The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships

by John Gottman

  This lesson recently became quite clear to me after my friend Neil Jacobson died so suddenly. I went through a period of grieving, during which I did not feel productive or cheerful or optimistic or whole. In fact, I felt terribly sad and terribly angry. I was angry that Neil was gone from my life, and I was angry that doctors had not diagnosed his illness in time to save his life.

  I didn’t like feeling as bad as I did at the time. I would rather have been happy and carefree. But when I talked to Neil’s wife, also a good friend of mine, I realized why it was important for me to be with my grief and anger and to understand it. Had I remained detached, I would not have been able to be with her in her pain. I would not have been able to say, “My heart is broken about his death, too. I know how horrible this feels.”

  Because others understand through their own experience what she is feeling, they can be a comfort to her as she adjusts to this new life without him. And in so doing, they can help her overcome her grief and keep on living.

  Understanding Enduring Vulnerabilities

  When we’re open to feeling and expressing our emotions, we can better understand the “enduring vulnerabilities” each of us carry as a result of surviving painful events and relationships. UCLA psychologist Tom Bradbury coined the term to describe the elements in our past that have had such a powerful negative impact on our lives that it’s impossible to shake their influence. Often these elements are incidents of loss, betrayal, abuse, or trauma.

  Examples include:

  • Death of a loved one

  • Being assaulted or physically abused, including being severely spanked as a child

  • Rape or other forms of sexual assault and molestation

  • Witnessing violence

  • Being the victim of robbery or other crimes

  • Divorce, or the end of a significant love relationship

  • Marital problems, such as constant fighting or infidelity

  • Being raised in a home with serious marital problems and conflict

  • Getting fired

  • Failing at school

  • Loss of belongings in a fire or natural disaster

  • Abandonment

  • Emotional abuse, including threats and humiliation

  • Cruel hazing, bullying, or teasing by peers in childhood

  • Life-threatening or serious illness

  • Depression

  • Feeling suicidal

  • Living with alcoholism or drug addiction

  • Surviving war, terrorism, civil strife

  Whether or not you’ve experienced events as dramatic as these, your emotional heritage probably includes some enduring vulnerabilities. Indeed, I believe that each of us has endured some psychological pain, and that we do our best to survive, to heal, and to protect ourselves against being hurt again. All of this injury and healing affects how we relate to other people. We may even become somewhat irrational at times—especially when others’ actions inadvertently trample on these highly sensitive areas of our psyches. And even when we feel we have triumphed over past injuries, these painful events and our attempts to heal and protect ourselves have partially formed us.

  Because such painful experiences may undermine our ability to trust ourselves and one another, they result in enduring vulnerabilities that typically show up as we try to form healthy new relationships. Most often, these vulnerabilities surface around issues of inclusion, affection, and control. Unless, therefore, we understand how painful events from the past have helped to form us, and unless we can talk about this formation with people we’re close to, we may continually face problems that seem impossible to solve.

  A man who suffered a lot of cruel teasing by peers in childhood, for example, might have persistent worries about exclusion many years later. This enduring vulnerability shows up as a feeling of being unfairly excluded from meetings at work. When he tells his coworkers about his concerns, they scratch their heads; they don’t believe they’re purposely excluding him from anything significant. “Why is he so oversensitive,” they wonder. “Why do I always feel like the outsider,” he asks himself.

  A young woman was raised by a mother who went through a severe depression when the daughter was small. Usually tired and irritable, the mother often ignored the child’s bids for attention. Consequently, the grown daughter now has an enduring vulnerability that makes her crave affection from people with the same kind of cold, snappish temperament. She often becomes too quickly involved with men who are emotionally distant and treat her badly. After a series of painfully long but failed affairs, the daughter asks herself, “Why do I keep making such a poor choice in partners?” It’s a question that will confound her for many years to come.

  With introspection and self-understanding, however, people do find answers. They come to see how past incidents create enduring vulnerabilities that become their “crazy buttons”—the issues most likely to cause problems in the course of current relationships.

  One thing I always do in therapy with married couples is to help partners explore one another’s enduring vulnerabilities. This allows each to become more aware of the other’s crazy buttons. They develop greater sensitivity and can be more respectful when they talk about these issues. It helps them to avoid the worst arguments while building trust and intimacy.

  Such an approach is exemplified by Suzanne and Dale, a couple who came to the Gottman Institute for therapy. In our sessions we discovered that Suzanne felt an intense need for control that sprang from two devastating betrayals she had suffered. The first was in childhood, when she was sexually molested by her grandfather. The second was in adulthood, when she lost custody of her preschool-aged son to her ex-husband’s surprise legal maneuvers.

