The Marriage Savers — page 2

LESSONS FROM THE LOVE LAB
Heinrich Heine called marriage "the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented." John Gottman figures he has found the compass. At the Gottman Institute in Seattle, a husband and wife sit in sensor-loaded chairs with wires strapped across their chests, taped to their fingertips, clipped to their earlobes. The wires are connected to an array of computerized measuring devices that will track physiological data about them. As the couple discuss a glitch in their marriage, a technician in the next room monitors the data: heart rate, sweaty palms, the speed of blood flow. Another technician watches them on a video screen, recording facial expressions, calibrating emotional vital signs of couples during actual marital conflict. Survivor, Fear Factor—that's kid stuff. This is true reality TV.

Gottman, a clinical psychologist, has essentially distilled the art of love and war—a.k.a. marriage—into a kind of science. After 30 years of such studies inside his physiology lab, nicknamed the Love Lab, Gottman's group has developed a model that he claims can assess whether a couple are on a path to dysfunction. Now when Gottman wires up therapy clients and videotapes them, "in the first three minutes of the conflict discussion," he says, "we can predict if a couple is going to divorce." He and research partner Robert Levenson of the University of California, Berkeley, found that during arguments, couples in stable relationships have five times as many positive factors present as negative ones. "In relationships that were working, even during conflict, there was a rich climate of positive things, such as love, affection, interest in one another, humor and support. Couples in unstable unions had slightly more negative factors than positive."

Conflict is endemic in a relationship, Gottman says, but adds—with peculiar precision—that "only 31% of conflicts get resolved over the course of a marriage. The other 69% are perpetual, unsolvable problems." His insight: don't bother trying to fix the unfixable. Spend your energy on selecting a mate with whom you can manage those inevitable annoyances, then learn how to manage them. To admit some problems can't be solved is the first step toward finding a larger solution. Says Gottman: "We try to build up the couple's friendship, their ability to repair conflict and to deal with their gridlock."

The Gottman technique usually involves a $495 two-day workshop, followed by nine private therapy sessions costing $1,260, which Gottman recommends as a supplement. These attempt to conquer the four most common, corrosive negative factors in unstable unions: criticism (You never ... You always ...), defensiveness (Who me? I'm not defensive), contempt (You're too stupid to realize how defensive you are) and stonewalling (I'll just let it blow over). Gottman says 85% of stonewallers are men.

Gottman fiercely protects the privacy of his patients and does not provide names of couples to be interviewed. He says his five-year follow-up study shows that after one year, about 75% of the treated couples are happier, "[though] we haven't been able to help the other 25% calm down. They stay irritable, cranky and contemptuous."

	Couples in Asia are more like American couples nowadays. —RITA YUEN-WA LEUNG,  Taiwan marriage counselor

LET'S GET SCHNARCHED!
That cranky quarter of the peace-seeking married contingent might find a sympathetic soul in David Schnarch, author of the book Passionate Marriage and creator of the Crucible Approach to marital therapy, which upends nearly all the conventional tenets of couples counseling. He says he is the therapist of last resort for many couples who go to his Marriage and Family Health Center in Evergreen, Colorado, for an intensive four-day session: "The worse shape your marriage is in, the more this is the approach of choice." Nor does he recommend that a warring couple break up—that's just "one way therapists can bury their errors."

Schnarch argues that the main issue for most troubled couples "isn't their lack of communication skills. If spouses aren't talking to each other, they are still communicating. They each know they don't want to hear what the other has to say. But communication is no virtue if you can't stand the message. We help people to stand the message." He says couples don't get that from conventional therapy, which tends to pathologize relationships rather than work with their strengths. In the Crucible system, "we don't treat people like they're sick. We speak to the best in people, not their weaknesses. We're about developing resilience and standing up for yourself." People in a troubled marriage say they have grown apart. Schnarch says it's the opposite. "They're usually locked together, emotionally fused. More attachment doesn't make people happier, and it kills sex."

Schnarch, whose book is available in Japanese as well as English, uses the word crucible in two senses: metallurgical (a strong cauldron) and metaphorical (a test or trial). Both definitions can aptly describe the state of marriage. So in his therapy it's out with the elevator-music approach to saving marriages, in with the hard rock and harsh truths. Dare to tear apart the fuzzy, flabby, ego-suppressing dual personality that is your marriage and find your inner you. That effort will create a stronger individual, one who can deal with a partner with more integrity and authenticity.

Ken Wapman, 45, manager at a San Francisco-area software firm, and Margee, 45, a therapist, had been married 18 years when they signed up for Schnarch's program in 2001. Busy with their jobs and three kids, their marriage was somewhere between O.K. and icky. "The relationship was sustainable but not very satisfying," says Ken. And their sex life, he says, "was like your commute. You could practically do it with your eyes closed"—er, don't a lot of people do it that way?—"but you don't really look forward to it."

The Schnarch approach immediately appealed to Ken. "I liked that he didn't pull any punches," says Ken, who used to disagree with his wife and others just for the sake of it. "I used to use more imperative-type language. Schnarch helped me to think about developing more collaborative alliances." Working with Schnarch after trying other therapists, says Ken, was like "jumping into a Ferrari compared with driving a Toyota Celica."

At first the Crucible was a bit searing for Margee. "He forces you to see things in yourself that you haven't wanted to see. I used to think Ken's job was to take care of me by knowing how I felt. That's an idea embedded in the culture." Now, Margee says, she has learned to take care of herself. "I'm not dumping anything on him; I have worked my side of the issue. There is less unresolved tension. As a result, I feel love and want to move toward him."

The benefits of the weekend (cost: $925) inspired Margee to want to follow up with the Schnarch nine-day retreat ($2,400). Ken, less enthusiastic, offered a counterproposal. "I cut a deal with her. I said I would go with her to the retreat if I could go on a two-week bike trip in the French Alps." Sounds like Schnarchian self-differentiation in action.

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