(upbeat music) - Welcome to Science Pub, a monthly series exploring the fascinating scientific world around us.

I'm your host, Nancy Coddington, Director of Science Content for WSKG Public Media Public Media.

This season of Science Pub, we have a great lineup of speakers and topics, ranging from forensic genealogy to exploring the science behind love and relationships.

Tonight's talk is on the science and secrets of keeping love alive.

Our guest tonight is Chelene Sirianni.

New love is thrilling, but can we keep the magic alive?

You know, what sort of secrets can ruin a good thing?

How can we resolve resentments before they boil over?

Well tonight we will dive deep into the science of healthy relationships, revealing secrets that may surprise you.

From meeting your partner's needs, to setting clear boundaries, we'll learn how to protect these precious bonds, steer clear of pitfalls, and keep things spicy.

Chelene is a licensed therapist and has 23 years of experience helping patients with depression, anxiety, communication, relationships, sexuality, and divorce.

She helps couples reconnect after growing apart and helps people accept and celebrate alternative lifestyles.

Chelene believes that emotional health is strongly connected to physical health and focuses on achieving balance in all areas of life.

As we get started tonight, I do wanna mention, owing to professional ethics and legal constraints, Chelene Sirianni will not comment on mental health related issues connected to past or current public figures or celebrities, nor can she comment on mental health matters related to the diagnosis or treatment of individuals or the family members of such individuals that might contact or view this program.

So please do keep that in mind tonight when you are asking your questions.

So I'd like to welcome a Chelene Sirianni.

Welcome.

- Hi Nancy, how are you tonight?

- I am great.

We're so glad that you're here with us.

Thank you for spending the evening with us.

- Thank you for inviting me.

I'm very excited.

- So Chelene, before we get started, I just wanna ask you, you know, what attracted you, what brought you into the work that you're doing?

- So it's interesting.

When I first started my career, I was working with children, which I loved, but I quickly learned that without involving the parents, without involving the adults, I wasn't able to make the changes that I wanted to.

And if you imagine a family in a house, I believe that the parents are emitting energy and the children are sponges that soak all that energy up.

And so I made a big change and I went into private practice and now I work with adults and couples and hopefully that positive energy rains down to those children - I am sure it does.

Well, I am excited to hear what you have to share with us this evening, Chelene.

- Okay.

Well, one thing I wanna say before we get started is that I am gonna be talking about couples and relationships, and I want to be clear that I want to be inclusive to the LGBTQ community.

You know, unfortunately I can't use all kinds of different pronouns and different words.

So if I use the words partners, or husband/wife, or man/woman, or feminine energy/masculine energy, I'd really like you to please customize those words to fit your particular relationship because the research we're gonna talk about tonight actually is beneficial for every relationship, regardless of how you identify.

- That's great.

Thank you so much for that.

All right.

Why don't you go ahead and get started?

- All right.

So I really like, I'm going to be referring to several couples gurus from which I learned tonight.

And the first one, the first people I'm going to talk about are Dr. John and Julie Gottman.

They run the Gottman Institute in Seattle and for 40 years they've been studying couples in what they call their Love Lab where they take couples and let them sort of live there all weekend and they're watching and filming everything.

So what's exciting, after all this time, is they have very longitudinal studies to see which couples actually make it, which they call masters, and which couples unfortunately didn't make it, which they call disasters.

And with all this research, they've been able to kind of come up with some rules about what the masters are doing and what the disasters are doing.

And we're going to use that a little bit in our talk tonight.

I am not affiliated with the Gottmans, but I do recommend their books, which I are Seven Habits for Making Marriage Work.

And what was the other book?

What Makes Love Last?

So if you can see, we've put up this picture of a house, the Gottmans have come up with this, what they call the a Sound Relationship House, where you need all of these floors and the pillars on the sides to hold your relationship together.

If you think about it, you wouldn't have a home with floors without very sturdy sides.

So we're gonna start by talking about the sides, which are trust and commitment.

An interesting thing about trust is that people tend to think it's like, I trust a person or I don't trust a person, but the truth is there are many ways in which our partner look to us to see if they can trust us.

For example, can I trust you to get the money to the bank?

Can I trust you to pick up the kids from school?

Can I trust you to be nice to my parents at dinner on Sunday?

Can I trust you, mostly, this is the biggest one, to always be there for me when I am in need?

That seems to be a big message from the Gottmans, is that in order for people to really have trust, we must believe that our partner will drop everything for us when we are having a crisis and they will always be there for us.

The next pillar is commitment.

And, you know, I think when we think of commitment, we think of two things, engagement rings and wedding days, and I'm not picking on them, but I think that those are the two times that couples really think mindfully about their commitment.

And what have with the couples that I end up seeing is they've been together for a long, long time, and they haven't really been focusing on or feeding their commitment.

So I think one of the things I want you guys to take away from tonight is that commitment is a constant work in progress.

And pretty much every day, you have an opportunity to re-commit to your relationship or to go into a different direction.

So I think it's a really great idea, especially if you wanna use your anniversary to really not just celebrate your anniversary, but just really talk about, wow, what did we commit to?

And what does that commitment look like now?

And how is that working for us?

I think if people would just do commitment checkups like that, that it might actually prevent some of the people who need to see me for couple's therapy.

- Chelene, can I ask what might that be?

What would be something that we could do as a small commitment checkup in our relationships?

- Yeah.

Well, that's a great idea.

That's a great question.

Well, I'm going to name some.

Well, the first book I named, The Seven Habits book has a lot of wonderful questions for couples to ask each other.

And then I'm going to refer to actually Esther Perel, who is, she's also a great author.

She wrote Mating in Captivity.

She actually just came out with a game, which is exactly designed for what you're talking about.

It's questions to ask each other and it kind of brings both partners back to, "Wait, why am I in this relationship with this person?"

And, "Is it working?"

And, "Do I know this person?"

And, "If I don't, what don't I know and why?"

- [Nancy] Thank you.

- So the foundation of the house, we all know we need a very foundation of our house.

If you're thinking, I'd like you to be thinking about your own house during this presentation, we need a very strong foundation.