  Since that time, Suzanne has remarried and the boy has grown to be a teen. Now he comes to spend summers with her, her new husband, and their child. When conflicts arise—as they often do between any teen boy and his stepfather—Suzanne flies into a rage. To her husband’s eye, she becomes the mother tigress, desperately defending her young. She wants to control the environment around her son totally, protecting him from anyone who might harm him. It’s as if she’s saying, “I was hurt by my grandfather, my ex-husband hurt me and my son, and now nobody is going to hurt us again!” The problem is, she takes a stand that’s so emotionally charged and rigid that the three of them can’t find a way to compromise and work through their conflicts.

  But once Suzanne and her new husband saw the enduring vulnerability—her sense of betrayal—underneath her strong feelings, they had a breakthrough. Now, when this conflict occurs, Dale is able to remind Suzanne gently that he’s not trying to do anything that would hurt her or her son in any way. He’s not going to betray her. He’s just trying to get the boy to turn down his CD player a notch, treat his baby brother kindly, or share the television with the rest of the family. Realizing this, Suzanne is starting to feel less controlling. And although she’ll probably always be vigilant—especially when it comes to her firstborn—she’s able to approach family conflicts in a more constructive way.

  When we share our enduring vulnerabilities with the people we trust, we put all the cards on the table. And we can use this shared knowledge to make bids for emotional connections that strengthen relationships.

  It takes courage to share your emotional vulnerabilities in any relationship, and for many people it’s especially hard in the workplace. At the same time, work is where issues of control, affection, and inclusion can be the most challenging. So it makes sense that this might also be the place where measured risk could result in a welcome gain.

  That’s how it was for an executive I know, who also had problems with control. His “emotional vulnerability” was easy to spot. He was a Vietnam veteran who had served in the infantry. For years he had vivid memories, flashbacks, and nightmares of sniper attacks. And although the intense images faded with time, at age fifty he still lived with an inordinate amount of tension. Combat was over long ago, but the
anxiety remained and he felt constantly vigilant, as though he had to guard against trouble he could only imagine. Because he was rigid and high-strung, he had a lot of problems getting along with his colleagues. If somebody left him an incomplete message about a problem in the company, for example, he’d automatically jump to conclusions and imagine the worst. He often felt paranoid, as if people were just waiting for him to make a mistake and fail. If another executive brought a tough issue before the board without consulting him first, he would get extremely angry, accusing the man of trying to “blindside” him, trying to sabotage his career.

  Eventually the man sought therapy. Only then did he begin to understand that his experience in the war was at the root of his problems. The trauma he had suffered would probably affect him for the rest of his life, the psychiatrist told him. He might never fully escape that sense of emotional tension he lived with because of the fear he had experienced in combat. But just because he often felt tense didn’t mean he had to create crises in his current life to justify that tension. There were other ways that he could cope with his feelings, including getting more exercise and practicing meditation. In addition, he could talk with some of the coworkers he trusted, and explain his situation to them. He could tell them that because of this enduring vulnerability, he could use a little help. As it turned out, he did talk to two of his assistants and another manager, who were quite understanding. After listening to him, they began to see just why this man hated what he considered surprises. They said they’d try to be more careful to keep him apprised of sensitive matters as they came up in the company. And they’d try to be more complete in their communication so that he wouldn’t spend so much time guessing, imagining the worst. The executive found these accommodations helpful, and he’s getting along better with the rest of his colleagues. But it couldn’t have happened unless he’d been willing to examine the past and how his war experiences had affected him.

  Exercise: What Are Your Enduring Vulnerabilities?

  To download a PDF of the following exercise, click here.

  The following exercise is designed to help you remember specific events and relationships from your past that may have resulted in enduring vulnerabilities. Take your time answering these questions, realizing they may bring a number of painful memories to the surface. Once you’ve completed these questions, it may help to share your answers with somebody you trust.

  You may also want to invite a spouse, relative, or friend with whom you want to build better emotional connections to do the exercise with you. If that’s not possible, you might want to imagine how that person would answer the questions if he or she did the exercise. Doing so may give you insight about ways to improve your relationship.

  Below is a chart with a list of emotional injuries that commonly happen in a variety of relationships and often result in emotional vulnerabilities. Put a check mark in the columns to indicate the injuries you’ve experienced in the past.

  Now, on a separate piece of paper, in a journal, or in your Emotion Log, write about these topics related to each injury you’ve checked.

  • Describe what happened.

  • How did this injury affect you?

  • What did you do to try to heal from this injury?

  • What have you done to ensure that this doesn’t happen again?

  • What are the implications of this injury on your current life?

  • What are the implications for your current life of your attempts to heal?

  • Did this injury change the way you make bids for emotional connection? In what way?

  • Did this injury change the way you respond to bids for emotional connection? In what way?

