Is Your Relationship Doomed?!? - Girl or Guy Talk Gone Wrong

One of my relationship idols is Dr. John Gottman. 
He has been tested many times over his long marriage counseling career, and has been proven to be able to sit with a couple for only three minutes, and then predict with 90% accuracy if their relationship will last or not.  
This is obviously amazing, and something that we would all be foolish not to take note of.

Dr. Gottman bases his predictions on body language, heart rate, some specific relationship characteristics, and most of all, how couples talk about their relationship to each other and other people.  This is what I want to focus on in this entry, but I will address the other factors in later entries, or you can read about them for yourself on the Gottman website: http://www.gottman.com/marriage/self_help/  There are many VERY good marriage tips on this page that I highly recommend to my therapy clients.


So, one of the main points that I've taken from Dr. Gottman's work is that couples who talk badly about each other to other people, either when their partner is or is not present, have a very bad prognosis for their relationship. 
The reasoning behind this is:
A - if you are looking for an outlet for your frustration in other people, then either your partner no longer cares or you are no longer trying to work out your issues between yourselves because you have experienced so much failure. 
B- You can subconsciously sense the pending doom and want to cover your bases publicly before it happens.
or C - So much respect has been lost in the relationship that you no longer care to maintain a good face or good boundaries. 

The way that you want other people to think and/or feel about your partner is very much reflective of how you think and/or feel about them.  When healthy couples fight, they usually have negative thoughts towards each other for a while, but they also know deep down that they still love each other and will work through this, so they still respect each other publicly.  Once you have lost this core security, you will also, often without realizing it, want other people to view your partner as negatively as you do.

I watch for this phenomenon among my clients, as well as my own friends, and have seen the accuracy of Dr. Gottman's idea many, many times.  In fact, just this week I learned that some friends of mine broke up after being together for many years.  This didn't surprise me or my husband, because the past several times that we've gone out with them, much of the evening's conversation was about things that they were unhappy with the other person about.  It was kind of awkward, and everytime my husband and I walked away both wondering why they didn't just break-up.
On the flip side, I have a girlfriend who had a rocky patch in her marriage last year.  She would talk about it when we were alone and ask for support or advice, as girls do, but even though she didn't know if they would stay married or not, she never said anything about her husband that was disrespectful or too private.  She always maintained an attitude that they both had a part in their problems, and that either the issues were temporary and would be worked through, or they were just not compatible people.  Sure enough, they are still happily married.

I'm sure everyone has had experiences like these, so start to look around and take notice, and especially evaluate yourself.  If you realize that you talk badly about your partner right in front of him or her, or if you say things to friends when you're alone that you would NEVER want your partner to know that you're saying, you're in a danger zone.

The solution is not just to stop talking badly to other people, but to figure out why you've reached this point and if there's anything left to do to tackle your issues, or if you both even still care enough.  If you're doing it in a desperate attempt to get attention from your partner or to get sympathy from someone else because your partner has started tuning you out completely, refocus your energy on figuring out why the way that you have been addressing issues leads to apathy rather than action, then try something different.  Or, if the relationship is, indeed, too far gone to save, cut your losses, save your dignity, and free yourself to move on with your life.