The Gottmans referred to the foundation as Love Maps.

And what they mean by that is the time that two people take to really learn about each other's internal world.

For example, you might think of this as the types of conversations that people have on first dates and in the first six months of a relationship.

Like, tell me your dreams, tell me your hopes.

I wanna know your embarrassments, I wanna know your fears, tell me about your childhood.

I love this picture because I feel like this couple is, you know, really engaging and working on their Love Map.

And if we have a strong Love Map, we can sustain a lot because we understand a lot about our partners.

One of the, I'm going to sort of repeat myself and say, I find that people discuss the Love Maps in the beginning of the relationship, and then go away from it.

So I think that people need to make a commitment to coming back and updating their Love Maps, because we evolve as people, our dreams evolve, our hopes evolve, our goals evolve, and it's important that we keep the conversation going.

So, the next- Sorry about that.

Fondness and admiration.

Okay.

So the Gottmans talk about fondness and admiration, and that might seem, you might be thinking, well, of course, you're supposed to show fondness and admiration and in your relationship, but you know what?

I see a lot of couples are not actually showing fondness and admiration.

Some couples feel fondness and admiration for their partner, but don't ever say that verbally or show them in a way that the partner knows.

So it's really lost on the partner and that's really sad.

One of my favorite books to help you guys out with this, is by Gary Chapman, it's called the 5 Love Languages, and we're gonna move into the five love languages here for a minute because, for example, when we are trying to let our partner know how much we care about them and how important they are to us, we have to speak in a language that they understand.

So for example, if I'm telling you how beautiful you are and how much I love you in Swahili, you are just looking at me going, I don't know what you're saying, and it's not getting in and it's not filling me up.

It's not filling me up emotionally and I'm not feeling connected to you.

So what I really like about Gary Chapman's theory of the five love languages is that every person basically has one major love language, which means the language they receive love in, different from the language they give love in.

So if you guys are willing to play a game with me, I am going to discuss the five love languages.

And then you guys will be, you'll have a minute to start typing in which love language do you think is your primary love language?

Gary Chapman says to figure out your primary language.

I often say to couples pick the top two, because sometimes you can't do one.

And before we talk about them, I have to say, everyone needs all of the love language sometimes, but when you're really in crisis, when you're really upset, when you really need soothing from your partner, which language is it that you understand the most?

The first love language is acts of service.

Acts of service is doing something nice for, oh, I guess I'm gonna use the taco example here.

Right, right, right.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm gonna use this fun taco example.

So in every one of these, I'm going to use a taco.

So, if my partner is an acts of service person, then I'm going to say, "Hey honey, I'm making you tacos" That's an act of service.

The next one is giving gifts.

So if my partner is a gifts person, I'm gonna come home with a bag and I'm gonna say, "Look, I bought us tacos."

- And who doesn't love that?

(Nancy and Chelene chuckle) - The next one is, which one is there on there, is that touch?

Okay, sorry.

So the next one is touch, which is, this is kind of funny.

I'm going to say, "I'm going to wrap you with my arms like a taco on the couch, right?"

"I'm gonna phone you up like a taco."

That would be touch.

A little caveat about touch is some people think that touch is their love language because they really like sex.

And they say that everybody really should be having sex.

(chuckles) Having sex actually is good for your relationship.

And so just because you like sex, doesn't mean that touch is your love language.

If you like sex, but you don't like holding hands and you don't like hugging and you don't like patting each other on the behind, then just put sex aside, and think about what you need when you're feeling down.

The next one would be quality time.

And to go back to the taco analogy, that would be like me saying, "Hey, let's go have a date for, let's make a date, and go have tacos together."

And the last one is words of a affirmation, which would be something like, "Wow, babe, these are the best tacos you ever made.

You're such a good cook."

I hope that those examples helped you guys to sort of understand the differences.

And I wonder if you could just take a moment to type in which love language you are relating to right now.

- I love how you used the taco.

That was a lot of fun.

(Chelene and Nancy chuckle) - I love tacos.

- And you know, so you're also saying that, you know, as people go ahead and type in, you know, what do you think your love language is?

How do you like to receive love from your partner?

You know, is it that acts of service?

You want them to, you know, make you a meal, do something for you?

Is it you would like a little small gift every once in a while?

You know, it's not necessarily about the money, It's about that act of doing.

- [Chelene] Yes.

- You know, is it the physical touch?

It's those things that, you know, the, the touch on the arm, you know, throughout the day or kiss as you're going out the door.

Quality time, spending that time together could be super important for you and that's how you receive that love language.

Or, as Chelene was mentioning, you know, those words of affirmation.

You know, you did a great job with this and I super appreciate it.

So, great we're having people sharing.

Andrea says physical touch is hers.

Jackie likes will words and time.

So having time with people is how she receives her love language.

Quality time from Karen.

Chris likes words of affirmation.

So a little bit of smattering of everybody.

Thank you so much for entering and sharing how you like to receive love.

- That's great.

And you know, I would encourage couples after they watch this, to really take a few minutes to, I mean, you could read Chapman's book or you could look some stuff up about the love languages, because here's the thing, we often assume we know our partner's love language, and sometimes we make the mistake of believing that our love language is their love language, and so we keep giving and giving and giving, and we get so upset because we're like, "I'm giving you so much.

Why aren't you feeling, you know, filled up and loved?"

And come to find out, we're giving completely the wrong thing.

And so this is the hard part, and some people get mad at me when I say this, it is your responsibility to become fluent in your partner's love language.

However, the only way you can do that is the two of you need to get together and really figure out what your love languages are.

I think that if you can practice becoming fluent and ask them like, what are some, give me some examples of what that really looks like in different situations, then I think you're much more likely to get what you need, and when people are getting what they need, they get along so much better.

Yay!

- [Nancy] (chuckles) It's funny how that works.

Isn't it?

- [Chelene] Okay.

Oh, I love this.

Have you had your six second kiss today?

Okay.

We're gonna play a game and you're gonna think I'm a little cuckoo, but that's the way, this is how I work with people.

We're gonna play a little game because I want think about how you typically might kiss your honey goodbye or hello and I want you to really think about, is it six seconds?

