Gridlock versus Perpetual Problem within Sound Relationship House
Gottman has the Sound Relationship House and starts with Building Love Maps.
Building Love Maps send a meta message that you are interested in knowing your partner.
Ask questions and invite them to get to know you and try to get to know your partner. If you don’t wanna get to know your partner, ask yourself why.
Scan your environment for things to admire, appreciate and be proud of, in your partner and see them -catch them doing something right. Say it out loud or in a message, directly.
When you’re hanging out- you’re always stating your needs verbally or non-verbally, you’re making bids for emotional connection.
This is a fundamental unit of connection, to form an emotional bank account that gets larger or depleted over time.
Understanding must appreciate advice. Make sure you understand the problem and make sure that they want advice before you give advice.
This is our problem. We will face it together.
If you agree with the adversary, opponent, or enemy of your partner, expect bad results.
Increase your own awareness and mindfulness about how your partner tries to connect with you and asks for connection. See how asking to connect might be withdrawal waltz or protest polka.
Once you have these levels of the sound relationship house in order, you have a lot more humor, affection and patience in the relationship, even when there’s a difficulty you can be constructive in a creative way.
This is the emotional bank account.
Do you want to have access to positive emotions during the times of disagreements? Build the emotional bank account.
These three levels of the sound relationship house are the basis for romance, passion, and good sex.
Now we move into managing conflict instead of trying to persuade your partner of your reality. It is your job to find out your partner subjective reality.
You cannot be powerful in a relationship unless you were capable of being influenced.
Bayes Rule and the Nash Equilibrium come in important here. See these in archive.org under my name or link on my website.
Solvable problems do not have a deeper meaning behind the position.
A solution can be found and maintained and get solved.
Perpetual problems are fundamental differences in your personality or differences in your lifestyle needs. Every single couple has a perpetual problem or series thereof. You’re going to return to these over and over again.
What makes them different from gridlocked is that a gridlock problem is uncomfortable. You’re spinning your wheels and you start having difficulty with one another.There’s no possibility of compromise at that point. People become more entrenched and polarized and extreme. The conversations themselves lead to frustration and hurt.
People start vilifying one another and feel rejected by their partner. They feel like their partner doesn’t even like them when they’re talking about that issue. Go to dreams within conflict and move from gridlock to dialogue.
Within every complaint there’s a longing it might have a deep symbolic and philosophical meaning to that person.
If your heart rate is above 100 beats a minute, or if an athlete- make that 80 beats a minute, you’re probably in diffuse physiological arousal which sometimes accompanies flooding.
Your body has started secreting adrenaline, and lots of systems are firing.
You’ll get tunnel vision, so you can’t process information very well, you can’t be a creative problem solver, you want to withdraw become more aggressive, to shut down the negativity. during this time do not rehearse thoughts that maintain distress. For example, thoughts of righteous indignation or innocent victim hood. Do something that soothes you.