Jayce's thread

[Bagheera]

Good morning, Jayce,

One of the things that I've noticed in your posts is the lack of positive remarks about your husband. I don't get a sense of real fondness for him...that "lovin' feeling" doesn't seem to be there (or you just don't show it here to a bunch of strangers). Now granted, this is a place where you can come to vent frustration, so I would expect that to be a big part of your thread, but it's worrisome not to see some affection seeping through too.

Diane's posts regarding her husband's 'selective memory' of past events brought to mind something that John Gottman discusses in his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. That is, people involved in a long-term strained relationship seem to forget, or push far away, all of the happy memories of the times when their relationship was good, particularly the courting and newlywed phases. When asked to describe what it felt like when they first met their spouse, when they first fell in love, or their happiest times together, they tend to draw blanks. When asked to describe their spouse's positive traits, they fumble there too: all of their thinking about their spouse and their relationship for years has been so focused on the problems, the conflicts, the short-comings of their mate that it's become literally alien for them to see the positives anymore. I might be wrong about this, but I suspect that you've fallen into this mind-set to some degree.

So if you don't mind, play a game with me here. In Gottman's book, he has a six-week exercise called "Increasing Fondness and Admiration," which involves a daily, short, written exercise that you are then supposed to remind yourself of and ponder during the day. I did this exercise last spring by sending a daily email to my wife containing my response to each daily 'task,' and it evoked a VERY positive response from her --> I don't think she really knew the depth of my love and long-term admiration for her until I starting putting it into writing. The daily, positive affirmation from me did her a great deal of good, as well as reminding me of all the good things that we had going for us, even during those very difficult years. And with each email, she would be prompted to think about how SHE would respond to the same task, and was thus encouraged to dredge up and relive her positive feelings for me. The exercise worked well for us.

What I thought I would do then, is to share the daily 'tasks' with you from this exercise, and encourage you to do them. You can share your answers here, but don't feel pressured to: this is personal stuff, and having looked through them, I wouldn't want to share my emails from last spring here. So share them with us if you like, keep them private to yourself if you like, but consider sending them as notes or emails to your husband -- he would probably be genuinely surprised to read some of those responses. Here is the first exercise: there are 5 per week, and with each is a thought you are to carry through your day, and a short (one paragraph or so) task.


From: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John Gottman & Nan Silver
Increasing Fondness and Admiration (Exercise 1, Week 1)

Thought: I am genuinely fond of my partner.
Task: List one characteristic you find endearing or lovable.


Finally, if you don't wanna play this game, feel free to tell me to go jump in a lake and stop playing amateur counselor! It's just an idea for you to try.

Bagheera