Do you take six seconds to give your partner some time, attention, and touching?

And the truth is, I think most people do this, (blows a kiss) which literally is half a second.

And that's a really mindless kind of thing that we do.

"Bye honey".

We just (blows kiss).

That's it And it's not really connecting and it doesn't really stay with us and so I think we should look at that as mindless.

And instead we want a mindful kiss and you you'd be surprised that six seconds is a really long time.

In fact, when people are in therapy with me, I'm actually encouraging them to do 10 second kisses and sometimes people come back and they tell me, they're like, laughing, hilariously or they're like, they just can't, it just seems like it's so long, or it seems like it's fake because I've told them to do.

And you know what?

That's all okay.

It's okay.

It's okay if it feels fake at first, it's okay if you laugh, it's okay if it feels awkward because the more you practice it, the better it's gonna be.

So for today, I'm going easy on you and I'm using Gottmans six seconds instead of Chelene's 10 seconds.

And so here's what we're gonna do, we're gonna play a game.

Okay?

Let's just be fun.

If you are sitting with a partner, I would like you to turn, when I say go, I'd like you to turn and kiss your partner.

If you're not, maybe you have a dog or a cat or a child that you're sitting next to, and you can kiss them.

And in the last scenario, if you're alone, well, maybe you kiss your hand like we did back in middle school.

So here we're gonna go.

I am going to count six seconds.

I want you to feel the difference between this (blows kiss) and six seconds.

So when I say go, I will start to count and I would like you to kiss.

Ready?

Go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

- That was a long time.

- It was a long time.

There's a lot of people right now that are like hating me probably, going Chelene- - Or loving you saying, "That was great."

- (laughs) Or that maybe there's people running to the bedroom because they haven't done that in such a long time that actually a six second kiss can make you feel so connected that you never know, it can go into a really great space.

So I'm wondering now, if the audience can take a moment and write in, what was that like?

- Yeah.

How did you like the six seconds?

Did you- - How did you like it?

Was it weird?

Was it yucky?

Did it feel good?

Did you feel connected?

- Was it, you know, was it too long?

Was it...?

(laughs) - And maybe for some people, it's just even thinking, wow, when was the last time we kissed like this?

Because, unfortunately, what I find is a lot of couples that I see are not making out anymore.

You make out when you're first dating and making out is really an aphrodisiac, it really does turn into lots of other things.

Making out, you know, can release oxytocin and endorphins and dopamine, which all can lead to sexy time and we need sexy time.

I really am a very big believer in that we need a lot of sexy time in our relationships in order to get along.

- Are we getting any comments about that?

- We are yes.

We're having a lot of reluctance, but... (Chelene laughs) we have a comment about someone's puppy was very happy to receive that six second kiss.

- I love kissing my puppy for six seconds, so I'm so with you there.

- Yeah.

Yep.

And also, you know, it's good to slow down and to focus and to take a moment to really appreciate that person that you're with.

- Yeah.

That mindful appreciation where they actually feel it.

And you know what?

I'm really going to... Hm, what's the word?

Challenge you guys, I'm challenging this whole audience, that for the next week, just one week, you try to greet your partner or say goodbye or goodnight with a six second kiss.

And you can blame Chelene.

You can say, we have to do this 'cause Chelene said we have to do this.

I'm willing to be the bad guy because often it leads to wonderful things.

- Does it become a smooch once it goes over the 4 second mark?

(Chelene and Nancy laugh) - You can call it whatever you want, as long as you're having fun and connecting.

- Love that.

- [Chelene] Okay.

The next level is...

Sorry about that guys.

Turn towards.

Okay.

So the Gottmans talk about bids, bids for your partner's attention, bids for your partner's affection, bids for their...sorry.

I'm losing that.

Many times in a day, we say things and do things to try to get our partner's attention and to try to get them to respond and to try to get them to engage with us.

There's probably a hundred times a day that happens.

And basically they say there's three ways that you can respond to a bid.

You can respond in a positive way or you can respond in a negative way, or you can respond actually in a way that turns against them.

So the positive way, they call it turning towards.

Okay?

So if I put out a bid, I'm gonna give you an example of snow, because if you're in Upstate New York, like I am, there's lots of snow.

So I'm gonna just give this easy example because it can be about anything.

So I'm gonna say to my partner, "Hey, did you see all the snow we got last night?"

Okay.

That's a bid.

I'm just looking to engage in a little conversation.

Now my partner has choices.

They can turn toward me, which might sound like, "Yeah, we got a lot of snow."

Or "Yeah, let's go make a snowman."

Or "Yeah, let's go shovel together."

All positive things where myself, the person who threw the bid, feels now engaged and feeling close to my partner.

The next thing you can do is turn away and turning away typically is ignoring.

And what that would sound like would be me saying, "Hey, did you see all the snow we got last night?"

Silence.

Silence is a rejection.

Silence can hurt a lot.

And this happens a lot in relationships.

And I'm not saying that a hundred percent of the time that you can always answer your partner's bids, but we need to be really mindful of this and understand that, I think that they were saying, the masters turn toward each other 86% of the time.

And the disasters only turn toward each other 30% of the time.

So the last possibility.

So you could turn toward your partner by speaking back, you could turn away from your partner by ignoring, or you can turn against your partner.

And that's where things get really ugly.

And that would sound something like, "Hey, did you see all the snow that we got last night?"

And my partner snapping back at me saying, "What are you complaining that I didn't shovel yet?"

Totally turning it into this negative thing, which is going to lead into conflict.

It's inevitably gonna lead into conflict.

And this is why it's important for us to pay attention to our partner's bids, and really be mindful about, are we turning toward our partner?

Are we giving them what they need when they're throwing a bid in our direction?

Some may be, I'm using a verbal bid.

Sometimes the beds are physical where they might, you know, put out their hand and you have the choice, grab the hand, ignore the hand, or go, "I'm not gonna, I don't wanna hold your hand."

Three really different reactions to bids.

And the there's a lot of research that says, if you can continue to turn toward your partner, your relationship is gonna be strong.

