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3 ways to build a happy marriage and avoid divorce | George Blair-West - YouTube
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Almost 50 years ago,
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psychiatrists Richard Rahe
and Thomas Holmes developed an inventory
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of the most distressing
human experiences that we could have.
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Number one on the list? Death of a spouse.
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Number two, divorce.
Three, marital separation.
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Now, generally, but not always,
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for those three to occur, we need
what comes in number seven on the list,
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which is marriage.
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(Laughter)
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Fourth on the list is imprisonment
in an institution.
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Now, some say number seven
has been counted twice.
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(Laughter)
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I don't believe that.
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When the life stress inventory was built,
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back then, a long-term relationship
pretty much equated to a marriage.
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Not so now.
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So for the purposes of this talk,
I'm going to be including
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de facto relationships,
common-law marriages
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and same-sex marriages,
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or same-sex relationships
soon hopefully to become marriages.
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And I can say from my work
with same-sex couples,
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the principles I'm about
to talk about are no different.
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They're the same across all relationships.
[95]
So in a modern society,
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we know that prevention
is better than cure.
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We vaccinate against polio, diphtheria,
tetanus, whooping cough, measles.
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We have awareness campaigns
for melanoma, stroke, diabetes --
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all important campaigns.
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But none of those conditions come close
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to affecting 45 percent of us.
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Forty-five percent: that's
our current divorce rate.
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Why no prevention campaign for divorce?
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Well, I think it's because
our policymakers don't believe
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that things like attraction
and the way relationships are built
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is changeable or educable.
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Why?
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Well, our policymakers currently
are Generation X.
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They're in their 30s to 50s.
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And when I'm talking to these guys
about these issues,
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I see their eyes glaze over,
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and I can see them thinking,
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"Doesn't this crazy psychiatrist get it?
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You can't control the way in which
people attract other people
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and build relationships."
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Not so, our dear millennials.
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This is the most information-connected,
analytical and skeptical generation,
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making the most informed decisions
of any generation before them.
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And when I talk to millennials,
I get a very different reaction.
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They actually want to hear about this.
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They want to know about how do we
have relationships that last?
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So for those of you who want to embrace
the post- "romantic destiny" era with me,
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let me talk about my three life hacks
for preventing divorce.
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Now, we can intervene
to prevent divorce at two points:
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later, once the cracks begin to appear
in an established relationship;
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or earlier, before we commit,
before we have children.
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And that's where I'm going to take us now.
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So my first life hack:
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millennials spend seven-plus hours
on their devices a day.
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That's American data.
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And some say, probably not unreasonably,
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this has probably affected
their face-to-face relationships.
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Indeed, and add to that
the hookup culture,
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ergo apps like Tinder,
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and it's no great surprise that
the 20-somethings that I work with
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will often talk to me about
how it is often easier for them
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to have sex with somebody that they've met
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than have a meaningful conversation.
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Now, some say this is a bad thing.
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I say this is a really good thing.
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It's a particularly good thing
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to be having sex outside
of the institution of marriage.
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Now, before you go out
and get all moral on me,
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remember that Generation X,
in the American Public Report,
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they found that 91 percent of women
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had had premarital sex by the age of 30.
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Ninety-one percent.
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It's a particularly good thing that
these relationships are happening later.
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See, boomers in the '60s --
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they were getting married
at an average age for women of 20
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and 23 for men.
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2015 in Australia?
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That is now 30 for women and 32 for men.
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That's a good thing, because
the older you are when you get married,
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the lower your divorce rate.
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Why?
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Why is it helpful to get married later?
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Three reasons.
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Firstly, getting married later allows
the other two preventers of divorce
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to come into play.
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They are tertiary education
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and a higher income, which tends
to go with tertiary education.
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So these three factors all
kind of get mixed up together.
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Number two,
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neuroplasticity research tell us
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that the human brain is still growing
until at least the age of 25.
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So that means how you're thinking
and what you're thinking
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is still changing up until 25.
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And thirdly, and most importantly
to my mind, is personality.
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Your personality at the age of 20
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does not correlate with
your personality at the age of 50.
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But your personality at the age of 30
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does correlate with
your personality at the age of 50.
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So when I ask somebody
who got married young why they broke up,
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and they say, "We grew apart,"
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they're being surprisingly accurate,
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because the 20s is a decade
of rapid change and maturation.
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So the first thing you want to get
before you get married is older.
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(Laughter)
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Number two,
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John Gottman, psychologist
and relationship researcher,
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can tell us many factors that correlate
with a happy, successful marriage.
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But the one that I want to talk about
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is a big one:
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81 percent of marriages implode,
self-destruct, if this problem is present.
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And the second reason why I want
to talk about it here
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is because it's something
you can evaluate while you're dating.
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Gottman found that the relationships
that were the most stable and happy
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over the longer term
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were relationships in which
the couple shared power.
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They were influenceable:
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big decisions, like buying a house,
overseas trips, buying a car,
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having children.
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But when Gottman
drilled down on this data,
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what he found was that women
were generally pretty influenceable.
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Guess where the problem lay?
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(Laughter)
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Yeah, there's only
two options here, isn't there?
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Yeah, we men were to blame.
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The other thing that Gottman found
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is that men who are influenceable
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also tended to be "outstanding fathers."
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So women: How influenceable is your man?
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Men:
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you're with her because you respect her.
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Make sure that respect plays out
in the decision-making process.
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Number three.
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I'm often intrigued by
why couples come in to see me
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after they've been married
for 30 or 40 years.
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This is a time when they're approaching
the infirmities and illness of old age.
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It's a time when they're particularly
focused on caring for each other.
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They'll forgive things
that have bugged them for years.
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They'll forgive all betrayals,
even infidelities,
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because they're focused
on caring for each other.
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So what pulls them apart?
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The best word I have
for this is reliability,
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or the lack thereof.
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Does your partner have your back?
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It takes two forms.
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Firstly, can you rely on your partner
to do what they say they're going to do?
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Do they follow through?
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Secondly,
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if, for example,
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you're out and you're being
verbally attacked by somebody,
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or you're suffering from
a really disabling illness,
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does your partner step up
and do what needs to be done
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to leave you feeling
cared for and protected?
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And here's the rub:
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if you're facing old age,
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and your partner
isn't doing that for you --
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in fact, you're having
to do that for them --
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then in an already-fragile relationship,
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it can look a bit like you might
be better off out of it rather than in it.
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So is your partner there for you
when it really matters?
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Not all the time, 80 percent of the time,
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but particularly if it's important to you.
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On your side, think carefully before you
commit to do something for your partner.
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It is much better to commit to
as much as you can follow through
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than to commit to more
sound-good-in-the-moment
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and then let them down.
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And if it's really important
to your partner, and you commit to it,
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make sure you move hell
and high water to follow through.
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Now, these are things
that I'm saying you can look for.
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Don't worry, these are also
things that can be built
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in existing relationships.
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I believe that the most important decision
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that you can make
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is who you choose as a life partner,
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who you choose as
the other parent of your children.
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And of course, romance has to be there.
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Romance is a grand and beautiful
and quirky thing.
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But we need to add
to a romantic, loving heart
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an informed, thoughtful mind,
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as we make the most important
decision of our life.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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