How to “hack” Your Marriage, With Psychologist Eli Finkel
This week we are learning to strengthen our long-term relationships and marriages with the help of psychologist Eli Finkel. Eli is a professor at Northwestern University and director of the Northwest Region Relationship and Motivation Laboratory. He is also the author of the bestselling All-or-Nothing Marriage : How Better Marriages Work .
Hear Eli discuss how marriage has been viewed in the United States over time and how this has led us to the very high expectations we have for this institution today, about psychological tricks we can use to rethink our thinking during an argument. and why his research-based live hacks are a great first step to improving your relationship.
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Highlights from this week’s series
From an interview with Eli Finkel
On how to avoid the fundamental attribution error with your partner:
[T] The reality is that the degree to which we are hurt or angry about our partner’s behavior is largely determined by how we interpret it. And so if our partner did something disrespectful, for example, she told a story at a dinner party that we thought was a secret, and it kind of confused us, we have a wide range, wide freedom of action as to how we can interpret what she did. And so when I talk about the external attribution of negative behavior, we can say that this is something about her, for example, my partner is just an incredibly inattentive person, and she has always been like this, and I am just deeply disappointed that this is who something so important in my life in this sense is such a lousy person. Or we could say that she was drinking and she probably didn’t realize that it was so personal to me … Just can we take a more generous look at what our partner did? Thus, the external attribution of negative behavior is that accurate example of trying to interpret the negative things that our partner did as more temporary, as in fact, not related to the person’s personality defect, but rather as something, perhaps more situational or indirect. …
About not relying on your partner for everything:
I was a little confused about how many high-level psychological and emotional needs we threw into this relationship. In the past, people used to hang out in a crowd of same-sex people, believing that your partner shouldn’t be your best friend. And of course, the idea of a soul mate didn’t really exist, not in the way we think about it. The idea that you have to help me grow up and live a real life like these is overwhelming. So, yes, one of the things that I talk about in the book is a collection of ways in which we can strategically approach what we ask for in a relationship, as well as what we don’t ask about a relationship. And yes, one of the key ideas is that every time you complain about a job, is your partner really distracted and not paying attention to you? Maybe this is what you don’t want from this person. Maybe there is someone else you can complain about about work who will actually be more receptive and, frankly, more enjoyable of the conversation than your spouse.
Why you should try live hacks:
I know a lot of people say, “Don’t ask so much. It’s bad to ask so much. ” It is not true. If you don’t ask for a lot, you are unlikely to get it. So there is a lot to be said for the fact that you have high expectations for your relationship. The problem is that you have expectations that the marriage cannot be fulfilled, and yes, it sets you up for frustration … little children at home, or they are diagnosed with cancer, or there is incredible stress at work when we have no bandwidth. to invest in relationships, to have those dates, to have regular sex, to do whatever is good for the relationship on average, but we’re not ready to give up on our aspirations yet. It’s like how we can stay strong during really stressful times when we can’t invest as much as we want in a relationship, but we’re not ready to give up on our aspirations? And this is where the main strength of love hackers lies: we can, without spending too much time or energy, maintain a high enough level of marriage quality until we can make a big investment in it.
To learn more about Eli’s brilliant discoveries in relationship science and how to help your marriage, we highly recommend listening to the entire episode.