I like this picture because (chuckles) I wonder what you guys see in this picture.

So Nancy, what do you see?

Nancy, if you'll play with me, what do you see in this picture, as we think about the bids?

- So I see a person who, you know, they're physically leaning in, right?

Their hands are open.

Their heart is toward the other person.

There's a smile on their face and they're actually leaning into this conversation, right?

Like I wanna engage you.

I want to, whatever I'm telling you.

It seems like it's almost like an intimate, I'm going to tell you something that happened today.

And the person who is on the right, you know, she's actually physically facing away from the person.

Her hands are crossed, which means I think she's closed off.

And she has a look on her face, like she just heard something, or, you know, something she didn't really care for.

(chuckles) - Mh-hm, mh-hm.

Wow!

Excellent.

Excellent.

Yes.

I like that because I think we've all felt like the person on the left, trying to elicit a conversation with our partner, and we've all felt that cold front that's coming in from the person on the right, who is listening, at least she's listening, but like you said, she has her arms crossed and her body's very closed and she's really not interested in this.

She's really not turning toward her partner.

- So this would be, would it be called a negative bid or, you know, she's just trying not to engage?

- She's kind of turning away, I would say, because she's not really probably talking.

She's probably just sitting there listening with a scowl on her face, and I think we would call that turning away.

Now, if what comes out is mean, then that would be turning against, or the person on the left might be good enough to melt that colder person's exterior, and then get the, you know, get them to engage in the conversation the way they want them to.

- So what's the secret to that?

(Chelene and Nancy laugh) - Good question.

Good question.

I think one of the secrets we're talking about is that we all to be mindful of how we're treating our partners.

Let's face it, in this day and age, we have houses and cars and kids and dogs and COVID and all kinds of stressors.

And I just think that people start to take their relationship for granted.

They stop putting their time, attention, focus, and thought on, you know, how are things going between us?

How are things going with our bids?

So, you know, I just think, I hope that after today's talk, maybe people will go have a conversation with each other about what that's like in their relationship.

- [Nancy] Yeah.

Especially with, with COVID, you know, there's so much of that, where we've been pent up, right?

With the same people for such a long period of time.

(chuckles) - Absolutely.

And people are getting on each other's nerves, right?

So we have to mindfully go into what's the next floor, which is really quickly, I'm just gonna talk about the positive perspective, basically they what they have found in the research is that people who have a generally positive perspective about out their partner tend to do better in their relationship.

Whereas...

So we want, we need to keep throwing out a lot of positives to our partners so that they can feel the positivity, that there needs to be many exchanges of positivity.

And I like this slide, that it says, you know, all these positive things are foreplay.

They are, they're good, they're all connections, and they're all leading to something good.

And what we're trying to avoid is what they call negative sentiment override, which is where you just have this really negative view of your partner, And therefore everything they say just is going to be tainted with that negative view, versus the things that they say coming in through the positive lens.

Does that make sense?

- [Nancy] Yes, definitely.

- [Chelene] All right.

This is the big one, managing conflict.

We could talk about this for eight hours, Nancy, so... (Nancy chuckles) - [Nancy] Well, let's go.

(laughs) - Yeah.

Yeah.

So I love, love this quote.

The number one thing couples fight about is nothing because really the subject matter of the fights is usually not what it's really about.

It's really about these other floors that I'm talking about, these other levels of connection.

And when we're not connecting, we can fight about the stupidest things.

And so that's where they come up with that.

In order to talk about managing conflict, I think I'm going to... Just give me one second here.

Oh yeah.

One thing I wanted to say here was that they have proven that how you start a conversation, a conflictual conversation, if you can go in with a soft opening, if you can be soft in the first three minutes, that it really will predict the outcome, versus coming in with a negative sort of accusatory start, then that's gonna come up with, they have definitely proven that you're less likely to get a positive outcome.

So if you want a positive outcome, right?

Isn't that what we all want when we go to our partner?

Stop yourself, take a deep breath, and think about how can I go in with a slow, gentle start, even though I'm upset about this, I know that it's gonna go better that way.

And I'd like you to try to practice that.

So the Gottmans have talked about, they have identified four basic patterns that people tend to fall into during conflict.

Okay.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna play another little game here and I'm gonna go down through the four horsemen.

They call them the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and if the four horsemen of the apocalypse are too present in your marriage, you are going to get a divorce or you are going to break up, but they are in all of our marriages, in all of our relationships.

So what we're gonna do today is I'm gonna explain them to you, and I want you, each viewer, to think about which one you think you are, which one you think you tend to go toward, even though you both, even though everyone might go towards some of these sometimes, I think when I talk about them, one or two of them is gonna resonate with you and you're gonna say, "Oh, that's me."

So the first one is criticism.

This one I've been working on for 20 years.

I happened to grow up in a family that we were a bit critical with each other and so I can be critical.

Criticizing is, you know, kind of blaming people, you know, "You always do this wrong."

"You never get it right."

Criticism is just like negative and it tends to hurt, tends to hurt the other person, and in a smaller way than the second one, which is contempt.

Contempt is a bigger, more serious form of negativity.

By the time couples get to contempt, this is not a good thing.

In fact, they have said that, you know, if contempt is the major thing in your relationship, you're probably going to break up.

So we have to be really aware of when we're using contempt and contempt is when we have such like a long simmering, negative attitude toward our partner and it really starts to turn into disgust.

And you start to talk to them with this tone of disgust and perhaps verbal abuse and things like that, which is why we really need to nip contempt in the bud.

And if you're having problems with these guys, you know, you can read these books and you can go to therapy and you can work on this stuff.

I don't want you to think, "Oh, Chelene is saying that we have contempt our relationships, so it's over."

It's not over.

It's definitely not over.

You can work with these and you can learn skills about how to mitigate how harmful these four horsemen can be.

The third one is...Sorry, guys.

I'm so sorry, guys.

I just can't see.

Defensiveness.

Okay.

Sorry.

Is that the way it is on the screen?

Okay.

Defensiveness.

Defensiveness is, you know, I think we all have been in a situation where somebody is asking, you know, accusing us of something, calling us out on something, and defensiveness is going, "No, it's you.

