Freud said, “To love and to work are the twin capacities that mark full maturity.” Goleman would most likely add “to learn” and “to take care of yourself and others” to that list, and emotional intelligence is the key to loving, working, learning, and taking care of yourself and others to the best of your abilities.
We’ll go through each of these categories -- love (romantic and familial), work, school, and health -- exploring their difficulties and some ways emotional intelligence can help overcome those difficulties. Similar to the last chapters, these chapters will be numbered 6-1, 6-2, and so on to denote their relationship to the major subject of using emotional intelligence.
Since social pressures are no longer the main catalyst for marriage, much more importance is placed on the emotional bond between two people. The current trend in divorce rates suggests we need a little more emotional intelligence in our marriages.
One primary factor in the dissolution of marriage is differing expectations, and it all starts with how we raise children to approach emotions based on their sex.
In couples experiencing marital distress, typically the woman wants to engage with her husband, and the man routinely withdraws from his wife. This stems from the two different emotional realities in a heterosexual couple, his and hers.
Emotional differences may be partially biological, but they are undeniably social. Boys and girls are taught different lessons about how to handle their emotions.
And there are differences in how girls and boys form relationships with others, even in childhood.
These lessons result in different expectations and abilities in adulthood:
One researcher found that in the dating phase men are much more likely to participate in the emotionally connected talking that women crave -- but as the relationship goes on, men spend less time talking this way and want to connect through activities.
Because men have less capability with registering and interpreting others’ emotional cues, husbands don’t notice their wives’ emotional states until they’re more intense -- a woman has to be that much sadder to get her husband to notice, let alone ask what’s making her sad. Women, as the emotional manager of a relationship, can get burnt out not only by trying to manage their male partner’s emotions, but by having to manage their own stronger and more neglect emotions by themselves.
Ironically, because men generally have a more shallow understanding of emotions, husbands also generally see their relationships in a rosier hue than their wives -- everything from sex to family relationships to finances seem on average better to men than to women. Women generally complain more vocally about their marriage than men, especially in less satisfied couples. This is precisely because they are trying to work out emotional issues and resolve grievances in their role as emotional manager.
Marital success isn’t determined by how often a couple sleeps together, or opinions on how to raise children, or how each person handles finances -- it’s determined by the skill with which a couple discusses disagreements in those categories. Agreeing on how to disagree is the key to a successful marriage.
John Gottman, one of the foremost American scholars on marriage, found that harsh criticism is an early warning sign of a marriage in danger. When either party complains in a destructive manner, such as personal attacks on their spouse’s character, it’s a telltale sign that all is not well.
Repeated incidents of anger in a marriage often lead to contempt, which is one of the most detrimental feelings that can enter into a marriage.
Criticism and contempt reflect that one spouse has made a negative mental judgment about their partner. The contemptuous spouse attacks, which causes their partner to become defensive or counterattack.
One defining factor of the toxic thoughts that lead to repeated displays of contempt is that they are absolutes: when a mistake is made, it isn’t merely a mistake that can be corrected next time, it’s proof that the person is horrible and that things won’t change. These toxic thoughts are often reflections of the spouse’s deepest emotional attitudes, and they are self-confirming and non-negotiable. Someone functioning in this way reads negative intent into every action their partner takes.
The fight or flight response comes into play when partners attack each other: the attacked partner can choose to either fight the criticisms, usually leading to a shouting match, or they can choose to flee the emotional situation, retreat emotionally, and respond with a stony, silent withdrawal. This withdrawal is called stonewalling. On the other end of the spectrum is flooding, which is an emotional hijacking of the brain.
In Gottman’s research, stonewalling showed up in marriages that were headed towards failure. Where yelling might be an indicator that both parties care about something and are trying to work it out between them, stonewalling is a sign that there’s less chance of working out differences or disagreements, since one party refuses to participate emotionally at all. 85% of the time stonewalling showed up in a relationship, it was husbands and not wives who used stonewalling as a response to criticism.