  What Awareness Offers

  Unfortunately, being more aware of an enduring vulnerability doesn’t make it go away. But having more insight about it means that the next time you’re aware of it, you can say, “Oh, there it is again. What does this have to do with the current situation?” Often the answer is “not much,” and you’re able to move on without being compelled to act on that feeling of vulnerability. This freedom to act can be extremely important in relationships when you want to improve your ability to bid and to respond to another’s bids for emotional connection.

  Perhaps you recall Rick and Sarah, the couple I described in chapter 2, who learned to see Sarah’s righteous indignation and stockpiled complaints as a bid for connection. As it turns out, they learned a few things about the way an enduring vulnerability from Rick’s past was contributing to their problems as well. Rick’s mother left his family when he was a small boy, so he was cared for by his paternal grandmother, who very much resented the responsibility. Because the grandmother resented him, she carped at him constantly, telling him he was a dirty, worthless boy who would never amount to anything. Rick’s father felt bad about the way his son was treated in his mother’s home, but felt he could do nothing about it, since he relied on her for childcare. Rick’s dad would do his best to smooth things over, often saying things to the family like, “Ricky’s just fine. He’s going to do great, as long as he gets good grades and goes to college—as long as he achieves.”

  Is it any wonder, then, that Rick grew up to work such long hours? In fact, much of Sarah’s anger at him had to do with the loneliness she felt when he stayed late at the office. But because of Rick’s enduring vulnerability—his feelings of worthlessness—he couldn’t hear the longing in Sarah’s bids for attention. He had a hard time accepting any kind of affection from his wife because all he heard in Sarah’s voice was his grandmother saying, “You’re no good. You’re such a failure. You’re such a disappointment.”

  When we talked about these messages in therapy, we learned that Sarah didn’t feel that way at all. “I’ve never seen you that way,” she said. “I think you’re clever and creative. You’re sexy. You’re a great lover. You’re a great dancer. It’s just that you ignore me sometimes when I need you.”

  Rick was surprised and very happy to hear these words from Sarah. How odd, it seemed in retrospect, that his grandmother had taken such a prominent place in his marriage. But now that Rick and Sarah could identify his grandmother’s influence, it was easier to keep the older woman’s recriminations in the past.

  It didn’t make Rick’s feelings of self-doubt go away. But now when they come up, he’s able to say to himself, “I’m having that feeling again. I know where it’s coming from. It’s my grandmother talking. But Grandmother’s words have nothing to do with what’s going on here and now. I can have this feeling without having to act upon it.”

  With this realization, Rick puts his grandmother’s influence in its proper place. It’s a fading memory. It’s yesterday’s news. Now he can be more aware of his current life and current relationships. Now he can be more open to Sarah’s expressions of longing and affection.

  Most of the stories of enduring vulnerability I’ve told thus far involve insights people discover about themselves or others in the course of therapy. But a good friendship can also serve as a powerful vehicle for such self-discovery. That’s because friendship often involves telling one another your life stories. And within those stories we often reveal a great deal to one another about our history of loss and betrayal, if not trauma and abuse.

  Such revelations typically happen over time. Your friend may reveal some detail of a loss or betrayal he or she suffered as a child, and the two of you find you have common ground. (“So your parents divorced when you were in high school? Mine did, too.” “Your dad died of cancer? I know what it’s like to lose somebody that way.”) Then, together, you explore the meaning that these powerful episodes had in your lives and how they continue to affect you today.

  I once invited a friend from work out for coffee at a time when our relationship was new and our mutual trust was just beginning. In the course of our conversation, the man began to tell me a long and powerful story about how he had been betrayed by friends in a previous job. His story was filled with messages about how much he value
d trust and loyalty in his relationships. The story also told me how important he felt it was to stand up for yourself, to fight for what you believe in, and to seek justice when you feel you’ve been treated unfairly.

  By listening carefully to this one story, I learned that the betrayal he had suffered was a deep and enduring vulnerability for him. I learned that the issue of loyalty was no small matter to him. And although he did not come right out and say it, I learned that if I was going to be this man’s friend, I needed to take this matter seriously as well.

  When you understand your own enduring vulnerabilities and are willing to talk about them with people you trust, you’re in a good spot to form deep and solid relationships. Another essential element is your willingness to listen openly when a friend or loved one tells you stories of the hard times they have endured, the events that are the most unforgettable parts of their emotional heritage. Honored respectfully, such conversations are the foundations of profound emotional connection.

  Back to the Future

  It takes a brave heart to look back thoughtfully at past injuries, your family’s emotional philosophy, and your emotional history. But doing so with a clear intention of improving your current and future relationships is well worth the effort. Getting clear about the past allows you to separate yesterday’s issues from today’s reality. It allows you to be more present in your current relationships. And, as we’ll learn in the next chapters on emotional communication skills, being fully present and aware is vital to improving your bidding process.

  A friend recently told me about a visit with her brother, whom she hadn’t seen for several weeks.