No, it's you."

And just, it can be very frustrating to talk to somebody who's in a defensive mode because everything you're saying, they're just kind of going, "No, it's you.

No, it's you."

And nothing's getting in.

The last horseman is stonewalling and stonewalling is when people kind of basically shut down and they're not engaged with you.

And this one is really super hard for me when somebody does this to me.

I am an over-communicator, right?

So when somebody refuses to communicate with me because they're stonewalling, that's really hard.

Now, interestingly, sometimes it's not their fault really that they're stonewalling.

Sometimes what we're finding is that they're actually flooded with emotion.

They're so flooded with emotion that they can't... they can't be present.

They can't be present with you and they can't really take in what you're saying.

So in order to deal with this, I really like Harville Hendrix's book, Getting the Love You Want.

Excellent book.

And he puts people into two categories.

He says that people in conflict are either turtles or hail storms.

(Nancy chuckles) And I really like that.

The hailstorm obviously is coming at the one person so hard that all the turtle feels like they can do is go into their shell.

And that helps me to understand why people are stonewalling, because they are flooded with this emotion.

If you're feeling flooded with emotion, again, you can read books, you can go to therapy, and you can figure out how to move through that so that you can be in the conversation with your partner.

So I know that that was a lot.

I know that these are kind of heavy and I know that they kind of look like each other, but I'm just wondering if everybody could take a moment and just type in which one of the four horsemen really speaks to you, that you're thinking, "Oh yeah, maybe I need to learn a little bit more about that because I am definitely doing that to my partner sometimes and I would like to try to learn a different way."

- [Nancy] So yeah, if you wanna take a moment and just share in the comments, you know, which one of these do you tend to find yourself going to?

You know, do you tend to be a little bit more critical?

Is it contempt?

Is it things that have been boiling for a long time?

Do you get very defensive and kind of flip things back towards your partner?

Or do you Stonewall and just kind of disengage?

As people are taking a second to write in, Chelene, what if, you know, you find yourself pulling from several of these different categories?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's really funny because, you know, I guess I'll be vulnerable and I'll just say it, a long, long time ago when an ex-boyfriend and I were learning this, we were reading and he says, "Oh, well, that's easy, you're criticism and contempt, and I'm stonewalling and defensiveness."

And it's funny that he put those together like that, because actually, I have found in my practice with couples that they do tend to go together a little bit like that.

So don't worry about that.

I actually think we all do all of them.

And in a minute, I'm going to reveal what some of the mitigating things that we can can do are to make these things less harmful.

Are you getting any answers?

- We are.

We have a couple people who've said that they tend to go to criticism and they would be critical of their partner.

We have another person who said that they really go to being defensive.

So kind of, you know, victimizing themselves and perceived attack.

Also, we have someone sharing that they also share criticism.

So some defensiveness, some criticism are showing up, maybe also a little bit of stonewalling.

So we have a smattering of people.

So thank you so much, everybody, for taking moment and being vulnerable and sharing.

- Yeah.

Thanks.

Thanks.

It's really hard to identify yourself as a contempt person.

You know, because obviously, we're putting this negative label on contempt, but that doesn't mean you're a bad person.

It just means that you have to learn a different way.

You have to learn how to soften these things.

So as you can see on this slide, we're going to show you how to mitigate each of these.

So, you know, if you tend to be a critical person, you really want to start with a gentle startup.

Criticism often comes out in the very first sentence and it has a lot to do with tone, disdain, tone like that.

So before I might say something critical, I now stop myself and say, "Okay, Chelene, what's the tone gonna be?

And how can you gently, (chuckles) gently softly bring this up to this person in a way that they can hear it and we can have a conversation about it?"

The next one is the contempt and the secret to trying to change if you tend to be a contemptuous person, I want you to try to adopt an overall feeling of appreciation for your partner.

I want you to start noticing all the little things and the big things that they do when...

When we're in contempt, we tend to not notice the good things people are doing.

We tend to notice all the annoying things and we tend to be very negative.

So what I'm trying to say is make a mindful decision for the next week, just for the next week, to just try to notice every little and big thing that your partner is doing, and you know, maybe you could jot them down on a piece of paper.

Maybe you could verbally thank them for it.

Maybe you're not in the place where you wanna thank them for it and maybe you just wanna know it yourself and you just wanna keep a note in your phone.

And just start noticing their bids in your direction and everything they do to help your relationship to thrive.

- I love that 'cause it's small pieces that you can try at a time, you know, especially writing something on a Post-It note, just to be mindful of that.

And having that weak timeframe to do it, it's attainable.

We can definitely, you know, start working in that direction and attain that.

- Yeah.

When we talk about defensiveness, it's interesting.

I was just listening to a book.

I can't remember which book, and the person was saying that we as Americans don't tend to take responsibility enough anymore.

It's really something that's missing in our culture.

We used to own stuff more, and now we have more of a culture that's just like, it's your fault, it's their fault, it's everybody else's fault.

And so what we wanna think about here is how can you own your stuff?

How can you take responsibility for your stuff?

We all make mistakes.

We all do wrong things.

So, if somebody's trying to talk to me about something that's upset them, and I can just say, "You know what, what you're saying absolutely makes sense.

I did that.

That was wrong.

I'm sorry I hurt you.

What can I do to make up for it?"

Guess what?

It's usually over.

It's usually over.

So own it.

Take responsibility.

And I love to say just saying, "I'm sorry."

isn't really enough anymore.

I'm sorry, I don't think people really hear it when you say "I'm sorry."

So, I have a little formula I like to teach people that says an appropriate apology is to say, "I am sorry.

What I did was wrong."

Acknowledging that what you did was wrong.

"I'm sorry I hurt you."

And then, "What can I do to make up for it?"

And that, "What can I do to make up for it?"

is the responsibility piece.

Because if you just say, "Sorry" while you're walking out the door, it doesn't really mean anything.

And when you say, "What can I do to make up for it?"

it can be something fun and easy.

Like for example, your partner might say, okay, "I want a 10 minute foot rub" or, "Okay.