Contempt, accusations, and toxic thoughts create a constant state of crisis in a relationship, routinely triggering emotional hijacks and making it more difficult to bounce back from these negative emotional states. Gottman uses the term flooding for this state of affairs.
Men react to spousal criticism with flooding more often than women, and enter into a flooded state at lower levels of negativity than women. Men also release more adrenaline into their bloodstream when flooded, meaning it takes them longer to recover from flooding. This is why men are more likely to stonewall their wives: to avoid flooding.
Perhaps because women are generally more comfortable with emotions, they also on average will get into a marital argument more readily than men will. One study found that women didn’t mind getting upset during a disagreement, where men were uniformly averse to it.
Broadly speaking, men and women need different advice to help improve their marriages.
For men:
For women:
Goleman offers some great general advice for couples looking to improve their relationship in the way they handle disagreements:
Stick to one topic. Sometimes, arguments about one thing turn into screaming matches about all the wrongs anyone has ever committed. Keep the discussion focused -- this will help avoid personal attacks and resolve concrete issues.
Use the XYZ formula. X is the action, Y is how it made you feel, Z is what you’d prefer they did next time. “When you forgot to put gas in my car, it made me feel like you didn’t care about me. Next time you could do it first thing when you take my car, or at least let me know before I get home that you forgot.”
Give each person a chance to explain their perspective at the forefront. This will help resolve any fundamental misunderstandings right away before the argument has a chance to take hold. At the very least, it will give each person a chance to understand the other person’s point of view, which will make it more productive to continue discussing the issue.
Show your partner you’re listening. Most people in the throes of any emotional distress just want to be heard and understood. Empathy is an excellent reducer of tension. You can repeat the other person’s feelings back to them in your own words to confirm you understand them correctly. If you’ve misunderstood their feelings, you can try again until you get it right.
Learn how to soothe yourself first. If you can learn how to handle your own emotional hijackings and recover from them quickly, you’ll be able to listen to and handle your partner’s emotional hijackings with more ease. Remember, the stronger our own emotions, the less we can hear, understand, or care about someone else’s. It’s crucial to be able to calm yourself down first.
Challenge toxic thoughts. When we’re upset, it’s easy to get swept away by those black and white absolutes that keep us angry--”he doesn’t care about anyone else but himself, he’s always so selfish”. If you find yourself thinking these thoughts, try challenging them directly -- for example, intentionally remind yourself of all the thoughtful things he’s done for you. This can help balance your emotional response and bring your focus back to the action that’s upset you, instead of being upset at the person.
Try not to get defensive. When we feel attacked, we go on the defensive. In arguments, this often looks like making excuses, refusing to take responsibility, or attacking with our own criticisms. If you find yourself getting defensive, remind yourself that what feels like an attack to you is really just your partner having strong feelings about this issue -- they want you to pay attention to it, though they may not be asking for that in the healthiest way.
Validate your partner. Articulate to your partner that you can see things from their point of view and that their perspective is valid -- even if you don’t agree with it yourself. You can even simply acknowledge their emotions if you don’t necessarily agree with their argument: “I see I hurt your feelings.”
Take responsibility or apologize if you’re in the wrong. If you have the self-awareness to admit that you did do something wrong, admit it to your partner. A simple and honest apology can go a long way to smoothing over the worst disputes.
Agree on a time-out. If nothing else, both partners should be able to call a time-out and cool off if they need to, but this needs to be discussed when emotions aren’t high so it can be used in times of need. Agree on a phrase or method of calling the time-out that both partners will recognize, and then actually use the cooling off time to cool off. Refer back to the previous chapter to find tips for cooling off.
Couples who can increase their shared emotional intelligence will have a more successful marriage. Again, specific issues may be the things that get our emotions going, but it’s how we approach solving those issues together that will make or break the relationship. It’s not easy to change destructive emotional habits or improve on the pillars of emotional intelligence -- it takes time and work. Our ability to make changes runs directly in proportion to our motivation to try. To improve these things, you and your partner need to practice them in moments when you aren’t fighting. Without practice, you won’t be able to call on these tools in the heat of the moment. Rehearse them with each other in small, day-to-day moments.