MARRIAGE IS NOT FOR THE WEAK, AS DIVORCE IS NOT THE SOLUTION IN ALL CASES.

What Predicts Divorce and How to Divorce Proof Your Marriage

This article discusses John Gottman research where he studied happily married couples for many years and how he can predict divorce.  He offers principles to divorce proof your marriage and we analyzed them.
First of all, A critical goal of any marriage is to create an atmosphere that encourages each person to talk honestly about his or her convictions. The more shared meaning you can find, the deeper, richer, and more rewarding your relationship will be. Happily married couples only devote an additional five hours per week to their marriages.
What Predicts Divorce

1.  Harsh startup of discussion of a disagreement

When the discussion starts up with criticism and/or sarcasm, a form of contempt.  The discussion has begun with a harsh start up. 

•  Statistics from this research tell us that 96% of the time you can predict the outcome of a conversation based on the first three minutes of a fifteen-minute interaction.

2.  The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse - criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling

• Criticism: Criticisms and complaints are two different things.  A complaint only addresses a specific action or behaviour.  A criticism is more global.  It adds on some negative words about your partner's character and personality.  To turn any complaint into a criticism, just add "What's wrong with you?" lol

• Contempt: Sarcasm, cynicism, name-calling, eye rolling, sneering, mockery and hostile humour are all forms of contempt.  Contempt conveys disgust.  Belligerence is a close cousin to contempt.  It is a form of aggressive anger because it contains a threat or provocation.

• Defensiveness: Defensiveness is really a way of blaming your partner, which is saying in effect "The problem isn't me it's you."

• Stonewalling: Harsh start up with criticism and contempt leads to defensiveness, which leads to more contempt and more defensiveness.  Eventually one partner tunes out.  This is stonewalling.

Stonewalling is the result of flooding, a physical reaction including increased heart rate,        hormonal changes which include the secretion of adrenalin, which kicks in the flight/fight response and increased blood pressure.

The physical sensation of feeling flooded  make it virtually impossible to have a productive, problem-solving discussion.  All you can think about is how to protect yourself from the turbulence your spouse's onslaught causes.  The way to do that is to disengage emotionally from the relationship.

In 85% of marriages, the stonewaller is the husbane.  Gottman's research indicates that the male cardiovascular system is more reactive than the female's and slower to recover from stress.  Since maritial confrontation that activates vigilance takes a greater physical toll on the male, it's no surprise that men are more likely than women to attempt to avoid confrontation.

3.  Failed Repair Attempts

Repair attempts are efforts the couple make that prevents negativity from escalating out of control. For example, "Let's take a break" or "I need to calm down."

The failure of repair attempts is a primary factor for unhappy relationships.  The presence of the four horseman by them selves predict divorce with a 82% accuracy.  However, when you add in the failed repair attempts, the accuracy climbs into the 90% plus.

4.   Pervasive Negative Thoughts About The Relationship

 When a relationship gets consumed in negativity, it's not only the present that gets painted in a negative light, the past often gets re-written in a negative light also.

Steps to overcoming gridlock:

1.  Become a dream detective.
2. Work on gridlocked issues by writing an explanation of the issue, the story of the hidden dreams, where the dreams come from and why they are important.
3. Then talk about the issue, using speaker, listener techniques.  Each gets 15 minutes as speaker and 15 minutes as the listener.  Don't try to solve the problem.  Simply seek for understanding.
4. If you can, tell your partner you support his or her dream.
5. Sooth each other.
6. End the gridlock - understanding that the purpose is not to solve the conflict.  The goal is to try to remove the hurt so the problem stops being a source of great pain. Besides, marriage is not for every one.

Feel free to add your comment/suggestion.