I'd like you to make dinner", or "I'd like you to be really friendly the next time we go out with my parents."

You know, just something.

It can be a small gesture basically where they're showing you that they really are sorry and they're trying to make it up to you.

Now, that kind of leads us into repair attempts.

Stonewalling.

Oh, sorry, guys.

Sorry, guys.

I'm skipping ahead of myself.

Stonewalling.

Okay.

So for the stonewalling people, this is is a little hard because they have to learn how to communicate a little bit better and they're typically not communicators.

They typically have learned to just shut down.

What everybody needs to learn, not just the stonewallers, they say this for stonewalling, but everybody needs to learn how to self-soothe.

Okay.

Self-soothing is a very important thing that again has been lost in our culture.

We don't really know how to self-soothe very well anymore.

And this is the, to the stonewalling, but it's also an answer to a lot of other things.

So let me give you a couple examples of self-soothing.

The first thing you wanna say is, "I'm flooded right now," or "This is too much for me right now.

I need a break."

And it's very important that you name a timeframe in which you're gonna return.

So you can say, "I need a break for 20 minutes."

"I need a break for 30 minutes," or, "I need a break for two hours."

But that's about as long as it can go.

You can't just storm out.

It's not fair to your partner if you just say, "I can't handle this, I'm going out for a drive."

That's not really fair to your partner because then that elicits a lot of fear because your partner doesn't really know what's going on.

This way, when you say, "Hey, I am flooded.

I'm too emotional.

I can't be in this conversation right now.

I need some time.

I'm gonna go self-soothe."

And everyone needs to learn what self-soothing is for them.

Some of the most popular ones are take a hot bath or a hot shower, meditate, pray, take a nap, play with your animal for five minutes.

Research says playing with your animal for five minutes actually releases some great endorphins.

If you're an exerciser, go for a run, shoot some hoops.

And if you wanna like watch a little comedy or something, that would be fine.

What we don't want you to do during the timeout is keep thinking about the fight and keep thinking about why you're so mad at them because you're gonna stay mad at them.

And we also don't want you to call your best friend or your mom and go (mimics frantic chatter) about what's going on because you're going to stay in that highly aroused phase.

We call it high a when you're just very agitated and the whole point of the time out is to get out of agitation, bring yourself back down to a peaceful place where we can then come back to the conversation and have a calm conversation.

- So you're saying that you shouldn't replay the situation over a 10 time so that you could come up with the best comeback that you didn't say yet?

(laughs) - Exactly.

Because you know what?

When you do that, you stay at the same level of upset.

And you know, I call it the red zone.

I talk about, you know, I talk with my clients about, sometimes we're in the green zone, the yellow zone, or the red zone.

And in the green zone, we can talk about anything and it's fine.

In the yellow zone, we may or may not respond that well to something, but in the red zone, we are never going to respond well.

And this is where the majority of the hurtful things happen in relationships, is in the red zone.

So your goal in the time out is to bring yourself from the red down to the yellow zone.

And that means not reiterating the fight over and over again.

It means switching your attention to something different, doing some nice deep breaths, that kind of thing.

- Those are great examples of self-soothing.

So thank you for sharing those.

- Okay.

I like this concept, which is called repair attempts.

I love that word.

It's like a word that we never heard until the Gottmans made it up.

Thank you.

Repair attempts are anything that your partner is doing when they recognize that they've wronged you, that they've hurt you, and they're trying to make it up to you.

I love this picture because a very simple, easy repair attempt can be grab your partner and dance around with them.

Another repair attempt is make a joke.

Another repair attempt is offer them a massage or anything, offer to watch their favorite show with them.

Oh, this couple, may be one of the people in this couple said, "Hey, I have to do the bills and it's really hard, hard for me."

So the repair attempt on the other person's part is, "Let me sit and do the bills with you."

And that's the repair attempt.

And here's what I've learned in my life.

When I was younger, I would be stubborn and angry and I would not want to accept the person's repair attempt.

They would be apologizing and possibly, you know, offering something and I would be in this, "I'm not ready to take your repair attempt I'm not ready for that.

I'm still mad.

And I still just wanna be mad.?

And now I realize obviously that that's an immature view of it.

And what the research says is, instead of holding onto the anger of the argument, hold on on to the commitment, to the commitment of the relationship.

And if your focus is the commitment of the relationship, then you will recognize your partner's repair attempt.

And even if you don't completely wanna take it, you're gonna say to yourself, "Okay, my partner's doing the right thing.

They're trying to make this better.

I'm going to receive their repair attempt."

And surprisingly, then it ends up turning, often, into a really lovely evening, instead of an evening where people are in two different sides of the house.

These are the last couple floors, which we didn't plan much for these because we wanted to have some time for questions and answers.

But this one, I like this, creating meaningful dreams.

I like this because we could imagine that maybe one of these guy's dreams was to have a dog and another one's was to go hiking.

And so when you're doing the Love Map kind of thing, and you're saying, "Oh, I'd love a relationship where we could hike.

And I'd love a relationship where we could have a dog."

This is the higher level stuff.

These last couple floors that I'm really not gonna talk about much are higher level stuff.

We really want you to focus on the lower floors that we've talked about.

And then this is, these higher levels are the frosting on the cake.

And of course here we have a great picture of a couple in couple's therapy.

I tell everyone that couple's therapy is not just for married people.

There are all kinds of couples that come to couples therapy.

I see many people who are not married, and I see many relationships that are, you know, maybe they have, made up of gay, transgender, non-binary type people.

Any relationship probably can be helped if, as long as you're not too far into contempt, if you find a good couple's therapist, relationship therapist.

So I would encourage it.

I also mentioned about five books, I think, and they're going to put them somewhere, so that you guys can see them.

I totally encourage you to buy the books and read them together and try to play with it to enhance your relationship.

- Thank you, Chelene, this has been, I think, super insightful.

We've had, you know, several comments, you know, talking about how people are using some of the tools, or they're identifying some of the things that they do in some of the slides that you've shared.

So we do have a couple questions, specifically talking about eye rolling in particular.

