attic. It only was one hour. But instead, I have to say it felt to you or it was three hours.
Dhru Purohit Show
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You say it was three hours and that I completely let go of the plans that we were going to spend time together. And that ability to enter the view, the world, the inner world of the other. And still think, I'm only repeating. That doesn't mean I agree or I accept. That is not my experience of the same thing. But I can enter your world for a moment. That is the exercise.
Dhru Purohit Show
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86%.
Dhru Purohit Show
Want a Better Relationship? Use These 3 Super Hacks to Improve Your Communication, Sex, and Intimacy
86%. Sorry, honey. 86% of the time. And compare that to the times the partner who ended up in an unhappy relationship turned towards each other. That was 33% of the time. That's a huge difference, right? 86%. compared to 33. So you can see how turning toward was so important in the longevity and the happiness of a successful relationship, even six years down the road.
Dhru Purohit Show
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Which one are you? Are you one of those?
Dhru Purohit Show
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Yeah. Are you one who says... Are you, actually, I could go with your question, but I have something I would love to describe.
Dhru Purohit Show
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No, because when I asked you, are you a person who stands your ground? Or are you a person who likes to be right or who needs to be right or who needs to be affirmed when you believe you are right? There are different variations here. Or are you a person who will you submit? You'll basically say, OK, you know, it doesn't really matter or whatever. you surrender, you let go, you release it.
Dhru Purohit Show
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It goes together with the fact that I think in many relationships, and this is really to your question about who's right and how we deal, you will often find that there is one person who is more afraid of losing the other and is more in touch with the fear of abandonment. And one person who is more afraid with the fear of losing themselves. and the fear of suffocation.
Dhru Purohit Show
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And the person who is more afraid of losing themselves is often the person who also will hold ground when they think they're right. The person who doesn't wanna lose the other is more likely to just say whatever, or okay, or doesn't tell you what they think, what they feel, what they need, because you're gonna decide anyway. And in order not to lose you, you should have what you want.
Dhru Purohit Show
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That's right. That's super important to say to all the people that listen is that we are contextual. We're not just one thing. The relationship will make us be a certain way. And we will make the relationship be a certain way. It's not just we are either this or that.
Dhru Purohit Show
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Right. No, you don't. Most people basically fight over the same thing that they discovered on the two of their relationship. And that is the big seduction is to get seduced by thinking that it's the money or it's the cleanliness or it's the in-laws or it's the children. It's not. It's not the topic. So what is it? And this is really from the research of Howard Markman.
Dhru Purohit Show
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This is not my original work at all. And he has more than three, but there are three that I like to highlight. And so the first thing he says is that the underlying themes, what are people really fighting about when they're fighting about this? And you can look at this with your wife, you know, take three topics that you fight about and then tell me, do you fight about power and control?
Dhru Purohit Show
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As in, who makes the decisions? Whose priorities matter more? Who has to relinquish? That's the word I was looking for. Who relinquishes to the other? Is it about power and control? So it's not who decided what we do with the laundry. It's the fact that there is a perception that there's one person who always makes those decisions and has the power to impose it on the other person.
Dhru Purohit Show
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Because you will see the same thing will be said for the laundry and for the money and for the children and so forth. Number two, are you fighting about care and closeness, as in trust? Can I count on you? Do you think about me when you make a decision? Am I part of the picture? Do you have my back? That's the care and the closeness. And number three, do you fight over respect and recognition?
Dhru Purohit Show
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meaning you don't value me. You don't value my opinion. I don't feel recognized, seen, honored, you know, taken into in that sense. And those are basically the three primary underlying dynamics that people really fight about when they are fighting about what they think are their preferred topics.
Dhru Purohit Show
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Okay, so bids for connection in a nutshell are when you are saying something or doing something that is a request for your partner's attention or a request for your partner to fulfill some need of yours. So let's take some subtle examples. Let's say that I've been working in the kitchen, John's in the living room, and he is breathing.
Dhru Purohit Show
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I walk in from the kitchen, I sit down on the couch, and I say, what are you reading? Okay, now, he can respond to that in a couple of ways. He can either say, it's just a book on physics, and he'll go back to reading. Or he can be pretty alert to bids for connection and he can say, oh, it's a book on physics. Do you want to hear what it's about?
Dhru Purohit Show
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And I'll say, yeah, tell me all about it, even though I'll glaze over as you do so. And he does. So that's a bid for connection. Another one might be, let's say I'm working hard in the kitchen again and, uh, He comes in and he says, hmm, what's for dinner? And I say, ah, chicken stew. Then I ask for a knee. Would you mind setting the table?
Dhru Purohit Show
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Well, by then, if he turns away, he's walking out of the kitchen. He's not going to hear the bid for connection. Or he can say, yeah, sure. Simple as that. Sometimes the need is deeper. So a bid for connection might sound like this. It might be, let's say I'm sitting on the couch this time and staring out the window.
Dhru Purohit Show
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I've just heard some news on TV that's political and my mouth is turned to the south. It's very down on the corners. Well, I know. John can look at me and say, gosh, what's the matter, honey? And I'll say, God, can I just download with you? Can I just tell you what's going on inside me? I'm just so depressed about what's happening in our country. And he can say, yeah, me too. Let's talk about it.
Dhru Purohit Show
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And then we do. And we may have an hour, two hour long conversation. So, you know, that's a deeper bit for connection. But equally important are those little bids for connection, too, in which we're constantly turning towards each other when the other person asks for something subtly.
Dhru Purohit Show
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Here's another little simple bit for connection. Let's say John is getting ready to get out the door, and he's having a hard time zipping up his jacket, and, you know, keeps messing up with the zipper, and he's trying and trying, and you can hear him making little sounds like... And so all I'll do is I'll just say, let me do it, honey. And I'll figure out a way to zip up his jacket.
Dhru Purohit Show
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You know, it's just simple, simple.
Dhru Purohit Show
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Yes, it did. Kiss on the cheek. Right. But, you know, I mean, there's just so many ways that we can be interlinked. And can I bring up something, Drew? Please. Yeah, there's, you know, there's a lot of people out there who've heard that you should never be dependent on each other. You shouldn't lean on each other. You should be independent.
Dhru Purohit Show
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You know, you should be able to stand up on your own two feet because if you lean on each other, you'll somehow become symbiotic. You'll depend on each other. Codependent. Codependent. You'll depend on each other too much or something. And I'm here to tell you that there's absolutely no research behind that. It's wrong.
Dhru Purohit Show
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The research actually points to the opposite, the exact opposite, that these bids for connection and turning toward are the way of you becoming interdependent. So there is this, I like to think of a golden sphere between the two of you in which the relationship is built, the dynamics of the relationship.