In the eyes of everyone who knew them, Ketaki and Ketan were made for each other. They looked stunning, as they walked hand in hand, while receiving and attending to their guests on the eve of their 15th wedding anniversary.
Then, only a few weeks later, the unbelievable happened: during a conversation, someone broke the news of their breakup. Later, a tearful Ketaki, too, confirmed the news, “Yes, you heard it right. I guess we still love each other, but we must admit that we cannot live together as a good couple”.
Dr John Gottman, a world-renowned researcher on marriage at the University of Washington, says that in most cases, couples wake up too late—usually after the divorce papers have been signed and submitted—to realise, with inconsolable regret, what they really gave up when they gave up on each other. Dr Gottman can predict divorce rates, within five minutes, with 91 per cent accuracy, simply by looking for four specific ego-driven behaviours that kill most relationships: criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling.
Here is how we can detect and overcome each of these in our relationships:
Criticisms can inject toxicity into relationships if, instead of the behaviour, they are targeted towards the other person as a blame.
Instead of expressing them as if they are facts, it is better to express our concerns merely as our own perception of a behaviour. For example, instead of judging and challenging the person (“Rishab, you never ever… Why did you…?”), seek to share and understand your observation, (“Rishab, I observed… What are your reasons for…?”).
Whatever we defend tends to gain weight; whatever we accept tends to appear lighter. Instead of deflecting a blame with a counter-blame, always start by accepting your share of the responsibility. This lightens the atmosphere and encourages the other person to do the same.
We express contempt when we show by our behaviour that the other person is relatively too inferior to us to be taken seriously or what s/he says is too ridiculously irrelevant or stupid to be responded to by us. When we take our eyes away from the person to listen to someone else or to read the next WhatsApp message even while s/he is still talking to us, we subtly convey that contempt.
If you ever catch yourself doing so, do the opposite: stop doing anything else, lean forward, establish eye contact and listen to her as if there is nothing else that is more important than him/her in that moment. If you begin to do this, you will save yourself from having to live with the guilt that you denied this most basic courtesy to your partner—especially, after his/her death.
Stonewalling means refusing to participate in an interaction because someone has lost all trust and hope in the other person. When such is the case, giving each other a break may help. During the break, each side introspects, identifies key areas of conflict, develops strategies to resolve these key issues. Sometimes, when appropriate, you can solicit the help of a common friend to mediate, too.
When I talked to Ketan, he shared that he sincerely believed that irrespective of his inability to give Ketaki his time and despite not being able to express his love for her the way she expected, deep down, he still loved Ketaki. Interestingly, Ketaki, too, said something similar: “I may lose my temper and shout at Ketan, but I still love him”.
Too many people believe in the ‘irrespective of... /despite…’ kind of love that Ketan and Ketaki thought that they still had for each other. This widespread, seemingly innocuous, belief is what that initiates the first invisible cracks in any relationship.
Love is not irrespective of the behaviour; it is the very quality of that behaviour. Like our beliefs and values, our relationships, too, reveal themselves not in what we profess or what we post on Facebook; they reveal themselves in our actions and behaviour.
A relationship is what we progressively make of it through each interaction. In any given moment, we don’t choose how we are going to respond to our partner in an interaction; wechoose what we are agreeing to lead our relationship towards—toxicity or mutual fulfilment.
This is so, because how we behave with the other person, interaction after interaction, becomes an unconscious practice or habit. Nothing could be more emotionally enriching than being aware of our responses before articulating them, examining our habits for the four toxic characteristics, and investing in habits that raise our relationships to the next level of emotional fulfilment.
As partners, let us own our responsibility to give each other what we, as parents, would want our own precious child to receive from his/her spouse.The author is a corporate trainer, motivational speaker and the writer of Reverse Your Thoughts, Reverse Your Diseases and several other books.
thrive.ab@gmail.com