So if someone, and you're in this relationship, and you're starting to have an argument with somebody, and the other person starts rolling their eyes, you know, is this a sign of contempt?

Can you talk a little bit about that kind of a situation?

- Yeah.

It is actually.

Eye rolling is a sign of contempt.

And I know that some people just do it out of habit and so I gently try to remind people when they're doing it,, they really should try to stop doing it because what eye rolling is saying is, "What you're saying is stupid.

I don't respect you.

This is not worth my time."

It's really a put down and it really makes the other person feel devalued.

So if you're an eye roller, look, some of us just have these habits because the family we grew up in did these things, right?

So I'm not saying, it's not necessarily your fault.

Maybe you saw your mom or your dad eye rolling your whole life, and so you've just adopted that as your own.

Try to make a real effort to catch yourself and to stop eye rolling because it is not helping your partner to feel heard.

- That's great advice.

We had a comment referring to your six second kiss and they wanted to know, you know, if we could extend that to 20 seconds?

(Nancy and Chelene laugh) That's definitely smooch territory.

- You could extend it to 20 hours if wanted to, but let's start with six seconds.

- (chuckles) I love that.

That's like good homework to take home, right?

- Oh, wouldn't that be fun if a couple started doing like six seconds, and then 60 seconds, and then like a hundred seconds?

That would be kind of fun.

- Right?

(laughs) - See what happens.

Just see what happens.

- Okay, that'll be a follow-up.

We have a question it from Kristen.

She's wondering what to do if your love language is not being given to you.

So the partner is just not really giving you what you need.

She finds herself settling for what she's being given from her partner for that love language.

So...?

- That's a great, great question.

I think it's really important that, maybe after you've watched this presentation tonight, to ask your partner, if they're willing to have a little conversation about love languages.

And there's several things you can do.

There is a quiz.

Chapman has a quiz that you can go on and take, which helps people to figure out their love language.

You could read the book, or you could just do some internet research on the five love languages.

It's important, again, not to assume that you know, and so I think what the viewer is asking is, how do I get this from my partner?

Well, the first thing is getting your partner's attention and explaining to them not only what the love language is, but examples of what that looks like for you.

So for example, if someone's love language is a gift.

well, their partner might be turned off by that because they might think that they have to go out and spend a thousand dollars on a diamond necklace.

So it's important that the person says, "A gift to me is just like bringing me a bagel in the morning and like, that's a gift to me."

You know, that kind of thing.

So that's why it's really important to help them understand not only what your love language is and examples of how to do it and that we need it frequently.

Like that's the reality.

We need frequent deposits of our love language.

And, you know, maybe a that she could play with her partner too, is to say, "I really wanna get to know what your love language is, so that I'm making sure that I'm giving it to you.

And am I giving it to you?"

You know, am I delivering the affection in the way that works best for you?

- That is great advice.

Thank you.

So let's talk about disagreements, right?

Because that really is, I think, the crux of all relationships.

So this person has identified that, in a disagreement, they become defensive and then their partner is stonewalling.

So with that kind of dynamic, really, there's not much resolution happening.

So, you know, how do they actually work through a disagreement?

- Okay.

That's great.

That's great.

So that, that's a really, that's a very real thing that happens, right?

One partner is going into one horseman of the four horsemen and the other is going into the other horseman and it just feels hopeless.

And that's when one person needs to say, "Okay, I guess we need a time out.

I guess, that we are both way in our horseman."

And you know, we all know that if you're in your horsemen, you are not going to communicate effectively, you're not gonna get along, you're not gonna come to a resolution.

And this is definitely when we need to acknowledge that, since we're in the red zone, we need to go away from each other for a specific amount of time and each self-soothe on their own.

And, you know, we have to respect the other person's time.

I might only need 20 minutes, but my partner might need an hour, and it's not fair of me to give them a hard time about that.

I think that anywhere between 20 minutes and two hours is appropriate and through things like meditation and breathing and praying or watching something funny on TV, anything like that.

I'm challenging each person to bring their own self, their anxiety, their anger down out of the red zone and into the yellow zone where now they can be available to have a productive conversation.

- Those are some really great strategies, I think for all of us to be trying into thinking about.

And I really like how you put the parameters on that of, you know, you know, 10 minutes to two hours, but try not to be outside of that two hour timeframe.

I think that really helps for us to wrap our minds around that.

- Let me just repeat, the worst thing you can do to your partner during an argument is say, "I'm going out" and slam the door and not say where you're going and not say when you're coming back.

I have seen this be so hurtful to so many people, because there are so many scary things that they will fill in in their mind that you are going to go do now, which are all naughty things that are going to hurt them, right?

Including maybe you might hurt yourself by like, you know, getting into our accident, drinking too much, having an affair.

You know, just doing something, making a mistake.

Or the other question is, when are you coming back?

Am I gonna see you today?

Am I gonna see you a week from today?

It's all too terrifying and it's really mean.

It's actually mean to do that.

So I'm telling people, if you wanna go for a drive, I don't have a problem with that, but say, "I'm going for a drive.

I'll be back in an hour."

And be back in an hour.

And if you're not gonna be back in an hour, you need to call them and say, "I'm really sorry.

I'm gonna be five minutes late."

Really, you're not allowed to be five minutes late, unless you really, you have to own it.

This is responsibility again.

If you say you're gonna be back in an hour, you have to be back in an hour, or you call and you say, "I'm gonna be five minutes late."

If you say you're gonna be gone for an hour, and you take three hours, it's not gonna work.

It's going to end up in an explosion.

- Yeah.

That's perceived as hurtful.

Right?

Cause you're definitely- - Absolutely.

And I mean, and a betrayal.

- So we had somebody talking about how they really like that concept of accepting bids.

It seems like that might be something very easy and an effective thing to do.

- Yeah.

So, like bids can be so many things.

Okay.

So let's talk about, in today's world, a text message is a bid you know?

And you might get a text message at work and you don't really have time, because you're at work, to respond to your partner's text.

So send them an emoji, you know?

Put a heart on it and explain to your partner that, hey, when I'm really busy at work, I don't have time to write words back or to call you back.

But you know, you probably have one second to click an emoji to just let them know that like, hey, you, you threw me the ball and I'm throwing it back.

I haven't said that yet, have I?

About the balls?

Okay.

Let me say this.

This is something that I talk about with my couples that I work with.

I say, you know, often your partner throws you a ball and that ball can be so many different things and you have choices.

You have the choice, I'm gonna throw you the ball.

My partner has the choice.

They can grab it and throw it back.

Now we're feeling engaged, we're feeling together.

They've turned toward me.

The second thing is I could throw the ball and my partner could go like this and let it drop on the floor and not acknowledge it.

And that's my partner turning away from me and I'm feeling rejected I'm feeling unimportant and I'm feeling embarrassed, right?

And the worst a person could do is, if I toss them the ball, you know, I'm tossing in a friendly manner, the most horrible thing they can do is take that ball and throw it as hard as they can, right at me.

And guess what?

People do that all the time.

And sometimes it's verbal.

Sometimes it's physical, but that's usually when things get ugly and pretty abusive.

And if we think way back to the beginning of the presentation, where we say the parents are raining energy in the home.

I promise you that even if kids are in different rooms, they are totally absorbing that energy of that really negative response.

They know that mom ignored dad, or they know that dad threw the remote at mom, they know all of these things.

And lots of times parents tell me the kids don't know.

And then when I meet the kids, the kids know everything.

So be aware that the walls talk, you know?

The kids know.

And that's why it's really important for us to just try to take a deep breath and go, oh, they threw me a ball?

All right.

even if I don't really feel like playing, I'll play.

That's important 'cause we don't always feel like playing.

We don't always feel like doing a lot of the things our partners wanna do, but going back to commitment, that's another example of how I would be making a commitment to my partner, which would be to say, all right, I don't really feel like doing this, but I'm gonna do it.

- Absolutely.

Chelene, can you talk, do you have any insights and observations on the current state of dating?

You know, either from some research that's been coming out recently or some, you know, from your clients that you've been hearing, especially with the pandemic and we've all had to stay away from each other and now we're, you know, coming back together.

So any thoughts on that?

- Dating during the pandemic has really turned into a mess.

You know, all the normal places people would meet someone, the normal gathering spots are pretty much off limits.

So some people have just given up dating, and they are living a very, very lonely, lonely life, which I don't recommend.

And some people are turning toward internet dating, even the ones didn't do internet dating before, are now doing internet dating, which I do recommend because I think that somehow we need connection.

We need connection in our lives.

And so, you know, another part of technology that's helping is Zoom and FaceTime, and so people are having dates like this, right?

You might text a little bit and then you might start to do this face-to-face video kind of thing where you start really getting to know each other.

What's what's good about the video is you get to see their facial expression.

You get to hear their tone of voice and you get to see if you think that this is a person that you can connect with and if you really wanna meet them in person.

And then, depending on where you are at with whether you've had COVID, not had COVID, then it's a big decision that people make about, do I wanna meet this person?

Which is this whole ordeal that we go through in dating, versus before it would be like, okay, I'll meet you on Friday night at eight o'clock.

You know?

So it is hard to be single.

Please be there for your single friends and understand that they're alone and probably alone for a long time and when people are isolated, they tend to isolate more.

So what happens in as people get more depressed and less likely to pick up the phone and less likely to respond to your texts.

And so if you do have a single person in your life, you know, maybe you can give them a little TLC and say, hey, you have to pick up the phone, stop ignoring me.

- (chuckles) I like that.

Kind of along the similar lines, have you noticed, are US divorce rates still around 50%?

Do you see this changing?

- I actually am not sure.

I think I heard 43% the other day, but I do not know.

So I'm not going to lie about that.

- Thank you.

Do you find that humor is a big help in nurturing long-term relationships?

- Humor is one of the best possible repair attempts.

So, as we go back to the repair attempts, because we always probably have something we're trying to repair, laughter is so wonderful.

It can take someone out of anxiety.

It can take someone out of depression.

Now here's the thing you have to worry about, that you have to be aware of with humor.

There's always a little truth in a joke.

So some people joke too sarcastically, and with too much reality, and it's actually hurtful.

So you have to make sure that your humor is in good humor.

It's in a loving, fun way and you're not joking with the person about something that they're really embarrassed about or really self-conscious about.

Because if you do that, then that is actually gonna push them away.

So be funny, definitely.

And notice if your humor ever looks like it hurts somebody, you can always say, hey wait, did I go too far with that?

Because I was, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.

I was really just joking.

And I hope that the other person will be able to say, yeah, you kind of did go too far there.

- Well, thank you.

If people want to reach out and find more information about maybe some upcoming weekend couples workshops, how can they get in contact with you?

- All right.

So you can call our office, which is (607)-238-7928.

And we are taking lists for people who are interested in some couple's workshops.

And also I have another therapist that works here with me who is open for individual therapy if anyone's looking for that right now.

- That's wonderful.

And that information is also listed in the chat.

Chelene, this has been really fascinating.

Thank you so much for your time and your expertise this evening.

- Thank you, Nancy.

This has been really cool.

I don't think of myself as a scientist.

So this has been super cool to bring my social science to your Science Pub.

- Well, and we are greatly appreciative.

So thank you.

Our next Science Pub is on Tuesday, March 8th, with guest Toby Gershman on solving crimes through genetic genealogy.

After a brief review of DNA history, we'll delve into the fascinating case of the Golden State Killer, we'll explore potential uses of genetic genealogy in society today, from finding lost relatives to solving cold cases.

Many experts in the field believe that every law enforcement agency could benefit from having a genetic genealogist on their team.

So tune in for that.

the RSVP is in the chat for solving crimes through genetic genealogy.

You can watch past Science Pubs through the WSKG app on demand on your smart device and on WSKG's YouTube channel.

Be sure to like our Facebook page for future events and science updates.

I would like to thank our WSKG team tonight.

Our director this evening was Alyssa Micha.

Our chat moderators are Patrick Holmes and Kristine Kieswer.

Support for Science Pub is provided by the Robert F. Schumann Foundation.

I'm your host, Nancy Coddington.

Thank you for joining us.

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